Chereads / The Edge of Space / Chapter 6 - Real Talkative

Chapter 6 - Real Talkative

O'shae had fallen asleep against a tree maybe an hour ago after having ran a bit further before feeling that he was on the verge of collapse.

Now though, after willing himself awake remembering that he was in a life or death situation he opened his eyes. He blinked a few times, adjusting to the light.

In front of him was a an animal with a head shaped similar to a deers with greenish brown antlers that curved forward. The rest if it's body was slick like a panthers but instead of paws it was three fingered hooves. Looking further upon the color of it's fur would shoe that it was a brownish pewter, sort of like a camouflage considering that it was a similar color to the trees around.

The animal sniffed O'shae. O'shae moved his arm slightly in response to the strange feeling on his body. The animal quickly flinched and dashed away, soon disappearing into the distance.

'I should make sure I don't fall asleep in the open next time' He thought to himself as he started to get up from where he was laying. He yawned and stretched his body as he adjusted himself.

After doing so for a few moments, the system which he had already forgotten about suddenly had a screen pop up.

The black screen in front of him read 'New info assimilated: Statistics, Statistic Endurance, Statistic Agility'

He stared at it for a moment. He wondered why it did it now. It was pretty random to appear after he woke up. He was a bit dumbfounded

until he retraced his steps. 'Wait, so if it learns information based off of me I must have done something to trigger this' he thought while he attempted to figure this out. 'Oh! It must have started learning it when I was running here!" he thought as he came up with that conclusion and tapped his robotic arm with a fist. He waved his hand through the notification that was still up and it disappeared

"System" He said out loud but quietly, still wary of any kind of enemies. The screen showed up except this time it had a title up top that said 'Statistics' and two smaller words at the bottom. The two at the bottom were 'Endurance' and 'Agility' with Endurance above the latter. Next to each stat then were two numbers that said 5.

Statistics:

Endurance 5

Agility 5

Looking at the screen he cringed a bit at how it was laid out, finding it a bit rudimentary in design. He supposed it would need to develop. What made him far more disappointed though was the fact that there was no suggestion at a level or some kind of way to improve the stats. He sighed depressingly. 'I just have to deal with it' he thought as he swiped at the screen making it disappear.

Now that that was out of the way he could focus more on his survival. Just then he felt his stomach grumble. He sucked his teeth as he realized that he has been too distracted to worry about food and water. He held a hand over his stomach for a moment trying to figure out his next move. Was there water in this place anyways? There must be, or there must at least be some kind of way to redeem points for food. It would be strange to leave hundreds of people to survive somewhere for entertainment where they would just starve to death. That's what ge believed anyways.

A thought came back to him about what seemed to be fruits on the trees. His mouth watered just thinking about it. He looked up at the tree that was behind him and saw the fruits.

"Time to eat." The robotic voice from his voice collar said quietly. O'shae grabbed onto a thick branch with his right hand and grabbed onto another that was higher with his robotic one. After a few moments of some fumbling and almost slipping he had made it up. He sat on a thick branch and started to shake another one, causing the fruit to fall. Once they were on the floor he made his way carefully back down.

Once on the floor he looked upon the fruits, not caring what they looked like and only hoping they had some flavor. He picked up a fruit and bit into it. Not only was it juicy but it was flavorful as well. It was something like the mix if an apple and a pear.

He took another bite. 'Mm... I feel slow' He thought.

'Was the world always this swirly?'. O'shae started to stumble around, though he didn't even realize. He dropped the fruit and started to fumble forward.

"Oh sh*t" He said lazily as he finally realized what was happening before passing out.

....

A few hours later when it was the evening O'shae felt a prick on his arm. With a quick reaction he opened his eyes and straightened up with a slight panic.

"Hey settle down! I was just making sure you were awake before the stew was ready!" Said a male voice with a voice that was definitely not particularly deep.

O'shae turned to look at him. It was a Korean looking male. O'shae breathed a sigh of relief. There was another human! He wouldn't be alone! He thought that. That was until he heard the boy speak again.

"Two Xev minds are better than one, be glad that I found you before the rest of the scoundrels."

'Xev? Sh*t!' O'shae yelled mentally, wanting to fall back to the floor and weep but instead keeping a poker face as he looked at the person.

"I'm not speaking the main Xev language because I've noticed your exotic color palette, but if you want to speak our language we can." The Xev said as it started to dig in to the stew.

"No it's fine... Um, so how did you find me?"

"It wasn't all too hard, I just followed the last direction of the blood stains before anyone else could."

"Ah, I see..." O'shae said, his voice drifting off into the distance as he looked into the thatch like pot which seemed to be heated by a small metal plate attached to it's side. He looked to the side of it and grabbed a bowl which he quickly filled up.

"By the way what category did you major in?" The Xev asked.

"Category?"

"You must be from one of the 'special' planets then?"

"Yeah that's right." O'shae said with a quiet snort at the end, thinking about how he was sort of just called retarded.

"That's going to be an issue. We'll solve it later. Well I have experience with machinery and things such as that, if you understand me."

O'shae merely nodded, a slight irritation building up in him as the Xev suggested that he was stupid. If he wasn't rescued by the Xev he would teach him to not be real talkative.

"My question is why do you trust me?" O'shae asked the Xev, stopping him before he started speaking again.

The Xev looked at O'shae and brought a hands to his chin before answering "I saved your life so you owe me, not only that, I wouldn't see the logic behind killing me no matter what Xev planet you're from."

O'shae nodded in approval, finding the reasoning passable. "Then I suppose we are associates then!" O'shae then declared. He then held out a fist.

"Indeed!" The Xev responded. He then looked at O'shae's hand. "Are you threatening me?"

"No you're supposed to tap it with a fist."

"For what reason?"

"Damn it nevermind."