#warp arrow

★★★

Anyone who's ever dealt with mice knows what unique sense of violation they bring, whatever surface they cross becomes tainted, what items they gnaw upon corrupted, and their sordid scurrying, scratching and squeaking from dusk to the early hours of dawn deprives the listener of sleep.

It's not mice, but for the first time in my life, I wish it were, over whatever it is that creeps just out of sight.

I feel I'm being followed, worse, watched, and what for I can't fathom, but it scares me to think that something outside the realm of perception stalks me.

It's too early to tell what the motive may be, but I always know they're there, as invisible as they are, every time, without fail, I feel my skin crawl, my breathing pick up with my heart, fluttering like a startled songbird as I cast my eyes across my surroundings, searching for any sign, any source of my inexplicable adrenaline rush.

And there... A shadow stands out among the others...

A tree sways without wind...

Something leaves tracks in the slush and mud...

I know it's not paranoia, with tangible evidence such as that to prove the sudden surges of fear hold merit, and from the very far reaches of my mind, a voice whispers to me...

... Something is stalking me...

My blood rushes like a stag spooked by the sound of a twig snapping, tempting me evermore to give into this potent primal drive, painting what remains yet unseen, as a threat no different from a panther prowling along the gravel paths, it's patience ever thinning for the final pounce.

★★★

★★★

I awake from a restless sleep by the sudden suspicion that some boundary has been violated, without any sound or sign of something ever broken, regardless I remain still, awake with my eyes shut, and strain my ears...

... There's a breath, barely perceptible, but with lucidity becoming ever more vivid, I still my own, and listen...

... Beyond the borders of my body, the backdrop of silence is broken by the muffled breaths of many...

... They move with forced subtlety, speak in hushed voices, micromanaged ransacking, all in an effort to smother their noise level down to a tolerable volume.

I know it's not me they're searching for...

... Because one breath stands out, louder than the others...

... Closer...

... Close enough to hear it's respiration in painful detail, to differentiate between its inhaling, and exhaling, it's lapses and pauses...

... They must be the culprit for my waking, for they make no effort to muffle themselves as they creep ever closer, my senses tensed, fine tuned down to the point I can hear the carpet rustling beneath their footfalls...

... I need no rough estimate to know it stands just over me from where I lay, eyes squeezed shut, yet I feel as if I'm a fawn in the down, locking eyes with a dog, teeth bared, it's rotten breath tickling the hairs of my neck before it's jaws close upon it, and shake and shake and shake until it snaps...

... The mental image has my heart hammering ever harder. I struggle to suppress the trembling threatening to overtake my body, as much as I do trying to keep my breathing measured and even, to maintain the illusion of unconsciousness to what looms over me, it's interest incessant to such a point, it moves ever closer...

... A sonorous creak sounds as it leans it's weight upon the bed-frame, I bite my lip, suppressing a squeak as sweat rolls down my body, the hair on my body standing on end, a shudder rolling down my spine as a new tension overtakes the room...

... The other figures are forgotten for the moment that this one remains leaning, it's breath upon my skin, sniffing...

...My heart is beating with such violence that my ribs feel raw and sore, throbbing as much as my muscles coiled into knots tight as the ones twisting within my stomach, spine tingling with every trembling breath I fight to force from my lungs as much as I fight not to flinch from the one brushing against my exposed skin, my jacket which served as my blanket, slipped at some point during sleep, exposing me to the elements, and to the eyes of this creature, as it moves again, the bed-frame rocking, a metallic whine to match the one caught within my throat as it moves, it seems to tense and pause, if only for a moment, before I feel something brush and briefly touch the hairs of my neck raised by goosebumps in the throes of fear, then, swiftly it retracts it's reach.

“ᔑᒲ'||ᑑᒷ! ∴⊣ᓭᔑ ᒷ⍑ꖎ ||⚍ʖ⨅ ∴ꖌᒷ  ̇/⊣ʖ 𝙹𝙹!¡⊣⊣?! ⎓ℸ ̣ !¡ ℸ ̣ ∴⨅ᑑ ᒲᓵ𝙹ℸ ̣  ʖℸ ̣ !”

I nearly scream, it took every ounce of my being not to, but in the effort to suppress my cries down to a dull mewl, I most definitely, noticeably, flinched, my body so long braced for some action to take at a sudden short notice, the voice was like a starting pistol to a race.

What was so close, stumbles back, if not the voice, my sudden movement must have startled it, something clatters, not far from me there's a sharp hiss, and slowly something sounds like it's detangling itself from something else, something metallic, a whimper and more harsh words barely contained within the tone of a whisper, before the balcony doors hiss open, and several footfalls pass beyond the threshold.

I remain still, committed to playing the role of a sleeper, better yet a corpse if it would compel these creatures to leave and never return, gradually the adrenaline trickles dry, the soundtrack of my frantic heartbeats replaced by a ringing in my ears as my breathing begins to stutter and lag into restlessness once again, braced on the edge of action, not quite ready to be released from this rush just yet.

I listen above this orchestra of terror for another noise, for anything more to tell me not to break the act and open my eyes, but beyond a gust of wind, rattling the fences and compelling the trees to whisper seeds of doubt, sowing my mind deeper into disorder.

Despite the fear threatening to drown the logic I so struggle to cling to, there remains no other sound, none that I can't confidently listen to, and place their origins upon logical sources.

Like ripping a Band-Aid off, or removing a tick, the effort it takes to actually open my eyes proves taxing, steeling myself, I open them, met with the same darkness I saw when they were closed, till I reinforce my nerves, and slowly lift my head and glance over my shoulder, my heart jumping at the perceived expectation to see something still standing over me.

Instead, the red glow of the clock upon the nightstand startles me, to such a severe degree I feel compelled to curl up and resume my act again, my head spins with the effort at brushing aside this sudden inexplicable terror for something so simple, so mundane, I almost feel frustration mixing with fear, this cocktail of emotions proving toxic as my gut churns, a fuzziness permeates the tongue, numbing at the growing threat of throwing up.

With shaking hands, I retrieve my glow-stick from my coat pocket, and hold it out into the dark, my sides heaving with every breath, the early morning light offering little to nothing in terms of visibility.

The cold pale blue heralding the rising sun deepens it's hold over the site, filtering in from the windows, it's dim indifference lends no kindness to the fearful mind like mine, every shadow unseen is another monster, every corner unnoticed now leaps out, primed for attack as I brace myself upon the edge of the bed, watching, waiting for maybe a few minutes more, for something to happen, for my nerves to settle.

My eyes flick to the bedside clock, fixing upon its surface till the digits written in blood upon its face lose meaning against this tide of terror that comes and goes with every noise made beyond the walls of the base...

... The walls were supposed to keep me safe...

... It's guilty of something, the culprit of this terror, the longer I stare, the more this ire festers like maggots in an open wound....

... The base... They got into the base...

... I wince gagging as the infernal digits upon the clock-face shift and change, easy to miss unless you really watch it happen, like clouds on a windy day, look away and it's suddenly gone, off into the brink of the horizon, or part of something larger and far more imposing...

... They got into the base without me noticing... They open doors...

I tear my eyes away from the clock, my bare feet meeting the ground, my weight following, then lagging, I'm stumbling, every step unstable. I feel as if I'm walking on legs left without circulation for one minute too many, numb beyond that weightless fuzzy sensation, and the crippling tension shocking my sinew with a stranglehold at every contact made with a solid surface.

I can barely register my own breathing beyond the heaving gasps I choke out of my violently trembling body, stumbling onto the cold tile, the sensation shocking some reality back into my systems as I stagger into the bathroom, slamming the nearest stall door open and throwing up.

A whimper graces the edge of my dry heaving, slumping back, against the stall, I catch my breath, the world around me suddenly seems a lot more hostile, I'm drowning in a terror I can't bring myself to reason with.

★★★

★★★

They're not mice, but I feel compelled to lay some trap as if they were, hoping that it may dissuade them from harming me.

A strong conviction that harm will come from whatever lurks beyond the beam of my flashlight, what casts a shadow without an origin, what remains hidden without cause, a conviction that refuses to release me no matter what logic I raise to banish it, it remains, as stubborn as my growing paranoia.

My nerves are raw like I have suffered in some way. Not the same that makes the scars scream as they did when they were made, and certainly not the same way my cells become sordid and hateful listening to that certain signal...

There's no prior experience to liken this tension to, like looking for a file, and coming up empty, it was never renamed nor moved, it just never existed, but the mind insists upon some frame of reference to draw from.

I've faced my fears before; I'll do it again.

I don't know what they are, not yet, but I know they like shrimp. There's no other explanation for the pack picked clean from the freezer, unless I ate it and somehow memory holed the entire process of actually cooking and consuming an entire pack of shrimp, which, I strongly doubt.

Descending from Foxtrot, I slip down back onto the gravel path, past the lone lamp surrounded by fence and flowers of crimson hues, bathed in the sun rays unobstructed by clouds, despite the windy weather and up into the narrowing valley.

The voice of the wind becomes much more concentrated, confined just as I am against the steep walls on either side of me, the sun becoming a whispering shadow beneath trees subtly tousled by the gusts.

Ascending into the woods, I pause at the edge, ahead I can see the generator building, and further on, at the edge where the woods resume, I see smoke.

I feel my skin crawl, my gut churning, it's an uphill battle swallowing my fear, force feeding myself the courage I can conjure in name only as I pass the threshold, from shadow, into sunlight, away from the woods, out into the open, my eyes trained upon the source of the smoke, flicking now and again to the generator building, and the large log not far from it, both offering cover should I need it, but not so much in terms of absolute safety...

I pause only to remove the pack of shrimp I brought from my backpack, before steeling myself, and pressing on.

The nearer I draw to the origin, the more my body trembles and shudders, hair rising, some sick feeling taking over, a similar sensation to the one I felt finding that picnic, only much, much worse.

Now made that much more intense when I stutter and stop, my feet static as stone from where I stand and behold the same craft I did before, the very same present at the picnic, long, thin, white, at first glance they resemble paper airplanes.

I feel like the breath has been knocked from my body, I stumble, the ground seeming unstable, my head fuzzy I catch my body in the act of moving on its own, on instinct, an instinct I've never encountered before, but I struggle to suppress it all the same.

I have to look away, otherwise I can't move, well, I can, but I move in the opposite direction, and it's driving me crazy, this new and alien instinct, as strong as it is unfamiliar, even so, I still find the strength and resolve to continue, keeping my eyes to the ground, or cast upon the surrounding landscape, anywhere but directly at the shapes floating mere feet off the ground, though now and again I sneak glances, as if ensuring I'm still walking in the right direction, despite how much my mind and body protest against moving any more than away from here.

Every peek made upon the alien craft, it's like a jump-scare, my heart leaping, my nerves tense, my resolve ever thinning, till I'm mere feet away, and the composure is becoming ever the more taxing to keep up, my mind restless, body stuck, every step like wading through tar as I brute force my way past the strange alien craft, squeezing my eyes shut, a shudder crossing my body before I open my eyes, both craft behind me, and it's now I behold the source of the smoke...

A fire, a campfire it looks to be, some apparatus, similar to a cooking spit, erected over it, the embers beneath still smoulder, something softly simmering and bubbling within the container positioned above.

Looking to my right, I see what I assume to be furniture upon the grass, and heaps of lumber not far, but what stands out the most, affixed to the trunk of a tree, thicker than the rest, a wooden platform, with a ramp, going from it to the ground.

Casting a glance over my shoulder, I approach the wooden platform, circling it, and come upon a box pushed up against the tree trunk, under the platform.

It may be a container, but with the extraterrestrial nature, I'm only inferring based off my own, human, bias.

I stare at the box for a moment more, the call of a songbird somewhere startling me, before I resolve to satisfy my curiosity now rather than later, when I risk getting caught red handed.

Tucking the shrimp under my arm, I kneel down, and crawl beneath the platform. My hand trembles reaching for what I assume to be the lid of the box when, suddenly, I feel a cold sweat and shudder down my spine, the very same when they're there, and sure enough, something rustles, leaves and mud crunch and shift under the foot of something closing in quickly, then abruptly stopping, a shadow just at the edge of my peripheral vision, darker than the rest cast by the trees.

I'm scared to look as much as I am to move, it's not until I hear a deep, sharp hiss that I'm startled out of tharn and into scrambling out from under the platform, banging my head in the process before I manage to clear it, my hands and knees caked in mud and grass stains as I resist the compulsion to tear through the woods, despite every cell, every nerve in my body screaming for me to turn and run, I stay put, firmly planting my feet on the ground, the shrimp pack in my grasp, I turn around, expecting to see nothing...

And I see something...

Something dark, towering over me, I can't tell where it's eyes are, and it terrifies me, trembling, stumbling backwards till I trip on some unseen dip in the terrain, falling backwards with a yelp, the thing far more imposing, looming over me, my sides heaving, the edges of my eyes blurring and blackening, narrowing down to a fine point, but ineffective at focusing, like the aberration of Hubble, my fingers curl, the snap of styrofoam breaking the spell, if only briefly, to recall my offering.

My eyes flick down to the shrimp, still pristine and neatly packed in perfect rows, despite the vice grip I've assumed over the package. The wind has stopped, the silence ever so deafening against the blood roaring in my ears until I hear the thing move, looking up to see it standing over me, limbs braced upon limbs, looking down.

With trembling hands, I thrust them forward, out-stretching my arms as far from my body as I feasibly can, it stares, I think that's what it's doing, then it takes, plucking the package from my hands, it holds it with it's own, five fingered like mine.

The breeze resumes, but with it, it brings a scent that shatters my composure, like smelling gas and smoke, it sets off so many red flags I feel dazed until something stirs next to me, a new shadow, downwind, with a scream, my nerve snaps.

★★★

★★★

Through gaps in the glass I see the smouldering remains of a shuttle, the beast bellows and bleats in the throes of pain, tar of La Brea seeping from its gaping wounds.

From where I stand I see the pad and payload built upon the twisted remains of tusks and tooth, black and white, but like the most of the mirror, it's a pressing grey tone, humming and howling with the rest of what restlessly roils away under the cascading carnage.

Further down another heart beats other than my own.

A slit in the sky, stars pouring in sonorous wailing, scathing earth from frigid dunes, rendered into rolling magma from sky to surface, scalding heat, pelting upon me, the haze hot and suffocating, thin and then it was over when thunder rolled, without wind, not until another decade and then some underneath the sands of slow abyss.

The eye is not mine.

Unspoken oxygen at the edge of light.

I risk walking backwards, into the grand-master of perception. Already cornered without reprieve, reliving their first look at their behest, playback without feedback.

Lining the trees and audience watches me, bearing burning light.

Many missed, many more missing. Only their absence is minor on paper, major in scale, mild in action.

They bare their song, but nothing before can listen, only now, for the singularity in solidarity confinement.

Other than that, the headmaster of hide and seek remains away and awake.

And a new apathy assumes another identity, like dogs, hares bay, hackles raised, but ignored to be brushed off another day, another life, another sleepless night...

Iris in the down whispers hexes upon the instrument of sparks and smoke, tearing strings into strands to rewrite them, play them into another song altogether in some sick fantasy of restoring their sanity...

Buds lost, scattered to the wind, before they were ever tangible, but the burden as heavy as the lost lifetime...

Charcoal white, frigid ashfall, roads of parallel iron beneath golden light, to leap from a window without a moon, and away from the looming corpse, off into copse lightyears away under the close call, dial tone lining dormant fields...

Sew the seeds of the stars, dissect then into their strings, sort them based upon the way they sing, and if they don't, they're not real stars, only ghosts against the tides of time.

Nine strains, seven years spent withering away in tears and long days of dust among dreamers

The world sways and I move with it, if I stop breathing, so does the world, and everything with it, on pause, indefinite hiatus until it's over and over and over again.

I saw this song and dance before, broke it, by halting the beat of the heart, hurt so much it compels me to come back and break it again.

But I can't always be the one to break my own heart...

Foothills fracturing, a rolling roar, rumbles and rushes through the roiling green extremes, amidst mythic hues of blue and bone, born from the best, but this one roars, roars different to the roads that may give it pause on its relentless path, and so it becomes water, water like no other.

Another river, this one much more mild, fell from the sky, not from a slip of the hand of Cetus, but of wyrm colliding with the Earth, coiled and composed despite donning maroon and sanguine across shattered scales.

Wherever I see it still, demanding another definition, the depth ever drying up between us as I ever progressively decay in it's dilation, what delay there was now dull and dead against the backdrop of noise drowning the world with me, till I'm dragged under, a new light among the dark, beckoning me to sink deeper, to embrace this new noise, understand it when it takes what it takes, whatever it takes...

No display to make, no description to speak, no dreams to decrypt under this distressing drive. Not until it's decorated under the divine definition.

★★★

★★★

Manifest metabolization, reverse the mirror of reality, without center.

Make sense of the world by catching it in a net, the net of spacetime, make sense of the world by imposing order upon the wiggles well I see no order in it at all, entropy is beautiful, I move and reality wiggles around me, the lines and creases fold and collapse.

Blades of grass blank and beautiful beneath my fingertips, brushing because beyond that it burns, but not too much that it hurts, like curling up close to a radiator, there's a star inside of there, but I don't dare look for fear of disturbing it.

And like real life it's all a matter of scale, a feedback loop of fluid experience, existence is a liquid and I am an ocean, I see it from a greater scale, petting...

Petting...

Petting...

Something is petting me...

I'm suddenly aware I breathe, my sides rising and falling like tides, I suck in another, and quake, a tsunami spilling out of me with a wistful sigh, slow suffocating stream of consciousness seeping from a gaping place of noise.

The dark looms overhead, it overheard, listens and whispers in words I don't find, only feel, shudders and shivers down the Alps in fracturing strips of faults.

From beneath digits undiscovered, threading through coils and lanes untethered till the dusk demands the gaslight anthem.

And petting, on scale, what scale other than what speaks to me beyond the screen, strong and stressed.

Still the streets, still them!

I still no more... Staring, rolling the stalker's game, unblinking beneath listless faces, restless and swift.

★★★

Written in collaboration with Feral Changeling

Part two

Part three

Part four

★★★

I'm not used to having company, not that I mind, as much as my nerves may protest, that primal instinct nagging from the back of my mind, I do my best to ignore it as I engage in idle chatter with An'Jul, on our way up and over the mountain to Romeo.

Upon cresting the hill and crossing into the mysterious hole site, An'Jul pauses.

"Whut this plaec Kel?"

I shrug, looking around with her. "Not sure." She cocks her head, I continue. "To be honest, I've neglected exploring this site beyond a cursory glance."

"Huh?"

I simplify my sentence. "I haven't explored this place in depth."

She seems to understand, asking... "Why naht?"

Continuing onto the path and away from anomalous area, I respond. "I was waiting for the snow to melt, that, and... I kinda have a lot on my plate."

"But yuu'r naht carrying a plaet."

I smile. "It's an expression." Her brow furrows, confusion deepening, I fumble, trying to explain. "An expression is like... it's not literal, it's just another way of saying something."

Her eyes follow a grasshopper leaping out of the path and into the grass. "I dun't unnersand..."

I sigh, rubbing the back of my neck. "I-I'm not sure how to explain it... I wasn't- it's not a literal plate I was referring to, what I was saying, is that I have a lot of tasks taking up my time."

She looks back at me as we continue our descent down the mountain, into the valley. "Tuu manni tu exlore?"

I nod, there's a beat of silence before she speaks again. "Haash cobes a task?"

"Yeah." Reaching Romeo, I pause and turn to her. "Wait here."

She nods and I head inside, it only takes a couple seconds to insert the floppy disk into the server, execute the commands on the console and begin the exporting process.

Upon emerging, I spot her crouched close to the ground, sifting through the gravel, the sun making her white fur stick out like a beacon as I descend the metal staircases, my footfalls creating a cacophony of metallic pulsing percussion, echoing across the valley. Reaching the bottom, she's waiting for me at the foot of the steps, some small stone clutched in her hands.

She holds it out to me. "Kel! Look!"

I regard the stone, it's small and white, with some mild flecks peppering the surface, could be dirt or part of the stone itself, what stands out is how it glitters and shines under the sun.

"Ah, you found a piece of quartz."

She sounds out the new word. "Coo-Wurtz... Qwurtz..."

"Yeah, it's pretty common, but it looks neat, yeah?"

"Jya!" She nods, pocketing the quartz within her jumpsuit, following after me with a bounce in her step.

I briefly swing by the generator, restoring it's stability, it's something I've turned into a habit whenever I'm nearby one of them. Like all the other buildings, I tell An'Jul to wait outside, in this case, specifically outside the perimeter, as there's heaps of trash littering the ground inside and outside the building.

While the generator is more or less fine, I'd rather do the extra work of resetting it now, than risk a blackout when conditions such as time and weather are not so ideal for the endeavour. An'Jul remains outside, in relative safety of avoiding stepping on something sharp or hazardous.

Against the steady hum of the generator, some noises from outside the heavy mask of white noise slip through, the sounds of An'Jul sifting through the gravel again reaches me and I can't help but smile.

With some caution I tiptoe from one clear surface to the next, weaving through the mounds of waste, wary that one wrong step could very well land me with some rusty nail through my foot. I shudder at the thought, ducking beneath the decrepit wooded boards nailed across the doorway, the warmth of the sun on my face greeting me as swiftly as An'Jul does before I've even finished brushing myself off, showing me the new rocks she collected.

"Whut thees called?"

I shrug. "I don't know." She cocks her head, I elaborate. "Best guess is it may be granite, but I'm not an expert, a geologist would know more than me."

"Graamit... Geeolist...?"

I repeat, slower. "Gee-all-oh-gist..."

"J-Jeeoljest...?"

"Yeah, they're people who study rocks and the minerals."

"Meeniralls?"

"Yeah, they're like rocks, but... Different."

She pockets her rocks, following me down the path. "Deffrent how?"

I shake my head. "I don't know. I'm sorry."

She smiles. "Iz otay, Kel iz vaery smaert."

I glance away sheepishly. "Well, I'm not so sure why you think so, since I can't exactly explain or answer a majority of what you ask..."

"Kel knoe thae dun't knoe, Kel admets that, that's smaert."

I feel my heart flutter, glancing back at her, I fidget by curling a lock of hair around my finger. She's not wrong, but it doesn't make me blush any less from the compliment, especially when it comes from an extraterrestrial.

Reaching the foot of the hill, I mull over bringing up the topic of astronomy, something I'm far more capable of discussing, though, given her origins, maybe it'd be a little mundane...

To be fair, she did tell me what her profession was, but refused to elaborate further beyond simply saying she practices medicine. As difficult as this job has presented itself to be, I still feel some shreds of pride for it, my passion for astronomy still alive and well within me.

Crossing the valley, I'm just about to break the silence, when she beats me to the punch by stopping, and staring off to her left.

She doesn't actually say anything, but the pause, and that look on her face... It certainly speaks volumes, something painful written across her features, from the way her eyes fixate so wistfully into the grasses lining the valley, rippling with the wind like water on the tide, to the way she's stilled, from the tip of her ears to her tail, all her energy and attention commanded to focus upon some fixated point far off from us.

Swallowing my fear, I side up to her, following her line of sight, knowing she may very well see something I can't, with height to her advantage.

Finally, she speaks. "K-Kel..."

My name upon her lips startles me, worse now than it ever did, I'm suddenly aware of my own one sided suspense, and quickly scramble to suppress it, before I respond.

"Yeah...?"

She hesitates, her eyes flicking from the ground, to my face, and back to the far valley a few times. "I-I knoe t-tasks taek tiem, b-but..." She pauses, raising her hand to point in the direction she's so fixated upon. "C-Can we go thaer, f-fur a b-bit...?"

I blink, following her hand, where she points, some restless feeling of suspicion running circles within the confines of my mind, I still it and nod.

"Sure."

★★★

The breeze was subdued and soft as it gently tossed grass and flowers to and fro, locks of hair brushing against my face warmed by the sun unobscured by the clear skies above, not a single bird to sing a bittersweet note as we both walk the length of the of the valley, till An'Jul at last comes to a halt, her eyes downcast to a picnic blanket left upon the grass, the very same I've seen before.

While not pristine, it hasn't yet suffered the weathering of exposure to the elements. Only wrinkled by wind, wet from rainy weather, with the dirt, dust and loose foliage scattered across its surface.

And An'Jul only stands and stares at it, standing beside her I sneak a glance at her, that same solemn look, now deepened, before she sighs, kneeling down, and with a trembling hand, lays her palm upon the surface, her whiskers twitch.

The atmosphere is one of suffocating sorrow, wallowing within the silence feels like an obligation, but a bittersweet one when the suffering is tangible, but isolated.

"... An'Jul?"

Her ears twitch, she takes a long breath. "Pecknik blamkit..."

I shudder recalling the picnic I stumbled across last month, it feels so long ago now, I want to ask her about it, but I'm not sure how to, offput by the potential of coming across as insensitive.

She speaks before I can come up with some means to ask about the blanket.

"Feel sad..."

My heart sinks in my chest like a stone, I crouch down next to her. "Why?"

She sighs, her breath shaking. "Had pecknik here..." She takes her eyes from the blanket, to the sky, her fingers curling into the checkered fabric. "Weth Ox'Seko..."

There's a lapse of silence, I leap at my chance. "Uhm, s-so... Th-That was you t-two...?"

Her lips quirk into a sad smile, casting her eyes back to the blanket. "Jya... Ox'Sexo dudn't espekt Kel tu be buld enaaf to be su close beafur craydl respuns kecked un."

I furrow my brow, cocking my head. "Cradle response? What's that?"

She looks at me, I almost flinch, she points to the bruise I left on her from this morning. "The fear."

"That has a name?"

She nods, I feel like I have more questions, but I can't conjure them because I'm still reeling from this new information.

An'Jul fidgets with a corner of the blanket. "Miss thems..." She sighs, closing her eyes. "Miss Ox'Seko..."

Without thinking, I reach out and place my hand on her arm, her eyes flick open, I almost pull away, this... 'Cradle instinct' nearly overpowering the empathy driving me to curl my fingers, softly squeezing her arm despite the painful primal pang of my hammering heart howling for me to pull my hand away, for the moment it's all overshadowed by a deeper, far more defined instinct, defying this fear in favor of offering comfort.

The very backbone of my species, our complex social nature transcends our own kind and onto other species, compassion bleeds into caring for other creatures, from the simple pet to group dedication to conservation... But never would I have expected human empathy to be able to cross the boundary of biospheres...

Doubt sets in, the fear creeps back, for once, I felt what it was like for it to be silent, to be unafraid, and now that I've had a taste, I'm hooked, chasing it.

Beholding the tears streaming down An'Jul's face, I find the willpower to banish the instinct to the back of my mind, the strong compulsion to comfort, the very nature to nurture social bonds, regardless of circumstance or species, ultimately takes priority over feeling afraid.

My heart hammers, moving my hand from her arm to her shoulder, she's quivering and the rest of my fear melts away from my body, my mind and my voice. Against my expectations, my tone remains intact, without a trace of trembling, steady, still, softened...

"I... I know it's not much, An'Jul, but... I also have people in my life that I miss..." I look from the blanket, to her face. "People I also love..."

She wipes her eyes with her sleeve, nodding. "K-Kel haev freands...?"

I smile softly, rubbing her back, trying to console her. "Yeah, Ena and Max."

An'Jul regards me with her saffron eyes, it feels as though a fog has been lifted, and I can see her as she is, unbiased by instinct, there's intelligence in those eyes, thoughts racing behind them as much as my heart is racing in my chest, not from fear now, but from curiosity.

I can see myself reflecting back in her eyes and I wonder if she can see herself in mine, I wonder if she is thinking the same things I am... That I'm locking eyes with someone other than my own kind, a creature just as complex as I am, both with our own broad spectrum of experiences, and I can't help but wonder, what compares and contrasts to the eclectic symphony of our lives...?

My bumbling musings are cut short by An'Jul breaking eye contact to look back at the blanket, her finger curling around a loose strand of thread separating from the rest.

"Ox'Seko furgot the blamkit." She continues, her ears pinning back. "Want'd tu taek weth me, but wuld't."

"Why not?"

She tries brushing some dirt off the blanket, it smears, her whiskers twitch, brow furrowing. "Wus afraed sisser wuld git red uf it..."

"Hen'El?"

She looks at me without turning her head, and nods, before looking back to the blanket, her eyes flicking across its surface, as if in thought, before speaking again.

"Kel can haev it?"

I blink. "Wh-What? Me??"

She's already rolling up the blanket, her ears pin back when some bugs and one or two worms, hidden beneath, scramble away from the sudden onset of light.

"Jya, just... A-At leest untell Ox'Seko comes back."

Standing up, she tries to to shake any loose dirt and debris off of it.

I also stand up. "Do you know when they'll come back?"

She shakes her head with a sigh, clumsily folding the blanket. "Naht reely, no... Thae saed thae'd see me as soon as it was saef tu do su."

I furrow my brow. "It's not safe? What's not safe?"

She smiles as she hands me the blanket, I cringe feeling how heavy it is from water weight, already seeping into my sleeves, cold.

"No, no, Kel iz saef, jus us naht safe."

I cock my head, concern blooming in the back of my mind. "Why not?"

She strides past me. "Dun't wunt tu talk bout it..."

I try to protest, but think better of it, shaking my head with a sigh, I side up to her as we walk back to the path, casting glances now and again to her, the blanket, and the sky.

★★★

★★★

Written in collaboration with Feral Changeling

Part one

Part two

Part three

PRECEDING

J7 P1 (Restless Hallways)

THE OFFENDING PAGE

J7 P2 (Forbidden Friendship 1/4)

THE FOLLOWING PAGE

J7 P2 (Forbidden Friendship 1/4)