Page 73 of Code Bound
CHAPTER22
VESPER
The sound of shuffling leaves penetrates my dreams of Dox and life back in Dross. It’s subtle at first, like the gentlest of wind trailing through the trees. It’s easy to ignore. Within a few minutes, the crunching of leaves grows louder, until I’m scrunching up my face with my eyes still closed and groaning.
“What the fuck are you doing, Locke?” I groan.
He doesn’t answer and I frown before trying to blink open my eyes despite my sleepiness. I hadn’t slept well on the ground. Those nights spent sleeping at the AppleFrog’s in a plush bed really spoiled me. I’ve slept like shit anywhere else so far.
At first, when I open my eyes to the sunlight streaming through the trees, I don’t see anything at all. The canopies still diffuse the light, alternating between bright spots of sunlight and dark shadows. The fire is dead, and clearly, it has been for a while because it isn’t even smoldering.
“Locke?” I call, looking around for him. For the briefest of moments, I worry that this is it. He’s finally left me, but my senses kick in and I realize that would be foolish. We’ve made it this far. Even if I’d admitted I thought about leaving him, I hadn’t. I’d just told the truth, and he’s likely thought about it a million times as well.
I stand and stretch, my frown deepening when the sound of crunching leaves sounds again. My head jerks in that direction but I don’t see anything.
“Locke?” I try again, my voice more hesitant now. We’ve come across some insane shit here. What if it’s the howler monkeys? “Cipher?”
“Yes?” he answers immediately.
“Any idea where Locke—ah!”
Locke comes stumbling out of the trees on my right and I nearly leap out of my skin. I stumble backwards and nearly trip over the dead fire before I catch myself.
“What the fuck?” I hiss, pressing my hand against my chest to calm my racing heart.
Locke snorts. “What’s the matter with you?”
I smack his arm. “I thought the howler monkeys were back.”
His brows shoot up. “We haven’t seen any howler monkeys outside of the Whispering Canopies.”
“Yeah, well, some of us live in fear of those bastards,” I grumble, shaking off the last vestiges of my fear. “What were you doing?”
He shrugs. “Trying to find something to eat. I didn’t find anything before you ask.”
My stomach grumbles in protest and I sigh. “We just need to find the safehouse in this section. We should do that before we fight the Minor Boss and we keep away from the Whispering Canopies where the Major Boss and the howler monkeys are.” I pat my stomach. “I can’t fight anything on an empty stomach. The fish wasn’t enough. We go much longer and we won’t have the energy to fight.”
In Dross, it wasn’t uncommon to go without food for days at a time. We’re forced to test our limits, and sometimes, those limits become hard lines. I know my hard line is a week if I have access to water before I become so weak, I can’t even force myself to wake up. I know my limit is three days before I start to get unstable in general.
We’re on day four of mostly no food. While I’d eaten the fish, it wasn’t much, and my stomach still demands more sustenance. It appears my limits and boundaries are changing.
“I agree,” Locke says. “I’m not going to be any good in a fight soon.” He looks off into the distance. “I thought when we came through the gate, I wouldn’t ever have to be hungry again.”
“We’ll find something,” I reassure him. “All these trees, there’s gotta be some sort of fruit hanging in some of them. And if there isn’t, we’re heading for the safehouse anyway.”
He nods. “You’re right. We should?—”
The leaves crunch again and both of us whip toward the sound. It’s dark in that direction, the canopies giving so much shade, I can’t pick out anything at all. Not until the forest floor seems to move in the shadows.
I squint my eyes. “What is that?”
Locke pops his hammer from his inventory and I follow suit, grabbing my Bloodsense Fang and letting the weight settle in my hand. The handle forms to my hand immediately, settling into a more comfortable shape. It’s probably nothing but . . .
More crunching splinters the silence, and then the sound of a lot of little crunches follows. My eyes slowly adjust to the darkness where I can see the leaves shifting. They undulate and crunch, swinging back and forth as if the wind is whipping them around.
I raise my Fang higher. “You seein’ this?”
“I see it,” Locke answers, holding his hammer with white knuckles. “I can’t tell what it is.”
