Behind the Walls part 3

Nano and Lalna walked in silence, their heads low and their shoulders hunched against the strong wind that had picked up.

Lalna hadn't spoken since they set off, and Nano couldn't blame him. After what Lalnable had said, he was probably having an unpleasant time to say the least.

Nano was also keeping a close eye on him to see how the poison was affecting him. They still didn't know what exactly it did, but she had her suspicions. She noticed how he would occasionally shoot a nervous glance over his shoulder or look around, flinching a bit as if expecting something to be there. She noticed he had also started nervously scratching at his left arm. However, she had noticed him doing that before he got poisoned, so that could be his nervousness showing through. It was also possible he was looking over his shoulder for Lalnable or Xephos, since both of them seemed like enemies at the moment.

The whole situation was so confusing it made her nauseous.

“Lalna, how do you feel?” she asked after another minute.

He didn't respond for a moment. Then he shook his head a bit as if snapping himself out of a trance.

“What?” he asked, looking at her.

Nano narrowed her eyes a bit. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine...” he muttered bitterly.

Suddenly, he jumped and whipped around. He could have sworn he heard something moving behind them.

“What! What?” exclaimed Nano, looking around too, shocked at his sudden movement.

Lalna looked around a bit more before slowly turning back to Nano. “S-sorry...” he muttered. “Thought I heard something... Guess I'm just a bit on edge.”

He started scratching at his arm again.

Nano shook her head a bit and took his hand. “C'mon, we should keep moving.” Even beneath his glove, she could feel him trembling a bit.

She had suspected the poison was messing with his mind, but she hadn't been sure how. Now she was realized what was most likely happening.

The poison was making him paranoid. It was making him afraid.

XXX

Xephos was fuming. He was beyond pissed that all of this was happening. Lalnable was an experiment, a mistake. He knew he should have killed him when he had the chance. He was pissed at himself for not killing him, he was pissed at Lalnable for putting them through this ridiculous game while he worked uninterrupted trying to destroy the world. He was even pissed at Lalna for having such flawed and mutated DNA that he couldn't even be unwillingly cloned properly.

While Xephos was deep in thought about how angry he was about everything happening, Honeydew was quietly observing him.

He realized that Xephos had been angry since Lalnable shot him, and it hadn't stopped. He had been getting progressively more and more livid, and it didn't seem to be stopping.

It was in that moment that Honeydew realized what the poison did. And a split second later, he realized what the handcuffs and straightjacket and mask Lalnable had given him were for.

And he realized that if he didn't find the cure for the poison soon, Xephos might turn on him. And if Xephos turned on him, he knew that one of them would end up dead.

XXX

Lalnable stared at the glowing screen of the large computer in front of him. He smiled, watching as his plan fell into place. Xephos and Honeydew had taken the bait, and so had Lalna and Nano. Judging by the blinking red light next to Xephos' name on the screen, the poison was spreading much faster in him.

As for the final member of the party, he was nowhere to be found. Of course Lalnable had lost the poppet to that angry flux monster, but he didn't know that. He was probably trying to find the poppet right then.

“This is so useful,” muttered Lalnable, glancing up and down at the computer screen. “Next time I see Lalna I should thank him for building it for me...”

Chuckling to himself, he glanced at his watch and saw that the next step of the process was ready to begin.

“Oh, it's going to be a good show,” he said with a small laugh, absently biting his bottom lip until he tasted a splash of salty blood. He still wasn't quite hungry after his massacre at the village an hour ago, but he knew by sunset, his dinner would come to him.

And all he had to do was wait.