Wild World: Max Mason 02

Wild World: Annette

(Author's Note: Hey, thanks for sticking with this or giving it a second shot now that I can finally REALLY get it started. Just a couple of quick things I felt the need to mention. This one's more about character development, so there isn't sex in this one. That will come later, promise. Second, this story involves a second language. When the other language is being used, I've separated it from English by italicizing and underlining it. Full sentences that I'm translating to English and such will be (Put in Parenthesis). Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy! ^.^)

I slog up the hill into the cave I've called home for well over a month now, foraged food aplenty stuffed into the duffel bag that I brought from my home world. Though it's still pretty hard to believe that I've actually come to another world, I've definitely had the time and help I've needed to adjust. I actually see her in her usual spot, upright in a chair in the brightest corner of the cavern's entrance with one of my books in her hand. I woke up with her in my bed weeks ago, and the both of us spent tons of hours nearly every day figuring out how to communicate until we had finally figured out enough of each other's languages to start actually learning them. I almost immediately wished that it would have impossible to do so.

"Hey, what are you reading today?" I ask her sullenly, trying hard to swallow my crushing sense of guilt. I see her ear twitch, letting me know she's heard me even though she won't respond at all and I just stand there trying not to let the memories overwhelm me. The memory of her calling me savage without an ounce of passion in her voice, the memory of her telling me what I did that night I couldn't remember before I woke up the next day with her in my bed... I hated myself so much, but couldn't let myself fall to it. She wouldn't even leave after I... I... i...

"Sher-lock...Hol-mes." she says, carefully moving her mouth in her efforts to pronounce it properly and blessedly snapping me out of my downward spiral for the moment. "I like this man. He is clever. Are you from Baker Street as well?" I can't help but chuckle at her innocent question.

"No, I'm not. Baker Street is in London, which is in the United Kingdom. A completely different part of a completely different country than where I'm from." I say to her, setting my bag down a bit farther in the cave and rolling my shoulders. Even with the super strength that this world provides me, my body still gets sore and tired from the exercise required to survive. "I come from Ogden, which is in a state called Utah in a country called the United States. A very, very long way away from London."

"I see." she says, closing the book for now and actually looking at me again with those soft eyes of hers. "Did my information on where to forage for food help?"

"It did, a lot actually." I tell her, opening up the duffel bag and showing the variety of fruits, veggies and mushrooms I gathered in my little outing. "Thank you...for helping me so much. Even though I..." My words catch in my throat, making me curse myself for being unable to even apologize for what I did. Being only semi-conscious is no excuse for my crimes, but she seems as impassive as ever as she loudly sighs at me.

"You were savage, but you did not hurt me. I wish you would understand that already." she says to me, coming over and inspecting everything. "You are getting better at choosing good food, Max. Also, you do not have to thank me. You taught me your words, and let me read your books even though I don't provide food."

"Just...trying to be a good person." I say to her, knowing she'll just be upset if I apologize again. "But can I ask you something?"

"No, I do not have a name. Nobody I know has a name, except for you. That is how things are." she says, cutting me off. I smile a bit, having had the name argument with her before until I finally let it drop

"No, no. It's not about the name thing. I just wanted to ask, why are you still here?" I ask. Her ears twitch slightly and she looks over at me, puzzled.

"What do you mean? Am I unwelcome?" she asks, tilting her head cutely to the side.

"No! I mean just.." I say, stumbling over my words for a bit before taking a deep breath to get back on track, "I'm just wondering why you haven't gone home. You know you're free to come and go whenever you want, right? Don't you want to go back to your friends and family?"

"There are no books back home." she states, very matter-of factly. "I like books, very much, and I am not done reading yet."

"I..." I stutter, a bit dumbfounded by her answer. I can't help the bubbling of laughter that comes up right from my stomach, nor the feeling that I wished I'd met this amazing woman under much better circumstances. "Okay, okay. I know that tone of voice. It's the one you use when you think I'm being an idiot and missing something very obvious."

"Tone..of voice?" she asks, confused.

"Oh, well...that's when..." I pause, humming to myself while I think of how to word this. "A tone of voice indicates something about the words you're using beyond the obvious. Does that make sense?"

"No." she states again, her whole body moving in what I now know is her dedicating herself wholly to trying to understand something.

"Okay well, maybe an example would be best. Let's pretend you just asked me a question. Now if I say 'Yeah!'," I say, using a very pleasant, upbeat tone of voice, "you're aware that I'm being sincere. But if I said it like '...yeah.'," this time using a much lower tone of voice like I were depressed, "you know that there's something else behind what I'm saying."

"Oh!" she says happily as her face lights up in understanding. "Then..perhaps I am not using the right tone of voice when I try to tell you about how you were savage and that is why you don't understand what I mean."

"I don't..." I say, stopping and sighing when I realize that rehashing the same arguments weren't going to get me anywhere. "Don't you think your family is worried about you? You've been gone for like a month, and you haven't once ever tried to go back."

"Like I said, I'm not done reading yet." she says to me, looking me over like she's trying to decide something. "Why don't you go?"

"What?" I reply, confused by her sudden question.

"I've told you where I live, because that's where you brought me here from. You know the way, and you can get there much faster than I can." she says to me, speaking like I should have realized all this myself. "And it would be good for you to practice your yoto with someone other than me for a change. You can't just stay alone in this cave for the rest of your life."

"My yoto, huh?" I say, working my mouth around the word she taught me refers to both language and the mouth. "I suppose, if you'd like."

"It would be good for you. You go to the...village?" she says, pondering if she's using the right word for a moment, "Yes, village, and I'll stay here and practice reading and speaking En-ga-lish a bit more."

She flashes me a small smile, grabbing the copy of Sherlock Holmes she was reading and going to return it to the bookshelf I'd built. I couldn't really think of any argument that she couldn't shut down so I left her to her perusing of my books while I went deeper into the cave I called home. Well, I suppose now I should say the cave system I called home. After she had...well, let's call it moved in, she had encouraged me to go deeper into the cave. It had actually been the first time I crafted a torch and I thanked my lucky stars for the thousandth time that I had that survival book.

The cavern ended up being pretty expansive, and slowly wound its way down into the innards of the hill and even below ground. Going through, I start wishing that I had or at least knew how to make some electric lights for this place. Honestly, it wouldn't make a terrible home with enough time put in it. There was certainly more than enough room, and even smaller branches paths of the cave system that would make for decent personal bedrooms.

I stop as I reached the small, dark alcove that served as a makeshift pantry, making sure to keep my torch well away from the beds of washed and dried grass that we used to keep the food from actually being on the floor of the cave. I back away after putting away the latest foraging haul and take a look around the cave. The thought occurs to me that if I had some heavy-duty tools, I could probably punch some skylights in the roof if I was careful. Then another thought occurs to me, did I even need tools anymore?

I take a deep breath, and feel my body fill with that incredible energy that I had only learned existed within me when my antelope-ish roommate told me exactly what I had done that night I could never remember. It coursed through every muscle of my body, imbuing me with the kind of super strength you normally only see or even read about in comic books. Even my bones became more durable, though I found out the hard way I definitely wasn't invulnerable after cutting myself on a large rock I had punched as hard as I could. My fist was fine, but the shards that exploded everywhere cut up my skin pretty bad.

It was definitely exciting, and more than a little scary, learning that being in this world gave me actual freaking superpowers. I suppose that it's almost a fair trade for the loss of everyone and everything I've ever known and loved. I could certainly think of quite a few people who would have killed to be in my position, but I was just trying to make the best of what I still saw as a pretty bad situation. Right now, I'd give them up in a heartbeat if I could go home and give my parents a hug.

For now though, at least I could assure somebody's parents that they were doing okay. I let the power fade away with a deep exhale as I start walking away from the pantry with my duffel bag across my shoulder, past my makeshift tools and back into the entrance to the cave where I see my furred roommate sitting back in her chair with her nose in yet another one of my books. A small glance at the cover as I walk by reveals that she's decided her next literary conquest is going to be my hardback collection of Edgar Allen Poe stuff.

I chuckled as I thought of her reading The Raven and wondering more why the raven said only one word instead of why it spoke at all. Hell, for all I knew there probably were talking ravens in this world and I just hadn't met them yet. It would actually be kind of cool to meet one, considering how different antelopes are in this world. Hell, I'm probably the only human on the entire planet. I'll probably find out someday, whether I want to or not.

The late morning sun shines brightly down on me, forcing me to squint my eyes a bit as I leave the cave. The weather's fantastic, with just a light breeze causing the tall grass around the hill to sway like a slow dance. I stand there a moment and just appreciate the beautiful sight it all makes before I get my game face on and get my bearings. Following the odd instructions that my roommate gave me, as well as wishing that I had a portable compass with me so I could at least try to make up more traditional travel directions, I take a deep, slow breath in to fill my body back up with energy.

Tiny bolts of lightning flow through every pathway my muscles have and I tense up to keep them all trapped inside. I know I won't be able to keep this up forever, so I take a position and push off into a fast run. Soon enough, my stride becomes impossibly long as it takes several seconds for my feet to touch the ground again with every step. The scenery rushes by in a slow blur and in no time at all, I'm moving with a speed I know would rival cars not travelling on the freeways back home. It's definitely a thrill, getting to move this fast with just my own body and the odd power filling me up but I have to be careful.

The first few times I'd started running like this after getting the hang of actually summoning up my super strength had been...clumsy, to put it politely. Frankly, it's a miracle that I didn't break anything and I've since learned to concentrate on my steps when I do this kind of running. Apparently, this isn't even the top of what I could do. When I was still first learning how to really control this, the descriptions that she had given me of when I had brought her home informed me that I should be able to move much faster than this through some kind of weird power-jump move. Maybe it was a mental block stopping me from going too far...or maybe I was just thinking about it too much, and more specifically how badly I could hurt myself doing it.

Either way, it just meant more practice using it and more working out without the power to improve my body so I can handle more. Especially to prevent situations like right now, where I start running out of breath. I slow myself down carefully, panting like crazy as I feel sweat starting to pour down my forehead. I can feel my heart pounding hard enough to almost leap out of my chest and it occurs to me that once again, I was holding my breath on top of tensing my muscles. I take a look back at the direction I just came from and see my hill with the burnt up tree on top of it as just a tiny speck in the distance so at least I went a decent distance before I had to stop.

I struggle to get my breathing under control again, feeling that all-too-familiar ache in my side as my heart rate starts to slow again. I start walking, still making sure to control my breath as I move. It takes about five minutes, but eventually my body feels about right again and I start up my super-speed stride again. I remember to breathe properly this time and now it's a lot easier, even though I do still feel that little ache at my side as I run.

It takes a while to finally see the little huts that I knew had to make up my roommate's little village, probably about 40 minutes one way if I were to make my best guess. I probably had taken a lot less time when I had come here during that weird conscious-but-unconscious state that had led to me kidnapping her in the first place, considering I was apparently using my power with ease when my body was just kind of going on autopilot. I wish so badly that I could remember anything about that night, but try as I might it's just proven completely impossible.

I slow myself down carefully and switch to walking as I start being able to make out the shapes of people moving between the buildings. Sweat's pouring down my head like I just got out of the shower and I can't seem to quite manage breathing without the use of my mouth yet. Thankfully, it'll still be a little bit before I'm close enough to anybody that it'll be a problem to talk so my little walk should give me more than enough of a cooldown to get my heart rate and breathing to tolerable levels again.

Thoughts run through my head as I walk about how best to go about this whole thing, making me realize I probably should have brought her along for this. I mean, if what she told me is true then I came in like a movie monster and started tossing some dog-people around, scaring the living daylights out of anyone who saw me. Hell, by their standards I am a movie monster. Some inhuman thing with freakish powers roaring, breaking stuff and kidnapping young women. Well, inhuman by their standards anyway. What should I even call them, since they aren't human? Zoomans? Anthros? Furries sounds a bit derogatory honestly, plus it might not be accurate if there are like snake-people or something...

My train of thought gets cuts off as I draw closer and hear laughter rolling down away from the village. There's also some pretty loud talking, but I can't quite yet make it out so I pick up my pace. Hopefully I don't immediately scare away whoever the hell this is, but at least I'm able to talk with them now. I'm sure I'll be able to get at least one person to listen to me so I can get ahold of my new roommate's family.

"(There's no food in this one!)" I hear some woman's voice shout in this world's language. "(Have you found anything over there, yet?)"

"(No, it doesn't look like anything got left...)" the other one, a male stops speaking as he comes out of one of the huts and sees me. Unfortunately for him, I see him just as clearly. It's a hyena...Anthro, I'm just gonna go with Anthro. Just like the ones my roommate told me I routed on the night I can't remember, the ones who were attacking the village!

"(Hey!)" I shout at them angrily, starting to stomp over to the one I could see, "(I know you don't live here! What did you do with everybody?!)"

"(Talking?! But...but you were savage! I witnessed it!)" he shouts back, looking at me with a mixture of disgust and despair.

"(Who are you talk...)" a female hyena walks out of the neighboring hut and catches an eyeful of me as well, her eyes widening almost cartoonishly large. "(You again! But you were savage...beautiful! How has the glory of your primal self been re-suppressed by disgusting reason?!)"

"(I...you and I have very different ideas of what savage means, I'm guessing.)" I say, shaking off my confusion to confront them again. "(Now answer me! Where is everyone?!)"

"(They're all gone. Just up and vanished.)" the female said to me with a disgusted tone. "(Where they went, we neither know nor care. Now go away, heathen!)" I can't help the growl that comes out of me at her words and I start stomping towards her. I see both her and the male become visibly nervous as I draw closer, taking a controlled breath and filling myself with power. The male growls and lunges at me, trying to slash at me with the claws on the ends of his fingers but it's too easy.

I grab his wrist and use my strength to toss him high into the air. I hear the pop of his shoulder coming out of his socket as I do and begin stepping towards the female once again. She looks at me with fear in her eyes and attempts to run, but can't get away faster than I can intercept her. She ends up backing against the outside wall of one of the huts, eyes transfixed on me as I draw closer. I can see her visibly shaking as I place two hands on her shoulders and lean in.

"(Make me.)" I say softly to her, only starting to back away when I hear her whimper in fear. I see she's wet herself in terror of me and I almost hate the thrill I feel at seeing how much power I have over her in this state. "(I'm only going to ask one more time, and if I find out you're lying to me...)" I emphasize the unspoken ending of my statement by loudly cracking my knuckles in front of her.

"(I swear, we didn't do anything to them. We were going to raid them for food, but they were already all gone when we arrived. We haven't found any food either. Please, I swear I speak true beastly one!)" she says to me, the fear still there but now mixed with what I could only think is some odd form of reverence. "(Search for yourself if you must, but you will find nothing and no one. It is as though they all vanished.)"

I don't say anything in response, but neither am I going to take her at her word. I use my power to leap high in the air and start searching the village myself. No matter where I search though, all I find are hyenas complaining about the lack of food and breaking a few pieces of property that got left behind when the antelopes vanished. A few of the hyenas spot me as I land and look around, attacking me on the spot but they're lucky even they even manage to give me a scratch before I fling them an area code or two away. They all get the message pretty quickly to leave me alone, and with the lack of food to be stolen they decide to simply leave the village all together after losing a couple of the dumber members to me.