Children of the Tilts (ON HOLD)

IV

Pain lulled me to sleep in the frightening rushing rivers, and pain brutally ripped me out from it.

I gasped, a name awkwardly tumbling out of my lips. "Patrick!"

"Ooh," I heard Dalton's voice, he had a certain tone of voice that sounded like a joke was lightly pressing against the edge of his words. "Good dream?"

I blinked slowly, like an owl with a concussion. It took a moment for his words to register. "P-Perv!" I managed, trying to reach out my hand to smack his shoulder. But as soon as I raised my finger places in my body that I didn't know had the ability to feel pain screamed at me to stop, a burning rush of mind-numbing pain rippled through me, starting from my ankle, I remembered it being clawed into nothingness by... I couldn't remember what. It was like an astronomically big piranha, but with the amber eyes of a zombie. Do piranhas have amber eyes naturally? Even so, something about that creature was zombie-esque.

"Are you okay?" Dalton asked, carefully placing his hand on my shoulder, as if testing how much he could touch me without his spine being snapped in half via my knee. I gave him a warning glance, silently telling him that anything more than the hand on my shoulder would deliver dire consequences.

"Just... just tell me I can still walk..." I sighed, leaning back to the pillow.

He retracted his hand, "What?"

"My-- My ankle." I peeled away the blanket, now sticky and drenched in my sweat and a couple droplets of blood. I scanned my ankle, switching it over to examine for any wounds. Nope. Just a fleshy pink scar twisting on the top of my foot.

"How...?"

"Don't worry about it." Dalton said simply. "Hey, Caden?"

I was too overwhelmed by the miraculous healing of my ankle to answer him with anything besides a grunt. "Hm?"

"Who's Patrick?"

My glare shot up to him. I blinked at him again, my lips staying clamped together. I refused the tempting idea to trust this kid and his sketchy cult. Nobody had scolded me for punching South, nobody had questioned me for being an outsider, except for the ominous whisper everywhere I went. If it wasn't a group with enough cojones to call me out on my faults, it wasn't a group for me.

"Listen," Dalton bit at me, shattering my wall of thoughts. "If you're not going to trust me enough to come out of your shell, then leave!" He knotted his fingers through his short hair, "You got some serious trust issues, if you look like you're going to chop me into sushi with Blouse, or whatever its name is."

"Bowtie," I spat in a low voice, jumping out of the bed, surprising myself with the amount of pain that had subsided from my system. "And excuse me if I don't trust a cult who resurrected the fucking deceased!!" I stormed out of the cabin, slamming the door.

Tears burned my eyes, I hastily swiped them away with my wrist. Crying was weak.

I found the toppled over weapons closet, climbed over it, and found Bowtie, which had been discarded when I fell into the river. I scooped it up and plopped down on the side of the river, careful to avoid the mushier parts where it might cave into the dark and horrifying waters.

I reached over and gathered a handful of the greenish water and pressed it to my face, letting the coolness soak into my pores and filling my skin with a numb layer of peace. I took a deep breath, letting my clashing emotions calm. I took another breath, laying down and letting the mud tangle up my choppy hair. The peace felt like water extinguishing the fire that was slowly building on my bones, from the friction of stress. The breaths were more and more cleansing.

When I opened my eyes, I met dark brown, Asian eyes that looked on the verge of murder. Before I could call out, her fist crashed into my nose, instantly sprouting blood to coat her fist. I yelped, clawing into the mud, trying to find a hold to hoist myself up. Her hands came around my formerly injured ankle and yanked, and I flew into a tree that was about a foot away. Pain ripped through my side.

I dug my nails into the soft bark and pulled myself up. "What the hell?!" I screamed.

She gripped the back of my head and slammed it into the front of the tree, making more blood coat the tree. I gasped, breathing in some dirt that choked me and dried my throat.

I gagged on blood and dirt, desperately trying to identify my attacker. She punched my throat, and every thought of air I'd ever been graced with was ripped from my lungs. I hurk-ed and fell, finding a forlorn gun that had fallen from the weapons closet. I clawed through the dirt, scrambling to catch it.

"Not on my watch," she growled and stamped on my hand. I yelped, but I used her distraction to pick up a sharp rock about the size of my fist with my free hand. I stabbed it into her ankle. She mirrored my yelp and released my hand. I pushed my weight into my arms and leaped up, backhanding her so hard I heard a crack.

"Fuck!!" She yelled, falling against the tree. 

I grabbed a fistful of her raven hair that was bleached at the ends, tangled it through my fingers and yanked down so hard it was ripped from her scalp. She full on screamed, grabbing at the bare spot on her head.

"Blech," I grunted, dropping the free pieces of hair. The girl's eyes were watery with tears of pain, but I wasn't done yet.

I shook out my fist and balled it up, punching her with such force my arm vibrated with an uneasy fuzz.

She fell on the muddy ground and I kneeled onto her stomach, pressing my thumb into the socket of her eye, pressing as hard as I could. I had no idea where I learned these tricks, it felt as if someone was filling them into my brain as they were needed. "Who... the fuck... are you?!" I hissed through breaths.

Her hands reached to ym sides and dug her fingers into them, making me gasp in pain and smash my fist again onto her face.

She overpowered me, flipping me onto the bank of the river, so close the water graced my mud-crusted hair. I clawed at her, "Let me go!"

She grabbed my head and forced it into the rushing waters. A fearful thought crept into my brain that the blood that was gushing from every inch of my face would arouse whatever lay in the bottom of the fast river.

She pulled my head out and I swallowed breath like it was candy.

"My name is Fai," the girl spat, "Fai Kyong. You killed my family, now I'm going to kill you. Slowly."