Lux: Volume 1

Author: Rebecca Lewis

  Copyright © 2015 by Rebecca Lewis

  The Man with Dragonfly Wings

  There's nothing immoral about my research as long as I let him go in the end, Doran thought.

  Holding up the flask to his eyes, he peered through the glass to the contents caged within. A man, a tad larger than his thumb, sat against one side of it. His wings began in a line running from the shoulder blades to the lower back, protruding outward and to the side in the shape of butterfly wings. However, they shimmered in a design mimicking the translucent one of a dragonfly.

  Doran scratched a rough sketch of the wings in his notebook. He took care to include all the slopes and curves of the veins that seemed to stitch the wings together. Choosing a warm spot on his windowsill, he set down the flask. The little man gazed out the window and his wingtips quivered when he sighed.

  In a tenor voice tinged with baritone, the man whispered, "Let me out."

  "You can go once I'm done," Doran told the man.

  The man furrowed his eyebrows. "When?"

  "A couple more days," Doran replied.

  "I've been here a week.”

  Doran bit the inside of his lip. I know, but I can’t let you go yet, he thought.

  "You're fascinating,” Doran replied, attempting to dodge the subject.

  "I'm not an animal."

  Doran grunted. "Might as well be."

  The man shook his head. He fell silent, staring back out the window. Doran followed his gaze to the garden beyond. Flowers of all sizes grew within the bounds of the property, speckles of colors creating a rainbow out of spring. Some plants towered over others while a few clung to the ground as if something would carry them away at any moment.

  Doran sat down in a chair by the window. "That's your habitat?"   

  "That's part of my home," the man stated.

  "You live in the garden," Doran said. "You're like butterflies, or birds."

  The man harrumphed. "Butterflies and birds don't wear clothes."

  Doran redirected his attention from the garden to examine the little man's body. He had wondered about the origin of the red tunic and trousers when he first caught the man.

  "What are those made of?"

  The man jutted a finger out toward a bush set toward the far side of the garden, the side bathed in sunlight and not the shade of the apple trees. From the bush grew red flowers with petals encircling one after another in tight bunches.

  "Rose petals?" Doran asked.

  "For spring and summer."

  "What about winter?"

  "Bird feathers."

  Doran frowned. "You hunt?"

  "No," the man corrected. "We gather them in spring when the birds molt and save them for winter."

  Doran grunted and stood up. Striding over to one of his desks, he flipped through a textbook, frowned at it, and scribbled something in the margins. He slammed that one shut and plucked another from a bookshelf.

  "What do you call yourselves?" Doran asked.

  "What?" the man asked, and brushed a few locks of brown hair out of his face.

  "Well," Doran said, "sometimes you're called fairies, wee folk, the Fae-"

  "Taydae," the man interrupted.

  The word slid off his tongue with the musicality of a violin. He almost seemed to sing it, but it pierced the air like birdsong and could have been mistaken for it.

  "Taydae?" Doran repeated, but the word lacked its beauty when uttered from his ill-mannered lips.

  He shrugged. "Or Taydi for singular."

  Doran tossed the textbook onto the desk and wrote down the name in his notebook. Adding the sound of the name beneath it, he took a note to listen for more of the Taydae language.

  "And what's your name?"

  Doran looked up from his notebook. "Me?"

  "What do you call yourselves?"

  Clutching the notebook against his chest, Doran leaned forward. "My people?"

  "You call yourselves 'my people?'"

  "No, no, no," Doran said. "We called ourselves humans."

  "Humans?"

  "And human for singular," Doran said, and gave a nod.

  The man laughed, a sound like the tinkling of silver chimes on a summer day.

  "What's so funny?"

  "It sounds like hummuh."

  "Which means?"

  The man laughed again. "It means brutish." He shook his head. "It sounds like it fits."

  "How am I brutish?" Doran said, an edge of irritation creeping into his tone.

  The man gestured to his cage. "You stuck me in a bottle. That’s not exactly ‘civilized.’"

  "But you're a fairy."

  "Taydi," the man insisted.

  "Whatever," Doran said, "but you're not important."

  The man's wingtips fell a few inches. "How?"

  Somehow the word sounded like a question, a plea, and an accusation at the same time.

  Standing up, Doran snapped his notebook closed. "Doesn't matter."

  At that moment, the sound of someone banging on the door to the study reverberated through the room. Doran jumped a few inches where he stood. This elicited a bout of laughter from the little man.

  "Quiet, fairy," Doran hissed and then called to the door, "Come in!"

  The door swung open, hitting the wall behind it with a loud crack. A large woman, bulging at the waistline enough to add curves to her dress, lumbered through the door with a wooden rod in her hand. Baring her teeth, she narrowed her eyes at Doran. He shimmied a couple steps to his left, obscuring her view of the man.

  "Any progress yet?" the woman growled.

  Doran shifted his weight from foot to foot and averted her gaze by looking at the floor.

  The woman came a few steps closer. "I ain't giving you this space for free, you know."

  "I know, Mrs. Homer."

  Doran retreated backwards until he pressed against the edge of the windowsill. He rubbed the back of his neck and clutched his notebook to his stomach.

  Homer grabbed the notebook from his hand and flipped through the first few pages. "What's this?"

  "Observations."

  "Why can't I read it?" she asked, squinting at the words.

  "It's not written in Derlin," Doran explained.

  "And why not in the king's Derlin?"

  "It's in English."

  Homer shoved the notebook back into Doran's hands. "That language died."

  "I'm fluent."

  Leaning forward, Homer shook a finger in his face. "Listen here, boy-"

  "I'm twenty winters old," Doran interrupted. "Not a boy."

  Homer growled and shoved Doran away from the window and into the wall. Grasping her wooden rod with both hands, she pressed it against Doran’s neck right under his chin. He struggled for breath, his fingernails digging into the skin of her wrists. Little air eked into his throat. His heart thundered in his ears.

  It was times like these in which he regretted being the runt of his family.

  "As I was saying, boy," Homer continued, speaking painfully slow, "you're a foreigner, but you're living with me. The governor hired you to find a way to kill all the magic pests in the region. We need the land. You following?"

  Doran rasped, “Yes.”

  Homer smirked. “And I’m the handler of the little foreigner. The governor only let you in the region for this job. So, since I need to keep an eye on you, I need to read your notebook when I want, where I want, got it?"

  Doran, unable to reply, gaped like a fish and forced his neck to nod again.

  "Good," Homer said, and released Doran. “Next time, I’ll beat you like I did yesterday.”

  She poked her rod against the bottom of his ribcage and a spike of pain lanced through the area.

  Homer smiled. “I thought the broken rib was very convincing.”

  Doran grimaced but refused to make a sound of pain.

  When Homer finally backed away, Doran slumped against the wall beside the window but failed to collapse to the floor
. He used his body to conceal the man in the flask. She can't know I have him, Doran thought, She’ll kill him.

  Grunting, Homer headed back out the door. The hinges protested against the abuse. Once the lock clicked into place, Doran let out a groan and sagged the rest of the way to the floor. The notebook clattered against the wooden boards.

  Doran gulped in a breath and then moaned, clutching his hand to the bottom of his ribcage. The broken rib felt as if flames crept across it just to prevent him from calming his heart rate. Laying down on the floor, he shunted the pain aside to take deep breaths and get his heart back to its regular rhythm. All this abuse, the beatings and near-stanglings, day after day, just for a study. It almost did not feel worth the trouble sometimes, but his desire for knowledge drove him on.

  “Human?"

  Doran clenched his teeth and sat upright to where his eyes were level with the windowsill and the little man. The man beat against the glass of flask, kicking and punching at it.

  When their gazes locked, he stopped and asked, "Human? Are you alright?"

  It took Doran a second to recognize the words. He had spoken in Derlin to Homer, but Knoro’s words were in English. A faint part of his mind wondered why this had not seemed strange until this point. However, a larger part of his mind growled in irritation at being referred to as merely a human. It felt demeaning, like the only aspect of him that gained him any significance was his species.

  "Doran,” he told Knoro. His voice sounded thin and raspy.

  The man froze, one fist against the glass. "What?"

  "My name's Doran."

  His expression softening, the man said, "I'm Knorokatamle. Call me Knoro."

  Doran heaved himself to his feet, using the wall for support. He plopped down in the chair beside the window and leaned back in it.

  "Knoro," Doran repeated.

  He doubled over and picked his notebook off the floor. Writing the name down in the book, he looked back up at the man.

  "Hold still," Doran commanded.

  Knoro froze like a glass figurine, watching Doran while he arched his pen across the paper in sweeps and curves. Time passed; Doran failed to keep track of how much. However, when Doran faced Knoro for longer than a glance at the end, he realized Knoro still held his fist against the glass. Didn't take too long, Doran decided.

  He flipped the notebook around to face Knoro. His wingtips flitting upward, Knoro backed up a few steps.

  "That's me."

  Doran nodded, turning the notebook back around, and smiled down at it. "A great sketch actually."

  "Are you alright, Doran?" Knoro asked.

  The smile slipped off of Doran's face. "Huh?"

  "That woman almost killed you," Knoro elaborated, pressing his hands flat against the flask.

  "Don't worry about her."

  "You could've died."

  Doran frowned. "Why do you care?"

  Knoro hesitated, as if he did not know how to answer. Then he mumbled something under his breath. He raked his fingers through his hair. Finally, he spoke, trying to put some thoughts together, "I…I’m a trapped animal, remember?...Without you, I’m never getting out."

  Doran's shoulders slumped. "Yeah."

  He got up from the chair and trudged over to his desk. After glancing down at the sketch again, he sighed, throwing the notebook onto the desk. I'm chasing fairies, Doran thought, literally.

  Flipping open the cover of a textbook, he skimmed through several chapters. Studies on the migrations of unicorns. How a mermaid swims. Why trolls differ from gremlins. Knowledge that should only be seen by the eyes of a wizard, all of it. Doran shook his head, combing through his thoughts. Why study magical creatures when he could never make use of the energy itself? The closest magic-wielder he possessed in his bloodline was the third cousin on his mother's side, the touch-telepath that was the pride of the family.

  Doran pressed his lips into a straight line and slammed the cover of the textbook shut. Stalking over to a bookshelf, he selected several books and sat down in the seat by the window again, careful not to jostle his ribcage. A cracked rib on the left side. Horrible place for it.

  When he opened the first book, dust flew forth from its cover. Doran spent the next couple hours consumed in its pages and failed to look up until the light grew almost too dim to read by.

  When it did, he gazed out the window. In the garden, the lights of fireflies flickered on and off, as if partying the night away. Although, with closer inspection, Doran saw the lights concentrating near the edge of the forest beyond the garden fence.

  "Knoro?" Doran said. "You awake?"

  Knoro rolled over to face Doran. "Yeah, couldn't sleep."

  "What's going on out there?"

  Knoro bolted upright and scampered to the side of the flask closest to the garden. His wings flexed open and shut, glimmering in the last rays of sunlight.

  "They're looking for me," he replied. "I've been missing."

  "It's only been a week."

  "That can be a lifetime for a Taydi," Knoro said.

  Doran frowned. "How long do you live?"

  "About three centuries," Knoro said, still pressed against the glass.

  "Then how is it long?"

  "We live as fast as butterflies and birds, even if we live long."

  Doran gazed back out the window at the lights. A search party for Knoro. Family, friends, neighbors. He looked back down at Knoro, who fluttered at the side of the flask like an imprisoned butterfly. Trapped with a stranger, he begged for release. At least Knoro's imprisonment had not been of his own craftsmanship. That gave him an advantage over Doran.

  Why did I ever agree to find a way to kill fairies? Doran thought.

  He never wanted this.

  He never dreamed of studying magic in order to kill people, even if they were fairies.

  Did he really need to follow through with his promise to the governor?

  Without another thought, he snatched the flask from the windowsill, causing Knoro to yelp.

  "What are you doing?" Knoro sputtered. "Where are we going?"

  Doran whisked him away from the window and toward the door. He coaxed the door open without a squeak and prowled down the corridors. They arrived at the back of the house, and the entrance to the garden.

  Opening the door, Doran heard Knoro gasp inside of the flask. He spun around and his eyes widened.

  "Really?" Knoro asked. "But why?"

  "You're not a thing," Doran stated. "No more than I am."

  After he finished this, he would need to tell Homer that he refused to complete his investigation on how to exterminate fairies. He shuddered at the thought of the aftermath of that conversation.

  Nevertheless, Doran plucked the cork off the flask and Knoro wormed his way out of it. In the air, Knoro's wings glowed with their own light. Doran gazed at them, entranced, and followed them while Knoro hovered from right to left as if struggling to stay aloft.

  "So hummuh," Knoro said with a grin, but sounding out of breath.

  Doran snapped out of his trance. "I'm not a brute."

  "No," Knoro agreed, "but hummuh."

  "You said that meant brutish," Doran said, and poked a finger at Knoro.

  Knoro’s smile widened. "It also means childish."

  "I'm twenty winters old," Doran insisted. "I'm a scholar."

  "With a fascination in magic that only wizards should have."

  Doran crossed his arms, tapping the flask against his side. "I'm not ashamed."

  "Follow me."

  Doran raised his eyebrows. Knoro waved at him, his former jail keeper, the scientist who put him under the microscope.

  "Why? I trapped you."

  “I did the same to you."

  "What?"

  "Shimmering wings leave the soul in chains," Knoro replied.

  The English sprang to life with the inflection he added to it. It rang with song and music, lulling the mind to peace.

  Then it clicked. "Taydae can enc
hant."

  Knoro flew upward several feet, but steadily floated down. "Now you understand my frustration."

  “You wanted to be trapped.”

  Knoro shrugged. “I was curious about humans.”

  "And I wouldn't let you go when you wanted.”

  “I enchanted you to bring you to me.”

  A smile crossing his face, Doran snapped his fingers. “That’s why you were so easy to find.”

  “I needed someone who didn’t want to kill me.”

  Doran folded his arms. “But since I wanted to keep you, you couldn’t enchant me again so that I would release you?

  "You're sharper than you think, Doran," Knoro said.

  Furrowing his eyebrows, Doran asked, “This, what I just did, was my own will, right?”

  “Thankfully, yes,” Knoro replied. "And I was lucky that you were a Kashim."

  "Kashim?"

  "English-speaker," Knoro explained. "The speaker of the dead language."

  "Plenty speak it."

  Knoro shook his head. "It’s your native one. I don't speak Derlin. That's why I'm using English."

  "How old are you?"

  "Seventy winters. Still young."

  As Knoro began flying away, Doran said, "Fairies can speak English because it’s old. As old as the last time fairies spoke with humans regularly."

  "Kashims and Taydae were once close allies.”

  “Allies?”

  “Yes! Now, hurry up, Kashim."

  Doran walked behind Knoro as he fluttered toward the gate of the garden. He shoved it open, and it creaked at his touch. They traveled to the edge of the forest lit with thousands of fireflies. Then, Doran spotted them, the hundreds of fairies among the fireflies. Along with clothes made of flower petals of all kinds, they varied as much as one human from another.

  "I'm safe!" Knoro called out.

  Hundreds of squeaks, many of them calls for Knoro, emitted from the swarm of fairies who flocked around him. Doran stood back, watching the display. Many of the women nuzzled Knoro in the neck, and other brushed wings with him in greeting.

  "Stand back!" a voice yelled.

  The swarm parted for a man to fly through, clad in an outfit of daisy petals and with graying hair. The elder flew around Knoro in a tight circle and inspected every inch of him.

  "Knorokatamle," the elder said, "you're malnourished. Just look how your wings have dimmed."

  He forced one of his arms under Knoro's, and Knoro slumped against the man.

  "Thank you, Fraishan."

  "Knoro, you okay?" Doran said.

  All of the sudden, the swarm turned to him and many shrieked, darting back into the forest.

  Fraishan narrowed his eyes at Doran. Speaking Derlin, he asked, "Are you responsible for this?"

  Doran stiffened. "Yes."

  Fraishan handed Knoro off to another man hovering nearby and fluttered over to Doran's face. After leering close to him, enough to see into his eyes, he descended to the level of his neck. Doran did not dare to move. When Fraishan laid a hand on his skin, on the forming bruises where Homer had attempted to strangle him, he flinched. Fraishan kept his hand on the bruise, running his small hands across it. It felt as if an ant managed to skate across Doran's skin.

  Switching from Derlin to English, Fraishan muttered, "Someone tried to kill you."

  Doran squeezed his eyes shut. This was the last thing he needed: attention.

  "The lady of the house," Knoro said, "tried to kill a Kashim."

  Fraishan flittered up to Doran's face again. Continuing in English, he said, "A Kashim? I thought there were none left. So, human, you understand me?"

  "Why aren't you speaking Taydae?" Doran ventured.

  "I'm old," Fraishan said, and cracked a smile.

  Doran raised his eyebrows.

  "And sentimental," Fraishan explained. “Now, come on."

  Doran pointed to himself. "Me?"

  "Yes, you," Fraishan said. "Why not?"

  "I hurt him."

  "You were coerced to.”

  "How did you-?”

  Fraishan nodded. "You Kashims have always been curious. This job to get rid of us was the only way a commoner like you could study magic. I’ve seen it before.”

  “You have?”

  “With other Kashims when they were still around,” Fraishan explained. “As your kind have died off, human civilization had deteriorated without innovation.”

  “You don’t have to speak English to be curious.”

  “No, but the Kashims were the last people who all possessed that trait. The others died off long ago. Now, stop arguing. You need healing."

  Doran prodded his neck. "It's just a bruise."

  "That's not all she's done to you, is it?" Doran squirmed under Fraishan's scrutiny, remembering the broken rib, and Fraishan hummed in affirmation. "I thought so."

  The swarm of fairies engulfed Doran, hundreds of hands urging him forward toward the trees. His mind called for him to resist, and escape back to the safety of his study. Then, he realized, that was not safety.

  Gulping, Doran walked into the forest, hundreds of fairies lighting and guiding his way.

  On Being Human

   

  Jasper drew in a breath from his cigarette and puffed out a wisp of smoke. He then stabbed the cigarette into the ash tray. Digging into his pocket, he located a couple five-dollar bills. He tossed them on the counter of the bar next to the check and slid off of his seat. The alcohol that money had paid for buzzed in his veins, but the amount lacked enough potency to impair his speech or stride.

  He picked up a cue stick from beside the pool table and set up the balls. With the rasp of age and cigarette smoke in his voice, he called, "Hey, Fred, you wanna play?"

  "I have to get this place cleaned up, Jasper," the barkeep replied. "But you go ahead."

  Jasper shrugged his shoulders. "Your loss, my friend."

  At the moment he hit the first ball with the stick, the door to the bar banged open and a man stumbled through, hefting grocery bags in his arms. A gust of wind blew in after him and struck Jasper like an off-tune string quartet, sharp against the skin. As he shivered, he noticed the incoming storm clouds through the open door.

  As the door closed, the man, a young fellow in a collared shirt, looked at him from over the tops of the bags in his arms. His brown eyes widened at the sight of Jasper, the pale skin of his face draining to an even lighter shade.

  "I'm sorry to interrupt," he said. "But, uh, Fred, I got your groceries."

  "Thanks, Mike," Fred replied. "Go ahead and take the money on the bar."

  "Thanks."

  Jasper set his cue stick down on the table, shoved his hands into his pockets, and came back toward the counter of the bar.

  "Name's Jasper," he said. "You a friend of Fred's?"

  "The kid just moved into town, Jasper," Fred replied, wiping out a cup. "He's starting as busboy next Monday."

  Jasper nodded. 

  Mike set down the groceries and a sketchbook he had been carrying. He then placed his hand on the bar to balance himself as he hopped onto a barstool. However, when he jumped, the ledge of the bar crumbled beneath his fingers, leaving Mike airborne. He tilted backward and flopped onto the ground, his back and head hitting the floor with a hard thud.

  Everyone froze. Then, Mike groaned and brought his hand to his head where he hit it. Jasper rushed forward, stooping down beside him.

  "God, kid," he said, pulling Mike upright by the shoulders, "you okay?"

  Mike moaned again and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."

  Jasper helped Mike to his feet, then stepped behind him. He took Mike's fingers away from the point of contact.

  "What are you doing?" Mike asked, attempting to turn around.

  Jasper pushed on Mike's shoulder to force him to face forward again. "Stop moving. Let me see it."

  As Jasper touched the spot where Mike struck his head, Mike winced and ducked away from Jasper. "I said I'm fine!"
br />   Jasper frowned. "Kid, you hit that head of your's on tile. You might have a concussion."

  "I'm fine," Mike repeated.

  "Fred," Jasper said, "back me up, will you?"

  Shaking his head, Fred said, "Jasper, let him be."

  Jasper rolled his eyes and seated himself at the bar again, crossing his arms across the counter. Mike glanced at the seat next to Jasper and then at Jasper himself.

  He frowned and turned away. "I'm gonna heat up some soup."

  As Mike shoved open the door to the kitchen, Fred called, "Get some for us too!"

  Jasper heaved a sigh and glanced around the bar. Noticing the sketchpad that Mike left behind, he plucked it off the counter and began to flip through it. He paused a moment, tilting his head, while he appraised the image of a landscape. Nothing in the scene resembled anything from Earth. Something that might have been a tree, though it shared more similarities with a bunch of vines, dominated one corner. Orbs hanging from its tendrils illuminated its surroundings in the picture, revealing some creatures on the ground. However, the shading was still too dark to distinguish what they were. Jasper focused on the orbs and saw the colors concentrating on the centers of them like sparks of fire or stars.

  "Certainly has an imagination," Jasper commented. "But he's good."

  "Gonna be a great artist one day," Fred said. "I know it."

  "You and your 'feelings.'"

  "They're usually right."

  "Yeah, yeah."

  Jasper grunted and went back to the pool table. He remained in a companionable silence with Fred until Mike emerged from the kitchen, juggling three bowls of soup in his hands. He set them down on the counter and beckoned Jasper and Fred over to him.

  "What are we having?" Jasper asked.

  Mike smiled at him. "Beef stew."

  "Sounds good."

  Jasper eased himself onto a barstool. Setting one of the bowls in front of Jasper, Mike took a seat beside him. He and Fred started eating without preamble while Jasper stared down into his bowl. 

  Growing up in a household in love with soups, he knew them when he saw them. But this in no way possessed the characteristics of beef stew. Brown chunks of something that Jasper guessed were supposed to be beef floated amidst vegetables that, for of life of him, he could not conjure up a name for. Jasper furrowed his eyebrows and spooned some past his lips. 

  The "meat" felt like rubber against his tongue, but tasted as if the animal that produced it were a mix of a chicken and a pig. While the taste of the stew bewildered him, Jasper found himself desiring another bite.

  "So," Mike said, "you like it? I made it yesterday."

  Jasper let out a harsh chuckle. "Yeah, but this isn't beef."

  Mike ducked somewhat in his seat. "I had no idea what to call it."

  All of the sudden, thunder rumbled outside and rain splattered against the windows. Mike started and came close to knocking over his bowl. Then, the lights winked out. Fred cursed.

  "I knew a storm was coming," Jasper mumbled.

  He heard Mike's voice in the dark. "I'll get a light."

  A stool grated across the tiles of floor. Footsteps. Noises of someone rummaging through something came from across the room. Then a light pierced the black.

  Jasper shielded his eyes for a second while they adjusted. When he looked back at Mike, he rubbed his eyes and they widened. Mike held an orb in his hands about the size of a baseball that glowed from within. Just like the ones from the picture on the sketchpad.

  The flames burst out from the center and licked the edges of the orb's interior. Mike cupped it in both hands and used his hip to shut the drawer. He smiled at Jasper but the smile faltered when he saw Jasper's expression.

  "What?"

  Jasper gaped for several seconds, gathering his thoughts. Somewhere in the background Fred cursed again. However, Jasper's thoughts raced through his mind like fish too fast to catch with one's hands. 

  "Mike!" Fred shouted. "You don't use those here!"

  "What is that?" Jasper finally managed to say.

  Mike looked down at the orb in his hands. His eyebrows raised half of an inch. "A portable light. What about it?"

  Jasper stood up. "Is that a fire?"

  Fred hopped to his feet as well. "Jasper, now just calm down."

  "Well," Mike said, "more like a contained star. Fusion power."

  "How is that possible?"

  Mike frowned. "How isn't it?"

  "Mike," Fred pleaded, "now isn't the time."

  "I saw those in the picture!"

  Mike laughed. "They don't actually grow on trees. We tie them up like that during celebrations."

  "Who," Jasper said, taking a step closer to Mike, "are 'we?'"

  Fred sighed and growled something under his breath. Then he stalked back behind the bar.

  "The Kiedins," Mike said, and a scowl contorted his features. 

  "The what?"

  "I thought this was a refugee town."

  Jasper threw his hands into the air. "What refugees?"

  Mike closed the distanced between himself and Jasper and raised the orb to his face. Drawing his eyebrows together, he stared into Jasper's eyes. He moved the orb and changed the amount of light going into them.

  Mike harrumphed. "I don’t understand what’s wrong. You're not human either."

  "What the hell?" Jasper shouted and recoiled.

  He fell into a fit of coughing and supported himself with the bar. Mike attempted to come nearer, but Jasper held out a hand for him to stay back. 

  Coming out of the fit, he said, "What are you talking about?"

  "Your eyes," Mike explained. He gestured to the orb. "They don't dilate."

  "What does that have to do with me being human?"

  "Sit down."

  Jasper shook his head. "No. I'm leaving."

  All of the sudden, Fred materialized in front of him and Mike grabbed Jasper's arm. 

  "Jasper, sit back down, please," Fred said.

  Jasper writhed in Mike's grasp but the grip became like an iron shackle. Mike possessed far too much strength for his form. The floorboards squeaked beneath Jasper's boots as Mike dragged him back over to his seat. He fell onto his stool with a grunt and scowled at Mike.

  "What do you want?!"

  Mike held onto Jasper's shoulder. "For you to listen."

  "I'm all ears."

  "Alright," Mike said and released his shoulder. He sat back down on his barstool. "Let me get this straight: you have no idea what a Kiedin is?"

  "Not one."

  "And you think you're human?"

  Jasper slapped his hands against his thighs. "I am human."

  Mike looked away and tapped his fingers against the bar while Fred grimaced. "So, you don't know about aliens," Mike stated.

  "Like little green men?"

  "Then you-" Mike started and then stopped. He opened his mouth and words failed to come out for a minute. "Little green what?"

  "Men. Like in cheesy sci-fi movies."

  Mike slammed the heel of his hand against his forehead. "No! Aliens as in sentients not from Earth."

  "Okay," Jasper replied and gave a single shake of his head. "Then no."

  "Do you remember your youth?"

  "You mean my childhood?"

  "Yes."

  "I grew up here in town," Jasper replied and folded his arms across his chest.

  Mike stood up and carried the orb back behind the counter of the bar. He held it high and rummaged through the items in one of the drawers. Pulling something out of the drawer, he muttered a few words under his breath. Fred's eyes widened.

  "I didn't know I had that."

  "That's because I put it there a couple days ago."

  Mike walked back over to Jasper and revealed a long wand of silver in his hand with a sharp tip, similar to a skewer except for a display screen attached to the back end of it.

  "This," Mike said, "is a blood tester. I prick your finger and this can tell me what species yo
u are."

  Jasper attempted to wave him off. "No, I'm human. I know it."

  "If you're human, you're abnormal."

  "Nothing wrong with being different."

  "Do you really not want to know?"

  "Yes."

  Mike set the blood tester on the table. "You know Fred's an alien."

  Jasper's eyebrows shot upward. "What?" His eyes turned to Fred.

  "It's true," Fred replied, running his hand through his hair. "I'm Gorvanian."

  "But you look human."

  "He has to use a cloaking device," Mike said and laid his hand over the blood tester. "He's actually blue-skinned, has three eyes, and doesn't have ears."

  Jasper narrowed his eyes and let his hands go limp against his knees.

  At the silent question, Fred supplied, "I have sensory areas on my skin that pick up sound waves in the air."

  "You're human-looking though?"

  "Enough to make it by on Earth without some...major modifications."

  "Some aliens do that?"

  Mike nodded. "Earth has towns of refugees from all over the galaxy. Some have to have surgery to live here."

  Jasper winced. "I hate to think about it."

  "Same here," Mike replied and his face softened.

  Averting his gaze from Mike, Jasper stared down at his hands. Those hands constructed this town from a farming village, building houses and factories, shops and offices. They managed a business before most others found a niche in the community as commerce came with the new interstate. They were the hands of a laborer, a mentor, and a leader. But the hands of a human? Maybe not. 

  Jasper sighed and thrust his right hand out toward Mike. "Do it."

  Mike nodded and grasped Jasper's hand. He changed his grip to hold out one of the fingers and then pricked the tip of it with the blood tester. Afterwards, he released Jasper's hand and punched a few buttons on the device. Jasper lowered his hand to the table, waiting.

  Seconds passed. 

  The blood tester beeped.

  Mike pressed his lips into a straight line and a nodded his head a little. "Not human."

  Jasper slumped in his seat, put his elbows on the bar, and held his head in his hands. He forced himself to take a deep breath. This was too much. He came here expecting a quiet evening with a friend, and now some kid was telling him that he was an alien, a real alien.

  Facing Mike again, he said, "This has to be a joke."

  Mike sighed. "It isn't. I'm sorry."

  "You can't prove it."

  Mike failed to reply and seated himself next to Jasper. He slid the blood tester across the counter such that Jasper could read the screen.

  It read, "Dravet."

  "What's a Dravet?" Jasper croaked, his voice more rasp than before.

  Mike clasped his hands in front of himself on the table. "They're from planet Mariosh. They, well, your people, look human."

  "What's the difference?"

  "Your brains run faster," Mike explained. "The pupils don't dilate because the mind can process all that info, and adjust. No need to change the amount of light coming in. Fantastic spacial intelligence. Natural builders."

  "That explains a lot, I guess."

  "This doesn't change the fact that you're still Jasper," Fred said, placing his hands on his side of the counter and leaning forward. "Human or not, you've done good things."

  Jasper forced himself not to break eye contact with Fred, not to dismiss Fred’s words as madness. He owed that much to his friend for all the years of brotherhood he had given him. With that glare alone, it seemed as if Fred was attempting to intimidate Jasper’s stubbornness into submission.

  As an uneasy tension hung in the air, Jasper envisioned Fred as the Gorvanian Mike had described. Somehow, the difference did not appear as much of a stretch of the imagination as he initially thought. The flat ears could vanish and the large forehead could house a third eye without his facial structure changing.

  “Are you really not human?”

  Fred shook his head. “Never have been and never will.”

  Then, Mike put a hand on Jasper's shoulder. "How old are you?"

  "Sixty."

  "Earth-years?"

  "What else?"

  "Well," Mike continued, "there's another difference."

  Mike avoided looking him in the eye and Jasper's heart raced. 

  "What is it?"

  Sighing, Mike rubbed the back of his neck. "Metamorphosis."

  "Like a butterfly?"

  "At about sixty-two Earth-years, you'll...transform. Your body will stiffen, and look like its crystallizing. It's like falling asleep." Mike locked his gaze with Jasper. "Inside the crystal, your body will regenerate everything, piece by piece."

  "What will I look like? Human?"

  "You've never had an impulse for...procreation, right?"

  Jasper's eyebrows shot up. "What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

  "After you change," Mike said, "you'll reach sexual maturity for a Dravet. Humanoid, but chestnut brown skin, purple eyes since your's are blue right now, and bone-like armor on your chest, back, and limbs. Minus the joints, of course."

  Jasper snorted. "You sure know a lot about this."

  "He should," Fred said. "He's a scientist in that stuff."

  "I'm a xenobiologist," Mike explained. "My specialization is the Corinthian constellation, which includes Mariosh."

  "And the kid never shuts up about it."

  "So what now?" Jasper asked, hunching over. "I'm not human."

  Fred's face hardened. "We make plans."

  Jasper furrowed his eyebrows. "We?"

  "Your change will take five years, Jasper," Mike said. "You'll need someone to watch over you."

  "I don't have any enemies."

  Mike slung an arm around his shoulders, and smirked at him. "Trust me, Creation is a whole lot bigger than any Earthling ever imagined. Someone's bound to want something from you."

  "We'll be here for you, Jasper," Fred said. "Don't doubt that."

  Jasper heaved a sigh and rubbed his eyes. "I can't believe this is happening. I'm a freak."

  Mike grasped one of Jasper's hands and splayed out his fingers. "Who's hand is this?"

  "Mine," Jasper said, and tried to tug his hand away.

  Mike's iron grip returned and refused to release him. "Yes, and are you a freak?"

  "I'm an alien."

  "And that's nothing to be ashamed of," Fred said. "Your parents must have been refugees. They wanted you to have a good life. Have you had it so far?"

  Jasper remained silent.

  "What have you done all these years, Jasper?" Fred asked, urging him to speak. 

  Jasper licked his lips and frowned. "I made this town great."

  "Damn right you did," Fred replied and thumped his fist against the counter. "And you have a long life ahead of you to do even more."

  "You'll live longer than any human," Mike added, giving him a smile.

  Jasper gave a bark of laughter and looked to Fred. "You better help me through this, you old fart."

  Fred smirked. "Wouldn't rather do anything else."

  Of Monsters and Men

  Pressing her back against the headboard of the bed, Angela leveled her rifle at the Alliance soldier peering through the bedroom window. She noted two things about the soldier, minus the pistol on its belt, which spelled trouble for her at once: the body armor tough enough to deflect any of her bullets and the helmet's visor that displayed environmental data to the soldier. Every Shieldbearer knew that no human mind rested beneath that helmet, just the parody of one. Cybernetic enhancements ruined humanity. Cyborgs believed humans to be the inferior beings, and now they planned to extinguish humanity through slaughter on a battlefield. As nature decreed at the dawn of time, dominant species squashed the lesser ones. The soldier before Angela represented nothing short of a disaster, a security breach, a screw-up on her part as a sentry. Nothing good could come of this.

  The thunder
of battle still raged close enough to hear and smell. But it kept its distance enough for Angela to focus on this enemy.

  Yet, humans were the ones prone to make mistakes. They felt compassion.

  She licked her lips, and said, "Get out of here if you still want your head."

  The soldier became frozen in place by the aim of her rifle. Angela tensed. The soldier's reaction did not make sense, because it should have reached for its own weapon or ducked out of the way of her rifle before she could fire. It should have. Pursing her lips, Angela glanced over him. It must have been with the Alliance. It could be part of no other faction with that level of technology in its armor. From Angela's experience on the battlefield, the soldier should not have hesitated, an Alliance soldier never would.

  As Angela's finger twitched on the trigger, the soldier raised its hands up and said, "Don't shoot!"

  Angela halted her action, and narrowed her eyes. The plea rang with the emotions of a human. But Alliance soldiers never possessed those, for they sacrificed them to transform into perfect soldiers, into cyborgs.

  "Give me a reason."

  "I don't wanna hurt you," the soldier said, and the pitch of its voice rose a little. Fear?

  The soldier must have glitched. Angela retorted, "You're with the Alliance."

  "The armor doesn't mean what you think."

  Angela snorted. The soldier not only glitched, it was stupid. "People like me have nightmares about your type."

  "No," the soldier said, "I'm not with the Alliance."

  Glitched, stupid, and deaf. Was it possible the behavior was a trick? Angela ground her teeth together.

  Controlling the level of her voice, she replied, "Prove it."

  "Let me take off the helmet."

  Angela readjusted the rifle to aim at the soldier's head and gave a single nod. Moving as fast as it dared, the soldier clicked off the seals of its helmet and removed it from its head. A face emerged from beneath the armor, one with light brown skin and crystal-like eyes. Angela's breath stalled in her throat, but her grip on her rifle remained steady. The man beneath the armor bore no evidence of the cyborg enhancements that defined Alliance soldiers to the rest of the galaxy. Frowning, the man tucked his helmet under his arm and raised his eyebrows as he shrugged.

  "Well?" he asked. "Do I keep my head?"

  Angela took in a deep breath, forcing her lungs not to shudder. She maintained the position of her rifle, staring at the man’s eyes.

  "The name's Ryan."

  "Angela."

  Ryan quirked his lips into a small smile. "Sounds like Angel."

  Angela growled, causing the grin to vanish from Ryan's face. A few moments passed and Ryan cleared his throat.

  "Could you lower the gun?"

  "No, glitch-head," Angela replied. "We're in the middle of a war zone."

  The battlefield materialized into the reality around them as she spoke of it, although it had been there all along. The explosions, the gunshots, the smell of burnt flesh stinging the nostrils like fire came rushing back to Angela's senses. Like a nightmare, or a memory one pushes down in a futile attempt to forget it, the responsibility assigned to Angela shot to the forefront of her thoughts. Guard duty. She was a sentry. This bedroom acted as a location to hide and to watch.

  And Ryan was a distraction, one who had somehow consumed all of her attention. An unknown player could not be trusted.

  "Leave."

  Ryan's eyes widened. "What? Why?"

  "If you want to live, go now," Angela repeated. "You're not a Shieldbearer. You could be a spy."

  "But I'm-" Ryan attempted to say.

  Angela leaned forward from her position. "One more time, glitch-head, and I'll say it slowly. Get. Out. Now."

  She annunciated each word like a full thought, as if each one carried Ryan's fate in its arms. Ryan's Adam's apple bounced on his neck, signaling a gulp. Backing away, Ryan slid the helmet over his head and reattached it to his suit of armor.

  "I'm not with the Alliance."

  "I know," Angela said.

  "I salvaged this armor off a soldier. I need to find my squad," Ryan rambled. "We're Drazers. You know that name? We're not as big as you Shields. But we're human." He begged with his hands, never realizing how his gestures stripped him of any dignity. He reeked of desperation now. "I'm alone!"

  "Yeah," Angela replied, "and you'll be alone and dead in ten seconds!"

  Dropping his hands back to his sides, Ryan progressed fifty yards away. He then turned around, falling into a jogging pace, fleeing from the death offered to him.

  Clenching her gun in her hands, Angela watched him disappear from sight, the armor lost in the ruins around her location. Once he was gone, she released the breath she had caged up in her rib cage, and it sputtered out like a dying fish.

  Ryan was gone. She did not have kill him. She did not have to kill him. Thank the gods that someone out there besides the Shieldbearers was human. The Alliance had failed to assimilate everyone into their forces. A day might still come when the war could be won. Humans might not go extinct.

  Angela imagined Ryan shouldering the burden of the war, searching for his comrades, and keeping safe a hope he was unaware he carried.

  The Journey of My Music

  Drums herald the dawn, set rhythm to once frivolous hearts.

  They thunder in untried veins,

  They hammer in fledgling ears,

  We sense them in the silence.

  Laudable efforts from the few serve as the kindling.

  Fire sparks as the clouds roll in,

  Torches blaze as wind bears down,

  We find our light in darkness.

  The beat maintains our music, never-ending, infinite.

  We dance in rain ‘til sunshine,

  We dance in sun ‘til nightfall,

  Bodies sway beneath moonlight.

  We craft monuments from nothing with stones shaped by lyrics.

  Pillars of our artistry,

  Skyscrapers seen by true hearts.

  No challenge stands in our way.

  We then display this panoply of art for you to see.

  We wait with rapt attention,

  Moments pause as tension swells,

  Our peace teeters on an edge.

  But you never blink, never ponder or stare in wonder.

  You ask what we witness here,

  You ask if we think we are

  Something special since we’re young.

  We ask if you see the music in the trembling air.

  You call us young and naïve,

  You regard us as jejune,

  You say we must stop dreaming.

  Cinders smother and set fire to our golden temples.

  Lightwood made of doubt and hate,

  Beginnings of disrespect

  To those we once admired.

  Our gold transforms to lead like reversals of alchemy.

  Butterflies to chrysalis,

  Hot fire back to embers.

  Our music comes to loathe you.

  We now scream to be visible, sing only to be known.

  I must now walk far away;

  I must not become destroyed.

  I shall shield what we once had.

  They rebel against you, their vocals stained by your contempt.

  Your disrespect is callous.

  Your bigotry breeds outrage.

  They seek to usurp your rank.

  You and they tear at me, and use instruments for twilight.

  One world clashes against rocks

  While one struggles against waves.

  They both shatter in the end.

  I turn away to safeguard my remaining melodies

  While both worlds overwhelm me,

  While both worlds whisper to me.

  They promise peace amid war.

  Both demand my choice, tribute to their cause, a sacrifice.

  One tastes of bitter jaundice.

  One tastes of sour regret.

  Some
choices I make are wrong.

  The journey to discover myself has shadowed turns,

  But I forge on despite them,

  And I keep walking forward.

  One day my songs shall ring true.

  Where Words Have Taken Me

  I tred on the border between what is real and what is not. I step through the door that defines the line between dreams and reality. I venture where few dare to go with open minds and their hands buried in their pockets.

  Yet, I cower under the gaze of the very face I dare to spit in.

  Criticism binds my hands but sets my mind free. It gifts me paths once traveled. It levels mountains to hillocks. Shards of glass rend me asunder at the same time they stitch my words into something that ascends its origins.

  My guidance came through an initiation by fire. Before it, I thought my words to be a sort of pinnacle, as if I had come to the summit and I could never reach a higher altitude. However, the voice I committed to paper resounded, not me, but Charles Dickens, and not in a good way. I layered metaphors with adjectives and sprinkled in nouns where I saw fit. People applauded the language of those pieces, but rarely did they praise the story I told or the way in which I used those words. Once someone told me that my writing was as thick as molasses, sunlight broke through the cloud cover. Language can never be substituted for a good message or a riveting character. Now, I know the tale before I write it. Moreover, the possibilities and endings of each story lies in sight before I choose which one to tell.

  While there is much to learn, creativity tempered by experience forges the best of melodies.

  Although, for some reason, people will argue that the manifestations created by this sort of genius lack the luster, the gleam, I endeavored to make. Who defines the line between reality and imagination? Who sets the words in stone and proclaims themselves king?

  My reality is not yours and yours is a shadow of mine. You satisfy yourself with a half-truth. The viewpoint you cherish paints only a partial landscape.

  Your truth, your passion, is half.

  You believe that fifty percent, or more, of what occurs in your mind is false because your fingers told you so. Your nose says you never smelled honeysuckle found one the lone tree of a field at the top of the world. Your ears proclaim that stars cannot sing and that the peoples of other worlds have never whispered secrets to you. Your eyes convince you that a dragon has never borne you on its back as it swooped through the heavens.

  Your experiences filter through a mind closed off with blocks carved by society, by “common sense.”

  I laugh at your petty arguments.

  But don’t take me as arrogant, for I am truly humbled by what I learn from you and from others.

  Just don’t call me insane.

  If reality is what we perceive with our senses and minds, then there has never been a border between the fantastic and the mundane.

  I am a writer. I forge reality.

  The pen is my tool and the paper is my canvas.

  I hold a hammer in one hand and a piece of unformed reality in the other.

  Universes of though expose themselves to me. You will never know my worlds unless you read my words. And so, I offer my hand to you. Journey with me to rediscover the world you lost when society told me that pretending was playing instead of living.

  I am no fairy tale, yet I shimmer with magic.

  I am no sorceress, yet I cast a spell to bring people who were never born to life.

  I am no God, yet I create things in the blank spaces He left for me.

  This is my story. It’s time I told it to the world.

  Artist: Annika Probst

  Copyright © 2015 by Annika Probst

  Rotten

  ‘Til Death Do Us Part

  Flow

  Negative Sequence

  Convex

  Black and White

  Boy and Girl