Ultimus Chapter Twenty-Four: How to Tame Your Beast

Erica, Jonathan, Sylas, and Andrew began to walk eastward through the city of Sanctuary, Erica found Sylas and Jonathan in the outdoor kitchen area making tea for everyone else. She tried to get them out of the tent as quickly as possible, but Sylas somehow spilled Andrew’s tea all over himself and had to change. Andrew looked very awkward in that scenario. It was such a weird moment too, it just felt completely off. But now he was acting really weird. He was in the far back of the group when he would probably been somewhere between Jonathan and Andrew, talking to someone. But for some reason, he wasn’t. His breathing was very heavy and heaving, and his lips and eyelids seemed to droop yet he seemed wide awake. Andrew noticed it too, Jonathan was too busy looking at the pterosaurs flying above the city to notice. It was starting to worry her to see him in this state. But they had to move, they weren’t in a safe place. She and Paul saw those defense units and those other machines and drones that warned the other machines there earlier and she thought they were most likely nearby still.

Erica chuckled as they were getting out of this area. She thought the city would be significantly safer than the protoarks or the wasteland with the defenses of Sanctuary. But with them dealing with crazy defective machines, crocodiles and kapros, spiders, and even rexes. It made her think twice about how safe the city was. But she had her rifle with her, and she couldn’t help but notice that Andrew had brought his bow with him. This had her concerned too, but she had to remember that she would give him a chance. Even if he’s carrying a deadly weapon on his belt. She couldn’t help but notice his armor too. It wasn’t a standard issue Tek of the URE or Terran she knew. It was an older, military-grade Terran Tek. Having thicker armor and more practical parts to it like a belt loop and external pockets. So it had to have been used as those were harder to come by, explaining the marked spots from gunfire. And why he didn’t wear a helmet, they were designed with retinal scanners for one-person ownership. So he wouldn’t be able to access the suit’s full powers. She worked on one during her last few semesters while working on her PhD in engineering. But for this type of environment to live in, he was wearing some of the best stuff.

They continued moving onward out of the dangerous area and each time she looked back. The worse Sylas was beginning to look. Erica was getting really worried now, he was already looking like he was having a bad time, now he needed to stop before he fell over dead.

“Andrew, you go on ahead for right now. I think we’re gonna stay back and rest for a moment. I believe we’re in a safe enough region now that it’s alright for you to go off ahead of us now. If you see any horses or some sort of creatures that look fast. Come over and tell us.” Erica said, Andrew looked back at her and understood why she was stopping, looking over at Sylas who was hunched over.

“You sure you don’t want me to stay with you?” Andrew asked,

“Or me to go along with him, because I would much prefer to go gather more information on thes-” “I would like you to stay here Jonathan, just to keep me and Sylas company. But you should go, Andrew, no reason for us to hold you back from finding any animals.” Erica said, Andrew nodded softly. Almost disappointed, it almost made her feel bad for saying that he should go.

“Okay, I’ll come back if I find anything.” Andrew said, he walked off ahead of them and went around a building skyscraper to another block of the city. Erica turned around and looked at Sylas.

“Now what's wrong with you now Sylas? Why is your face drooping and heaving? Did you eat narcoberries?” Erica asked, Sylas scoffed in surprise.

“Noe, I only phap onccce.” Sylas slurred

“THEN WHAT DID YOU DO!!” Erica said, Sylas eye that was open widened.

“I bibn’p bo amyphing. Ponaphan bib ip. He bruggeb Ambrew’s pea wiph bemon.” Sylas slurred again, Erica turned to Jonathan who was pretending not to listen in to this as he was sketching and writing some notes down on the pterosaurs above.

“Jonathan.”

“You know it never occurred to me that there would be more descendants of pterosaurs besides Dimopho-”

“JONATHAN!! WHAT DID YOU DO?” Erica interjected loudly. Jonathan groaned as stared at Erica.

“I didn’t put any Titanoboa venom in Andrew’s tea. I was merely irritable with the fact that I had to explain myself again to this newcomer. And that for me entire introduction he couldn’t understand.” Jonathan said irritably,

“THEN WHAT’S WRONG WITH SYLAS!?” Erica shouted in a panic.

“Oh that, yeah I poisoned his tea with Titanoboa venom.” Jonathan answered. Erica's eyes widened.

“Why in the name of sanity did YOU DO THIS TO HIM!!!! HE LOOKS LIKE HE’S KNOCKING ON DEATH’S DOOR!!” Erica shouted,

“Relax Erica, it wasn’t a lethal dosage. If I wanted to kill him, I could’ve used a crossbow or a knife to the throat. He was just pestering me when making the tea that I couldn’t take any more of it. So I put a pinch of boa venom in his tea if he was so afraid of me putting something in someone’s tea. It might as well be his. Plus it was great fun hearing him suffer back there.” Jonathan said smiling slyly, but this was short-lived. He then gasped in shock as Erica slapped him over the side of the head. She then grabbed the shirt he wore and pulled him in the direction so that he stared into her furious eyes

“When we get back and we will, I will make sure you will do every dirty and filthy job back at the base until I find it fit for you to be done with them.” Erica said seething, Jonathan scooted as she held him there.

“It was only a harmless prank.” Jonathan said, Erica glared at him intensely.

“And this ‘harmless’ prank could have killed him if one of those enforcers or defense units targeted us!! And we could’ve been injured in the process.” Erica growled as she shoved him back and she helped Sylas sit down and then went off.

“Now where are you going?” Jonathan asked, she turned and scowled at him.

“Getting stimberries for Sylas, like you are going to do too. We need to get him back on his feet at a hundred percent before we go taming some animals. Hopefully, we can get him to their so we can catch up to the new guy. I don’t like leaving him out of our sight.” She said, Jonathan groaned as he dragged his feet. He looked back at Sylas who seemed to be getting worse and rolled his eyes.

“Should have not pestered me while I made tea. Good thing you didn’t drink mine though. Probably would’ve died with the amount of poison in it.” He said, Sylas looked up with his one half-opened eye. And he just started blabbering nonsense. Jonathan rolled his eyes.

“Just shut it, you can’t do anything as long as the narcotics are in your system. Then I’ll have a comeback for whatever you blurt out once you can speak properly again.” He said as he walked away to find berries.

~

Andrew walked through the city alone, he had seen creatures all the time. He wasn’t sure if the ones he had seen were the ones they wanted but he had seen horses, though he didn’t watch the creature’s whereabouts when it came to in the city. Only near places in the polluted environments outside the main city did he watch their whereabouts. Which wasn’t helpful at this time to him. He had been traveling through the city for who knows how long, he wasn’t sure entirely but maybe forty minutes. It was hard for him to judge though. He knew the city like the back of his hand. He heard someone describe their life that their full-time job that gave a check was their part-time job and their real full-time job was being at home with their family. How he would describe his lie is that his full-time life was scavenging Sanctuary and the Wasteland around it. He lived permanently at his old house, yeah, but as he got older, he spent more and more time out there. Trying to look for things that could help him understand what happened to the planet since his time asleep. But he didn’t know where the URE’s databank was and while he knew the Earth was dying, from their studies on the effects of the Element in the Earth. It wasn’t doing anything like what he saw now. The Earth almost seemed to have tumors growing on it while it tried to die. Almost prolonging it’s death. He needed to know what happened to cause this place.

But that was for later, he needed to find a good “tame” for traveling. He wasn’t sure what to exactly for by that description. He didn’t know anything about the dinosaurs roaming around and what had what speeds. His dad probably would have, but not him. So he was just going to find some horses. He knew they were some of the best travel mounts in history. So it was the best option. The trouble would be finding them now, he would have to search the whole city for who knows how long before he would find any. He had no idea where to find them, but he knew how to track footprints, which wouldn’t be helpful if he had never seen the foot of the animal he needed to track.

While he continued to walk, he felt like he was being watched again. He genuinely hated this feeling. It didn’t start until he started burying Reuben, but it only happened when he was in around the area of Sanctuary. This feeling only grew more as time passed and as he moved on trying to ignore it though he continued to look around for anything yet found nothing. The feeling grew to become the feeling that he was being followed. He continued moving, hoping that this feeling would just pass away with time, but it didn’t. He stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes, listening to his surroundings for movement. A twig snapped somewhere behind him. He opened his eyes and looked behind himself, grabbing his bow and activating it as he did to see Erica, Sylas, and Jonathan coming out of the brush. For a moment, panic struck him. Thinking that he would react more than he should. Erica saw that he had his bow gripped in his hand and her eyes seemed to judge him for it. He pursed his lips in self-frustration as he deactivated his bow and latched it back onto his belt.

“I’m… sorry. Thought you guys were a predator stalking up on me.” He said,

“Understandable, it has been a while since we saw you go off. Once I was feeling good enough. Erica tracked your footprints to find you. She and Freya are really good at that sort of thing.” Sylas said, he did look better. He still was a bit pale and breathing heavily. But he looked like he was doing a lot better since his appearance of knocking on death’s door.

“You’re going the wrong way if you're looking for mobile tames. There was a Gallimimus flock not too far away from where we were before.” Erica said monotone, Andrew could tell he did something that made him go backward on the scale. He was pretty sure it was his grabbing the bow.

“I, don’t know what those are. I’m sorry, I probably passed them. I really don’t know what creatures are good for traveling.” Andrew said, Jonathan chuckled.

“Then how were you going to find a good travel mount if you Donn’s what’s good for traveling?” He said in a condescending voice.

“Well horses are still good, right? Paul mentioned them, and I’ve seen them in history books and some movies before. I have seen them here too. That makes them more practical to tame.” Andrew retorted calmly, Jonathan rolled his eyes.

“TT, Un tel petit malin enfant .” He said condescendingly. Sylas stepped ahead of him and smiled at Andrew.

“Yeah, they are still good. Not as good as Gallimimus but horses are a load more fun.” Sylas said smiling.

“Equus, not. Ugh.” Jonathan huffed. Erica sighed.

“Alright, Paul and I saw some a couple of days ago west of our camp. I would prefer Gallimimus but I guess EQUUS are alright. If we want to get them as quickly. I suggest we start backtracking as soon as possible. Sylas did you bring any rockarrots?” She asked coldly, Sylas smiled as he raised his left hand, and grabbed something from his implant. A handful of carrots appeared from thin air and Sylas showed Erica smiling.

“I never go anywhere without any.”

“Good, now since that’s been settled. Let’s get moving” She said, Sylas and Jonathan took the lead for the moment going back to where they came from. Andrew walked next to Erica.

“Hey, I’m sorry about pulling my-” “Doesn’t matter. Let’s just make good time on finding those equus fast. We already wasted time going in this direction.” She said as she walked off. Andrew stood there for a moment to himself. He sighed. He needed to be less on guard near these people to gain their trust. He looked down at himself, at the two weapons strapped to his belt. He grabbed his bow and activated it, he went to the categories of arrows and chose the narcotic gas arrows then deactivated it and strapped it back to his belt. He still felt like he was being watched, but now he just thought it was his head messing with him. He needed to gain these people’s trust, and being paranoid would probably not help him. He quickly ran off to catch up with the others.

~

Erica and the others started backtracking and making progress to where she and Paul saw the Equus. Andrew had got ahead of her and was annoying Jonathan with questions about the animals here. Sylas was walking next to her at an awkward pace as he was still slower than her or the others. He kept looking at her funny, though she pretended to ignore it for the longest time. But then he sorta nudged her arm with his elbow.

“What was that back there?” Sylas asked cautiously, Erica looked at him irritatedly for a moment.

“Nothing.”

“I don’t think it was nothing.” He said,

“It was.”

“Erica,-”

“Don’t.”

“Why were so harsh with him back there?”

“Because I don’t trust him, that’s why. He has one of the most dangerous weapons from my era and he doesn’t seem to be saying much about his life.” She blurted quietly,

“Neither do you Erica, yet we trust you. And the weapons are just for protection, just like your gun Erica.” Sylas said, Erica hushed him. Then she pointed up ahead.

“Not when I’m from Sylas, these weapons were used to kill on the battlefield.” She said in a hushed tone,

“All weapons are made to kill, Erica. You just don’t trust anyone.” He said quietly, she looked at him irritatedly.

“If you lived in my shoes Sylas. You wouldn’t either. So quit pushing it.” She said in a hushed tone.

“But-” Sylas was interrupted by Erica staring at him intensely. He stayed quiet after this, he really didn’t want to aggravate her more on it.

Erica thought to herself about what Sylas said though, she knew she was being harsh on Andrew. But she just didn’t trust him. With a weapon in hand, it just made it harder to trust him. She still wanted to give him that chance to earn her trust, but the weapons were going to make it harder for him to do so.

They continued walking for some time, passing loads of good travel mounts trying to find these stupid horses. She should’ve just stopped fooling around with this mission and just tamed whatever was closest to them. Time was not their ally in this world, she knew the longer they took. The harder it would be to fight this place. And understanding the dangers of unrefined Element would make this a lot harder of a challenge than the Ark they were one. Especially if it was infecting creatures.

“Erica.” Jonathan said, Erica looked up at him and he pointed to something up ahead. She walked up to him and saw Equus. A herd of them grazing in the streets of the long-forgotten city.

“Finally, let’s get these guys and get out. We need to prepare to find the main access terminal for the Reseeding.” She said.

~

Andrew stood there as they scouted the animals, they pulled out these small telescopes from the implants they had and started looking at the animals in front of them. He was kind of nervous about this. He could see about twenty horses out there with stripes that were similar to the old untamed horse species he couldn’t remember the names of, a good portion of them being quite large. Though from the photos he saw, they weren’t much bigger than the ones from then.

“So which one are you two picking, I think I want the tan one. It looks really nice and will probably tame easy too.” Sylas said smiling, Jonathan looked at him as usual

“TT, typical. Choosing a weaker one than a stronger and more experienced one. If anything you should have picked the grey one. It’s more experienced and aged.”

“And it will tackle more time. Erica wants to get this done quickly. So the tan one is a better choice. And you know I’m not good at breaking one too. And why did you describe an animal like a drink? That’s just weird.” Sylas said, Jonathan glared at him.

“He has a point though. The grey equus is more experienced and is older. And while Sylas is right that it would be more difficult, it’s worth the effort.” She said, Sylas looked over at Andrew with a smile.

“What’s your pick Andy?” he said, Erica kinda gave a glance at Sylas. Andrew smiled at Sylas kindly.

“Andrew if it’s okay, I don’t like Andy; and I’m not sure. I can’t tell the difference between them like you guys can.” He said as he stared off to the herd and tried to decide which one he wanted. He spotted a black one in the crowd of others, it’ head shaking up and down. Its mane was fairly long and had for some reason a beard. Its grey stripes gave it an aged look, though its black hair shined like it was young. Andrew pointed to it.

“I think I am going for the black one there.” He said, the others looked at him with concern. He raised an eyebrow as they remained silent at his choice.

“What? What’s wrong?” Andrew asked.

“That’s a Stallion, he looks like the largest and most experienced of the Stallions here too. Which means he’s going to be a tough and long tame. But hey, if you get bucked off and die. We’ll make sure to bury you properly.” Jonathan said with a sly grin on his face, Andrew gave him a mild smile.

“Thank you, I think…” Andrew said, Erica punched Jonathan in the shoulder, hard enough that he said something in French and rubbed that spot.

“Don’t listen to him, you’ll be fine. Just be careful while doing it and time the feeds just right. You’ll be fine with it if you do.” Erica said, Andrew's eyes widened.

“Uh, feeds? And why do I have to be careful? Isn’t this a knockout tame?” Andrew asked, Sylas bit his lip.

“Uh… sadly no. This tame has to be up and active to tame it. Specifically, you have to break it like a horse, like ride on its back and feed it when it’s trying to buck you off. All while you have no control over where it goes. It’s actually really fun.” Sylas said, Andrew looked at Sylas with concern.

“Oh, fun…” he said with a worried look on his face. He really should have gone with the dinosaur that she mentioned earlier.

“Well, I think our new friend just volunteered to take the first ride. Sylas, would you like to give him the rockarrots?” Jonathan said with a grin. Sylas glared.

“Jonathan, that’s not right for anyone to do. If anyone should go, it shou-” “It’s fine. I’ll try this taming thing now and see what mistakes I make afterward.” Andrew said interjecting. Jonathan smiled, and Sylas looked over at Erica who just shrugged.

“Give him the strange carrots Sylas.” She said, Sylas handed Andrew about twenty carrots or so and nodded to him.

“Throw this in front of the animal when it starts bucking. It distracts it for a moment. Good luck out there.” Sylas said, Andrew nodded as he took the vegetables and took a step forward.

“Make sure to stay low to the ground when approaching them. Throw the carrot in front of the animal you want to tame and then make a dash for its back. It’ll start bucking immediately so have your second carrot ready.” Erica said just before he took his next step. He looked back and smiled with another nod.

“Thank you.”

~

Andrew crouched his way through the long grass to the stallion he wanted, it hadn’t yet noticed him getting closer to him thanks to the long grass, which was a relief but also the way he wanted to keep it. The stallion was about twenty or thirty feet away from Andrew and moving around a fair amount, it would take forever for Andrew to get close enough to it without getting spotted. He thought of an idea though to get around this. He continued forward, he knew he probably wouldn‘t succeed in getting close enough without distracting it. He threw some carrots up ahead of him about ten or so feet. Spooking the horses at first, it slowly grabbed their attention with the black stallion leading to find out what it was. He cautiously strutted his way to the carrots, his nose flaring as he sniffed the area around the carrots. Once he found the carrots and realized it was food, he started grazing on it. Andrew could hear the carrots getting crunched by the animal as its head hung low in the tall grass.

Andrew took this as his moment. He crawled up to the horse, stood up, and jumped on the horse’s back. The horse reared up and bolted, Andrew’s eyes widened as he held in for dear life as the creature ran uncontrollably through the city streets. The other horses bolted too, but everything else was blurred to him. He couldn’t see anything around him, only in front of himself and the horse. He couldn’t see or feel the horse turned back the way it came. Andrew held on for dear life to the mane and carrots that were still in his hands. Why was he holding onto carrots in this situation?! But he was too afraid to ease his grip, then the animal stopped dead in its tracks. Andrew hit his head against the animal's neck as he started bucking. Andrew’s brain went blank until he remembered he had to throw a carrot down in front of it. He threw one down in front of the horse and instantly the horse calmed down and started eating the carrot. Andrew took a moment to look at his surroundings to see that he wasn’t that far away from the survivors. They waved at him and seemed to be getting close enough to stay in sight of him. Once the horse was done eating, it bolted once again. As Andrew held on, he thought that this wouldn’t be so bad.

Time passed as the horse did this same thing several times over, and Andrew was getting really good at doing this he thought. He was barely letting the horse Buck before he threw a carrot down and soothed it. He would take a quick look around just before the animal bolted again to see where he was and noticed the animal usually stayed in the near vicinity of where he first jumped on the horse. He could even still see the survivors in sight and even the horses that had bolted earlier in the distance. He also noticed how smooth it was riding on the horse when it wasn’t bucking. He expected it to be bumpy or rough. But it was surprisingly smooth and almost like he was floating.

The horse started bucking again and Andrew gave it another carrot. The animal was again soothed, he took another glance around again like normal. He saw the survivors and waved at them. The animal again bolted and Andrew grabbed the mane of the horse and he realized he had no more carrots on hand. Andrew had a couple more handfuls in his right-hand pocket. He took his right hand off the mane and started reaching for his pocket when the horse came to a dead stop and started bucking again. Andrew groaned in frustration as the jostling made Andrew want to grab the mane again and was making it hard for him to reach his pocket. The animal’s bucking was getting harder with each moment he didn’t feed it. He tried reaching for his pocket again but the bucking was getting too hard for him. The horse then reared up and screamed before it bucked its hardest. Andrew got thrown off near the stallion, he looked up before he saw a flash of light.

~

Erica's eyes widened in fear as she saw Andrew get kicked in the head by the stallion and drop to the ground. She watched for a moment more as she saw Sylas and Jonathan bolt over to him through the chest-high grass as the stallion ran off to the rest of the herd. She wasn’t expecting him to fall and get kicked. He was doing so well. What happened? He had been doing pretty good for keeping the horse from bucking so much for the past hour. Why did he let the stallion buck him so hard? She finally got up quickly and ran over to the three of them. Andrew had landed on a clearing in the grass where the pavement still held on. Sylas was panicking over the body and Jonathan was checking him out. He had no medical training, but he knew how to check if someone was dead.

“What’s going on Jonathan?! Is he alive?” Erica asked, she was slightly concerned that Paul would be angry at her for killing their newest member. Jonathan looked up, he looked relieved but tried to play it off.

“He’s alive, that's all I know though so far. We need to head back though, he could be severely injured.” Jonathan said, Erica sighed in relief.

“We will. But we need to tame some travel mounts. Jonathan, I need you to go finish taming Andrew's horse. And Sylas, go tame your horse. I’ll stay with him to make sure he doesn’t die. I’ll tame my horse once you guys have your horses and return to camp with him.” Erica said,

“Aye aye!!” Sylas saluted smiling, while Jonathan seemed irritated but simply nodded his head.

“That was a good horse, it’s gonna take a little more time for it to gain our trust after bucking him.” Jonathan said,

“It’s better than taming a new one for him. Just get it done Jonathan.” She said, Jonathan did a very arrogant bow right before he gestured to Sylas for rockarrots, Sylas smirked as he gave him a pile of rcokarrots. The two walked off in separate directions. Leaving Erica by herself.

~

Sylas was getting close to the herd, he could hear the noises of the equus. The herd was more wary after Andrew’s attempt. He always felt he either got the short end of the stick or failed at his jobs. He suddenly remembered that he never finished the droids. He started stomping his feet in frustration that he forgot. How could he forget to do such a simple task!! They needed those to gather resources. Otherwise, they would have to continuously work out there. He was so ashamed of himself, that he could never seem to do right. All he did was make mistakes. He wanted to do something right for change, the last time he felt like he did this, was with sending them to Earth when Erica gave him the coordinates or when he first met them six or seven months ago. He just wished that he could…

He heard a T.rex’s call coming from the distance. Though it didn’t sound quite right. Sylas couldn’t care less though. He started bolting as fast as he could in a direction away from the herd. He could only think of running, he was so worried about the T.rex that could be near him that he didn’t see a branch in his path. He tripped and crashed on the ground. He heard the roar again only louder, he panicked and turned his head to look behind himself. He didn’t see anything. He quickly turned his head back and got up. He then noticed a peculiar creature. It looked like Parasaur, but it didn’t have the same headgear. It had similarities to the one that crushed berries into seeds, Iguanadon was it? Anyway, it was too big and fat to be one of those. Suddenly a frog-like crocking skin appeared on its neck and two on its nose and it bellowed as though it was a T.rex. Sylas looked at it in confusion. It definitely wasn’t a T.rex, that’s for sure. It was eating grass and berries. What was this thing? Then Sylas smiled with an idea forming as he grabbed some kibble out of his implant. If he can’t know what it is now, he’ll just have Jonathan help him.

He threw some kibble in front of the creature and lay quietly in the tall grass. He heard the animal sniff as it tried tracking down the kibble it could smell. Once it did finally find the kibble. It started barking like a raptor before chowing down on the kibble with excitement. Sylas pumped his fist and smiled so excitedly at his discovery. It was a passive tame. He was so happy that he didn’t have to beat or shoot the creature to death to tame it. But his enthusiasm was short-lived as he heard raptors calling back, the dinosaur heard it too. It started trotting or waddling away from the area as four raptors replaced the strange creature in its place. Sylas lay there in sheer fear as the raptors walked around him unaware, he felt himself relieve himself right then and there. He opened up his inventory and grabbed two things one was a stack of meat, the other was a flare gun. He threw the meat as far as he could. The meat fell to the ground with a thud fifty or so feet away from the raptors. The raptors looked up with enthusiasm and went searching for whatever made that noise. Sylas sat there for a moment until he heard the raptors start scarfing down the meat. He shot up and aimed the flare gun at the raptors, he knew he couldn’t hit a target if his life depended on it. But he could hit the ground in front of them easily. He shot the flare and the raptors screeched as the flare landed on the ground fifteen feet away from them and blocked Sylas out of their view. He bolted out there, and when he felt he was out of sight and mind of the raptors he stopped. He never felt so invigorated in his life, and once he changed his pants. He was going to continue trying to tame that Qurupeco of a creature.

~

Erica stood there in front of the unconscious man. He almost looked like he was sleeping soundly. Though she knew he could be on death’s door as she thought of this. She felt bad for treating him so harshly, and she was somewhat worried about him. But she just couldn’t trust him. Not yet, and most certainly like the others could. She sat down right next to him and she stared at him for a moment, he looked peaceful. His face was rugged and warn, he looked a bit older than twenty-three. But to be fair, if he had been living in this world since he was eleven and was alone. He would’ve had to grow up quickly to survive this world, especially this world. She sat back on her hands as she thought about what he had told them and thought it through.

“Geez, how did you keep It together for all this time?” She said, she knew he wasn’t all that good mentally too. He did ask if they were real and was talking to animals as though they were people. But if he had been alone for twelve years since he was a kid, how was he so stable? Stared at his face while he lay there. He looked very peaceful, which Erica was kind of envious of. How could he look so peaceful in his sleep when he lived in such a hopeless world? An absolutely hopeless world.

Her mind slowly began to wander from his words and how bad his life was to how much she changed when she was younger. She remembered she was so hopeful. She had so much hope in saving this world as a child. She remembered how she disappointed her parents by not wanting to follow in their footsteps to go into the Federation but instead the “CPU-heads and Cyber-hippies” and laughed about it with her friend. But she had hope then in saving this world, and saving humanity along the way. But she was no longer that person. She no longer had hope for humanity or this world. She looked back at Andrew, she sighed to herself as she stared at his warn Federation armor and weapons he carried. Maybe he wasn’t as peaceful as she thought he was if he had to wear the armor constantly. Maybe he was terrified of what this place was just as much as she was. She would try harder to give him the chance to earn her trust. But she still couldn’t trust him.

She noticed how quiet the area had gotten, the birds had stopped chirping and the insects had become quiet. She stood up and grabbed her rifle off her back. She kept the stock of the rifle close to her shoulder, she wasn’t sure if it was a weather change or something else. But she knew it could mean there was a predator nearby. She quickly checked to see if there was a bullet inside. And there was. She looked around, surveying her surroundings. She couldn’t see much through the chest-high grass around the clearing they were in. She held the rifle to her shoulder and looked down the sights of it. She noticed compys scurrying out of the long grass to her left. They weren’t looking for food, they were running away from something. She turned to her left, aiming her rifle in that direction and controlling her breathing as she did. At first, she didn’t see anything. But as she looked more closely into the field of grass. She noticed an arc of black that was poking out of the grass. She aimed and fired. The animal moaned with death as she heard a thud. She killed it, and the animal sounded like a big cat. She wanted to go check to see what it was, but she heard the growling. She looked to the right of her and saw something in the grass began to rush her. She loaded a tranquilizer dart and shot the animal below the shoulders. The animal howled but continued running at her, she loaded another dart in and shot again hitting the animal in the head as it lunged at her. She rolled out of the way of the animal’s lunge landing on her knees. She looked up to see what it was. A sabertooth cat, a large and battle-experienced one. Scars all over its snout and body. The animal growled and snarled at Erica, it swung its paw in a false attack as it began to pace drunkenly back and forth. Erica smirked, seeing that the darts were taking quick effect.

‘Only one more’ she thought as she grabbed another dart. The cat then charged her, she quickly rolled again, landing on her knees again, and immediately stood up as she loaded the new dart into the gun. She held it against her shoulder as she looked around to see nothing. The animal was gone, but she didn’t think it was torpor running. It was going for a different approach, ambushing. She took a moment to think if she should switch to a lethal round, but why waste a perfectly good travel mount that you already shoved two darts into? She heard the growling of the cat and aimed in that direction, the animal roared as it began to charge though not keeping in a straight line. She aimed and fired. The dart hit the animal in the neck just next to the head, the animal roared intensely and charged at her, but the animal was so drugged it didn’t seem like it would even reach her. She lowered her rifle and her guard, thinking that the animal would go down. But the animal had other plans. As the animal's charge began to slow down, it leaped at her in a last attempt before passing out midair.

Erica’s amber eyes widened with fear as the unconscious body flew at her, she had no time to react as the body slammed into her and forced her down to the ground. She lay there, with her breath knocked out and dazed as the body fell on top of her. The weight was overbearing and she yelled out in pain as she felt her body begin to bruise and her ribs get knocked out of place. She couldn’t have this pressure on her anymore she shoved the body of the big cat off her and lay there for a moment, pain riddled her chest and she was having a hard time breathing, but she knew that would subside. At least enough for her to get back to Paul to diagnose her. Tears ran down her cheek as she gasped for air. She felt like a little kid when she cried, she hated feeling like a kid. She decided she was going to lay there for a time to let her lungs reinflate and let the pain subside, but once she was able to get up, she was going to slaughter several young dodos and carve up the other saber for meat to feed the unconscious feline next to her. She looked over at the fiendish creature she knocked out, its grey coat was glossy and clean looking extremely healthy with its slight mane. But she couldn’t help but hate the animal at the moment, she bit her lip in pain and anger as she stared at the cat.

“A#%$*&@!!”