Chapter Seventeen: The Way Out Part One

Waking up I feel much better than I did last time. I’m still in pain, but it’s nowhere near what last time was. Plus, I don’t have the triple vision anymore or at least I don’t think I do. Though, I stay laying down on the…. What am I laying on?

I turn my head and look around, and see that I’m laying in Rashid’s cart. Huh, despite the fact I’ve been pulling this cart for several days, I’ve hadn’t notice that the back is entirely covered in a tarp, with no sign of the things he put back here.

But It’s oddly nice to lay on. A bit firm, but with some give. I contemplate laying back down but then I hear. “Good, your lazy concussed ass is alive and wake, and just when I need ya.” I give a little sigh, but he did let me ride in the cart and didn’t ditch me in some alley or ditch.

I hop out of the cart and find Rashid sitting in front of that hellish cliff from a couple days ago, roasting some meat that smells so good that I would kill for… Nah, I don’t think I can take him, I’d never catch him off guard.

I walk over next to the fire and warm myself, not realizing how cool it was till I felt the fire. “So, let me take a shot in the dark and say, that you want me to haul your ass back up the cliff?”

“On point.” He tosses the meat my way and I snatch it out of the air and start ripping into it.

“Not curious as to what your eating?” I hear someone say something, but all that exists right now is me and the meat. “It could be anything… anything….” I feel as though someone is talking to me, or sighing.

I finish the meat and look over to Rashid and open my mouth, to be interrupted “It could be anything!” By Rashid’s raspy, bone dry voice.

I cock my head at him with an eyebrow raise “I’ll eat anything if I get hungry enough. I mean there was this one time dad left alone in the desert and I couldn’t find anything to eat and I-” Rashid pinches his brow and holds his palm at me.

“Never mind, I see that nothing I could say about that meat could scare you off of it,” A smile then comes over his wrinkle face “Want seconds?”

“Stars above yes!” Rashid smiles widens. I cough and look away. “I mean yes, please.” He bursts out laughing.

A little while later I let open my mouth “BUUURRPP!!” A loud burp booms out of my chest and shakes the ground a little. Rashid laughs and then stands up, dusting himself off.

“Alright, I think it’s about time to get out of here,” Rashid says while doing some stretches.

“Kay, but how you want to do this,” I say while picking my teeth.

A lazy smile comes over his face “Oh, it’ll be easy,” He points his hand to cart wrapping it in a silver cocoon of chains and then points both hands. One at the ground near me and the other up farther than I can see. “I just need you to pull it up.”

“Really? That seems like a lot of boring work.” I say disinterested. “Couldn’t you do it easy, I saw what you did to those defiled. Wouldn’t take you more than a moment or two. And I could just climb up.”

Rashid takes a gasp, “And you’ll make this poor sweet, old man do all this work by himself?! For shame young one!” He says with mock outrage

“Your as much of a sweet, poor, old man, as I am a vulnerable little boy with a come molest me sign on my back,” I say my counterpoint.

“But what if I sweetened the bargain?” Rashid says like a lawyer.

“Go on, Wait! This isn’t gonna be like your counteroffer is I’ll kill you right because I’m pretty sure you said you weren’t going to do that!”

“Tsk!”

“Did you just tsk me?”

Rashid laughs “No, I have found beating you with a stick and expecting you to do something might be a bad idea.”

“You, don’t say?” I say with as much sarcasm as possible.

“So, I’m going to try to reward you…. And try to lower the amount of brain damage you receive.”

I raise a thick brow “Go on.”

Rashid smiles wolfishly and raises a hand opening the chains around the cart, then walks over to his cart and pulls out a box.

Where was that in there?

He saunters over to me and shows me a box of dark, colored rectangles that smell like all I’ve ever wanted. “These are alchemically created meal bars, a normal man couldn’t hope to eat more than a quarter of one these babies,” He slaps the lid down as my hand moves to grab one. “Without overdosing, and you might be asking yourself, Rashid, why would I want poison, but no no no,” He points a finger at me, though I never said that. “These are a superfood, give a man an eighth of one, and he’ll be good and going for a week.”

I swallow slowly at the bars in front of me “Ok, but I could get my own and why would I want yours.” I say, trying to keep control.

“Atlas, I saw you swallow the one I gave you on the way down here and how long did it keep you full for? And these go for about a thousand credits a bar...”

I look away and say quietly “About two days…”

“And what if I told you, that this box I’m willing to give you has enough for you eat one every day of the month and then some?”

I practically leap out of my seat and clasp his free hand vigorously. “I’d say you have a deal, sir!”

Rashid’s smile would have ripped the face of any other man “I thought so.” He then backflipped on to his cart, with the precious. “Now get to pulling!”

I didn’t need to be told twice!

I dash over to the chain left hanging idly in the air and begin pulling with all my might, creating afterimage after afterimage!

The chain begins to burn in my hand as it goes faster and faster!

Then I hear a plunk, and the chain won’t go anymore… I didn’t break it did I? Oh no! If I broke it does that mean I won’t get the meal bars?! But wait, it’s Rashid’s Aura construct so I couldn’t have broke it, I’m not that strong yet.

So I scamper up the chain and in a couple of minutes I’m up and I see Rashid and the cart, with the precious, sitting in the mouth of the cave. Then I see him smile like a demon!

“Hey, Atlas?”

“...Yes?” I ask nervously

“You know what they say about revenge?” Rashid asks calmly

“That it doesn’t taste well lukewarm?”

“It’s a bitch.” And he snaps his fingers, and the chain I’m holding disappears.

“Well, shit.” I say as gravity begins to pull on me.