Resilience Run

Chapter 8

Our walk through the city streets was soon cut short by rain, but since we didn't have any umbrellas, or whatever Xeastea's equivalent was, the three of us had to make a mad dash back to the Inn before we all got soaked. Fortunately, we made it.

"Rain rain, go away..." I mumbled under my breath.

"What was that?" Jagos asked.

"Oh, it's an old saying where I come from," I said, "Rain rain, go away, come again another day."

"Is it some kind of spell?" Rhys asked.

"Nope." I said as we retreated into our room, "No magic in my world, remember?"

"There's no magic in your world?" Jagos asked, "How do you do... anything, really?"

"We manage." I said.

"Wow." said Jagos, "That's amazing."

"It's not that impressive, trust me." I said.

"You're just saying that since you grew up with all of it," said Rhys, "Jagos and I grew up with all of this, so it comes as old hat to us, like you with your technology. Speaking of which..."

"Oh yeah!" I said, "Jagos, wanna see some technology from my world?"

"Uh, okay." said Jagos. I smiled as I reached into my bag and pulled out my cell phone. Jagos looked at it with confusion, which only got worse as I turned it on and showed him the home screen.

"Go nuts." I said as I handed him the phone, "Just be careful, the screen is fragile."

"Are you sure letting him handle that thing is a good idea?" Rhys asked.

"There's not much he can do with it anyway," I said, "In my world, I'd be worried about him calling the cops, but since there's no cell service around here, that's not going to be a problem."

"That... sure is a bunch of words you just said." said Rhys. Felice snickered as well, while I just rolled my eyes, and Jagos was completely lost tapping around on my phone.

"Okay, I'm cutting you off for the night," I said as I took the phone back, "You can look at it again tomorrow."

"Okay." Jagos said dejectedly, "Goodnight... Mom."

There was that feeling again as Jagos laid down in the bed and started sleeping almost immediately. Rhys and I followed, getting into the bed as well.

"He's gotten much better at expressing himself in such a short time," said Felice, "It's like he was waiting for an opportunity to really be himself."

"I mean, considering the state he was in when we found him..." I said, "He's probably never had a chance to act like a real kid. Hell, he's probably never had a real parent before, considering how he told us his 'master' was."

As Rhys was about to say something, there was some loud crashing out in the main area of the Inn, followed by some shouting.

Rhys and I immediately opened the door to see what was going on, and were nearly pounced by a blur with feathery wings. Fortunately, Felice's immediate reflexes allowed her to block the pounce with my arm. In the brief pause that followed, I got the chance to get a good look at the thing, rather person I believed, that attacked us.

The person was human-looking at first glance, except their skin was palish-gray, too gray to be just sickly human, and they had wings protruding from their back. When I got a glance at the person's head, it was obscured by long gray hair, so gender wasn't identifiable, and the only facial figure I could recognize was the person's eyes, which were dark yellow, almost orange. They were also wild-looking, like they wanted to rip through us, the wall, and just keep on going.