117 Missing (12)

A loud noise tore Iris away from the dreamland and brought back to the mortal world. She slowly got up, ready to bug Kyro to turn the alarm clock off, but then the sound registered in her mind. Wasn't this a woman's screech?

She opened her eyes wider, blinking a couple times to push the sleepiness away. 'Yeah, this is not Kyro's home…' The place was dirty and smelled of sweat and cigarette smoke.

In front of her stood Lucifer with raised fur, hissing at something, and Iris looked up to see a woman standing in the opposite isle with horror on her face. She was pointing at the cat while screeching at the top of her lungs.

At that moment Iris woke up, the bus stopped and she looked at the door to dash out, but it didn't open. Instead, a bus driver with a dark expression came over in their direction.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked of the woman, eyeing her with obvious contempt. "If you don't like something, get out."

"Look at those things! They're disgusting!"

Iris took affront at those words, but her current concern was getting out as fast as possible. If either of the people called animal control, Lucifer and she would be in for a lot of trouble.

The driver glanced at them, but his expression didn't soften at all. "What if they need to get somewhere too?" he sneered, then returned to his seat to open the back door. "Shoo, you'll have to walk on your own from now on."

'Thanks!' Iris called back at him, leading Lucifer out. Although they were kicked off the bus, the driver at least didn't capture them. This was the best case scenario after being found.

Once they stepped out onto the street, Iris looked around with interest. Their current location had to be in the uptown. The street here was cleaner, and the buildings taller and more modern.

'We're going in the right direction!' Iris rejoiced, but it was short lived. Where to go now? There was no map in their current bus stop, so she had no clue where in the city they were.

The knowledge wasn't going to just drop on them, so Iris simply chose the direction in which the bus had left. It wasn't the best way to decide their future, but not the worst either.

After a couple hours of walking, they were both tired, hungry, and dying of thirst. Iris couldn't remember the last time she'd had something to drink.

The lake! So much water!

She almost walked into a pole while daydreaming. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate on walking when all she could think about was how doomed they were in this journey. The question whether they could really make it kept popping up in her mind, again and again.

A sound caught her attention. It wasn't loud and somewhere in the distance, but she could swear it was of running water. She froze, only her ears moving as she tried to catch that sound again.

There! Like a bullet, she dashed in the direction, and in the street to the right of them she found a courtyard with a small fountain. The question whether it was a good idea to drink such water didn't even enter Iris' mind.

She knew it wasn't, but she did it anyway.

The taste was nothing to write poems about, but it was water. It calmed her parched throat, and she lay down nearby for a moment to enjoy the happiness brought by that simple thing.

While she did that, she noticed that Lucifer was nowhere to be seen. Jumping to her feet, she looked around, but the cat was really not around. With fear rising withing her, she took a couple steps forward, then heard light footsteps. Moments later, Lucifer showed up with a fat pigeon in his mouth.

'You…' Iris had no idea how to react. When had he left? How did he manage to catch something in this dark? No, scratch that, how did he know how to hunt in the first place? Wasn't he a house cat?

Lucifer put down his prey next to the small fountain and drank his fill, then tore at the dead bird. The sight was a bloody one, and Iris looked away. Her heart fluttered a bit when thinking about the pigeon's demise.

Once finished, Lucifer pushed the leftovers to Iris. It was very generous of him, but she wasn't certain she could take him up on his offer. The raw meat covered in blood was a deterrent enough by itself, but there were also the dead beady eyes of the bird looking at her with their glassy stare.

'This is crazy!' she thought as she stared at the offering. 'I can't!'

Her stomach growled, however, and Lucifer pushed the bird closer to her. It was true that she hadn't eaten for two days, but this… Wasn't this too much?

'You've eaten worms and insects before,' a small voice in the back of her head whispered.

That didn't make her disgust go away, though. The beady eyes just kept staring at her, judging her. 'It was alive not ten minutes ago, how can I eat it…' She didn't want to, her whole being recoiled at the mere thought of it, but her stomach growled again.

This was the third day with nothing to eat. On the evening of the first one, they had gotten some bread, but that was it. Since then, they had been running on empty stomachs.

Iris closed her eyes and lowered her head. The smell of fresh blood made her stomach twist and turn, but she opened her mouth nonetheless and took a bite. The meat was stringy, hard to chew, so she focused on that, using up all her willpower to not think any other thoughts.

'It's meat, just normal meat you buy in the shop. The taste is weird, but that's because you bought it in a questionable shop. It's just normal meat, though. Maybe a bit old. But normal.'