Hybrids: An Indoraptor Story ✓

While We Wander

||𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏3𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎||

"Easy does it..."

"I know... ngh..."

"We're almost there-"

"Just... slow d-down..."

Blink ceased mid-step, securing both talons into the steep hill and leaned left. I stumbled against him in turn, my head dipping low to snarl past the pain burning against my underside. I knew it wasn't getting any better, as did he; the adrenaline-fueled predator within had dribbled away, making way for the mortality I had long forgotten. Our snouts twitched; the sweet scent of raptor blood still raided the shrill Californian air, alerting the wild of our whereabouts. Not even nature hoped to conceal the two of us -- the wind pushed the perfume in all directions of the forest. Not even foliage and mud could foil a keen predator from the trail we made.

Blink's eyes gazed past my bowed head and to a sun-flared ridge sitting above the glowing hillside -- a perfect resting spot. His confidence outweighed my own, not just because his injuries weren't as awful as mine, but in knowing we were making progress. Behind us churned the distant river, now a sparkling inferno of the sun's magnificence. It was good that we finally left the region; the bloodshed and exposure there stained the earth like a foiled human painting. And, knowing we were still being hunted by that 'thing' of a hybrid, we couldn't risk another day there.

Especially not in my condition.

After a quiet minute of eating, we drifted away from the chaos and found a crossing to the river (a longer log of sorts), moving beyond the reach of the burnt INGEN facility, and into worlds unknown. We had no idea what stood before us from here on.

And, in truth, neither one of us wanted to know.

It took a few short huffs and puffs to finally claim dominion over the first of many mountains, and, upon topping the summit, I collapsed to my stomach in relief, nares quaking through each breath I mustered. Blink rounded me, his eyes studying the damages marked to the exterior of my body. Gashes from the beaks of flyers marked the lower end of my scales, bruises plumed across my spine from the river's wrath, and Ripper's wound, the worst of them all, oozed and flexed from neck to belly. Though this all but scared him; the hybrid found interest and excitement in my scars. And, after seeing me ruthlessly kill those flyers, I knew why. So I lifted my head, meeting his gaze, and snarled.

"What?"

He looked down from my eyes.

"How do you feel?" he then asked. I sighed once.

"Light-headed." Blink's eyes glistened as he stared and sniffed, before wrinkling back with a growl of worry.

"Do you mind if I-" he paused short, motioning to my underside. My eyes dilated, heart thrumming quietly under both distrust and uncertainty. And it wasn't just me that felt this way.

He is trying to stay on your side, snarled a voice from within. To push the past out of your head over generosity. How quaint of him. But, rather than listen to her, I didn't pester his aid, and nodded without response.

Nudging my neck, he urged me to splay out on my side to inspect the wound. I growled once it exposed itself to the light, sensing his warm snout brush against the massive line of red flesh as if edging the pain. I poked my head beneath a claw to watch him sniff the damages, before rearing back to make his say.

"Still raw." He swallowed once. "It hasn't healed yet."

"Good to know," I growled. Blink pushed my response away and rounded me again.