We're Called Halfies

What do you want me to do? Climb the walls? I'm not a bloody Spider

The long awaited eleventh chapter? Oh god, that would mean I actually managed to write :D School's so damn hectic lately. So many assignments ;~;

So Enjoy, comment, fan, subscribe, let me know what you think. Whatever you feel like.

Cheers, Scrempt  

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I wake up in a bad mood. Not That It can be helped. The rocks were super uncomfortable to sleep on; even with Leona’s mildly comfy jacket, I can still feel a bruise forming on the side of my body that I lay on. And I’m hung over so bad right now. My mouth tastes like I ate a reel of silk. Not fun is pretty much my only assessment of my current situation.   

Leona’s been awake for what looks like the past five hours- which would make sense. While she rises with the sun, I rise with the moon. I’m far more awake during night-time then I am during the day. During the day? I’m good as dead.

I’m sort of dazed while I look around. It’s not until the smell of cooking meat wakes me up enough to register as ‘awake.’ I zero in on what probably used to be another sheep or ram. Right now I don’t care really what type of meat it is, it just looks so goddamn delicious.

Wrapping the blankets further around me, I move closer to the campfire. Resting myself on top of a rock that was gloriously warm by the fire during the night, I cross my legs and sort of start to drift off again.  Only Leona’s packing and the smell of the cooking sheep/ram alerts me to the outside world. Right now, I’m either halfway asleep or halfway awake. Although at this very moment, I think it’s more of the former than the latter.

I must have fallen asleep at one point, because all of the sudden Leona’s shaking me on the shoulder. My eyes snap open and, out of habit, I feel my teeth and nails (claws, really) elongate. Every sense of mine explodes into awareness, telling me of everything in my immediate area. My pupils widen – I see every pore on Leona’s face, every leaf scattered by the tree I’m crouching underneath. My nose twitches with the wind - I can smell the scent of falling leaves on the trees, the hint of winter breaking through in the air, the slightly burnt texture of the meat so prominent I can practically taste it. My sensitive skin can even feel the air tickling along. I can feel the air pressure. Its weight as it dances past my face. I know every single detail about this space.  Every single strand of Jaguar DNA within me tells me what I need to know. Literally microseconds after Leona awakes me up, I’m alert and ready to fight or run. Whichever if more imperative to my survival, I’m ready to commit to in a matter of nanoseconds.

Leona’s irritated voice suddenly sounds in my now-sensitive ears. “Oi, Snap out, we need to eat and try to get into the City today. Stop fart-arsing around and get to it”

Smiling at Leona’s straightforwardness and abrupt self, I relax back out of my crouch. Bending over, I grab my over shirt that I took off last night. Because of the sheer awkwardness of sleeping in my over shirt, I took it off last night and lay on using it as a very uncomfortable pillow. By the time I’ve pulled the shirt over my head and slung my bag over my shoulder, Leona’s already packed the food and stored the fire in some tinder fungus – mushrooms that store fire, light, heat and energy. When the City handed out tinder fungus to its military, I don’t think they ever thought to make sure that the Rebellion wouldn’t get a hold of it, y’know, collecting up the mushrooms from dead soldiers so we couldn’t collect it. Because when we found them, well, we managed to breed them with wild mushrooms. The end result? A Halfie Rebellion with thousands of tinder fungus mushrooms. For us, it’s a massive win. It means that if we need to, we can pretty much abandon camp whenever we need to and have instant fire, wherever we go.

Gotta love City folk ignorance. It’s the best.

Leona’s set a rather fast pace for the City. Even though I could move faster than her at any given point in time, I hang back. I never like taking the lead, always preferring to back up whoever’s leading. I feel better when I have space to drop back, to stalk prey that tries to play predator. Right now though, it’s more like I just don’t want to go to the City – the episode with the old lady, the Protectors and the guard I thought was Blaze has just warped my mind, making me paranoid and fearful I’ll screw up the mission, that I’ll alert the Protectors of something they shouldn’t know.

Worse, I’ll alert the Protectors of our presence; they’ll find us and see our weapons – both bladed and the ones that decorate our feline bodies. Then they’ll kill us for possessing weapons, but furthermore, they’ll torture us for information on other fugitive ANA Halfies. 

Lost in my thoughts, I only barely miss walking into Leona. She’s stopped suddenly, ducking into crouch need shrubbery, putting up two fingers signalling me to halt. Shooting me an annoyed glace saying ‘Stupid Cat, pay attention’ she points ahead of her. Crouching down, I see what she’s pointing at.

There are five patrols walking past the main gate, marching around the city in an almost continuous loop. They go straight past the sewer pipe, checking inside every now and again, obviously checking for fugitives. Looking back at Leona, we’ve both got the same look on our faces.  

Bloody Bullshit.       

Tapping Leona on the shoulder, I motion behind me. She turns and follows. I walk us back a good ten metres before Leona starts to talk.

“So Whiskers, What are we doing?”

“I say we sneak in via the pipe.”

Leona shakes her head violently at this suggestion “It’s too risky. It’d be like offering up ourselves on a silver platter with apples in our mouths. It’s suicidal.”

“It’s not like we can really do anything else,” I shrug “We can’t climb over the walls anymore. They put tazers up on the top, remember? Nearly killed Reece last time, the stupid fish. He didn’t even check before he put his hand on it.”

Leona snorts, “I know right? The idiot. What else can we do though? We can’t walk in can we? Now that really is suicidal”

Having already had that thought, I’m left toying over the idea. It’s not actually that bad. All we really need is something that covers our Brands. With them covered, we could past for normal humans.

Reiterating the idea to Leona, she looks at me like I’m certifiably insane.

“What are you? Some sort of human idiot?! We can’t just walk in. That’s utterly stupid. You must have dropped on your head! Bloody Dipshit. Even if we found something to cover our Brands, we don’t talk like them! Walk like them! We can’t do either of those things. We’d be found out immediately!”

By the time she’s done ranting, Leona’s gone bright red. She’s got the look in her eyes like she would kill me if she could.

I’m not so sure though...I think we could sneak in. The more I think about it, the more of a good idea it seems to me. Our only real dilemma here is our Brands. Accents and walking can easily be mimicked. Our Brands on the over hand, need to be hidden carefully and cleverly. But we don’t have time for clever right now.  Bluffing seems to be our only option right now.  Out of my bag, I pull out a small pot of skin coloured cream I found in the hotel room a couple of days ago. “Concealer” – it looks about right. When I open the pot, it has a small mirror on the cap. With two fingers, I begin to cover my Brand – a tail looking thing which encircles what looks like claws. It takes quite a bit of concealer before every trace of my Brand is gone. Glancing into the mirror I’m a little taken back by who stares back at me. Without my Brand...I look normal. Like a Human.

Closing the pot, I mental shake myself. That’s the point, I think. I’m meant to be human.

Leona’s still crapping on about the danger when I pull out my scarf from my bag and wrap it around just under my eyes and over my mouth, effectively covering my now-covered up Brand.

Time to play human.

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