Chapter 35 - The Highway

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   The walk towards the highway only took about half an hour, the closer the group got, the more smaller the buildings became until they stopped at a refill station near the edge of the city.

    Ahead of them was the long highway they'll have to take by foot to reach the small town. Neither Ki nor Akai wanted to traverse the long stretch.

    The refill station was small with a couple of abandoned cars parked near the gas pumps and electric plugs. Akai and Ki spotted a cop car that looked like it still worked, if they can get it to run, they won't have to travel by foot anymore.

    While they set off to get the vehicle started, (Y/N) decided to explore the small refill shop. Tuca was back in his emotionless true form, he stayed outside and leaned against one of the glass entrance doors while (Y/N) entered through the other.

    As expected, the inside was ruined and trashed beyond repair. The entire counter was pulled from the floor and flipped onto its side, the snacks that littered the aisles were either molded or very stale, a TV was broken on the floor in a pile of glass shards, the door to the back of the shop was hanging on its hinges, and there was a faint smell of something rotting that made her scrunch her nose up. (Y/N) brandished her knife just in case anything was hiding inside.

    She walked over to a donut case and cringed at the shriveled up moldy pastries and deserts. A picture placed on the case showed what they used to look like, all soft and delicious. Her stomach growled at the desirable food, she missed donuts already. Her appetite is getting tired of the deer Ki and Akai caught.

    Moving away from the case, she froze in place when her eyes landed on a dark figure slumped against the wall towards the back of an aisle. It was a demon for sure, it had huge pointy ears that stuck out like a goblin, dark grey skin that was bloody and mauled, and huge muscular arms. Its eyes were closed and it wasn't moving, giving off the impression that it was dead.

    (Y/N) kept her distance, she's wasn't convinced that it was dead if she didn't see it die. It looked so eery that she would scream if suddenly its head lifted up. Slowly backing away, she decided to head back outside where the others were. Where safety was.

    On her way out though, her shoulder bumped into something and she jumped to the side with a quick yelp. The thing she bumped into was Tuca. He didn't notice her scared state but instead, stared curiously at the demon body. He approached and crouched down near it while (Y/N) watched, still shaking. How did she not hear him enter the store?

    Tuca grabbed the ripped jacket the demon was wearing and pulled it away from its chest like he was inspecting something. Whatever he saw, made him perk up so (Y/N) slowly approached the body too, now curious. "Tuca?"

    Suddenly, he grabbed the demon's head and pulled it towards him, sniffing around the corpse's neck.

'What the-?!' What was he doing?! (Y/N) gagged, she could already smell the decay from the front of the store, imagine being up close to the source.

    Tuca dropped the body and stood up. He stared at it for a few more seconds before turning to the Keeper who had a sick look. "My dad was here."

    Her wide eyes darted up to meet his. "What?!"

    He pointed at the body that had multiples lashes and cuts so deep that its gut was exposed. She didn't see those injuries when its jacket was covering it. But the injuries were huge, it was like a lion caused them.

"My dad has claws that leave a smell on anything he attacks. He was here." He walked past her and towards the entrance, she followed but took a quick peek back at the body before exiting the store.

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