SAVE US NOW [P]

Border patrols were not always the most entertaining ways of spending time. Despite this, they seemed to be a useful way of passing the hours. Valeria, however, was not needed on any of the patrols for another few days, which she was silently thankful for. Instead to pass the time she took it upon herself to put on her cardigan and wander off into the wilderness. Last time she had tried something like that she had been attacked by a Carna and ended up in Fallen territory. Whilst she had no wish to repeat that event, she did wish to explore more of the strange dome that they were trapped under. If it was to be her home until the day her heart stopped, it was only natural for her to want to discover more about the place. She’d always been interested in that kind of thing. Why put aside all of her old hobbies simply because she’d been stuck in a real life experiment?

The morning had completely disappeared by the time she had passed the Carna and Fulsi borders, and instead found herself in a new area of the Menagerie. Val vaguely remembered passing that area when she had been running towards Fallen, and she knew that nearby there were places which had been overtaken by the Fulsi. That Ring was always looking for more land, anything to further their own success. They were power hungry, led by a powerful female. All these things she had been told by the man who had saved her on her very first day in the glass structure. He had taken her to Nakoma and told her about the Legend of the Fallen Beast. The twenty-two year old had dreamt of adventure when she was a child. From that very first day she began to regret that wish.

Valeria had just found a path that cut through the dense trees when she began to stumble. All of a sudden the world blurred around her, the green forming one thick mass of confusion. The anthropomorph stopped in her tracks, blinking over and over again as she tried to force her eyes to work again. “Der’mo,” she cursed, giving up and simply closing her eyes. Staying still, she let her feet feel the earth below her, feeling for any signs of movement. She sensed a smaller creature nearby, a little further behind her, before it disappeared. Must have been a bird, she thought to herself, her ears swivelling atop her head, listening to the wind.

Shaking her head, Valeria began to move slowly forward, using the movement of the wind through the trees to guide herself along the path. The gravel soon gave way to grass and Valeria began to recognise the texture of everything around her. Opening her eyes, she saw a few more shapes, trees and a large building in front of her. From what she could tell, it was a white building, sort of like one of the churches she used to go to in Russia. Unfortunately, her eyes once again began to fail, this time completely and Valeria found herself stuck. She couldn’t recall seeing the front doors from that side of the church, and instead concluded the entrance was further around.

The anthro started walking forwards, trying not to run into anything, her abilities not being a large amount of help. She couldn’t feel vibrations of a building underneath her, and so she couldn’t quite determine how close she was to it. A sound came to her ears and Valeria froze. Was it rustling? It was coming from behind her. Valeria pulled her cardigan sleeves down, completely covering her right arm and hand from view, clenching her left hand into a fist at her side. Without her sight, her best bet was false confidence, trying to trick whoever was approaching into believing she was perfectly fine. The vibrations moved through the ground as she felt the growing presence nearer to her.

“Stay back. I don’t want to hurt you but – but I will if I have to.” Valeria’s thick Russian accent coated the words with a more domineering tone. She tried her best to disguise the shaking of her voice, but it cracked over one or two of the words. Sokhranyat' spokoystviye.

Translations [from google translate so don't shoot if they're wrong]:
Der'mo = shit
Sokhranyat' spokoystviye = stay calm