Lunar Virus ✔️

Chapter Thirty-four: Elodie

Sheila is the first to spot the owner of the sludgy footprints.

I ponder the extent of her ability to see with such clarity in the dark as I swallow in effort to moisten my throat. All around, the walls are muddy and so is the ground beneath us. Water streams towards us, just to the left of our feet and continues to flow behind us, and I briefly wonder if it's drinkable.

I barely have time to absorb my surroundings as Sheila charges forward to tackle the figure.

Beside me, Jayne winces as Sheila collides heavily into someone, and I cringe as a low whine of pain vibrates shrilly through the air. Sheila, however slight, could knock someone out cold in five seconds flat, which is something I've always admired greatly. To this day, even after my training in the Facility, I've still never been able to completely knock someone out.

"Ouch! Get off me!" a voice, vaguely recognizable, moans. I fish around for a name to match the voice and come up short. But somewhere, in the back of my mind, a name wants to float out. It's on the tip of my tongue, just not yet fully formed. Fish, float. The words echo in my mind along with the words 'water' and 'thirst'.

Dev snickers slightly as Sheila shoves her elbow into her prisoner's upper back and another yelp of pain sounds.

Jayne turns to me, eyebrows raised in curiosity. I shrug and stride over to them, feeling a whirl of nerves and impatience. Trying not to think about the time we are wasting, I kneel beside Sheila and squint at the face of the person; pinched nose and noodly arms tell me all I need to know.

Oh.

I resist the urge to sigh as I identify him as Moby. Moby, who'd been lovingly dubbed by us as Moby Dick.

"I can explain!" he wheezes, "Just . . . Sheila, get the hell off me!"

Reluctantly, Sheila releases Moby, and he flips himself off his stomach and onto his back. "Why are you here?" she snaps, not even giving him enough time to catch his breath.

"Dungworth told me to follow you," he pants and holds his throat as he chokes on some spit.

"Oh, stop being so dramatic!" Sheila hisses, "You're perfectly fine, spit it out!" Even in the dark, I can sense the annoyance radiating from her fiercely. I'm pretty sure I've been acquainted with ovens that are cooler than her temper.

"There was a tracker in your car, idiots. It said that you were at this gas station, but by the time I came here, you guys were long gone. So I came in to grab some beef jerky and--"

Moby is interrupted by a snort coming from Dev as he struggles to hold in laughter and is quickly shut down with an annoyed growl.

"Anyway," Moby grinds out, "I went to get some beef jerky and somehow ended up here, all in effort to try to help you."

"Help us?" Sheila glowers dangerously at him, "You were just about the jerkiest asshole in that entire establishment! You tried to sabotage us in that simulation, and you pulled Elie into a tree and tried to kill him!"

Moby draws back, as if offended. "Um, actually, I was helping you. What do you think would have happened if I didn't pull Elie into that tree? Oh, that's right, you would've been completely oblivious to the dangers of the Facility, and you wouldn't have known that Diane Warhol was infected. You would probably be dead."

Sheila pulls back thoughtfully as she processes this information, and I myself take some time to think about what he's said. In a way, Moby is completely right. If we had stayed at the Facility, we would have been infected--we would have been dead.

I shake off the daunting thought and gesture for him to get up. "We're wasting time. Come on."

He nods comically and lifts himself from the ground. "You are completely right," he states authoritatively as he brushes dust off from the seat of his pants. "You wanna know why everywhere you go is basically completely void of human life?" he questions as he walks.