2/3 Human

Prologue

Gerine didn't realize how hard she'd been biting her lower lip until tasting blood, and by then a dribble of the stuff was already trailing down her chin. She wiped it away absently and went on watching, wide-eyed.

The shock wave a short while ago had shaken the surrounding sprouts and shrubs so strongly they'd shed their luscious leaves, providing the young huntress substantially less protection than she would have deemed otherwise acceptable. Still, she stayed put, straddling the bare branch of her chosen tree, studying the scene with immense interest.

A pile of twigs lay at the bottom of the basin, encased within a circle of stones. Nothing strange about that. But on top of the twigs sat something Gerine found great difficulty identifying. Red, and orange, and yellow, all at the same time; it looked like a liquid, only it didn't soak the sticks underneath, seeming instead to rise from them like a geyser.

Fire. she decided.

Gerine had never seen Fire before, she didn't even know what it felt like to touch, yet she already selected a name for it. Typically, she waited to gather a bit more information on a subject before endowing it with a unique title, but the name "Fire" popped into her mind with such stunning clarity she couldn't ignore it.

So Fire it shall be.

From the pointed tips of Fire's flashing head billowed the black fog which lured her to this neck of the woods in the first place.

Smoke. she surmised.

But these discoveries paled in comparison to the sight of the creature crouching close by. She wasn't exactly sure what it was, but knew at once that it couldn't be Lianhuan like her. Red arms, red legs, a crystalline cranium, and a short white trunk where its nose should have been. The breath seeping out of this awkwardly placed appendage was heavy and labored. Its single oval eye, housed within a wide white rim, appeared dark brown at first glance. Though, looking closer still, Gerine could swear she saw something beneath the base layer, a pair of peepers closely resembling her own; small black dots within large white spheres.

This is alien. The thought came to her with a staggering certainty.

Yes, he's from elsewhere, someplace else, not here, not from around here, not here, different...different...different planet.