Wild World: Max Mason 02

Realizing that I'm not gonna be able to do any good here, especially since I can't really even remember being here before, I start running my way back home. With the solitude and the distraction of movement, I'm able to clear my head and I start wondering about everything I just learned. Where the hell would the antelopes have gone, and what exactly did the hyenas mean when they used the word savage? I could make a guess about it being some kind of frame of mind, but was my roommate using it the same way? How was she going to react to all of this anyway? Would she even care, given how unwilling she was to leave my cave?

I end up reaching home before I've even realized it and I come to a stop. Without even meaning to, I'd done the entire return trip without stopping even once. Now that I had stopped though, my lack of fitness was finally catching up to me. My lungs felt like they were on fire and my legs just wanted to give out on me completely. I could feel them shaking with the effort of just holding me up and I let out a deep breath. My power leaves me completely and I feel at once both better and worse. Breathing's a lot easier but all of my fatigue seems infinitely more terrible now.

It takes measured breath and more than a bit of willpower to walk the last stretch up the hill and into the entrance of the cave. I see my roommate now sitting on the floor with two books open. One of them is the Edgar Allen Poe collection she had started earlier, but next to it now was an open dictionary that I had totally forgot I even owned. She kept looking between the two books as I stepped closer, grabbing her attention by the enormous gasps I was taking just to try to get air into my lungs.

"You're back sooner than I expected. You didn't have to hurry, you know." she says to me pleasantly, getting up off of the floor and coming over. "You sound exhausted. Are you okay?" I try to answer, but I just can't seem to get my lungs to cooperate with me long enough to do much else other than gasp so I just shake my head no. She looks at me confused and I realize that she probably doesn't really get what I consider common body language.

"Well, let's get you a seat so you can rest." she says, helping me over to the chair that I promptly collapse on. "Oh, and guess what? You kept saying you wish you had something to call me. Well, I found a name in one of your books that I like. Why don't you call me Annette?" I look up at her bright face, incredulously wondering how in the world she would have come up with the idea to call herself... "Annette the antelope. Pretty funny, right?"

Holy fuck, she did it on purpose. She intentionally named herself with alliteration. I want to laugh, but everything is still on fire. I focus myself on just my breathing for now as she starts telling me about how her day has been and about what stories she's been reading. She honestly seems so happy, and I hate that I'm going to have to be the one who ruins that good mood when I tell her what I came across at her old village.

Guilt consumes me once again, since now her family might be lost to her forever. We have no idea where they've gone, and it's not like we could just call them to find out. It's yet another thing I've done to her, and I feel disgusted with myself. I should have gotten her home sooner. At least then, she would probably still be with them. The only real good news that I can share is the lack of blood that was there, so at least her friends and family are probably still alive. I only hope that I'll be able to help her find them someday.

No, I will find them someday. I won't let Annette go without. Not while I still draw breath, and until then I'll stay right here by her side. I only hope my efforts will find themselves enough, but for now I need to force myself to tell her.

"Annette..."