Ignavus : City of Blood

Act 12 : Drive Out and Away

Slowly but sure, their perpetrator shows herself out from the depth of shadows. She is an auburn-haired woman with almost-crippling physique. From the fainted looks of the woman before them, her sense was dwelling near dying rather than a healthy one on the prowl. Both arms and feet were struggling to rise up against the cold demeanor of the concrete floor. Her aim was flimsy for the woman to provoke an assault in front of well-fed quartet from the beginning of their brawl.

“We shouldn’t point our gun towards each other. Here, take this.”

Being in pity towards the woman, Gads Gilmore throws a box of meal he prepared yesterday. It is a rice box made from his brief cooking session back at the convenience store hours before. The bearded man felt no interest over the near-rotten breakfast anymore, but the woman was seemingly petrified in joy. She opened the box without hesitation and putting her face straight into it. No one cared of the woman’s unlawful table manner this time around. Her lousy bite shreds the instant noodles into slices that falls onto the concrete floor.

~gnom-gnom-gnom~

And the dirt-covered ground were incapable to appease her crave. She licked the grime out of them and eaten such filthy leftovers without thinking twice of its repercussion afterwards. The quartet tossed aside their judgment and letting the woman feast on her food as she pleased. Then, the auburn-haired woman goes slightly disturbed amidst her mastication process. She scratches her throat in attempt to get rid off uneasiness down under.

” I’ll have the drink for you.”

Elisa pulled a water bottle out from her small bag. Rather than throwing it like Gads Gilmore did earlier, the blonde-haired woman approached her close and carefully placed down the bottle up front,” I’m harmless. I just wanted to share my fill for you.” she raised both hands before the cautious gaze whilst tending her own tremble at the same time. The blonde-haired woman felt mild anxiety constrained into the veins against the leering look. Even so, bravery and compassion inspired Elisa to get closer, swallowed up the fear that dominated her sense awhile back.

John gulped in-between and equipped his silenced pistol behind the waist. The auburn-haired woman made everyone appeared in constant alert for bringing down her sudden feral sense if occurred. To make an innocent behavior before the auburn-haired woman’s perceive, John Straverman was concealing his own weapon across the rear this whole time. She must be exhausted to maintain such vigilance in the tunnel.

Mindless thoughts have been brooding into her human-centered self because of no sleeping hours intake. Regardless of how weapon-less they are, she will declared them hostile if her amity got spoilt by their emergence.

~gnom-gnom-gnom~

It takes only three minutes for the lone wolf to finish her meal and devours them all in satisfaction. After her clash before the first real nourishment up front, the auburn-haired woman gradually felt ill and fuzzy across the mind,” Ugh- I will kill you all after...” she held herself hard to contend their benevolent offers, yet none of them come across in successful manner. Her fatigue eventually strikes the physique and eliminate any sort of dangerous-looking stance at once in her imminent slumber.

Gads Gilmore strapped back his own pistol into its socket,“I’ll carry her to the back. Let’s go!” He assured.

---

Shanice inserted the key into its hole to test the automobile’s performance and warming it up for some time. On the other hand, Gads Gilmore overviews the outside world by the camera installed on the four drones above the sky for mapping their route towards Brathe. John and Elisa took a seat at the corner for their own recreation period. The man wanted his spouse to calm herself down before going for another trip outside. The unidentified beast should be out there and murdering people in every seconds of their breath. Its appearance unsettled most bystanders, even for John Straverman who was an employed beastmaster for WIC company in the past.

“You see, I’ve remembered a deep-seated research of two fossils, back then.”

Noted the black-haired man as Elisa’s blue-tinted eyes met his own besides a large shelf across the left. He reminisced them within barred-close observation afterwards, taken a solemn breathe within his lungs and slightly meditate on the floor in cross-legged fashion. The blonde haired woman widened her eyes before his introduction to the story. She has wiped away some tears left after their intense collision with Caedes and its peddling menace,” Don’t be asleep ahead of me, babe. What about the fossils you have seen?” Elisa teased him out by wriggling her knuckles across the waist.

“You’re patronizing me, aren’t you babe? Ha-ha-ha-ha!” John chuckled, then retreated himself away to the opposite end, ”I’m trying to retrieve details. Please wait for a second there.”

Instead of doing what was requested, Elisa glares towards the face of her husband to suppress him even more of guilt and dismay,” I am bored. You’re the clown for me, so make me laugh with usual jokes of yours.” Begged the woman with her puppy eyes aboard,” or whatever story you wanted to tell. It’s worth a diamond in our current world today.”

“ I was assigned as a beastmaster back in our day roving around the jungle, honey. That disgusting Aldo Meridic always have something to pester our dignity and making a profit from every penny spent over our research. I found these two peculiar objects after digging on the ground of Northern United States and carried them back home with a tail-bone fossil of a gigantic bear, that is Arcdotus as I have said back before.”

John Straverman pressed his palms to form a triangle shortly after,”that fossil of an armored fish named Dunkleosteus then printed in our latest technology of 3D printer combined with our last discovery of ‘soul’ element, which is modified DNA to resemble a living body after its cultivation.” He muttered. From distant concern to utmost delight, the black-haired man started to revel on his late experience and prodding them up from the grave it was once lived.

“How could it be blended, honey?” Elisa asked even more with inquisitiveness implanted before her face,” I thought that it’s forbidden for us to resurrect dangerous animals of the prehistoric era, but why?”

The black-haired man beams ahead of her pure curiosity. Knowledge sparks within the brain for him before the wife’s snooping mind,” It’s quite complicated and odd, too. A law has been enacted in the innovation era that permitted every sort of immoral inventions to take place. Its rules are simple : that research should have impact on the life of earth and promotes the well-being of humanity.” Told the black-haired man towards her interest.

Before Elisa Straverman could lay down another query, someone has been awakened across the back seat,”Raaaagh! Let me go!” she screamed out of misery against the restrictions that has been planted all around her fragile physique. In understanding of his responsibility towards the woman’s gloom, Gads Gilmore quickly hopped from his own business and approached the woman in immediate fashion.

“I have to say sorry for this, Miss stranger. We have to depart soon but decided not to leave you stranded here alone.” The bearded man shoves his head and entered the widely-opened window subsequently,”so, unless you wanted to cooperate and vows not to bite on us anymore, we have to bind you like this until we reach Brathe today.”

The auburn-haired woman seemed a little resentful after listening to his reason. Her forehead crumples against the flow of strategical plan that Gads Gilmore has disclosed. Tilted in front of the bearded man’s smiling vigor, the woman abruptly shouts before his face,”No! Please, anywhere but Brathe! They’re killing civilians for their own sake.”

Her vision got shrouded by streams of whimper. Gads Gilmore witnessed such contrasted behavior with himself being the frontman ahead. On the other way around, Shanice has also heard of the howling solicitation and immediately bounces to the opposite side of the car’s backseat window,” What’s wrong with Brathe? It’s the safest place for us to replenish weapon stocks.” Her eyes stare onto the weeping eyes of the woman. She knows that the auburn-haired woman has no longer a villain in their advance. However, her instinct tells to undo the restrain once their current victim trades off bountiful information beforehand.

“We’ll release you if that mouth could talk about the cruelty of Brathe.” Shanice submitted her side of plea towards the auburn-haired woman. Realizing that they have never learn of her name, the curly-haired woman immediately interrupted her forthcoming response by laying a hand up front,” Tell us your name, as well. We can’t be truly related if-“

“Natasha Gastano. I’m a resident of Brathe, myself.”

Face of astonishment materalised onto expressions of the leader and her brother before Natasha Gastano’s wake. The auburn-haired woman fell into her own contemplations regarding their bewilderment, thus her squinted eyes before their advance,” Did I give you funny ideas? I’m not joking.” Said her against the pair.

Shanice gruntled with her own amusement, at first. She allows keen observation of their kept-bound interviewee to take hold over their interactions at the moment. Gads was also engrossed in his own perspective by the truth spoken. A resident of Brathe means close relatives to the law enforcer and someone to protect. Natasha Gastano should be deemed as one part of their armed community in the past. Therefore, her intimate connections before the troops should be strong and confined.

“If you claimed to be associated with their exclusive community, what would be your fault to make you suffer this way?”

Shanice never permitted herself being played with mere assumptions of someone unknown. Natasha Gastano, a person that the auburn-haired woman acted as a part into, called for objectives no one would ignore. Gads Gilmore approached such claim with careful conclusion, as well. The bearded man has been participated in gun-owning marketplace for years. His clients were coming from numerous backgrounds, yet majority of them hailed over the law enforcer’s territory after profound check-up to their identity.

For that reason, the bearded man has his own say into the matter. Gads Gilmore observes her physique up-close to locate something relatable on her claim. The gravity of his watchful eyes created unsettle behavior onto Natasha’s face,” What do you both wanted from me? Speak!” warned Natasha amidst their mysterious attitude upon her appearance. Their deafening silence finally carried her to yield against their wish, for her to open the mouth once more in utmost shame,”I was banished because of my husband’s misdeeds. He unveiled the truth about Aldo Meridic’s contest to hundreds of my friends and showing them an escape route for it.”

A sinful veracity, indeed. Gads Gilmore smirks a bit on top of his seemingly-bland expression,” As I thought. And it must be painful for the hundred people days after, I guess.” He assumed. Natasha Gastano nodded slightly towards his random preposition and gazed upon the bearded man in humiliation,”Yes. They were executed a hundred meter from the eastern gate at Neatol with hunting rifles owned by the state prosecutor.” She lurked within her guilt, attempting to soften them up by mopping herself downwards.

“So, would you all divert your destination for a little? The officers at Brathe closed their border ever since.”

Shanice fallen into her own reflection and abandoned the query from Natasha Gastano. A number of minutes were sunken into somber ambience and deep-end consideration. Her intuition would define the road they should choose, so the curly-haired woman closes both eyes to listen.

“We’ll get past Brathe for Darte to see what’s happening. If it’s not like what you have told us, you’re dead.”

---

~vroom~

Sports utility vehicle like Stang GP upholds its reputation by a notch. Its roaring engine has been warmed up after John Straverman found twenty liters worth of gasoline inside a large canister in-between the shelves nearby. Its spacious storage would be able to contain their five-personnel inside with large room to move their feet around. Reaching a hundred kilometers/hour in three seconds, the group could travel across in lesser hours than their leg-only voyage.

“We should be safe by now. My drones sensed no movements in three kilometers from here. Are you sure it’s only four of them deployed by Aldo Meridic, Natasha?”

The auburn-haired woman hastily replied,”I’m certain. My late husband was a high-ranked official. It’s the first stage, though, so I don’t know what else would that man release in the future.”