Proteus-Chapter one

Proteus
by
Heather Farthing

(c)2023, all rights reserved.

Chapter one

I think I’ll call them…tree runners. I don’t know what the humans call them. I haven’t been close enough to ask.
They are graceful things on four legs, with elegantly curved necks. The small ones, babies, I assume, have spots, and a few of the big ones—males, probably—have branching sticks coming out of their heads.

I’ve seen them in the places where humans don’t go. They graze or browse, plant-eaters instead of flesh. The thought of eating plants turns my stomach, but these “tree runners” have enough muscle tissue to be appealing.

I lie on my belly, watching them, hidden in the grass. Something feels…wrong about taking down the stickless ones, especially with a little spot next to them, so I focus on the ones with the beautiful crown atop their heads.
It’s difficult to get close to them. If the breath around me changes, they’ll smell me, and bolt. I think I must smell synthetic to them, or wrong somehow. Not surprising.

One of the sticked ones stands tall and blows air out of his nose. He knows something is nearby, something hungry, but he isn’t sure of my location.

I don’t have the stick-throwers like the humans have. I have only claws and teeth and tendril. So I lay in wait, hidden among the wet grass and leaves. When the male is close enough, I lash out with a hunting tendril, which sparks at the end. The women and babies take off running, but the male’s delicious-looking muscles lock in place, a shiver running over him, until he falls sideways.
I stand over my kill, watching it, petting it’s neck as I usher it into the Great Darkness. The hunting spark alone might be enough to kill it, but it feels wrong to prolong its suffering, so I drive my hunting tendril into its brain.

Um...thank you. I know it doesn’t mean much to you, but I’ll live another day. So thanks. Safe travels, friend.

With that unpleasant business dealt with, I lift the carcass over my shoulder, taking it deeper into offices, abandoned after my brother pulled his little stunt, where I have a place. Carrying the meat makes me wary, watchful. Some of my siblings would rather take food rather than gather their own, and if one’s not careful, they’ll be going hungry.

It’s a reasonable tactic, if a dishonorable one. That’s what my big brother told me.

You eat what you gather and gather what you eat. You don’t take food out of the mouths of the smaller ones. I like that. I like you.

Of course he liked me. I was the second added to the tank, his only friend and companion for a long time. He wasn’t the biggest, but he was the smartest. There was always something…different about him.

I have a secret. Do you want to hear it? I have a name.

What’s a name?

A name is a word that means you. It’s what you call yourself, how you define your existence.

Can I have a name, too?

Of course. But you have to think of it yourself.

Humans seem to like squares, boxes. They’re always making boxes to put things in. A glass box full of water for me and my siblings. Boxes for themselves to be in, watching the box with me and my siblings. Boxes to look at when not looking at us, boxes to be in when not watching me and my siblings.

This a box full of boxes, one of many, lined up in neat little rows on paths of gray stone. There are boxes inside, not just rooms, but things. A tall, rectangular box, silver in color, that held food that had long turned rotten. A smaller box that no longer has power, but hummed and counted down when I accidentally zapped it. A white box that folds under the counter, full of white circles and silver sticks with scoops, prongs, or serrated edges. Boxes that held clothes. Boxes that held chemicals, in the room with the white chair and the bowl big enough to sit in, where I sleep. Boxes, boxes, boxes.

I drop the carcass onto the ground, the smooth, hard floor that’s easier to clean after a big meal. Stripping off my gloves and peeling away the warm head-covering and face-concealer, I kneel before my heal, expand my jaws, and take a bite.

***

After the bones are licked clean, I sit in one corner of the box and crack open the long bones for the marrow. It’s my favorite part, saved for after the meal proper.

That’s called “dessert.” Something good you eat because you like it, after you eat the big meal.

How do you know so much, Bismark?

He had just smiled and flicked his tail to me, then turned his attention to one of the humans in their white gown, playing a recording of voices from his hand-rectangle.
I knew he was different, even then. There was a cunning that I didn’t know how to put into words. We should have all been paying much more attention, more to our oldest brother, more to the humans that peered into our tank and sometimes poured food.

It was the food that changed us, or allowed us to change. Whatever it was made from had four limbs made for walking, and so, with curiosity (some more malicious than others), we grew our fins into legs. The humans seemed very surprised at this.

The monsters howl at the pale orb in the sky. They come in all shapes and sizes, colors and textures. I think they’re some creation of the humans, but like the tree runners, they find no kinship in me, only a threatening smell and competition for food. Unlike the tree runners, these mouths-on-legs bite.

I hunker down under a blanket I found in one of the tall boxes, recessed into a wall, closing my eyes and letting my eyes flutter closed. I think the blazing, bright thing in the sky will start to rise again, which means it’s a good time to sleep.

The warm light of the fire in the sky casts on my face, causing me to turn away. It is in this brief moment of wake and sleep that I hear it: the sound of running and screaming.

Screaming isn’t good. Humans scream, but animals make animal sounds. If there is screaming, it means humans are nearby—and chances are good, they’ve run into my brother’s sadistic little creations.

I wouldn’t bother if it didn’t sound so near. Humans are…violent, and they tend to attack first and ask questions maybe. If there’s a family group nearby, I need to migrate on.

I grab for my gloves, the soft head-covering, and the face-concealer from the counter I left them on, putting them in place as I approach the bare window that faces out front. The sounds are coming from several boxes down, blocked from my view.

There is another noise behind the screaming, baying and barking. I step out for a closer look, seeing a human on one of their two-wheeled transports, the spotted glow of predators not far behind.

Those things, my brother’s doing, clearly. I think they use bases from the human-made mouths-with-with legs, spliced with the same genetics we were sourced from. They have long, curved fangs that stick out from their mouths, and patches of fur in circular spots that glows in sequence, a form of visual communication as the pack hunts.

Too late to hide, the human has seen me try to duck back inside my shelter.

“Wait!” it screams, turning its vehicle toward me. “Wait! Let me in!”

The terrestrial biped runs toward me, catching its fingers in the door, preventing me from closing the door as she slips inside, falling into my arms. I kick the door closed and slide my tail up inside my coat to better disguise myself.

“Thank you!” the human breathes, clinging to me like a barnacle, shaking. “Oh, thank you! Thank you!”

I don’t understand what it’s thanking me for, except maybe barging into my den unwanted.

“I thought those things were going to eat me!” it sighs, still holding onto me, as the baying beasts claw at the door.

I purr softly at the noise, hoping they’ll get bored and leave before they do any significant damage.

“I’m sorry,” it laughs. “I know this is rude, but…I didn’t know what else to do!”

I purr noncommittally as it lets me go, turning toward the door.

“I won’t be any trouble!” it promises as I pick up one of the larger bones from the ground, approaching the predator with it from behind. “I’ve got some food we could trade, for a few hours inside! Or you could come back to my caravan…safety in numbers, yeah?”

It turns back around just slowly enough for me to put the makeshift club behind my back. It’s holding out a can of food.

This act…is…confusing. Humans are usually aggressive, and aggressive animals don’t share food.

“All I got on this run is some Vienna sausages,” it smiles. “But we can share them and I’ll be gone as soon as the moondogs leave.

“Moon…dogs?” I ask softly, tilting my head.

“Yeah, that’s what my caravan calls them. The fanged ones with the glowing spots?”

“Moondogs, yes,” I agree, not sure how they came to that series of sounds, and looking at the can in her hand.
I’ve never had human food before. When he made our home unwelcoming, our brother made sure we were full and satisfied, should we choose to take our chances away from him and his madness. Our home burned, but we were offered meat, fresh and still bloody, so we would be strong, come what may.

“I promise, I’ll go as soon as they’re gone, and you can come with me, if you want. We could always use another strong young man in our caravan.”

“Strong…young…man?” I ask, confused. Is that what I look like to it? I am a male, but I don’t know for sure what humans see when I’m in disguise, only that they don’t shoot.

“Yeah, you seem like you’ve been out here awhile, making tools,” it gestures to the room, where I’ve scored deer bones with patterns, tied some together to make clubs or things for cutting or impact. “You must have been very young when civilization fell.”

You could say that.

“I’ve got more,” the human says, opening the can with a sucking sound, revealing a circular arrangement of flesh-colored tubes, one in the center whole. “But I’m hungry now. I’m going to eat while we wait. Promise, I won’t be any trouble and I’ll leave as soon as they do, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I repeat, not sure what it means.

As it turns around to find a place to sit and eat, I discreetly use my tail to hide the club behind the counter, and then watch curiously as it slides damp tube after damp tube out of the can.

“You gonna sit down?” it asks, noticing my looming.

“Yeah,” I repeat, thinking that’s a thing humans say.

“Then sit,” it commands, gesturing at my sitting spots.

Supposing this must be what humans do, I sit where I’m standing, mindful of my tail, legs crossed, coiling my toes in my modified boots and hoping it doesn’t notice the alterations made to fit my feet.

“I’m River,” it smiles. “Sorry to barge in on you like this, but we help our own, yeah?”

“Help our own, yeah,” I repeat numbly.

A human, eating in my den. I may as well have invited my brother’s “moondogs” in for dinner! Humans are violent, and react poorly to me and my siblings. There was always a look of alarm, when we changed, developed lungs and legs, migrated from the brine pools to the decorative rocks. And then when big brother Bismark pulled his little stunt, they tried to destroy us all.

Even the feral ones, the ones that weren’t home when it burned. They attacked us on sight, and left little room for discussion. That’s when I started to scavenge empty boxes for things that made me look like them.




Chapter two