The Corrupted Soul

Chapter 6

I shivered as my body finally began to process the extreme cold around me, the icy water bit into my skin as the night's breeze somehow managed to make it even colder.

Olive helped me stand up, "Oh my God...are you okay?"

I looked at her, and shakily nodded as my jaw began to chatter - for once for a normal reason, "More or less."

I weakly shook myself off, attempting to remove the bulk of the water in my clothing and hair, that pond was far from clean. Olive looked very concerned, "Let's get home...it isn't safe out here for you."

I snapped my head to her, "What?! We can't go back, you saw that thing! Wait, did you? Were you here this whole time?"

"I heard a screech that was clearly a threat, in one other than your voice, from this park. I knew something was wrong, so I came over just in time to see that thing take off into the trees. Because there was a massive hole in the ice and you were nowhere to be seen, I figured there was only one place you could be.

"That being said, clearly that guy has been here for a long time yet. And he hasn't hurt a single human, though he tried attacking you. Clearly, it isn't safe for us out here without being prepared, and now you are half frozen. We are going back home so you can thaw yourself out before we try to think of something to do."

I hissed and narrowed my eyes at the girl, "You can't make me leave while that thing is on a rampage."

Suddenly Olive wrapped two Crawler legs around my torso and chest, before picking me up off the ground and beginning to walk back towards her house, "Actually, yes I can."

I hissed in my surprise, and I tried to push or fight against her, but my limbs truly did not want to co-operate. My hands were practically useless, and my legs kept giving out. My Crawler legs seemed to be as flimsy as half-cooked pasta. With a resigned growl, I reluctantly let Olive forcefully carry me back to her house.

At least no one will be seeing this...

○ ○ ○

I hated to admit I was thankful Olive could be more stubborn than I was. Once we had gotten back to her house, and after taking a shower to get the dirty pond water off myself, it was nice to be inside. Something about it felt safe, even though I still knew whatever that Feral's problem was, it was likely still in a dangerous mood.

I sat Cross legged on my bed, with Martian laying beside me, asleep and snoring quietly as I absently pet his back. The only light in the room was my desk lamp, as Olive attempted to draw out what we had seen.

"So it looked like the Crawler from the lab, but much bigger and scarier."

"That's the long and the short of it. I wish I knew why it was so mad at me right away."

She glanced over her shoulder at me, "Maybe you were trespassing on his territory?"

I slowly shook my head, "No, he didn't have any official territory set up. Crawlers have different screeches, and the most common back in the Crawler Era were territorial screeches. It basically claimed an area for a night, but if the same area was claimed repeatedly, it was almost like our instincts knew it was claimed, even without hearing the call. The screech he gave out was a hunting cry, normally it would stun deer or other animals out of hiding.

"You always know when you trespass on another's territory. It's the same as when you approach a nest that you're not welcome in, You get this...uneasy feeling in your gut that makes you want to turn the other way, and your instincts detest it."

She raised an eyebrow slowly, "Isn't that exactly what happened to you?"

I sighed, "No, sadly. That would be easier to explain. No, it was very similar but...different. I didn't feel uneasy, I felt...scared. As if being in the presence of that thing was enough to make me forget that I used to hunt them for Maria Krale and Harris Spinne."

It was still strange to call them by their full names, even after all this time, but I knew Olive wouldn't know them on a first name basis. The biologist and the fighter were long dead, even before I was revived, but I knew they made their mark.

Maria wrote a book enclosing nearly all her findings on Crawlers and what made them tick, and that book was still around to this day. I had a copy on my shelf, in fact.

My name was in the dedications, despite being dead for years before she compiled her book together. I almost felt guilty, Harris had been infected because I had bit him in a bloodlust driven rage, thus leading to the discovery that those infected by me would remain sane. Maria had lost her leg in a fight that I had been unconscious during, though she managed to survive, miraculously.

I shook my head to return to the waking world, surfacing from the tidal wave of thoughts that I had gotten lost in. Olive knew exactly what had happened, for some reason all sane Crawlers seemed to get entranced in their own thoughts at times, unable to wake up for minutes at a time, it was simply a symptom we dealt with.

Examining the paper in front of her on her desk, Olive sneered and promptly crumpled it into a ball before tossing it to the trash bin. The sound of crumpling paper caused Martian to jolt awake and look around, I chuckled and scratched his chin, causing him to lazily roll over and fall right back asleep.

I inhaled slowly, and looked back at Olive, "Maybe we should follow his example. The moon is still pretty much covered up, so we should manage some sleep before Clem wants us back."

She turned in the desk chair, "It's only four AM though."

"Yes, but personally, I'd rather not have to deal with Clem when I'm tired. You know how irritable that place makes me already, besides, no telling when the next time we might be able to sleep is."

She yawned silently, "Fair point, fair point. See you tomorrow."

She stood up, flicked the desk lamp off, and slowly walked towards the door. I nodded to her, "Be prepared to explain what the hell happened out there to everyone."

With an exasperated sigh, she looked over her shoulder, "Oh we are both dreading this."

"Without a doubt."

She closed the door, and I heard her walk upstairs to her own room.