Robbin

11. Eyes

Her body's next sensation was that of feet touching ground and her insides dropping. It was like the afterward of the dipping motion when a rollercoaster finally levels. She found herself suddenly standing, not atop the carpet of her room, but among dense shrubbery and soil. Instead of a bright artificial light, there was a feeble moonlight. The temporary disorientation to her stomach and bowels gave her the feeling of motion sickness, causing her to sway where she stood.

She was going to pass out. She studied her surroundings with trepidation, trying to steady herself. Was she happy or sad to be back? Had she wanted to come back? And an even better question: where was she? Carynthia, surely, but where in Carynthia?

The three popped out from behind the surrounding trees spontaneously.

The small group of men before her was not only intimidating, but their appearances held something else which made them seem appropriately foreign to her: the kind of eyes she had seen only once before.

Even from her distance, the lack of whites at the corners of their eyes, as well as the large pupils were still striking. Two of the men had brown eyes, the other hazel. It wasn't merely the animal like hugeness of the irises that caught Terra's eye, though, it was the fact that, especially now, under the dark dusk that seemed to cloud the forest, they glowed like a cat's eyes.

They all stood perfectly still as they watched her, looks of excited anticipation on their faces. The first one to move was the one with the hazel cat eyes. Suddenly he was slinking toward her, knees crouched. He cocked his head to the side playfully. "What's a pretty girl like yourself doing in these parts?" His voice was grimy like a rusted pipe.

Terra backed up a step. As she did, the man with the hazel eyes moved in quick succession, first to approach, and then to reach his dirt sodden fingernails toward her throat. His sudden attack was more swift than any movement she had ever seen by a human, though she supposed he wasn't human. Given the speed of his approach, it was surprising Terra even had time to turn her face away and close her eyes before he was upon her. His shape hazed as he reached out—

She felt a breeze. She flayed her eyes open when the pain didn't come.

She felt a strong sense of deja vu as she realized there was another figure, appeared before her to block the blow of the hazel eyed man.

Terra shook her head, coming back from her reverie. The figure protecting her was tall and broad. Terra caught her breath as he turned, his blue eyes shining with the others under the moonlight. His sandy brown hair rustled.

It was the monster man from the cave. She felt relieved there was someone she recognized now, even if she hadn't been on the best of terms with him the last time she had seen him.

In fact, she hadn't even spoken to him. But any familiar face in an unfamiliar world was a welcome one, even if it wasn't the man she had been expecting. She tried to forget him.

Hunt. That was this man's name.

The man with the hazel eyes looked infuriated by his show of defense.

What a mean man, Terra thought.

"I lag behind for a few seconds and you boys are already going after a kill?" Hunt asked in his easy tone.

Terra didn't know how he could talk about killing someone so nonchalantly. She felt very small before these masculine men.

The man with the hazel eyes snarled. "You don't call the shots in this group, Hunt."