Terrestrial Alien ✔

[Part V] Chapter 71: Night Air

Sundo looks to me for a decision. When I don't have one to offer him, he looks forward once more and strides ahead, padding cautiously onto the cracked concrete before I can say a word to the contrary.

Involuntarily, I find myself holding my breath as he enters the town, slinking without a sound. I search for people, but this late at night, it's like we've entered a ghost town. There's no one around. It's strangely surreal, and a little unsettling. I want to tell Sundo that we should turn around and go back, but I can't find the words.

Instead, I'm caught watching our odd reflection pass over the dark glass windows of closed shop fronts, and I'm taken back to what was hardly any time ago: staring at my face in the glass of a one-way mirror, realising Sundo is on the other side.

Sundo prowls the main street of the small drowsing down like he's come to take on the whole of it in a fight. His head stays low, eerie eyes roving, and his teeth look more bared than usual.

Street lamps blink to life as his large form slinks beneath them, disrupting the blue wash of night over the sidewalk with yellow fuzziness. He veers away from the light, grumbling, the light of his eyes flaring.

"Come on." I lean over him to smooth a hand up his neck, wearily attempting to settle his raised hackles.

We're both exhausted, and we really don't need another fight. Which is why we shouldn't be out here in the middle of the street. Darkness or not, anyone could spot us out here.

"We shouldn't be out in the open," I tell him in a low murmur, as though speaking any louder might disrupt the unreal stillness around us. "Let's find somewhere to stop and rest... Out of sight," I add, before he can get any ideas.

Thankfully, Sundo listens. He stops and turns back a couple steps, padding up to a thin walkway between buildings and weaving himself around to the back.

He slows to a stop in the loading area of what looks like a small furniture or antique store. I can't quite tell in the dark. Regardless, at least here we might be hidden from any late-night eyes that happen to be up.

As soon as he stops, I take the opportunity to slide off his back, throwing my arms above my head and reveling in the stretch that comes with straightening my legs. They've been bent stiff now for what must have been hours.

Standing upright, weight settles on my right leg. Pain shoots up my knee, sharp and sudden.

"Ah!" I try to bite back a cry of surprise, and my lip smarts under my teeth.

I stumble, and Sundo steps to catch me, bracing me against his back. For it, I get a face full of fur, and I sputter against his pelt.

Pushing off him, I try to steady myself with a hand on his strange shoulder, peeking bone linked with black sinew and tendon. I grit my teeth against the ache still twinging up my knee even without putting weight back on it.

Fuck, when did I even...?

Oh. The sharp pain comes back to me, banging into that electrical box during our escape.

Damn.

"That's not super good," I mumble gruffly, looking down at it.

Sundo peers at me with those alien eyes, and somehow I can read sympathy in them. I nudge his head away with my hand so he'll stop looking at me like that. I'm not used to seeing emotion on the monster's face, and it's really going to take me a while to not feel weird seeing it.

"I'll be alright," I assure him stiffly. "It's just inconvenient. I think I just tweaked it."

With my hand knotted against his shoulder, I feel the sting of skin scraped raw over my palm, and it forces me to actually stop and consider that there might be other injuries. Scowling, I search for places that sting or ache or twinge that I'd been too spun up in adrenaline to notice before.