Survival 101 - (Awakened Sight)

Survival 101 - Awakened Sight
Game 2
Blog Entry 15

The table was about ten meters long, with leather chairs for what looked like what could have been company meetings and such. The man who stared with a glare and fire in his eyes and his hands on the table kept his gaze on the group as they sat down with some discomfort. He looked at them all, one by one, one after the other, studying their faces, their shapes, their intention in such dreaded and deadly silence it would have put a black hole to shame.

Eventually, he rested deeper into his chair in a more relaxed pose and crossed his arms. His voice came heavy and demanding, "Why are you here? What do you seek from us?"

The pack's gaze moved to Ryan, the leader and the one who should speak, who stood in a similar matter as the leader in his large black leather chair, his arms crossed and his eyes closed for a moment until he finally glanced back with rock hard determination for truth, "We're looking for one of our comrades who disapeared recently: Mike Ironside. Apparently, your 'friends' have something to do with his disapearance."

The man rose an eyebrow, startled at first, then relaxed his shoulders with a soft sigh of what seemed like relief, "His disapearance is accidental, I can assure you that much. Your friend is a fiesty one, and managed to kill off one of my men in the process..."

Ryan's eyes turned deadly along with the rest of his pack, "You assaulted him, he defended himself, that's what happens when you mess with--"

"Assaulted him!?", the man nearly cried, "what are you talking about?"

Now it was a question look that went through Mike's packmates.

The man went on, adjusting his collar as if it had been too warm to keep up, "No one assaulted your friend, Mister Cohen, let me assure you. We were merely trying to help him, but he would not listen to reason and acted as if we were there to harm him. Things turned sour though... More then we had expected."

"That's Mike for you", Damien sighed to himself and shook his head, rolling his eyes.

"If it was no assault, then what was it", Ryan asked, clearly not convinced, "what were you trying to do?"

The man brushed a heavy hand through his grey hair, thinking thoroughly before speaking once more as if it would have been a crime to do so, "Have you heard of a young boy named Killy Mathiews?"

Now the pack's attention was all on the man who had broke into a sweat from both the heat of the room and probably the built up stress. Only Alice rose an eyebrow with little interest, though she listened on.

"Yes", was all Ryan eventually said, "Yes we have. What about him?"

He nodded at Luna's Avatars leader almost casually, "The boy's a reknown artist, as you may know, well known and now needed in the media and artistic area. Also, you may be aware of the tragedy that took place a year ago when criminals invaded his home and held him and a family member hostage for a period of five hours until all hell broke lose and his sister was killed in the commotion."

Ryan and Damien nodded. Alice hid a small grin on the corners of her lips.

"The matter of death was rather mysterious, and there were no witnesses but the traumatized boy whose mind closed off the event to prevent him from going mad. He spent a week in intensive care in a hospital in Canada, and let's say that some good souls have been looking into him and his family since then, despite the mysterious events that unfolded during the hostage situation."

Another nod from the crowd.

"In the past few weeks however, he's gone missing, and your friend, Mister Ironside, has been the main suspect of a kidnapping theory for quite some time now. When we found him the first time, he was in very bad shape, laying naked and badly injured on the side of a road outside Boulder. We brought him back to one of our facility and restrained him mostly for security mesures, but he managed to escape before we could interrogate him. Let me make this clear, we're aware he's probably not the kidnapper, and all we wanted was for him to help us in our investgation since he had been seen with Killy Mathiews before his disapearance. Considering he was in a bad situation when we found him, we were also providing him protection and clearance of his name."

"So... you were trying to help?"

"It's like I said, we weren't looking for a fight. When we found him in his home, he considered us a threat and immediatly attacked my men. They did their best to defend themselves, and he escaped. We have since lost track of him."

There was a long moment of silence as the information was being registered, slowly, but surely. Alice escaped a soft sigh of boredom and annoyance. Mike meant nothing to her compared to what he meant to his packmates for various reasons, and frankly, neither did the boy. Her encounter with the red head had been brief and amusing to say the least, but he was nothing to make a fuss over.

"He's still alive...", Ryan muttered under his breathe.

"What?", the man asked with a frown, "are you sure?"

"Yes, he's still very much alive. We've known Killy personaly, and he was not kidnapped, he left. He betrayed us and left with a man we had captured weeks ago."

Damien growled in his throat at the mention of a betrayal: he did not take kindly to being associated to traitors, and until Killy came home with blood on his hands or proof of having intentionally hurt a packmate, Killy was still on his good side. Better yet, Damien was proud the boy had finaly decided to show to guts and had finally made some decisions of his own, regardless of what they were.

"Explain, I don't quite understand."

Ryan took a deep breath, uncrossing his arms and setting his sweating palms on his lap as if ashamed of his story, "Were you aware Killy Mathiews was Uratha?"

"No. I was not."

"Well, he is. He was part of this pack with us, and left with someone who had been causing trouble in our neighborhood. He's still alive and walking the mile with that man, in fact. Mike did nothing to him, and neither did any of us. He left on his own free will."

The man lowered his head and stroke his chin, his eyes wide, nodding, understanding, "Well, it does explain a lot of things, now that we have that information...", there was another moment of quiet, and then, "Do you wish for us to continue our search then? I'm sure at least his parents would like some insight on the investigation, even if it means hiding some parts of the truth to them."

Ryan waited a moment, pinching his lips with uncertainty, then nodded, "Might as well, I don't see why not."

The meeting ended better then it had begun, and hands were shaken, even if hesitant and misstrustful. Damien eventually asked in which direction Mike had been found the first time the mages had brought him to their facility, which indicated further out North West. He remembered Mike saying something about his tribal packmates establishing camp and how he had found them dead there. Mike was the type to want to go back in time of crisis even if he were the only one left alive and pures still roamed the area. So Leaf spent no time requesting Elation to scout in that direction in hopes to find more clues. In the meantime, Amaru was asked by his higher up to stick with Luna's Avatars a while longer for both research reasons and report anything unusual as well.

Elation did not come back, but after about forty-five minutes, Leaf showed concern for the bird as it had found something, but dared not approach it at all. Something had scared her and she was not going down. Again, it could have had nothing to do with Mike's disapearance, but last they had thought so, they had somewhat been lucky. And so they left the compound and went on their way, following Leaf into the woods until a small shadow passed them from above as Elation herself led them to destination.

What they found beyond the woods and bushes was indeed a camp that could have looked like the stone age military. A stench of death and decay filled the air. No one, no living being, was in sight either. Birds had stopped chirping and even bugs made no more sounds despite the heat as the light of day dimmed on them. Further ahead, a series of lined up stones had been set like graves... which they apparently were.

"I think we found Mike's hiding place", Damien mused, more then happy with how Karma had led them thus far.

"Maybe, but it doesn't seem like even a living soul is around. The old man isn't here", Alice said.

But it was far from the truth.

To be continued....