(still playing around with where exactly she's from...I'll find out as I go, I think)
Ridahne did not spend a lot of time around a television growing up. She was more of an outside girl, more of a sand and water and trees and brush kind of a girl. Her older brother Hadian was that way too, though he tended to be more reserved and less inclined to chase seals off of their basking rocks, or to charge at birds pecking around on the beach. Still, the two of them loved mischief and the sun, and all that lay beyond the confining walls of their small home. Ridahne would pick fights with other kids and Hadian would be the one to set her sprained wrist or clean up her split lip so their father wouldn't have to know what she was up to. Usually, he found out anyway. Hadian always took care of her after their mother's cancer made their family of four turn into a pack of 3, and when their father was away at work for long stretches of time. Thick as thieves, they were. Literally. Hadian tried to discourage it, but Ridahne often had sticky fingers in school, particularly around people that were not so kind. They had a dog too--a sleek mutt with as much a nose for mischief as his curly haired owner.
It was a memorable occasion, then, when she spent five hours staring at a grainy television in a thrift store somewhere in...where was she, back then? Florida? Ridahne vaguely remembered going through customs in someplace warm and sticky. Could have been anywhere. She hardly knew even then, and it didn't matter now. It was one of those cheap, old machines in a Goodwill that was hardly likely to ever be purchased, but there it was on display anyway. Plugged in and usually tuned to Antiques Roadshow or some equally insipid program like that. But not that day. Or rather, it was, until a tired, put-upon employee came over in a frightened stumble, numb and apprehensive, to flip the channel to the news. Ridahne had been shopping for shoes then. She wouldn't have even bothered to pass through the electronics section at all--she lived out of an Osprey hiking pack and stayed in a string of hostels, AirBNB's, couches, and occasionally, small motels. Thus, she had no room for the luxury of...cheap alarm clocks, remote controls, and VHS players. But she'd seen a few onlookers turn into a full on crowd, leaning in close to stare at the old screen with their hands over their open mouths.
A disease. A manufactured disease was spreading like wildfire because people were desperate enough to volunteer for some sick human experimentation. Ridahne had been thinking smugly to herself that she would just go back home, despite the consequences. Her visa was expiring in a couple months anyway... But then she learned that it was not just the states that were being affected. Not just Canada, or Mexico. The UK. Russia. Australia.
It was spreading.
Ridahne never expected it to happen so fast. She thought it would take weeks. Months. Instead it was hours. And in weeks, the world descended into chaos. In months, it began to quiet like the fading moans of a man about to die. Ridahne had no friends, none of importance. Her parents had both been dead several years prior to the infection's beginning. All she had left besides herself was her older brother Hadian, of whom she knew nothing of now. Was he alive? If he died, was it at least quick? Or was it painful, slow? Did he have anyone looking out for him? Ridahne would have killed a man to gain passage across the Atlantic to get home, just to see if he was still alive. But unless she rowed there in some pathetic dinghy herself, or was lucky enough to find a functioning boat with gas in it (HA. Right.), she would never see home again. Or Hadian.
Ridahne lost track of time since then. Months, weeks, seasons hardly mattered. Just sunrise. Sunset. Light. Dark. Moving, surviving, always searching for shelter and safety and food. She didn't even know where she was anymore--somewhere cool and spacious with lots of trees. It was quiet, lacking the sound of birds chattering and small animals rustling in the underbrush. Such things were rare these days. All she really heard for some time was the rhythmic crunching of her worn in hiking boots (she'd always worn them before this catastrophe and was now thankful for her odd choices in style), the subtle protests of the straps on her blue pack, and the very soft whisper of wind overhead. That and--
A metallic click, and then, "Drop the pack, girl."
Ridahne froze, bristled, and looked to her left, where a greasy man stood with a pistol trained on her. She did not look on in fear with her amber eyes, but with defiant fire. "I'm gonna guess that gun's not even loaded. That, or it has one left. One, and you don't want to waste it on me. But you're hoping I won't argue. You picked the wrong girl."
A flicker of hesitation flashed in his blue eyes as she said that. It was spoken so surely and darkly that somehow he felt she meant it. Not just that, but she was not what he expected her to be. Instead of a wide eyed, lost woman, he found cold, sharp eyes set in a dark olive face marked with intricate black tattoos. Black and blue. They made her look almost otherwordly, fierce, like a warrior. And she might have been scraggly, but she was not delicate looking. Thin, but muscular and self-assured. She had multiple silver piercings--one in her nose and a multitude in her ears, not to mention some horn gauges. And most of all, she had the look of experience about her.
"You wanna take your chances, honey? Drop it." Ridahne did not take her eyes from him. She simply tucked her dark curls behind her silver-heavy ear and slowly slid her pack off her narrow shoulder, lowering it to the ground as carefully as if it were a bomb. "Good choice sweetheart. Now, just--"
There was a soft sound, a gentle whisper of a swip! and a tiny, sharp whoosh as something silver flashed in the green-filtered sunlight from her right hand and Ridahne lunged at him, her long knife catching his forearm before the man had any idea what had happened to him. As blood burbled from the new crisp wound, he growled and came at her with a counter attack. Ridahne's hunch was right; either he was out of bullets or was not about to spare one on her. Her knife caught his chest, and then the sheer weight of him bowled her to the ground. Ridahne scrambled to get up, but he was already looming over her. Ridahne was fast, but not fast enough; he pistol whipped her pretty hard but thankfully missed the soft spot of her temple, leaving her still conscious. Conscious, and fighting. Still on the ground, hair now tangled in bits of leaves, Ridahne swung forward and sunk her knife into the man's thigh. He howled and fell, which she quickly took advantage of. Despite his efforts to pistol whip her again, or to kick at her, claw at her, swing at her, she managed to fight her way on top of him and without much thought, planning, or hesitation, she brought her knife down underneath his ribs.
The man still gurgled and gasped for breath but Ridahne knew the fight was over. He'd be gone in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Distantly, there was a part of her that felt pity. There was a part of her that never wanted to kill anyone for any reason. There was a part of her that wondered what might have happened if they decided to band together. But these thoughts, these things that once made her civil, now seemed cold, withered, and far away like a relic from another age. Anything to survive. Anything. Ridahne cleaned her knife, a wicked but well-crafted and simplistic bowie knife, replaced it in the sheath strapped to her back under her shirt, picked up her pack, and stumbled back on the way she'd been going.
The fight was short and Ridahne eventually came out the victor, but not without a few wounds herself. She hadn't realized it, but one of her wrists--the left one--must have been sprained, because it was hot and a little swollen, now. She could feel a couple bruises beginning to bloom, but worst of all, she felt her head. Her throbbing, drumming, pounding, thundering head. He got her good. A little tickle prompted her to touch the side of her face; her slender fingers came away bloody. She had to keep going, at least until she found a safe place to bunker down for a while, or somewhere she could find some supplies.
Supplies showed themselves first. A small store sat like a hollow ghost of itself on the side of the road; through the window, Ridahne could see there were some items on the shelves still, even if they might have been a bit mismatched and picked through. She hoped to find dishtowels, toilet paper, crappy tourist t-shirts--anything that might make a suitable bandage for her head, which was still a little sticky and wet down one side, streaking parts of her black and blue tattoos with additional lines of smudgy red. Everything seemed quiet, still, so she proceeded. She would just need--
The door swung open when she pushed it, finding it unlocked and not even smashed open. But the moment the door began to swing, it caught an irritating chipper bell hung above its frame that made her cringe. Why didn't she just go through a window if it was going to make that much noise? It echoed in her ears amidst the cold silence that she'd grown so accustomed to and some part of her wanted to cut the thing down out of spite. She didn't get too far into those thoughts when she saw another figure inside the store. A male. Her knife was out in an instant, the curved Bowie a smooth extension of her lean arms. It seemed to materialize out of nowhere, but it was merely hidden behind her back. Though her grip on the weapon was tight, she couldn't quite hold the object still when she held it up. She said nothing.
The woman, dressed in a black hoodie, fitted olive pants with a large pocket on one leg, and with an aqua blue backpack on her shoulders, looked harried, but still resolved. She stared at him, tangled hair rustling in the soft wind so that it matted to her bloody cheek. Her eyes, though determined, seemed a little out of focus and glassy, and she swayed ever so slightly as she stood there.
"Don't." She warned, though she wasn't fully sure of what she was telling him not to do. Why did she feel so dizzy? "I don't want to hurt you, but I will if you make me. So don't--" she screwed her eyes shut and opened them again, blinking; were there two of him? No. Just one. "--Just don't try anything." One of her pupils was dilated slightly, the other looked normal. She had none of the telltale signs of the sickness, nor did she seem the sort that would leap at him at any moment just to rob him of his shoes. No, she had the look of an injured dog, slunk off into a corner to try and lick its wounds while trying to keep intruders at bay all at once. She looked like she needed help, but also looked like she didn't want it, or didn't want to admit it, rather.
"Turn around. Keep walking. Wait--are there bandages in here? T-shirts? Dishtowels? Cloth?" She shook her head as if trying to loosen something from it. The world spun but she kept her feet. "Nevermind. Just keep your distance. I won't follow you and you won't follow me. Got it? There'll be trouble if you do."
IMG_1927 by kitepaddlesurf, on Flickr
IMG_0174 by kitepaddlesurf, on Flickr