Chapter Text
“Go to the fucking forest, it’ll be fun. That’s me, being too nice and volunteering again. Because going to the forest by yourself always works out.”
Sly found himself forcing through the thickets surrounding the outskirts of the local Chicago boundary. A quite tall, slim build individual dressed in the local PD uniform complete with new shiny re-branded attempt to connect with the “man of the street” department logo badge – however the state of his trousers going through the nettles has rendered the item of clothing below subpar at best. Another reason to hate taking this fucking assignment.
The gun at his side only exacerbated his current mood – the assignment has sent via the department’s radio.
“Well known criminal seen in Dugdale Park, as you are the nearest officer Sly, it’s up to you whilst the backup catches up with you.”
Rather than go through the 4-star rated welcome entrance (the four star rating had only stuck because of a recent wildlife issue with a badger and his over-excited way of urinating in the reviewer’s vans) Sly had decided to cut through the thickets hence the ongoing rant in his head.
The rant was suddenly cut abruptly short by the blood curdling scream heard only meters from where Sly was standing – thoughts of nettles and rants were ignored as he sprinted off in the direction of the scream.
To his regret, upon crashing into the clearing – the woman lying before him laid dead at his feet – her blood literally curdling in a pool beneath her throat which has been slashed disgustingly deep. Despite Sly’s many years on the force – still seeing such brutality literally curdled his stomach – his professionalism alone being the reason he didn’t empty his contents of his stomach out on the forest floor.
Away from the pooling blood was a clear bloody footprint which led deeper into the park – sighing resentfully Sly followed the bloody footpaths until they reached an opening to a cave.
“Funny that” Sly thought “not seen this cave before.”
He hesitantly entered the mouth of the cave – slowly at first the light disappeared - until, as he creeped slowly further inside, darkness was all that he could see. The next logical step in this situation would be to pull out an electrical device of some description and shine a light out throughout the cave, however again, this new PD department deemed only a phone would be essential as in the torch would be fully installed within the phone – and said phone, was back in the car lost in his forgetfulness as his rant overtook him earlier.
So he was forced to use the one option he had remaining, the new shiny branded PD badge would have to do to cast some light. Suddenly, even the need for the quite dull against pure blackness badge was quelled when a bright light shone out against him from behind him, causing him to quickly shield his eyes. Once the initial blinding light had subsided to an almost normal level, he could make out a figure out in the cave – a figure with quickly alarming realization which held a pitchfork with an aura of menace in his hand.
Somehow, this man had snuck past him in the dark and was now blocking the exit out of the cave. He almost looked like he had been crying yet with the aura that somehow that this was his cave and Sly was a stranger from the outside who had invaded his home. The blood that covered his wildly bearded, tangled hair and red-eyed face, hands and clothing however only alleviated Sly’s deep fear that the pitchfork and the throat of the poor lady left in the clearing was connected. It was a hell of coincidence if not. The initial terrified look was now alarmingly being replaced with a look of pur hatred and Sly couldn’t help but feel that human throat was going to be on the menu for Captain Caveman if he didn’t make his mind up quickly in the next few seconds of what his next actions should be.
Sizing up the situation like he had his own mind palace, he weighed up his current predicament:
The pistol seemed to vibrate against his upper leg, probably a vibration of his imagination but a vibration that was now there. He could draw and shoot quickly with the rest of them, but due to the fact that the light was still quite bright – a shot in this narrow cave was rather akin to a game of Russian roulette – a stray bullet could bounce anywhere and he had vowed never to take a life, even in self-defense.
The other option would be to grab and try to wrestle the pitchfork out of the man’s hand but the unknown was in effect. He could be fighting a trained psychopath or a MMA fighter who knew every counter to every situation in hand-to-hand combat regardless of the fact he had the quite obvious advantage of having a pitchfork in his hand.
He could do a dramatic forward roll (a more visually stunning backflip was out of the option due to the 99.9% chance of cracking his head open on the quite low roof) and make a dash for the exit hoping that he wasn’t up against a world class pitchfork thrower.
He could use his (probably in his own mind) charm and sweet talk his way out of the situation – maybe the Caveman wanted to discuss modern politics or he could provide some shaving tips for the obvious situation he had going on with his facial hair.
He could counter the blinding light with the new shiny PD badge’s dull light like the stranger was Casper the friendly ghost.
“Actually Sly, that’s a pretty dumb fucking idea” he thought, quickly moving option number 5 into his mind’s recycling bin also instantly pushing back the idea to a dramatic 90 degree turn to see towards the back of his cave leaving his rear exposed and that wasn’t the way he wanted his epitaph to read. Begrudgingly, every single option has more negatives than positives.