Part III

The days past quickly; Fuschia enjoyed her newfound friendship with the other girls. She'd never had may friends before, due to the fact that she kept to herself most of the time, and the few that she had had were probably dead now. She was drawn to Christy, who was so similar to herself, sometimes so much that it was scary. Zinc remained tight with Christy, but she and Selena had also become close friends. The two were both chatty and energetic, clicking together effortlessly. Selena talked faster than Zinc and was generally more hyper, but Zinc had the ability to talk fast when she wanted to, and a conversation that should have taken a half an hour took only ten minutes for them. Zinc also had the tendency to be shy, but with Selena around, she grew to be more confident and the two soon became inseparable. Of course, Christy was friends with Zinc at the same time, but in general, Selena and Zinc spent most of their time together.
Fuschia still continued to be friends with Selena, but she preferred the direct words of Christy over Selena's endless chatter. She and Christy had both engaged in heated debates on whether it was healthier to eat only the nutritious foods that they had or whether it was healthier to eat everything they had along with other such discussions. Fuschia let Christy win (and she had no idea why she had even done that), but she still felt that it was healthier to eat only the nutritious foods. She found herself wanting to be close to Christy all the time, not exactly knowing the reason why. When Christy hugged her, she always felt herself heating up though she knew she normally wouldn't. There was just something about Christy that made Fuschia so attached to the other.
Fuschia...wasn't sure about what exactly she felt for Christy. This kind of feeling... It reminded her too much of when she had had a crush on this hot goth boy in her school. The crush had faded after a while, but this feeling she had now was too much like a crush. She couldn't be crushing on Christy, could she?
She'd never even considered liking girls before, but now that these strong emotions for Christy had come up...she thought about it a lot. There were times when they were shouting in each others' faces in a debate when she wanted to just lean forward a little more so that her lips would touch Christy's. But she'd always held herself back, telling herself that it was wrong, and that Christy could never feel the same way.
As time passed, she learned that Christy was a gymastic champion of several competitions and Zinc was a math whiz. Christy used her gymnastic talents to jump over large obstacles quietly and make a quick escape in encounters with creatures. Fuschia had stared wide-eyed at the graceful tumbles and flips that Christy did and nearly gotten herself killed the first couple times on searches with Christy. It was thanks to her martial arts training reflexes that she remained alive.
Zinc denied that she was a math whiz at first, but after so many quick calculations of giant numbers, she had no way any longer to deny that she really was a math whiz. Fuschia couldn't understand how someone could calculate 75 times 123 in their head within 10 seconds. But Zinc did, and easily.
Both girls created strong feelings of admiration and surprise within Fuschia, especially Christy. Still, she had been horrified when she found they went on searches and never changed locations. After they both had returned safely 7 times, she had relaxed a bit and even joined in on occasion. Selena was the only one who never went on searching, and though the other three wondered why she never left, they didn't ask.
Everything was perfect other than the creatures. Fuschia loved her new fast paced life, full of excitement and adventure. Though she still sometimes shed silent tears for her lost friends and family at night when the others were asleep, she was beginning to let go and accept that they were gone. She would always remember them, but now she allowed herself to have fun for the first time in ages.
Unfortunately, things couldn't stay the same. Fuschia had expected something bad to happen, but it came worse than she had thought it would at the peak of her happiness.
~*~
It had been on a search that it had happened. After everything had been going so smoothly for so long, Fuschia had lost some of her reflexes and "sixth sense" (as she liked to call it). The three girls hadn't noticed the creature until it was too late.
The waist-high spider-like monster tore into Zinc's abdomen, greedily sucking up the blood with the suckers on the bottom of its ten legs. She didn't even have time to scream before she fainted from the intense pain. The sharp poisonous ridges on each the legs glistened with Zinc's life-blood. It ignored the other two, who were frozen in shock for a moment as it fed on Zinc's blood.
Fuschia let out a piercing shriek for around ten seconds, the creature screaming out mercy before its guts exploded from its body. But she had been too late.
Christy sobbed over Zinc's mutilated form, her tears falling to the ground, shining like stars. Fuschia gave her remaining companion a moment of silence as her own tears trickled down her cheeks. Still, she remained vigilant, looking out for more predators.
After closing Zinc's unseeing hazel eyes, Christy sniffled, then stood up, tears still falling from her eyes. She cut a small lock of Zinc's frizzy brown hair and slipped it into the locket that rested near her heart.
"We should go." Fuschia nodded in agreement and then looked at Zinc one last time before following Christy back to the water tank.
When they reached the tank and secured the door, Christy burst into fresh tears. Selena, confused, foolishly asked where Zinc was. Fuschia shot her a look before wrapping her arms around the crying girl, pulling her close.
"I wanna k-kill all those crea-ea-tures!" Fuschia rubbed Christy's back as she whispered into the grief-stricken girl's ear.
"Shh... I will help you, but first, let out all those tears." She tried to be as comforting as possible, though she never was very good at that.
"I'm wasting wa-water!" bawled Christy, causing her to cry even harder."
"It's okay, just cry. It'll make you feel better." Fuschia continued to hold the crying Asian girl in her arms, rubbing her shoulders until the girl fell asleep. Giving a sad smile, she tucked the sleeping girl into bed. Christy cried out in her sleep when Fuschia tried to remove her arms, and flushing slightly she slipped into the same bed as Christy, putting back her arms in their previous places.
Fuschia looked at Selena, who had only shed a few tears. Maybe it was her imagination, but she could have sworn that Selena had given a feral grin, eyes flashing yellow, before lying down on a bed. Shivering, Fuschia told herself that it was all in her head and she turned back to Christy and kissed the girl on the forehead before allowing herself to drift off into sleep.
~*~
Fuschia woke to large brown eyes gazing deeply into her own. She felt herself heating up, but managed to keep a straight face as she unwrapped her arms and began to stretch out the kinks in her shoulders.
"Mornin' Fuschia." Christy yawned, getting up and stretching out her legs.
"Marnin' Christy." Fuschia replied, scrambling to her feet and pulling out their breakfast; crackers and peanut butter. Not very nutritious, but it was food and it helped with the pangs of hunger that sometimes hit.
Food had been getting harder and harder to find, for food did expire and they had looking in most of the houses and shops in a one mile radius. Each time they went to search, they went a little farther. It now took a good hour to get the food and back to the shelter.
There was a couple minutes of silence as the girls chewed their first few bites, the sticky peanut butter sticking to the tops of their mouths and teeth. The crackers were slightly stale, but it did its job of sating their hunger.
"You said you would help me, right?" Fuschia looked up at Christy's voice, then nodded once, for her mouth was still full of crackers and peanut butter. She chewed a couple more times, swallowed, then shared what she knew.
"The source of the creatures is the house of the crazy guy. Do you know which house I'm talking about?"
"It's the rickety wooden house that looks like it's going to fall down any second."
"Yes, that's the one. Anyways, they can't tolerate loud, high-pitched noises, though they've become increasingly resistant. I don't know if you noticed when...er..." She stopped, unsure what to say. Swallowing, she began again. "The last encounter we had with a creature, I screamed at it and it exploded."
"I was wondering what that was about..."
"Well, they can't tolerate the noise. The first time I killed one like that, it only took one or two seconds. Now it takes at least ten, if not more."
"Then we should find another way against them."
"That would be highly useful, but it's dangerous to experiment. We could end up being dead the next thing we know."
"You have a good point."
"They're strictly carnivores and sometimes possess humans for easier attacking. I'm not sure how that works, but that's what they do." Behind Fuschia, Selena stiffened, which Fuschia took to be shock and horror.
"Then let's go to that house and destroy the source." Christy declared.
"Butit'sso..." For once, Selena had paused in the middle of her talking. But then she began again. "...oldanddarkandcreepy-like!" She sounded extremely nervous.
"Don't be chicken. Gather up your weapons, prepare for a fight, and then we should be off." Fuschia took leadership; it just seemed to come naturally to her. Christy followed orders automatically, her jaw set and eyes determined. Selena hesistated for a moment before getting her sword, which Fuschia had found in the old fencing building on one of the searches. It had been one of Selena's few requests, and Fuschia had gladly gotten it for her. She couldn't imagine going anywhere without her weapons.
It took them about a half an hour to prepare for the attack on the source of their horrors. Christy got her metal tipped whip that she used for attacking and her dagger.
It was a tradition in her family to teach the oldest son how to use the whip for show. They had no son, so Christy, being the oldest daughter, had learned how to use it in place of a son. Though she had learned it more for a dance form, she had adjusted her techniques to attack. Combined with her lightning-fast gymnastic moves and her whip technique, she was a formidable enemy that even Fuschia would think about before attacking. Although she found the Oriental girl's technique amazing, she felt that her family had one weird tradition.
Fuschia already had all her weapons on her, but she checked every single one for cracks and rust before taking out the defective ones and keeping the good ones. She also took the time to grab the two lanterns, giving one to Selena and the other to Christy. Selena didn't do much with her sword but practiced a few controlled lunges within the tank.
As they climbed down the ladder, they silently said goodbye to the water tank in their minds then jogged quietly to the house.
Presently, they reached the front of the building.
The door, barely staying on its hinges, opened slightly when they arrived, almost as if to invite them into the darkened rooms.