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| Scene Title | Djävlarna |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The travelers find themselves face to face with a legend. It's not a pretty face. |
| Date | September 8, 2020 |
Lilleskalla Village
The smoke from the nearest chimney was the navigation point Hedda had given him. It’s a straightforward path, as the crows fly, but there’s no road or even discernible path in the tree-thick woods of the Pine Barrens, especially in the strange time he finds himself. Now and then he loses sight of that chimney smoke when the trees grow too dense or high.
It’s only midday but the trees do a good job of blocking out the sunshine by the sheer number of them — the scrappy pitch pines and gnarled oak trees of the Pine Barrens, along with a few other trees, aren’t thick with leaves, but they gross close enough together that the sunlight has a hard time finding its way to the ground. It feels later than it is, and time is something Jim knows they have little enough of as it is.
The snap of a twig draws his attention away from his destination point and to the right. A large bush obscures what might be behind, but when he hears the panting breath, Jim knows.
The beast he saw in his vision.
Jim has little time to react when a creature leaps from the bushes, snarling and snapping. The face is the one he saw — nightmarish and unreal: part bear, part boar, and with impossibly large bat wings.
Jim is not precisely happy to be going back in time — or to an alternate universe where all the people are in the stage of history that would be back in time for this universe, or whatever it is that he’s doing. However, he’d already decided to go, and so even though he hesitates a little bit before he actually follows Hedda’s directions, it’s not too long. At least, that’s what we’re sticking with, and since he’s alone no one can say otherwise. He’s brought a backpack with the supplies he needs — doxycycline, as well as plenty of bottles of ibuprofen, bandages, Neosporin, and various other things that are likely to be of help.
He’s walking along toward…well, wherever it is, he’s not exactly sure…when he hears that snap. His head jerks around, but before he sees anything, there’s already a sinking feeling in his stomach. It’s confirmed a second later when that beast lunges out of the bushes and toward him, and he barely has time to get the gun up that he’d brought along for protection, such as it is. He’s not a crack shot by any means, but at least he’s shot a gun before. He manages to fire two rounds before it’s on him, but he only clips the very edge of its shoulder/wing joint. It’s unlikely to do too much damage.
Probably just going to make it angry, because that’s what he needs right now.
The thing rears back on back legs — those seem to be ursine as well — and it swipes one of the front paws, bear paws ending in four-inch-long claws — across Jim’s chest and down his shoulder, raking through his shirt and flesh. The force and pain knocks Jim back a few feet, his fingers of the affected arm going numb and loosening his grip on the bag of medications.
Whimpering, the creature’s own pain makes it pause in its attack to lick and nibble at its wound, much like a dog might a flea bite. This close, Jim can see the wings are unlikely able to bear the massive weight of the beast, as large and leathery as they are, and that the thing has been piecemealed together. This is no organic form but something made.
Frankenstein comes to mind — except that the seams that Jim can see where one part of the creature is fused with another bear no sign of suture work. They seem almost like they’ve been melted together, though there are no scars from the heat it would take to do such a thing.
Jim staggers with another cry, this time of pain rather than just surprise. He tries to keep hold of the bag even as he feels his fingers slipping from it, and he reaches with his other to try and snatch it closer to him.
It’s then that he manages to process what he’s actually seeing beyond, ‘oh shit.’ When he sees it — really sees it — his eyes widen and he sucks in a breath. He’s suddenly lightheaded as he takes in the thing’s grotesque appearance, and he tries to scramble backward as much as he can, pulling the bag toward his chest both to protect it, and as some sort of barrier, however inefficient, between the creature and himself.
The beast doesn’t lunge this time, but comes close, hovering above and sniffing at Jim. Saliva drips off the creature’s fangs and onto his arms where he hugs that bag against his chest. He can smell the putrid breath of a carnivore.
It rears back again, throwing back its head and roars. It’s a strange sound — part roar, part squeal, overlaid atop each other like perhaps the creature has two sets of vocal cords.
In the distance, someone yells, faintly, and the creature’s head turns that way, before it lumbers in the direction of the cry.
It’s this lumbering thing that those entering the treeline see — it doesn’t seem to have good eyesight, and it snuffles at the air, before turning its head in the direction of the impromptu SESA-Providence team.
“What the fuck is that?” Though she’d shouted previously, now she’s keeping her voice to a whispered hiss. It isn’t her weapon that Nicole Miller lifts as she comes through the trees and lays eyes on the creature, but the camera around her neck. She makes sure one finger is holding the flip-up flashbulb down as she snaps three photos in quick succession.
It’s not a surprise to see someone who looks like them on the ground in the direction the beast is ambling away from. The sounds of the gunshots alone had told her there would be. Nicole lowers the camera and starts to step back, and around, motioning wordlessly for the others to keep sights on whatever that is while she starts to move toward Jim. It’s her hope to keep a wide enough circuit that she avoids being attacked in the process. All the same, she’s unholstered her gun now, flipping off the safety even as she keeps it pointed toward the ground for now.
"Something that needs put down." Kara replies gruffly, weapon trained on the thing monstrosity. It's killed livestock, attacked a person— whatever it is lost its right to live peacefully. She shifts her grip on the rifle, beginning to line up the iron sights with more precision…
Before something strikes her. This thing? It seemed unreal. Possibly the result of Evolved influence.
And what exactly was it that was holding the dome they'd entered into, anyway? Kara finds herself baring her teeth in lieu of gritting them, finger sliding off the trigger.
"Or," she counters herself calmly. "At least trapped." She looks back to Yi-Min, brow furrowed, then forward again at the beast. "What are the odds it's creating the bubble in time that got us here in the first place?"
“Holy sh—” Cooper starts and doesn’t quite finish, the last bit kinda petering out at the sight of that thing. For a long moment, while the others talk, he kinda just stares. Until it looks at them.
“Uh… guys… it’s… uh.. looking at us,” states Captain Obvious.
He clearly doesn’t like that, but he also sees the clawed up man with it. “Hey Miller… Get that guy to safety? Dr. Yeh, might want to look at him.” Since she’s the only one with them, at the moment, and that guy looked tore up.
“I’m gonna just…” He takes a nimble, nervous step towards it; pulling off his coat and tying the sleeves around his waist. This kind of situation isn’t exactly why he wears sneakers all the time and runs a lot in his spare time, but right now he’s thankful he does it. “Keep it distracted a little and not shoot it, cause… What if the amazonian woman here is right… I don’t want to be stuck in the past, cause who is gonna take care of Al.. not Bennet that is for sure.” He gives a small nervous shrug. Either way they needed to get that guy out of there.
That's an idea, Yi-Min thinks to herself, gaze sliding onto Kara's and holding there as it takes root.
They might not want to kill it. Not until they knew for certain.
"Get him out of here," she urges Nicole as a backup to Cooper's suggestion, throwing a single glance at Jim's torn-up form. In the meantime, she is swiftly sliding her shotgun back into the sheathe slung across her back, plucking out a different weapon from near the same place: a leaner air rifle, loaded with her custom tranquilizer darts.
Zachery Miller had once been on the receiving end of the paralytic agent she liked to use in this solution, though also at a lower concentration. There is no such limitation at play here: the cocktail-laced dosages held in each of these needle-tipped darts are a much closer match to those customarily intended for the largest of game animals, such as the rhinoceros.
Not that this was something as mundane as a rhinoceros. As always, when dealing with anomalies like these, she would simply have to hope. She levels the air rifle carefully and directly towards the nightmare's maw, squeezing off a projectile with a loud thwip.
Finn’s rifle is poised and he’s ready to pull the trigger on the creature, but the comments from the others stay his hand. He gives a low whistle as Yi-Min changes guns, leaving her to shoot the tiny projectile full of paralytic toxins toward the beast as he looks to Nicole.
“I’ll get him,” he says over his shoulder, even as he rushes forward to grab Jim from under his armpits and pull him to — well, not safety, but the injured man will at least have Finn’s formidable form and a rifle in front of him.
“I’m gonna get this guy back to Carver,” shouts Finn, pulling Jim into a fireman’s carry — whether he needs it or not. “Don’t give me another victim, all right?” That’s directed to Cooper with a wide-eyed stare as the agent decides to play cat and mouse with the boar-bear-bat.
The dart finds its way to the creature’s thick neck, its point burrowing through the wiry hair of the boar part of its hybrid nature. Again, it throws its head back in protest, that ungodly, unnatural dual-voiced cry — part roar, part squeal as if two animals’ voices are howling in unison.
It shakes its head, as if to dislodge the dart. Red-veined eyes fall on Cooper in front of it, and it lunges forward to swipe at the man with those four-inch claws.
Jim doesn’t have a lot of time to process what’s happening before he’s basically dragged to his feet and hoisted over Finn’s shoulder. He lets out a gasp that’s more surprised than pained at the moment — the pain will probably come later. The adrenaline has kicked in now.
However, he manages to get out, “Watch the bag! I need the bag!” It’s still in his grasp, clutched as though for dear life. He’s not looking at the creatures anymore, either, but keeping his eyes on his cargo instead. It’s more important right now than giant bat boar-bears.
When the dart hits the beast, the clock sets to ticking, but it could be they have a long time before they see the results of that. In the meantime, they needed to avoid more injuries. Kara grits her teeth when the beast begins to charge, instinct saying shoot it and put it down, even though wisdom is cautioning her against it.
"Isn't this just a delight," she mutters to herself with sarcasm when Cooper decides to play matador, and the beast reacts much the same anyone would expect. "This is going to take a group effort."
She shakes her head roughly and strafes a few steps to the side before beginning to run a circle past the frankencreature. "Hey! Beastie!" she shouts at it in the hopes of distracting it away from Cooper before it can actually land a shot. "Over here!"
"If we can get away and survive for about forty minutes, give or take, this thing should hopefully go out cold," Yi-Min announces much too mildly and much too flatly for the situation. This is, of course, for the benefit of everyone present who isn't as familiar as Kara with what it is she had just done.
The nerves in her throat do tighten when she perceives what it is Kara is now doing. She shakes her head mutely, alarm-filled gaze trailing from Kara back to the beast. Simultaneously, her fingers tighten again on the grip and trigger of her weapon, but her voice is calm with urgency.
"If you prefer that we start shooting to kill, just immediately let me know."
Nicole stops when Finn charges past her to retrieve the downed man. He’s better equipped for the carry, to be sure, so that’s for the best. What that does, is leave her free to pivot and change direction. While Kara shouts to get the beast’s attention, Nicole rushes forward, intent on getting in its line of sight. To insert herself between it and Cooper, if that’s what it takes.
“Eyes down!” Nicole calls out a warning as she lifts her camera. This time, she has the flashbulb flipped up. As soon as she can see the creature’s eyes, she’s pressing the button to snap a shot. Once, twice, three times in quick succession. Her goal is to blind the thing.
“Whoa!” Cooper just manages to dodge, with his coat in hand ready to throw and run. But before he can throw… Others jump to distract, he tries not to feel irritation as they are just trying to protect him… “I had a plan!” He shouts, still holding the jacket out and giving it a shake.
“You know what? Fuck it,” Cooper sighs out, deciding this was no time to argue, and throws the jacket at the creature hoping it will get distracted by something that smells like something edible and is tearable - Yes, that pun was on purpose - Then he turns and runs away from the group and Jim, only pausing a short distance away to see if it follows or if he goes after the others.
The beast shakes its huge head twice when those flashes go off in quick succession, but its eyes are those of the grizzly and not of the bat, so it’s not as fazed as Nicole might have liked. The jacket hits the thing in the face and it roars again with that unnatural two-toned voice, swatting at the cloth to get it off its muzzle and to the forest floor.
It takes a step closer to where Nicole stands with the camera, blood-shot eyes staring wildly at her. This close, they can smell the blood from Jim’s earlier gunshot and see the details they hadn’t before; how the parts of the different animals seem to have been fused together. The bat’s wings are terrifying, large enough proportionally for the bear’s body, though not for its heavier body structure. They even end in the delicate but lethally clawed fingertips, splayed in grotesque dimensions.
It isn’t the bat’s finger that swipes for the camera, but the bear paw, just as Mats comes riding up, Jepp behind him in the saddle. The man swears in his native Swedish, pulling his musket from his shoulder and lifting it to shoot.
At this rate they wouldn't last ten minutes, much less thirty or forty. Yi-Min has been working through a cascade of ideas in her head with some amount of mounting frustration. The next logical step she had been hoping to follow up with, a simple homemade smoke bomb to cover the entire group's escape, is one she had just as promptly decided against here.
She isn't trying to reveal the beast's gender, nor set the forest around it on fire.
"Flee, you fools," she bellows at everyone around her more than a little bit grouchily as she swaps back to her shotgun, working to load that back up with alternate ammunition — beanbag rounds. She had been expecting Kara, to be sure, but not everyone to play at heroics.
Cooper had had the right idea; now, the rest of them needed to follow suit. She would too, but one thing first:
Her small, quick footsteps take her directly in front of the beast's horrifying visage, on level with Nicole being swiped at by an ursine claw. She needs to be close, and this is precisely as close as she dares to get. Like David staring balefully at the groin of Goliath, she unloads all four leaded shots into the direction of the monster's heaving lower belly in rapidfire succession.
Oh, that looks like it'll do it, all right.
Much to Kara's chagrin about Yi-Min being that close. Her heart leaps into her throat, and she's not even sure that the shots will stop it in its current series of swipes. At the shout from her partner, she grudgingly calls back, "That means you, too, 猪头1!" It takes her only a moment to begin to move her stubborn feet in a direction away from the beast, content to let it thrash rather than potentially stand in the line of fire from Mats and Jepp.
In her movement, she has little room to speak on that even though she's reacting to it. "Wait!" she barks out with vague impreciseness, unable to properly convey to not shoot it. Maybe it has something to do with that she's not let go of her own gun, either.
There is a heavy sigh from the man as he sees that his plan is completely derailed. Welp! He thinks arms out in frustration. With an annoyed sound in the back of his throat, Thomas runs back towards the others, intent on grabbing Nicole’s arm and forcing her to run away from that thing, if need be. “A camera flash? Really?” This was not happy-fun-time Cooper. “Jeezus, Miller, I do not want to have to explain to the bosses that you decided to suicide by raging hell beast.” Even though he was going let it chase him down.
Turning a glance back at the beast, Cooper adds a stressed “Come on, Gandalf… You, too!” at Yi-min.
Nicole has already begun staggering backward with a terrified shriek by the time Cooper snags her arm. “You’re one to talk!” she spits back regarding apparent death wishes, a manic edge to her voice. But she doesn’t have to be told again to start running. She shakes Cooper’s grip only so she can grab the back of Yi-Min’s shirt and yank her backward. “Minnie, c’mon!”
Then Agent Miller is turning and bolting as fast as she can.
The creature rears back at the sudden pelting of bean bag pellets against its pelt, again lifting its grotesque hybrid muzzle to the sky to cry out in that two-tone roar and squeal. The bat wings flap by instinct rather than for any useful purpose, and just as Yi-Min and Nicole turn to flee, the claw on one of those delicate index fingers at the end of its wings slashes the scientist. The razor-sharp talon slices through Yi-Min’s dark hair and across her back, the contact announcing itself in Yi-Min’s nervous system as a thousand nerve endings cry out in pain.
The musket flashes and the shot rings out, deafening in the otherwise quiet woods — Kara’s attempt to convey the need to wait either ignored or not understood by the Swede on horseback. His shot misses, thanks to the flailing animal, who turns toward the man, teenager and horse in its path instead. Mats can’t reload fast enough, so he turns the horse to follow Cooper, Nicole, Kara, and Yi-Min in retreat.
They don’t make it more than twenty yards before they hear the sudden crash of the heavy animal falling to the ground with a groan as the tranquilizer takes effect. When they look back, the creature lies on its side, eyes whale-eyed between blinks until they close completely.
"Son of a—" Kara's head whips around when the shot fires, anxiously waiting to see if it's downed the beast. She doesn't see a wound from the musket shot, but the creature goes down anyway a few moments later. She's still on a backpedal away from it, but cautiously, she acknowledges it might be either dead, or out of commission.
She slowly turns to look in Yi-Min's direction to confirm, tension in her shoulders.
Yi-Min's face had gone momentarily bone-white from pain, but she dips her chin in a clipped nod towards Kara.
She swivels around to face the downed behemoth fully. When she does, the wound that the beast had torn through her hair and clothing— like a red, bleeding mouth across the naked width of her shoulderblades— becomes exposed to the rest of the group.
Despite this, she stoops with tentative care near the side of the monster to verify its status, something which does not take her more than a cursory visual sweep. "It’s unconscious. We have perhaps an hour. Two, at most."
At first, Nicole doesn’t stop. She’s afraid to, but she realizes the others aren’t with her, and so she staggers to an abrupt halt, gasping hard from the rush of adrenaline and spike of fear. When she turns back, her eyes widen at the sight of Yi-Min’s wounds. Instantly, she’s overcome with guilt. If she hadn’t gotten so close, Yi-Min wouldn’t have put herself between her and the beast.
But there will be time to berate herself later. When they aren’t in this situation any longer. Nicole makes her way back toward the fallen creature and her friends. “Do you have more?” Tranquilizers, she means. “Could we have some brought from Providence?” There’s no way she’ll get anyone out here from SESA for containment before it wears off.
"Yes," is Yi-Min's confirmation, also short. A lean smile appears on her pained expression. "You did not think I would come all the way out here without adequate supplies, did you?"
Once the beast is down, Cooper lets out a whoosh of relief with a hand pressed to the side of his head. “When I woke up this morning, I would have never imagined that we’d be running from… from….” He flaps his hands at the things snoozing away. “I can’t think of what to call it.”
Giving up, Cooper cautiously approaches it and gives one limp leathery wings a nudge, before crouching down to touch it to see if it was real. There is no smile, but pity. “Wonder how much pain it’s in…. I don’t know how it could look like this and not be in great pain.”
Jepp hops down off the back of Mats horse and moves closer to the creature — not as close as Cooper — and crouches down to stare at it. His expression is solemn, almost a mirror of Cooper’s pitying look for the beast.
Mats, on the other hand, seems confused, a frown furrowing his brow as she glances from the beast to the four travelers. “I did not hit it. How did he fall?” He nudges the ribs of his horse to move closer, and he studies the creature from above. “He is still breathing. We should kill him before he wakes.”
He pulls the musket off his back, then reaches for a pouch in his coat — gunpowder, most likely. Jepp rises, looking from Mats to the others, then runs in a jog in the direction of the house on the other side of the treeline.
"It does not feel anything," Yi-Min says flatly to Cooper, expelling her breath after the end in an involuntarily short gasp. "That tends to be the definition of 'unconscious.'"
No, the beast isn't in any pain at the moment. As opposed to, say, her. Blood is seeping freely from the long laceration crossing her back like liquid from a dark spring in the earth, and her face is still shades paler than normal.
"Leave it alone," she shoots immediately at Mats, her taut gaze now also filled with a cool warning. If it held any less patience, it would almost seem venomous, behind the coldness of her restraint. "If we wanted to kill it straight out, we would have. It is no danger right now."
Kara finally comes up behind Yi-Min immediately after she crouches down, hand hovering over the wound on her back. It's clear she's … managing, but her concern is spiking, rapidly, over the Taiwanese woman's state. For a too-long moment, all she can do is hover. Fretting but a breath away as she insists, "We'll figure out what to do with the beast. Go find Carver."
Her head lifts to look up to Mats. "Are there ropes we can use? Something to truss— to tie it up with."
Yi-min gets a flat look from where Cooper’s crouched. “I don’t mean right now. Jesus. Of course, he’s not feeling pain right now. He’s Rip Van Winkle.” He gives her a ‘really?’ look. Then he sees the blood and the expression falls away.
Hearing the musket being unslung and Cooper comes to his feet with hands out in a staying motion. “Whoa whoa whoa! Let’s not be too hasty. While killing it might be a mercy. This thing,” he motions to the sleepy beast with his head, “is weird enough that we don’t know that killing it will do something very bad.” His hands shift into a helpless shrug.
“But what I do know,” Cooper jerks a thumb towards Yi-min. “She can keep it asleep for awhile by using… ah… mixtures form herbs and….” he turns towards the downed woman, “ah… animal poisons.” He claps his hands and turns back to Mats. “She’s an apothecary!” He’s rather pleased with himself when he finally finds the word he was looking for.
Cooper quickly turns serious again, “In other words, just chill for the moment. Okay? It’s gonna be okay.”
“Yi-Min.” This whole situation is incredibly overwhelming. Everything about it is wrong. The locale, the beast — everything. Nicole is rapidly beginning to spiral toward actual panic. But there are things she can control, and nothing puts her at ease like taking control of a situation. “Leave your equipment with Kara. I’m taking you to see Doctor Carver.”
Her mouth presses in a thin line. She’s not looking for an argument here, but she’s also not physically capable of hauling the other woman away. Nicole darts a glance to Kara. Between the two of them, they could certainly handle her, but that would leave Cooper to deal with this mess on his own, and Nicole wants to avoid putting him in that position if at all possible.
Mats frowns at the sharp words from Yi-Min. “Pardon, fru, but you are guests in my village. If I want to shoot the creature that’s been terrorizing my village…” he begins, but seeing the blood and her obvious pain, he quiets, looking from one traveler to the next as they speak and tell him to hold off, or chill.
Dismounting the horse, he moves toward its flank, opening a saddlebag and pulling out some rope. He hands it to Kara. “If you dare to go close enough to it, you may have that honor,” he says, looking at the thing with a mixed expression of worry and disgust.
His brow tics up at Cooper. “Just chill,” he repeats, unsure of its meaning. “What is it you think is going to happen if he dies, besides perhaps a feast? He is a homely thing to look at but he would feed the village for a few weeks. I imagine meat is meat.”
Taking hold of the rope, Kara posits, "Strange things must have happened to make it. Who knows what'll happen if it's unmade?" She begins to unspool it, holding a look on Mats before moving to the beast and crouching by its belly. It may be daring, but she trusts Yi-Min enough to assume it's down and will remain out for at least a few minutes. She knots the rope tightly around one hoof and begins to weave it around other ankles, tying it down tightly.
"Hey, SESA," she calls to Cooper drily while she works on cinching the ties to keep the beast from thrashing free when it wakes again. "My bet is it wakes up again, yes it'll be in pain. Do you want to help me with this?"
She'd be considerably nicer to him if she knew who he was to Yi-Min, but at the moment, he's a stranger without a name.
It doesn't seem like Yi-Min is inclined to argue with Nicole, especially in her current state. Removing the air rifle and bandolier of tranquilizer darts from her person, she lets these drop unceremoniously to her feet in obvious sight, one after another— though she keeps the shotgun slung across her bleeding back, as well as the satchel containing all her various chemical tricks. Then, she summons Kara from the middle of her task with a tiny hand motion.
"And this." Lastly, a single syringe with a needle as long and as thick as the snout of a young swordfish, which she presses directly into Kara's hands with the simple explanation of: "If you find that you need to quickly put it down."
Only after this is all taken care of does Yi-Min accept Nicole's physical guidance, leaning gratefully into the arm provided to her. "I will be fine," she adds over her shoulder with a minute, forced inhale, much as that might not help. "I will be back as soon as this wound is dressed."
Cooper can only stare at Mats for the longest moment like he had said something so utterly ridiculous it’s shocking…. Cause it is. Once he composes himself with a few blinks, Cooper slowly points at the giant mangled mix of critters. “You… have seen what it looks like. Are you sure you want to eat that? We have no idea what made it look that way…. Or what will happen if it dies.” He feels a little nauseous just thinking about that thing lying on a serving platter with an apple in its mouth.
UGH!
Kara’s comment doesn’t seem to phase Cooper, even if she’s treating him like that. Instead, he sidesteps to where he can crouch and help trust the beast up. “You already have sick villagers. Do you really want to risk potentially adding more?” It could be perfectly safe, but how could he know.
Turning his attention to Kara, Cooper offers her a bright smile, despite the fact they are currently tying up a critter that looks fresh off Radiation Ranch. “Hey. Name's Thomas Cooper. Most call me Cooper,” he says while tying an already ruined jacket around the thing's eyes in hopes that darkness will keep it calmer when it’s awake. “Also known as ‘Hey you!’, Asshole, idiot, the donut guy…. And a few other less than PG-13 names.”
“Cooper,” Nicole barks. “Focus!” At least until she manages to get back. For now, she carefully loops an arm around Yi-Min to help provide stability. “Just a short walk,” she promises her friend in a low voice. “Then we’ll get you sat down and you can hold my hand and curse all you need to.”
And she expects that she’s going to want to curse a lot while Carver dresses her wounds however he’s able.
Mats lifts a brow at the comments pointed his way. “Whatever witchcraft you’ve done to make it sleep is more like to make it poor meat than whatever made it the way it is,” he retorts, but waves a hand in the direction of the house.
“I can watch it for you. I’ll fire a shot to let you know when it starts to awaken,” he says, moving to a nearby tree a few yards away from the beast and looping the reins around a branch so his horse doesn’t run off. “It is lucky you brought a doctor with you,” he says with a nod to Yi-Min as she and Nicole begin the walk toward the cottage.
“I am unsure if it is so lucky for us you have come.”