Tina Chan - imperfect

Wait…the devil-dog’s saliva was acid. Where the saliva touched Flurry’s fur, the area hissed and the fur dissolved before Kristi’s eyes, leaving behind a smooth spot of metal. This was a nightmare come true.

Kristi clubbed the devil-dog off Flurry’s back with the help of her backpack. The creature landed in a mangled heap.

I think it’s dead.

The devil-dog raised its head and pulled back its lips at Kristi.

Never mind.

Her skin burned and she looked down to her arm. A single drop of acidic saliva from a devil-dog had eaten through her clothing and burned her skin. A little circle of darkened skin was branded onto her forearm.

Kristi risked a quick look over her shoulder, trusting Flurry not to run them into a tree or whatever. Roughly ten devil-dogs remained, and none of them seemed to be tiring.

The sky flashed and a jagged line of lighting discharged from the clouds. The atmosphere hummed with static electricity. A drumroll of thunder followed the lightning and a raindrop hit Kristi’s cheeks. She almost groaned with relief.

“Thank goodness,” she said and the rain came down harder.

The droplets hit the devil-dogs’ fur, causing them to yip in pain and terror. Whilst the devil-dog’s saliva burned through Flurry’s fur, the water burned through the devil-dogs’ pelt. As a pack of one, the devil-dogs retreated, looking for a place to shelter from the rain.

“Do you guys want to ride on or stop for the night?” Chelsa asked.

“I say we ride on,” Troop said. “We’re already wet enough, so we might as well continue on through the rain.” The rain came down in sheets, as if agreeing to his words.

Troop consulted UnivMaps and led them back to South Lane.

“How did you know that devil-dogs hated water? I’ve never seen a devil-dog before in my life until today,” said Jaiden.

“Secret source,” Chelsa said.

“Fine, be like that,” Jaiden teased back.

Kristi shivered beneath her layers of soaked clothes. She wished she had put on her waterproof jacket. She considered rummaging through her backpack for her jacket, but decided against it since it would be difficult to do so while riding in rainy weather at the same time.

“Do you want my jacket?” Troop offered as if reading her mind.

“No thanks.”

Her chattering teeth sent the opposite message, but there was no way she was going to accept help from Troop; it was just going to indulge his ego which did not need to be inflated any more than it already was.

Troop took off his jacket anyways and held it out to her. Kristi ignored the offering and tried her best to calm her shivers.

“You’re going to catch a cold,” Troop said.

“You can’t catch a cold from being wet,” said Kristi

“You can catch a cold from being cold.”

“Wrong. You can catch a cold from contracting the virus.”

Troop didn’t say anymore but the expression he gave Kristi plainly said he thought she was being overly stubborn. And maybe she was, but Kristi wanted to keep her distance from Troop. He reminded her too much of Glenn: smooth and nice on the outside but full of barbs and thorns on the inside.

“I think we should stop,” Chelsa said half an hour later. “It’s getting pretty dark and we don’t want the horses to trip over something in the darkness.”

The rain tapered off and came down more gently. Jaiden and Troop set up the tent while Chelsa and Kristi unloaded the saddlebags from the horses.

“I think I’m going to sleep. I’m too exhausted to have dinner,” Kristi said.

All of her muscles cramped. Even though Kristi knew she was probably going to have yet another fitful night of rest, her body physically needed to sleep even though her mind protested against the thought of enduring another night of horrors.

She was flying. She had morphed into a dove and was soaring far above the world. The land spread out before her like a quilt. However, Kristi felt like she was being pursued by something, something evil. She shot down towards the ground, trying to escape the feeling of being chased.

The sound of birdcalls filled the air. Bright, flashy tropical birds surrounded Kristi the dove. The flamboyant birds—toucans, macaws, and parakeets—screamed out harsh cries. Kristi landed on the ground and hopped towards the cover of a bush, but a large peacock poked its head into her hiding place and she half flapped, half hopped back out into the open. Acting as one flock, the other birds surrounded and attacked her.

The wings, talons and beaks of the showy birds battered her fragile dove body. A fiery pain shot up her right wing when a swan slammed its powerful wings into her. She lay on the cold, hard ground, right wing throbbing excruciatingly. A bird with a broken wing was a dead bird. She was a bird with a broken wing. She was a dead bird.

Kristi awoke. Strangely, she wasn’t sweating nor was her heart beating at overtime. I must be getting used to these nightmares, she thought, stepping outside of the tent.

It was only six-thirty in the morning. Streaks of purple could be discerned among the horizon in the dark sky if she looked close enough. Kristi searched around the camp and found Troop to be the only person around.

“Jaiden and Chelsa went to gather some kindling that hasn’t been dampened by last night’s rain,” Troop said when he saw her hunting for them.

“What else is new,” Kristi mumbled. “We don’t even usually make a fire in the morning.”

Troop didn’t grace her with an answer, which Kristi was completely fine by.

“I need to go refill my water bottle,” she said. “Do you need yours refilled?” she added in a moment of generosity.

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Be back in ten.”

She searched for a water source, making sure to always keep the tent in sight. Her boots made sucking noises in the oozy mud. Kristi crinkled her nose. An almost-but-not-quite-familiar scent reached her nose. The smell wasn’t unpleasant—in fact, it reminded Kristi of home. Squatting down, she combed the ground until she found the source of the fragrance. Rainflowers. Well, not quite. The flowers looked identical to rainflowers except they were orange instead of purple.

Kristi caught sight of a small creek cutting a course through the land and filled up her bottle to the brim. She had a few minutes before she needed to return back to the tent, so she chose to spend her extra time admiring the sunrise by the creek.

Kristi tilted her head. She thought she heard people talking.

“You’re too funny!” a voice in the distance said.

A person replied but was speaking too softly for her to make out the reply. Feeling curious and a bit adventurous, she decided to find the source of the conversation. Ears prickling with alertness, she followed the sounds.

“Don’t you think we should be heading back? We don’t want Kristi and Troop to worry about us.” It was Jaiden’s voice.

Kristi walked past a clearing in the woods and spotted Jaiden talking to Chelsa; she ducked behind a rock formation obscuring the view of them. Neither Jaiden nor Chelsa knew Kristi was listening to their conversation, and that made her sting with shame knowing that she was spying on them.

“I think we should be worried about Kristi and Troop tearing the camp apart,” Chelsa said. “I sometimes fear those two will bite off each other’s head by the time we reach Oppidum.”

There was a moment of silence and Kristi peered around the rock concealing her. Jaiden and Chelsa were locked in a kiss and seemed indifferent to the world around them. Kristi dropped back behind her hiding place and sat down for a second.

I should’ve known it was coming; Chelsa and Jaiden had been flirting with each other for a bit of time now, Kristi thought. But still, Jaiden’s my brother—my steady-as-a-rock brother . Kristi cleared her head. Get a grip on yourself.