The two drove to a nearby forest on the outskirts of the city. Andrew brought out his scalpels which now hovered around him akin to a halo that promised death. Andrew led the expedition into the forest and Lara followed before they came across a wild hare in the distance. "Watch." His words casual as one of his scalpels was shot blindingly quick at the hare, pinning with wild creature to the tree trunk.
The scalpel was recalled back to him, now dripping with blood. "Are you capable of this?" She felt a knot in her stomach, the faint metallic smell of blood making her breathes shallow. Using her knees as support, she began to uncontrollably wheeze while Andrew did nothing more than watch her. "I…urgh! Seeing that blood makes me recall those three officers…" Something bitter in her throat as she stared at the earthy ground.
"Are you capable Lara?" His question landed again, forcing her to look at his face. "No! I can't do that you can Andrew! I can't kill like you without batting an eye! I just can't! Maybe it would be best for you to train Brittany than me in this stuff!" Her words cut off with pants that promised that she was about to vomit at any moment. "You can kill Lara, all you have to do is aim and release." His words elicited a bitter laugh out of Lara.
"If only it was that easy Andrew! You may not feel it but I can and I won't do this!" His scalpels hovered before one shot soundlessly into the woods. "Kaw!" A bird could be heard before it's croaks filled Lara's ears. "You can kill Lara and we're not leaving till you don't." He walked forward, deeper into the forest without checking whether she was following him or not.
'He's mentally deranged if he thinks that I will do something like this!'
*Barf*
A stream of her insides and gastric juices splattered onto the mushy ground, a vomit from the lingering blood from the hare and the bird. Wiping her mouth, she looked at his direction before looking back. 'Should I head back? But I don't have the keys to the car and I don't know how to hot wire a car either. I can't walk back either.'
Her chest heaved up and down, her options seemed to urge her to follow Andrew. 'I can't kill so carelessly. I'm not a monster like him.' She told herself as she collected herself and chased after Andrew.
It wasn't long before she caught up to him, his figure surrounded by his scalpels with his attention to the distance where a grizzly bear could be seen. "Kill it." His orders came as natural as a general giving orders to a subordinate. "I won't kill it, I'm nothing like you!" Her bitter scowls filled the air and catching the attention of the bear. "Bears don't attack so aimlessly so why would I want to kill it? Not that I would."
*Whoosh*
One of the scalpels shot towards the bear, not with the goal of killing the creature but as if meant to reprimand Lara. "GRROAARR!!!" The beast let out an ear piercing roar that made Lara's scalp tingle. "Kill it." He ordered again, recalling his scalpel which had gouged one of the bear's eye. The creature now enraged began to charge at the two. "What the fuck?! Are you trying to kill us?!" Lara shouted as the beast hurled itself at the two, it's paw raised and crashing onto Andrew's figure who didn't resist and was sent flying, his ribs shattered and a deep gash on his chest.
Lara wasn't lucky either as the beast now stood on it's hind legs towering over her and landed a slap to her, breaking her jaw and sent her sprawling to the ground. Her ash gray hair tangled with small twigs and dirt. 'Is he crazy for him to provoke something like this?!' Lara shouted in her mind as the pain on her jaw began to bloom, her eyes tearing.
"AHHHH!!" Her cries of anguish rippled through the dense forest air, the bear dropping back to it's four legs began to get closer, it's teeth snarling with bloodlust in it's eyes. 'Am I going to die?' She couldn't help but wonder, now crawling looking at Andrew who was profusely bleeding and long lost consciousness. The bear raised one of it's legs and stepped on her ankle fracturing it. "AARRGHHH!!!" Another blood curling scream followed, Lara looking at her leg which was thoroughly broken.
Bits of white protruding and blood staining the paw of the beast. Forcing herself to face the beast, she shot her arm out and a bullet sized thread was shot towards the bear's gouged eye. "RROOAAARRR!!!!" The bear let out a painful roar, backing off Lara's figure letting the sound of her fractured ankle force Lara to let out another scream of agony.
The bear didn't last long on it's leg before it fell to the ground, dying from the poison of her silk. Lara however wasn't pleased with her victory as she could barely contain herself from screaming into the wild. 'I can't believe that my leg is broken!' Tears began to stream down her face as she looked at her broken leg, unsure of what to do. She looked back at Andrew who had yet to regain consciousness. 'Could this get any worse?' As if answering her prayers, another bear walked, it's movement sluggish before picking up Andrew's body by the head, it's teeth drilled into his skull and hauling him away.
'Oh my god?! What am I going to do?' She was on the ground, covered in dirt with a broken leg and blood staining the place. 'No, I have to get out of here but first, I have to stop the bleeding.' She looked at her own leg and began to synthesize a piece of cloth from her silk. It served more like a badly wrapped bandage than something that would actually save her life. 'This will have to do.' Thoughts of her making it to the car shattered as she recalled that Andrew had the keys.
'We should have left earlier but you just had to be stubborn about it.' She cursed Andrew in her mind, now crawling away from the bear corpse and following the trail of blood from Andrew's corpse. 'Luckily the golden dart frog poison is more than enough to kill anything that I face but it won't be long till I lose consciousness as well so I have to hurry.' Her arms grew tired from dragging her body across the ground, at times sticks and rocks protruding would graze her skin eliciting groans out of her but she steeled herself and kept on going.
After an hour, she managed to find the cave where Andrew had been taken to from the trails of blood. 'With all of this blood, I'm sure other predators should be attracted to this place.' Her figure crawling into the dark cave, the only source of light being the world behind her. 'There he is.' She mused but before she could get any closer, the bear from before noticed her from her blood and prepared to attack her.
'Damn it! It's you or me and I don't plan on dying today!' Her aim though wobbly as she darkness began to fill her vision, she managed to shoot the brown bear in the eye bringing the huge behemoth of a creature down. She didn't bask in her glory, rushing to sift through Andrew's pockets before she found what she was looking for. 'Here they are.'
Just as she was about to turn around and leave, sounds of multiple bears echoed in her ears but judging from the pitch, it seemed to be cubs. Four cubs came into view, two of them approaching their mother and two approaching her. 'Don't tell me that I have to kill them as well.' She sighed, readying her hand and hesitated. 'I just can't kill them like this! What would make me different from Andrew and Brittany?'
The cubs didn't hesitate as one bit her arm causing her to let out an ear piercing scream. Another went for her broken leg and began to use it's claws to get rid of the silk. The pain was unimaginable to Lara as with a taut look on her face began to fire her silk towards the cubs. 'I can't with the pain! I just can't bear with it!' She shouted in her mind as the sounds of the cubs dying echoed through the cave. A minute was all it took for Lara to be left alone in complete silence.
'I…can't believe that I would kill an entire family of bears!' Her hands balled as tears began to trickle down her stained cheeks. 'I have to get back to the car but…I don't think that I would have the energy for it.' Her vision began to blur, death something that began to increase it's grip on her and Lara fell unconscious.
. . .
"You are capable of killing Lara." The source of the voice was faint to Lara who could barely make out her surroundings. She tried to move her body but her motions were restrained, slow and sluggish as groans left her lips. A bowl was brought to her lips and she drank it, unable to refuse before her mind snapped back as if hitting a cocaine high. "Where am I?" Her brows furrowed before looking around she realized that she was back home.
Looking down, she realized why her movements were so slow, she was dipped in his blood. "Andrew! What the fuck is this and how did we get back?! I thought you died!" Her tone a mixture of rage and concern. "I brought you here. As for the matter of my death, I let it happen before coming back and saving you. Not to mention you were more than sufficient with your killings. However your hesitation will be the death of you should you face any other people in direct combat ."
His words coming of as an analysis, overlooking what she had gone through. "Are you fucking serious Andrew?! I thought that I died for crying out loud! I thought that you had broken your promise of making sure that I wouldn't die!" Andrew remained clasped, his figure seated on the chair looking at Lara with a lazy air to him. "The reason as to why I didn't live you to die back then was because you had the will to live. However I can't always be there for you as you had said yourself about my blood. Should you intentionally hesitate in a fight, I can't save you as you are forfeiting your promise."
Lara balled her fists, wishing to punch Andrew to the point his face couldn't be recognized. "I didn't think that after antagonizing the bear that you would just let it attack you!" Her tone now laced with passive rage. "It was the only way for you to make a move, otherwise you would have clung to your morality and do nothing. Then I would see that as you giving up and I would have to let you die." She looked down, her reflection in his blood staring back at her.
"You said that if I intentionally did nothing, you would see that as forfeiting and yet you did nothing after antagonizing the bear, to force me to do something. So you do care about me but you don't want to admit it." He paused, his gaze locked with hers. "I acted in such a manner to see what you would do. Should you hesitate in the future, I won't save you Lara, I'll let you die." There was no malice in his words, the banality of his words as if the two were talking about the weather.
"That was something I did out of curiosity, something I'll never do again." He rose and left, a bath robe and towel on his seat. She remained drowning in the silence, unsettled with his words. 'If he is capable of putting Brittany through something like that then he might not be joking. But to think that Andrew would be curious of me.'