Horizon

Chapter 24

"Skinning...well that's new," Talon said as he stared at Donnie's body. "Why'd you move the body over here, though?"

"This is where he wanted to laid to rest," Bracken said, almost overacting with the tears.

Talon's eyes flicked towards me, and I responded with a tilt of my head. "I'm surprised you were able to torture Donnie for so long. I don't think that Hank could have done that. Finishing him off must have taken some grit."

"It was a piece of cake," I replied confidently. "Donnie tried to kill me first. Giving him a little bit of payback felt good."

Talon nodded in agreement, and turned back towards the exit hatch. "I'll leave you two to the burial, then. Once the both of you are finished, then you can have the night to yourselves. Sound fair?"

"Yessir," Bracken and I replied in unison.

Talon then waved goodbye to us, and hopped down the hatch back into the colony. With a heavy slam, the door closed shut, and we were back to being alone with Donnie's unconscious body.

"C'mon, Bracken," I said, as I turned towards Donnie's body. "Let's get Donnie further away from the hatch. We don't want anyone seeing him when he wakes up."

Bracken grabbed at Donnie's hindpaws, and I grabbed at the forepaws. We ended up carrying him for about another hundred feet before finally letting him down from exhaustion. Bracken let go of Donnie's feet in mid-air, so he fell with a loud thud onto the forest floor.

"Why hasn't he woken up yet?" Bracken asked, as he sat down against a tree.

"He was basically dead," I answered. "The serum doesn't wake people up, it just heals. He'll have to wake up when he's ready."

Bracken didn't really care about what I had just said, because within seconds he was leaning over Donnie's body, and heavily slapping the poor lynx. He grabbed and tugged at Donnie's cheek fur and said, "Donnie...Donnie wake up..."

"Didn't you hear me? He's not just going to suddenly—"

Donnie's coughs suddenly echoed throughout the forest, as he sputtered surprisingly back to life. His eyes were wide open, as he if had just woken up from a nightmare. With a few deep breaths, he squinted at the light, and waited to get a better bearing of what was going on. Donnie finally got his sight back, and when he turned his head to the side and almost jumped out of his skin when he saw me.

"Wha-what?!" he exclaimed.

"Hey, hey try not to move," Bracken said. "Horizon just saved your life."

"How am I still alive?" he asked, trying to control his panic.

"After I stabbed you in the back of the neck, I healed you with the serum that I had been using lately," I explained. "Now that Talon thinks you're dead, I can get started on healing your arm."

Donnie looked at me fearfully and suspiciously. "Why? I tried to kill you. I left you to die in the tunnels. Why keep me alive?"

As I moved Donnie's skin back over the flesh and muscle, I answered, "Oh believe me, Donnie. I'm not doing you much of a favor. Talon would have killed you if I didn't, so I made it look like you were tortured and killed. I'd rather have you owe me your life as a debt, than kill you. Understand? You're now under my command...not Talon's."

Donnie winced finished preparing his fur to be healed. "I was done with that temperamental dragon anyway. I guess I don't have a choice in the matter?"