A very short story

It was a harrowing time for my kind.  All we were trying to do was provide food and shelter for our offspring.  We would hunt at night.  Afraid of the light.  Afraid of being seen.  Afraid of the death that was sure to come if we were caught.  We learned to be fast, but once you were caught, being fast was often not enough. 

Our enemy was merciless.  They were far fewer in number, but they had superior weaponry.  They knew how to set traps for us, and worst of all, they employed the use of chemical agents.  A brutal chemical assault devastated our community.  It was an all-out extermination.  Only those of us with the most protected hiding places survived.  My ancestors were some of the lucky few. 

Generations were devastated.  Food supplies were unreliable as the chemicals contaminated nearly everything we had.  We didn’t know what was safe and what wasn’t, and there were many times we had to take our chances and await the results.  The truly desperate were often unwitting sacrifices as they ate what they could without concern for the result, figuring that they would die one way of the other so a chance to live until tomorrow was worth the risk of dying today.  The days and nights were never void of the screams of the dying.

The time came for me to have my own offspring.  Many of my brood were felled by the environmental toxins our enemies spread across the landscape like mines.  The stores my ancestors left were exhausted and I could avoid going to hunt no longer.  My remaining offspring needed to be fed.  I needed to feed. 

I waited until the darkest hours.  The enemy’s camp was silent and still.  There was no better time to take the chance at hunting.  I stayed low to the ground and close to cover.  I needed to know I could retreat to cover.  As I explored the edge of our encampment, I saw a miracle.  It was a white canopy of some kind that ranged from the encampment’s edge out into the badlands.  We tried to avoid the badlands at all costs.  It was too vast and too exposed to risk at any time.  Cover meant survival. 

I set forth to explore this structure.  There was no lore about such a thing.  Perhaps it was new.  Perhaps more recent generations didn’t have a chance to share this discovery because of the war.  Fewer and fewer returned from hunting these days.  I saw another of my kind, younger and bolder than I.  I watch this cousin move beneath and within this construct.  After a considerable amount of time observing, I decided that the risk was minimal and approached the structure with hopes of a swift, rewarding hunt and swift retreat. 

Almost as soon as I had entered the foreign space, blinding light flared.  I froze as did the other of my kind.  The structure disoriented me.  I didn’t know which way safety lay in.  I could only hold still and hope that the Great Dark would save me.  Suddenly, the construct rose up.  My kin and I scattered.  Terror blinded me as much as the light did.  All I could do was run in a chaotic pattern as fast as I could.  Where was home?  Where was the dark?  Something splashed onto my back.  It smelled of lemongrass, and immediately struck terror into my being.  This is what some of our dying smelled like.   I was having more difficulty making my body move where I wanted it to go.  More fluid splashed down on me.  My kin had already fallen on her back, the death throws underway.  If I could only find the dark.  I knew I didn’t have much time left, but at least I could die in my beautiful dark.  I fell onto my back.  I knew there was nothing else for me then.  I would not be getting back up.  And no one would know my story.

-gws