Blood on our Hands

The crackling of the bonfire started to lull Misfortune to sleep. It'd been a while since he'd done that and right now just seemed like a good time, after all--he never knew when he'd sleep again. Right before he was about to enter the REM sleep, Mateo had ran back up the hill and into the cave, with a triumphant and loud "DID IT!" coming out from his mouth. Misfortune jumped awake with a yelp and grabbed the closest thing to him, which happened to be a pointy rock. "Holy BALLS Mateo! Don't do that again..." Misfortune yawned. "We Terrans gotta keep you new conglomerate rebels in line somehow." Mateo replied, a snarky smirk forming on his face. Misfortune sighed and walked over to DragonSinger, and motioned for Mateo to come over. "Do you REALIZE how heavy dragons are?" he said. After a couple of tries to lift Victoria to no avail, Mateo walked over, and grabbed her hind legs. "on 3...1..2...3!" they both lifted with all of their strength and to their surprise actually got DS up in the air, and into the cart. "push but keep quiet, nobody knows what's in these woods." they both had to push, because the combined weight of the Mining Cart and Victoria through rolling hills for 3 miles. After a while, their knees gave out an they had to rest. "How much do you think she weighs?" Mateo asked, in between his deep breaths. "I'd guess about 800-900 kilograms..." Misfortune replied. 900 kilograms wasn't necessarily a lot, especially for an NC and a TR soldier to PUSH, but the added weight of the cart and since there were rolling hills instead of a straight down push, fatigue was inevitable. "We packed food, right?" Mateo asked. Misfortune checked his supply pack, and gave a nod. "We should probably get back first though." Misfortune said. With that, they both got up and got back to pushing.

***

The sound of wheels on dirt changed to wheels on cement, and pavement after a while. To Mateo and Misfortune, it sounded all the same. "Did we make it?" Misfortune asked. "Yeah..we did...but where is everyone?" Mateo replied. They both took a look around, and not a single peep could be heard. The occasional leaf would roll by as the wind softly blew, but other than that, it seemed like the entire town had just...up and left. This put Mateo on edge; even when the town was empty on the outside you could still hear its heart beating, you could still hear the hooves on wooden floorboards and family chatter from various houses.

He couldn't.

A crunching leaf-- which was due to misfortune moving--had taken Mateo out of his trance, and a hand on his shoulder made him jump. "Payback. It tastes sweet." Misfortune said. Both of them shared a chuckle until a crunching leaf could be heard behind a building. "I'll go check it out." Mateo said. With that, he left to investigate, and that's when Victoria had jolted awake.