The Creatures

Part 2

 Without a second thought I am sprinting towards the base, hoping that Mother and Father have made it to base safely. I hit the door with a thud, and begin banging on it, sure that the creatures are still on the hunt. “Mother! Father! It’s me! I’m alive, I’m okay, please let me in!” For a moment there is no noise on the other side of the makeshift door.

            “Johanna, enter cautiously, for we have an unexpected visitor on our hands.” As the door opens and I pass through the threshold I expect to see a creature that Mother and Father have somehow captured. But I was wrong. It’s a man whom I have never met before. “This is August, he has stumbled across our base and made himself comfortable. Since he is one of us I am sure that he is trustworthy, but we will be watching him closely,” Father informs me. August offers me his hand, palm up. I carefully take it and shake his hand.

            “Your father has said so much about you in the little time that you were away. I was certain that you were dead, but your father said you were a fighter and would be back quite soon. He said that you fight well and you were not going to die. I can see now that he was right about you being able to fight. Tell me how you did it, without so much as touching its skin.”

            I hesitate before I answer, unsure as to whether I should tell August about the creature letting me go. I study him closely. His face seemed sincere and my instincts tell me that August is trustworthy. I have survived fourteen years trusting my instincts and I am not going to stop trusting them now.

            “In all honesty, sir, I did not fight. It let me go. I had fallen and once I got up the thing was so close to me! It went to touch me, but it didn’t. It stopped and made motion for me to go. It let me live, but I am uncertain the reason.”

            August stood for a moment, contemplating what I had just told him. He turned and sat on the earth floor of our base with his legs crossed and his eyes closed. I looked to Mother and Father who both shrug with the same puzzled look that I have. After awhile I finally work up the nerve to ask August what he is doing.

            “I am thinking,” He answered. “This has happened before, with my wife. Long gone now, bless her beautiful soul, but once while we were running one of those things almost got her, but before it lay a filthy hand upon her, it stopped, then let her go. A year later, one of them got her. I’m uncertain as to whether it was the same one, since they all look the same, but yes, I have seen this before.”

            “Do you know what it means?” I ask before I can stop myself. Who was I to rely on this stranger’s word?

            “Sadly, I do not. But I do have a theory. For years, our race has thought that these things were ruthless and cruel, but what if there were some who felt something? Who had emotion, and who cared for our race?”

            I cannot believe what August is suggesting! Some nerve he has to suggest that those creatures actually have feelings! After years of them mercilessly killing our race, without the bat of an eye! No, I would not stand for it. I look to Father; sure that he is thinking the same as I, but no! He is nodding in agreement. I turn to Mother, my last hope, but she, too, appears to be thinking August is right! How absurd, my family thinking that they could be able to feel something, after the senseless massacre of millions of individuals!

            “No!” I cry, breaking the thoughtful silence and making everyone in the room jump. “I will not stand here and listen to you all as you speak of these creatures in such a way! How can you think that they are capable of anything else other than destruction? They have killed over 3 million of us, and you have the audacity to say they are able to feel something for us? All they want to do is kill us! Mother, Father, you and I were just running from them, because they were chasing us, hunting us!