Journey Through All Creatures

Chapter 42: Grinding

Note: Story starts in Achatina, The Island ABC order for Section I, Scorched Earth Exclusives and Aberration Exclusives for Section II and has a Prologue. Last chapter in Glowbug, next chapter in Karkinos.

Chapters to the end of Section II: 8

Day 3 of Aberration…

Aberration, an Ark broken and shattered from the Ark’s history. The sun scorches the surface all day and sets all that walks the ground on fire. The sun began to rise on Day 3 of Aberration, its rays of light flooding across the barren surface, the dead trees, the dead rocks, and the large cave sitting below the surface. The sunlight flowed into the cracks, lighting up the green zone. The rays of light began to bring illumination into the underground. The light flooded across the land and into the windows of a small boxy wood hut two walls high and with no ceiling. There was a door in the front that led to a small balcony over the cliff. Sodden and Dorack lay in a bed, which sat to the west of the base, snoring quietly. Then Sodden’s bag, which sat just below Sodden’s bed, shook a little bit. Then something make a quiet hissing sound and some essence shimmered out of the bag, and something shot out of the bag. Reaper left her cryopod to look around the area. She noticed Sodden and Dorack sleeping on the bed, their eyes closed and sleeping peacefully. Reaper growled quietly and tilted her head in curiosity. She walked to Sodden and sniffed his chest. Reaper growled and moved his head towards Sodden’s shoulder, then began nudging Sodden’s shoulder with Reaper’s head. Sodden began to open his eyes as he groaned and looked to what was waking him up. He rubbed his eyes and sat up to see Reaper standing there, staring at Sodden.

“Oh, good morning, buddy. What do you want?” Sodden said. Reaper growled quietly and screeched as she opened her mouth and bit into Sodden’s bag, straining a bit as she lifted it up and dropped it on Sodden. Sodden looked down at the bag.

“Oh… uh… still don’t get it. You want to go out now?” Sodden asked. Reaper nodded. Sodden sighed and stood up from his bed.

“I don’t want to leave Dorack alone, not after what happened to Nal. We do need resources. I want to let him rest, though. He can finish the base himself. I trust him to keep the place safe and sturdy until I get back.” Sodden said. Reaper growled softly and tilted her head in confusion.

“We’re getting some supplies to make gas collectors so we can get hazard suits and get down to the red zone. I also want to tame some creatures and collect resources and kill some creatures too. Sound good?” Sodden asked. Reaper nodded and walked to Sodden, moving her head upwards on Sodden’s arm and walked around him. Sodden chuckled.

“Okay, you want to go now. Okay, just let me get my stuff.” Sodden said with a laugh. He walked towards his bag, then picked it up off the ground and put it on his back. Then he walked to a storage box across the base, which was still in construction, then Sodden took a shotgun and around 60 ammo out of the box. The shotgun belonged to Nal, and Sodden sighed softly.

“Where are you, Serenity?” Sodden whispered softly. He then put his supplies in his bag and walked to the door, then opened it and walked out. Reaper walked out afterwards, then Sodden hopped onto Reaper.

“Let’s find some red gems and get some creatures.” Sodden said. Reaper growled and roared as she began to run away from the base and towards the blue zone.

Later that day…

When the sun was well above the horizon, Dorack began to moan as he moved his head to the other side of the bed. He turned his body over, then he pulled his hand off the bed to find his bag. Dorack yawned and began to sit up, then picked his bag up and put it on the bed. He looked behind him, and saw that Sodden had left. His bag wasn’t there, and Sodden was nowhere in the base.

“Hmm. Where could he have gone? Ah, well. He probably wants me to be alone for some time.” Dorack said tiredly as he rubbed his eyes and began to stand up from his bed. He put his bag on his back then walked towards the back door, then looked around the place. He didn’t see Sodden anywhere outside the base. He walked away from the windows near the door then walked back to his bed and sat down on it. He sighed.

“Nudon probably already knows. I gotta talk to them.” Dorack said. He pressed a button on the bottom of his implant to start live talking, so that he could talk to the tribe in real time. He was contacting Codred, and soon, he picked up.

“Oh, hi, Dorack! How’s Aberration going?” Codred chuckled, sniffling once. Dorack sighed.

“Meh. Not the best. Good, if you put aside the fact that Drake Death is destroying me and Sodden and killed Nal permanently, yeah, it’s fine.” Dorack said. Then he heard yelling and smashing. Dorack gasped softly.

“What’s that?” Dorack asked. Codred looked behind him and said, “Oh, just Sal having another breakdown. He’s pretty distraught after what happened with his friend. How are you doing?”

Dorack growled. “Please, just leave me alone. Don’t tell Sodden about this or Drake Death will find out and we’ll die.” Dorack said. Codred looked down at his implant.

“Okay. Whatever you say.” Codred said quietly. Dorack clicked the button again to end the call and then collapsed on his bed. He lay his head on the pillow and covered his eyes with his hands.

“Dude… come on. Why does this have to happen? We’re fine the whole way through Scorched Earth and the Island, then the second we get to Aberration, everything that could go wrong did. Stupid Rod… how can I get Nal back, anyway. I still don’t understand how they did that to her.” Dorack said as he whimpered and covered himself with the blanket. He started sniffling.

“Why, dude? Just… why? Nal…” Dorack said quietly, tears beginning to roll down his face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a few hours, Sodden and Reaper had arrived to the path that led from the blue zone into the red zone. Sodden held a pickaxe in his left hand, and he took a deep breath as he was about to step across the border between the blue zone and red zone. There were crystals nearby, but the radiation would make it very hard to get. Sodden got off of Reaper, walked forward and looked at Reaper. He put his hand on Reaper’s head.

“You’ll need to stay here. If I die with you in there, you could die too. Stay here, okay? It’s too dangerous.” Sodden said. Reaper purred softly and nodded. Sodden sighed and turned around to face the red crystals on the left side of the path, around 60 meters from the radiation fog border where the blue zone was separated from the red zone. Sodden took a deep breath, held his breath, and dashed forward, right into the red zone. As soon as Sodden stepped into the red zone, his health began detoriating and his eyes began to hurt. Sodden ran to the red gems and began to mine as much as he could, bashing his pickaxe against the rocks with all his strength, while he was struggling to survive the radiation. He began to cough as his skin began to get bruised and red. Sodden was down to 91 HP out of 210, and he was done mining two of the rocks. He ran back to Reaper as he was about to fall below 60 HP. Sodden got out of the fog and grabbed Reaper’s saddle, fell on his knees, gasping, then put the red gems he got in his bag. He looked around, his vision was blurry, then Sodden got on Reaper to get back to base. Sodden turned Reaper around, gasping, then began to run back to the base. But as they did, something sat in the bushes, watching them.

“So… it’s Sodden himself. Drundo, we found him, I’ll report back.” Someone sneered, sitting in a bush that sat near a tree, which overlooked the path where Sodden just was. The other person nodded and walked the other direction. Drundo had a white mask on his face with a black robe. The other person was a red mask.

“They’ll pay for killing the other team. Find Dorack. Make sure he never gets to Nal. HAW, HAW, HAW!!!!!!!” The red mask guy cackled. Drundo turned around.

“Marison, shush. We don’t want him hearing us.” Drundo said. Marison growled. Marison walked with Drundo back down to the red zone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

—--------BZZZZ

*click*

Nal only has two weeks to live…

If you want her back, you’re going to need to betray him…

—----------------------------------------------------

Sorry this was such a short chapter. And sorry this took so long to come out. I just couldn’t think of what to write.

Anyway, I promise the next chapters will come out very, very soon!

-RelatingHen8906