Back after Christmas, I've tried to sort out the technical difficulty I had before. Thanks once more to scrabwatcher for helping me out. So it's been 2 weeks (give or take) since the last installment so here it is now, fresh off the shelves,
Chapter 4, Origins
Before the invasion glukkons had been secretive and suspicious. They had kept to themselves and eventually built a solid concrete wall all the way around Glucose to keep "those stinkin freaks" out. The wall was maintained annually and patrolled almost constantly. Hadrian had nothing on these guys! Still, parts of it were less well guarded than others. The wall ran through places that Glukkons liked to avoid. When the invasion on Mudos began the wall was still maintained at first but workers became lax. Those places where no one liked to go quickly fell into disrepair long before the caring of the wall was dropped altogether.
In the forest of Gopemi There was little of the wall left except a heap of crumbling rubble and the grassy foundations. Graham had kept his eyes on the ground all day, looking for any sign of his crossing into Mudos. Now he stood in front of the crumbled line of concrete, staring across into Mudos: the place he’d come from; the place he should have felt safer.
But the forest was one of the few, if not the only place on the border where he’d be safer on the Glucose side. Sligs weren’t scared of the forest over there. The patrolled it regularly(ish) and were a lot less likely to fly into a blind panic when scared. It was notably more dangerous than his half.
Graham didn’t want to cross that line. How long had it been since he’d last been in Glucose? He couldn’t even remember. And now here he was, holding an object that the glukkons would do almost anything to get back, about to step over into a land where glukkons would actually be looking for it before long. Hopefully, by tomorrow night he wouldn’t be the one carrying it. It wouldn’t be his problem anymore. Actually, if and when the curse played its card, he wouldn’t have any problems anymore. And for some reason that thought wasn’t comforting.
With a sigh he stepped over the line.
Once again, if he’d expected 20 sligs to leap out of the undergrowth and fill him full of metal he was disappointed. Trying to decide whether this was a good thing or not, Graham set out through the trees.
Evening was drawing in and all afternoon Graham hadn’t seen so much as an empty bullet cartridge to feed his terror. Maybe he was just overreacting. Or maybe the patrols had been lessened since his last visit. Either way, it was with a lot less caution that he threw himself down on the edge of a clearing and pulled a Paramite Pie out of his loincloth. An hour later he was starting to doze.
He was walking down a long tunnel, clutching the Orb. Suddenly a slig leapt out of no where and raised its gun to him, but he held up the Orb and the slig burst into flames. He kept walking and suddenly another slig appeared. He raised the Orb again and the slig turned to stone. He continued walking.
Every so often another slig leapt out but he simply raised the Orb and it was gone. Some simply vanished, some blew up, turned to dust or dropped to the ground, dead.
After a while Graham heard voices up ahead. Fearing more sligs, he lifted the Orb, only it wasn’t the Orb, it was a grenade. He quickly threw it away but it hit the tunnel wall and exploded. Chunks of the tunnel were raining down around him as it collapsed and the voices were getting louder: "HEY MENICK, THIS LOOKS LIKE A GOOD SPOT!!!
Graham jerked awake and for a few seconds was surprised to find himself in a clearing, not a dark tunnel. He heard voices: "Yeah, this’ll do. GUYS, WE FOUND A PLACE!"
Sligs! Graham leapt into a bush, making more noise than he would have liked. A torch beam flashed over him. "D’you here that Menick?"
There was a few seconds silence then "Probably just some animal." A stream of bullets passed over his head, ruffling his ponytail. "There ya go, it’ll probably have bolted now anyway."
A new voice joined the other 2, "What ya shootin at idiot?"
"Just some animal. Scared poor wittel Bezin here didnit!"
"Shut up!"
"Aw, is big nasty Menick bein howwibew to Bezin now?"
"SHUT UP!"
Someone laughed and a fourth voice interrupted, "Cut it out you lot or it’ll be mornin by the time we get these bl00dy tents up."
Graham almost swore. They were gonna be staying the night there. He wasn’t exactly in a good position. His back was aching were a branch was pressing into it, one arm was caught between his stomach and a rock on the ground, his legs were crushed up beneath him, twigs were wavering threateningly near his eyes and nostrils. He didn’t dare move with at least 4 sligs just metres away, especially after how close he’d come to having 5 bullets pass through his skull already.
Graham prayed quietly that it was already past midnight and settled down to the grunting and snorting noises related to 4 or 5 sligs trying to erect tents for themselves in near darkness. It was gonna be a very long night.
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