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Part 8
The street was dirty and covered in grit, the smell of oil tough against her nose. It wouldn't have mattered if she was blind or not, her eyes were squeezed shut tightly. Her knees curled up around her middle, she wouldn't let her hands go free, not in this world. Not to these creatures, these CREATURES advancing on her, hands dirty and sweaty and stinking through the fumes of the ground, trying to uncurl her. She would have screamed...but animals do not scream.
Ultimately she wondered if this was to be the fate of all who disrupted humanity. Was this it, was this her punishment? For destroying so many of them without a thought, they would return the same thing unto her? Inside her mind it was all cold, cool and logical. There was no problem, in her mind, with the way they were reacting. But something else, something on the outside was twinging in fear and hatrid. Violation, destruction, pain...She wanted somewhere through her being for someone to come and free her from the gripping wandering hands that moved like slime covered amoebas across her skin. She would have bit them, could she twist that far. The best she could do with her hands curled between her knees and doubled like a shrimp was growl...and hate.
One hand wandered lower against her skin and she snarled aloud, twisting and snapping her jaws down tight on it. The Human who had touched her screamed but she dug her teeth in tightly and began to roll, her body slamming against his knees. Agile and muscled, Aslilin twisted the man clean off his feet by only his hand. The sound of a body hitting the rough ground echoed through the air- like someone had just thrown a sack of wet dough against a brick wall. SMACK. Aslilin's teeth were still clamped shut, her hands folded against her chest like a mummified pharoh. Hands grabbed her face and ripped her back, she could feel her teeth dragging skin with her. Shouting, stinking of fear, pulling...suddenly she was torn off and back against the pavement.
"HOLY FUCK! You fucking bitch!"
"Jesus H. Christ man did she really do that to you?"
"NO you dumbfuck it was a tiger, yes it was her! Bitch fucking bit me!"
Someone hit her as she was trying to sit up without the aid of her hands and she was knocked off balance, slammed backwards, her head hitting the pavement hard. The world went fuzzy on impact and her thoughts jolted to the side. Two huge hands clamped down on her arms, her muscles not responding. They were forced away from her chest, pinned hard against the ground. The stink of human was close and in her face. The male's voice hissed in her ear and she felt the opressive weight of another being. A growl snarled out of her throat and she tried to twist away, but she was too small and he was too heavy. Clenching her fists tight, she would not allow her destructive potential to be released. "We'll just have to get her back for that, won't we?"
Aslilin felt the hate hissing up inside of her but this time she couldn't move to get a hold on this one with her teeth, to slam him to the ground. She tried to curl her feet to her chest to kick but one of the others saw her moving and grabbed her legs, pulling them out straight. The jeering laughter of the Humans was in her ears...Nothing else was in her mind.
TA BAHATA! Aslilin's senses jolted back to their former power as the sound and scent of her sibling reached her. She flicked her blind eyes up to the direction of the human and grinned demonicly. For a moment he still laughed, then he was silent, staring at the pupilless swirling green, transfixed as if by a serpent.
"You will regret," She said simply, her features unchanging.
Before the human could open his fetid mouth to reply, an animal roar filled the air as he was forcefully knocked away from her. Aslilin rolled and came up on all fours, her shoulders arched upwards like a tent. Dark Brother's scent was all around her, and the humans were screaming now.
"Holy SHIT! Call the zoo or something, there's a panther out here!"
I am a HUMAN! Her Ta Bahata's voice filled their minds, ferocious and angry. Aslilin could hear now, no one moved. They were frozen in fear. Sniffing the air quietly, she knew where they were too. Backed away as a bunch, hiding behind one another in front of Dark Brother. She felt the soft swish of air on her face as her Ta Bahata swished his tail dangerously, glaring them down. But you...
She could smell their fear, and her Ta Bahata's power. Standing, Aslilin held her hands at her sides, clenched into tight fists. Her voice was emotionless and mechanical, her unseeing eyes staring straight at the Humans. "They attempted to forciably mate with me. Such actions are not Human, then?"
Dark Brother's smooth tail flicked about, the hairs brushing against her pale legs. Yes, Ta Bahata. The worst kind of animal behavior...
"Then I may hunt them."
NO!
It was too late as Aslilin raced forward with animal speed, hands up and fingers spread apart. Patterpatterpatterpatter her feet hit the pavement so quickly it was hard to tell if she would ever slow. Leaping, following the warmth and air currents and scents, she landed against one of the Human's heads, knocking him to the ground. Touching his face with her fingers, he began to gurgle and shake. She stepped off quickly and turned her attention to the others. Dark Brother pleeded but she did not hear them. One lunged at her but she sidestepped easily, feeling him comeing through vibrations in the ground and the rush of air. With a tap at the speed of a snakebite, he was down twisting in pain as well. The others stood together quivering, she could smell them easily. Aslilin turned to face them.
"That which is not Human must be destroyed...Human is not appearance."
A voice behind her caused her to flick her ears and turn on her heels. The smell was obvious, Rune. Dark Brother ran forward to Rune and attempted to explain, but the frail Human would not have it. Aslilin could feel him coming closer as the air changed, and his scent of dust and death and china from his mask grew more acute. The other Humans smelt only of confusion. Behind him, she could smell too the black Myche she knew Dark Brother was fond of speaking to. She had felt its forehead through her gloves once...and felt the metal creations there. He was as she was, something not of their own.
"These creatures tried to force you into something against your will," Rune spoke evenly, his voice was like a cobweb drifting to the floor, so silent and whispy. She could hear him short for breath between some of the words. Rune was far to frail to be here, on his feet, but Aslilin felt no mercy. They who were weak would survive or die, she wasn't about to risk her survival for others. Rune continued, voice even muffled slightly by the mask as he tilted his head up to regard her and the mask slid over his mouth. Aslilin had learned to tell which way Rune was looking from the sound of the mask blocking his voice. "Even animals have the sense to back away when a female refuses mating. Aslilin."
She brought her blind, green eyes down in his direction and said nothing.
"Kill the others."
Without a nod of consent or even a word to indicate she had heard him, Aslilin lifted her hand and felt the world twist around them. She braced her feet apart as the ground bucked and swirled around itself, fabric of reality distorted upon her whim. The Humans screamed, Dark Brother screamed, Rune fell beside her and the china mask cracked and shattered against the pavement. Above the roar, the black Myche was howling words.
"THE TIGER WILL WALK LIKE A MAN! THE TIGER WILL WALK LIKE A MAN! THE TIGER WILL WALK LIKE A MAN TO KILL THE MEN WHO WALK TO HUNT HIM!"
Then, it was all dreadfully, deathfully silent.
Rune is Dead, the voice echoed in all of their minds. The creature with its mouth sewn shut blinked at them and squinted its eyes, as if they could explain what had happened. Aslilin couldn't see him, but she smelt him. Across her shoulders like a weight was the stiffening body of Rune, mask cracked and broken away. Nobody knew him without the china face, except for the psychic and the insane cryptic. Nobody saw, and nobody thought anything of it.
Dark Brother was pawing at his face furiously, Human tears trickling from his deep green eyes and onto his black fur. Rune died when he came to save Ta Bahata and I...We didn't mean for him to...
The stitch-mouth held up his hand and walked to Aslilin. She stood stiffly, not reacting, like a pack horse whose goods were being inspected. The psychic reached his leathery fingertips to Rune's pale, dead, face and touched the skin. Rune had long, silvery, fine hair that fell cleanly over his face, hiding him from view. The stitch-mouth lifted the hair and looked upon what was Rune beneith the mask. Rune had been a perfectly shaped Human boy, eyes now clouded in death, but still shining a bright turquoise blue. Rune had been Normal.
The Dead speaks to me, the psychic thought to them, tapping his forehead. Moving like a starved man snatching for a dropped loaf of bread, he grabbed the sides of Rune's face and pulled. The hair tumbled to the sides and away, as if he was still alive. Simply unconcious. Stitch-mouth grunted through his trapped mouth and moved closer to Aslilin. She growled uncomfortably and dropped Rune's body, which hit the floor with a solid thump. Dark Brother cringed and tried to hold back a vomit reflex...it sounded as if someone had just dropped a sack of meat. Sidestepping, agile and ready to fight, Aslilin's hands were swathed again in the black gloves. The psychic didn't notice, however, and grabbed again for Rune's face. Pulling the dead body upwards by the head, the deformed creature pressed his stitched lips against Rune's cold dead ones, the skin on the Human's perfect face tearing under the malformed one's nails. The psychic held the morbid kiss for a long moment before shouting in all their minds and throwing the corpse bodily away from himself, Rune's form crumbling like a doll against the floorboards. Dark Brother ran to the body and pawed vainly at it, trying to pick him up. No response.
With skelital hands, the psychic began to tear at the stitches on his lips. Two skeletal hands now, ripping and pulling apart. His spine twisted backwards and he choked on his own tongue with effort, staggering blindly across the room. Aslilin stood, watching him move, not caring. As if she were a cat on a windowsill. The deformed one screamed in his throat and hit a wall, twisting and still tearing at his face. A stitch ripped free and hit the floor in a spatter of tiny red drops. With eger clawing fingers, the thread which bound his mouth closed was unravelled, metalic and squirming in blood like a child being born. With a scream, the wire lashing outward but not free of his face, the psychic fell back onto Rune's body and sent Dark Brother scrambling to the other end of the room. Aslilin simply tracked the movement. She smelt the blood, and did nothing. The psychic's voice, long since unheard, ripped through the air like a crackling leaf.
"I hid what I was in the face of pain...seek the man in dark shadows...seek the shard...seek me..."
The psychic stiffened, blood pooling in his mouth, twitching. The black Myche moved to his fallen compatriet and placed one huge midnight paw over his face. The stitch-mouth thrashed and screams echoed in their minds, the mind of a dying man. The Myche looked up, his cybernetic eye dialating as he looked at them. "Where there is no life, you will regain sight. Where there is no death, you will regain life."
Aslilin responded in no way, not even moving as the thrashing creature screamed one last time in her mind and gurgled silent...dead. Dark Brother lifted his head from under his paws, tears still shining in his eyes, and choked down his emotion. He would have to learn to be strong, merciless, like his Ta Bahata to survive this world. You mean Space?
"We should find this man in shadows," Dark Brother turned and stared as Aslilin climbed to her feet and stepped carefully over the bodies, as if she knew they were there by sight. Using her hand to guide her down the hallways, she searched towards the door. Dark Brother leapt up to follow, and the black Myche watched over his shoulder as they moved away.
What, Ta Bahata? I don't understand...
Aslilin made no reply as she entered the outside world once more.
