Comforting Averi was something Adlai was not looking forward to. They had moved camp a ways away from the grasslands, and at the moment, Averi was curled up in a fetal position, back against a rock, crying. She held a filament of hair she had kept from Alex in her fist, her knuckles white. Adlai walked over, sitting heavily next to her. She didn’t react at all to his presence, her eyes locked forwards into the dark abyss of the caves. Adlai sighed, and stretched his legs out, shoulder to shoulder with his adoptive sister. He searched for something to tell her, something to ease her mind. All he could come up with were empty assurances, soulless empathy. A thought jumped into his head. He wondered if she felt the same way he felt about Shawna.

That was a scary thought, that the girl next to him was going to be dealing with demons like his.

He took a deep breath in, hoping that what he was going to say next would drag her out of that pit of self-blame. “It’s not your fault you know.”

Averi stared at him quietly.

He continued. “Yeah, you might’ve shouted, and that lead to Alex getting… taken, but I didn’t listen to you when you told me to stop. I’m sorry. He was a good pet.”

Averi sighed, a deep exhalation, like a whale forcing the air out of its lungs for a deep dive into dark water. “You blame everything on yourself.”

Adlai opened and closed his mouth like a gaping fish. He couldn’t think of a response, no rebuttals for her claim. The girl continued. “You blame yourself for us getting stuck here, you blame yourself for losing Shawna, and now you blame yourself for Alex. Not everything’s your fault, Adlai. Sometimes things happen that are out of our control.”

She brought her knees closer to her chin, her fingers combing through the delicate fuzz on Alex’s hair. “I think it would help for you to think like that. That way you don’t keep on getting hurt. And we don’t fight.”

Adlai brought his own legs up, looking over the other girl’s shoulder. She was rolling the hair over her palm. Adlai looked down at her leg, the splint gone. He gestured towards the splint-free leg, and she responded. “It stopped hurting as much, so I took it off. I can put a little bit of weight on it too now!”

Averi rose to prove her point, heavily leaning on her crutch while her wounded leg touched the ground. She tried to take a step, and immediately grimaced in pain.

“Nope, not ready for that yet.”

“I think having the prosthetic on properly would help.”

Averi’s face reddened. She tightened the straps of the prosthetic to the leg, and took a couple of steps, still wincing when her leg touched the ground.

“It feels a little better, still gonna have to use these though.”

The coolness of the rock had translated into moisture on his back, and Adlai was all too happy to follow Averi to the miserable campfire. They had used up nearly all the wood, and all they had left were the bones. Fortunately, they still had the cooked hopper from the night before, but the nights were cold, cold enough to worry about hypothermia.

Fuel was the utmost priority, and Adlai knew where he could find some. The only issue was that it was past the hissing grass. He’d have to wait until nightfall, where he could safely navigate the grasses, hoping not to brush against a dormant strand. Thoughts of what could happen filled his mind, of his desiccated corpse being found by a broken Averi, of him spitting up blood as he was impaled by a biological harpoon. He shuddered slightly, pushing those thoughts back.

He reached for his bag, searching for his chessboard to pass the time with. His hands froze in realization. He rummaged through his bag, pulling up the worn and now stained picture of him and his parents. He rubbed his thumb over the glossy film, wondering how they felt about him now. The day passed by quietly, the two of them settling for a cold meal of hopper meat.

Without a fire, there was no need to gather fuel, no need to search for food, so Averi and Adlai sat in awkward stasis. Adlai fiddled with his new makeshift spear made of metal piping he had found, and Averi collected water, a task that was quickly completed and left her sitting next to her adoptive brother. Night brought with it a sense of purpose, and of anxiety. Breath fogging in the air, Adlai started towards the small grove of trees across the field of hissing grass. He carried his newly sharpened pipe-spear, and his lantern. As he approached the deadly strands of vegetation, he dimmed the lights on the lantern, so as to avoid alerting the grass. At this level of light, all he could see was the ground, which was enough for him to avoid the grass.

It was quiet, but Adlai’s head was screaming at him to not make any mistakes, to not make any missteps. His mind was filled with images of him impaled on a bloody harpoon, reeled back into an alien’s maw. He shook his head slightly, eyes trained on the dim blue lights set up in rows on the ground. His next step he hit something hard. He raised the lantern to see bleached bone. Another corpse. He lowered the lantern, only to trip, inches away from a dim blue light. It rose slightly, hissing gently. The other nearby strands also rose, and greenish stripes lit up nearby. A strider. Adlai stayed frozen on the ground, praying that the grass would run out of energy soon. Sweat dripped down his nose as the hissing slowly died down, and the green stripes dimmed to black. His muscles straining, he pushed himself off the ground delicately, taking time not to make any noise, or disturb any sort of grass.

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Stepping over the last dormant strand of hissing grass, Adlai breathed a silent sigh of relief. He turned back to look over a sea of dim blue light, with dark forms blocking some of the glow. Standing at the base of the trees, he saw one was dead, a neat hole drilled into the trunk about the size of his own chest. That made the job a little bit easier. He grabbed onto a low lying limb, and hung off of it. He pulled it down, and then pushed it up, building momentum. The branch snapped, and Adlai fell. It was ungainly, but it worked. After a few more falls, with some close calls from the nearby grassland, Adlai started on his delicate journey back to camp. By now he was shivering, his breath coloring the air with an intangible gray.

The darkness was complete, stretching across the caverns, only broken by the blue lights of the hissing grass. Holding the roughly split branches in his arms, he started walking. The ground between the grass was soft, and by now slightly frozen, a film of ice forming over the mud. It was unsteady footing, but Adlai was confident in his abilities. That was until one piece of wood brushed against a dim blue light. Adlai froze once again, feeling his perspiration slowly cool on his body. The tiny beads of sweat dripped down his face, leaving cold trails of salty water.

The grass rose nearly immediately, the hissing starting again. His legs burned in the slightly crouched position, begging for relief. He knew though that if he rose, he would be impaled. As if on cue, three green stripes lit up nearby. Adlai waited until the last possible moment to hold his breath, just as those green stripes towered over him. He raised the lantern exposing three spindle-like legs. He could feel the gentle, warm exhalation of the strider on the hairs on his neck.

The lantern creaked, swinging slightly on its hinge. The grass rose more, the underlying hiss being taken on by more and more strands swishing rapidly. The strider lowered its head, a pale eyeless bulb with frills searching for any sort of noise. Adlai’s lungs were at their limit, and he felt a tiny breath escape his mouth. The rest of that breath went out as a curse as he jumped forward, waiting to feel a harpoon rip through his back. All caution was thrown to the wind in that wild sprint, The grass hissing frantically as he ran through. More and more green stripes lit up, but only one strider pursued. The others formed a sort of funnel, blocking him off from escape and pushing him towards a lone strider. Behind it lie the empty grassland, and safety. Adlai kept running, hoping that he’d figure something out by the time he reached the lone strider. Thoom. A harpoon ripped past his leg, tearing a chunk out of his right thigh. He barely felt the wound, only he ran slower now, his wounded leg refusing to keep up. Thoom. This harpoon whizzed past his chest, barely nicking his ribcage.

He kept running, feeling something warm trickle down his leg. The slight limp became more and more pronounced with each step, exhaustion starting to weigh in. He stared up at the sky, the moon barely visible. A desperate scream ripped from his throat as he sprinted towards the strider, dropping his load of wood. Spear in hand he ran towards it, his throat raw now. If he was going to die, this was the way he would do it. He hurled the spear at the strider, feeling a mad grin spread across his face. Averi. The grin fell off, and his mad charge slowed. He failed again. He slowed to a jog, the pain from the leg seeping in now. The spear had missed, and the strider stepped closer. The grass writhed at Adlai’s feet, wrapping around his wounded leg. He fell to his knees. The other striders walked away at their leisurely pace, choosing not to fight over a small meal like this.

He looked up, the strider now nearly face to face with him. He heard the grass hissing from a different angle. Something was running. Adlai saw a dark blur flash past before the strider fell to one side, one of its legs brutally slashed. A dull crunch and another leg fell. The strider bellowed in pain, struggling to rise on one stilt-like leg. A figure leapt onto the kneeling beast, ramming a spear into its soft body. The head of the beast spasmed in pain, as the figure ripped out the spear and stabbed it again and again and again. The figure jumped back down, knees bending to break the fall. Adlai mustered enough energy to walk off the field of grass, and to thank the figure. He fell to his knees, ignoring the dull ache of his right leg. He turned to see the person walking towards him, spear in one hand a knife in the other. His knife. His eyes widened.

A brief flash of light illuminated the girl’s face, and Adlai stared in numb shock. She walked closer, whirling her spear and sheathing her knife.

“Miss me?” Shawna said.

Adlai had no words. She was dead, she had died at the hands of that hunter. She leaned over, until the two of them were nearly touching noses.

“Oh, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this.”

She punched him in the face. He barely felt anything, could barely think. She kicked him in the stomach, a sick smile spreading across her face. Another kick. He was on his side now, staring at a puked up mess. She straddled his chest, wrapped her hands around his throat. He didn’t even struggle, just stared back into her face. She was still alive. Tears falling down his face, he smiled.

“FIGHT BACK YOU BASTARD! WHY WON’T YOU FIGHT BACK!”

There were spots now floating around in his vision. It started getting darker, and more muffled. He didn’t mind though, they were all together again. Her hands loosened, and he took a deep breath in, his eyes clearing enough to see her topple on top of him. Averi stood over her, a rock in hand, her eyes scared. They were together again. He closed his eyes, another deep breath. Why hadn’t she killed him when she had the chance?