Click click click...
Xander saw them and swallowed.
But the stinging in his throat did not help calm his nerves.
They moved towards him on all fours.
Low.
Slow.
Purposeful.
Moving with the unsettling efficiency of something that was clearly once human.
Yes, they were.
Unfortunately, these people had received the profession of Scavenger.
And as the system continually rewarded them for performing their sole function of recycling the waste of others, their bodies had been transformed by the toxins in the most pitiful of ways.
That unsettling continuous clicking sound came from their fingers—long, and each one ending in a curved yellowed claw.
These things were not sharp enough to be weapons by design. Rather, they were sharp enough to be weapons by necessity.
There was a difference, and Xander knew it immediately.
For most of them, their skin and muscles had thinned and stretched over prominent bone, pale as candle wax, where it wasn’t darkened by the filth permanently embedded in it.
Some had clothes on, but only in remnants—fabric so fused to skin that finding a difference between the two was laughable.
But Xander was not laughing.
He watched as they sniffed the air, some intentionally smacking surfaces to echolocate.
They needed to be sure he was there.
Yes. These creatures were blind.
Their eyes were wide. Completely white.
There was no iris. No pupil. Just two smooth pale surfaces that caught the moonlight passing through the incinerator’s broken ceiling and threw it back at him in a cold silver gleam.
Subconsciously, he counted.
Eleven. They were Eleven of them.
One much bigger than the others.
Xander recalled more information on them. Luckily for him, Alex had been groomed to be king all his life and had no choice but to study on all professions within the kingdom.
Scavengers were very territorial, and had a primal hierarchical system that they followed.
The biggest one was the Alpha.
It always hunts first.
The smaller ones would not attack without its permission.
But that did not make things any easier for Xander.
He looked around, past the mountain of rubbish, corpse and filth.
This place was walled. Not because it was built by people, but because it was dug into the earth.
Another function of the Scavengers.
It was very large, and very deep—enough to be a warehouse.
Meaning that if Xander wanted to leave this place, he would have to climb the walls.
That was at least 12 feet, by his estimation.
With these creatures around, how was that possible?
Click click click
The sound echoed around him.
But he did not want to die. Once was already enough.
Xander looked even closer. He needed something.
Anything, he could use as a weapon in case of an emergency.
There were discarded bodies around.
Slowly, watching for the Alpha, his right hand reached for a broken femur,
It was as long as his forearm and sharp at one end.
Feeling the slimy bone in his fingers provided a bit of comfort.
And he breathed easy.
Click click click...
The Alpha raised its head, sniffing even harder.
Xander held his breath.
Sensitive senses. He nearly forgot.
He held the broken femur tight.
Now that he had a weapon, he had to figure a way out.
Because of the uneven way the dirt formed piles in the incinerator, some places were closer to the surface than others.
Unfortunately, his side was not. But what he did have, were the walls.
They were not smooth, but rather, moist, and roughly dug by the Scavengers.
If he could get to one, with some effort, climbing could become possible.
The nearest wall to him was about five meters.
Very short.
But for a man with an injured body, surrounded by meat tearing scavengers, this was a journey.
Xander calmed his mind.
From the look and feel of his body that had crusted wounds, and a hunger level that had reached the point of quiet, it was evident that Alex had been here for about a day.
However, before that, the boy had been kneeling in the mud for a long time.
So long that his legs had lost much feeling.
Even now, they still felt numb.
Meaning that Xander would have to exercise his legs to get much blood flowing through them.
And so, with measured breath, he leaned forward.
Crack...
His joints did what joints did when they had not been used for a while.
This pulled the attention of the Scavengers. The Alpha leaned his way, gently taking a step forward.
Xander paused.
Waited.
After a while, the Alpha scavenger went about its business.
From Alex’s knowledge on Scavengers, these creatures knew when moving flesh was not their kind, one of the many abilities granted to them by the system.
And so Xander had to be careful.
Once attention left him, he moved again, timely measuring his movement with the noise made by the other scavengers—in an effort to mask the sounds his body made.
To an extent, it worked.
The Scavengers were too busy doing their thing. But if he made too much noise, they would look again.
In this manner, Xander managed to massage his legs, one after the other.
Top to bottom.
This took a long time. At least a couple of hours.
But he did it anyway.
Xander had not realized it yet, but his newly unlocked skill, [Dead Man’s Patience] was in effect.
After he was sure that he could finally feel his legs, he proceeded to the next task.
Motion.
Slowly and gently, he commanded in his mind.
Maybe it was because Alex’s body still felt foreign, it was a bit difficult to move.
But he eventually got the hang of it.
Now, his toes were moving.
After which he tried his ankles—rolling them about their axis.
There was not enough room to test his knees.
He would have to trust that they could move, even without him.
Xander looked at the wall leading to his freedom again.
’I can do this’ he thought, steadying himself.
But when he looked straight again.
Click click click...
His heart froze.
The Alpha Scavenger was mere inches from his face.