Night 63: Forest

[revolutionise]

[From here]

The pair emerged from the thicker patches of trees at the bank of the river a few minutes later. Utena was about ready to toss her skirt into it by this point, she thought with fingers clenched over the fabric as she kept it lifted over the last of the catching undergrowth. "So what all did you guys find in that mine if not anything of Marc's?" she asked Taura as they slowed along bank, following the river upstream. "Anything useful?"

Comments

[ninelivesonce]

"Not a thing. Sleet, mud, some trash. "And an old building. Which would make a great hideout, but either he hadn't gotten there yet, or he put dust back down after he left."

Utena's skirt kept getting caught by the brush; Taura might have been disappointed that this week's outfit had been more sensible than the prior ones, but her first trip had been the zombie incident. Her shoes were thin, and they were never going to look like anything again, but they were staying on her feet, and she had pants. Anything she thought to suggest might make it worse, though -- if they cut it, it might just catch on multiple branches at once, rather than one or two.

And while she could carry Utena on her back easily, she was the one who knew where they were going, and the back of Taura's head wasn't the best of maps. Instead, she just offered an arm when the rocks got slippery. "Is there anything in the old town? Besides Marc?"

[revolutionise]

Utena nodded and listened. She was curious to know what kind of building, but from the way Taura talked, it sounded like there wasn't much of note there, so it probably didn't matter. If she was ever curious, she ought to go out there herself, she thought.

"Not sure. We only got to see inside one building, an old church that's littered with bodies inside. There's not much more than that left, but there should be at least one or two more places we didn't check out last time," she answered.

[ninelivesonce]

"Bodies?" That was something, if gruesome. "I hate to ask this, but were they fresh?"

Not that many people died at the Institute, so if it was more than a few, they had to be coming from somewhere. The townsfolk seemed impervious to death, and they wouldn't be fresh even if they were killable, at least not at night.