Sun shafts descended through the crumbling ruins of the city in the distance, the vegetation that had subsumed the buildings visible even in silhouette, framed by the setting sun. Light sparkled prettily through the distance as the river wound toward the ruins of Riverport, weaving in and out of the trees that had sprouted up almost to the city itself. David could see the apartments that he’d been living in for the last two years from his position high above the river, soaring lazily as he rode the fading updrafts. He yawned for probably the thousandth time in the last hour, his eyes feeling gritty and sore from exhaustion as he continued to scan the endless treetops ahead of them. Seeing nothing of interest he wheeled around slowly, circling to the east and looping back over Kai as he flapped laboriously through the air with a little more than half of the bear they’d killed together.
When they had realized they could only carry one of the carcasses back Claire had solved the problem by simply eating half of one, allowing Kai to lift the newly lightened load. She carried the remaining tusked bear herself, its legs swinging disturbingly from her jaws as she steadily stomped along the riverbank toward their destination. David screeched encouragingly as he swung above the reptile in question and killed his altitude with a lazy swoop, gravel crunching under his claws as he landed and loped to keep pace with her.
“Hey Claire, we’ll be there right before nightfall or during. I went and got a look like you asked.” David barked up at her as he ran, “No lights, no cars, nothin’. Looks like I remember from when I flew out. Couldn’t see the park from here, though.”
“Murf furrh, canbt tah. Rrr weh der yeh?” Claire mumbled around the carcass and stared at him expectantly.
“Uhh…well put.” David bounced over a large boulder nestled in the gravel of the riverbank ahead of him and flapped a few times for altitude, “I’ll go check in with Kai, see where we’re crossing at and how long it’ll be. I’ll be right back.”
Claire growled in acknowledgment as David flapped away into the air, rising steadily until he was once again above the tree line. He fixed his eyes on Kai who was still flapping along slowly ahead of them, huge golden wings rising and falling in a steady rhythm. David increased his speed to overtake the enormous bird and soon felt the wind tugging on his mane and threatening to flatten his ears to his skull as he surged forward. Small eddies and currents in the wind bumped and pushed into him as he flew, bringing with them a confusing tangle of scents from fresh cool water to the heavy smell of blood from Kai’s overweight luggage. David smiled a bit despite himself as he took it all in, shooting a glance through the cooling evening air towards the city he’d lived in his entire life from a point of view he never thought he’d find himself in.
You know, I’m never gonna get tired of flying like this. It’s fun. Learning helped distract me the first few days, I think I would have freaked out otherwise…Damn, David, focus. Just catch up and ask him, we can sleep when we get there.
David shook his head hard, wobbling a bit in the air and correcting himself before he powered over the last bit of distance and fell into a Glide, wings flapping only occasionally to regain altitude. He drifted slightly above Kai’s right wing as the bird turned his head entirely around to regard him, making David hiss with surprise before he felt foolish. They maintained eye contact for several seconds before Kai finally called out to him, shouting a bit to be heard across the short distance.
“David, you need something?” Kai’s deep voice carried well over the sound of the wind, “Or are you just admiring the plumage?”
“Oh yes, you are a pretty bird!” David replied loudly in a sickly sweet tone of praise that made Kai burst into squawking laughter and turn his head back around.
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“Fucker!” He called back over his shoulder as he continued his course, “You were great in that fight, I don’t think one of our guys could have done any better. For what it’s worth, I think you’ll like some of the people back at Woodland that actually put in effort.”
“We’ll see, we mostly just came to find out what happened to everybody. Where are all the unhatched eggs anyway?”
Kai stopped his flapping and soared for a bit, “Gone. Almost everyone went looking for their families after they stopped panicking. Shit, even I did it, but the house was just empty. Nobody else made it into Wave 1.”
Well…Claire will be happy to hear that at least, we just need to make sure we’re here when Wave 2 starts. No egg, no worries…I mean…wait, no, because then there’ll be a ton of Hatchlings again. Shit, this is complicated.
“Hey, check it out. Can you see that from here?” Kai called up at him as David refocused quickly, “Tallest building on the skyline, south side, near the border. Up at the top. That’s Wendy, she keeps it up until an hour or two after dark so people can find their way back if they’re dragging something big.”
David squinted curiously for the building Kai was speaking about, eyes darting around the south side of the city before he saw it. He just didn’t understand what he was seeing, and his head cocked quizzically to the side as he attempted to discern what it was he was looking at. The entire city was darkened, but from the top of one of the old office buildings there was a cool greenish-yellow glow pulsing brightly enough to be seen in the late evening light. It slowly built over a few seconds before cutting off suddenly, only to restart the process again after a handful of seconds. It was vaguely familiar to David in a way that tickled his brain but provided him with absolutely no answers, so he just asked.
“What the fuck am I looking at?”
“That’s one of uh…One of the Hunting team members I was telling you about, remember? We’re mostly the ones with evolutions.” Kai replied with a sour note in his voice as they slowly drifted out of the updraft.
“All you said was that there were about a dozen of you with evolutions and that you were supposed to be hunting. That’s neat though, she’s like a little lighthouse.”
Kai made a shrill sound of consternation before he began to descend to the ground, “Honestly I didn't know how much to say at first, nobody has walked out of the forest before. You put your ass on the line for me hunting these when you didn't have to, so I trust you, but you are visibly evolved with violence in mind. Seriously, if I saw you two in the dark I’d shit myself. You can’t blame me for being a little cautious.”
He lost altitude quickly and let the partial corpse fall the last 10 feet with a wet thump as he fanned his huge golden wings, landing delicately on the smooth gravel of the riverbank. He let his wings droop until the tips of his feathers touched the ground and panted openly for a moment before shuffling to the water for a drink. David landed soon after while considering his words, torn between being proud of the lethal avian's first reaction being one of wariness, and worried that he was right. Despite his obvious special evolution, Kai had chosen his advancement with more defensive options in mind despite his obvious killing power. He waffled for a moment before shrugging his huge leathery wings and refusing to doubt his choices.
“Why are we landing, you taking a break? Claire was wondering how much farther she needed to carry that thing.”
“Yeah I’m taking a break, she’s probably only a couple of minutes behind, this things heavy and I’m moving a lot slower than normal. You can go double back and tell her we’re gonna start running into lookouts soon, so we’ll group up here and then move in together.” Kai spoke in-between long drinks from the river, “I think it’s Dallas’ turn on night watch and he gets a little...into it.”
“Uh…okay. So we’re almost there?”
Kai nodded and returned to drinking thirstily, vaguely shooing David away with one wing. David sighed, rolling his eyes tremendously as he forced his protesting body into the air again for the umpteenth time today and wheeled around to make his way back to Claire to relay the message. He decided he would Glide most of the way, letting himself rest as much as possible as he fantasized about the comfy branch on his fruit tree in the meadow.
Well, at least we’re finally almost there. Civilization…kinda. This should be interesting.