Blaze

20. This Is Winter

She takes me to the Captain right away.

First we dodge the tents, along with the revelling black-eyed people in-between them. There are strange smells—rich and oily—and roasting things that pop and flare and smoke, hidden somewhere I can't see.

Someone takes notice of me. One of the pilots, it seems—half-bent wings sprout from his back, part-melded to his skin. (He's in the process of removing his exoskeleton.) I flinch when he sneers; his eyes are like spotlights made of dirt that shine down on the rest of his face, leaving dark trails all the way to his sunk-in cheeks.

Does he see colours? Or only variations upon shadow?

"Hey, you!" I say nothing. Within moments, black eyes circle us like a net.

"You're new, aren't you?" someone else asks.

My head burns too much for me to reply.

The girl (I still don't know her name), pulls me away with a firm grip on my arm. Laughter appears in our wake.

I hear someone shout, "Nice eyes!"

Then, "Good catch!"

Good catch.

All I can do is shudder.

Not like them, I tell myself.

I don't have eyes like them.

Invisible lips chuckle within me.

Yet, they say.

---

The girl leads me down the slope without letting go of my arm.

"You do," she says. Just like that.

"What?"

She says nothing. She lightly hops over a mound of earth and sidesteps a splayed root, while I stumble after her. The tree-top is a seamless ceiling. Everything is so dark. In this half-light, her black eyes could truly be brown, or hazel, or green, or—

Blue like Jackie's.

I nearly choke. I nearly stop. She steadies me by the arm, but I don't like it, I don't need her.

"You do," she says, without stopping. "You do have nice eyes."

My eyes sting.

---

He's so still and dark, and doesn't seem to breathe. His arms are stuck to the side of his body—it's like they grew from there. He's standing in the thin space between two trunks, and he makes no sound until he's close enough to touch me. He's wearing a jumpsuit that covers all his legs and all his arms, and closed boots.

"Your name?"

I freeze. I've never heard a voice so cold. A voice that could be the wind. I look, but all I see are trees (it's getting dark), and her—the Captain has vanished. In the dark, her body is a strange jut of mine (I can't see the seam that separates us).