Menschgeist

The Alpha

"I don't think of kids as lower forms of the human species." - John Hughes

Hope, the last resort in the face of ever looming, omnipresent closure. When everything is heading towards a state of decay and degeneration. Life becomes those last few seconds, the recognition of that split second decision. Such is the definition of the moral epsilon. The mysterious mechanism that shapes the very nature of reality. For if all else is reduced to absurdity, it becomes the alpha, the origin of breath, of life, of being. It is at once a cure to the miserable and misery to the uncurable. 

Run, pure instinct aggresively implied as Noah dashed across the beige field with all the will he could muster. Governed by his moral epsilon. His breath growing shorter with each inch his thin, frail legs covered. His feet violently drumming against the soft sinking texture of the dead yellow grass as the shredded sandals struggled to hang on to his toes. A shadow lingered over his back, maintaining an uninterrupted presence, barely bordering the reach of the young boy's senses.

Noah's eyes scooped the end of the field where the forest began. A short, murky sense of relief descended upon him, as if it were testing the waters of his mind. The boy's exhales became louder, more audible, He grew desperate to rid himself of these unfortunate circumstances. And there it was, the forest ! Clusters of trees stood erect with varying degrees of hight, paling against the soft touch of the rising sun. The leaves curled and twisted and interwinted their ways into dark green clouds that stripped the ground from the orange sky's light. The dense foliage would occasionally creep around the logs, covering the ground. Man's first and truest home, embracing the returning human with open arms, and the predator behind him. For the wild jungle remains an open house.

A long, exhausted sigh. The shadow was nowhere in sight, remarked Noah as he leaned against a tree's log. His lungs sucked on to the air they had ached. Hope did it's job and the boy, although unaware, was thankful for it. He casted a glance up and around him, his eyes swinging from branch to another like an excited monkey, anticipating a surprise that never came. All of those trees and plants, so indifferent to his survival, unbothered by the exchange of souls under the rhetoric of teeth and claws happening in between. Like a pactful bunch intent on keeping secrecy. The occasional screech and howl chilled into his bones as sharp as the most tamed of knives. The fearsome atmosphere evoked somewhat of a melancholy by proxy, rattling the genetic cage so as to rile up the malpleasant memories inherited through his ancestors. Images of the primeval man, defenseless, feeble against the unforgiving claws of natural selection.

The Shape, defying the poor boy's expectations, pounced into view once again, and suprisingly so. It dwelled in the moment as it did, taking an instinctual delight in rattling the soul out of its prey, purring to signal its most glorious Eureka. A purring which young Noah heeded with the utmost regard for its source. 

"P-.." He struggled to utter, the trapped air in his dry throat clinging onto the words.

His heart sunk in the face of his highest calling. L'appelle du vide. He could feel his moral epsilon shrinking into the absolute oblivion that encapsulated his mind. 

The Predator stepped out of the shadows, revealing its most aesthetically peculiar form. Its mechanical paws gently sliding along the dirt floor. A curved metallic cylinderical body, housing sets of pipes and synthetic tissue arranged in ways to imitate muscle. A network of electronic and plastic parts that conjoined to design what seemed like the head of a dog, a head that rose in pride, in defiance of the carbon based tyranny that flooded the surroundings. The fresh coat of paint laid upon the frame gently flirted with the sunlight as it shone, the words "CB-18" drawn across what constituted the neck. The Beast slowly approached the boy. Its eyes, if they were to be adressed as such, emitted a discreetly haunting sound, as that of a camera zooming and calibrating. The red irises glowed red as they channeled its systematic lust for the prey.