Ch 10 What’s Mine is Not Yours

“She’s coming to,” someone said.

“Forget her!” Someone replied. “You need to worry about not getting your ass shot off!”

“She’s getting up! How in the—”

Star could hear others arguing and felt a commotion nearby but couldn’t be bothered by it. She looked around at an unfamiliar space, medical supplies, bins, and labels all around her. She knew it wasn’t a hospital, but felt it somehow didn’t matter as she fixated on an arbitrary point along the white ceiling.

What is that? She thought. She couldn’t see anything special about the spot, but she could feel something. Something intoxicating. She glanced to the nearby people that struggled over her, but they didn’t seem to notice it.

When she sat up, she was calm. Serene, even. She could feel that things had tried to keep her from sitting up, but they didn’t seem to matter, nor did their effort. All that mattered was this spot on the roof, which she watched with rapt attention.

It changed, suddenly developing an orange bead. Then, the orange expanded, opening as if the magnified sun was making its way through paper. The edges caught fire and beyond was something as beautiful as the sun—a magnificent orb that loomed, peering in after just discovering her hiding place.

She stood and faced it, feeling as though she was standing at a home’s threshold and staring out at spring. Her hair swept away from her shoulders as a wind passed over her. She could smell distant flowers, their scent carried from some unknowable distance. It seemed like such a marvelous day to be outside, how could she not want to go out and meet it. She extended her hand to the orb, then the other, welcoming it into an embrace.

The orb washed over her—everything around her becoming like the seeds of a dandelion caught up in a strong wind. Everything just blew away—replaced by fire and ash.

Star’s face was still serene as everything departed, flames continuing to blossom and spread away from her. She held onto to the warmth of that memory—that place in Spring. While her mind remained there, every other cell in her body ignited with rage as they became convinced that something was trying to steel it away.

Something like an electrical charge coursed through her in blood’s place. She could feel its current crawling across her skin, her hair sparking as it waved behind her and brushed against itself. She glowed all over, light seeming to coalesce over her hands, forearms, shins, feet and torso, concealing their exact positions.

In the air, a twinkling arc stretched away from her, bounding towards the horizon. It was both a signal and a passage. As she looked at the wisps that might have been an air current, she felt as though something had reached into her chest, interlaced its fingers through her ribs, and closed a grip around her sternum. As it pulled, it seemed as though it would draw everything out of her if she didn’t move right this moment.

And so, she moved—not because of the grip in her chest, but because she somehow knew spring was in danger.

Arcs of electricity leaped between her and nearby heaps of twisted metal. She looked up at the arcing trail, then leaped towards it. She sailed dozens of yards, before meeting the ground and jumping again—going higher, farther, faster. On her third, she reached the glittering arc’s highest peek, the wind wrapping around her face as she barreled along the arc’s path.

Moments later, a massive crater came into view amidst a vast forest. Whatever happened, it was recent. Two figures occupied the bowl, one looming over the other—a black beast bearing down on a dragon.

The large cat was reared back, its appendages the size of tree trunks, its jagged set of talons poised to come down across the throat of its adversary. But it froze, an electrical arc leaping to flick it in the forehead. Then, an electric projectile entered its shoulder, exploding from the back and sending the severed appendage away, crackling with electricity as it struck the ground, writhing, and burning away.

As Star left the wound, arcs continued to leap out and touch the creature’s body, each one a punch. She landed, turning back to face the beast as she skidded to a stop.

The giant cat roared, both in anger and anguish as a cavity opened along its shoulder. It bound away, then watched helplessly as the appendage was destroyed. A new limb sprouted in the ruins of the former, the creature’s overall size decreasing as a result. It stared back at her, crouched and appraising her with its ears dipped.

So, this was the thing threatening spring. She looked to the dragon—Sebastian. Yes, that’s what I had named him.

He laid back, gashes marring his body, his wings in tatters. He raised his head, weakly, to see her gaze, then went still, his head lolling.

Star could feel the cat’s gaze, hear it hissing and swatting, but it wouldn’t advance, couldn’t advance, its instincts too strong. As she looked at Sebastian, she could feel it happening. The previous energy that had ignited her cells seemed to crescendo, a single word entering her mind, Mine.

Dirt granules began dislodging around the bowl, finer particulates bouncing and tumbling into the lowest point. Even Sebastian began to slowly slide.

The cat leaped, continuously turning its backside to look behind itself. It reoriented on Star when she moved, her dash evaporating the distance between them. It continued to retreat, avoiding her swings and kicks—what seemed like swung maces, orbs of light affixed to the ends. It avoided strike after strike, swiping in the wake of each attack, only contacting her afterimage.

Star continued to advance, each miss causing arcs of electricity to reach out and carve new wounds across the beast’s surface. The wounds continued to close, its size continuing to shrink. It had started as the size of a tractor-trailer and was quickly approaching the size of a car, the lanced flesh crackling and burning away before it reached the ground.

The beast slowed as it lost mass, but Star did as well, her charge only ever decreasing. She darted back and forth like a crack of lightning, ever advancing as the cat ever withdrew. She clipped it in the shoulder and the limb exploded, the cat rolling away as electricity crawled across it.

Whatever this grip in her chest was—this compelling—she could tell that this cat had its own version of it, the two of them opposites where one wasn’t allowed to exist in the presence of the other. But after the cat rolled to its feet, it shook its head, then turned and ran.

It crested the crater’s upper lip, no apparent intention of looking back. But it hadn’t needed to. Where it had hoped to make a break into the tree line, one of those upright trees had Star planted against it, where she launched away, her foot coming back around to meet the cat in the face, its new head eliciting a new explosion and sending its form cartwheeling back out over the crater.

Star raced back to the bottom, climbed atop Sebastian, and looked up at the falling mass of black. The rage in her cells finally reached her face—her mouth opening to scream. An electrical field spread away from her, rising to intercept the form and bat it around like a kite caught in a hurricane.

It all burned away.

Star sagged then, her hair settling to rest against her shoulders. Her clothes had burned away again but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Her skin emitted a dull glow that pulsed. She walked in a circle on Sebastian’s chest, then laid down there and curled into a ball.

Thump-thump.

His heart beat steadily below her, his chest rising and falling as he slept. It was a soothing rhythm and made her feel like she was on a raft, somewhere far away from land—and all the problems that seemed to take place there.

Star cupped her hands under her cheek, her eyes growing heavy. She could feel herself drifting as a word returned to her. Mine.

Then, she slept.