Insomnia Wake #Wattys2016

Chapter 14 - When The Job Is Done Leave Before Someone Gives You More Work

Buddy landed his rocket couch down in the forest. A large group of blightmares had reportedly been seen in the area and were wreaking havoc, so it was our job to stop them. We all hopped off.

"I sure don't see anything," said Buddy.

"Me neither," agreed Ariel. "We didn't even see one from the air."

"Do you reckon that I could take one of these on my own?" I asked.

"You?" said Buddy. "Yeah, even you would be able to take one of these things. Well, as long as you can dodge their charges that is."

How reassuring... "In that case why don't we split up and meet back here in a little bit? If we spot them we can get the other two and take them down!"

Buddy laughed. "I said you could take down one, not all of them! These guys hunt in packs, so you won't just find one alone. Take Ariel with you. Splitting up into two groups should be enough."

Well thank you for your confidence in me... not. I sighed. "You heard him, let's get searching Ariel."

She pouted. "Why do I have to be the one to go with him?"

Don't say it like it's an insult!

"Because we both know that I'm stronger than you, so it's more balanced that way. See you later!" He took off running into the trees. I don't know if he just didn't want to haul it around everywhere or if he wanted to keep it out of harm's way, but he left his couch behind.

I sighed. "Whatever. We might be able to get this task down a little bit faster this way. I wish we didn't have to do all the cleanup jobs."

Ariel pouted and turned away. "You get paired with a beautiful girl and still complain?! How ungrateful!"

"Beautiful girl?! Where?!" I teased.

She popped a bubble next to my ear and made me recoil in pain.

"I was kidding, sheesh," I said, rubbing my ear.

"Sven... n't... that," she mumbled.

"What? All I understood was 'that.'"

"Nothing! Let's survey the area!"

She forced us onto her typical flying bubbles, and we drifted around above the treetops.

I thought we were done with this mode of travel, but I guess not.

-----

It wasn't too long before we reconvened.

"They should be around here, right?"

The three of us had searched the forest, but instead of blightmares all we found were uprooted trees and claw marks. No actual monsters were anywhere in sight.

"There were at least," I said. "I mean I memorized the map and everything, this is the spot."

"Did they maybe move?" asked Ariel.

Buddy shook his head. "No. If I've learned anything from my time as a blightmare hunter, it's that boar type blightmares don't move that fast. Even if they did, they tend to dawdle around an area for a long time."

Ariel jumped up a tree, then looked out from on top of it. "Hey! I think I see something!" She pointed towards a clearing. Ironically it was a place that we had already checked.

Buddy shrugged, and we all headed that way. When we reached the plain area we saw something that we hadn't expected.

Ariel ran up to a semi-transparent boar that was laying on its side. "It's nearly faded! Someone must have already taken care of all of them before we got here!"