Chase had a plain look on his face before snapping his fingers followed by another shot of pain through my shoulder "stop lying Ryan I want truth now!". In my infinite wisdom or lack thereof, my reply could be interpreted as nothing except an insult. Don't know If it was the hunger or the fact that my shoulder started to ooze discomfort that led to my reply, honestly it didn't matter.
My empty face smirked, "not a chance". Those words, those exact words gave me so much joy like hearing Chase's blood boil in his body, for the short few seconds I got to watch Chase explode it is well worth each twinge of torcher coming my way. Chase's face in all accounts is a pale white as if he hadn't seen an ounce of sunlight in years but in those sweet few moments, it gained a rare splash in coloring. Which could only be seen in livid, boiling, red blood images splattered on a canvas face.
Immediately after Shadow did his absolute best to make my life for that split second a living hell. Very easily punching his talons right through my shoulder about one centimeter each. It was not very deep but Shadow moving his talons while still inside each hole made the pain play itself a quartet on my nerves.
"Shadow stop"
It had been a good few minutes before Chase had calmed down far enough to stop his torcher session. Shadow turned his head then one by one pulled all four of his talons out. Chase sighed "you know at any point you could have gotten out of that" Chase said in a grand presentation however at the same time in a confounded tone. Chase continued "on a serious note why do you not only look hungry but homeless as well"
leave it to chase to see all the common signs but still not put it together. It's hard to talk about it at all even with Chase, even as friends I was not ready to tell him everything not about my family problems, not what led up to all three days. In-person, all the words that were bubbling to the surface are hard to control however easy for what needed to be said. "Chase, I haven't eaten in over two days I'm going on day three now, as far as weapons are concerned I don't have any."
It may not have been the most ideal situation but considering what the odds were, the fact of the college being at least about 100 miles away I'd call it a win in my book. On the other hand, to me, the view of myself had not been any better than a whimpering dog.
The face that Chase made looked like it was trying to hold back his laughter. It didn't last very long, a second later he let a laugh that made all the people that had been staring at us from the torcher session turn in our direction once more. "That was a good one Ryan now where is your stuff we got 20 minutes until the exam starts."
Chase was having a hard time speaking over his laughter stumbling in and out of words. This would continue until Chase finally looked at my face. I had not started laughing, nor even started to tell some jokes just sat and waited for him to come back from his hysterics that was my life. "wait you're not laughing with me Ryan you know you are supposed to after telling a joke."
A brisk smile adorned my face if only for a moment
"Chase this is the very reason you have such a hard time making friends. You could never tell when they are telling jokes or bleeding out." Never in my life had my words been so bitter.
It hit me hard, what emotions played in my head did not come close to what chase's imagination pinned him against. In deep sluggish thought that leaked out, it finally hit him that his only real friend is going to die in twenty minutes. The look on his face grim no perhaps fear none of those determination burned from his heart to eyes. The next set of words pulled it all together for me. He sucked in as much air as possible then began talking, at the same time grabbing my arm while taking me over to the nearest tent. "Ryan we need to get you some food, something small. Now then choose any knife you want I will pay for it and the food you can consider it an early birthday present." While we entered the shopkeeper's tent Chase handed the man at the counter a credit card moreover, he only said four words then pointed at me "whatever he wants". After that Chase ran out of the tent to acquire food for my stomach, that had been my best assumption by far in any case.
The shopkeeper looked at the card a few times in disbelief then spoke "I would try not to lose that friend sir you don't find people like that every day.". My head turned to look at the shopkeeper from across the tent, in the best calm voice anyone could have answered him back in "I know but sounds like a deal rather than a gift".
Air inside the tent cooled as the shopkeeper pulled out a selection of rusty old beaten knives. One short stroll over to see how bad didn't even begin to sum up my disappointment when the shopkeeper broke the news "this is all I have left so choose wisely or this may be your last purchase."
In the remnants of the leftovers, my choices were meager at best when it came down to it. All the knives had the same design just somewhat subtle little differences. At most being straight slabs of sharpened metal with handles made of grey tattered duct tape colored black in marker, perfect shanks nothing else. Only difference each one of them had to tell apart was the amount of rust in combination with chips in each blade. The one on right had the least amount of rust on it but also had four separate chips in the blade for the two that were next to it they were just as bad, the last one was completely covered from the head of the blade to back in rust however still managed to have only one chip and a sharp edge.
"Think that I will go with the last one" If it gave me tetanus, oh well, the blade had one job not to break when I needed it the most.
The Shopkeeper swiped Chase's card of course it worked flawlessly. Before handing it over the shopkeeper spoke again "congratulations you are now two hundred and fifteen in the hole for that man". He handed me the junk knife after a ding came from his register.
There was no other way to call this exchange other than stealing, but two hundred and fifteen or my life wasn't a hard choice to make. "how you stay in business selling this junk to customers they must be blind or suckers by the dozen." The Shopkeeper didn't seem mad at me, odds are my comment was right but it didn't stop him from answering.
"You're right because I dump all my bad merchandise on fools like you." Well, he wasn't wrong.