Leng Gu was awakened by the fishy wind.
He opened his eyes - no, there was no light. Just an eternal, viscous darkness. But his skin was screaming, and the sweetness of rust and rot in the air filled his nostrils. His ears caught the crisp sound of dead leaves being crushed by sharp claws ten meters away, and... Heavy, inhuman breathing.
The blazing whiteness of the interstellar explosion is still burned on the retina, but the body lies in the moist humus. Memories shattered into pieces: at the last moment, the starship "Black Crow" tore apart the alarm, the buzz of the energy core being overloaded, and then the pure white that annihilated everything.
Now, there is only darkness. And danger.
"Grandma... Your eyes... Are so red..."
The girl's voice was so sweet that it was filled with a creepy wet and sticky feeling. That's not a sound a human throat can make.
She was answered with a bang! There was a sudden explosion of gunpowder—an old-fashioned shotgun. Leng Gu's muscles tensed instantly, and his body memory of avoiding ion cannons in the chaotic star belt in his previous life was automatically activated, and he rolled silently to the right.
"Pfft!"
The sound of something sharp being inserted into flesh. What followed was a beastly howl of pain, but soon turned into a low, excited roar.
"Uncle Hunter..." The sweet voice chuckled, accompanied by the "clicking" sound of bones twisting and stretching, "Your bullets... Are so itchy..."
Lenggu "saw" it. Not with your eyes. It was a cold, spreading perception, sketched in the mind like a sonic scan: a stooped, hairy silhouette was swelling from under the broken red hood, and sharp claws tore open the coarse cloth skirt. Opposite him, a human male with his heartbeat beating like a drum was loading a shotgun with trembling fingers. The sour smell of fear was too strong to get away.
Run.
