Resta slithered on over to a small circular manhole cover that was slightly shifted over revealing an opening. She used her head to fully remove the hunk of metal and proceeded to drop down.
“Be careful!” She shouted, her voice echoing from the bottom. “It’s kind of a sharp drop!”
“There’s not a ladder?” Kyle yelled back.
“Nope. It was abandoned.”
“Welp. I’ll go down first.” He looked over at Greg before stepping into it. He bumped his head and body multiple times down the tight hole before landing directly on his face.
Resta came up right next to him. “Are you ok!?” She shrieked, peeking her head down to his.
He got right back up on his feet like it was nothing. Showing no signs of damage besides some dust collecting on his shirt. “I’m completely fine.”
“Are you sure? It was a long fall.”
“Trust me. I’m indestructible.”
“Ok?” She looked confused.
Greg slowly propelled himself down with the bat, landing neatly on the ground. “That’s still gotta rack around your brain.”
“If it did I’d be brain dead for sure.” He jokingly responded.
“You two are such a weird bunch.” She was fascinated by the contraption. “What even is that?”
“Oh, it’s my bat. It makes me fly and shoot stuff.” Greg explained.
“Bats can do that?” Resta asked curiously.
“Well not all of them, just mine because it’s special.”
“That’s really cool. Humans are so fascinating.” She kept slithering over to a small hole in the wall. The whole area matched the stereotypical sewer place you’d imagine. Dark tunnels that seemingly go on forever and graffiti strung all over the interior. She was over at an opening that led to a slide into the abyss with barely any light shining in from the outside.
“It’s gonna be a bumpy ride. Though it seems that it won’t bother you much.” She warned. “Also, another warning I suppose. My friends might be a bit hostile towards your presence. But please be patient with them. We typically don’t have the best experiences with your kind.”
“That’s completely fine.” Kyle responded with a thumbs up. “I expected a little push back anyways.”
“Just not hard feelings, no matter what they say.”
“None will be had.”
“Ok, wow sorry, just nervous. I haven't really shown anybody else our hideout. But I’m rambling a lot.” She stumbled over her words flustered. “Follow me.” She then jumped off the ground and let the slide carry her momentum down before disappearing from view, with echoes of her cheering while giggling, clearly having fun.
“You go first.” Greg motioned. “Just in case it gets a little too rough. I’m not gonna die in a sewer.”
“The smell doesn’t help either.” He commented. “See you on the other side.” He let himself go and his body slid down. Whatever was covering the slide was some sort of gooey liquid that was green. He was hoping it was just dirty water and not anything else.
He went into the darkness where his vision was just strictly black, only feeling the motion of his body getting tossed around as the slide twisted a bit and bobbed back and forth until having a steep drop that seemed to have a light at the end.
Reaching it at high speeds crashing into a pile of torn and worn mattresses making for a sudden soft landing. Some feathers and stuffing poofed from the stack masking his entrance while also clouding his vision.
With the remaining particles clearing out of the way, he was greeted face first with the intimidating face of a gorilla. Not shocking him at all but only giving a slight smile before his whole head gets palmed by the humongous hands.
The gorilla growled at him as it inched closer, its sharp teeth showing with his lips quivering along with the low grumble. “What’s a human doing down here?” He threw Kyle down the pile and onto the dirt ground.
Around him was an expansive open area enclosed in those same gross walls. Except there were multiple sources of light which seemed to be lamps of some kind, though it was hard to make out. Multiple tents littered the camp ground with various species of animals circling him like he was the main start of the show.
It ranged from a giraffe to smaller creatures like a koala and possum. In total there seemed to be about fifteen of them here. It was striking to see such a variety of animals in an unnatural habitat.
Kyle rose up to his feet before dusting himself off. “Always the greatest introductions huh?”
“Why did you bring him here?” A possum from the crowd spoke up in its high pitched voice.
“Did you bring more here?” The gorilla followed up.
“Well.” Resta tried her best to explain but she got choked up. “Look guys please don’t be mad, I just.” She looked over back at Kyle. “Oh man this was way harder than what I pictured in my mind.”
“Kyle!” Greg’s voice came out from the slide. “Is it safe to come down?”
“Look what happens when you bring humans down here!” The gorilla came charging down at Resta.
Kyle then intercepted him by putting his hand up. “Calm down all of you.” He then took on the role of explaining everything. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re here to help.”
“Like I’ll ever trust anything that comes out of a fleshies mouth.”
“Fleshie? You guys already came up with slurs for us?”
When he finished that comment, the gorilla grabbed Kyle by the stomach and slammed him into the ground.
“Kill him before they can spread the word!” He announced and then all of the other animals came joining in to stomp on him. The effort was combined with the giraffe stomping on him with his hoofs, the possum trying to bite him, and then a monkey mauling his face.
“Killmari! Stop!” Resta tried to come slither up, trying her best with her mass to stop everyone.
“Resta, stay back!” Killmari responded. “You’ve already caused too much trouble.”
“But I’m only trying to help. He’s very nice, he could’ve killed me when he had the chance to but he didn’t. He patted me on the head and wanted to understand and help us. He’s not like the others.”
“You know better than anybody that we can’t take those chances.”
“All of you simmer down.” Greg announced his presence after slowly going down the slide. “We’re not going to do anything to harm you.”
“Another one!” He got down into an aggressive stance.
All of the animals were just in an uproar and it became just utter chaos. In a cacophony of yelling, the beating Kyle was going through, Resta’s cries of help, and Greg drawing out his bat for self defense.
Amidst the madness, Kyle grabbed the monkey and carefully tossed him off into the pile of mattresses. “Everyone please just fucking listen!” He shouted after being repeatedly stomped on.All of the attention was drawn to him as he seemed to have cooled down everybody. It shocked everyone as he stood up seemingly unfazed about anything. “You’re a shoot first ask questions later kind of crew. I understand your frustration and fear. Even though I know nothing about your history I can just tell that you hate us, probably for good reason.”
“How-Ho-How did you not die?” The giraffe looked very concerned. Some of the others spoke up with the same type of question but just a little different phrasing.
“I’m indestructible. Big bomb to drop on you but you all need to process it immediately. My name is Kyle, his name is Greg.” He eagerly pointed at Greg. “Your friend Resta here invited us to come down here. We’re not here to hurt you or cause any harm at all. Now judging by your hostility and the limited population I’ve observed down here, I can tell you guys need help. Luckily you probably ran into the perfect pair to help you out.”
“How can we even trust you?” Killmari responded.
“Because I’ve had countless opportunities to kill your little friend here and all of you. So we can all talk this out. You seem to all have a conscious mind that can speak english so I’m guessing you have a rational brain. Hopefully.” He said that final part silently to himself.
“Please just trust me on this Killmari.” Resta slithered right beside Kyle. “They’re one of the few good ones.”
“There’s definitely plenty more good people up above. You obviously haven’t met them.”
“We don’t need any human help.” Killmari scoffed. “You both can get your asses out of here immediately.”
“Stop lying to me for whatever pride you have right now.”
“I’m not lying. We’re quite comfortable.”
“Well you’re either being dishonest or ignorant. Look around this place and tell me that it couldn’t be any better or your content right now. It’s obvious that you’re not.”
“Killmari, we should at least hear them out.” A beaver spoke up from the crowd. “It’s rare we ever get to speak to a human, or even two of ‘em.”
“I second that.” The giraffe backed him up.
“I mean if we can’t kill 'em’ then lets just hear what they gotta say.”
“Please Killmari. I don’t think I’ve asked for a bigger favor than this right now.” Resta slithered right up to him, giving him her best puppy dog eyes.
He darted his eyes all around the place before grumbling to himself which was incomprehensible before starting to walk off. “I’ll leave the talking up to you.” He said before disappearing into one of the tents.
“Yes!” She shouted with joy. “Wow I’ve never seen him budged like that. You have a way with words.”
“More like he succumbed to peer pressure than anything.” Kyle responded. “But I’m glad we got somewhere close to an agreement.”
“He did leave the talking up to me.” She started to look nervous. “But umm I guess we can just get the main question out of the way. Why we’re able to talk and all that.”
“That would help us a lot.” Greg chimed in as he holstered his bat. Walking down the slope of mattresses.
“So, how concise do you want it to be?”
“We have basically all day.” Kyle took a seat on the ground. “Or however long the backstory is.”
“Ok ok well I-So when I was only a little kid my parents and I were abducted along with everyone else here to a lab where they did multiple experiments on us.”
“Ah I figured it would be the stereotypical explanation but who knows, it could've been magic.” He looked over at Greg and nudged his knee.
“Magic?”
“It’s a joke again. Please continue.”
“Sorry, well. They were doing something with our brains that's all I know. I heard most of it from my parents but my memories are fuzzy from back then. But I just know they were trying to increase our brain power or something like that. Whatever they did it was successful to the point where they taught us math, english, and science. All of it sounded good if it wasn’t for the fact that if you failed they would take you to a secret room to do something. The people who were taken there never came back. We were constantly under pressure and zapped with some electrically thingy.”
“That sounds horrible. I’m sorry you all had to go through that.”
“It’s not your fault so I don’t know why you’re apologizing. We were able to escape because my parents found a way through the vents. The place they were keeping us was underground so we took our chance at night and escaped. They never found us though I know they did go searching. We might’ve been replaced at this point.”
“Hmm, underground facility.” He was pondering in his head.
“We were in a place just like that a couple of days ago.” Greg followed up.
“It couldn't be the same place right? It was an underground science lab thing.”
“Wait!” She cut them off. “Don’t tell me you’ve been there.”
“It looks like we have. Except they didn’t have any animals. They just had grotesque amalgamations of people that they were experimenting on. Wait a minute.” He just had a rush of sudden revelation. “With the story you told now it just makes more sense. They probably experimented on animals first before moving to humans to genetically modify them. To make them stronger, faster, and smarter but when you guys escaped then they just started with humans.”
“Good thing we brought that whole place down.” Greg commented. “That scientist dude did mention having clones or a higher up boss of some kind. So maybe they’re doing more experiments somewhere else.”
“I think you’re exactly on point. With that whole place there was definitely some corporation funding. Unless a billionaire built that place. We ran into guards so yeah definitely. If only I read the company name on their outfits but we were just so caught up in the moment.”
“Sorry you’re going by too fast.” She stopped his train of thought. “You brought down the whole facility?”
“Oh yeah. Long story short, a big bad evil man tried kidnapping us. Didn’t work out very well.”
“But, that’s. You’re our hero.”
“Huh?”
“You brought down that whole place that tortured us. Of course you’re our hero. Oh my gosh I knew that you were different.” She wrapped around his body as a form of affection.
The other animals started cheering and then gathering more closely around. The sudden mood shift forced a smile out of Kyle’s face with Greg reluctantly following along as well.
“Are you sure you’re even telling us the truth?” The badger asked.
“I don’t really have any evidence to present to you. I would if I could.” Kyle responded. “But we can tell you that it was very expansive and somewhere near a diner or something. Maybe fifty miles from here probably. It’s on the news right now. If I had any newspaper to even prove that.”
“There’s no way it wasn’t.” Greg followed up. “All that matters is that place is done for.”
“We should check up on that.”
“Why couldn’t we have met you sooner?” She asked.
“Well if you met me sooner you probably wouldn’t like me then.” He chuckled.
“Oh come on. You’re very nice.”
“You literally just met me ten minutes ago or something like that. And it’s not just me, but also my friend here is also a nice lad. Trust me I ain’t that special. There’s other people like me that would be accepting of you.”
“Unfortunately they’re hard to come by. Especially around here I guess.”
“Shitty people are everywhere.”
“I can certainly confirm that.”
“Is that the reason your Killmari friend is all grumpy? Had a bad experience with humans?”
“Well, exactly.” She just nodded. “He doesn’t like anyone to mention so if we could just let it slide, I don’t like talking about people behind their back.”
“Sure.” He responded after a brief pause, giving off a passive shrug.
“There surely can’t be this many of you left is there?” Greg questioned. “Like where’s your parents like you mentioned?”
“They died.” She slumped her head down. “It was shortly after we came here. But…Ummm.”
“Resta you want me to take over?” The koala came crawling over.
“Y-yeah.” It looked like she was starting to develop tears. “Thanks Furk.”
“Sorry. It’s hard for her to talk about.” He explained. He had a sort of a lisp with his nasally voice combining to make him kind of hard to understand.
“It’s ok.” Kyle looked over him to see her slither in the crowd and disappear.
“There were way more of us when we escaped. But after the death of her parents, her brother-”
“Wait, she had a brother?”
“Oh I guess she never told you. Figures. His name is Rafta, just soon after their parents passed he wanted to go up above to teach the humans a lesson as he said. We protested severely so he took all of the others that agreed with him, which were mainly other predators and left to set up camp somewhere else.”
“Why didn’t Resta go with him?”
“Same as the rest of us. We didn’t think that was the correct thing to do. Even if we thought so, we have no chance against them. That’s why we just hide and we survive pretty well. We get food from above sometimes but, a species of mutated rats run the sewer and that's the meat we usually get. Killmari was trying to find a way to grow our own food.”
“Oh like a farm?” He tilted his head like a dog.
“Yeah. We just have no way of doing so.”
“No clean water and no sunlight so yeah, that’s tough. Have you tried going to the grocery store?”
“Grocery store?”
“Ah!” He slapped himself in the head. “I forget I’m not talking to other people. It’s a place that people go to to get food and other daily stuff. It’s all stored into one place and then multiplied throughout the entire country-world.” He quickly corrected himself.
“Wow, they have those?”
“Of course they do.”
“Man. You guys really are going to help us out a lot.”
“You know. Maybe we can still help you guys out around here even if we can’t really situate your food problem. Maybe we can spruce up your living area, get some new tents and new beds. Let’s just see what you guys are working with.”
“Yeah-yeah, we can show you around.”
“Game plan.” He started to lay it out all in his head. “Greg, see what you can do for them around here. Me and Resta need to chat real quick.” He started to walk off.
“Wh-What?” Greg looked absolutely bufuddled. “How am I-”
“You can figure it out. I trust you.” He aimed for the sights of Resta who went into a corner of the settlement.
All of the animals naturally turned their heads to Greg who just stood there. With all of the eyes drawn to him Kyle approached Resta. She was curled up in a ball just sulking into herself.
“Are you ok?” He asked her, reaching out his hand again.
“Yeah.” She responded, perking her head up to nuzzle against his soft palm. “It’s just all of those people around, and then opening up about my life. It’s hard for me to do. I don’t even talk that much to them, I just try and get food from the surface for everyone.”
“It’s alright. I completely understand. I just wanted to know more about your brother.”
“Uh.” She peered right behind him, making sure nobody was eavesdropping. “Y-yeah, sure. I’ll try.”
“Don’t worry I’m not going to ask the most in-depth questions. Just one.”
“Ok, what is it?”
“Do you know where his camp is settled?”
“Oh my god. Did Furk tell you?”
“Yes.” He nodded.
“Oh god. I-I-Don’t tell me you want to-”
“Meet him.” He interrupted. “I want to talk to him.”
“Why? He’s not really going to listen.”
“How can you-Nevermind you would.” He stopped himself. “We can at least try. Get everybody united again.”
“It’s not going to be that easy. He’s a boulder that you cannot move, he's incredibly stubborn.”
“Well I know how to deal with those people.”
“No!” She raised her voice. “He’s a different kind I can guarantee you that. After our parents died he snapped and has been on a warpath ever since you can’t just change his mind.”
“Look. If he hears it from a human like me and you as well. We can at least convince someone in his camp to calm down and consider joining back up.”
“That’s-”
“Resta, I can help save all of you and make things better or at least try my best to. If I can indirectly get revenge for you, I can directly make a change for everybody here.”
She went to speak but stuttered, and then slumped her head down as she pondered in her head. Her sandy eyes blinked rapidly and shifted back and forth. Staring at the ground then snapping back up to him. “You’re one hell of a talker.” She commented.
“It’s a blessing and a curse.” He joked.
She lifted her head back up. “If I show you the way, you promise you can make a change.”
“If that's what gets you to lead me, then yes, I promise.”
“I can’t believe you’ve got me to this point.” She sighed.
“Well don’t force yourself-”
“I’m not!” She raised her voice yet again which brought some attention to their conversation. “I’ll take you to him.”
“Great.” He clapped his hands together and jumped up onto his feet joyfully.
“I’m hoping you will keep your promise.”
“Trust me. I will."
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