[GTS] To devour is to survive, that is the way of life for all those who transcend the confines of the Insignificant things called planets, who break the laws of mortality and go beyond the sanity of reason, that is the way of a Devourer of worlds...
Conrad kept his head low as he walked the Devourer through the school courtyard, weaving between buildings and lunch tables, doing his absolute best not to draw attention. It wasn't exactly working.
The girl beside him—the thing beside him—wasn't exactly built for subtlety. She looked like a model someone had airbrushed into reality, tall and elegant with flowing golden hair that caught the sun like a curtain of fire. Her shirt hugged her frame like it was made for her, though Conrad knew she'd made it herself less than an hour ago by scanning his brain or some alien nonsense like that.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
It didn't help that she walked like a queen among peasants, scanning every inch of the campus like it was a relic from an extinct civilization. Her fingers trailed along brick walls, traced the ridges of vending machines, poked at a trash can with the caution of someone examining a dormant bomb.
She stared up at the flagpole like it was a celestial obelisk. A couple of students stopped in their tracks and gawked. Some whispered. One guy tripped over a bench trying to keep his eyes on her.
Conrad groaned. "Try not to look so majestic. We're trying to blend in."
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The Devourer turned to him, eyes wide with innocent curiosity. "Am I not blending?"
He opened his mouth to answer, then glanced at the group of sophomore boys pointing at her like she was a visiting celebrity. "No. Not even a little."
But he couldn't blame them. Truth was, he kept stealing glances too.
Her wonder, though, that was real. She looked at every hallway, every crack in the pavement, every poster on the wall like it was the first time she'd ever seen something crafted by hands that built rather than destroyed. And seeing her like that—someone who once stood the size of a planet, now amazed by an art room window display—actually made Conrad smile.
"You okay?" he asked as they rounded a corner into a quieter wing of the school.
She nodded slowly, still staring at a row of faded lockers. "I... did not expect it to be like this."
"Like what?"
"This place," she said, "is not what I imagined from your thoughts. It is... much more."
