If You Must Fight...

[Shiola]

((Tyrell Lahti continued from Unnatural Selection))

The road to the village hadn't been easy. It had occurred to him to stay off the roads proper, given that they were basically shooting galleries for anyone who might decide to set up in one spot with a rifle, or anything that out-ranged a 6'5 boxer with a crowbar. From what he'd been able to gather, that was a pretty wide variety of things. Along the way, he'd been met with a chorus of sounds, ranging from wildlife to sporadic gunfire. The island seemed to have a small population of monkeys, if the small creatures he'd seen lurking in the forest were any indication. Most seemed to scatter well before he walked by, but it was still easy enough to see glimpses of the braver ones in the daylight.

Not only do we have to worry about everyone with a collar full of bomb trying to kill their way out of here. No, they had to pick an island with feral monkeys. Great.

Every time the terrain got too rough, Ty attempted to move to more level ground. Then the foliage gave away, and so did his cover. So he weaved back into the forest, until it became impassible once more. For a brief moment he looked out towards the rice paddies, where he saw some people trying to carry someone out of them. It was too far to tell who, or if they were even alive. It felt better to assume that the person they were carrying was alive, because if they weren't - there was a group of people on the island wasting time trying to give someone a proper burial or something. He couldn't help but feel sorry for people who were still so caught up in the way things were supposed to be. Not enough to try and help them see the truth, though.

They'll figure it out the hard way, I'd imagine.

He had spent an inordinate amount of time trekking through the jungle, only ever having a few minutes to stop before something startled him. Some kind of banging noise coming from inside the infirmary, shouting coming from near the ramshackle housing in the eastern part of the village. None of it was encouraging, and none of the sounds seemed to indicate what he was looking for. Mosquitoes had been omnipresent during the journey, and they seemed to be enjoying the fact that his cuts had only just begun to dry.

Ty stopped at the edge of the village to catch his breath. To say nothing of the roads on the way here, the village itself was a wide-open death trap. There were too many excuses to put Ty down and too many guns on the island to chance exposing his position to someone who'd taken to waiting on a roof. It was hard to imagine finding an escape route out of a gunfight in this place. Moreover, the buildings didn't look like the best shelter if the weather decided to turn, or a decent fortress if a determined group of the burying-bodies-type decided that Ty's number was up.

It's no wonder they told us not to burn anything. These buildings would probably go up in seconds if someone was determined enough.

Looking to his right, he saw the land give way to the coastline. A road twisted away from the village. It was the only path that didn't lead through the mire of houses, the fetid rice paddies, or the expanse of jungle he'd just crisscrossed. The distant sound of waves crashing on rocks was alluring. It meant he might have a chance to wash the jungle off of himself, and the angles of the coast made easy landmarks to get his bearings.

Turning from the mass of houses and the faint voices he heard therein, Tyrell disappeared into the periphery of the upper wilds.

((Tyrell Lahti continued in Make It Clean))