ONE
It was dark and then it wasn't. The brightness was strange and new, blinding to her eyes. She had never seen light before. She didn't like it.
The glow made her heart ache. It seeped into her skin, down and down, all the way to the marrow of her bones. The weight in her chest grew too heavy.
She staggered and fell on the ground, catching herself on her hands in the nick of time. Dust swirled up around her, warm and grainy under her palms. The unfamiliarity frightened her.
Gone was the forever-night. None of her friends had come with her, even though they could fly. She was all alone in this glaring land. The light tugged at her, tugged at her. She didn't want to go.
If she could speak, she would have cried for help. She began to cry.
At the sound of her distress, movement rippled in the shadow. Tears continued in a steady stream down her reddened cheeks. A familiar silhouette appeared through the murk.
She sniffled. Snot had drooled down her nose and into her mouth. The taste was gross and salty on her tongue. Before the shape could materialise out of the dark, shouts rang out behind her.
Immediately, shots exploded in her ears. She had heard this sound before, but never up close. Trespassers were always coming and going into her home, shooting at her friends and making a bother of themselves. It was deafening.
Something deep in her eardrums popped and gave under the noise. The ringing in her ears blocked out the sound. She cried in fright. Her hands flew up to cover her ears. The shots had driven her friend back into the dark.
The people responsible for the noise were suddenly surrounding her. "A child!" one cried, aghast, in a language she could not understand.
They were strange-looking, wearing even stranger things over their skin, which was thin and pasty. If she bit any of them, her teeth would find bone straight away.
"Where are her parents?" someone else asked, in the same illegible tongue, pointing his shooting stick at the moaning darkness.
"Where do you think?" asked another. There was something hard in his voice, even though she couldn't understand his words. "Another orphan. Grab her and cover her."
Someone grabbed her. His face was small and hideous. Without thinking, she bit him. Her teeth clamped down on his hand and dug into the soft flesh there. He shouted in alarm.
His friends startled and swarmed around them. Someone took hold of her around the waist and hauled her whole-bodily off his friend, but she locked her jaw and ended up biting off a pinky finger.
A shower of blood came spurting out of the rest of the hand and all over her face. Caught in the clutches of some random, she struggled like a hellion, biting and clawing and kicking at everything within reach.
Cursing in their strange language, the people with shooting sticks dropped her. She fell to the ground with a thud and cried, more from the shock than the pain. She wanted to go home.
A plume of darkness wafted out of the air around her, answering her call like a mother answering the call of a frightened child. She could not remember her mother. Only the dark.
