progress from today

book-1/10.tex

@@ -557,3 +557,144 @@ It looked like slightly colored water,
 and probably tasted like it too if he would have been able to taste it.
 Andrew remembered that Katt had asked her sister to add plenty of meat to the soup,
 but she must have missed hearing that or their definitions of \textit{plenty} were completely different.
+Only a few stringy pieces of meat of an unidentifiable color swam in the almost colorless clear soup.
+And the spoon looked like it had been places a spoon definitely didn't belong.
+
+Nevertheless,
+Andrew spooned his soup into his mouth until there was none left and devoured every last shred of the tough meat.
+He only realized after he was done eating how hungry he actually was,
+and the thin water soup seemed to not only not have stilled his hunger,
+but had actually made it worse.
+But after all the last meal he had had was breakfast yesterday morning and he had barely touched it,
+since he was expecting to be able to eat on his father's Yacht by noon.
+
+Andrew almost regretted having thought that.
+Remembering the boarding school and his plans from yesterday showed him with brutal clarity how much his life had changed in the past twenty-four hours.
+Just yesterday at this time he was the son of a rich industrialist,
+living well looked after and far from any dangers,
+who's brightest outlook was going on a two week long Mediterranean cruise with a man who was his father,
+but that he barely knew.
+Since then he had been kidnapped and their plane had been shot down.
+Someone had shot at him with laser guns.
+His best friend was dead, shot in front of his eyes,
+equally meaning- and causeless.
+He had only avoided being eaten by ravenous killer insects by a hair,
+and now he was in a city that had been hit by an atom bomb a long time ago.
+
+Had he forgotten anything?
+Oh yeah, his food had been brought to him by a upright walking rat with a speech impediment.
+
+``Wassss it good?''
+
+Andrew almost let a full second pass before he realized the question was for him,
+and that Ratt had meant the soup with that;
+and then it took him another second to decide how he should answer.
+If she was being sincere and he gave her his honest opinion he would probably snub her,
+and he didn't want that.
+But he wouldn't put it past the pair of sisters to play a mean prank on him	and would be laughing later,
+that he had gulped down their old dishwater out of politeness and the afterward had even acted as if it were tasty.
+He answered with a head movement that was intentionally so vague that Ratt could decide its meaning herself.
+It was just absurd that he was still hungry enough that he had to control himself not to ask the rat girl for another portion.
+
+``And now tell us!'',
+Ratt asked him.
+Her tail whipped around nervously and tapped a beat to an imaginary beat on the floor.
+
+``Tell you?''
+Andrew turned to Katt with a questioning look,
+not to her her sister.
+``What?''
+
+``Of outsssside'', answered Ratt in Katt's place.
+``If you're really from outsssside, you should know what it'ssss like out there.''
+
+``Let him catch his breath first'', Katt came to his defence.
+``He isn't even all the way awake!''
+
+``I think he slept long enough'', answered Ratt.
+
+She bent forwards and sniffed Andrew's face,
+but he wasn't sure if she was just following her nature or taking the joke as far as she could.
+``I don't think he smells like someone from outside.'', she hissed.
+``Nope, not at all.
+He smells more like a dirty spy.''
+
+``Ratt, stop it'', sighed Katt.
+``I am just as curious as you,
+but we should give Andrew a chance to fully wake up.''
+
+Andrew gave her a quick thankful look,
+but he was also somewhat puzzled.
+Katt's skittishness confused him more and more.
+It made the girl even more unpredictable,
+and if it weren't more confusing already Katt added:
+``I can imagine that he has a lot of his own questions.''
+
+``Then you should hurry up and ansssswer them'', hissed Ratt.
+``A couple of the otherssss are already on their way here and they might not be assss patient assss me.''
+
+Andrew payed attention to that.
+``What do you mean?''
+
+``People like you aren't exactly loved around here,
+that'ssss how I mean it.'', answered Ratt
+--- and this time Andrew knew exactly what those words meant.
+
+``Ratt exaggerates'', Katt intruded.
+With an angry look in Ratt's direction she added:
+``As per usual.''
+
+Ratt reacted by sticking her tongue out at her sister,
+shamelessly grinning the whole time.
+
+``Go away and take care of Bat'', said Katt.
+``And keep the others away from us for a minute.
+Please.'',
+she added after a moment and with audible hesitation.
+
+Ratt stared at her sister for another heartbeat with her provocative eyes,
+but then she threw her head in her neck and strutted out the door insulted to a level that little sisters of all time and of all people
+(and as Andrew was beginning to suspect, species) were capable of.
+
+He waited until right after Ratt had left the room,
+then turned around to Katt with a worried look.
+``What did she mean with that?''
+
+``Ratt loves exaggerating'', answered Katt,
+but Andrew felt that it wasn't the truth.
+Katt was suddenly noticeably more nervous than before her sister had come in.
+She stepped back and forth in place uneasily for a moment and then continued without looking him in the eyes.
+
+``It can't hurt to be a little careful, you know?
+A couple of the others \dots weren't happy that I brought you with me.
+And one of two \dots''
+
+``\dots think I'm a spy,
+I know.'', Andrew finished her sentence when Katt didn't.
+``Maybe it would be good if I knew who's side I was apparently spying for?''
+
+Katt hemmed and hawed for a moment and Andrew could see that she was straining
+to find a good excuse or some pretence so she wouldn't have to answer him.
+
+She didn't need either of them.
+The curtain was pulled to the side and three so completely different figures stepped in,
+that Andrew had to reign himself in with all his might not to cough from the appalling view,
+even though he somewhat knew what to expect.
+
+At least he believed he had known.
+
+The first one was about as big as him,
+just as emaciated and haggard as Katt and looked like a normal human at first look,
+but had something unmistakeably dog-like to him that expressed itself more in his behavior than physically.
+Directly behind him a figure stepped into the house who's gender Andrew couldn't have possibly guessed.
+In contrast he could very easily identify the species who's DNA had snaked its way into its human ancestors.
+Sleek reptilian scales spanned over a flat,
+nearly expressionless face,
+and just like on a snake his long split tongue moved mistrustful in his direction,
+seeming to take in as much information as the yellow reptilian eyes that stared at him coldly.
+Their eyelids were even thinner than Katt and the Dog-man's and trembled with every movement as if they had no bones or a couple dozen additional joints.
+
+The third creature was so big that it had to bend down to get through the door to step inside,
+and when it stood back up Andrew couldn't hold down an unbelieving cough.
+
+It was a living, breathing, minotaur.

book-1/11.tex

@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+\chapter{11}
+
+The Minotaur was gigantic.