His gaze darts down and back to the monster behind me. “That isn’t close to human. It has been to the center and is dangerous.”
I nod. That’s what he said, and all monsters can be dangerous, so what does it matter what they look like?
“I can read what she writes, and I can tell you about the center. You need me.” His voice is deep and soft and soothing.
“She is ours,” Michael says.
“I can end you and your scaley buddy before you can change more. Then she will be mine.” He doesn’t move to make that threat real.
Cold fear wraps around me, freezing me in place.
Michael growls, a low rumble that eddies through my body.
The shadow shifts and becomes a little smaller. “But I’m not greedy, and to leave this place it will take more than hope and sex. Which is all you three have.”
I scribble in the dirt.How long have you been watching?
“I’ve been watching for long enough to learn that you lot have the best chance to leave that I’ve seen in a long time. You certainly aren’t the first with such grand aspirations. Why do you think I went to the center in the first place? It wasn’t because I wanted to lose weight.” He laughs at his own joke. His body is insubstantial aside from the claws, which seem to be as long as my hand.
“If you have been to the center, and you know how to leave, why are you here?” Tail has snuck up on the side, and I am surrounded by monsters.
“Because I failed. I was missing something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I think she has it. She changed your hand.” His claw reaches toward Michael’s human fingers.
“She is ours,” Tail says with a hiss. “Weare taking her home.”
Which home, the cave, or my home through the center and somehow back to the world above?
Michael and Tail face up to the shadowy clawed monster like they are ready to fight. I stand, putting myself between them and shake my head. A whimper escapes when all I want to do is tell them not to fight. I don’t want them hurting because of me. It doesn’t matter now. I’m part monster.
Tail’s hand smooths up my back, like his trying to soothe me. Nothing can calm the jagged parts of my soul now. While Tail and Michael may not like it, we need… I take a moment to think about what to call him.
The shadowy monster clicks his overly long claws…talons.
Talon, that seems fitting.
His claws lower to point at the ground. “I want to join you. I want to go home. I have struggled to keep my mind even as I lost my body, and I don’t want to lose that too.”
22
Talon
Idon’t know how long I have been here. I don’t even know where here is, though I like what Prey calls it, Under. Under makes sense. It’s a place that’s been swept under the rug for so long everyone has forgotten it exists.
That we exist.
If I don’t do something soon, then I will cease to exist. Maybe monsters that aren’t killed gradually disintegrate, having lost everything they ever were. Or maybe it’s just me because I’ve seen monsters these soft, disfigured humans couldn’t imagine. The center is where those who want to rule go to fight and snarl until they can take over. I wanted to do that once, until I realized that while they were all fighting to be the one who could pull more people through, they were ignoring what could be the way out.
After all, if humans can come here, then we must also be able to leave. Those who find a way obviously never come back to tell everyone else how to do it.
Back when I hung around the center, I still had flesh. I was more than darkness. But getting close enough to the spire to even begin to climb, took that from me, and then climbing the sheer rock face was all but impossible. I spent what felt like years trying. But the more I climbed, the less I became.
So I stopped, knowing I was doing something wrong.
After wandering the outer edge for I don’t know how long. Watching monsters and humans fight and die and change, this fragile and hopeful group might have the piece I was missing. It’s not Prey, but she is the catalyst for anyone smart enough to realize. By wanting to remain human, by showing the other two it is possible, they are starting to revert.