Into The Vale of Shadows // Max Mayfield

II; viii. you've got a friend in me

chapter eight
you've got a friend in me

   RAVEN AND GORGON spent the whole night by the sewers, luring rats into piles of chemical in the rat cage. It didn't take long for them to find one that bit the bait, having it examined to see the same scar pattern on its face, and a blob of flesh excess on it's fur, beating and crawling around the rat, taking comfort under its furs, they tried taking it off off the rat, only for Raven to be scratched on her lower lip, bleeding and aching.

     Back into the storm cellar, Raven had the rat inside the cage, setting it on the metal table where the burnt and hardened blob remained, untouched, dead and cold. She was covered in the same protective clothes she wore the day before, a thermometer gripped on her gloved hand, looking at the numbers that came out of it, having them written on the paper she had with her, temperature so low, like she was putting the thermometer against a dead body.

     Raven looked to the blob, a thought came to her head that made her shoulders fall, having this heavy feeling settle inside her chest. She thought of it and kept it to her self, soon too heavy to bear that she'd spoke about it to Gorgon.

     "Gorgon?"

     "Yes?" The entity turned her way, then back again to this rat they held captive.

     "What you said earlier," She paused for a quick second, breaking off a small part of the bar soap she was holding. "Was it true?"

     "Which were you referring to?"

     Raven sighed, she felt this sting of sadness cross her chest, one that made salty tears build up in her eyes, one that she very much tried to surpass. "You know . . . you disappearing once the gate closes again."

     Gorgon noticed the lack of the usual life in her voice, having this feeling of uneasiness settle inside. "I am uncertain. But it is very close to reality."

     "Is there a way you could . . . stay," Raven asked, her voice filled with hope, staring at Gorgon with her faith hiding behind her dark blue orbs. 

     Gorgon wanted to rid of this feeling Raven had settling inside her chest, but she didn't want to lie, for he too didn't know the answers to it too. "There maybe is," Gorgon said out of thought, "Remember the month after you woke up from that coma?" Raven nodded. "I didn't feel the upside down's strong presence and power, I felt weaker. You know what that meant?" Raven shook her head as a no. "It means the gate was closed." Those words lit up higher hopes inside Raven, one that slowly lifted the heavy feeling. "As I said a year ago, when the gate closes, my life depends on your humanness."

     "Humanness," Raven chuckled, one that was too infectious that it made Gorgon laugh too. "Still a pretty silly word."

     Raven tossed the small chunk of soap into the cage, the rat taking it and munching on it happily, Raven just watching it with a grimace, aching to burn it alive, but she knows this rat would be useful. The duo spent the next hours brainstorming for a plan of some kind, muttering to themselves 'If the party was here, what would they do?', and somehow it helped, forming this small not-so-solid plan.

     The said plan countains three phases. The first phase was to examine the rat, set it free and follow it to where these things might be happening, a place where the shadow monster might be hiding his creatures (that she's sure is the lab, she just have to clarify) for there might be — there is something bigger than this. Phase two would be letting Gorgon loose with killing the creatures. Phase three, burn the shit hole. And after all was killed that there will be nothing on the way, phase three would commence, she'll tell everybody, and have El close the gate. A shit plan but they think it'll do.