005.
//In Which Liria has a New Empathetic Relationship with Roadkill//
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Outsider's guest house is located in a small village surrounded entirely by a pine forest, situated right next to a series of cliffs. Some rich people like to build their houses right next to the edges to admire the scenery.
Apparently, a steep drop of pine trees for nearly three hundred feet next to the highway and then to possible doom via falling is risky and exciting.
Unfortunately, these said rich people did not take any safety precautions, including what happens if a landslide happens.
Or if somebody climbs out one of the viewing windows from, say, a restroom entirely coated with blood, and starts rolling down the buffer zone to the cliffs.
*.* .*.
Liria falls.
It's a hard fall, a short fall; and for a second, they can vividly imagine their ribcage giving in, their breaths coming out in short pants as they fall and splatter on the ground like an overripe fruit, bouncing all the way down the cliff like a ballistic and slightly squishy bouncy ball. They can imagine their blood spraying, the force of their body hitting the ground tearing muscle and shattering bone and mangled beyond comprehension, leaving streaks and smears all the way to the bottom.
Falling off a cliff is a messy, and very potentially not nice death.
But they aren't falling off a cliff.
They are hitting the buffer zone, full of pines and other spiky things that might turn them into a sheesh kabab.
The rule of a cat is to always land on your feet, even if it means shattering your shin bones, breaking a hip and impaling yourself on your own weapon. And if Liria learned anything, it's that falling is a very natural thing to them and that they haven't fallen off anything high, pushed or otherwise, for a very long time.
Not long enough to forget how, though.
They twist, the wind hitting ripping at their clothing, rocks and pebbles smacking them in the arms as they cover their head, and reach out, snagging a passing fir branch. The gloves take most of the impact, but Liria can feel their arm yank as they bend their knees, relaxing slightly as their feet hit loam and soil, slowing down considerably into a more controllable roll.
The moving momentum forces them to let go, but they aren't worried as they skid slightly, one arm curled over their head as they protect themself from the fall and the other clutching the backpack closer to their chest.
Liria risks a glance behind them, wincing as they see Barney's not so child friendly cousin skid out the front door. The second one. The thing that used to be BoxDragon.
In the sunlight, the newly turned Barney the Second cut an imposing sight. Golden eyes are huge on its skull, and Liria saw it snap it's jaw excitedly as it stumbles slightly, chains still dangling from its neck like a goth fashion statement.
The older glitch replied by shoving it down the hill, before following with a strong leap.
Liria distinctively remembers they should at least have a fifty foot head start.
That distance is quickly being minimized because unlike Liria, those things can lope of four legs.
At this point, any normal human being would have probably been reduced to a mess of bruises and scrapes. Liria internally thanked the fact they aren't exactly human and then promptly hit a bush.
YOU ARE READING
Glitched.
Fanfiction(AKA: I wrote over 60,000 words on a weak noodle man trying to survive not getting skewered by magic zombies. ) Sometimes, you are very small when faced against the world. Liria knows this- knows the smell of copper and rot intimately with the flic...
