Wretched little-
Unhinged flea-infested maggot with spikes!
Tear him down in repayment! Slash his throat, Seven, for all his wretched-!
I had to tune her out. Like a mosquito to the brain, she bugged me the entire walk, rambling over and over again just from the prior incident. And I didn't do it just because she felt right (which she was), but, simply put, she was slipping into the annoying side of things. The pieces of myself I had continued to forfeit from mind and body despite how terrible they were.
Besides, I didn't want to fight another headache.
My mind didn't return to me until after we reached the inner lining of the main city. The wound had started to heal, now just a slow ooze slipping down my white snout to the brazen nip of teeth at my 'beak'. It didn't leave a massive trail that the humans could predict, but I was worried some other creature may follow if they were desperate enough.
Attacking us while we're still healing?! Blowing our cover, spilling our blood-!
Ripper had found an overgrown alleyway siding a brick library to hide behind, keeping watch just like he had done at the house. The shade helped cover Ripper and keep him cool, while rays of sunlight reflected off my white hide, blinding any foolish bystander who tried to look for something worthy to expose. Ripper remained standing, watching the cars and busy humans rumble by, and sighed. He could tell I was still staring at him -- not just over the injury, but in suspicion. I hadn't found the right time to ask him what happened, or point out the self-inflicted wound on his earhole. So I kept still, low in the grass, rumbling quietly and licking the spilling blood to draw my attention elsewhere.
I knew not to trust him! I sensed this to happen-
Oh, shut it, will you?! I growled. Ripper quickly whirled to me.
"What is it?"
"Oh-" I didn't realize he was watching. I growled aloud to dismiss it, and shook my head in sync. "N-Nothing."
"Your head is speaking, isn't it?"
I suddenly felt the other half of me snarl in warning, a second twinge of pain rushing to my brain to add onto my misery. So I pushed it off, too, with a heavy snort.
"No."
Ripper blinked, about to turn before refocusing on the slash on my skull. His eyes widened just an inch, watching each droplet of crimson pulse out between each heartbeat I gave. It was interesting to see, from his perspective that is, and daunting all the same. From here, I could tell he wanted to say something, to try and comfort me (as well as himself). But whatever embarrassment enraptured him at that moment forced the black indoraptor to snort it off, and gaze back to the outside world.
Typical Ripper, he doesn't care, my brain sneered. Look at him-
I know he didn't mean it. He would've spoken freely had it been meant!
He hurt you!
That wasn't him, you know this!
Rrr... My brain whirled about, grumbling to herself. Again with the 'self-apology' that isn't a self-apology-!
Just shut up for once. Please. He's been through enough.
And so have you. Know your place in this leech-infested hierarchy before you drop further below the food chain, indoraptor.
Grrr...
I blinked, suddenly refocusing on the distant hybrid. I didn't think he meant to apologize. Or maybe he did, but was too scared to see a reaction -- a nasty one, no doubt. Exhaling quietly, I rubbed a claw over the cut, my quills raising as a flare of pain burst from the initial touch. Inhale... My jaws widened up for a breath, exhale. Ripper looked back to me again, this time staring at the slashed line that drew from my chest to my lower abdomen, the original scar he made. His maw slowly parted, but I silenced him long before he could start.
"Nrrr... don't say it. I know you didn't have control."
Ripper's tail curved upward, the blunt end of his snout lowering an inch into the shadow of the building. "That doesn't change anything," he admitted through a click, "I still made you bleed. I could've killed you."
"Trust me, it takes much more than that... to kill me."
"So you say?" Ripper scoffed at my slight pride, finally easing out his muscles and dropping to all fours to investigate my injury. I allowed him leeway, hissing slightly when his pink tongue started to lick over the gash. It stung, but I held my own -- at least it wasn't as terrible as the first time.
"I'm still sorry," he said between licks. I sighed, relaxing my body under his touch and grumbled wordlessly back in acceptance. Once he finished, he licked his chops to relieve himself of the warm flavor, and returned back to the shaded region of the building to watch the people again. My eyes followed after him, investigating the massive black hybrid's peculiar build just to myself.
Excluding the sprinkles of yellow streaking from the edges of his eyes to the tip of his tail, and the curved cut of his creased arms, one of the things that surprised me was the missing wounds on his body. Two years ago he died, impaled through the flank on a bone and left to rot. I knew Blue killed him, so I suspected him to be a clone, like the Lockwood girl. Perhaps someone different, if anything. But his scent was no different than the deceased indoraptor I knew; meaning he was one and the same.
Which made me curious. To see a hybrid without any markings, any sign of a struggle no less, was odd. And with these past few days added on, I couldn't help asking the gnawing question buzzing in my mind.
"What happened to you?" I grunted from the sunlit side. "You're... no longer hellbent on INGEN, you're more avoiding if anything. And whatever you did earlier today... it wasn't normal."
Ripper's eyes dropped to the ground. He pushed another slow breath through his nares, quills flattening and claws coiled into himself.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Like you... you don't know?"
"I know," he reassured me, wavering his tail from left to right. "I just... can't."
"Won't," I corrected. Ripper's eyes flashed, both eyes starting to burn with annoyance.
"You've never died before, Seven," he growled. "You don't know what it feels like, you've only ever touched the surface. I've fallen beyond that threshold -- the cold, the blood, the darkness..." He shook his head. "It isn't worth spilling my words over."
"Because it scares you?"
Ripper's lips wrinkled upward. Both beady yellow eyes sunk deep into my soul, watching the little slither of fear crawl over my snout, just enough to make himself comfortable. And, once his predator turned prey, Ripper snorted off my prior comment and returned to people-watching. My eyes dropped, a shallow grunt leaving my lips to equal the silence unfolding hereafter. I guess I was being a bit too arrogant. And... got carried away. It wasn't the right time, of course. The past was unforgiving... for him...
For me. Just as I thought of myself, my mind started to delve in between thoughts, levying emotions with history, nightmares with daydreams. Times beyond Click's existence. Moments when I felt just as broken as my prior alibi. Memories... bad ones. I tensed up, inhaling a sharp whiff of the human air, and exhaled.
"It... scares me, too," I admitted quietly, slowly folding my claws into themselves. "Dying."
Ripper said nothing. So I went on.
"I used to hear my friend, Click, encouraging himself to never be afraid of dying. Because... if he'd think about it too much, he'd be too scared to live. I thought I could follow that example, but... after all that's happened, and all we've been through..."
I trailed off, bowing my head again.
"I never told anybody about my past," I muttered again. "I never thought it was important. I'm INGEN's most successful product after all -- a weapon doing the dirty work no human can even fathom."
Ripper's eyes turned over to me, a grunt of confusion echoing in his throat. I met his eyes to share an intimate moment of silence, then shuddered.
"It's... not just the past that scares me-"
"Paul, what's your status?"
Ripper and I nearly hopped out of our scales once the sound of static ruptured the silence between us. Ripper's eyes darted to the outside, noticing a group of black-shirted policemen wandering the outside walkway of the massive township. He figured it to be normal at first, and simply urged me to lower into the grass. But, once they started poking down alleyways, guns ablaze, his face flushed white, and his jaws dropped.
"We've got to go."
The black indoraptor scampered to my side and shoved me on all fours, not even addressing what he saw or what our plan was to handle this danger. I didn't think we had any to begin with. But I couldn't argue against it, the stench in the air ensured his truth; the metallic odor of a discrete copper bullet was nothing short of stomach-curdling. So I obliged to his orders without a second thought, keeping silent, and staying aligned to his body as we pushed further down the abandoned alleyway.
We still should've planned better; our valiant rush to escape led us right into a dead end.
Oh no.
We were bound to turn back-
"Paul come in-"
"Here, Chris. Just checking out this one behind the library."
Not anymore. One of them was already walking inside.
"Ripper-"
"Stay behind me." Ripper started to snarl, dropping to all fours and lashing his tail skyward. One claw lifted in readiness, while the rest of his body bumped into me protectively, turning his flank at enough of an angle to draw me out of sight.
Step.
Step.
"Nothing yet," the police officer, Paul, announced from afar. "There's a bend up ahead."
Step.
Step.
"We can't stay here-!"
"Quiet!" Ripper hissed.
The footsteps began to slow, followed by another gun click that won yet a second flinch from our bodies. My mind began to reimagine what would happen in just a few seconds' time -- his gun would be fired no matter what we did. Ripper would get shot. I would get shot, too. Even if we dove for cover, or weaved around the bullets, fate would ensure a spillage of death. And here, in a place infested with humans and blood-smelling dogs, our stories would end quickly in their favor. They'd alert the town. Then there'd be no escape.
Step.
Step.
I could smell the doubt in Ripper, too. Even at his mightest, I could feel his quills trembling against my flank; he was scared.
And so was I.
My white scales were dimming and darkening; instinct was already tuning into my deepest fears. We couldn't fight them. We couldn't run. We can't even hide-
Wait. I looked at my darkening scales again, eyes flashing wide with realization. Camouflage.
We can hide.
Step.
Click.
Step.
Before Ripper could lunge into battle, I quickly snapped my jaws onto his neck, and yanked him down. The hybrid let out a yelp, and, as fast as I could manage, I slammed my claw over his muzzle, and covered the rightmost piece of his flesh with my own body. My eyes slammed shut, quills rising in alert as the officer turned into the open entryway, gun drawn low.
And froze.
...
Step...
...
Step...
...
Ripper stilled, drawing in his tail before the officer could notice. The male human took a few extra paces forward, eying the 'empty' open room in confusion, a finger still coiled around the trigger. He swore he heard something yelp in here-
"Anything Paul?" his radio chimed in. "We're getting no signs of activity here. Town looks clean."
The male didn't answer, still too dumbfounded to the odd trick of his eye. His thumb started fiddling over the edge of a black flashlight swinging lifelessly against his hip, but he never pressed it. Nor did he feel the need to do so.
"Paul."
"S-Sorry. I... doubt they'd head this far inland after hurting those construction people."
Step.
Crunch.
Step.
"Well? Head back in then!"
"Alright, alright."
The male took another look at the 'brick wall' in front of him, and scoffed, starting to head away. Until something strange near his feet made him pause.
"Hold on."
A drop of red marked a tiny little rock near his feet, just bright enough to instantly win the male's suspicions. Fresh blood? Here?
Opening my blue eyes, I eyed the officer cradling the red-stained rock, and flared my nostrils in confusion. I didn't understand his fascination in it, not until the scent of my own blood started to rise into the air. And alongside it came another daunting feeling -- a droplet started to flow from my prior injury, down the cheekbone, and collect at my chin. I tried to tilt my head to slow it, but that only encouraged the red droplet to lose its grip and fall to the earth with a mighty 'plip'!
Paul's head lifted to the noise. Drawing out his gun, he backtracked toward the dark alleyway, studying the silver sunlight streaking across the brick wall, and the strange shadowed space beneath it. His eyes continued to fool him, but his brain was relentless to deny. The noises here didn't sound natural. Nor did the strange blood splotch that was on the rock, and now a second one dead ahead. With one last puff of air, the policeman drew up his flashlight, and pressed the button.
And got a full view of my shadow reflecting on the other end.
"Holy-"
Ripper suddenly darted out of my grip and pounced into the air, a tremendous roar shattering the walls of our trap and the poor human's heart.
BANG!
His terror got the better of his aim, too. A single gunshot from Paul echoed Ripper's blood-curdling screech as both he, and the hybrid, slammed to the ground, full force. The metal gadget toppled out of Paul's grasp and into hiding at the far end of the brick wall, reducing the officer to nothing more than a whimpering hatchling. And, while that piece of bullet had skimmed Ripper's cheek, it wasn't enough to scare him. It only fueled his anger.
Paul screamed, struggling to reach his fallen gun before Ripper reeled him back into the shadows by his foot. Nothing the human tried mattered -- punching, kicking, squirming -- it all proved useless. Ripper reeled him back once more before violently throwing him into the wall behind me like a ragdoll. A bone-rattling crunch echoed from the strike, and I watched helplessly as the male toppled from the wall, crashing into the ground with a heavy thud, bricks toppling from behind. His screaming had suddenly stopped.
All that remained was the soft echoes of what once was.
Ripper was breathing heavily, a spillage of red from the bullet cut starting to seep into his teeth. But he didn't care for it; his eyes continued to focus on the downed officer, awaiting a reaction to take.
But nothing happened.
And as I stared between the two, I started to fear there was a reason for it.
"What did you do?"
Ripper growled softly, refocusing back on me, then back on the human. Before he could respond, a sharp gasp of pain sounded from the officer, now drenched in bricks and rock that had fallen atop him. The smell of blood was growing now, fresh marks across Paul's skull and chest were filling our nostrils of injured prey. But where Ripper saw opportunity, I saw fear. And just before Ripper could take the brave step to finish the male off, I stepped into his path and snarled.
"No."
"He tried to kill us!"
"He was scared," I hissed, narrowing my eyes at him. "But he isn't our enemy."
"And yet he'll alert them, anyway," Ripper growled back, rounding my body, only to get stopped again. "Seven-"
I bared my fangs at Ripper. "No means no."
Ripper began to growl again, only to gaze above at the wound he had forged upon me earlier this same day. He puffed a breath, now glowering in annoyance at my approach.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," Ripper growled, then stepped away.
Paul continued to tremble beneath his rocky pileup, leaning on his good side as fresh blood clotted upon his maw. So I dragged the human by the foot and underneath my killing claw, just to gather a better look. But my brain felt promise in my actions -- pinning down a worthy meal and towering over it with dignity. His heartbeat accelerated beneath each talon, and a satisfying, uncontrollable rumble soon boomed from my drooling maw as instinct took hold.
Ripe for the taking, said my brain.
"Please, please, please..." the man began to beg, tears spilling down his face, both of pain and of fear. Ripper stood there in silence, curious to see what I was going to do. Would I eat him? Kill him? Put him out of his misery? There were many options a hybrid could take.
But only a conscious creature could think otherwise. Snorting, I raised my claw to his chest and pressed down, listening to the subtle pops of his fractured bone caving in. The male gasped, his whimpers growing louder and louder until I pulled away.
It was bad. Survivable, but bad.
I moved my claw to the exterior of his body, enough that I was close enough to stare deep into his brown, glowing eyes. Eying the wound on his forehead, I shuffled another good inch closer, and began licking the blood away. The male's cries muted, a shudder of discomfort and surprise coming from his maw. One it had cleaned away, I motioned to his fallen radio, nibbling the string by the nibs of my teeth, and dropped it on his chest. The male was confused, staring down at his radio, then back up at me. I nudged it again.
Call.
I was sure he got the message right then and there. There was nothing more to do. Finally stepping off of him, I turned to the shocked hybrid still frozen on the spot, and growled.
"Let's go."
◤◢◣◥◤◢◣◥◤◢◣◥◤◢◣◥
Reinforcements for the injured officer didn't arrive until a few minutes after we bailed from the scene. Both me and Ripper crawled our way through another open alleyway and to the top of a massive rooftop above a grocery store called Trader Joes.
I didn't know what that meant. To the residents of Chico, California, this 'Trader Joes' person was the human alternative to hunting for food. Many would flood in, and many more would slip out with carts full of wonders beyond a hybrid's imagination. Each cart offered us a delectable scent to savor, one only the bittersweet humans of this small town could call satisfying. For the two of us, this store was just far enough to keep us out of sight, and out of danger. But this spot proved even more useful for another reason -- dogs aplenty rolled in and out of the brick alleyway, trying to follow our scents. Once they struck the store they gave up -- the heady aroma of fruit, vegetables, and raw meat scarred their snouts for hours.
So we stayed put, watching the world roll by slowly. Keeping quiet. Oddly quiet, if anything. Neither one of us spoke for hours after it happened -- frankly we had no idea what to say. Neither did my brain, who tapped out shortly after my bizarre regard to save the dying human.
At least I was granted a nice, peaceful span of time to finally be at ease.
Dusk was quick to come around the bend. The streets of Chico started to grow quiet, as did the speckled blue birds that whistled their proud tune to the distant heavens. Street lights flickered to life, illuminating the skin of human nature and pushing the growing darkness back to horizon from whence it came. The parking lot, too, began to subside of life, but the smell of the store's majesty remained. Just to the point where both Ripper and I were growling in discomfort to our rumbling stomachs. We hadn't eaten all day... and now it was starting to show.
We didn't want to do it. The forest was just a few more miles west of us, we could see it from atop the Trader Joes. But a trek like that, along with knowing our hunting skills would be in vain in the dark (in a desert), wouldn't be so pleasing.
And then came the added fact that I was warned about this. Back when me and Blink would meet outside the INGEN facility to learn about one another.
"If you're hungry, and no food is around, hunt as discreetly as possible," he once muttered. "It's easier to kill their pets then it is them. But no blood can be spilled."
"No blood?" I narrowed my eyes. "Then how-"
"Bite the neck and twist," Blink growled, mimicking his jaws for me to study. "Or take their air. A silent kill. The wolves here often do it to the deer, I've watched them from the shadows. Nobody will know. But that's only a last resort, Seven, if you're truly desperate. Besides... cats and dogs taste disgusting."
"Wait..." I narrowed my eyes. "Click told me there's food in those stores-"
"No! Don't ever go in there," he hissed. "That's a death trap."
"What? Then have you walked into a grocery...?"
Blink's unenthusiastic face told me my answer before I could finish. I found it funny and scary altogether, only able to utter out an:
"Oh... wow."
"Jumping into a meat freezer for an entire night isn't fun," he growled. "I'd rather die than do that again-"
"Seven!"
I blinked back, noticing Ripper now standing at my side.
"What happened?"
Ripper hesitated, then looked away as if regretting his decision.
"Something's on your mind," I asked over his subtle grunts. Ripper growled in agreement, wavering his tail from left to right. He seemed a bit uncomfortable speaking on behalf of his denials, and that slight look of hidden fear immediately alerted me to what he was bound to say.
"You should've killed him."
"We're still on this?"
"I have to be!" he retorted. I scowled wordlessly, realigning my attention back to the dimming horizon above the store and coiling my claws into the ground to withhold my annoyance. Ripper did the same the opposite way, flaring his nostrils to ease his pounding heartbeat. Just as another moment of time passed, the hybrid suddenly dipped his head low, and sighed.
"You... asked me earlier what happened to me. I was hesitant to respond because..." He parted his maw. "I was scared. You were right."
My head tilted to listen, his sudden announcement piquing my interest.
"But what you did today..."
"Because I spared a life we weren't meant to take?" I suddenly snarled. "Please... maybe you wanted me to shed some primitive instinct, lose my sanity, and put fresh blood on my scales like you had today!"
"Seven-"
"I'm not like you or Blink -- I kill monsters that deserve to die, never for hell of it!"
"He could've been one."
"He wasn't! Stop turning this on me-!"
"I'm trying to save you!" Ripper barked, quills spiking upward in outrage. "RAGH! If I don't drive this into your thick skull, you'll be dead before you ever reach your friend! All that kindness and hospitality you continue to shed can only get you so far before humanity's arrogance catches on. And then they'll find you -- they'll rip your corpse apart, stick a device in your head, and puppet you around like a dog on a chain until you burst like a maggot-filled bubble! And all that j-joy and h-hatred, all that love and all those wretched, cold wells of promise, rots along with y-you... it turns into a t-terrible dream. Your w-world fades to b-black... and you'll forget everything you... e-ever were... y-you'll..."
Ripper began to whimper, collapsing onto his stomach as cold tears soon burst beneath his trembling eyes. His jaw remained open, staring out across the horizon as he sought the words. But he couldn't go on, he didn't have the strength to. I parted my maw, standing upright to wander to him, and grunted.
"Is... that what happened?"
The black indoraptor sealed his eyes shut, buried his head into his obsidian claws and nodded. His tail coiled into himself to ease the tremors now rocking his body, but he couldn't help shedding the emotions that enraptured his body.
"Life... after death... is worse than anything INGEN's ever done to me," he croaked. "Because now... now I don't know what I'm meant to do. I don't have a path. I don't... even know what I am."
Ripper opened his eyes slowly, inhaling sharply as he withdrew his snout from his claws, and turned to meet my eyes.
"Wu... created me... because he believed that I'd be a worthy weapon for his kind. A gun with a soul. A monster without a heart, that I'd-" His lips began to wrinkle back in distaste. "I'd give into his... wretched humanity for the rest of my miserable life. And he found nothing wrong with that -- a slave under profit -- nevermind the blood he spills, or the nights I cried out for mercy -- its only wealth that prospers over crushed dreams. And they let any setback burn down alongside their ego."
Ripper's eyes narrowed, claws tightening up until his knuckles turned white. "I wanted to kill him," he snarled. "I've dreamt of it for years. A claw ebbed deep into his heart, perhaps, another tearing into his throat. His blood spilling across the earth like a golden river... warm and fresh. And once he was gone, I would slaughter whomever remained who hoped to sever my dignity. Unstoppable. Untamed. It... was a beautiful dream..."
His growling paused, his voice now turning soft and mournful. His tail dipped low, lips easing over the exterior teeth, both nostrils relaxed and steady.
"But then... I woke up. Not in INGEN, but somewhere different, with someone new. And they... they turned me right back into the monster I swore never to become."
"This time I couldn't fight it. I realized right then and there, if all humans are this... insatiable, enough to revive the dead, then killing Wu will accomplish nothing. How is one monster worth ending if two more rise up from it? Why risk it if they're just going to take me in again?"
The indoraptor's growls grew quieter. "And that other half of me, that voice in my head, hasn't come back. It's been so quiet. You have someone to speak to, but I'm on my own now, and I..." he shuddered mid-breath. "Like I said... I d-don't know what I'm meant to do."
Ripper then started to stand upright, a deep grunt pumping from his throat to meddle with the stillness of the night. "Oddly enough you're the second creature I've met who's put their trust and faith into a human. And the fact that you're fighting threads and needles to get back to him..."
"It annoys you?" I growled questionably, forgetting to understand that he knew about Click. "Because I know you and Blink were against me returning to a human, but he's much more than the rest of his kind, I know it. He saved me when I got hurt. He vouched for me when I did something wrong, he's..." I trailed off. "He's all I have left."
Ripper sighed. "I was going to say it impresses me, Seven. But I still fall on the suspicious end of the line for you. Knowing our history, I struggle to see how it works."
"It works," I said with a humble smile. Ripper sighed -- neither proud to hear that response, but not angry either. His exhale simply denounced any further regard to what I now, and forevermore, praise. But his eyes still dipped in thought, hoping to conjure up one last question.
"What are we... without humans, Seven?"
"Indoraptors?" I said. But Ripper shook his head.
"That's humantalk," he scowled, stepping toward me just to growl again. "What we... without them --- what are you, just you, on your own?"
An image of Click suddenly rose in my head. Memories alongside him, good and bad, muffled whatever lie I was going to announce. It made me suddenly see the question to its entirety: how can I live without Click?
This whole time I've been begging myself, and anyone else who took this journey, to get to him first. Not once have I found any joy in the ravishing Californian forests that overwhelmed the mountaintops, or challenged Nature's madness like all normal dinosaurs and mammals do. I wanted to be at his side, feeling his scaleless hands caressing my snout, feeding off his grandest rewards, even rubbing my snout into the strange strings of hair all mammals seem to bear. Because, in reality, I wouldn't know what I'd do without him. I wouldn't know who I'd be on my own.
"I..." my blue eyes lowered, still struggling to find an answer. But he knew I had none, and bowed his head a second time.
"I don't know either." He looked away from me. "But... this is the curse I've been fighting. I doubt I'll beat it."
"Well, you..." I drew near his side. "You have more time to figure it out now, right?"
"..."
Ripper kept his eyes lowered to the ground. His growing sorrow only agitated my own grievances, so I drew near his bullet injury -- the slice at his cheek bone -- and licked the blood away. Ripper flinched, freezing up as I eased out the wound with two calming licks. My head then nuzzled under his neck, forcing him to raise his chin high, and promote his confidence. Only then did I purr.
"There. Now you'll beat it... if you keep like that I mean."
"Confident?"
"Yeah! Just take it as my little promise."
"P-Promises aren't really-" he stammered slightly, adjusting himself before he could turn puny. "Rrr... I don't really trust in promises. They don't ever come true."
"Not even a hybrid promise?" I asked with a glint in my eyes. Ripper groaned, clawing at the ground.
"M-Maybe."
"Good. Now, the store of the Trader Joe's person is almost closed," I pointed to the floating lights beneath us, then turned back at Ripper. "Want to stop brooding for once and have a bit of fun?"
"Hunting already hunted food, you mean?" came his heavy response. I growled.
"Whatever you think seems to help beat your curse." All of a sudden, Ripper's glowering face lit up, tail raising with excitement. And beneath all that misery and grief, his own smile parted ways through the darkness, and glowed in the night for all to see.
"I'd be happy to."
◤◢◣◥◤◢◣◥◤◢◣◥◤◢◣◥