Broken Veil (on hold till late fall)

Carrier

Something white jumped out at my vision.

I jumped up, not overly shocked, but curious. I swung off the branches without a second thought, and ran through the woods. Around the trees, until I reached the white... thing.

I had no idea what it was. It looked like it could have been a big carrier to keep something in, but... I didn't know what. What did the Aerixe have that they needed to keep in such a carrier? A carrier that was taller and wider than myself... And it was bright white.

Why was it so white? I thought Aerixe were trying to be inconspicuous when it came to humans. What if a human came around here and saw the white thing and knew that something was in the woods? What if a human -

Oh my goodness. A human.

This object was so unfamiliar because it was a human object. Maybe it was even a human! But - no, that wasn't possible. If the object was human.... Well, I thought humans would look a little more like Aerixe, and maybe be able to talk and move. And not be so big. The sure teller that the white thing was human was that it wasn't trying to lure me into the sun, and burn me.

I was eighty-nine percent sure that this carrier was from the humans. But then, how did it get here? Was it safe to touch? Was it even safe to be next to? If this object was human, then did a human bring it here? Was there a human nearby?

I touched the smooth white of the carrier. It had a main piece to it, with doors and panes of glass (for decoration, I decided), and then it had an attached piece on the back of it. It was like an open box - there were five rectangular sides, and an open top that was easy to climb into. And since the sun wasn't going to be up for another two hours at least, I climbed in.

The humans had to be far away, I reasoned with myself. They were out hunting for food. Maybe animals, or nuts, or berries.

The thought occurred that they might be hunting for Aerixe.

I shuddered the thought away and instead observed everything that the human had put in the open, white box piece. There was lots of tangled rope, and some leaves, and a couple of huge, black, 3D circles. They smelled awful, but they were oddly inviting, so I sat in them.

What if this was all a trap?

There was a noise, a shuffling, somewhere close enough that I dropped to the bottom of the box and peeked over the edge to see what was lurking. It ended up only being a squirrel, but small animals like that end up making excessive amounts of noise for their size.

Since the attached part of the carrier was getting boring, I climbed out and went through one of the glass panes that only covered half of one of the doors's holes.

There was a pair of chairs, soft ones that were covered in pillows. Between the chairs, there were these gadgets, and I fought the temptation to touch any of them.

Behind the chairs was a pillowed bench, with straps. It looked so comfortable, and I climbed back there and laid down for a while.

I sat in there for a while, pondering. If this carrier belonged to the humans - and I was ninety-two percent sure that it did - then they would come back to get it. I didn't know whether to be excited or afraid or interested or repelled. So I just decided to be curious, and maybe a little bit risky.

I wanted to see a human.

I didn't want to touch it, or speak to it, or even get too close to it, but I wanted to see one. I wanted to know what they looked like, and if they were as scary as the story said.

I thought about that single story. That was the only history we had of humans; the only record that contained them in it. Didn't that seem a little biased? Maybe there was more to it than we knew...?

Of course, I wasn't going to be the one to test that. I was only going to see if they looked as scary as they were depicted. No touching, no talking.

But surely they would come back here for their oversized carrier.

I laid down to wait for them.