OTHERBORN: THE CREVASSE

EPISODE TWO, PART FOUR

I sputter and cough. I am being fed, lying down. The stench is all around me.

"What's in this?"

"Goop you should swallow," says The Fur, waiving branches to get smoke out of the cavern.

I'm now near the entrance. He must have dragged me up here, again. "You could have put more...soup...in your soup."

"More? Truly?" He gives me that look again.

He's still in my mind.
Sounds real enough.

The creature's just staring, but I swear I can hear him.
"Okay, well, your cooking isn't that bad, I guess."

"You whine this much before you were found?"

I note the understatement—glaringly obvious: he could have said "before I rescued you?" He didn't.
Gotta be in my head. "I guess I needed someone to talk to. All right. I'll stop."

"And?"

"And, what?"

His look again.

"Thank you?"

And there is that sigh that sounds like a snarl with a cough.

I wobble and weave, grabbing some branches out of a pile. I stand up to waive branches as well, trying to copy Second and get in the groove of the evening. I get vigorous until Second glances behind me and smirks. I realize I'm half-mooning the cave again, butt well-exposed.

"Do you go out of this place?" I try to pretend I haven't noticed Second's smirk. "Do you know where we are?"

"You wouldn't know the places, even if I could tell you." A furry arm still pokes at the fire, then nibbles something, wiping off drool mixed with ash on his face.

I cringe. "If I tell you where I was before, might you have seen that?"

Second still swallows and sniffs at his hand, then pokes among some ashes again.

My heart skips a beat.

"Nothing? What if I said I had a family? They are still out there. Do you have a family? What if I show you what direction they are? Would you know that kind of thing? Like the direction of the sun in the morning?"

Second's no help.

* * *

A long time later, I try to calculate what season it could be now, and where Brolan had picked me up, and which way we'd traveled before the plunge...into...right here. "Why did he do that in a Forces truck? Picking up hitchhikers—that isn't good."

Second just grunts, as always...chewing...in silence.

"They were lost. Now I am lost—" And I add: "—and now they may not find any of us."

Still quiet.

I use the mirror to see if I've got any wounds on my backside or various other body parts that haven't fared so well in frequently making contact with the ground. I put ointment on my legs and my single cold behind, using Second's animal fat—I assume that's what it is— when he tosses a chunk out like I'm Trogg.

I keep talking: "I presume you are male! You've seen butts before. Well, maybe you haven't. You're pretty darn hairy..."

A LOOK.

I start drawing with charcoal onto the walls instead. "Let's see if I can make this look at all like you. Hmmm. Looks like a Sasquatch." But then I squint again, and shiver.

I ignore this. I revert to my family. I try to draw them. Not a lot better. They all look like Sasquatches. Sasquatch? Sasquai? I shake my head.

Second now has finished his meal—I don't ask what that part was either—and he tries to sleep against a curved, bumpy wall.

"Are you not talking to me now?" I mutter.

No answer.

"But this is important... drawing. These are my family. They're who I must find."

Second briefly looks up, then turns back to sleep. "I am not real."

And this is how it goes now.

~~~/

A short chapter today, just filling in...

I hope the stasis in time passing comes across here enough. We're imagining three or four months... What do you get from this chapter? Is this implied?

See you next week with a new one, slightly less short... 🤗