BLUE VENOM

Six - Outlandish

He looked at me like there had been lack of oxygen in our contamination cubes and it was finally getting to me. "No food, no hydrating, no sleep. You sure know what you're doing.", he said snarkily.

My head was spinning. How come he was the sober one all of a sudden? Maybe this planet did things to me. But he did have a point.

"Yeah okay. You're probably right."

"It hurts you that much, eh? To just say "yes, you're right, Kain'" He batted his lashes in the act like that's something I'd ever do. I glared up at him. "Let's wake up meaty", he insisted.

I still wanted to disagree - if not because disagreeing with Kain Longfort naturally felt like the most logical thing to do - but if I ignored all of my cautions, I did feel drowsy, my eyelids heavy and swollen and slipping over my Iris like somebody had beat them shut. I had over exhausted what was in this unfed body. I would have to ignore the fear that was vibrating deep in my bones. At least until morning came.

We woke Ty, who was so grumpy that we woke him up, that he didn't even realize what was going on with our foreheads - or better the sides of it.

Really, we could have been abducted by and exchanged with aliens and the guy would have no clue. I usually hated the way Kain mocked Ty but the doofus was right about something: Ty really needed to grow more alert. Especially now that he was our watching guard.

"Are you sure we should not knock him back out and make Desiree watch?", whispered Kain.

I glared at him - not even sure why. This time it was probably his tone and the idea to knock out an already hurt Ty. This guy's tongue knew no boarders. "It was your idea."

Kain looked over at Desiree, who so peacefully slumbered on his jacket and shivered. "I have a lot of awful ideas.", he admitted, a strand of his black hair brushing his face. Damn this boy, I thought. How in the world did he actually manage to make me pity him all the time even though ninety nine percent of his problems were self caused, consequences to his supreme levels of idiocy and douchebaggery.

I shook my head and walked back over to where my jacket laid sprawled out over the floor. I dropped onto it. To my surprise, Kain sat down next to me. When he saw me looking, he raised his eyebrows and grinned but then he plonked down into the shady grass, turned to the side and was instantly gone, like a child. He didn't even try to wriggle closer or anything and annoy me. Five minutes later, I leaned over him and realized that his dots were gone. My hands shot up to my temples. My tingling was also gone.

With mixed feelings, I tried to put off any speculation about what this might mean to later and tried to take a deep breath from this sour tasting air and ease more into my situation - yes, as if that was an easy command.

Across the ceased campfire, Ty wrung his hands and consciously glanced over the dark forest line and the mountains in the back. I watched him watching as I fell asleep, and as my eyelids started to droop, I hoped that Ty would keep this level of attentiveness, but I could not put my hand into fire for this as I fell, hazily, into a raging dreamworld of fights and fire, chaos and war.

•

I jerked upright and the air was cool. Bright greyish yellow light hung over the plains. The others were awake, rustling around and talking quietly, laughing. They were sharing another round of berries and I saw a portion on the grass a few steps away, waiting for me.

I suppressed a groan and got up, stretching my aching neck and kneading it with the bale of my hand. It hadn't been exactly a sweet night in the grass hill but I soundlessly sat down next to them and ate my share of the berries.

"Alright", said Kain about an hour later, when we all had dined and rested to the point where it would be unreasonable to keep sitting out here in the open. The light was full on beaming now. It was not much brighter than during a sunny day on earth but I kind of could see everything a little bit clearer. Every sharp line of a grass blades, every leave on the unknown grey trees in the back, that looked eerily similar to Earth's oakwood trees but weren't.