Names (Part 3)

The stars know what I've done.

The trial, the prison. The called it self defense. It didn't hurt that the trial was in Russia and the other girl was an American.

The claw marks, they didn't explain. How, I don't know? It's over now.

Free, to run across the forests, to think I even could've been locked in that ship. The intricacies of the plants and the moss like the circuits and wires on a computer board.

The stars know what happened up there and how I took their child but do they understand the fear?

There is prey ahead, a girl. She's blonde

It reminds me of Sophie, before she changed.

The hand on the hatch's handle is not a hand, though I feel it at the end of my arm. There is fur there, and it is matted and greasy, hanging limply over the claws which shine in the harsh light of the LEDs. The shape, so much like a hand, is still mine and as I flex the claws I feel blood rushing from my heart and a pulsing in my mind. A hunger.

“Sophie? What are you doing in there? Just calm down, okay.”

I move my lips to speak, to calm her so that she will be easy prey, but there is only a grunt which come out in spurts. Like the laughing of a wolf ill accustomed to the way's of speech, it can't help but have the opposite effect.

“Sophie. . . are you sick in there?” She's breathing heavily and I sense it for the first time. I can smell her fear, even though the sealed hatch. I can smell her more than I ever could before and suddenly I remember those scents in the bunk, of fear and of frustration. “Those noises. . .”

She's whimpering a little now, though she doesn't realize it, and something makes me look in the mirror on the wall above the toilet. There's the creature again with it's blood red eyes, looking out at me and smiling. Grinning from pointed ear to pointed ear, it's fangs hanging and dripping. It mouth's a word at me and though its lips were not designed for such, I know what it's saying. It says, “Go.”

And I do.

* * *

The warmth from the rocks soothes me and I look away from the stars. They judge me for what happened amongst them, but the earth knows what is right and what is wrong. The earth accepts her children and understands their hungers and their needs. She created us so long ago and she always calls us back to her, no matter how far we may stray.

But the stars, they will not stop staring down at me. They know I took their child, but it was not my fault. Not my fault that the earth sent one of its own to them.

The courts called it self defense, though they didn't attempt to explain the claw marks and the deep red blood sprayed against the ship's windows. They didn't wonder why the girl might have attacked me and why I would need to trap her in the air lock. They did wonder at the flayed skin of my arms and postulated how she might've done it. I didn't tell them of course.

When I made it back, after bringing the ship in those last few weeks, they found her there still in the airlock and they said she must've had some weapon she'd hidden aboard. Some weapon which had been sucked out into space, for nothing on board could have left marks like that. Her body was still lying there covered in my blood when they found her, though by then the hunger was creeping up on me as well.

It didn't hurt that the courts were in Russia and the girl an American. Of course I was suspended without leave, but I'd stopped caring at that point. It let me go home, to the forests.

The moss under my skin is so intricate; to think I even could've been trapped aboard a ship up there with nothing but the judging stars. The weave of the lichen is like the circuits I treasured there and the wirey strands of moss like the insides of a computer. How much better here though, the circuitry which heals itself.

The reflection in the water of the stream beneath my perch is clear and in the moonlight I can see myself. The fangs, dripping and glistening in the dim light of the uncaring moon, the fur matted and white on my shoulders. The creature stares back at me and I am it. No wonder the other one felt she was going mad on that ship. This creature need's her mother earth to live. If only I had known then I might not have killed her before she passed on her gift.

But tonight I understand and my prey is before me, walking back to her house under the cover of the moss coated oaks. She cannot see me but I can smell her, can smell the hint of freshness which always comes with the young. Can smell that she is unaware and will be an easy kill.

I do wonder what her name is though. She reminds me a little of Sophie.