Nightmares

Voice In Chaos - 2

Jessica admitted her mistake in general, and with that, she quickly reloaded the shotgun. The communication in consciousness was as fast as lightning, as was Jessica's steady little hand at the moment.

There was barely a second between the two bullets, the fear brought on by her previous escape making her decide that she wanted to stay alive and that the only person with the weapon could be her.

The third, quicker than the last shot, left the hunter with another bullet before he went down. Jessica continued to cock the gun.

Krill: "...Stop, Jessica, don't waste the bullets."

Jessica stopped immediately like she had been given a holy command, her small body scuttling up from the ground and bending towards the downed hunter. Taking a shot to the waist, shoulder and thigh, the gun was powerful and would shatter bones in the body at the same time, the hunter screamed in agony for a few moments before passing out.

Jessica walked over and knelt down, Krill gulped inwardly at her hand reaching towards the wound and hurriedly said, "There's no one else around here, Jessica, I need to adjust your body temperature. You should go back and put that man's clothes on."

"I'm not afraid of the cold," Jessica said.

She picked up the other shotgun while untutoredly scavenging the hunter for all the ammunition he had on him, and a few pieces of dried meat. When the jerky was in her hands, the tears that seemed to have frozen over the past few minutes melted again as the young girl tossed it far away and wiped her eyes.

"That's just beef, Jessica."

"...I'm not hungry." She whispered as if to hide it.

Krill watched Jessica fall silent and obediently returned to the first hunter, peeling off the other's intact thick jacket and putting it on, gathering another round of ammunition before the little girl spoke again, but she brought up her gun, "It's still before dawn, Krill."

"That must be how they killed Eve."

Jessica's insides were also as thawed as Krill felt the feelings of a normal little girl. Eve was the grown woman she'd been locked up with before when they were both in distress and Jessica was too young and had a harder time dealing with her newfound environment. Relying on each other but are unable to do anything. And now it seemed that things had changed, as Jessica spoke the woman's name.

Krill knew that the other woman would later become a lingering trauma inside the young girl.

"What do you want to do." Jessica heard Krill's gentle voice question her as if he had seen right through her completely.

"I'm sorry, Krill." Jessica zipped her jacket all the way up to her head until she was hiding half her face in the collar as if that would protect her more.

Krill heard her say, "I want to be a bad person." She took off at a fast run.

Krill couldn't control this role reversal, having hoped Jessica would defend herself and get out of the forest as fast as she could, and now the girl was running like a launching missile towards her enemies. All he could do was offer protection.

Krill snapped back from his daze and said helplessly, "You can never be the bad guy... Jessica, you'll be able to go home after dawn."

"Thank you, Krill," Jessica choked out, "I want to hug you."

"...Don't worry, I'm right here." Krill unfolded the new map for her.

No new distress signals appeared in his daily tasks after so long, but half the green dots on the map had disappeared.