This is not exactly a very good version. Will keep editing and improving.
3 – The Sun
Miz Rable appeared on the surface around four hours after sunrise. He was a speck on the baking, sweltering hot surface. He cursed under his breath. He covered his head with the cloth he had borrowed from the dead Other, along with his clothes. Rable’s old tattered clothes were no good at keeping away the sunlight. These new ones, even though several sizes smaller, protected him fairly well.
He turned towards east, where the sun, though heating the earth rapidly, still hung low.
Three hours later, he had covered five miles. A sort of shantytown, earlier inhabited by surface-dwellers, provided shelter from the heat. Smoke rose from one of the gaps in the undulating mass of tin roofs, torn cloth, and other desperate means of protection. Rable walked faster, moving swiftly towards the source of the smoke. When he reached the house – if you could call it a house, so quaintly it merged with the other dwellings – he slowed down and sneaked silently. He slithered along the wall till he reached a gap which you could call a window, and quickly glanced inside. Not a soul was to be seen, though he saw the hastily extinguished fire in the centre of the room. He slipped inside. He then saw a piece of paper, with something scribbled on it, on the torn mattress by one of the walls. He picked it up. This is what it said: T- We are going back to the World-Under. Our work is done. All things arranged. Heat getting too much, can’t wait till you come back. Good luck – V.
So the girl will be back, thought Miz. He found some food, which he gratefully ate, even though it stank and had obviously gone bad. Then he saw the girl coming towards the hut. At the same moment, the girl saw him, and was momentarily stunned. Miz thought, I can talk to her; If she doesn’t want to talk, I have my knife to defend myself.
All that hope disappeared when the girl drew her gun and broke into a run. Miz shouted to her, “I come as a friend! I won’t hurt you!” The girl increased her speed, and a frown appeared on her face.
Miz ran for it. He smashed through the back door, running, fleeing for his life.
*
Tris ran after the man. As she drew close, she saw the Others’ symbol on his back. A sudden burst of adrenaline made her run even faster. She had entered the outlying areas of the Shantytown. Running up a tin wall of short house, she vaulted up to the roof, which was connected to all roofs of the Shantytown, in an organic manner, almost like the settlement was a live being, extending its tentacles in a wild, hideous but uniting fashion. She jumped from rooftop to rooftop, never letting the Other leave her sight. She heard the man shout for peace, but she was not going to believe an Other all that easily. Shooting first, talking later. She turned off the safety on her gun.
*
Miz Rable suddenly realized that he was wearing the Other insignia on his back. He cursed himself and ripped away the tunic. Maybe the girl would stop following him. His exposed back burnt and protested at the heat of the sun. He relegated the pain to the back of his mind, focusing his energy on running. He had never felt fear before. He had always had a physical advantage over his opponents. But a gun was something everybody feared, because even the strongest man could not withstand more than four bullets. Certainly not when the man was weakened by exposure to the sun and had no access to medicine, in addition to being irradiated. The distance between the girl and him was decreasing every second. His strength was flagging, his speed reducing. Just then, his foot hit a rock.
*
As Tris saw the Other fall, she came to an abrupt halt. Without hesitating, she took aim and shot him once in the small of his back, knowing that he would be rendered immobile but alive long enough for her to interrogate him. The bullet's aim was true.
*
Rable felt something shatter in his back, a moment before it exploded in pain. His legs went numb and he could see blood ooze out the bullet hole. No, bullet holes. The projectile had made its way out of Miz's gut. He grabbed his stomach, but the blood still oozed out, cherry-red, like paint spilled on a canvas. The girl knelt next to him. She asked him, “Where are the other people? Have you killed them?”
The Skinner grimaced. “Girl, I don’t belong to the Others. I, let’s just say borrowed, the clothes from one. You just killed nobody. Ain't there no prize for killing me.”
The girl stiffened at the insult.
“I have other uses for your body.”
She smiled chillingly, her voice full of the unconstrained happiness which arises out of the silver lining in an unfortunate situation. “Die now. You have a few minutes.”
As she got up, Rable noticed the long scar on the girl’s forearm. He laughed, despite the blood streaming out of his mouth.
*
Tris was puzzled by the man’s laughter. She had initially been shocked by the man’s visage, which looked unusually like the Overlord’s. Then she had regained control, and noticed that the head was not quite the same shape, the patches of skin not in the right places. Years of studying the pictures and files had familiarized Tris to the minutiae of the Overlord's known details. The Other Overlord had been radiation affected, which made him lose patches of his skin, and lent him a hideous appearance. He had managed to purify himself in time, though, and had rallied his friends, making use of his keen intellect to create shelters above ground for the privileged – the crème de la crème of the still surviving section of society.
She had already formulated a plan in her mind, and decided what to do with the soon to be dead man. The man tried to say something, but blood surged up his mouth. A maniacal look still lingered in his eyes as he died.
Slowly, life ebbed out of him. Then, Tris closed the man’s eyelids, and took hold of his arms. With a deft movement, she hauled him up on her shoulders. She began the long walk back to the World-Under-The-Earth, dragging with her Miz Rable’s lifeless body. The daughter carried her father's burden. Literally.
