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The screams of the people in the reactor did not reach the riders. They laughed and joked about a fried human flesh, which they would not refuse to try if there was something left inside. But their jokes were not long. One of the lizards made a hissing sound, and as if on cue, they all dropped their riders and began to eat them. Someone bit off the victim's head right away, someone, on the contrary, began on the sirloin while the driver was screaming with all his might. But soon the screams subsided, and the creatures finished their meal in the sounds of squelching insides and clicking bones.
“Nice, Captain,” a green lizard with stripes across its muzzle grunted.
“It's disgusting that I have to deal with them like this, I loved Cop-Pan-Khan and his family,” chuckled another with big puffy eyes.
“This is not the time for sentiment, gentlemen, we need to get back to the caravan before dark.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” the smallest of them raised his head from the gnawed corpse with a sly squint.
“Go," nodded the big one with a tuft on his head, whom everyone called the Captain, and rushed in the direction of the caravan moving towards the horizon.
The lizards quickly disappeared behind the dunes and my attention entirely focused on the gnawed remains of people. Above each corpse stood a confused image of a man, consisting of flickering energy lines. They looked at themselves in bewilderment. Then it went dark behind one figure, he turned around and was immediately swallowed up by a worm, just waiting for the unfortunate to look in the right direction. I saw in detail how the former caravaneer moved through the multidimensional innards of the creature. And so, it happened to each of the dead.
My consciousness immediately wanted to get inside the reactor. But there, in the dark hall, covered with atomic ash, it turned out to be empty. Indeed, the technology of Outs has not left anything from whale plague patients.
Something moved behind me. And if I had a throat at that moment, I would have swallowed. But nothing like it was observed. I wished again to be far, far away from here, alive and unharmed. And this time my wish came true.
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I opened my eyes near a small stream that descended into a green valley. The smell of freshness and moisture rising from the water intoxicated me, and my body sank down with pleasure from bed on the grass that tickled my face. I stared at the sky. I could finally see and enjoyed it. I've been missing my sight so much for the last week. Blue expanse was broken only by the disks of the moons, like a scattering of smiles, which gave me a sign that everything was really in order. And what happened to me before was just a dream. My whole life seemed to me just someone's fantasy... there was a splash not far away.
I jumped to my feet and noticed a small lake in the valley. A naked female figure floated in it. Not believing my eyes, I hurriedly began to go down.
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After swimming enough, May-e-oka came out of the water and went to her clothes, folded on a stone. After washing it, she laid out things to dry.
I watched her from behind the bushes, unable to move. My whole being was in awe, and my brain was completely distraught. My eyes were eating her. Something vibrated in the trunk. Something I wasn't taught about at school or in the library. Thoughts pierced my head like sharp spears, so that it spun, and I lost consciousness.
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I woke up with my face in the grass. Twitching, I realized that my hands were tied tightly. Trying to turn around, I got kicked in the face.
"Spying on me, you pervert?" May-e-oka hissed behind my back.
"I'm just..." but another blow didn't let me finish.
“Spying on girls, is that what your wormy essence teaches you?”
“No ...” I said, and cringed in anticipation of another blow.
Footsteps and the sounds of tearing clothes were heard.
“I saved us,” I tried to reason with the interlocutor, “we were split. And I…”
But again I couldn't finish, because May-e-oka threw my head back and stuck a gag in my mouth, tying scraps of cloth around my mouth and eyes.
“You think I'm so easy to fool, Ogunter Lag. It’s not the case," she grumbled, lifting me to my feet and kicking me in the butt.
We moved across the grass in an incomprehensible direction. Soon May-e-oka picked up a stick and began poking me with it, directing me from the heat of the day to the coolness of the forest.
I was very angry. At my insanity, with the girl, with my sympathy for her. And after a long road through a thorny shrub, which grew so inconveniently in this vile forest, I began to wonder if I still had a supply of desires from the worm.
I tried to imagine my freedom away from the girl. But the surging insanity presented something completely different, complete intimacy. Bodily and spiritual with this nasty creature who poked me with a stick. I tried to concentrate and wished for freedom and solitude. But next moment found myself completely naked together with the same naked Mai-e-oka on a bed of leaves in the middle of the forest.
“A-a-a! Moons down your throat!” the girl screamed, wrapped her legs around my waist and abruptly threw me to the ground.
Cursing my wormy nature, she disappeared into the thicket.
“Where are my clothes, sharamarch!?” she screamed in a broken voice.
“I don't know...” I grunted, getting to my feet and rubbing my bruised head.
“So, you can wish for a bed, but not clothes?”
I sighed heavily and turned to the inner eye, imagining good city dresses for myself and her. Surprisingly, the wish was fulfilled instantly. But I didn't even have time to see it myself, because May-e-oka put her hand around my throat and threw my head back. This grip was familiar to me, I was losing consciousness again. But at the same moment we were back on the bed but this time dressed for a street walk.
“No-o-o-o!” the girl growled, pushed me away and jumped into the bushes.
It was quiet for a long time. Only my breathing reminded me of what had happened.
"I propose a truce," came a voice from the thicket.
Not knowing what to say, I shrugged my shoulders.
“You're not my friend. The great worm does it all. But I'm not him," I got angry and banged my hand on a tree.
“And who are you?”
"If you try to attack me again, I will wish to drown you in the same lake where I found you. And if you will think about it, it's only thanks to me that you ended up in it, and not burned up in the reactor.
“My savior!” sarcastically sounded in the bushes to my left.
I shuddered at the memory of Baraman.
“You could wish for something more comfortable,” the girl said angrily, appearing in the clearing. And immediately began to tear off the lining of the dress.
A city outfit with a wide long bottom really looked ridiculous in the forest. As, however, was mine.
“I'm just learning.”
"Moons forbid you learn," May-e-oka whispered through her teeth.
“I heard everything.”
“Well done. Now it would be nice to wish for food.”
"Before you take me in again, explain to me why you're hunting me? What have I done to you? This worm is not me. My name is Bike, I grew up in a shelter, and all this nonsense... Okay, no, all this horror about the worm has nothing to do with me, I don't want to use it, I don't want to hurt anyone, I don't want...”
And tears rolled out of my eyes by themselves.
“Oh, my poor boy,” the girl curled her lips sarcastically, “well, come here, Mom will hug you.”
“I don't need your hugs,” I snapped, “my neck still hurts from the past.”
"As you wish," the girl shrugged and sat down on the bed.
I stood there, coping with a surging sense of injustice and shame. Then closed my eyes and wished for a set table with a festive school dinner, which Master Eleanor ordered once a year for Birth of the Moons Day.
“Wow!” May-e-oka exclaimed.
I opened my eyes and saw a table set in front of the bed with steaming roast and lots of snacks. While I was admiring the miracle, the girl had already attacked the food.
“Ugh, sour," she grimaced, spitting meat out of her mouth.
“It can't be.”
I took hold of the wing and tore it away from the fried carcass of the bird. After trying it, I spat into the grass nearby. The meat was really terribly sour.
“I…”
The girl got up pushing me away, and headed into the thick darkness of the forest.
“Wait," I called after her.
But she didn't even turn around. Completely broken, I fell on the bed and closed my eyes, remembering all the curses I knew from school and applying them to myself one by one. It was a long road. Completely exhausted, I fell asleep.
I woke up in the evening when the approaching coolness of the night reminded me that it was time to look for shelter. May-e-oka was sitting next to me on the bed. There were a lot of wild berries unknown to me in her hem. The girl looked at me with contempt and scooped up a handful, handed it to me. I sat up and accepted her gift, immediately shoving it whole into my mouth.
“Look, don't...” May-e-oka began, but I immediately coughed, and she had to get up, pour the berries into an empty plate on the table, come over and give me a good crack on the back.
The remnants of the berries flew out onto my pants, and I remained sitting coughing.
“Greed. Greed is inherent in all of you feds.”
“Why?” I said still struggling with a cough.
“Why? You took everything from everyone. And those who were not completely robbed were taxed so much that they could not breathe without paying.”
The girl got up, went to the tree and leaned her back on it.
“Do you think everyone else is such fools? Don't they see how you quarrel us with each other, and then turn the survivors into slaves?”
"We don't do that, Master Eleanor, ever…”
“Your master got rich by robbing Iria and Khanate of the Dial, or other fools like that. All your shelters and schools are built on the blood of those he fooled. You yourself are stolen from here," she waved her hand around her, "and raised with the idea that the federation is your home. Although your home is actually here, as you probably managed to find out. And this is not to mention the fact that you are this creature that needs to be destroyed so that the world can breathe in peace. Your federation and you. You are worth each other, Ogunter Lag.”
“My name is Bike. And the worm…”
“What of worm? Maybe you can say that it all just dreamed to me, especially how you dragged me into bed with your vulgar thoughts?”
“I didn't do it on purpose. I couldn't handle it…”
“I wonder if the feds all say that?”
“What do you want from me? I am seventeen years old by the calculations of Outs. I've never seen a woman so... beautiful..." I hesitated and blushed.
May-e-oka laughed and looked up at the sky.
“Better come on, wish us to get to the mountains as soon as possible. There's a cave where we can spend the night. This forest is not friendly after dark.”
I overcame my embarrassment and looked around.
“Where do we need to go?” I asked timidly.
“Over there,” the girl pointed to the pass between two sharp peaks.
I closed my eyes and imagined that we were there, near the cave. Opening them again, I found myself near a dark tunnel in the middle of a cliff. Behind it was visible how the desert began beyond the valley, past which both disks of the luminaries were falling into horizon. The Federation Spider was moving around the valley, it was a broken tower captured from the Irians. Spider was looking for something in the woods with no avail for many years. I understood that immediately just by looking at it.
“Are we really in Minea?” I asked admiringly, adjusting the backpack with provisions on my shoulder, which Mai-e-oka wished for.
“Yes,” the girl nodded, wrapping herself in a cloak, also fascinated by the sunset, and then turned her head to the mountain, “here, on this peak, was the hospital where your mother conceived you.”
I raised my head.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said watching the peak.
“Want go there?”
“Yes”, I said but nothing happened. I wished for it but there was only confusion. At the same moment I was grabbed. Two men wrung my hands and lowered my head, put a bag on it and began to strangle me.
“You sure?” a deep female voice rang out.
"Don't worry, I asked him to wish enough. I think it's dried up," Mai-e-oka replied.
I tried to wish myself free. But nothing happened. The girl was right. And anger filled me like an empty vessel, spreading from head to my heart and to the tips of my hair.
“Am I accepted back?”
“Yes, child," a deep female voice replied.
“Thank you, Great Mother! It’s long-awaited pleasure to serve again,” the girl said gratefully.
I screamed with all my might and lost consciousness.
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