Stryme and I scampered up a ledge like a kite, swift and smooth. I picked up my haversack tossing in a few waterskin bottles as Stryme did the same. We nodded in unison, then pushed ourselves up then charged down the pathway of the cliff, heading into god knows where.
The leaking waterskin bottles we had in hand, left a trail of water in our wake. Worry popped into my head for a second, but I remember the sandstorm would’ve covered our tracks, and more, thankfully.
I was pissed by how easily he got distracted, it was as if he’d never been shot at it in a firefight before. This makes me wonder if he had enough training at all I mused to myself.
The mountain curved gently for five hundred meters, angling left. As heavy as our haversacks were, we still pummeled through the dusted mountain as quick as we could, Assault Rifles and pistols clanking at every uneven step we made.
The gentle curve led us to a Junction, which went left and right. I bit my lip, unsure of where to go because this didn’t look like anywhere on the fucking maps, for love god.
“This way!” Stryme said through his scarf. He led us up over a boulder, then a short ledge, which had a seven-foot drop.
My knees screamed from the pain as I landed, but I sprung up, watching Stryme speed off to our right. I followed suit, but a second and a half later. I wasn’t young or old, I told myself, whilst shaking my head.
The wind around us began to roar louder with every passing second. With each step I made, my feet began to quiver from the stress. I wasn’t tired, but the thought of dying in the Waste, a place I hated didn’t sit well with me.
Shin-Lee and Hanna-Lee came to mind that very moment, and a gust of wind hit me on the side of my face to remind me to get my shit together.
I shrugged it off, keeping my feet cemented and followed Stryme to a ledge. He leapt across the three-meter space with ease and I followed him, barely getting there. Then it hit me like a brick. How in the IMBIBE did he know where the hell to go!?
“HURRY UP CYPHER! WE’RE SOON THERE!” Stryme shouted. I did as ordered increasing my pace, but made sure each step would solid despite the heavy reservation I felt within my stomach.
The ledge cracked and fell right after Stryme stepped on it, but his momentum carried him across without fault. I followed suit, not hesitating in my jump. It wasn’t perfect, nor was it worst.
My right knee cried out, and my cybernetic eye flickered as if it was about to have a cyber-blackout. Not now I prayed, hoping my cybernetics won’t fail me now.
As I leapt across the broken ledge, I re-oriented my body hoping the majority of my weight went to my heels. My knees sang out in pain from the weight, and I used the energy to push myself, despite how painful it was.
Stryme turned his head, looking back at me, nodding as if he approved of what I just did, then disappeared in another short corner.
I followed suit, barely watching him leap off another ledge. I skidded to where just leapt, and peered down to see how far the drop was. The drop wasn’t far at least four feet long, but they were twelve more drops, varying in length and Stryme was at the sixth drop. No…make that the seventh.
My haversack tilted me to the side from the first drop, but I ignored it until I made it to the seventh drop. The eighth through twelfth was as annoying to my knees as they were to my back, but with Stryme on the ground catching his breath. I finally felt that relief I damn well sought after seeing the rumbling sandstorm in the distance.
I landed on the ground, then looked up, realising we were in some type of cone-like shape, encapsulated within the arid mountains of the waste. The walls around us were smooth as if they were sanded down continuously over the past few days. “STOP DALLYING CYPHER, HELP ME GET THIS SHIT TOGETHER”
“Aye!”
Stryme pulled his tent free from his bag. I felt the liquid refreshment of the water run down my mouth after taking another whiff, then sprung towards Stryme.
A bellowing gush of wind roared from above, funnelling it was way into the barren creek, spitting sand and stones upon us as our clothes flapped and gashed from the wind’s ferocity.
The sand covered Stryme and me, then made us kneel, showing its Benevolence. Heh, it’s funny I said that because it was more Tyrannical than anything I’ve experienced. And I’ve experienced many things. I thought sourly.
Stryme pressed his chest against the ground, feeling like the weight of the world crashed down on him. He held the tent cover in his hand for five seconds, and then I watched as it slipped through his fingers, eyes gapping with fright.
He stretched out his hand, barely grazing and watching as it spun out of his fingers and then soared to the sky like a bee to honey.
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“FUCK” I growled, turning over on my body, then raised my cybernetic arm to the sky, firing it into the sky. My eye switched to camera mode, whilst the contact lens within my right eye held a small screen of the view from my wrist. I swerved in the air, hunting for cover, only to meet sand and wind billowing across the sky like a furnace.
The thundering sound of the wind made it hard for me to decipher where the tent went, but I wasn’t going to give up just like that, because they were nowhere I was gonna drown in sand. Not by a long shot.
My SMB clenched my brain as I manoeuvred my wrist through the sky. With each passing second, my brain felt a tingle, which felt like a lemon within the vice-grip, bringing tears to one eye.
My wrist flew the sand storm by my command, but barely. The winds ravaged it, tossing it around like a toy, but I still held it firmly in my mind trying to traverse the sky.
A Billion pieces of sand and shattered stones rained in on Stryme and me whilst we lay nestled at the bottom of the creek. Stryme was shouting something at me, but I couldn’t hear, god damn wind was more deafening than in a middle of a warzone.
My hunt for the Tent cover grew worrisome by the second, especially when three boulders popped into view of my cybernetic fist.
A tree floated by from down below, one that caught my right eye in the chaos, and which my body tingled from the pain of too much information flowing from my eyes. “CYPHER, FORGET THE TENT! LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!” Stryme screamed into my ears.
“Just give me a few more seconds so I can find it!”
“FORGET IT CYPHER…BRING BACK THE FUCKING WRIST WE NEED IT FOR THE MISSION LOSE IT AND WE’RE FUCKED!” Stryme hissed.
Fuck, I growled to myself, grinding mine in frustration. A stark stinging erupted around my face and neck, which made me feel stupid. I should’ve done what Stryme did and covered my face.
My wrist snapped back into place, filled with sand and a thousand scratches. I imagined blood seeping from my wrist if it were still real, but thankfully it wasn’t.
I pushed myself up, taking my mind away from my past pain and watched as the sand continuously fall into the creek. Stryme took my right hand, and then pulled me from the pit full of sand I was laying in.
My eyes traced around the creek, noticing the sand had filtered in. I drudged my feet out of the sand and looked right. Stryme was ten meters in front of me and already trudging through the sand pit.
My right ankle twisted with my second step, but I ignored it, feeling the jolt of pain thrum and shot up to my knee as I followed him.
I went right, swerving in the sand pit, then hopped up a short ledge. I darted down ten meters of the ledge, then made a hard left, hopping up three more ledges then sped down another ledge. “WHERE ARE YOU HEADED!?” I shouted at Stryme, feeling as though we were in a maze. “JUST FOLLOW!”
I ALREADY AM FOR CHRIST SAKE, I thought, biting my bottom and feeling aggravated. A twig shot right at me, making me duck. I skid across the ledge, feeling my knees grated from the momentum, then tilted to the side when I saw a small boulder coming towards me.
I rolled to the left, dropping the ledge, and a loud bellowing crack hissed behind me. I pulled myself up, looking left, noticing the shattered ledge.
The ledge began crumbling before my eyes snaked towards me. I bit my lip in frustration and felt my back muscle scream as I pulled myself up the ledge and began a light sprint before I finally gathered enough momentum.
The rumbling sound of the ledge crumbling behind me added to the roars of the sandstorm above. It was like nature itself was trying to remind me that the Waste was no place for me and that this should be my resting place. Not in this lifetime…or the next.
Stryme stood in the distance, standing next to a wall. He held the Assault Rifle in his hand and began firing shots at the wall.
The rocks flaked and spat out from the clast wall as if he’d been shooting at the water. “STRYME! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING I SHOUTED!”
“MAKING A CAVE!”
“WHAT BULLSHIT ARE YOU ON?!”
Stryme emptied the clip into the wall and then began smashing it with the butt of his Assault rifle.
The clast wall began to crumble from each hit, and the stone began to shimmer despite the lack of light. That’s limestone, easily shattered if enough force is applied.
I stimulated my SMB, switching to X-Ray Sight. A network of limestone appeared in my eyesight, showing limestone had been deeply embedded into the mountain’s clast make-up.
I grabbed the nozzle of Stryme’s Assault Rifle, stopping him from further smashing the clast wall. “I’ll take over,” I said firmly. “About time you get your fucking head in the game!” Stryme snapped.
I nodded, turned to clast-wall, venom in my mind and power in my fist. With my feet planted on the ground, provided the anchor I needed, was more than enough for me to twist my waist with enough explosive power as I drilled my cybernetic hand into the wall.
The limestone wall shook, then split from the impact of my arm. A small crater billowed, and then a spider net cracked into existence, forming around the bullets from Stryme’s Assault Rifle.
I snapped my short sword free and then lit the blade. It turned orange in a flash and I slashed I waved my blade, feeling as if the wind was ready to throw me down.
Stryme pushed himself up against the clast wall, watching me bury my fist into the limestone like a madman. He didn’t say anything, but I could see the fatigue at the back of his mind, trying his best to keep himself calm.
A roaring gust of wind swept across the ledge, almost felling me to my knees. Sand and pebbles rained in on us, making us feel like ants. With each passing second with the wind roaring in my air, the urge to run and hide was there.
The wind simply was too ferocious, and being in the open like this, was far too dangerous for one to survive, let alone hide. But what choice did I have, if I wanted to survive, it was to make this cave or stay in the open, and that wasn’t an option for me nor Stryme.
Fifteen minutes passed and I finally made enough space for Me and Stryme. The hole in the clast wall was six feet long and one and a half feet wide.
Stryme ran into the hole, leaving me to enter last. The craggy edges of the wall drilled into my back as we both hid from the storm.
The scent of rotten eggs rolled into my nose and mouth, making my stomach churn. My eyes didn’t burn from the strong odour, which made me thankful. However, my stomach didn’t thank me.
“FUCK, IT SMELLS AWFUL!” Stryme roared next to me.
“It’s here…or out there,” I said.
“You’re right.”
I closed my eyes and pressed my back up against the wall and hoped for the best because god knows when this pissant storm would end. My only hope was that it’d end soon. Very very soon.