Sojourner, Pt 2

You and Noir continue on your trek westward under cover of night despite the unrelenting rain. It falls without cessation, to the point where hours turns to days, slowly intensifying as you walk.

Despite it all, you still find the time to rest and eat and loot during the day. There are plenty enough homes and rest stops and gasoline stations along the way, even if they're a few kilometers apart. Each of them have had more than enough to keep you going further and further.

Of course, they do start to thin out even more as the days pass and you have a mind to begin hoarding more food and water should you come across them. In fact, you'll have to start considering carrying canned food, even though they're heavy.

But that's honestly a problem for future you to deal with.

Right now you're mostly concerned with this rain. It has been raining so hard for so long that it begins to gather up around your feet to the point that the waterline is up to your ankles. What if this doesn't stop, and the future is filled with rain and water and flooding.

Though the highway is sloped and angled in a way that the excess rainwater flows down the sides into earthen ditches and drains, all of them are overwhelmed. None have been designed for this much water.

By this point, you've all but left the city and its suburbs and are now encroaching on the countryside. Out here is mostly forest and farmland among rolling hills. Anywhere that dips between the hills or exists in the valleys seems to be somewhat flooded.

Even any overgrown farmland you pass is unable to deal with that much water, and every untended crop seems to be flooded. You're unsure if that's good for the plants or not. Likely not.

Any buildings you come across on the sides of the highway that aren't elevated most certainly have their first floors flooded. Nothing too extreme, but enough to disallow you from sleeping on the floors. In fact, you were forced to sleep in an elevated alcove at the last rest area you had stopped at - one of the few spots you could sleep in at all.

Not that you particularly mind having to hunt for locations like that to rest your head - each one has offered a sense of security you wouldn't otherwise get sleeping on the ground.

Perhaps one of the truly good things about all this rain is simply that you haven't come across anyone or anything these past few days. Not just little critters and animals and Crags, but people too. You haven't seen a single soul in days, not since the rains started.

The only humans you've come across these past few days have long since died, whose bodies have turned into desiccated corpses. Or piles of bones whose meat have long since been gnawed off.

Sure, Noir hasn't been able to hunt, but that also means nothing has been able to hunt you either. That's certainly a blessing in its own way, perhaps making up part of the silver lining around this vast storm cloud.

Despite the lack of predators, you do come across the occasional psionic wound, just like the ones created by that shadow creature long ago. You can sense their depth in the psionic currents around you, and through your Third Eye.

Each one unnerves you greatly.

It's almost like the wounds themselves have been there since the beginning of time, but also have been freshly made, as though those deaths happened moments ago. Or are still happening right now. Each one is like a timeless gravestone, forever reminding you of your own mortality, of your own possible erasure from everything that exists.

You veer from them whenever they appear on your path, not just because they feel wholly unnatural to you. Fearsome, even. But also because you don't want to run into any shadow creatures that are still lingering, or still on the hunt.

The traumas from your constant nightmares prevents you from even considering going up against one ever again.

You pass another car that has long since been abandoned on the highway, and can't help but glance at the seats inside. In the back seat is a bulging backpack along with a few other indiscernible things, though there clearly isn't anyone inside. Not even a corpse. Whoever owned this car back then has long since abandoned it.

You tug on one of the door handles, and the car opens up easily. You quickly hop into its back seat with glee, happy to be out of the rain for a little while.

The inside of the car smells stuffy and stale, and maybe slightly rank. But you don't let that fact bother you too much. Instead, you reach over to the overstuffed backpack and open it up.

There isn't too much in there - a flashlight with dead batteries, a change of clothes, and some random sundries. None of it is exciting in the least, but you're still glad to go through the motions of looting. Again, a brief respite from the rain is certainly welcome.

Noir hops down for a moment and stretches out next to the backpack as you loot a couple packs of trail mix and stuff it into your messenger bag.

Enjoying yourself? she asks

"Haven't gone through a single container in days," you reply jokingly. "Was starting to get the shakes."

You then open up one of the trail mix packages and nibble on a few nuts. They taste a bit stale, but certainly haven't gone rancid. You can thank the sealed packaging for that. You consider offering some to Noir, but realize that everything in the mix is toxic to her.

Nuts and raisins are a definite no-no.

Instead, you grab one of your oatmeal bars and offer some of that to her. You can sense every part of her sigh, even though she chomps down what she can. She doesn't have much choice, honestly. It's not the best food for her, certainly. But right now it's the only food she can have.

She most certainly hasn't been able to hunt these past few days, and has instead dipped into your food. Though she isn't shy telling you how awful these bars taste to her, she doesn't exactly have a choice.

In any case, the fact that you're both eating your provisions really highlights the fact that you need a better source of food for the future. And you'll have to plan for any future rainstorms like this, in case you can't hunt for days.

Even if you did go out and hunt for food, you doubt either of you will find much. You're sure that absolutely everything out there is cooped up in their hiding spots, away from the relentless rain. Or otherwise flooded in them.

You think that maybe you ought to learn how to start living off the land instead, so the two of you can definitely have plenty to eat…

"Hey, can you teach me how to hunt?" you ask Noir.

What? Why? she asks.

"I mean, I can't live off packaged food forever," you reply. "Neither of us can. At some point it's all gonna run out, along with places to find them in. So I'll have to figure out how to hunt and whatnot to get food. Probably gotta forage a bunch, too."

Can't help you with the foraging thing, but alright sure. I'll teach you how to hunt. Not right now though, obviously.

You nod and look out the windows. It's pouring out there. Not that you expect it to stop anytime soon.

Once the two of you eat and rest a bit, Noir takes her place back behind your head, and you step back out into the rain. You find, thankfully, that it has lessened to some degree. And it lessens even more as you continue to trudge on.

It takes another few hours before the rain turns into a light drizzle, then stops altogether.

You hang your hat behind your back and glance up at the sky, but can't really tell exactly how cloudy it is or isn't. It's too dark to tell.

But you can see a few stars here and there, thankfully. And the more they appear, the more it tells you that the sky above you seems to be clearing up. It's another few hours of travel before dawn breaks and the sky lightens enough for you to see just how overcast it still is.

The water in the canals and drains lower enough that the flooded highway ebbs and recedes, allowing you to walk unhindered once again. A sense of relief washes over both you and Noir, who hops down to walk alongside you.

The two of you are far from the only ones to be glad of the rains coming to an end.

Your Scan and your Telepathy tells you that all manner of animals and critters out there feels similarly and are poking their heads out. Whoever has survived the long rains and flooding come out of their nests and burrows and hovels and caves, no doubt in search of something to eat. Or maybe just to stretch their legs.

You also sense some Crags emerge from their tunnels, some of whom feel like scouts. The rest feel like they're likely hunters or scavengers - they come with a sense of need, and of hunger.

It occurs to you that their thought patterns and emotions are like those of the Crags in the city and its suburbs, and you can't help but wonder if their hive extends all the way out here. Just how far does their dominion stretch?

They remind you wholly of ants and their colonies, who are the actual true masters of the Earth. Humanity might think they're its masters, but it actually belongs to the ants. Or at least, it has always belonged to them.

You had read somewhere that they are everywhere, and in every continent. In fact, there are so many of them that their combined mass greatly overshadows people. Well, when people were at their absolute peak, anyway.

Since you've gained Scan and Telepathy, you realize that you've been able to sense ants. You simply didn't know they were ants, and it has taken you a great deal of thought and attention to come to the realization.

Each and every one of them creates small Bursts of thought, so tiny you can't even read them. But combined with their colony's Network, all those Bursts fuse to become a note, a tone, a ring.

It's like a thin buzzing at the edge of your hearing, similar to that high tone when sitting still in a quiet room. A bit like tinnitus, except the sound isn't coming from your ears - it's the buzzing of the trillions of ants all around you.

You shudder as you make the comparison between them and the Crags. If they're anything like ants, then their domains no doubt stretch further out than you might realize. Worse, if they're like ants, then these Crags very likely have opposing hives.

Ants are an incredibly warlike species. Entire colonies vie for dominance over the others, and with ruthless perseverance. They will literally wipe out "enemy" ant colonies through concerted, systematic invasions just to take over their territory.

You can't help but imagine millions of Crags destroying each other in a brutal battle, as they vie for domination. The image disturbs you greatly, and you hope to never experience such a thing in your life.

A trio of Crag Scouts somewhere in the forested area to your right greet you. Or at least the psionic one does, and you do the same in return. This certainly confirms that the city's hive is the same as the hive out here, or at the very least, linked.

Their overall domain is most definitely large, and you have to wonder exactly how many of them are there beneath the ground.

Although you and the Crags jointly revel in the storm lifting, the rising heat reminds all parties that you can't stay out here for too long. They immediately set out to work, and you get back on your path down the highway, forever headed west.

About time that rainstorm ended, thinks Noir. I can finally get to hunting again, and not have to deal with your gross food. No offense.

"None taken," you respond. "Doubt I could handle your food either, to be honest."

Hey, don't knock it until you try it.

"I'll pass on the raw meat thing."

Wait 'til you're too hungry to care. Then try to tell me that. Anyway, we really oughta find a place to stop for the day. It's gonna get hot soon, at least once that sun gets back up high in the sky.

"I'm with you. But I think we can keep going for a while. It oughta take a couple hours for the water to fully sink away or evaporate, and that should keep things cooler than not for a bit while longer."

Sure, but there aren't exactly a whole lotta options out here. We really oughta spend time trying to find a place to rest rather than hoping to stumble on one along the way.

You throw a thumb behind your shoulder, pointing behind you. Not that Noir sees - she's walking a few meters ahead of you.

"Saw a sign a while back," you reply. "Should be a service station a dozen kilometers away. We can stop there. You can look for vermin to kill and eat and whatever. I'm sure there's plenty. For now, let's just enjoy the dawn, alright?"