I watched through the jagged gaps in the masonry as she shoved fibrous planks and hollow metal squares against the opening. A makeshift barrier. Clever. I've been trailing her since she slipped through the smoke of that courtyard fire. I told the others, "She's mine." There is a singular thrill in the chase-in toying with prey that mistakes its own desperation for cunning.
Last night, a scream ripped through the quiet-raw, female, panicked. It echoed off the broken stone and drew the dull, curious eyes of the hoard from the dark, hollowed-out interior. Did she see me then, a shadow among shadows, or am I truly invisible to her primitive eyes? The silence that followed was heavy, bloated with the things she doesn't yet know.
I caught sight of her again just as the burning star of this world was set to rise. Concealed by the pale, sickly dawn, I watched her emerge from her shell clutching a rustling skin of thin plastic. I kept my distance-never too close, never too far-just enough to feel the static of her fear, to make the hairs rise on the back of her neck.
The light of this star is a poison; its rays sear my skin and drive me back into the black. Following her across those exposed, flat-grey paths was agony, every step a blistered reminder that I cannot linger in the glare. Yet, the hunt justifies the burn. She won't see me coming until the shadow I cast is the last thing she ever feels.
She has crawled into a low stone-box-one of the many hollow squares lining this hard-path. It is silent, buffered from the mindless screaming of the others. Ideal for the kill.
Across the way, the ground has begun to rot. Twisted, earth-coloured tendrils have choked the opening of the structure opposite hers, a single heavy pod dangling low from the mess. It pulses with a slow, rhythmic heat that irritates me.
She remains inside her barricaded cell, thinking she is hidden. Let her stay. Let her believe the stone and the dead wood will protect her. I can wait for the light to die. The chase is always better when the prey finally convinces itself it has found a sanctuary.
I slipped into the dying light, crouching where the structure's shadow bled into the cracked ground. There she was-a pale, flickering shape in the opening, eyes darting as she surveyed her fortress. I could almost taste her pulse on my tongue.
Then, the world shifted.
The pod split with a wet, visceral gasp. Inside lay the newborn-translucent, limbs curled tight, a rhythmic blue glow pulsing beneath its skin. It screamed. A high, keening wail that shattered the evening hush and vibrated through the marrow of my bones.
The hoard halted on the flat-grey at the sight of me. Then, pulled by that siren call, they surged toward the stone-boxes in a frenzied wave. Shouts of tearing metal and splintering wood filled the air as they shredded the shells in succession-jagged shutters and transparent membranes their first prey. They ripped each one open, a mindless, mechanical hunger but they found nothing. No scent of life. No warmth.
With a final, frustrated howl, the hoard recoiled. One by one, they melted back into the shadowed crevices and the gutters, leaving the path to the silence. Not one of them glanced at the infant. It lay there-a twisted, glowing abomination-still pulsing in its ruptured sac, an unanswered purpose left to rot on the stone. I turned my back on it, my soles crunching over the debris. I walked toward the row of shattered shells, toward the ruin the newborn had summoned, and toward the empty promise of a hunt that had slipped through my fingers once more.