Epilogue
Epilogue
Shared Laughter
The night was a starless dark, the park's thick trees made into black skeletons by the pulsing blue light of the asteroid, and both Alex and the monster were laughing.
But perhaps this is not where the story begins. Perhaps the beginning is several hours ago, while an asteroid negotiated the inferno of an atmosphere and Alex negotiated the comparable hell of getting changed at school.
No, this story begins years ago, when Alex stared at herself in the mirror, seeing what was starting to develop into a woman's body, save for one part that remained prominently male, and realized she was different. And having listened to what every magazine and billboard had reassuringly screamed at her since she was a child, she knew that different was wrong.
That is why, at the same time as a round, blue veined asteroid burned across the evening sky, Alex faced the dank corner of the girl's changeroom, trying to shut her ears and close her mind to the world, or at least that part of it immediately around her. The 'female' part of her was hiding her own inadequate body from those of the confident girls chatting around her, so assured of themselves they had no need for common modesty, as they talked in intimate and anatomical detail about the boys of their class, and what the girls and their nervous boyfriends had discovered about each other. And the 'male' part of her was facing the wall to hide the effect of the girls and their conversation, an effect that manifested with criminal visibility between her legs.
No-one saw her nonchalantly shuffle into a cubicle and lock it behind her. But why should the truth matter when her mind was so good at imagining how everyone, everyone had seen, everyone knew, everyone was laughing all throughout the changeroom as she cowered in her cubicle and tried to shut out the sounds she alone could hear. She could still hear them laughing long after everyone had gone.
That is why she walked home alone that starless night. She was already late enough getting home before she decided to shortcut through the city park, and predictably got lost. And just as that last thought hit home, she realized she was in a horror story. The single, timid girl, hugging herself for warmth and protection as she wandered helpless and lost through the dark and unusually woody city park. Jumping at every shadow, staring up at the looming treetops, dreading, daring any one of their tangled shadows to open red eyes, and smile red-stained teeth. Okay she was too good at imagining things. But at least now the racing of her heart was keeping her warm, even despite the goosebumps texturing her shaking arms. She hugged herself tighter, and looked apprehensively on.
No, what she should be afraid of, she thought as she warily scanned the path ahead, was the monsters know as people. Much more common than fanged shadows, and dangerously more real. One could be lurking just ahead, right behind her! Why that shadow, that one, right by the path, that could even be one right there! Okay now she was just being silly. The shadow coughed, and she flung herself into the trees.
In hindsight what she imagined had been a cough may well have been something else: the creak of a tree or the croak of a stray cat. She considered this as she lay at the base of the hill that had been previously hidden by the treeline, waiting for the world to stop spinning and for her lungs to start working again.
In time and through considerable effort, her lungs regained function. She took a few blessedly deep, steady breaths, and tried to move. She regretted it instantly. Apparently, she had hurt her everything. Wincing back a sudden panic, she quickly took stock - no pain was specific enough to be a break, which was good, even though the absence of a singular pain let her feel every other bruise and bump at once.
And of course there had been a hill, right there, right then! Of course there had! All she needed now to be the undeniable victim of the story was to have twisted her OW - she thought better of moving her ankle too suddenly again.
She couldn't help but laugh. It was better than crying. Besides, there was no-one around to hear her, lost in this pitch black, tree tangled farce. Wait... how could she see the trees? That was wrong - there was little enough light coming from the starless sky when it wasn't obscured by the canopy overhead. And yet she could see the canopy overhead, clearer then weaker, brighter then darker, as if she was breathing in sight in short, measured pulses. Pulses - blue, a warm blue light, pulsing from ahead, cutting sharp beams of light through the black shadows of tree trunks as it rose and fell, radiating from a single, unseen source of living light.
She would have laughed again. She must have hit her head, must be unconscious, this was just too predictable to be real. But it felt real. Very real. That's why she wasn't laughing, as every slow pulse of the blue light filled the world with a heavy silence, each fade into total darkness leaving her blind and alone, dreading and praying for the next pulse of strange light. She was afraid - yes, she was terrified. She could hear her heart racing as loud as she could feel it, was still struggling with her winded lungs even before her heart started pounding her breaths into strangled bursts. And yet -
Wincing, she tried to rise without using her bad leg, which made it hard enough to stand, let alone to run. Suddenly that wasn't so funny. Slowly she pulled herself up a tree whose rough, uneven bark she could only see in pulses. The bark felt warm. Everything felt warm here, and as her shuddering breaths deepened under her control, she realized the pain in breathing was made worse by the air, laced with the eye-watering sting of smoke. During one pulse she swore she saw a charred slab of wood.
Once she had herself balanced against the tree she fumbled in her shirt pocket for her phone. In the absence of credit it would at least serve as a flashlight, its pale beam fighting the blue pulses and the crushing black in turns to try and leave a small circle of her world constantly visible. And there was the charred slab of wood, laying next to a charred black tree, and beside it another one, and another. Half the trees the light found were scorched black - but only half. It was like the trees had experienced the first deadly seconds of a forest fire that burst into existence, poised to consume the entire forest, breathed in, and - stopped. There was even strange, angled scorches across the trees at matching height, connecting into great lines spiraling slowly inwards, as if streaks of fire had been pulled round and in and crushed into black nothing, leaving only one light source, still slowly pulsing its warm blue light amidst the silent black trees.
She didn't need to pinch herself to tell if she was dreaming - her ankle hurt enough for that. Though the injury wasn't as bad as it could have been, she forcefully told herself, and with great care she could gingerly, very carefully take little half-steps, supporting herself in lurches of movement on the burnt trees she passed. She knew she was being reckless, but if she couldn't run, she would at least satisfy her curiosity. And so she hobbled into the clearing.
It was a literal clearing, not a fantasy inspired circle of green and butterflies, but a crater of cleared earth, roots and heat-smoothed rocks, all black with ash and deep, long shadows, radiating from the very center of the destruction, where waited the source of the light.
It was - well, it was a rock. A very beautiful rock, coloured the kind of black that comes from colour so rich and deep it can't be readily seen. It shone smooth as glass, yet flowed and twisted around the cracks, no, the swirls of blue lighting its surface, blue crystal, blue liquid, blue - just blue, beautiful blue. She had seen a folded steel katana once unsheathed at her dojo, and the way the light caught and refracted along the layered ripples of the steel was the most breathtakingly beautiful thing she'd ever seen - until now. The smooth black of the stone refracted a rainbow of warm blues as the curves of liquid crystal shone with energy, streaks of it flowing then rushing around the swirls, building until it couldn't be contained and burst forth into curved beams that illuminated the entire world in opal, then faded back within the black rock again.
She tried shining her phone-light on the rock, curious if it would actually explode in colour. But she couldn't see the light for the intensity of the blue, or the solidity of the black. Wait, that last part wasn't right - she waited for the end of the next pulse, and surely enough in its absence her phone-light seemed to fade too, more so the closer she angled it towards the rock, as if the black surface was absorbing the light itself. She would have experimented more, had her phone not started yelling in beeps that her battery was at 30%, no 25%, 10%! She frantically brought her phone close and pressed as many buttons at once as possible. It seemed to work, the battery level staying at 10%. Coincidentally, she was no longer pointing the phone's light at the asteroid. She raised an eyebrow, then experimentally raised the light. The next pulse ended, and in the darkness she read: 5%.
She lowered the phone. Okay; what the hell? And more importantly, she now had 5% battery left! She had no credit, but she had enough battery left to call the police. Or, another thought added, enough battery to take a video recording. She took a few moments to decide.
She turned off the flashlight app and turned on the video recorder, hoping she wasn't recording a 'we found this video on a suspiciously abandoned phone in the forest, honestly it's totally real,' video. And the next pulse of light shone in the display of her recording phone. Now it was truly real. She had proof, and proof - could still be called a fake. Ah well, at least she'd know, and be the author of a fantastic 'fake.' She watched with glee as the next pulse of light shone from her phone, more light curling around it to flow into her, then flow out again and into the asteroid. But for all her rapt excitement, she had to stifle a yawn. It was strange - she felt tired, a little more so in the darkness the light left behind than when the beautiful light flowed into her. But pleasantly tired, like she was so comfortable in bed that she could stay there forever. She even thought she saw a shadow snuggled just as comfortably within the asteroid.
She squinted, and there it was again in the next pulse, a slightly darker area amidst the asteroid, so bright now it seemed the black stone couldn't remain totally black around the edges, only at the center, where a shadow stayed dark, a shadow that suggested a shape. It was tantalizingly unclear, almost resolving into a round profile, on the edge of recognizable features, before the light faded again. Squinting, she moved the screen closer. Yes, it was definitely there, and the closer she got, the more of the asteroid filled the screen, the more each pulse showed her for certain: there was definitely something there, something moving inside the asteroid itself. Pulse; something round, small, the size and shape of a ball, floating, turning. Pulse; there were more details, the light and dark suggesting shapes around the edges. Pulse; extra shapes, curved lines spiraled outwards. Pulse; three of them. Pulse; waving. Pulse; pulse; the pulses were much faster, the realization failing to break through her curiosity in time. She stared at the screen, cursed the video's poor resolution, changed to camera, and took a picture. The phone's light flashed, showing her the briefest glimpse of a three-limbed shadow staring right back at her, before her phone died, and the asteroid exploded.
She landed on the ground, staring up at the burst of blue light. It wasn't an actual explosion, but it might as well have been, given how impossibly bright the beam of light was, how loud the blaring noise was, how fast they both swirled as they shot up to the sky yet seemed to bring the light and noise of the heavens down again to crush her with burning light and reverberating noise. They rose, shrieked their call, and were gone. So was the asteroid, a crumbling mound of inert shards all that remained where it had just been. Her mind filled with questions, all of which rocketed forth and all of which slammed to a dead stop against one, single, question. Her body froze deadly still, as her mind screamed: what - was that sound?
Skittering was her first thought - scratching her second - claws her next. She'd imagined it, she knew she had, at least, she hoped she - she heard it again, a rush of noise breaking through the undergrowth to one side, the rustle of limbs rushing over the earth overlayed with a warbling, croaking trill, a strange call that vibrated low and high and in no way human. She stared back at the crumbled asteroid, seeing now so clearly the empty space where a shadow had floated at the center, trapped and secure. She heard it beside her, flinched to look as it rustled through the undergrowth on one side, darted between two trees above her right.
She stared forwards at the asteroid, trying not to move a muscle, trying to stop her heart thumping so impossibly loud so she could stay perfectly, quietly still, sprawled back on the ground, still and quiet, waiting for whatever was out there to just, go, far away. But to her heart-stopping horror she became certain that as the questing shrill moved left and right under the track of her mind, it was also sweeping closer to where she was. Searching. Finding. Rushing to a stop directly behind her.
She could hear the emptiness where her breathing should be. She could hear another breathing, low and quiet, each breath overlayed with a vibrating absence of sound, by whose constance she could track its movement as it leaned left, then right, then inched closer behind her. She was frozen so still, so solid, that her flinch nearly broke her arms as it trilled right at her back, two notes low then high. Then again, the two-note sound coming from right behind her ear.
Slowly, she turned her head, and saw a glowing blue maw right before her eyes. She screamed. It screamed too.
The next few seconds were... confusing. She was still flung back away from where the glowing maw had been, her eyes still wide and one arm still raised to protect her from... from a writhing round shadow of angry. No, angry implied danger, and besides this writhing black ball was much more, well - miffed? The glimpses of thrashing shape she saw confused more than helped resolve a form, and she could only tell when it righted itself because it suddenly stopped grumbling and writhing. It scurried around to face her, saw she was in fact still there. It clamped one limb over its face, screamed, and legged it - if one can 'leg it' on boneless curves, which collected together as it ran straight into a tree.
Then it ran up the tree. She lost sight of it as it darted round the trunk, but could still hear its rustling movement darting and twisting up higher, overlayed with a decidedly annoyed grumble. She was still trying, in vain, to figure out what on earth to feel, let alone what to do, when the glowing blue maw opened again amidst the canopy. It was hanging just below a branch, opening to... glare at her? She wasn't sure how she could tell it was glaring, as there were no eyes she could see, only the glowing teeth. A vibrating growl started low, an angry and dangerous sound meant to scare and intimidate her. It would have, had the fire-weakened branch not chosen that exact moment to snap. The growl rose into what could best be described as a 'meep', followed by a splat, and more annoyed thrashing.
She started to laugh. She couldn't begin to comprehend what else to do. Here she was, stalked and attacked by a deadly, alien, space-spawned monster - kitten? The resemblance in behavior only became more apparent, as the poor thing untangled itself from the branch with a final fit of flailing, righted itself, and then just - sat there. Its front two limbs held itself upright and proud as it 'sat' on it's one hind-limb, the stance calmly stating the certainty that it had entirely meant to fall out of the tree, and dared her to say different. She just laughed. The glowing line of its mouth tilted as it regarded her lopsided, then turned in a huff and fell face first into the ground, one limb still tangled in the branch. She was moving to try and help, when, somehow, the strange little monster started to laugh too.
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