Night of Misfortune

Riding a floating motorbike, Hika and Arik slide through the vast desert. Cloth is flying in front of them, leading the way. They already bought a new blaster for Hika and some new weapons for Arik.

A few bumps on the road made Hika hug Arik tighter. They both wear a scarf mask and goggles to protect them from dust. Their destination is an ancient technology left by the creators of the apocalypse. But after some long hours of traveling, Hika falls asleep on Arik's back. They've been traveling for nine hours straight. The sun is now setting.

"Hey, I think we should stop here and rest. The flat surface here is a perfect spot to make a tent. And in Hika's drowsy state, there's a chance he will fall off the bike." Arik shut down his floating bike. It gently plops down to the sand.

"Ohoho, what a nice brother you are." Cloth jest.

Arik starts making a tent and a campfire for them, while Cloth is just watching him. Surprisingly, he can't interact with any object except if it's time-related, the ghost exclaims, and the duo already knows of this fact.

Hika is put to bed nicely in a sleeping bag. Arik tries his hardest not to wake up his cute "little sister". After that, Arik takes out their cooking equipment from Hika's bag. The smell of him allegedly cooking soup makes Hika's nose twitch. And it's not a fragrance to be fond of. Hika's eyes jolted open. He quickly gets out of the sleeping bag. Arik, who is stirring a hot, boiling pot, suddenly gets pulled by Hika and thrown to the side.

"Never cook without my supervision, okay!" He prompts Arik, giving a wry smile. Now, Hika is in control of the cooking. He knows better than anybody that his brother is bad at cooking. But somehow Hika kind of feels Deja Vu about this situation but can't remember it.

Anyhow, the soup that is supposed to be yellowish orange by the recipe turns out to be jet black. (How the heck can Arik mess up this hard?) Hika tosses the toxic waste that was initially going to be their dinner. He ties his silky hair to a ponytail, showing off his beautiful face in the dim moonlight. Skilfully, with his delicate hand, he chops up ingredients and mixes them up professionally. Arik and Cloth watch in awe at his skill. A quick dish is now ready to serve. It's carrot soup.

"Here you go." Hika gave Arik a portion. And he serves himself a bowl, too. Their stomach starts to growl after a long trip.

"Thank you for the food," Arik says.

"My pleasure!" Hika responded.

Sitting next to each other on a black mat, they start to gobble up their food. The aromatic smell makes the ghost drool. Even though he can't eat, he really wants to. Hika notices the ghost's dejected face.

"Sorry for not being considered cloth...." He stops his hand to take another sip. Guilt is clearly seen in Hika's eyes.

"Don't be Hika." Arik suddenly hops between them. He shows himself chowing the delicacy the ghost desires but can't ever eat.

"Cih," the ghost clicks its tongue.

Seeing that scene, Hika can only give a chuckle. He never has a pleasant time with Arik like this. It's the first time. Because of the presence of Cloth, Arik doesn't need to hold down his power. The starry night makes the atmosphere feel calm. (What a beautiful night we're having), Hika thinks to himself.

After cleaning up, they were getting ready to sleep. They sleep in just one tent. Cloth, a mutant who doesn't need any sleep, is on guard duty. He will alarm them if anything happens. Not too long after eating, they now fall into a deep slumber.

While on duty, Cloth is playing some word games. "...interrupt, corrupt, abrupt... hmm... what word still rhymes with this?"

Still thinking about what the next word should be, he suddenly gets interrupted by a huge green creature out in the distance. "Wait, what is that?" Their bright yellow eyes are coming closer and closer. A small roar is heard. The mutant is ginormous. Its silhouette resembles a T-rex. It looks like it's sniffing something. (Maybe it's because of the soup?) Cloth guess.

Cloth, as fast as he can, goes to the tent and warns the duo. The mutant notices the cloth movement. "Guys, wake up!" Cloth whispers.

The dinosaur bows down, trying to peep inside the tent. Their big eyes fill up their plastic window. It only sees darkness inside the tent. Arik and Hika woke up still half alive. But Arik is the first to be fully awake, jolted because of the bright yellow eyes at their tent window, staring at them.

"Hey Cloth, take Hika far away from here! I need to activate my power." Arik whisper.

"(Yawn), what's happening?" Hika's eyes are still half open. His sudden question makes the T-Rex roar. Even without seeing the inside, the monster reacted to the loud voice by quickly biting off the tent roof. The tent collapses.

"Run!" Arik grabs Hika's hand and drags him out of the monster's way. Now they really have to confront this monster. Every step the mutant takes shakes the ground immensely. The quakes are getting stronger. The monster is just a few steps away from them. They quickly hop on the flying bike. It slowly started to float. Before the T-rex reaches its teeth, Arik pulls on the gas, almost making Hika fall off. It almost chomped Hika's head, but it missed by a centimeter. Hika is still confused, he can only hug Arik tightly, afraid to fall off, while Arik speeds up to escape the green monster.

"Cloth! attracts its attention! After you can't see me and Hika, leave the t-rex alone. I'm gonna finish that thing." Giving a nod, Cloth, who is beside him following the speed of the bike, falls back to distract the giant mutant. It works. The dinosaur head is flailing around, trying to bite Cloth. "Ahahah, you can't catch me, idiot." The ghost taunted.

Arik and Hika are now quite far away from the monster. Arik's urge to kill is starting to eat him up. His eyes have now reddened. Arik quickly stopped his bike.

"Stay here!" After saying that, he dashes back to the monster that was bothering their goodnight sleep. Because of his lightning-like speed, a wave of sand rushes through Hika, making him throw away a little. "Cough, cough!" Hika clears his throat from the dust, still on the ground.

After running at a crazy amount of speed, he reached their initial point. The gigantic mutant is now in his sight. And cloth is nowhere to be seen, as planned. Arik let his urge to kill loose. The red trail from his eyes is zig-zagging around the dinosaur, and a hint of blue streams is following him from the saber he is holding. It roars and tries whipping its tail around, aiming for him. Arik easily jumps over them. With this momentum, Arik jumps to their tail, runs up to their scaly back, and then continues dashing to their head. The monster's body is filled with a series of slashes from Arik's new blue lightsaber. After reaching the head, he jumps down, putting an end to his combo. When he landed, not even looking at his back, the dinosaur fell apart in bloody pieces.

His urge to kill is a bit intense. He now tries to find another prey to kill. Leaving the scrambled corpse, he tries dashing back to his "little sister," an easy victim to feist. But his eyes are getting dimmer. Arik slowly gets his consciousness back. "Oh shit!"

He gets thrown away by his speed because his power has stopped working. The two companions in front of him are the cause of this. Arik's head is buried in the sand below Hika. While Hika is helping Arik get back on his feet, the ghost just explodes with laughter, making Arik annoyed.

***

After the disturbance of the mutant from before, they are now cleaning up their tent remnants. Thankfully, the necessities inside their tent are still in good condition.

"What do we do now? Do we rest again or continue the travel?" Hika asked while picking up their equipment that was scattered around because of the incident.

"We should change location, maybe this is near a mutant nest. It's too dangerous to stay here. But we should still rest. We're just going to change locations, Hika." Arik answer. He is helping gather their stuff too.

"Wow, that was dangerous, wasn't it?" The ghost giggled, he was kind of amused by the tragedy befalling them.

"Oh, shuddup you," Arik grumbles.

Hika chuckles again, seeing that their relationship is getting better. But a sudden quake interrupts their conversation. It's mortifying. Maybe because of the whine of their fallen comrade, the horde of T-rex is now stomping their way to the trio. Their silhouette is still far away, maybe they are still guessing where the source of their friend's cry is. Because of that, they have some time to pack up and leave.

"We should go now!" Arik hurried. They are now done packing. Arik mounted his bike, put his tight goggles on, and covered his face with a black scarf. Hika, after just wearing his backpack, walks his way to Arik, who is looking at him. But a sudden shake makes Hika stop his steps. A mutant jumps up from the sand and impales his chest with its pointy horn. He coughs blood and progresses into a puke of blood. He felt immense pain and fainted on the spot. The car-size snake swims freely in the sand while Hika's body is still hanging horrifyingly on its horn. Its yellow scale is assimilating them with the sand. It's hard to notice their next movement.

"...."

Arik is angered to see his family's lifeless body being dragged around like a doll. He sighs, "Cloth, go away from me for a while. Don't let the horde come here, distract them. It's going to be a tiring night for us." He got off his bike. He pulls his weapon out—a saber in his left hand and a gun in his dominant hand.

"Why are you bossing me around lately?" The ghost is irritated by his consecutive orders.

"Just do it, you dirty rag, do you want our help to get your power back or not?"

"Ugh! At least be nice about it, I have feelings too, you know." The ghost flies away, still sullen, he is now on a mission to distract the horde.

Arik shakes his head a little, seeing how the ghost behaves. But come back, focusing on what's in front of him. He still sees Hika's corpse in the snake's horn. "Okay, I have a few minutes before Hika revives." He says this because, if Hika got revived in mid-battle, Arik's power would turn off, putting them both in danger again. Thirty minutes before, they were still in this location, so Hika would be teleported back here again if he followed his power rule.

After taking a deep breath, Arik's eyes start to glow brightly. "Let's go," he says, lunging to the battlefield.

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