Caidoz

Part 2: Chapter 9~ An Alien encounter

My hands claw at thin air, my dress throwing sprays of ocean mist into the night, and tears bolt down my cheeks, falling upwards as I gasp for air, choking on my own sobs, clenching my teeth in a pained grimace-- lifting my chin in some vain attempt to see Draco reappear like he always does to save me. "Mom, dad, Homam, Draco, anyone!" I fight with my hair as it whips around my body like a cloak, flinging itself into my vision. "Please, help me!" My body violently begins to shake, my long nails digging deep into my palms of my curled fists, and droplets of my blood trickle from my fingertips to join the stream from my dress into the night above.
   THUD! My hands fling to my chest as my heart skips a beat, my eyes widening. Oh no. THUD! This vibration is so intense it rattles my teeth, sharp canines digging into my bottom lip. A scream of panic slowly begins to wail in my head, getting louder and louder until I realize it's coming from my own mouth. In that split minute, my grip on control slackens, and the Crab seizes it in its claws.
   It burst through with an unexpected force. A loud crack echoes against the roar of the wind as my spine rips free of my flesh, wrapping itself into a hard blue shell. My nails lengthened, growing until they melted together into sharp white claws, and honed, curved spikes break free of my forearms while extra legs ripple themselves free of my belly, expanding outward like eager fingers. My eyes roll back, and my vision blurs for a moment before my visional range extends dramatically, growing to include above me, below me, and almost everything behind me as well as soaking the cliffs in a new color.
   The beast-- myself, actually-- shrieks, shaking itself as it feels the wind blowing past its shell. For a minute, I feel myself grow annoyed though I had no reason to feel irked. It was almost as if it were saying, what took you so long to release me?!  Deep inside, however, I felt security behind my shell-- an inner knowing; I'm going to live-- that is merely vowed.
   Some ancient instinct tells me to tuck in my legs to my body, and I immediately comply, pulling all of my limbs close to my shell.

   This is how the Crab told me I would survive, even while free falling into what seemed an endless abyss as the cliffs around me ended, and I slipped beneath a sea of grey clouds.
   It wasn't until hours later that my eye stalks finally detected a faint glimmer below me. I had been falling at the same speed, but this was the first time I had picked up on anything. Speckles of blue radiate from below, some slowly moving across the bottom. A shiver shook my shell, and I huddled my legs closer-- bracing myself for impact.
   I'm going to make it through this-- I have to!
   When I hit the trees, my body crushed the tops of them as if they were twigs, the sound of their massive trucks splintering sending an infestation of blue to frantically scatter beneath me. The impact of the branch sends white dots into my vision, and the Crab immediately withdraws inward, springing back inside-- the energy withdrawal forcing my body to slacken; I was quickly turning back.
   My shell, like a rubber band, snapped back into a backbone, burying itself back into my skin. As my eye stalks slid back into my head, I lost my extension of vision and the ability to see at all in the darkness due to my loss of UV vision. My antenna withered back into my head, and my brown hair poured out of my skull, again flooding into my face with the wind. My legs did the same, retreating back into my body until I was left with two human ones. My hands were the last to change, and they again became soft and smooth.

   In regaining my vocal cords, I shrieked, covering my face as I neared the small trees, bushes and splinters left over from my initial collision.

   "Oh no, no, no! Trees!" Facing downwards, I squeezed my eyes shut before the wind was knocked out of me by the first branch I hit. I wheezed, coughing, clutching my ribcage as I smashed against another and another until everything was spinning and the ground was suddenly there.
   I hold out my hands in some vain attempt to protect myself, but it was as if a massive bull was had rammed into me with his horns as the impact sent my vision whirling, blood flooding the inside of my mouth as I coughed, splattering droplets on the dirt. Before everything faded to black, I somehow realized that the massive size of the Crab's collision had caused a large indention in the ground around me. As my eyes closed, I allowed myself a weak smile, chuckling as I tasted the metallic tang on my tongue.
   The first person to see this is going to freak out.
   And then, everything went black.