INDEFINITE by Erick Stearns (different ereaders txt) 📕

“This is perfect he will never find me down here; I know every crevice in this tunnel.” I took off as fast as I could, my legs were tired not to mention my whole body ached from the encounter with Damien, but I knew I couldn’t give up and become another one of his trophies. The tunnel was still flooded from the storm and had a lot of debris, but I knew if I could get under the gate at the end it would open up to a dry passageway that lead up to a clearing which would give me the advantage.

“Where in the hell did that fucker go, I know he has to be around here I can smell his scent”. Oh little bitch thinks he can be clever and hide from me in a tunnel “HAHAHA here I come Cornelius!” I yelled before descending into the tunnel after him. I thought to myself, “I have been here before, I knew the surroundings, and I knew where he was going. I laughed at the thought of him being able to outsmart me.”

I heard the echo off the walls, he must be getting close. I had to cover my scent, his senses were too advanced and he was a better hunter then I ever was.  I scraped the muddy mold off the wall and rubbed it on myself hoping this would lower my chances of being caught I needed time to recover before engaging with Damien again. After making sure I covered my hair, chest, and legs I took off to what I thought would be my way out into the forest when I saw him standing there. Damien had moved a lot faster than I was anticipating and now he had me. I would be doomed if my plan did not work.

“Well, well, well Cornelius, you are an evasive little shit aren’t you? You must have forgotten this was our playing grounds when we were younger.” He said with his evil smile, his teeth showing trying to scare me.             

“Fuck you Damien, just kill me and get it over with, why do you insist on these mind games!” I yelled at him, trying to not show him I was thinking of a way to evade him and get out.                  

“Haven’t you figured it out by now? I know you’re smarter than the others.” He said with sarcasm knowing I had no idea what he was talking about.          

    “Figured out what? That your fucking psychotic and need help?!” when I said this he got pissed as expected.

With a blink of an eye he had me picked up by the throat and in the air while he waved his finger in my face saying “When will you learn to hold your tongue brother!” then right before he threw me I gave him a smile which he knew it meant I had planned for this. His face went pale, pupils turned hollow black, and his iris sky blue. Damien was trying to slow down the situation with his adrenaline pumping to figure out what I had done.

 When I was covering myself with the mold from the floor and walls, I happened to come across some rope that was there from when we use to collapse certain passageways to keep out unwanted visitors. So I tied the rope to my waist, and ran it down along the edge of my pants so he would not be able to see it. Then I tied the rope to a weak point into the wall which was supporting the ceiling, luckily the rope was covered in mold from the years of being in the dark moist environment. The rope was no ordinary rope this was rope manila rope which was durable, flexible, and resistant to water damage, also known as fishing nets.

He looked up and saw the rocks starting to crumble soon to crush him, and said “If I don’t die Cornelius, you will wish you had killed me with your own ….” He was crushed, as dust filled the passageway I swiftly ran to the path which took me into the forest before the tunnel collapsed. As I made my way into the forest I looked up and saw the sun was just starting to set, after years of being alive the one thing I always looked forward to was seeing the colorful sky turn into the unfathomable dark astral night.

 I made my way to the top of the Ishi Giant; I had some time to think about what I had just done to my own brother seeing how the tree stood at a staggering 250 feet tall. I never wanted to kill him but at this point I don’t think he would ever be the same, I just hope father will understand the circumstances of the situation and why it had ended like this. This was truly the perfect spot to clear my mind after this un-forgetful day, I settled into a spot right near the top that had a great view of the night, I tilted my head back with my hands behind my head. I could see for miles, and was finally at peace for the time being, I smiled to myself as I slowly drifted off.

   “STOP RIGHT THERE YOU TWO!” father said with his deep booming voice. The hair on the back of our necks shot up when he would yell like this, we knew we fucked up this time. We looked at one another contemplating about just making a run for it, but we both knew it wouldn’t matter; father would catch us in the end only making our punishment worse from trying to evade him. My brother Damien nudged me whispering “What’s our story?” with fear in his voice. “The truth Damien! ,and I mean the truth, you know as well as I do father will be able to tell if one of our stories is off by the faintest bit.” “Ugggh fine, I will tell the truth, but you talk to him first, father has a better bond with you.” Damien said with a little relief in his voice. I looked at him one last time, his long and black hair with a silver strip was hanging down in front of his bloody face.  Slowly we turned with our heads down, hands in our pockets trying not to make eye contact.                

      I started to walk towards dad rubbing the back of my head worried he would not believe our story. “Father I-I… I mean w-we were just scoping out the area and saw this male wondering around where he shouldn’t have been, so we thought we were doing you a favor by killing him and getting our feed for the day.” I made sure to leave out the part where we played pickle in the middle with his hand after we ripped it off from playing tug-of-war with his arms, and that if the male could get his hand we would wrap his arm up good so that he could go get the help he needed to live. Only problem was he never could catch his hand while we were tossing it laughing at him bleeding out, crying for us to stop.               

      Father looked to Damien for his response, “Honestly father that’s what we discussed before killing him.” “You two will not make these careless decisions! What if that man was nothing more than bait for you two to come out and get slaughtered?” His face got red and was starting to breathe heavy, I could see his massive torso rising and falling as he began to clench his fists with his veins starting to show. If we didn’t have an explanation fast we would be having a father vs sons beat down.

      Fuck why didn’t we just run I thought, then glanced over to Damien and I could see he was thinking the same thing. Then I just came up with the most brilliant idea, hopefully Damien would catch on. “W-wwait father, remember you told us before attacking to make sure they were alone? “ Damien made sure he was alone from the training you guys have been working on.” Father looked dumb founded for a second but then looked to Damien and said “Is this true son?” eyes gleaming with pride. Damien almost fucked it up by looking at me in awe on how I turned the situation into appraisal from father. Damien quickly looked back at father “Yes father this is true, you have taught me well just I didn’t want to try to be arrogant and say anything.” Damien said with a smile on his face head up, to show he was going to take the credit. Then he looked at me and got that twinkle in his hollow eyes and winked at me “In fact, his sorry ass couldn’t even pick up the man’s scent; you know how awful Cornelius is.” My jaw dropped when he said this, I couldn’t believe I just saved our asses and now he wanted to be arrogant after saying he didn’t want to be arrogant. This fucker is going to get his ass whooped later I thought to myself before father looking over at me and saying “Cornelius when we get back you will have double the training, your brother is going to have the day off seeing as how his training has saved you guys from being killed.”

   Father and Damien took off back to the cove, while I started to walk back trying to figure out how Damien always got out of situations being glorified after using me like a pawn. I mean sure I could have got even by saying I made it all up father we just wanted to kill him because we were hungry and bored, but then we would have both been fucked. Damien was right though I did need to train on my senses, and had to train to be better than him one day. I realized I felt the presence of someone, but knew it wasn’t Damien or Father seeing how they went to the cove which was a few miles from where I was. I yelled “Who’s There?!” looking around to see, then I looked up and saw her flip off the tree landing right in front of me. I didn’t know what to say, father never let us interact with females at the time seeing how it would distract us from our training, but seeing her long red velvet hair, pupils were teal with the iris being a dark green, eye shadow which looked smoky black, she wore a black top which had long sleeves that almost looked like mothers curtains, bell bottoms that were black with purple lining. She was beautiful, fuck what father said! I had to get to know this female.

   “Hi, my name is Camellia.” Her breath smelled like fresh blood, and her teeth were pearly white. I couldn’t help but stare with awe. She snapped her fingers in front of me asking with a smile