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The two of us, myself and this man I did not know, sat at a table in a windowless white cell with an indefinite light source. I was afraid, as afraid as a human being can be. I remembered every step that had brought me here and I did not consider this a place of safety.
The unkind witch in Hook Tree Woods has little use for people. Mothers and sisters, obviously, will only disappoint you, and friends—well. She never had many of those. Her only friends now are snakes and toads, who are far preferable to humans.
We lost because we fought. In the beginning, everyone thought it was irresistible, the violence. No research had been done yet; no autopsies undergone. The news about these strangers from the stars didn’t even break nationally.
On the cold dreary night, we were set to leave the water’s depth for good, do you remember what you asked me? Well, if you have forgotten, I haven’t. An avalanche of fright shrouded my insides, blocking any question knocking at the lid of my heart.
“Is there a problem, officer?” “We’re not the police.” My partner, Enrico, places his palm against the door, ready to test the old man’s resolve. I tap my finger against my thumb and SNAPbeam the warrant to the old man’s synaptic cache. “We’re EPF.”
The sweet air of the temple district is what makes the bread taste so good, Mama says. The shafts of sunbeams that come through broken stained glass pick up a honeyed fragrance on their way down and warm our rising dough. The breeze that wheezes through chinks in crumbling stone walls stirs up ghosts of ancient incense and perfumes our airy loaves.
Azahn had been the ninety-third Imperial Foresight to the Dynasty of Silken Flame for only three weeks when he was forcibly retired. His body had been blessed by the holy waters of the Sky-Vein River, and he had earned the named-blade Stalwart Thy Mind, Strong Thy Arm, even now strapped to his back. He had trained his entire life.
When they flash his sign at the top of the Space Needle, he shoots out from the center of Lake Union and flies high into the sky. A mushroom wave erupts from where he surfaces and expands radially. Children watching from the shore jump in place and scream and point at him. The shy ones clap.
How did we end up here? The humans before me had the same physiological traits as I did, yet still we had no means of communicating with one another. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Words and phrases spilled from their mouths, a torrent of sounds bleeding into one another, syllables pouring out in a drum roll, unending and uninterrupted.
I was sorry even before I got caught. The first inkling that we were not going to get away with it came when we were messing with the AI art generator app. You know, the kind where you put some words in and out comes a trippy image. I typed in: Gothic lemon pie running away from the sun. I was expecting something yellow with an errant eyeball.
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