Post date: Oct 14, 2017 2:11:23 PM
Caradorynee:
Kin #12
Star didn’t know what happened.
One moment she was swinging from one plant vine to another, the next she was suspended in mid-air with the rope-vine shackles once again seizing her. Only this time instead of encompassing her hands and feet the ropy vines were painfully weaving around her entire body.
Star quickly snatched the weapon from her mouth before her arms were pinned to her sides. She took a deep breath.
The slimy mass covering her body began to shimmer as she exhaled slowly and the tingling sensation sped up, skittering rapidly from the top of her head all the way down to the soles of her feet.
Star nervously glanced around.
Hundreds of strange looking creatures appeared out of nowhere, swirling and gyrating around her. Some reached out with odd shaped appendages to touch the vibrating mass, then quickly drew back. Others poked the energy mass with sharp objects in stabbing jabs. All made high-pitched grating sounds that punctured Star’s eardrums so severely she thought her head would explode.
Then everything abruptly stopped.
The pain in her head immediately subsided and Star gasped in relief.
The creatures stilled and then began to ebb away, until there were only four that surrounded her. Positioned at the four compass points.
She wet her lips and looked to her left.
The sentry guarding her made no move to communicate. She looked right. She got the same non communicative, blank stare from the creature’s opaque eyes.
The creature was small, not much bigger than a large dog and although it stood upright Star felt confident that she could best it in a fight.
Now could she best four? Probably.
Star flexed the muscles in her arms and legs and found that she’d been shackled in a more restrictive manner than before. Still Star was encouraged when no creature appeared inclined to rid her of the hidden, jagged weapon she still had clutched in her right hand.
Star squeezed her hand hard until she felt the jagged edge of her weapon pierce the palm of her hand. Star swallowed the wince she felt and remained as still as she could.
There was a momentary sensation of wetness and then it was quickly gone. Star tried again, this time running the pad of her right thumb along the jagged edge. Again wetness and then again nothing.
Frustrated Star closed her eyes and bit the inside of her bottom lip. She tasted the coppery tang of blood but when she tried to suck more from the tiny gash her tongue found the gash had already closed.
It seemed that wherever she was, she as a human, could not openly bleed.
The good news was like before when she had dissolved the ropey vines, she hadn’t need much blood to accomplish the task. Only a drop or two.
Star pressed the jagged edge of the weapon into the side of her thigh. She cut off the involuntary inhalation of air at the sharp pain. She gritted her teeth and pushed the weapon deeper into her flesh.
Blood trickled down her leg and Star immediately brushed her thumb and forefinger through the wetness before it could dry up.
Excitement flared in her when her thumb and finger became slick with blood.
Before any of the creatures could notice what she was doing Star inched her hand downward. Luckily her finger found a ropy-vine. It was wrapped around her thigh. Smearing what blood she could over the shackle she returned her finger to the gash on her thigh which she was continually widening, again and again.
The ropy-vine dissolved allowing Star the ability to move her arm so that she could access another. Within seconds the shackles surrounding her also dissolved and she was free.
Now it was time to do some damage.
As Lark sped his way toward the hunt, with Newt tangled amongst his shimmering mass, he was amazed at what was happening around hm.
On earth Dewey had needed Lark’s human body in order to transform his Dueanian mass into a semi-solid form. On Caradorynee Lark, being part Dueanian, had had the ability to transform his human body into the Dueanian mass without any help.
Here, on this variation of earth and Caradorynee, things were different. He was a force beyond his imagination. Everything that surrounded him was instantly transformed into his Dueanian mass. Plants, rocks, soil, living creatures, and even the atmosphere. All was drawn and absorbed into his mass.
The further he travelled the larger his mass became until he resembled a shooting comet.
Concern for the tiny creature he’d befriended, Lark reached out his mind in an attempt to communicate with Newt. Again he was astonished at what he encountered.
Not only was he able to communicate clearly with Newt, he also could communicate with all that was encompassed within his mass. Language was not a barrier for he no longer needed words. He understood everything about everything that surrounded him. Their origins, their present, and more importantly their future. And what he came to know, to his horror, was that this planet’s future included the slow destruction of Star.
©Human in Inhuman Worlds by Janet Merritt