From 2e7f521ac1b2a95c1a477ece43ed25a9ecde80c7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: david Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2020 09:17:27 -0600 Subject: [PATCH] progress from today --- book-1/10.tex | 109 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 109 insertions(+) diff --git a/book-1/10.tex b/book-1/10.tex index 43fe18e..b74cc31 100644 --- a/book-1/10.tex +++ b/book-1/10.tex @@ -369,5 +369,114 @@ Now that they were alone and in relative safety it felt like they had just met. ``I \dots'' He shook his head helplessly. Everything was spinning around him. +This could only \textit{be} a nightmare! +He stood up with a start, +stepped forward and almost fell over because he forgot to tie his right shoe, +promptly stepping on one of the shoelaces. +He hastily bent over, +tied his shoe and wanted to turn towards the door, +but Katt held him back with a quick motion. +``Don't'', she said. +She almost sounded frightened. +``Why?'', asked Andrew. + +``I would rather if you \dots'' +Katt raised her shoulders. + +``If I don't go out there?'', he asked with an accompanying gesture towards the door. +Katt nodded and Andrew pursed his lips, arriving at the door with two faster steps. +With a determined yank he pulled the hanging to the side and stepped out. +But in spite of everything he was still level-headed enough to stop after one step out of the door to look around. +And in the next moment he was very glad he had done that. + +In front of him was a long, +asymmetrical square that seemed to have been rectangular at one point. +Now the entire row of houses on the other side had collapsed +and made an enormous pile of rubble that shoved long fingers of stone and concrete into the square. +The rest of the buildings were more or less heavily damaged and altogether leaning in the same direction, +just like he had seen before. +Red or yellow fire light shone from behind several windows and on the square two or three large fires, +around whom a number of figures sat. +In the darkness he could only identify them as stout shadows. + +And even that was enough for him to tell that they weren't all \textit{human}\dots + +Some of the outlines were too shaggy as if they had fur, +had long pointy ears, +or seemed to be humpbacked. +Andrew saw more than one figure that had a tail trailing them, +or some that seemed to walk on all fours. +Even the sounds that he heard reminded him of the grunting of an entire zoo more than sounds humans would make. + +``Come back inside'', Katt said behind him. +After a moment she added. ``Please.'' + +Even though it was too dark to see the expressions on the faces of the assembled nightmare figures, +Andrew could still feel their gaze resting on him, +and the feeling was so uncomfortable that he withdrew only a moment later. +Katt was still sitting on the edge of the bed, +but Andrew didn't go back to her, +instead steering towards one of the ancient chairs and carefully sat down on it; +a camping chair made of metal that only had the wire frame left. + +``They're all like Ratt?'', he mumbled. +Katt didn't react to the question and Andrew struggled to continue. +Why was it suddenly so difficult for him to find the right words? +He usually didn't have any problems with that. +Eventually he got over himself and asked the question that he \textit{actually} wanted to ask. + +``But you're \dots?'' + +``What?'', Katt interrupted. ``Normal?'' + +Of course she wasn't. +\textit{Katt}. +At least after he had seen her sister +--- Ratt ---, +it should have been clear to him. +She had heard things a while before \textit{he} had. +Her oddly elegant gliding way to move about and her alarming strength. +And it was almost as if she could see in the dark.\footnote{Thanks for the catgirls Elon} + +``No'', she said after a few seconds. +Her voice sounded rough. +``I'm a monster just like the everyone else here.'' + +``I didn't mean that'', he said hastily. + +``Yes, that's exactly what you meant!'' +Katt stood up with a jolt. +The mattress springs squeaked loudly. +``Do you want to see? +Here! +Look very closely!'' +She stepped towards him and started to rip her clothes off with angry movements +--- which didn't take long. +She only had a shirt and pants with nothing underneath, +and no shoes. + +In the pale light that filled the room like dully glowing haze, +he could only see her body as a silhouette even though she was only two steps away. +Just far enough away that he couldn't see any details +--- or touch her if he had stuck out his arm quickly. + +At least at first glance her body seemed to be completely human, +even though it was very lean and emaciated. +Just looking at it gave him a sharp pang of guilt. +Under normal circumstances he would have been embarrassed +that a girl had gotten undressed in front of him just like that, +but in that moment he didn't feel anything other than sympathy; +and a gradual increase of anger for a fate that forced a kid to grow up in such squalor. +Katt's gaunt body was just like her face: +You couldn't ignore how pretty she \textit{could have been}, +if she would have had the chance. + +Then she turned around and he saw what she was actually trying to show him: +Between her bony shoulder blades a striped strip of fluffy fur +that followed her spine and ended right above her butt cheeks; +as if it were supposed to end in a tail that to his relief wasn't there. + +Katt stood there motionless for a few seconds, +then turned her head and looked at him through blinking eyes.