Demon Falls - Ch. 1

"Come on, Khran! It's time to wake up!"

The young red and black furred hedgehog awoke to such a wonderful voice he felt forced to open his eyes to the real world and push himself off the comfort of his bed. It took him a moment to realize he was laying on a sleeping bag at a campfire surrounded by another three bags, two filled with his fellow companions and the other empty, its recent user nowhere to be seen. It was then Khran realized he had been dreaming again, the voice being that of his mother's. He held a hand over his head and rubbed, wishing the pain to just go away already but alas it would all be in vain.

"You look uneasy, Mercer." That only confirmed he was truly awake. No one called him by his real name in the last year. Truthfully Mercer was his middle name but no one ever knew that. He glanced upward to find a light brown furred ram overlooking him.
"You have any idea how creepy it is to wake up to that mug of yours spying on me in my sleep?" He grumbled, pulling himself out of his sleeping bag and standing to his feet, stretching.
"I've been under the impression it's been annoying you for a good while now." He grinned in return to Khran. The hedgehog didn't appreciate being looked after like an accident-prone child. He was more than capable of taking care of himself. Khran pulled on his jeans and strapped on his shoes. Staring at the other two bags, he began to wonder.
"Why don't you ever bug them?" He pondered out loud, expecting that know-it-all to present an answer in forms of charts, photographs, exhibits A and B and so on and so on. The ram looked over to their sleeping friends.
"Because one doesn't need their hand held and the other clings to each of us like a leech." A little blunt but he had to agree. Any further questions would be halted by a large yawn and a pair of cyan arms stretching into the air. While Khran was busy cleaning himself up and festering through his backpack, the ram walked over and greeted the owner of those arms.
"Morning Gomi. Sleep well?" He asked, smiling and pulling Gomi up by the arm. From the bag sat up a young female cyan two-tailed fox. She opened her mouth wide, showing off a couple fangs and yawned obnoxiously once again.
"Aaah... I'll have two of everything..." She slapped her tongue against the roof of her mouth, staring drowsily into space. Scratching behind her ear, she stared up at the ram.
"Oh, morning Garove." She greeted with a grin. She still sounded completely out of it. Garove smiled and rubbed her head, walking past. "Is Natty still asleep?"
"I believe so. Let her be if she is." Garove proceeded to warn her, knowing fully well 'Natty' didn't like her peaceful slumber to be disturbed any sooner than it should. Gomi blew raspberries and clambered out of the bag in her white shirt and black shorts. Fluffing out her tails, she spotted Khran and smiled with glee, jumping against him and wrapping him in a hug.
"Morning Merc'!" She grinned and let go. Khran sighed and smiled to Gomi, rubbing her head.
"And a good morning to you, Gomes." He enjoyed Gomi's company despite being annoying at times. But her happy-go-lucky personality almost reminded him of his little sister. Khran couldn't help but feel his heart sink a little every time he spoke to her though. For someone who just turned 15 this year to be pulled into the kind of mess they're in seemed like a really cruel joke. Then again a lot of bad things have happened to them all over the months so it didn't really come as any surprise. Still it was somehow really wrong for a kid so young to face the harshness of reality in such heavy loads. Gomi sensed his sadness and quickly pulled his lips up by the corners of his mouth to force a smile.
"That's better!" She grinned. Khran couldn't help but chuckle and pulled her hands away, smiling on his own.
"Alright alright. Why don't you get some cans out? I'll get our breakfast started."
"Gotcha!" Gomi leaped off to her backpack, shuffling around inside. The sun was shining brightly this morning, its rays of light squeezing through every possible gap in the trees and showering the four in its warm glow as their fire was fed some fresh logs to keep it burning for their breakfast. As Khran tended to the frying of whatever canned goods they had stored, Gomi grabbed a towel and hopped off.
"I'll be back in a second!" She ran off at high speed, almost in a comical fashion. Before Khran could get a word across, she was already gone. A sigh and a sag of ears later, he returned to the fry up. Garove had wandered off himself which only left him and an unconscious Natasha alone. It didn't take long for that to change though, the smell of frying bacon caught the attention of her nose and broke that trance of hers she called 'sleeping'. The black furred husky rose from her back and rubbed her eye, a large white strand of her fringe covering her other as she stood and walked over in her navy blue shirt and white panties. Not that lack of coverage ever bothered Natasha, or maybe she was just so sleepy and hungry she didn't even give it a thought. Nonetheless Khran turned away to hide the blushing.
"Hey Mercer, food ready?" She spoke in that thick foreign accent of hers. Despite the fact she wasn't of the same continent as he, her vocabulary was astounding considering she was just about the same age as he. What could be considered Mobius' equivalent to Earth's Russian, her language wasn't that much different from it. She sat by the fire and took a whiff of the aroma emitting from the fry-up. A smile grew on her face and a gurgle beat against her stomach.
"Not really, I only just started." He pulled his head back around and fought off the dirty thoughts plaguing his head. Nat grumbled along with her belly and scurried over to her bag, pulling out a fresh pair of purple jeans and yanking them on. "Any idea what the plan is today?"
"Beats me, Garove's the one with the map." She clipped on her boots and sat up, letting out a sigh and shoving her sleeping bag into her backpack. Khran frowned and leaned back, eyes drifting out of focus as the area blurred in his vision, his mind lost in thought. He tried to think back to how all this began, how all his efforts had led to this.