(Time-Stilled World, 53 Kilometers from Forest Entry, Leo's Team, Day 4)
After almost coming to blows when Patricia threatened to cut Bob's balls off, the team recovered slightly over the next hour, as Patricia turned oddly submissive and began trying her best to not antagonize either of them again.
She stayed quiet at first, unusually so, only nodding when spoken to and maintaining a safe distance while they walked.
But over time, she began cracking dry, nervous jokes, most of which landed flat, but in the stifling silence of the forest, even those awkward attempts at humor were a welcome change.
Leo didn't smile. Bob didn't laugh. But neither of them told her to shut up either, which for Patricia felt like a win.
It wasn't peace.
But it was something like it.
As for the first time in hours, the group found a fragile sense of unity amongst them once again.
—---------
The next wave hit roughly four hours after their last skirmish…. though calling it a wave was putting it quite lightly.
This was a tide.
It began as a low hum beneath their boots. Subtle at first, like a breath held too long, or like a vibration felt more in the bones than the ears, but it grew….. and it kept growing, until the ground beneath them began shaking so strong that the tree-tops began to sway.
Then came the shocks.
Not tremors—jerks. Violent and sudden. The kind of force that ripped loose rocks from the earth and sent Patricia stumbling into Leo's side as they all scrambled to stay upright.
"Do you feel that?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
However, Leo did not respond.
Not because he didn't hear her, but because her question itself was so stupid that it almost left him speechless.
Of course he felt it!
It was hard not to when the entire goddamn forest was convulsing like a beast shaking off fleas.
*Skrrrkkk*
*Skmpkkk*
Unnatural sounds echoed through the fog-draped woods— like dry branches snapping underwater, warping and bending at the same time as dark shapes began to appear in the trees above.
But it wasn't just above.
From the soil around them, thin pointed legs began poking out of the ground, slow at first, like worms testing the air. Then all at once, hundreds of them burst forth, tearing their way out from underneath the roots, as they broke through the surface while being covered in rot-soaked dirt and bodies glistening with wet sap.
"The fuck…?" Leo muttered, spinning in place, as he saw the sheer scale of the attack this time.
There had to be thousands of spiders surrounding them at the minimum.
Wooden. Grotesque. Some the size of dogs, others large enough to crush a man under their jointed limbs, and every single one was closing in on them.
"Back to the tree!" Bob barked, already pressing his back against the nearest trunk, as Leo and Patricia mirrored him and immediately drew their blades.
The three of them together, formed a tight wedge formation around the trunk, as the entire forest shifted around them.
*Skitter*
*Tremble*
The spiders didn't charge.
They crawled.
A sea of mandibles, legs, and clicking joints that moved in perfect unison, as if summoned by a single thought.
And they were all coming for her.
Patricia.
Not Leo. Not Bob.
Just her.
"Fuck, we have nowhere to run!" Leo shouted, sliding a dagger into the hollow eye socket of the first spider that lunged.
"Don't panic! Hold the line!" Bob growled, lopping off another's limbs in a smooth arc of steel, his face grim and blood-slick.
For the first sixty seconds, they held the line.
Then the second wave hit.
Then the third.
More spiders. From above. From below. From the gaps between trees.
Endless.
Leo's blades became a blur. Bob fought like a butcher in a storm. But it wasn't enough.
No matter how many they killed, they were just stalling the inevitable.
And Bob knew it.
"She's the infection," he said flatly, watching yet another spider ignore him to barrel straight into Patricia's chest, only to be blocked at the last second by Leo's dagger.
Then he made his choice.
"I'm out of here, Skyshard. We're wasting stamina. We can't hold this wave. And if they kill her, we don't know if they'll turn on us next or still let us leave. Better to run now than risk getting caught trying to play hero for a girl who lit the damn match in the first place."
Bob stepped away from the formation, slashing a spider across the jaw before starting up the nearest tree trunk, hand over hand with practiced speed.
"BOB! BOB, HELP!" Patricia shrieked as spiders began swarming her from the side previously covered by Bob.
Her voice cracking in a panicked pitch Leo had never heard before.
She was terrified.
But Bob didn't stop.
He looked at Leo.
"This is the moment," he said. "You stay, you die."
Leo glanced at Patricia before making his decision.
As he noticed the gash across her thigh. The blood on her arms, and the way her spells missed more than they hit.
She was already halfway dead, and it was exactly how Bob said….
He really couldn't save her from this full wave even if he wanted to.
And hence he made the more practical choice.
"I agree," he said coldly. "We can't save her. And I'm not dying here."
With that, he turned and followed Bob up the tree, just as a dozen spiders slammed into the spot where he'd stood a second before.
"LEO! LEO YOU FUCKING CUNT, HELP ME!" Patricia screamed, voice raw with disbelief. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"
But he didn't look back.
Neither of them did.
They leapt through the treetops and vanished into the fog, leaving the forest to devour its marked prey.
Behind them, Patricia's screams echoed, high and manic.
"WAIT! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! I'M STILL HERE! DON'T LEAVE ME—DON'T LEAVE ME—DON'T LEAVE ME—"
And then silence.
The kind that wasn't peaceful.
Just final, as although she tried her best to hold her ground.
A minute and half after Leo and Bob left, she was too overwhelmed to hold her own and eventually succumbed to the forest's forces.
—--------
Running away, Leo did a calm introspection of his emotions on how he felt about abandoning Patricia, and to his surprise, he did not feel anything at all.
Neither did he feel happy to have gotten rid of one of the teammates he was eventually planning to kill anyways, nor did he feel sad to have lost a teammate that could have helped keep him sane and protected for a while longer.
It was as if her life or death did not matter to him at all, which made him realize just how terrifying [Monarch's Indifference] really was.
'I'm surviving this world on easy mode thanks to 'Monarch's indifference', as without that skill to keep my emotions in check, I'm sure that this world would make me feel all sorts of guilt for abandoning a teammate' Leo thought to himself, as he shrugged his shoulders and continued running behind Bob, like nothing much happened.