Empathy

It didn’t take long for Alice to finish descending the plant-invaded stairway, pushing past the confusing jungle of vegetal tendrils and finding herself in another, larger cluster of broken structures, the leaves of the massive wisteria tree forming a green canopy that stretched from structure to structure, obscuring the sky above them and bathing the world below with a soothing half-light that painted every surface with a beautiful verdant shade that smoothed any edge.

Worried of being spotted while out in the open, the biomancer tried to be as inconspicuous as possible while she hurriedly snuck into the closest building, her weapons at the ready as she pushed past the wider-than-normal entryway and found herself standing in a room that was quite a lot larger than the ones she had previously visited, its open floor design filled with more than a dozen of moss-covered, waist-high structures that had been placed in neat little rows, their rotund shapes reminding her of many public waste bins, their function unknown.

After making sure she was alone in the place, Alice let curiosity take the wheel and approached the objects, using the dull side of her knife to carefully scrape off the thin layer of vegetation and revealing a warped surface of heavily oxidized metal, the material flaking off along with the moss growing over it.

Increasingly intrigued, she walked along the lanes, closely inspecting each mound and noticing various details as she went along.

First of all, the structures seemed to be hollow, a handful of them sporting a rounded opening of around twenty-five centimeters that allowed her to glance into the mysterious insides of the ancient objects.

To her surprise, the container was filled to the brim with water and inhabited by many small clams which, attached to the sides of the tank as they were, seemingly filtered the water for nutrients, making it surprisingly clear for a puddle of stagnant water.

Along with those simple mollusks, the girl also spotted tiny swarms of even tinier shrimps that swam where the clams didn’t reach, their translucent bodies revealing their pinkish insides as they feasted on the many insectile eggs that were constantly being deposed on the surface of the miniature pond by gnats and mosquitoes alike.

Alice spent a few minutes observing the ‘natural’ aquarium but, after a while, she forced herself to keep moving towards the end of the hall, where a wide stairway covered in dead leaves and stray wooden tendrils led to the upper floor.

There, the girl was hoping to find a good vantage point that would allow her to survey the new area for dangers while remaining hidden at the same time. She definitely did not want to delve deeper into the area without knowing what was waiting for her.

Slightly panting after the steep steps, the young woman finally reached the top of the stairs and observed the new space, this one vastly different from the one below.

The entire room had been invaded by one of the larger boughs of the wisteria which, after finding an entrance through the glassless windows, had started growing along the floor and over the numerous, raised stone surfaces that would have probably been tables or workstations in an ancient past, now mere supports for the aggressive vegetation which, after enveloping the stronger structures, had then started to climb towards the glass ceiling, pushing against it and finally breaking through.

Shards of glass crackled under her shoes as she walked through the room, observing the silent and powerful progress of nature against civilization as the plant slowly reclaimed its spot as the true endurer of the constant struggle that her world knew so well.

As she moved along the largest branch, her finger tips slowly following its gnarly and twisted surface, Alice felt the peace of that silent and forgotten place enter her lungs with every slow breath she took, clearing her mind of the intrusive thoughts that constantly harassed her.

Content, for just a moment, to simply experience those feelings, the girl slowly moved towards the larger window, careful but calm at the same time, her eyes sometimes spotting more of the undecipherable symbols on walls and tables alike, peeking from the greenery covering them and holding old secrets that were probably lost to time.

After having had to climb over a wide countertop with curious, square plates of metal fitted on its surface, the young woman finally reached the partially obscured opening, peeking through the fronds to observe the surroundings, both over and under the canopy.

Over the sea of leaves swaying in the gentle breeze, Alice could see the numerous buzzing insects that came for the copious nectar of the wisteria’s flowers and the yellow sparrows that were busily preying on them, their short wings beating incredibly fast as the animals twisted and turned in the air, emitting triumphant chirps that echoed over the rustling of the leaves whenever one of them managed to snatch a particularly large morsel.

During those mad pursuits, some of the birds miscalculated their dives and plunged straight through the leafy ocean, disappearing below its surface.

Sometimes, the creatures resurfaced a few heartbeats later, warbling indignantly as they smoothed their frazzled plumage and took to the air once again; other times, however, the clumsy bird failed to reappear, an eerie emptiness soon surrounding the area where it had vanished as the rest of the flock started avoiding the place like the plague.

Mhh, not good. I better pay attention while underneath. She told herself as she leaned just a bit forward in order to poke her head through the thick curtain of leaves, scanning the ground beneath for more information and clues.

Fortunately for her, the building she had chosen was quite a bit taller than the others and she had a very good visual of the streets and the buildings surrounding it.

Wherever she looked, the ground and roofs were covered in a thick layer of yellowy leaves from which sprouted ferns and weeds that, along with the ever present offshoots of the wisteria, had turned every flat surface into an untraversable jungle through which scurried small furry forms, barely visible as they moved between one obstacle and the other, never remaining in the open for too long.

I’d need to be damned flexible to move through that thing, otherwise I’ll get bogged down there and that’s probably the biggest nope I could do. The branches however…

She critically eyed the massive branches that travelled through and over the buildings like the slides of a crazy water park, connecting most of the structures through a system of aerial pathways that ignored the messy undergrowth.

It didn’t take her long to realize what she would have to do to cross the area without getting stuck.

Before that, however, she would wait a bit more, still scanning for dangers and definitely not because she didn’t want to hang in the air over something she didn’t know would hold.

Totally not.

Alice had spent a good fifteen minutes scouring the area for signs of danger and, after that, she had wasted another fifteen as she tried to find a good enough reason not to do what she needed to do.

Now, she tentatively pushed against the large branch, not feeling particularly reassured when she managed to shake its leaves, a barely audible groan of the wood reaching her enhanced ears.

“Dammit,” she couldn’t help muttering as she slowly moved out of the opening and started crawling over the wooden limb, her body glued to structure as she inched her way forward, stopping after a couple of meters to check if it was still holding.

It was.

Exhaling a small sigh of relief, she slightly loosened her vice-like grip on the wisteria and started creeping forward once again, ignoring the way the branch trembled under her weight and instead focusing on the small and shiny beetles that scuttled around her, burrowing into the wood with their spiky mouth and pooping out small mounds of digested wood soon after.

She could feel the way her backpack uncomfortably slid over her back whenever she moved, weighed down by the mace she had been forced to store as to prevent it from slipping while she was five meters up in the air.

If she found herself in trouble, she would only be able to use her knife.

Can’t think about that right now. Just keep moving.

Just keep moving.

She was completely covered in sweat when she finally reached her target: the flat roof of a smaller building upon which the large branch rested safely.

The moment she was on solid ground once again, Alice let herself roll off to the side, landing onto a soft and humid mattress of dead leaves and electing to lay there for a few minutes to recharge her batteries before moving onto the next pathway, this one a lot shorter and moving through the torn down wall of a particularly damaged structure.

It was in that moment that the monkey broke through the leafy ceiling less than three meters to her right, its long arms holding onto the tendrils of the plant and using their springiness to slow its fall until it reached the ground unharmed.

Alice, for her part, barely managed to avoid screaming, exhaling a gasp that was thankfully lost in the cacophony of snapping boughs coming from the ground below.

Her hand already on the knife, she turned on her belly and started slowly crawling through the leaves, trusting that the noise the creature was producing below would muffle her own as she moved towards the raised edge of roof.

When she poked her face over the rim, Alice watched the monkey as it strutted through the undergrowth, ripping away branches and generally causing a whole lot of noise in the previously silent forest, seemingly uncaring of being heard.

Wondering what the heck it was doing, she continued watching as the primate suddenly grabbed a thick and dry stick that was resting on the ground and started wildly beating it against its surroundings until, after a few clumsy slams, the tool managed to hit close enough to the hiding spot of one of the furry creatures she had previously spotted scurrying between the plants, causing it to dart out in the open and try to escape the attacker.

As the larger creature started giving pursuit in the middle of the street, the biomancer was finally given another chance to take a better look at the two creatures.

The monkey was impossible not to recognize and Alice’s face twisted in a disgusted grimace as her eyes caught sight of the large and constantly pursed lips of the animal, their light blue hue particularly noticeable against the dark brown fur, the rest of its face contracted in an ugly rictus that revealed its particularly sharp teeth as it followed its prey, slamming the stick around in the meanwhile.

The smaller animal, for its part, was a lot more interesting-looking; resembling a mix between a rat and a ferret, it was covered in a light brown and yellow fur that was surely helpful whenever it hid between the dead leaves or, in this case, ran for its life in the undergrowth, quickly moving through the matted mess of plants in an effort to get away from its hunter.

As it weaved through the obstacles on its path, Alice noticed that while the animal lacked a tail, it instead sported two more legs than it was normal.

Positioned in the middle of its body, between the anterior and the posterior pair, the extra limbs worked overtime to push against the ground and scramble over broken plants as their owner frantically tried to find a way to escape.

Despite its agility and speed, however, the ferret constantly found its path towards safety blocked by the stick or the lunges of the monkey until, after getting snagged by a noose-shaped tendril, the rodent lost enough speed that the deformed fingers of its pursuer wrapped around its lithe body, eliciting a pained squeak when they started putting pressure against its ribcage.

Now caught, the smaller animal tried to wriggle away and, when that didn’t work, attempted to bite at its captor who, instead, lazily slammed it against the ground a couple of times, leaving it stunned and weakly squeaking in the grasp.

A feeling of horror blooming in her stomach, the young woman watched as the primate started poking at the struggling prey, forcing it to drag itself on the ground for a few seconds before pulling it back from one its legs, launching it in the air and stretching it between its hands until it squeaked in pain.

She had to stop herself from intervening, letting the sadistic creature go on for at least five minutes before it finally got bored, lazily grasping the hind legs of the ferret and quickly bouncing away.

For the entire time, the monkey hadn’t uttered a sound.

Alice lay in her spot for a few long minutes, her eyes glued to the thin path of broken vegetation that the monster had left in its wake as it disappeared from sight, moving in the direction of the large house where she had first seen the furry shadows disappear.

She was sure they would be there.

The girl was slightly nauseous when she got up on her feet, her mind still replaying the sight of the monkey playing with its hapless victim.

Swallowing down those feeling, her expression hardened and she was standing upright when she stepped onto the continuation of the branch, moving carefully over the ‘chasm’ and soon landing onto the pile of rubble that had once been a room of a building, the bough passing through and exiting from the other side, where it became thicker and split into two directions, one leading down, to a new level of buildings a few dozen meters below, and another towards the cluster of smaller houses that surrounded the presumed monkey nest.

She hesitated.

On the one hand, she could take the downward route, shaving a lot of time from her descent and getting much closer to the actual ground and maybe an exit.

On the other, there were the monkeys, a surely dangerous unknown but also the fastest way to get a lot of the nutrients she so desperately needed for the enhancement of her muscular system.

Alice turned her eyes towards the expanse below, much closer than before, her hands repeatedly balling into fists as she stared down.

It was having fun… I know I did horrible things to the creatures I experimented on and that I’m a hypocrite… but I wasn’t doing it to have fun. That’s fucked up.

Did the monkey on Earth do this kind of things? She asked herself, biting her lower lip in the meanwhile.

She couldn’t stand the thought.

Alice turned her eyes towards the expanse below, much closer than before, her hands repeatedly balling into fists as she stared down.

“I just can’t,” she said as she turned around and started moving towards the monkeys, forcing herself to proceed carefully and refusing to lose focus because of her feelings, slowly forming a ball with them and pushing it to the back of her mind.

The bough she had been crawling upon for the previous hour had been slowly becoming thinner and less stable as she advanced and Alice had barely managed to reach the first of the houses before it could snap, landing with a muffled thud on the roof and immediately rushing out of sight through a cave-in in the structure, finding herself inside the ruined building.

Panting, she spared a glance at the fragment of sky that was visible through the leaves, noticing that the sun had long passed its zenith and was in its downward path towards the night. She had to hurry and reach a good hiding spot from which to observe the monkeys. She couldn’t allow herself any risk.

She had just stepped into the lower floor of the house and was preparing to move out when crackle of twigs and leaves echoed from outside.

Something was coming in her direction.

*****

This chapter is officially sponsored by Alan M.! Thank you so much for your support!