Chapter 7: Reacted

May wakes up still exhausted when Ian loudly stumbles over to the bathroom in the morning.

"If it sounds like I'm jerking it, that's because I am." Ian shuts the door behind him.

Kisung rolls over on the table, blinking sleepily but still awake enough to sass back. "You need some help with it?"

"Get in here, big boy!" Ian cries happily.

Vincenzo groans. "Shut the fuck up." He rolls around a bit and then only just seems to realise he slept in socks. "Eww, gross." He peels them off and throws them off the bed.

"Oh my," Kisung purrs. "You dirty slut, take it all off."

Vincenzo raises his head with a scowl. "You wanna fuck? Let's go."

Kisung sits up on the table and puffs out to try and make himself look even bigger than he already is. "Yeah, I'll fuck you!"

"Let's go, bro, let's fuck."

"Take your dick out."

"You take it out."

"I told you first!"

May tries to massage the ache in her neck from sleeping in the chairs. "Do you know what's happening right now?" she asks Marcus with a sigh.

Ian shouts from inside the thin walls of the bathroom; "They're my last two brain cells when I have a boner."

Marcus rolls, almost falling out of the bed before he stops himself. "I just want all of you to know that there are no police, and I wouldn't feel guilty."

---

Their clothes are still damp and cold but they're starving and so redress to venture out hesitantly, hoping the sun will dry them off. Amelia isn't home when they knock and there's a quiet commotion at the front gates when they pass by on their walk around.

Vincenzo takes off, slipping up the staircase near the gate to peek over the edge of the wall with the rest of the small crowd gathered so the other four follow.

Kisung bumps into the wall going up and stumbles.

Marcus stares. "Watch out. There's a wall."

"Thanks," Kisung deadpans. "Thank you, Marc."

There are creatures below the thick wooden fence, six limbs with three joints each, used as both hands and feet. The body is generally pear shaped and the movements is a cross between a gorilla and a spider. No visible mouth or ears but a protrusion like a star-nosed mole takes over most of its face with four wide-set eyes below it.

One of them is bright red and stops prowling at the base of the fence when it catches sight of the teenagers. It raises a long limb to wave.

May flashes back to seeing the other transported group for the first time where she waved down a red figure. "Ah." She raises her hand.

Vincenzo slaps it down. "The fuck you doing? Don't make friends with it."

"I just reacted," May protests.

The creature stops waving and puts its hand/foot thing on the wall. Then it starts to climb.

"You've fucked us," Ian states. "We're all fucked."

"I just reacted!"

The other humans start panicking and shuffling each other aside, aiming simple spears and badly made swords. The teenagers slip away quietly in the chaos and back up away from the wall.

"They could be nice," May tries.

Someone screams as they're yanked over the edge of the wall.

"I'm sure they slipped," May says, higher pitched.

Ian stares at what is quickly becoming a full-fledged fight. "Are…we legit about to die?"

"We did not last long," Vincenzo muses.

Marcus turns away, already looking for an escape route. "Does this place only have one entrance?"

"Not going to stay and fight?" Kisung asks, already backing away.

Ian looks at them with wide eyes. "So we're all in agreement that we just run?"

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All of them start nodding.

There's a sudden burst of loud chatter from beyond the wall and then the noise dies down, the people standing up along the wall calming quickly enough that the newcomers aren't something worse.

None of the teenagers give a shit, they're backing down the stairs and retreating all the way down the street to half hide behind the corner of a house. Vincenzo is visibly struggling to act cool but Marcus makes no show of being a realistic coward.

They watch the crowd settle down and calm, then after maybe another ten minutes the drawbridge gate comes down and two giant hairless beaver things come in dragging open-air wagons piled high with crates like some fucked up medieval fantasy merchants. There's a person (not human) in the back cart, super nonchalant for just having been in a fight.

Even from this far out, it's clear the insect things are now dead and bleeding various pretty rainbow colours, apparently in line with their skin colours. The beavers' skin is now a colourful mix of absolute brutality.

"I would like to ride one," Ian says.

"I would like to watch you try," Marcus deadpans, stepping out from behind the corner and then hesitating. "Is that dude the…owner?"

The person gets off and swings a bag over their shoulder, walking over to a few other people and discussing something before walking off with them. The person also looks fucked up even for an alien and none of the teenagers can look at it for long.

The first beaver sits back on its haunches, rising two meters up in the air, and pulls out a scroll from a neck pouch with surprisingly dexterous hands to then pass it off onto Amelia. Amelia reads it and then pulls out a fat stack of cue cards on a ring and flips through, making sentences that the beaver nods along to.

"It can read," Kisung states.

"Fuck this entire place," Vincenzo sighs. "I'm going back to bed."

May is all for leaving because she's terrified. The insects might not have been nice but the beavers just murdered several without pause - or effort. Maybe there was a fight that she didn't hear but still…

"I'll meet you there, I want to talk with some other people about breakfast," Marcus says.

The other boys start heading back and she follows. They get the fire pit started up and sit around it on chairs -or Ian on the table- they they drag over to dry off the rest of the way while Vincenzo and Ian argue about how they could have totally taken on those insect things.

"I mean we could have gone old-school and poured boiling oil over the side of the walls," Kisung suggests.

"What oil?" Ian asks.

"The walls are made of wood," Vincenzo scoffs. "May, tell him how dumb he is."

"I think the insects could have been nice," May blurts out because she can't stop thinking about it.

"Girls," Vincenzo mutters.

"No, I'm being realistic," May counters. "The beavers could give us a ride to a bigger place with more information but do you want to ride with psychopaths?"

"Maybe they're natural predator and prey," Ian tries.

"They have enough higher thinking to understand the flip cards or whatever but no, you're right, blatant mass murder is only natural," May snaps.

The boys blink at her in shock.

"Wow, that really got to you, huh?" Kisung asks. "I mean, you're not wrong, and I'm not getting anywhere near those beavers but also maybe consider-"

Marcus shoves open the front (only) door. "I got us a ride with the beaver things to another settlement that has a few humans we can stay with. It's a three day trip but Amelia said she can spare some food."

"As I was saying," Kisung continues. "The beavers are literally serial killers no matter what their reasoning is and riding with them would be the stupidest thing I can think of."

"It's seven days without the beavers," Marcus retorts, shutting the door behind him as he walks further in. "Across unmarked roads with who the fuck knows what walking around here. The beavers are the only ones who comes this far out, we can't exactly call an Uber."

"Okay, let's make a list of pros and cons," Ian says calmly. "Cons; they killed several creatures with no hesitation-"

"The insects attacked first," Marcus corrects. "Amelia saw it. The beavers don't hurt anyone that doesn't start shit first. They also only come around every other month so if we don't go now, we're not going anywhere."

Vincenzo frowns. "You said 'a few humans' in the new place. Is it all beavers otherwise?"

"A mix," Marcus says dismissively. "More resources, more information – I'm not wasting time in this shithole, if that's not clear to you. I'm going either way."

Kisung slumps further into his chair. "We don't have money, we don't have food, we can't communicate, I'm already starting to smell rank-"

"Amelia will give us food, pointing works, and they do have water here if you want to clean up," Marcus retorts. "Also stealing is an option."

"You are simultaneously the best and worst person to get stuck with," Ian muses. "What happened to breakfast by the way?"

"They have a soup kitchen thing," Marcus says with a vague gesture towards the door.

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