Isel had fallen on the floor. He was in the same position as he was when he had first awoke in Comeidlan. It had been about 30 seconds since Charine had killed the beast, but it felt as if no time passed at all. Charine shakily wrapped the gun in the cloths that had previously covered it and concealed the weapon underneath the layers of cloth on her back once more. she whispered to herself repeatedly trying to gain her bearings.
Isel suppressed the urge to vomit for a second time and rose to his feet. He had many questions, but he figured that Charine wasn't likely able to answer. She seemed just as surprised he did, given her reaction.
He instead tried to get ahold of himself and walked closer to the corpse of the creature. His fear slowly released control over his body as he reconciled himself with the nature of the world. Many things didn't make sense in this place. Ever since Charine had allowed him to ask questions, many facts were alien. This was no different, and to be able to achieve his goal, he had to adapt to this fact. It was simply as Charine had said earlier. "You'll want to get used to that feeling." Instead now, he was going to confront it directly.
His legs shook more the closer he got towards the corpse, no matter how much he tried to calm himself. The body remembers, no matter how much he wanted to try and forget.
Charine had dropped to the floor after concealing the weapon. Still shaking, she mustered the strength to stand once more. With a quick inhale it was as if she was a different person. Isel took a glance at her as she approached him. Any shows of fear were eliminated entirely. She had spent a longer time alive than Isel had, and clearly demonstrated her ability to keep a stable head. Just what had she gone through over the course of two months that allowed her to rebound so quickly?
"Is this new?"
Charine exhaled as she looked down at the corpse.
"I've never see anything like it. If I waited for just another moment you might have been dead. Im sorry."
Isel shook his head.
"It's fine. I'm glad I'm still here."
Charine got on one knee to examine the corpse as her lips turned down. Her mask of clarity wavered slightly.
"Yes, you're right. Anyways, this means that the expedition won't be completely in vain."
Charine broke a nearby miniature spike protruding from the ground and scraped it across the skin of the creature. the skin was still wet, covered by the void-colored substance. The horrid liquid-like composition made Isel slightly queasy. The intense feeling of uncanniness returned, and haunted him every time he observed the creature. Isel conversed in an attempt to distract himself.
"That weapon was powerful, the gun. Did you bring it because there are other monstrous things like this?"
Charine took a cloth from underneath her black straps and pressed a layer of it on on the corpse.
"There are some monsters in other lands, but there has never been mention of something living in Comeidlan. The gun was meant for what was lives in Aeshval and Hourlal."
She left the cloth on an appendage of the creature as she took another piece and pressed it again upon the cloth that she had just stuck to the corpse. After pulling it back, a detailed print of the skin of one of the appendages was now on the cloth.
"You saw the process to print the skin, right? If you don't mind helping, I'd appreciate it."
Charine set the cloth on the ground and labeled it with the miniature spike Extra Appendage #1.
"Of course."
Isel walked towards the top of the corpse and started the process that Charine had done.
"Thank you."
"Yeah."
Three hours had passed without conversation. Isel had a feeling that the silence granted a comfort needed by the both of them. He hadn't known Charine for long at all, even though had technically been his entire life. It was obvious that she was intelligent, but she was still human. She could convince herself to carry on with any task despite the mental burden she may carry. It was for the sake of living on. She may say herself that she is no good role model, but for Isel she was the perfect embodiment of the best way to achieve his goal.
He decided to avoid a conversation about the topic at the moment. Disrupting her clarity might only endanger the both of them, so he decided to hold his tongue. Plus, he had other questions he wanted to ask.
After hours of printing the skin and even multiple cross sections of the creature, the ground was littered with the small drying prints. Isel had to look away whenever he used a spike to carve a section of the body. Not because of the viscera, but because of how uncomfortable the corpse he was cutting made him. When he closed his eyes he could still picture the image of the creature barreling towards him. It had left a stark impression, not matter how much he didn't want it to. Charine had created a makeshift bag when they were ready to store all the prints and a few samples of the actual body.
"Can we afford to spend this much time? Didn't expect to be so thorough."
Charine was pinning down the prints to the ground with miniature spikes.
"We should be okay. We only have about 10 hours of walking before we can get to Aeshval."
"Only 10 hours? Did you expect a detour like this?"
"Not something this extreme. But you never know. It's better to take more caution than you think you need."
He nodded. He really could learn from her, and observed that he already had. She was the one who taught him to ground himself in a harsh situation — although he had been struggling to do so — and he would learn all the more the longer he spent with her.
"I understand."
"We also need to take this many prints because the creature is undocumented. Our understanding of the danger in Comeidlan will improve with the more information we collect, it's important."
"Why are they so important?"
Charine thought about her answer for a short while.
"Understanding the composition of the creatures just helps to combat it better. The prints of the skin are for diagrams for educational purposes as well discerning it's weakness and strengths. We're basically doing a case study."
Isel nodded and then folded the prints that dried. The two used so many of the cloths that were scattered on their clothes that both of their features became fare more prominent. Despite the fact that they were already so small, Isel found himself ripping the pieces of fabric in half for conservation quite often. He could observe some spots of the only full layer of clothing on his body, which made of the same black straps that crossed over the other layers. These straps stretched tightly around his body horizontally instead of the cross pattern of the upper layer. They covered him from the top of his chest to slightly below his waist.
The dull orange color of the sky was slowly returning to the deep indigo. The effects of the stone tablet's stimulant were wearing off. Isel grimaced as he realized he would have to reapply the horrible substance. As if he had called some horrible karma upon himself, Charine approached and handed him the stone tablet. His face contorted into a fearful expression as he took the tablet from her.
Charine smiled softly as she saw his expression. That smile happened to be one of the most irregular things he had seen since coming to the spiked desert. It was welcome, but he had wished he was in a place where it was more acceptable.
"Of everything that's happened, this is the one that brings you the most distress?"
He attempted to suppress his contempt for the tablet but failed and shook his head as he replied.
"It's wrong, it's horribly wrong."
"You can apply it a lot lighter this time, the light should return in just another hour or two."
After he hastily applied the substance, he returned to folding the prints and placing them in Charine's bag. After another hour, they had collected all they required from the creature.
"Do you think we'll see anything like this again?"
Charine looked down as she thought.
"I think it's unlikely. There's been years of research on Comeidlan and there's never been any proof of life here, so something like this is rare."
She hesitated momentarily.
"But if we've seen it once there's no guarantee it wont happen again. So I can't be sure."
Charine gave another of her signature sighs and took two wrapped objects from underneath the cloths on her back. The shapes were almost identical. She walked over to hand one to Isel.
"This is the gun I just used. Only use it if you see anything similar to the creature I killed with it."
Isel nodded. He knew that Charine still had to adjust to fully trust him, so the fact that she had been concealing the fact that she had two weapons came with little surprise. Caution was necessary for survival. If the person who had awoken in Leal's place was not Isel, revealing weaponry could have resulted in her death. Isel could unwrap the gun and shoot her at this very moment. But Charine had trusted Isel for a reason. Isel understood that the fact that she was willing to give it to him meant that the threat of a creature like their recent assailant was more endangering than her being betrayed.
Isel thought back to the previous conversation about the writhing figure. Just how long did it take for the figure to close the distance? how close was he to dying?
Isel attempted to dispel the thoughts, but he couldn't completely shake off his fear. He wondered how Charine was able to do it so effectively after just two months of living. Or maybe she always felt a subtle undertone of fear, and was just better at concealing it. Either way, if something like this happened again, he had a way to fight back on his own. He would survive.