Ten Zero

Ko-lee and I are making our way through the forest as quickly as we can, only partially relying on stealth. My head is spinning, and I have no idea if we're being chased or not, but I don't dare slow down to check for even a moment. My mouth tastes burnt, and the smoke from the fires of the settlement have drifted their way into the forest, being held there by the thick covering of trees around us. "How long have we been running?" I think to myself, but I can't see the moon to try to- "Oh right, there is no moon." My eyes scan the sky for stars I might recognize, but then I realize that even if I did find the Big Dipper or the North Star, I wouldn't actually know how to tell time from that. I reach into my pocket for my phone-

"Fuck, my phone!" I think, and immediately feel guilty. "Oh no, not the phone! Somebody call the whambulance because this FUCKING LOSER IS UPSET ABOUT HER PHONE LIKE A LITTLE BITCH" my mind screams at me, as the self recriminating thoughts spiral and spiral and spiral. I know logically it's a stress response, that it's not intentional, that I'm not really that upset at myself, but trying to stop a thought is like the pink elephant thing. Instead, I just do my best to ground myself, and focus on the immediate now. "Food, water," I mutter, desperately trying to ignore my train thought by speaking out loud. "Obviously we don't want to to starve or die of thirst, and we don't really have lorrids, but maybe we can find some? Oh, but a week is too long, we can't wait... unless maybe they grow in the water naturally? I know they grow underground, but maybe... like.... some grow in the river or something, or maybe Ko-lee has a device or she knows a trick, and then for eating uhmmm.... for uhhh... fuck...," I mumble, as I fail to immediately determine a source of food.

"Hunting, maybe? Is the jakir-et edible? I don't really know, but again, Ko-lee probably knows something because like, otherwise the trip would be super dangerous to go to Cetus because when you're going and like, an animal or something screws with your stuff and then, like, you have to have a backup plan, right?" My voice is strained, and I can feel my skin tingling, likely from hyperventilating at some point, although I don't remember having done it. I'm barely keeping pace with Ko-lee, and although I can't see her face, I know she's still crying because every once in a while I hear a hiccup from her. I'm almost 100% sure that anything I might say is going to hurt rather than help, but I also don't want her to focus too heavily on what just happened, since we are still ostensibly in danger. "You don't know that though, you don't, you DON'T REALLY KNOW ANYTHING BECAUSE YOU WERE TOO BUSY LOOKING AT TH-" "Not helpful, not helpful, let's hmmmm.... trees, dirt, bush, smoke, Ko-lee," I say, in a desperate attempt to ground myself. "Shirt, wedding ring, Kraken, fucking.... also trees."

I'm not confident that it's helping, but I continue going through the motions anyways. "Rustling leaves, running water, Grineer soldiers. -OH FUCK, GRINEER," I shout, putting on a burst of speed to reach Ko-lee. I'm not entirely sure of the direction, but I am confident that they are close, and somewhere in front of us rather than behind. I reach for the Kraken in it's holster, my fingers slipping along the side of it as I fail to find the toggle for the safety. "KO-LEE, STOP," I yell, not really knowing the word for 'hide'. Her head whips over to me, and her face is a rictus of pain and misery, as she watches me fumble with the Kraken. "Grineer!" I shout, my free hand waving vaguely in the direction we were both headed. Her hand is on her zaw instantly, but rather than making her way over to my position like I had initially assumed, she instead takes off in the direction of my flailing.

I give up trying to find the switch by feel, and just look at the damn thing, using my eyes to scan the side of the weapon. I find the switch, and then for good measure, hit the one to change it back into it's burst fire mode as well. "Twice the bullets, twice the chance to hit," I think to myself, as I do my utmost to catch up with Ko-lee's rapidly disappearing body. While before her pace was just barely enough for me to keep up with, now she was going at full tilt, and I just wasn't in shape enough to match her rate of movement. Luckily, I didn't need to, since I was the one with the ranged weapon. I just had to be sure that I could get eyes on the soldier before she got locked in a melee with them. As I round the next tree, it's as though the gods had heard me, because not only do I see the Grineer soldier standing still, with his back turned to me, but I also see that he's armed only with a melee weapon, and Ko-lee hasn't yet engaged with him.

I bring my arm up, and

You can't headshot him from the back

you're going to take a human life

is this going to be enough to kill him? The jakir almost walked it off!

you're about to kill a person

don'tmissdon'tmissdon'tmiss

MAG DUMP THAT ON THAT MOTHERFUCKER

I pull the trigger once; two shots ring out into the night. I pull again, and two more shots. I have both hands on the gun now, doing my best to keep it steady, and I pull the trigger again and again and again and again and again and again but all I'm hearing is a click on that final pull. I look over at Ko-lee, whose face is still twisted in rage, and I feel the beginnings of a small smile cross my face, because I'm alive, we're alive! Ko-lee is crossing over to me and I go to share my joy and instead she hauls her right arm back and breaks my nose, knocking me into the dirt. "MIIINE," she screams, the words barely understandable through the pain in her voice. "I KILL! NOT YOU! MY DAD, NOT YOU! MY VILLAGE, NOT YOU! YOU UNDERSTAND? DO? YOU? UNDERSTAND?!" Each word is met with a successive kick into my side, and I know she's not trying to kill me, because she could use her zaw for that if she wanted to, but every strike hurts so much.

"Y-yes," I cough out, my back and legs crying out in agony from the repeated strikes from the Ostron woman. She wasn't aiming for vital spots, and I was curled as tight as I could to take the blows, but every single one was an IV of pain straight into my nerves. "You can just shoot her," I think, but it's just an impulsive thought, because I don't want to kill her, why would I? She saved my life, and she's going to save it again when she gets me to Cetus, and I know she's attacking me, but she's in pain, and she's taking it out on me. Thing is, I'm confident the Warframe universe doesn't have therapists, plus also her dad just got obliterated eliminated destroyed removed executed killed Killed KILLED

It's a lot. For both of us. I want to hate her, and in this moment, I think I really do, but I don't do anything reckless, as much as my mind is rebelling against me. "We're going to make it through together. I need her, and she will fall apart without me," I think, as I slowly peek my head out of the fetal position I was curled in. I look over to Ko-lee, whose just slamming her zaw into the body of the dead Grineer over and over and I just cough, once. Not to get her attention, but because of the smoke that had been irritating my lungs for the past however long. She stops mutilating the corpse, her chest heaving from the exertion, but she doesn't look at me. "Ko-lee," I whisper, my chest in agony. I hold out a hand from on the ground, reaching out to the fractured woman. "Help?"

She looks over to me, and there's a moment where I think she might turn the zaw on me, but instead she places the weapon back into the sheathe on her side, and she makes her way over to my prone body, and yanks me to my feet. I stumble, slightly, feeling lightheaded, and look towards her. She just stares at me, and I give her a small nod, and apparently that was all that needed to be said, as she turns around, and immediately begins marching off, her steps taking her right past the fallen soldier. As she passes by him, she spits on the corpse, the ashy liquid landing squarely on the gaping wound from her weapon. I just jog past the body, not particularly interested in examining my traveling companion's artistic endeavors.

I manage to catch up with Ko-lee, but I know better than to say anything. She's keeping up a good pace; not quite a run, but a little bit more than a jog, and if it weren't for my longer legs, I'd probably have to really push to stay alongside her. I just keep my eyes peeled, and my ears open, knowing that if there was one Grineer, there were almost definitely more, lurking about somewhere within the forest. "Why was he alone?" I wonder, thinking of the few moments I saw before I killed him. "He kind of looked lost. Maybe he was? How rigorous is the Grineer military structure? I know they hold rank, but could one slip out of formation without others knowing? Or maybe... maybe they do know and just don't care. Like, they assumed he got ate up by a kubrow and they were like 'oh damn, there goes Johnny-69420, he was the best of us, he was the worst of us' and then they just keep truckin' along or something. ...or something."

I know my mind is just wandering, coming up with random theories, too tired to hold any sort of logical coherence. But as it's staying off the darker topics, and isn't screaming at me or calling me names, it feels like a win. As my mind continues to chatter about inane subjects, I focus on Ko-lee, and the path before us. It's unclear if there's actually a route here, or if Ko-lee is navigating by memory, or vibes, or something else, but she seems confident in our direction, and I don't bother worrying about it. Instead, I look at the sky, between the branches of the trees and the ever thinning smoke. It's solidly night now; has been for at least a bit, and I'm unsure if Ko-lee is going to just keep pushing us through into the morning. My mouth starts to form the question, but then I shut it again, not really looking to draw attention to myself. Ever lucky though, Ko-lee speaks up, her voice sounded raspy and strained. "We need sleep. We will hide in ???," but the last word she says is entirely unfamiliar to me.

It vaguely sounded like "ground", but I assume she wasn't saying we were going to cover ourselves in dirt and leaves. That was the sort of strat I'd pull off, and Ko-lee was absolutely more competent in a survival scenario, from the few weeks I had spent with her. I consider asking for clarification, to try to determine what we're hiding in, but in the end I figure it doesn't matter. I also think to ask her about how close or how far this hiding spot is, but again choose not to. "We all get there in the end," I think, but quickly do my best to redirect my thoughts from the morose double meaning. And so, for the next hour and change, me and Ko-lee move in relative silence, until finally we reach what appears to be a completely random spot in the woods. She says the word again, looking around, but I don't know what it is she's looking for, so I just stand there awkwardly.

She wanders around the small clearing, occasionally kicking up stones, and pushing aside bushes, and it dawns on me that she's looking for something on the ground. "A sign maybe? Maybe a small cache of food? Although, it seemed like sleep was a more important factor when she mentioned the thing, so... probably some sort of marker to orient us?" I muse. I consider trying to help, but since I didn't know what to look for, I figure I'd just be in the way, and resolve to be as unobstructive as possible, standing completely still. She continues making her way about the area, getting closer to me, and even though I knew I hadn't done anything to cause any issues, I was starting to feel a bit nervous. "Should I have been helping?" I think in a momentary panic, my previous determination for statue mimicry having completely left me. But before I do anything, she stops, about three feet away from me, and kneels down into the leaves.

She wipes away the detritus of the forest floor, and grabs onto what appears to be a branch of some sort, but as she goes to lift it, I feel the ground shift beneath me feet. I take a few steps to the side, and Ko-lee finishes lifting what I can now see is a handle, which is attached to a door that hinges up from the forest floor. "Oh, it's like a little... hideout... thing," I think, my mind not quite firing on all cylinders. I just watch, as Ko-lee steps into the little dugout, before she briefly pops her head up to the surface, and glares at me. I quickly make my way into the hole, and Ko-lee gestures at the latch on the inside of the door. "Close," she says, making a pulling motion with her arm. I go to pull, and at first the resistance seems like it's too much for me to overcome. "Yikes, this is gonna be really embarrassing if she has to stand up and do it for me," I think, and I put both hands on the latch, tugging as hard as I can.

Ko-lee watches me for a second or two, then tells me to stop, gesturing at the corner between the hinges. I look down, and can see what appears to be bolt holding the door in it's upright position, which is also preventing me from being able to close the door. "Ah," I murmur, and I move towards the bolt to slide it out of the way. The second I do though, the trapdoor begins to swing shut on top of me, and I throw both my hands over my head to prevent it from slamming down, and possibly shattering something. I catch the door, and finish closing it, sealing us in, and casting us in near complete darkness. I sit there for a moment, just feeling utterly drained, before Ko-lee's voice pierces the darkness. "Antimony, come here," she says, and I feel a brush of a hand on my knee. I stick my hand out in front of me, doing my best to avoid running into something, but just end up placing my hand directly into Ko-lee's face.

For her part, she doesn't find it particularly entertaining, and she grabs the rest of my forearm, pulling my farther into the dugout. I stumble slightly, my left arm still held in her grip, and smash my face into the dirt wall directly behind her. The dirt is soft, rather than hard packed, so the only thing bruised is my ego, and I spit out the mud and dirt that had done it's best to find it's way into my mouth. Ko-lee, thankfully, lets go of my arm, and I can feel the air shifting around as she maneuvers past me. "Sit," she says, and every muscle in my body is more than grateful to acquiesce. As I make my way to a seated position, I can feel some sort of stuffed cloth material below me; I pat the thing, and it has a level of firmness that makes me think it's some sort of camping mat to keep our bodies off the cold forest floor.

"Tomorrow, weer iggon ot wait here. Then wree ggnio ot Cetus. Do you understand?" Ko-lee said, her voice deep and quiet. I give her an affirmative, and she says, "Good. Rthsee some food ni het hideout with us. You aym eat some fo ti, but save the rest-", but the rest of her sentence is cut off. I can intuit what she was likely going to say though, and don't press her on the slip up. After a moment of silence, she continues, "Fi you need ot use the bathroom, ndot." There's a moment where I try to understand that final word, and once I manage to get a handle on it's constituent pieces I let out a small chuckle, but Ko-lee's sharp reprimand stops me from making any further noise. "No. tsI not a joke. We dnee ot stay hidden, and taht otwn work fi you keep stepping out eryve 3 hours to piss. Stay. In. The hideout." I just give her a small "okay", and silence falls in the darkness.

I consider if there's anything I can say, anything else that needs to be done, but realize that we're both stretched to our limits; her emotionally and me physically. So instead, I just pat the mattress beneath me, and look for some sort of blanket to cover me. My hands maneuver around the space in the dark, but I don't manage to find anything except our food stores. I figure that there just might not be one, and so I lay my head down on my arms and close my eyes, feeling slightly silly as I do so.

I'm asleep in moments.