Sapienophobia

Chapter 30

He knew.
He knew where I was the whole time and pretended to search for me.
He was waiting for me to turn my back on him.
I should've known. Why can't I put the biggest of clues together?

Sod's hold which had moved to my shoulder wasn't as capable as Vera's. Despite that, he could do just as much damage.

Just because he's weaker doesn't mean I'm any stronger. Both a cat and a cougar can break a stick.

The pain in my shoulder felt like each of my tendons was being placed in boiling water.

I need to get away, it hurts.

He sighed that sigh of disappointment adults often resorted to.

Scare him.

"I'm with the Anide butchers," I squeaked.

What was the point of lying before if I'm going to give everything away now?
This had better work.

He hadn't spoken, but his eyes darted from me to my attire and back up to me.

My bad hand which was clawing at his grasp pulled away to show him my card from my satchel.

His grip had loosened by the time I placed it back in my waistband.

"So they're even recruiting children now?"

I've got him.

I kicked him in the face. His nose cartilage snapped away from his bridge as he held his hand under his new nosebleed.

"Ki-"

I wasted no time and jumped on his shoulders, locking my legs around his neck in a chokehold. I planned on closing his windpipe like the snake taught me, but I didn't have to core or lower body strength to maintain the position.

He grunted before shaking me off. My former good hand went back reflexively to cushion my fall, and I yelped when it bent backward.

Sod approached me again, irritatedly.

"I-if you kill me, they'll just send someone stronger next time!" I cowered, digging four nails into the mud.

He hesitated by spending a second longer on his forward foot.

It was at this moment that I realized I understood what Sod feared better than he did.

I slung the dirt into his face when he inhaled to speak. I then scampered towards my other pit traps when he was blinded.

Step wide, make it difficult for him to give chase.
But don't slow down. He's faster than me so I should just try to stay out of sight or a couple of steps ahead of him.

My teary eyes slowed my already sluggish escape.

It hurts. How much longer until the herb's effects kick in?

The veil of darkness shielded me as my wolf wounds threatened to make a reappearance.

I heard the pit trap activate when I was some distance away, but the silence that followed was a red flag.

I kept running.

I can't fight him. I have nothing left to use against him.
I've escaped him twice.
I've been captured by him twice.

I whimpered as I breached the trees to the lake. Every limb in my body begged me to stop.

I was backed into a corner. It's too dangerous. There was nothing else I could do. Vera will understand.
I won't. Can't I do this one thing?
What if I've been building the wrong skills this whole time? That's why I'm lacking. That's why I've lost more than I've won.
What if I was never meant to finish the bounty in the first place?

I heaved my satchel off my shoulder, tossed it into a bush, and slipped into the water. I expected it to be cold, but it felt like an extension of a cloud. I had to fight to keep my body from floating up to the surface. The defocused blurs I should have seen when I slowly opened my eyes weren't there, rather, the lake perfectly reflected the light off. The images above the water were neither hazy nor refracted. I might as well have been looking through a tinted glass.

Extraordinary. It doesn't burn my eyes.

When I observed the water body before, the items I submerged appeared in their usual enlarged state.

Will I become less visible the deeper I go?

I, unlike most Anide children, learned how to swim at a young age. My fear of humans made sure of that. That didn't mean my injuries knew the same, though. A placebo effect lightened the symptoms, but that didn't mean it didn't ache to move my hand. I couldn't let my body surface, or Sod would see me.

He appeared, out of the woods, and onto the small muddy beach; he scanned the water, scrutinizing every ripple or wave that was an outlier. The ones I had caused were far away by then. Sod's nose had ceased its bleeding. I swam deeper so that I could be confused with whatever lightless obscurities lay on the lake floor.

I need air.
He's about to leave.

Sod was calling out for me again, I caught "kid", but other than that, his words sounded like jargon. I was heartened that the water could warble sound if not light.

Or maybe he's playing another trick and this doesn't matter. He might've seen the satchel.

I pinched my nose closed with the hand whose stub had yet to heal over and should not have been exposed to aquatic contaminants.

Not a bubble. Don't choke.
Hold it a little longer, it's the least I could do.

Everything hurt, my hand, my lungs, my legs, my head. But I waited.

Sod, seeing nothing, turned back from whence he came. I swam further into the body before allowing myself to gradually surface for air. The water did splash. Too big of a burst and Sod would've heard the splashing. I gasped repeatedly and stifled my wet coughs.

Quietly.

My slow backstroke got me to another less foggy area of the Murks. I trudged out of the water and immediately up a tree, this time without hindrance. I cursed that I left my satchel before checking the moss for the direction to the guild. Then I whined. I had nothing on me but my card and my clothes. My sweater wasn't doing a good job of keeping me warm with lake water and two extra holes in it either.
I assessed my environment. The tree I was in had more durable bark, it'd take more than a brush against something to peel it off. The ground below me was less muddy than that nearer to the lake; the rocks on it were grittier, making it less likely for me to slip and more likely for me to trip. The leaves on the plant life were fibrous and long to absorb the roughly attainable resource that was sunlight. They still smelled though.

I need to find a way to kill him quickly.
Why? I doubt he's going to run away from me, he probably doesn't believe anything I've said.
Should he? I wouldn't.
I'd still leave just in case, though.
I can't wait until another time.
I can buy time by talking to him, like he wants.
No, not with these injuries.

I sulked, glaring at my hands.
I had one more trap I could make.