11 Chapter 11: Prey

The next morning Madison and Marcus got up and made breakfast. Marcus ate some meat and more bottled water that had been prepped last night while Madison just sat opposite of Marcus.

"Why don't you eat?" said Marcus as he hasn't seen Madison eat since they met.

Madison got up from the bed and left the room. She went to where the garage and used her energy to create a basic gas generator. She then easily lifted the generator into her bedroom as she has high strength. She sits it down next to it, plugs it into the wall outlet, and turns it on and her tail morphs from a headphone plug to a power plug and puts her tail into the generator's outlet. She then sits back down on the bed and puts her knees up against her chest and sits there 'eating' the energy from the generator.

Marcus just stares at her as she does this and is just dumbfounded at how she went about doing this. Since she looks part-machine, he can tell that after what he said, this is how she 'eats.' "Ah...I see."

After a few more minutes, Marcus finished eating and Madison unplugged her tail from the generator before deconstructing the generator. They put on their gear and headed outside to begin their trek to leave the city. Since Madison lived on the north side of the city, they proceeded north as that would allow them to leave much more quickly.

Madison and Marcus killed many wolves along the way. After some time, Madison heard a faint distorted noise in the distance and decided to head in that direction. It was only a small detour so it wouldn't effect much on their time to leave the city. When they got closer they realized that it sounded like a fight going on. Madison and Marcus looked at each other before charging in that direction to see if they found another survivor.

Just before they rounded the corner they heard a blood-curdling scream and froze. Madison was faster to break out of her stupor and rounded the corner to see what had happened. What she saw made her want to vomit. There was a large creature on two legs standing over what used to be a person. What was left of him? was his legs and lower torso. His upper half had been turned into a large red mist. The creature stood upright from its previous attack and faced behind itself.

There was a girl there who was no older than 10 on the ground shivering in fear at the monster in front of her. As the beast approached her she crawled backwards and tried to find any sort of cover to hide from the beast. Eventually she finally mustered up enough willpower to get up and run. When she had started to run, you could hear the monster behind her start to laugh faintly. As the distance between the girl and the monster had widened, the monster crouched down before leaping at an insane speed.

The girl turned to the right as she rounded a building and went inside a house. As she closed the got inside she kept running through the rooms until she got to the back of the house and ran into the back yard. When she got into the back yard she looked back to see the house looking like it exploded from the monster charging through it with reckless abandon. The monster finished charging through the house to look around for the girl. It found her near a fence as she was trying to get over it.

The monster began charging while eerily laughing again at the fence. Just before the monster got to the fence, it appeared as if time had frozen. The girl was screaming, the fence had given way as it snapped under the pressure from the girl's vigorous attempts to get over it, and the sudden rolling head of the monster that had its eyes looking at her in an eerie way.

Time felt like it resumed for the girl as she hit the floor from falling on the fence and dirt and debris went everywhere from the collision of the monster. When she came back to her senses she began looking for the monster as the crash sent a lot of dirt and dust into the air. When she finally found it. She saw its head on the floor a few feet from its body. She thought of running from it due to her instinctual fear of it but soon came back to reality when she saw that it wasn't moving. She was relieved that she didn't die from the creature that killed her friend but she then realized that whatever killed it was much stronger than it.

She was about to get up when she heard people talking in the distance near the house she ran from. When she looked at its back door, she saw a man and a woman bickering with each other. From the looks of it they were arguing about what to do with the body of the monster.

Madison was arguing that she should save the meat for later as they had just eaten while Marcus was arguing that they should cook it now since it was a higher level monster and would probably taste better than the wolf meat.

"Fine, only a small amount though. You go overboard and I'll just assimilate it." said Madison finally giving up from Marcus' whining. She hates arguing, especially with stubborn people.

Marcus sighed before going over to the monster to begin getting its meat. It appeared like a roaming boss monster for this region but due to Madison's abilities it was like paper to her.

Meanwhile, Madison walked over to the girl in front of the monster's corpse and noticed that the girl was shivering, probably from the encounter with the monster. She approached the girl but stopped when she saw the girl cowering from her.

"It's okay, I won't hurt you." said Madison as she put on a warming smile and crouched down while stretching out her hand for the girl.

The girl was still shivering as she looked between Madison and the monster's head.

"It's okay. That monster won't be getting back up. It can't hurt you anymore." said Madison trying to calm down the girl.

"I want my mommy!" said the girl as she began crying while curling up into a ball.

Madison got up and slowly walked towards the girl. When she reached her she crouched down before hugging the girl. "It's going to be okay. I'll protect you no matter what. This won't happen again." said Madison trying to calm her down again.

It took several minutes before the girl calmed down. She continued sitting in the same spot for some time until Marcus called them. "Food's ready!"

"Come on, let's eat something. It'll help cheer you up." said Madison motioning for the girl to follow her.

The girl looked up at Madison and just stared at her before sniffling and whispering, "Okay."

Marcus had clears a bit of the debris and got some chairs and a table from the destroyed house and set them up in the backyard.

"Thanks Marcus, seems like your idea was worthwhile after all." said Madison as this will probably help the girl with calming down and recovering. They would finish eating then continue their trip to leave the city then establish their new home.

The girl picked up some of the meat and began eating it. She noticed that the monster meat had a very rich taste and was seasoned quite well. Madison saw the girl's face and turned to Marcus. She knew that the monster's meat would probably be better than the wolf meat but she didn't think it would be THAT much better.

Marcus held up his hand while showing several spice bottles in between each finger. He had multiple spices that went well with the monster meat. "Got these from the house. Who knew that cilantro and dill weed went well with monster meat."

Madison was a bit surprised at the fact that Marcus could cook. "Did you used to cook or something?"

"Yup. My family owned a restaurant and we'd always make homemade dishes at home for dinner. Always wanted to try something new but this is a bit out there for experimenting on new dishes." said Marcus with a slight smile while chuckling at the circumstances.

Madison shrugged her shoulders and decided to try the meat herself. When she put the food in her mouth she tasted its richness but several seconds later the taste was completely gone. She tilted her head and as she did this her mouth opened slightly and a puff of her nano-machines came out before going back in.

Madison saw her nanos and frowned at realizing that she could only briefly taste the food before her nano-machines would eat her food before she could. Madison sighed before looking over at the girl who was happily eating away at the food on the table.

"So if you don't mind me asking right now. What is your name?"

"...Kat." she said in a timid and quiet tone.