Unsafe Working Conditions : A He Who Fights With Monsters 6+ Companion Story

Chapter 4 - Make a Pie

 Awakening to a burning sensation was never a good thing, it was along his back and along with a gnawing sensation in his stomach pulled him from sleep's embrace. With a groan he rolled on his side, his bag tore skin as it tried to fall off him onto the floor. Wide awake he pushed himself into a sitting position, gingerly moving the pack to rest next to him.

Taking a better look around the room he saw that it was some sort of residence, there was a vanity in the corner with a sink and mirror. The wall was in the same style as the first room he was in, probably storage cabinets in them as well.

With the potential for fresh clothes Liam began the arduous process of peeling the shirt off his torso. Starting from the hem he slowly lifted, at each of his wounds the fabric pulled painfully. He had more injuries than he thought, many of them started bleeding again.

Inspecting himself in the mirror he saw that the wound on his back was broad but not deep, more like road rash which was painful but not life threatening. Shifting focus to his shoulder it looked burned, the skin blistered and angry red. The edges of the area concerned him the most as the veins he could see were black.

Reaching to the faucet on he tried to turn it on by touching it all over to no avail. Thinking that it may be motion activated he began waving his hands around. After several minutes waving his hands around like a disturbed conductor he gave up. Pressing on the wall panel to the side of the mirror opened a compartment. Unfortunately it did not contain clothes, inside were what looked like more grooming equipment. Searching the other compartments revealed some clothes that were too small for him and some equipment that looked to be for measurements or sampling.

Placing his head to the louvers he listened for anything. Silence being the only thing he could hear on the far side he walked to the bed, picking up the remote and depressed the button. The louvers retracted into the floor as he surveyed the chamber.

Nothing seemed to have changed, there was still carnage everywhere and the smell of burning metal hung in the air. A growl from his stomach focused his attention on his need to eat.

Sitting at the entrance to his little room he pulled out the Essence and repeated the process of grilling the zebra meat. Soon a pleasant aroma of grilling meat began to push back the burning metal and gore smell around him. Liam was completely enthralled by grilling the meat, he diligently fed coins into the shaver. Once he was satisfied with the state of the food the entire room was filled with the mouth watering aroma of grilled meat.

Drool spilling down his chin he reached out and gingerly grabbed an edge of the meat, he quickly let it go sucking air through his teeth. Looking around he reached into the bag and pulled out one of the spools of wire, it was stiff and with quick motions he bent it into a makeshift fork with two tines. With as much care as he could Liam wiped the gore and fluids from the scissors on the hide bedroll, the steam from the meat pushing his tolerance for perfection as it tempted him.

Finally satisfied that he couldn't get it any cleaner, he took the scissors and began to cut the steak into chunks that he could spear with his fork and eat.The first morsel that entered his mouth had him release a happy moan as he chewed it just enough that he could swallow it without choking, it had cooled but was still warmer than the air.. In no time the steak was gone and he was reaching for another to cook, taking the same care to cook it as before.

His eyes closed, chewing the final bite of steak, his worries for the moment. His stomach full he slowly opened his eyes and he again looked at the destruction in front of him.

Now that he was able to take his time and look at the monsters scattered around he noticed a pattern. There were some monsters where the machines that made up parts of their bodies were crude and they didn't seem to fit, the zebra monster would be placed into this category. They were like the experiments of a lunatic that just wanted to mix and match different things for the sake of it. Another group seemed to have been augmented, these retained most of their shape while clearly being altered, the monkey monsters with their outer appearance being mostly unaltered if you ignored the antennae head.