4 2780-Space station (42401) Tari-RING
Zatland: whose there? Come out Now!
(he said with as much authority as could be muster in his lungs)
Zatland: Don't make me find you!
…
Zatland was losing control to the fear, as he yelled out, at the walls.
He was trying to project some sense of false bravado by yelling. Hopefully wishing to intimidate the intruder into leaving, or take back some much-needed initiative from his opponent.
Zatland lowered himself into a crouched position, a knife tightly held behind his back in a position to shield it from view and launch it forward in a moment's notice in a fatal attack.
He had checked the kitchen just now but found no one waiting for him in it, all he did find conclusively were broken shards of glass, evidence in the end that someone had been there.
Touching the shards, he could feel they were hot like radiation, a lot like someone placed them in the microwave for too long.
There was a burnt smell in the air.
Zatland sniffed.
There was a fragrance of partially burnt corn in the air, not like popcorn, but actual corn.
Zatland found this incredulous.
Was the thief cooking corn in his house?
Who does that? Zatland wondered.
He moved slowly. Calmly regulating his breathing into a silent blowing of air. He lifted his foot above the floorboard and oddly shuffled forward with an awkward momentum. Shifting his weight between his two feet and adjusting his posture. On the ground, Zatland became tense again.
Zatland always remained in an attacking pose. A perpetual runner set up before sprinting forwards.
He had hoped he'd be able to shift his weight faster than his approaching enemy if needed. Being in the launching positions before the fight even started could cut the time for his reactionary reflexes.
Zatland approached his kitchen door and called out once more into the living room.
" Come out now! I know somebodies here" he said to get a silent response, no one in the living room responded, Zatland began to doubt himself, did he really hear noises?
Finally responding late to his voice, the thief opened the door from Zatland's bedroom, and walk into the living room quietly.
Zatland startled.
"what the hell, when did he get passed me to enter my room."
The burglar was beginning to look more like a killer to Zatland, as his perceptions began to change his attitude from defense to attack.
The way that the thief moved his head when he entered the room, it looked like he had spotted Zatland, but didn't have much a reaction to the boy being poised to attack. The man squeezed into the room to stand opposite of Zatland as if they had had a prior agreement to meet in the middle of his apartment at this late hour.
The man stood tall across from Zatland, who has leaned down with his feet shoulder length apart, prepared for a possible jump.
Zatland muscles became taut with disconcertion staring at the man with his pupils dilating, it seems this person wasn't afraid of him, the man's smooth movements when entering the room were just too confident.
"calm down, calm down… am here on your father's orders. I have something to give you," the man said still in the shadows, his voice sounding tediously relaxed and unconcerned.
He bent down and set a box on the floor.
….
they both stared at the small box on the floor both for different reasons, with the man reason being unknown.
Zatland stared down at the box confusedly as well, many questions frantically running through his head, at this moment he wondered if he could ask about his father's murder.
Quickly he made his mind, but before he could speak the old thief began to retreat into the shadows blending in and vanishing, like he was in a hurry to be out of there.
"wait!" Zatland yelled after him. He didn't know what the man had placed in the box, it could've been an explosive.
Zatland ran across the room and jumped over a couch buying some distance between him and the box. He spent several moments there waiting for a possible explosion, and to be sure of no danger or collateral damage to his house.
Nothing happened, even if it was poison he'd be dead by now, it was most likely safe, or trigger based. If it was trigger based someone was playing a cruel joke on him for no reason. No one killed someone like that unless they held a family grudge. And if that were true, did he have any chance of surviving from the get-go.
Something told him that the old man would obliterate him in a fight. So he felt relatively out of options.
He hesitated around the box for several more minutes, slowly poking and prodding it with all manner of tools, in his household, like a spoon, a fork, some knives and, two rulers. The two rulers to lift and throw the box across the room.
It was a dumb idea because just lifting a box would set off a trigger mechanism if there was one, and if the thing in the box was fragile he probably just wrecked it beyond recognition.
Finally, he was over his skepticism, lifting and opening the thing.
Inside the box was a tiny silver ring, with scratch marks all over the surface of it, like an ancient design.
the ring seemed very old and whatever metal over it was showing it was worse for wares.
what was that about? what could it mean? his dad needed him to have this ring?
Zatland went to bed and locked his bedroom doors because he didn't trust any other areas in his home.
…
He didn't get much sleep that night watching the ring. He wondered why all this was happening to him. Things in his life were spiraling so fast out of control, that he feared he was losing his mind.
He stared at the ring for a long time, and it was getting to be the early morning when Zatland decided to place the ring on his finger, As he slid on the ring on his index finger, it scraped the side of his knuckle and started dripping blood.
"Dammit!" Zatland said in frustration. He rolled the ring over the wound, hoping it would block the blood from flowing.
Oddly... it Did like the ring was swallowing the blood…wait it was being swallowed…. the blood.
the ring went from silver too red has it slowly melted and made its way into his skin, through the wound created on his finger.
"ohhhh, shit!" Zatland said as he felt a shiver.
Zatland collapsed on the floor, his face hitting the carpet, and a pain penetrating through his brain.
…
The ring melted and healed the wound in his hand, it Sealed everything like it had never happened, Then smoothly distributed through the bloodstream of Zatlands entire body.
