Chop Chop

[Grand Moff Hissa]

((Hector Quayle continued from damn))

High up in the pass, sheltered behind a turn in the path and shielded from the wind by a boulder but with a view of the trail leading that way, a small campfire crackled. Its component sticks were built into a pyramid shape, and a rough circle of stones surrounded them, preventing easy escape for the embers, though now and then the breeze carried flakes of glowing ash into the night.

The smell of smoke was strong, but stronger still was the odor of cooking meat. Three pork chops rested over the flames, skewered on long sticks, turned now and then. There was no hurry. Most of the others would be sleeping, hunting, or laying low somewhere more hospitable this late at night.

Hector crouched by the fire, a hearty chunk of branch roughly three feet long and the same diameter as his forearm in his grasp. Another, thinner stick was propped on the edge of the fire pit, one end burning, just in case he had cause to use fire to ward someone—or something—off.

He'd seen the goats earlier in the day. Maybe there were cougars here after all.

[Kermit]

Three goths plus Greg sat at a table, talking inside La Gelateria, the artisanal gelato shoppe/restaurant operated by the Craig family.

"You guys ever heard of Rainbow Valley?" Heidi said, looking down at something on her phone.

"Mario Party?" Sadie said.

"*Mario Kart." Gerard corrected.

"Mario Kart." Sadie said.

Greg sat in silence.

"Mmm, no, that's something different." Heidi said.

Greg sat in silence.

Sadie carved a small spoonful out of a scoop of strawberry gelato sitting in a paper cup in front of her.

"Yeah, so, like, it's the part of Mount Everest with all the dead people on it. Rainbow Valley, I mean. They just leave them behind on the mountain I guess." Heidi continued.

"Weird name." Sadie said.

"Yeah, it's called that because of the, mmm, like, they're all wearing high-vis-" Heidi said.

"I should go check on my gelato batch." Greg suddenly interrupted, standing up and immediately excusing himself from the conversation.

---

A dark figure, dimly illuminated by the moonlight, shambled down the mountain path towards Hector and the fire. As it grew nearer, its steps became less and less coordinated, and eventually, at a distance of about ten schoolbuses away, it fell to its knees, and then to the ground. It then curled into the fetal position and didn't get up.

((Greg had abandoned his house and ran into the woods while having a panic attack, gotten completely lost after mixing his own tracks with someone else's, found a new track of footprints, and followed them up a mountain at night while the only warm clothes he was wearing were a windbreaker and extra flannel shirt.))

Real blunder there.

Oh well.

He wondered if this was what it felt like to be gelato.

There were worse ways to die than hypothermia, he guessed.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Hector caught sight of the distant figure as it shambled roughly towards him. His breathing slowed, and he ran his thumb along the rough bark of the branch.

He didn't move or speak as the interloper stumbled and then went down. He didn't budge from his position, just sat and watched as he counted to ten in his head.

Twenty.

Thirty.

With a sigh, Hector removed the spits on which the pork was roasting from where they were propped, and wedged them between two large rocks. The partially-cooked meat steamed and sizzled in the chilly air. Hector squinted, but even with the moonlight it was hard to see someone whose profile had lowered, especially at such distance.

He removed the burning stick from the fire, held it left-handed, low to the ground as he stood and walked towards the fallen figure. His right hand held the thicker branch. His steps were slow, testing the ground as he moved. Invisible ice could send someone over the edge here.

When he'd closed half the space between his camp and where he thought the other person was, he called out.

"Hey."

His voice was a hiss, but one that distance and wind may have stolen away.

[Kermit]

The ground seemed so cold (because it was actually very cold, and covered in ice). Greg was trying to focus on any feelings of warmth he could convince himself he was feeling, like... what remained of his own body heat, but his chest felt so tight, and, and, just, it was like his muscles were so cold they were starting to contract, like every single sarcomere was shivering, and, and...

If he tried to get up, he was going to die. There was no friction anywhere, and he was curled up into a little ball, and there was a big, rocky, gravelly crevasse running right along the path, and altogether it seemed like if he even tried to move, he was going to slip and then slide down the mountain.

He was also going to die if he stayed here on the ground. He would turn into a Gregsicle.

Even if he did manage to get off of this mountain, he was still going to be freezing cold for the rest of his life.

Greg wasn't very good at actively making choices. His parents usually did most of that for him.

...

He closed his eyes.

He hadn't heard Hector over the chattering of his own teeth.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

"Hey," Hector said again, but not louder.

He squinted into the darkness. The burning branch made a poor replacement for the flashlight in his bag by the campfire in terms of illumination, but was inconspicuous. The collapsed figure was less of a threat than unknown factors. It would be hard for anyone to rush a hundred feet down a narrow, icy pathway to attack. Not so for taking a potshot from below, or leaping out from behind a boulder.

Hector hunched down, splaying his fingertips against the gritty ice, and puffed slow billows. He looked back at the faint glow of fire reflecting from the side of a boulder. He'd done well shielding his camp, but wisps of smoke caught the moonlight.

The meat would be getting cold.

What was anyone doing moving around up here so late? It'd be pointless to hunt like that. Pointless to set a trap. If there was a trap, they'd have had to do enough recon to have had better opportunities to spring it.

A tremble worked from Hector's fingertips through the rest of his body. He picked the log back up and took another cautious step.

What if this person really hated the idea of encountering their classmates? It was either that, or they'd been forced to move by trouble.

Hector knew which he was hoping for.

He took slow low steps, walking in a crouch, until the distance had closed from a hundred feet to fifteen. He only stopped when he confirmed that there really was a figure there, lying on the ground.

"Hey," Hector said, one more time.

[Kermit]

...

If he just died here, frozen on the ground, then what would be the point? There wouldn't be any, would there be?

...

Maybe, maybe he could find a way off of the mountain. Maybe he'd manage to find shelter. Maybe he wouldn't die tonight. Tomorrow, maybe, but not tonight. Or maybe he'd just die on his way down instead. Maybe all he'd do was die trying.

Maybe it didn't matter if he died. Maybe, in his last moment, all that would matter was that at he'd least tried. He'd die because of the really dumb mistake he'd made by coming up here, but at least he'd have tried to fix it.

Sure, yeah, that seemed like a good enough reason to get up.

...

Greg opened his eyes. Immediately, they widened. The movement made his face sting.

There was some kind of person, like, right there, and they were sort of scuttling towards him while using a tree branch as a walking stick, and in their other hand they were holding a different stick, and it was on fire, like... the person was a high-altitude caveman or something.

Greg froze (figuratively).

This was - he hadn't been expecting this when he'd opened his eyes. This was very strange. Maybe he was actually dying, and this was just a hallucination caused by his very cold brain's neurons misfiring. Or, maybe, maybe, if this was a real person, they were going to save him. Or set him on fire, or beat him to death. Greg had only encountered two other people so far, and one had garroted the other to death, and so despite the small sample size there, he wasn't feeling as confident about the intentions of his classmates now as he'd been 1.5ish days ago.

Maybe... maybe this was whose tracks he'd been following.

"Hey," he heard the figure say.

"HHHHH," Greg wheezed loudly, unable to speak for fear of his shivering teeth shearing his own tongue off.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

The figured spoke, or groaned, more like. Hector cracked a wide hungry smile, holding the torch closer to his face. The orange light sparkled off his teeth.

"Hey there," he said.

This guy was done without help. Hosed. A whole bunch of them were probably making this same sort of discovery right around now, but sheer dumb luck had brought the lump on the path to the particular slice of the ass-end of nowhere that wasn't as uninhabited as it looked.

Not having to deal with anyone else for the better part of a day had Hector in a reasonably chipper mood, and the obvious distress of the figure perked him up further. Most of his classmates weren't cut out for this. They struggled while he thrived. It wasn't even that cold.

"Can you stand?" Hector grunted.

He shuffled closer, tiny steps testing for traction. Little rocks caught in the grooves of his soles, but he stayed steady. And he could go a whole lot faster if he had to, especially back the way he'd come. Boots were good for more than kicking.

"Come on. Nice and easy."

His billowing breath sparkled in torch and starlight.

Close enough to do so, Hector held out the end of the branch that wasn't burning, at the same time sinking into a lower squat still, just in case buddy did something rash that required a solid center of gravity.

[Kermit]

Greg clenched his jaw closed.

Did he trust this guy? He wasn't sure.

Did he have a choice? No.

Maybe this guy was just gonna steal his stuff and then leave him to die. Maybe he wasn't. But, at least to Greg, maybe dying seemed like it was better than certainly dying, and he was certainly going to die if he kept laying here. So, there was an obvious decision there.

He just wanted to feel like there was something left that he could do.

He sniffled, pursed his lips, and sucked a shaky breath in through his mouth. Then, he grabbed the end of the branch with his right hand, and propped his torso up off the ground with his left. His heels dug against the icey rock, one boot's grip more tenuous than the other.

Even through his glove, the branch seemed like the most intense warmth he'd ever felt. He wasn't holding the burning end, he was pretty sure, but he sure felt like it. He guessed that was just how cold his hands were right now.

"If you're ready." He said through gritted teeth, mentally preparing to try and start straightening his legs into an upright position.

[Grand Moff Hissa]

Hector grunted affirmatively. He straightened up, holding the torch by the middle, which he now used to hoist the guy to his feet. Then he started off back down the path.

His movement was slow and painstaking, step by step, but each movement of his feet felt lighter. It was as if traction came easily on the return.

It wasn't from relief to have found someone else. Hector didn't care about his classmates too much. But he was meeting with success, and that pleased him.

Hector lightly hummed to himself, tuneless and drifting in and out of audibility. Ice and gravel crunched and shifted.

It felt like several minutes of walking when he spoke.

"Camp's ahead," Hector said. "Not far."

He gestured with the thicker branch and there it was, visible fifty feet down the path: tall stones, a faint haze of smoke drifting above them, a dim glow of reflected firelight dancing against the side of a boulder.

"Dinner's about done," Hector said. "You can share. Unless you're vegan. Or Jewish."

His brows furrowed for moment as he turned that over again.

"Because it's pork chops," he added.

He wasn't paying attention to the guy anyways. What Hector had acquired, what he now realized he had wanted, was an audience. He was doing well for himself. He was clever. This situation, terrible as it was, was grinding his classmates into paste, while Hector cooked dinner. He could be satisfied with that, but to be able to reach out and pluck someone else from the chaos for a brief time, then shove them back in with a pat on the back once he tired of their presence, felt good. He was in control.

Hector felt so confident that he let his eyes drift closed for a moment. His imagination took him somewhere else, somewhere far away that he'd never even been. The earth beneath his feet was tilled soil, rich and fragrant. Tall, leafy stalks grew as high as his head in neat rows. The sun's rays warmed his face, only wisps of cloud in the sky.

He was in a field—a corn field.

He heard the pitter-patter of goat feet.

---

The young buck had been watching the strange interloper for a long time.

It had first caught sight of the creature during the waning hours of the daylight, picking its way along the path. It seemed hesitant and unsteady, moving slowly, and the goat had been confused. Was this creature injured? Or was it a predator, attempting stealth? Bipeds did not make intuitive sense. The herd had all paused to regard it, but had then returned to grazing when nothing particular happened.

But later, the creature had found a place to lurk, a sheltered place between stones. It was a place where the goats could easily scramble up towards higher elevations, but this creature did not seem to climb well. The goat was up above, at a vantage point the creature did not seem to realize existed, but still the presence of the strange being caused concern.

This intensified when the creature shuffled around and then did something, and a blaze of light sprang up, and then it did something else, and the scent of death carried on the air.

The goat did not understand this creature, but its presence was unwelcome. It was an intruder, and possibly a predator. Its clumsy demeanor did not mean it was harmless.

The goat had not seen the wolves for some time, but it remembered them. They had been a dire threat, and sometimes they used cunning to hunt for the little ones. Was this creature like that? It had seen other beings akin to this, but only in passing. They had not stayed like this. They had not made dens.

The other goats were further up the hill. Some slept. Others chewed scraggly growth, cropping the alpine grasses just above the dirt. But the young buck watched, alert, and when the creature came near, the goat saw that it was with another of its kind. A herd... or a pack?

There was only a split second to react. The goat had heard movement, but had not expected it to be two coming around the bend. In that moment, the instinct that took it was to defend itself and the herd.

Predator or rival, this beast did not belong here. It would leave, by force if need be.

Finding its footing, the goat lowered its head and charged.

---

Hector's eyes flew open.

Wide, round pupils locked with horizontal, rectangular ones.

In the flickering light of the burning branch, the goat looked like Satan himself, orange light illuminating snowy white fur and gleaming hooves and thick horns that curved upwards.

The charge was only ten feet. The goat had been standing there behind a rock, hidden from view until a moment before its surge of movement. There was no time, and nothing could have prepared Hector for this circumstance in any event.

He let go of the torch, raised his hands as if to shield himself, holding the thicker branch in front of him. It didn't matter. The dense skull impacted him, and the horns caught him in the chest, pushing the branch against him with a crack, and the momentum rocketed him off the side of the path.

((Hector Quayle continued in Falling With Style))

The goat was gone in an instant. Maybe it spun and ran back the way it came. Maybe it continued its charge down the trail, vanishing into the darkness with all the grace the humans could never dream of. Perhaps it miscalculated and followed Hector over the lip, tumbling out of sight with him like Holmes and Moriarty over the Reichenbach Falls.

In any case, the flurry of movement and chaos lasted less then three seconds. Then the night was still again.

Up ahead, tucked away in a sheltered alcove, a campfire burned merrily. Three pork chops, almost fully cooked, were propped up on spits nearby. A pack, almost fully loaded, lay on the ground, and aside from the typical contents it also held another three pork chops, raw, in a plastic bag.

With the camp's creator vanished, it might as well have manifested from nowhere.

[Kermit]

Greg just let the boy lead him up the trail, trying to osmose as much warmth from the flaming stick as he could. He almost wanted to reach further, and to pass his arm slowly through the fire, letting the flames lick heat into him. But obviously, that would set him on fire, and while being set on fire would definitely warm him up, it came with its own set of issues. So he just trudged along.

"Camp's ahead," the other boy said. "Not far."

Greg looked up to where the boy had gestured at. He could see a glow, which meant more fire.

"Dinner's about done," the boy continued. "You can share. Unless you're vegan. Or Jewish."

Greg stumbled a little bit and looked down at the ground. Um. Hm. Greg wasn't Jewish, but he also wasn't an antisemite, and this was going to be a very long night for him if this guy was going to be like that.

"Because it's pork chops," the boy clarified.

Greg exhaled slightly, still unsure of exactly how to respond. He settled for just ignoring it and hoping the guy thought he hadn't actually heard his blunder. He sighed quietly and closed his eyes for a second, the flaming stick's glow still penetrating through his eyelids.

Suddenly, there was a sound like something hard and sturdy rolling down the side of the mountain. Like a rockslide. Greg gasped, and opened his eyes.

"Uh-" he started to say.

There was a hefty whack as a shape careened into the boy leading him to his camp.

"- JEEZ!"

Greg reflexively froze and shut his eyes. The flaming branch suddenly seemed lighter, like he was the only person holding it now. He opened his eyes. The space right in front of him, where his rescuer had just been standing, was now empty.

"- Oh no." He said quietly. His eyes darted around through the darkness beyond the torch he was holding.

A quiet crack from down the mountainside, off the edge of the ravine running along the path, like a bag of cement hitting the ground.

"..."

Greg was silent. He blinked.

"...Oh no." He repeated, as he started to realize the sound he'd just heard was the other boy's body smashing against whatever was at the bottom of the drop. His eyes flitted to the surface of the path ahead of him.

Hoofprints. The same kind he'd seen in the snow while investigating the shape lingering outside the house he'd woken up in. The same kind he'd been too busy examining to notice Shu strangling Kiera to death.

He inhaled sharply, and then shuffled to the side of the path cautiously. He held the torch out over the drop and waved it around in the air.

"Hey!" He called out, into the abyss. "Are you... are you - can you hear me? Are you alive?"

There was no response. From up here, especially at night time, the drop off looked like an actual bottomless pit. Nobody could survive that. And if they did, they wouldn't last the night.

"Are you alive?" Greg called out again, just for good measure.

...

Nothing.

Greg inhaled shakily.

He didn't... he didn't want to just leave the guy for dead, even though he had probably died on impact and even though if he set out to rescue him he'd end up dead trying.

He didn't want to leave him.

He glanced sideways up the path, to the glow of the nameless boy's erstwhile camp. Then he glanced back down the mountainside.

"Are you alive?" One last time.

The world was silent except for the faint whispering of the wind through the mountain's rocky crags.

"..."

Greg exhaled, slightly dejected. Then, he looked back up at the boy's camp and began creeping the remaining distance to it, very slowly and carefully, so that he didn't follow the boy down the mountainside. The guy had maybe sacrificed his own life saving Greg's. Greg couldn't let that be in vain.

In the morning, after the sun went up and when it was safer to navigate this place, he was resolving he'd try and do his best to find where the boy had landed and to help him if he was still alive.

But for now, in the cold, and in the dark, there was nothing left that Greg could do.

((Thanks to the boy's fire, he survived the night.))