The Marked People

(6) Captured

Phoenix

I'm eating lunch when the call comes. I eagerly press my wristband hoping for the news that she has been captured. " Hello?" I say waiting for a reply. 

The voice answers, " Hello, Phoenix I'm reporting on the mission."

I lean forward in my chair waiting for him to continue. He clears his throat and says, " It turns out that she is immune to the electric stun bullets. Sir we're dealing with something much more dangerous than we thought. Most of the are men dead and the few that we found alive were either unconscious or severely injured. The band has disappeared with only small burnt out campfires as evidence they were even there. There are no tracks to follow but hopefully in a few days we will get a lead on them. With her skills set she's not the most inconspicuous human, as soon as she attacks again, we'll have our lead."

I try to keep my voice even as I speak "Thank you for the report, I shall get my men working on a weapon that will make her harmless. I would like full reports from the survivors on what they witnessed her do. We need to find a weakness of hers. Oh and tell the families of the deceased and the survivors that all funeral and medical expenses won't be their concern, I'll pay for them." 

I hang up and call Cecil, by now I'm sure he's sick of my constant orders for new tech. "Cecil it's me, Phoenix, there's a problem with the stun guns, they have no affect on her. I want you to make something that can stop her. Yeah I know you need the information, I'll send it around as soon as I'm given it."

Indigo

I go hunting that day. After a long and very hard hike, which we have had to cover for signs of tracks, everyone is tired and hungry. I offer to go hunting and soon I'm alone in the forest waiting for an animal's scent to reach me. I slide through the trees and come across a large burlapre, an animal introduced when the marked people came. Its dark green skin speckled with black makes it hard to see in the forest but my eyes pick it up straight away now. It has four legs like a horse but the skin it tough and leathery, very hard to pierce. On its head six horns curl around making it look like it has a constant bad hair day.

I sneak along a branch until I'm directly above it and then jump off, landing on its back. The first time I had tried this I'd landed on the horns and been stabbed several times in the inner thigh. I was smarter now. The beast starts to buck and kick but I grab one of its horns and use it as leverage to pull myself up into a sitting position.

I grab another horn and give a hard, sharp pull. The neck bends back neck snapping it off the spinal cord. The animal continues to flail even as it falls to the ground, its nerves sending it into spasm even while it's eyes go cold. Now it's a simple task of carrying it back to the camp.

It's not often we get meat from a burlapre and the fresh meat will lift everyone's spirits. Hefting it up onto my shoulders I begin the track back to camp, careful to make sure I leave no tracks. 

Two days after resettling we are up in trees about to raid a cargo crate. Demon and I sit talking quietly. I was surprised when Demon didn't change his name back to Damon but I guess after going through something like that its hard to forget. Ever since I've come back I've been trying to forget about it. I've been trying to move on and to get on with life but Demon is the opposite he wants to remember it. To him it's these sorts of memories that will make people want to stop the Marked People. He says the memories make us stronger. I disagree, I say that memories make give us fear, that they make us weaker. We might be raiding partners who will always have each other's backs but there are some things we don't always see eye to eye on.

"How are we going?" Demon whispers.

I look through the branches to the road beneath us "Nothing yet, I can't even hear anything." This is the moment I hate. I've always been one for the action, at least in that moment there's no time to wonder or doubt. But now, when we just sit here waiting, that's when you have to hold yourself together or you'll never stay alive when the actual fighting begins.