'N' All Were Silent

[Houndoom_Lover]

Interlude to the Down Under

Rain.

That's what it was.

Rain got old pretty quick.

At first, the tiny droplets of condensed water- cloud urine, if you will, was a pleasant and new sensation to the child. She wanted to dance, frolic, and play in the falling broken up water, with her tongue out, but soon the rain showed its teeth and began to bite and sting like no needle, for they clung on to her long after they have finished stinging.

Damp.

That was unpleasant.

And then the thunder, and then the lightening. Electric discharge and the great ripping sound that was associated with it hurt her delicate newly made ears. She had never heard anything like it, not that she had heard much of anything yet, and it caused her innards to squirm in a most peculiar fashion. The flash. The roar. The rain.

She continued to beat upon the door. She didn’t want to be left out in this rain, and she’d gladly spare them for a little while if they just let her in. Yes, she’d get that nice looking…what was it? A carpet? Wet.

Surely, there were words that went with being locked out. Words that would let her in again. She pondered this for a moment. Well, she thought as she looked at the door that was so strange to her, it just a thin wall between here and where she wanted to be, she did want in.

“En,” She said to the door, pounding lighter as she thought, doing two things at once difficult, “In!” She said again and again, as the thunder rolled over head as though it was mocking her in its big booming laughter.

There must be a sentence with this.

In…In…? She wanted to be allowed in, but that sounded clunking. She thought, and pondered, and after a few thoughtful poundings, she thought of an answer.

“Leh,” She tried, softer then her knocking, but as soon as the word hit the air she felt confident in saying the word, the whole string of words. In fact, she rather liked her voice, “Let in…” No, not right yet…Me! Me! That was is!

“Let me in!” She cried, pounding as hard as she could. How could they ignore her pleas now? They would have to open up- And just as she had that thought pass through her head, a sound both strange and familiar filled the air.

It over powered the rumbling of the thunder, and the sounds of her knocking. Was it the door opening to release its secrets…No! It was that wondrously loud sound of that shell thing her Mother had been moving when she so rudely was aborted from her Mother’s side.

Mother had come back for her! The child’s heart sang as the whirling bladed machine lifted up over the house like a skier on a mighty slope. A smile painted itself on the child’s face and stayed there until-

The cerement step erupted underneath the child as a thin red line generating heat and power bolted through it like a nail through particularly thin dry wall. Was her Mother shooting at her? For what reason! Oh! Her brain couldn’t think of logic fast enough, her legs were already moving, as though independent of her body.

She took off like a dart and shredded through the folly foliage that tried to grow despite the awful and polluted soil. The child ran low to the ground, like a hare in the brushes, for the hound over head tipped it oval body and started to shoot with abandon.

Past barrels of green ooze and blank square buildings that all looked the same, she ran, and they followed. She took a small break, only once, when the slate grey building hugged close to each other, and their parts that hung over head…roofs, hid the remaining ground in shadow.

Hearing ones heart beat was disconcerning, let allow to hear your own words make sound inside your head. Could ever one hear themselves in their heads? It was truly a disturbing thought. She didn’t have much time to ponder thing and the other things she was thinging, for the red beams of death were back.

She took off and started to run again.

And ran, and ran, and ran, until she ran out of places to run. The land just stopped, ate up by the dark water. Her heart pounded in her chest, her head throbbed from the blood rush. What was she going to do?

The machine with flying blades drew closer, up over the dying twisted tree tops like a massive bird of prey. The child felt her heart stutter in her torso- what was she suppose to do.

Die.

The chase was going better then Tiny could have ever dreamed! His hands, veiny and muscle bound like the rest of him, clenched the half-u steering wheel of the helicopter. His thumbs were posed over the red buttons at either end of the steering wheel. Yes, much better.

His quarry had run all it could run. With a savage grin, he aligned his crosshairs right over the child and-

“Uuuum,” The annoying voice of the tiger behind him pierced his savage thoughts, “Is this beep thing suppose to be happening?”

Tiny perked his triangular ears up, and sure enough he heard a beep-beep coming from the monitor that rested in the back where the tiger sat all strapped in. Tiny cursed, swerving the helicopter to get out of the way.

It was too late.

The beep-beep had been an all too real laser that shot the whirly bird in one of its rotating wings. It span in the air like a confused fall leaf, before landing several yards away in a fiery explosion the separated the ground and everything around it from gravity.

What was she suppose to do? Dive into the water? Could she swim? Could she…die? She closed her eyes, and hutched on down, waiting for death. She wondered what it was like, and why those people that were so scared of her and her mother screamed; “No! No!” when they went to go die.

But death did not come. The child opened her eyes and saw that dreaded machine spiral in the air. Had mother changed her mind? The heart that felt so clenched and painful was beating like an excited bird in her breast.

Of course, until the machine crashed into the ground and exploded. The force sent her small body flying. It was a…beautiful feeling to be separated from the ground, despite the pain. But the goodness past, as she hit something cold, and solid.

Tiny crawled out the wreckage, hoping Doctor Cortex had insurance. His ear was on fire, and his tail, and other parts of him. The air smelled of gasoline…and failure. Tiny set a growl on his lips, when he saw that tiger idiot, who claimed his name as his own.

He was looking around with high-powered fancy binoculars, “I can’t see her anywhere!”

“She be dead,” Tiny grunted in a reply, pulling himself up and patting himself out, his yellow fur burnt black with soot. Much to his displeasure, other Tiny hadn’t a speck of soot on his fancy outfit.

Tiger Tiny gasped at his ‘friend’, lowering the binoculars, ‘Don’t even say that!”

“If she alive,” Tiny continued, sniffing the air with his broad snout, “She be in Ratcicle territory by now- Good as dead.”

The air smelled of failure, gasoline, and evil. A cold winter wind blew across the island, causing Tiny’s bristled tail to twitch. The tiger looked at him, lost and confused. He had lost his predatory instincts.