Desert debris kicked up in billowing gusts, swirling across the barren landscape studded with rubble and crumbling cities. The climate rose to heights that scorched the remaining forests looming beyond the horizon. Sunlight blazed across the dusty ground, threatening to create fires from the dead foliage. Animals and people alike were unable to inhabit the environment, leaving the empty space quiet. It made everything perfect for thieves to steal from unsuspecting travelers.
Ritter walked confidently across a particularly massive bare stretch, hiding his face in his cloak tugging over his mouth. The heat didn't bother him in the slightest, he had become accustomed to it ages ago. Walking along, his boots thumping on the ground, he treaded a path that held no course. His right hand held his cloak close to his face, keeping the fabric from blowing back due to the violent wind. A small shadowed connected to his feet lingered behind his figure hunched against the weather.
Heat and the sun didn't bother him however, his entire concentration and focus on an seemingly abandoned bag just resting in the sand, patiently awaiting for him to search its contents. Raking his dark brown eyes side to side, searching for the bag's owner, he found no one in sight. Unfortunately, he didn't take care to think of a person behind a massive cluster of boulders several feet to his left.
Hearing not a work spoken either, Ritter cautiously approached the bag, briefly wondering if the whole set was indeed a trap. In this world and time, a trap wasn't uncommon, but this didn't seem to be the case. "Intriguing," he mumbled, using his expansive vocabulary, though the single word did little to voice his thoughts.
The bag was a dirty, red color, and he assumed at some point it was a vibrant shade of hot pink. Now it was reduced to grimy brown splotched color with dark smears of a substance he knew not of. Flies buzzed lazily around the zipper of the bag, landing to rub their legs before taking flight once more. Ritter wrinkled his nose at the foul smell wafting in a wide circle around the bag, growing stronger the closer he inched forward.
"Disgusting," he muttered in disdain, rethinking all ideas of investing the bag. Ritter doubted their were anything of worth, much less precious antiques that he could hoard in the pockets and folds of his clothes and cloak. Money matter little in this age, but he enjoyed stashing away what could be valuable. "Just a peek, it'd be an insult to the bag." He made his decision, and pulled the zipper back with a sharp jerk.
A plumb of rotting flesh attacked his face, causing him to use all his self control not to gag. Swallowing the bile burning in his throat, Ritter blinked at the water stinging his eyes and sudden urge to blow his nose. His fingers felt something wet and pulpy, dampening his skin with a liquid he soon discovered to be blood. When he slowly revealed the secret, he stared for several long moments at the remnants of a slap of human meat soaking in luke warm blood soaking through the plastic bag.
Ritter kneeled with the flesh resting in his hand, dripping beads of red, completely stunned. What and who in the world wanted to feast on human flesh cooking the heat of the desert sun in a place that used to be Texas? A frown of deep concentration marred the normally placid complexion on his face. He dropped the clump in the sand, and rummaged through the rest of the bag to find several more rotting pieces of meat. He barely noticed the person looming above him, an abnormally large knife wavering above his head.
Ritter cocked his head, noticing the figure's shadow lurking above him, and immediately stood as the blade came rushing down. He made not a single sound, a blur of cloak as he whirled around.
A girl with dark hair in knots and tangles stared back at him with a grim look of determination etched on her face. Her lips were pursed with what he thought was disappointment. "I'll make a nice meal out of you," Flora growled like an animal, but her voice was a mere whisper.
"No need for that," Ritter mumbled out, his words rising and then falling in volume. He didn't meet the girl's eyes, who appeared younger, in her late teens. His hands reached inside his coat, fingers curling around the handle of a pocket knife.
Flora rose a brow, but didn't reply to him. Instead she crept forward slowly, taking her time to decide her next move.
Ritter revealed his knife, pointing the metal at her. If it came down to it, he would be prepared for a nasty fight. It wasn't his first rodeo, and he didn't think a simple knife fight would be his final. "I'll be leaving," he stated firmly, inching back.
Shuffling one foot in front of the other, Flora regarded the older man in front of her. She couldn't recognize much of his face, but she noticed he had a brown hair with red hints that reminded her of rust. He knew her secret that she was a cannibal, and that was something she wanted to keep hidden forever.
Ritter shifted his feet to move far away, locking his gaze on her movements, but never fully locking eyes on her. As he turned his back to leave, he missed her dash forward, waving her knife like a banshee. When he slightly turned his head, he rose his hand on instinct, and that's when Ritter Crawford lost his fore finger on his right hand.
Flora's knife cut down to the bone, chopping off his finger with ease. She relished the way the appendage left his hand, flopping to the ground, and she found herself wishing it would wriggle. Her mouth watered as she imagined tasting the metallic blood.
Ritter screamed in a blend of horror and pain, hissing like an angry cat through his teeth. He twisted his blade, reflecting the bright light off the metal, shining it in her eyes. Blood gushed from the wound, splashing red puddles onto the sand. It soaked the front of his cloak a deep, dark scarlet.
"Hey!" Flora shouted, shielding her eyes in pain of the flash. Her prey was getting away! She was running out of food, she couldn't let him get away!
"Blasphemy," Ritter snarled out in a sudden flare of rage, clutching his injured hand close to his stomach, ignoring the blood rushing from his body, and drenching his shirt that stuck to annoyingly to his skin. He wasted no time taking off at a run, leaving Flora and her bag of flesh behind.
When Flora recovered from her momentary blindness, sitting in the sand while her sight came back, she peered around in confusion at the missing sight of her prey. She rubbed her eyes, biting back a moan of dismay. "What am I going to eat now? I would like something fresh once in a blue moon."
She crawled on her hands and knees towards her back, eyeing the trail of fresh blood soaking the ground towards the West. The temptation to follow it increased every breath she took. Flora shook her head, knowing that man was far out of her league. He was clever, and shouldn't be taken for a fool.
Instead, she began putting her belongings back inside her backpack before searching for a certain item. At last, she held up an old book frayed at the edges. "Not a speck of blood!" she exclaimed happily, holding it to her breasts. Flora giggled, pleased her book wasn't ruined. In fact, the good news called for an early lunch.
