Black Cat

Chapter 2: Bad Luck

On the morning after their meeting, the sun rises barely over the horizon just past the trees. The boy lays there between the side of a house and a rusty sheet of metal propped up on it. Below him sits a small brown sleeping bag that's riddled with holes.

Stuffing is scattered around him from a few old stuffed toys as he shakily breathes in and out due to his shivering. He had been forced to sleep through a colder night than usual and he slowly began to wake up from his not-so-restful sleep.

Eyes opening, he takes in a large breath of cold, crisp air. His limbs begin to move as he starts to sit up, and his short black hair is ruffled into an even greater mess than normal.

Lifting his head, he glares in front of him and feels the aching of his muscles. His back is stiff and his eyebrow twitches from irritation. * Great. What a wonderful start. * He thought to himself while slinking out from under his makeshift shelter.

Standing up, he brushes himself off and both his arms grab one another in a self-embrace. Sighing, he notices his own breath fade into the air and he reaches down for his brown bag of trash.

Picking it up, it makes a sort of crinkling sound and sways slightly from right to left. Opening it, Andri looks inside and starts to try and find the least rotten thing in it, making him end up picking a type of fish. Examining it, he couldn't really tell what kind of fish it was due to its rotten and mangled appearance, but he didn't care all that much since there weren't many options at the moment.

Reluctantly taking a bite of it, he cringes and slowly chews it. The smell wasn't exactly fresh, and the taste was rancid. It took all he had to choke the slimy thing down until the fish was nothing but a head with a skeleton attached. Eyes watery, he slowly puts the bag down and throws the remains to the side.

It was about time now that he left this place and got himself some warmer clothes before ending up freezing to death in his sleep. So, with a quick scan of the area ahead of him, he makes his way to a small store just on the other side of the woods.

Once he had made it to the woods and after going in between some of the houses on Bark Wood street, he started to notice some strange smells. Most of it just smelled like the waste from the woodland creatures, but there was a sort of iron smell in the mix.

The corners of his mouth pull down into a deep frown when he smells this and he clenches his teeth hoping that it's most likely just a dead animal. He hopes for this, but as he gets further and further into the woods, he starts to hear something.

Stopping in his tracks, he listens closely and hears a faint crunching of the leaves. It sounded rhythmic in a way and it was only getting louder and louder. It was footsteps by the sounds of it, so he quickly realized that it must be a human.

Scared, he immediately looks around and finds a large rock to hide behind. Spotting one near an old-looking tree to his left, Andri leaps towards it to try and keep from crunching the leaves and twigs on his way over.

Once he got to it, he leaned his back against the moss-covered rock and took in a few short breaths. His heart pounding in his chest while the sound of their feet got close enough to be practically right behind him.

Because they had gotten so close, he could smell an incredibly strong scent of rotten fish like the snack he had before, but it was mixed with the smell of rusted iron. The breath of the person he also noticed was worryingly shallow. This surprised him, making him think that maybe the blood belonged to them.

Thinking about this, he started to weigh his options. He could put himself in harm's way to try and save this person or run away so that he could get away. With these two things in mind, Andri steels his heart to keep the fear from overwhelming it and slowly moved up just enough to see who it was.

As his eyes adjust, his heart nearly stops. Just a few feet away from him, he saw the girl from yesterday. Her stomach was covered in blood and her right arm was laying over it. She was wearing a dirty turquoise hoodie and jeans with a ripped short black skirt over the jeans. Her long brown hair was a mess in contrast to yesterday and her face looked distorted with pain.

Registering what he's seeing, his feet begin to move by themselves and he comes out from hiding. "Lu-Luna?" He stutters a bit as he slowly moves closer.

Surprised, Luna jolts awake from her lethargic, zombie-like state and starts trying to turn and run but fails as her foot snags on one of the roots sticking out from the ground. Falling, she hits the ground with a thud, yelping from the pain in her foot and stomach.

Watching this, Andri gets increasingly scared and worried, causing him to grab her by her left arm. "What're you doing!? Why are you hurt!?" He yells, his hand shaking as it clutches onto her arm.

"Ow! Let me go!" She yelps back, making him realize he was holding her too tightly. Releasing his hand, he watches as she rubs her arm and says, "I-I'm not sure why this is happening.. I...went back to the fence from yesterday.....I was looking for a story and...It-It just-" She stops and looks away while her expression remains full of pain.

Narrowing his eyes, Andri stares daggers at her for even trying to do something so dumb. "Ok. Hold on." He says with a sigh. "What?" She asks before suddenly getting picked up. "Wh-What!?" She yells, feeling alarmed by the act.

"What are-""Shut up." He interrupts her with an irritated tone. "It figures that I got myself into something like this as soon as I decided to come out from behind that rock."

This statement confuses Luna, making her look to him questioningly. "What do you mean?"

"We're being watched." He says frankly, his answer making Luna's eyes widen. "WHA-" She stammers, soon biting her tongue when Andri goes into a full-on sprint. Clinging onto Andri as tightly as her weakened arms would allow, she looks over his shoulder in confusion and sees a man wearing dark clothing pursuing them.

The man was wearing a large, dark grey western type hat and a long trench coat. She could tell he had a large stature even from where they were, and it only got more apparent as he got closer. This made her tense up and make a scared whimper sound after burying her head into Andri's chest.

Getting more winded by the second, Andri knew he couldn't keep this up much longer, especially when he's carrying an injured person. Frustrated, he makes a sort of low grumble and scans the area as well as he could while moving. Then, in a split-second decision, he makes a sharp right turn.

His feet skid a bit because of the soft ground, and he tries to reach the rapidly declining hill near the river. The large man, now even closer thanks to the sudden turn, is now only about a foot away from the two when he reaches out his hand and barely breaks off a few strands of hair from Andri's head.

Now sliding down the hill between a few trees, Luna screams in Andri's ear, making him lose his footing. Andri begins to tumble down the hill the rest of the way and their speed only increases as the boy uses his body to protect Luna as much as possible.

The last thing that Andri sees before consequently blacking out, is a large log and the loud sound of the leaves and twigs crunching under their weight.