Bestial Planet

Chapter 43: Emissary of War

"This is good, yeah. I like this entrance."

Catty scrunched her eyebrow and shot Nik and Panzer a confused look.

"Did yall just hear that?"

"I did actually."
"Yeah."

She looked around as the voice continued thinking.

"What's wrong with them?

I'd say I'm making a pretty good entrance,

chest out, legs solid.

I even brushed my teeth last night."

I squinted and looked at the wolf walking towards us before speaking telepathically. "Is that you speaking, Wolf?"

He stopped in his tracks and the grin slipped off his face. He was still a fair distance away so when he spoke out-loud his voice was low. "Dude whaaaat the fuck was that?"

Before I could think, Catty yelled loudly. "What's your name!"

"...Frantz!"

Less than a second passed after he said his name before Nik bolted as fast as he could towards the Brown Wolf. The Wolf wasn't sure what to make of a Komodo Dragon racing towards him so he did the only thing that made sense. He screamed in a high pitch, let go of his cart and ran away. The cart tipped forward and all of his things tumbled out of it. Catty jogged over to it quickly.

"Frantz? Shouldn't we calm Nik down?"

"Long story short; Frantz is Nik's brother... he's another member of the family..." Her voice picked up and lowered in volume as she saw some of the things Frantz collected.

She stopped all together when she saw a picture. Emmeth was ahead of me as we walked over and when he reached the cart he dropped to his knees, grabbed the picture and started crying. I caught a glimpse of it before Emmeth's head blocked it from view. It was a large group photo with at least 10 people huddled around each other. I wanted to ask who it was but even though I'd just met him - again, I knew Emmeth was inconsolable in that moment. I just helped Catty put the stuff back in the cart and we waited for Nik to either catch or lose Frantz. He caught him.

It wasn't too much later when everyone had calmed down enough to actually speak. We sat down where Frantz dropped his cart. He showed us some of the things he'd salvaged from our old homes in New York. I wasn't ready to see what he'd found from mine.

"Man this is impossible! We have to be the luckiest people on the planet."

Nik was talking while holding his head with his hands trying to come to terms with how many of us were still alive. Frantz didn't get why we were lucky.

"Why'zat dude?"

"Because so many of the people we knew before the crash are still alive, idiot."

It didn't take long for Emmeth to return to his abrasive self, he was still smiling though. Nik managed to tell Frantz about Emmeth's fragile state and not to call him by his nickname before they got came back from the impromptu game of tag. He'd caught himself a few times before calling him "Emmy", one of which I was sure Emmeth was going to rip his throat out for. We spent the next hour or so catching up. When we got back to Section 6, Lancieta and the other Androids were outside. We introduced Frantz and mom hugged him so hard she lifted him off the ground. Frantz's stomach garbled and Lancieta insisted we all have lunch together at the restaurant.

It felt familiar; the talking, smiles, laughter, name calling... But still, no memories came. Catty nudged me out of self pitty as Frantz continued talking while eating.