Unreachable

~Chapter Eleven~

Grian’s POV

Present Time

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"And so the shopkeep says, 'You look like you're in...a pickle!'"

"Grian, that might be the worst joke, I've ever heard.”

“No way, it can't have been that bad!”

“Uh, yeah, it was, and you spent like five minutes setting it up.”

“Come on…Hey, you all don't even remember everything! You have to have heard a worse one soooometime.”

“Oh we don't need to, in my heart of hearts I know that I have never wasted a worse six minutes in my life.”

“:(“

Totally bummed out by the harsh criticism of his so-called friends, Grian cut ahead of the group. Clearly, no one had wanted to check out the cool cliff, because the greenery was still present next to the rocks. He instantly wished he had a sword to slice through bushes—he was practically a shrub himself with all the twigs sticking out of his shirt and pants when he emerged out the other side of the batch. Ouch. 

There was plenty of abrasive nature around but there was also…something else. A glint of something shiny was hidden beneath a tree branch. “Huh,” Grian murmured. “What's that?” The branch was almost the size of him, but he grabbed it anyway and pulled it as hard as he could. “Oumph!” He stumbled back as the branch rolled off with much effort. Cool. He plucked off yet another leaf that got stuck to his shirt and leaned over the branch to take a look. “Alright, let's see what that i- OH-!!” 

It was a hand. 

“Grian?? Everything alright over there?” A flurry of leaves descended upon Grian as his friends burst through the shrubs. Wels led the pack, slashing through the bushes with an iron sword (how did he have time to get that?), and ran up next to Grian. “What's wron-...?” He trailed off and stood still, staring at the hand like Grian was. 

It was metal, splayed out to show four stubby fingers. Attached to it was a wrist. The end of it was cracked, bent, and torn, with ripped wires and plates lying against the grass and rocks. They sparked quietly, frantically against the dark.

The other people formed a clump soon enough. Doc briefly touched his own robot hand. Scar jumped back. Cultie made a noise well out of human range. Iskall stepped forward and poked it with a stick. “Huh…the wires are live,” he helpfully observed.

“Great observation, Iskall, very useful,” said Keralis.

“No, no, that means it probably got disconnected from…whatever it was attached to…recently. Hey Doc, you still got-”

“Yup.”

“-right. So something, or someone else must be here, then,” Iskall confirmed. He crossed his arms. “Guess we'll just have to find them and give their hand back!”

“Yeah, what a great ice breaker. ‘Hello, we found your detached limb, nice to meet you!’” Grian agreed wholeheartedly. “Hey, maybe it'll be another one of our old buddies that Cultie can introduce us to! Wels, you recognize this hand at all?”

Wels shook his head. “No, unless something drastic happened in the last few months, I'm pretty sure we've covered all of the cyborgs. I mean, there's Gru- but, no, that wouldn't work. Cultie, do you recognize it? You seem to know more than me about this whole situation, and Hels still isn't talking.” 

It was hard to distinguish Cultie’s face from under his hood, but he seemed to have recovered from his shock. “Um…no,” he said at the pace of someone who was being paid by the minute to give a twelve-word speech. “No, I don’t think any of you would recognize it.”