Blood springs eternal {Half-baked vs. Bufflebara, Day 2}
Jul 2, 2014 22:11:47 GMT -5
Post by Python on Jul 2, 2014 22:11:47 GMT -5
Ingrid ElwynThey collapsed like dominos.
The mutt that had clashed with her moments ago was staggering when she turned her head, a mass of blood and matted fur and quivering muscles until its body fell limp into the sand. One down, one to go. The desperation seemed to enliven her friends, for they made short work of the last survivor by crippling its limbs with vicious thrusts of steel. Soon it was teetering on damaged hooves and making blood trails in the sand, groaning until its chest gave one final heave. She walked over to each corpse and checked for any signs of life, and when her suspicions vanished she wiped beads of sweat from her brow and used her hand as a visor to block the sun. By the looks of it the coast was clear. They had eliminated all threats within the vicinity and could finally take a breather. But at what cost? Broken bones and wounds needed tending to. Ingrid had escaped with only a bruise, but her friends were not so fortunate.
She stared at the abominations in all their “capitol glory” and realized something. Mutations or not, these were animals; thick, meaty mammals that would soon start to wither away in this heat. The sand would surely bury their bodies and mask the odor of rotting flesh if Ingrid left them as they were, but why waste perfectly good meat? ”Do either of you know how to skin an animal?” she asked, kneeling in front of the beast she had slaughtered. It was too heavy to turn over, but she could made due as long as she had access to its belly. With her knife she made a shallow incision in its abdomen, careful not to plunge the edge too deeply inside, and started to split the hide from tail to throat.
The blistering heat bore down on her back as she worked. There were towers to provide temporary shade, but she could not heave dead weight over to those safe spots. Skinning these brutes would be grueling labor that left them frustrated if they helped, but it would be worth it in the end with fresh meat in their bags. We need food, and not just those plants Potato found in the ugly garden. This would fill their bellies and give them extra strength for the days ahead. But we have to work quickly, because this unrelenting heat would amplify the effects of decay. She didn’t want the meat to spoil in these bodies before they could cut it out and store it for later. ”You can work on the other one if you want, I can do this one on my own,” she said, sliding her blade under the skin to sever the fibers between hide and muscle. She started to peel the flesh back as she addressed them again. ”It doesn’t have to be perfect, we just need to do it quickly before their bodies start to rot.”
They deserved their reward, after all.
By the time she was finished with the ordeal – the skinning, the slicing, the draining, all of it – her arms were coated in mutation’s blood, and there was nowhere to wipe it but on her white t-shirt. It smeared across the fabric like red finger-paint, but her leather vest managed to hide most of the gore. The sand made it worse, clinging to every wet spot it could find. There was sand on the meat as well, but without any water there was no way to wash it all off. Still, they were better off than they were previously. They had sharp weapons, edible plants, and now fresh meat ready to be cooked. All they needed was a fire, and in this awful heat it a flame shouldn’t be that difficult to conjure.
She retreated to the shade as two cannon blasts bounced from tower to tower, one just a minute after the other. Signals of human deaths. One of them could’ve been Siren, the other could’ve been that Gavin kid she met in the training center. Or it could be the careers.
She shrugged and picked at the blood beneath her fingernails. It doesn’t matter.
[Ingrid uses first aid on Sonja and puts two servings of meat into her rucksack]
