Page 88 of Strange Lights

Orion’s brother darts forward in frantic panic. So he dies first, quickly and silently, without time to scream. The shape overhead lunges out of the darkness. An indistinct whirl of jaws and teeth. Too many limbs. So many claws. And stench. That smell. Orion will never forget that, and nothing will ever smell like those creatures. Like death and danger and decay and something from a different world. Beasts. Orion stares at the spot where his brother just was. But it is empty. The smallest splash of blood is the only evidence his brother existed at all before that giant monster swallowed him.

Orion stops thinking in words, in anything but base instinct. He’s mere prey, and all he knows is his desire to survive. There’s no more room or time for words and coherent thought. There is only live, survive, don’t die.

Still, stay still and hide. Quiet. Be quiet.

It is the last thing he thinks at his sister, too afraid to speak it aloud. But she isn’t quiet. She whimpers and tries to run to a hiding spot. Calls out for Orion, and there’s nothing beautiful about the sound of his name this time. So she dies too. But she dies slower, and louder, and so much worse. Orion can do nothing, of course. But he feels so ashamed that he does nothing. One Beast, a smaller one, toys with her. Orion’s seen parent predators teach their children to hunt, but that isn’t what this is. This is for enjoyment, and Orion’s terror grows to a raging ocean in his head, sweeping out everything else like the tide.

Their friends, the Helpers, try to save them, try to help. He loses track of the ones with his brother and sister, assumes they die with them. Orion is helpless, can only scream warnings silently inside his head as the little Helper wrapped around his wrist⁠—Orion’s oldest friend⁠—leaves him. She unspools from his wrist, darts from the shadows, tries to save Orion’s sister. The effort only prolongs Sister’s death for a moment, serves to distract the Beast as it rips apart Orion’s friend too. So Orion is alone in the dark, surrounded by Beasts. He is without Brother and Sister, without his most familiar companion, more alone and helpless than he’s ever been.

Orion’s memory of the next while is fuzzy, but he thinks that might be for the best. He wishes he could forget it all. He isn’t far from home; it’s visible in the valley as he crests a hill. But it takes all night to get there. It’s the longest night of his young life, a blur of Beasts and hiding and screaming horror.

Bodies, pieces, ruins, and wreckage are all that’s left. Not just his species, others too, ones he’s familiar with and many he isn’t. What a strange way to discover his own world, after its death. He never sees his father again, but he isn’t stupid enough to think that means anything; Orion knows he’s gone. He finds what’s left of his mother under the ruins of his home, enough to be sure it’s her and that she is gone. Curled under the rubble in a makeshift nest, he rests with her. He doesn’t know how long he stays there, but eventually he’s drawn out, has to leave the last remnants of family behind. Hunger, rest, fear⁠—those three things become his entire world.

He does what he can for the very few beings still living he stumbles across. But he finds so few, and there’s little help or comfort to offer. The most he can do is bear witness and whisper platitudes in the short while before their ends arrive. Soon there’s no one left. Except there is, because he finds one of their Helper friends, eventually. These are the symbiotic creatures his species has coexisted with for millennia, sentient and independent but linked to his own race for reasons Orion doesn’t know. He’s never bothered to pay attention to the old folklore. He realizes there’s so much he doesn’t know and never will because it’s all gone now. There is only one origin story he remembers; it’s the kind of soothing tale parents tell children before sleep, how during a time of great turmoil, Orion’s kind called to the sky for aid, and the Helpers answered. The skies have betrayed them this time. Even the Helpers can’t save them.

But it’s a great comfort that he has a friend of any kind. A tiny scared thing, a young one that curls around his fingers, holding so tight it almost hurts. He misses his own Helper, but this new one understands that. She misses her own friend too. There’s little she has to offer Orion, infant that she still is. But her knowledge is Orion’s saving grace. There’s bad news first: The planet is in ruins. Billions of Orion’s kind are now no more than a million. Perhaps only thousands. But they are not beyond hope yet. She tells him about the evacuations.

A few stragglers have sent out the call to any available to hear it, and she has. Hope, if only he can make it to an evacuation point. Orion learns that hope burns. Almost worse than grief or fear. But it’s all he has, and he clings to it with a frantic desperation the same way his robot friend clings to his fingers. The journey is long and lonely. Until it isn’t.

He sees light one night. A wisp of smoke. A fire. Things have been burning all around Orion. But this is different. He’s been watching carefully, always an eye out for friends and foe. This fire is small and deliberate, controlled and covert. Fire is universal. A warm spot to huddle around, a bit of safety. Orion hasn’t seen the Beasts do this, hasn’t seen them strive for companionship. Friends, family, that’s the key difference, he thinks, that differentiates them from the Beasts. Orion’s own race isn’t entirely peaceful. But they try. He thinks that matters more than perfection. The Beasts, they don’t try; they only consume.

The fire burns in the distance while the hope burns in his chest. Hours of careful movement, the ember in his heart growing into a bright flame. He’s so close, he sees them through the trees. A pair of adults. He wants to cry with relief. But he doesn’t, because he wants to live above all else. Tears and careless mistakes will get him killed, ripped apart and eaten.

When the pair of adults finally sees him, the ember of hope inside his chest dies before Orion has time to stoke it into happiness. One adult shrieks in alarm, cowering down in a ball to protect himself. An instinct upon seeing movement, a reflex he couldn’t help before he saw that Orion’s not a Beast. Orion shouldn’t blame him, but he does.

The man’s companion turns, and her eyes grow wide in alarm as she registers her companion’s shriek, and Orion’s approach, and the shadow of Beasts above, all at once. And Orion sees the sweep of sadness across her face at the inevitability of her fate. He watches as the hope in her eyes dies, only a moment before her life is snuffed out in the jaws of a Beast, one of the dark-winged things swooping out of nowhere, as they always do.

Orion doesn’t even feel sad. But he feels every other feeling he has left. Anger. Numbness. Cold. Resignation. Irritation. Orion freezes, knowing by now the correct protocol for survival. Cowering under the underbrush, because he’s prey. But not stupid prey; he’s remained partially covered by foliage. You don’t leave the safety of the leaves unless you have a death wish. He’s observed the creatures don’t seem to see well. Observing, blending in, these are Orion’s biggest strengths. Watchful chameleons live another day.

Stillness and quiet, any prey animal’s best defense, and he’s now an expert at being hunted. He watches with detachment as the adult, the man, tries to run. Emotions melt away because why bother? Orion feels nothing as the man falls, snatched by his legs. His tail is already gone. At least he won’t take long to die; that wound alone will kill him quickly, Orion thinks.

But on the heels of that thought, something isn’t right. The man is still fighting. Why? He knows as well as Orion does that it’s over. What is left to fight for? Why not get it over with? The man ignores the creatures, already consuming his lower half; he uses what strength he has left to throw something small toward Orion.

Detached curiosity becomes a boiling rage with whip quickness. What is he doing? He’s going to get Orion killed. And for what?

The little bundle hits the ground near Orion’s feet. His heart beats fast. The Beasts are distracted for now. But they’ll notice too much movement. Orion nearly flees, but he forces himself to freeze. He decides to stay frozen, despite whatever the man threw at him. But the man, he’s yelling. Screaming that Orion was blocking out because he doesn’t need to hear his death, doesn’t want to. But what’s so important to this man that he keeps fighting?

So finally, Orion listens. And he hears it now. The word the man is yelling with his last breaths. The bundle is moving. Movement will draw the Beasts. Orion should leave it, should run.

“Baby!” The man isn’t yelling in pain; he’s yelling words. “Baby! My baby.”

37

Dead Planet

Baby. Baby. Baby.

The word rings in Orion’s ears.

The mewling little bundle is trying to crawl. Trying to crawl back toward her doomed parents.

Baby. Baby. Baby.

Orion’s gaze finally snaps up to meet the man’s eyes. He won’t last more than a second or two longer. Orion has seen enough of these deaths to know. The man knows it, too, but he’s not hanging on for himself. But time stretches. For a second, Orion shakes out of his primal fog. He’s no longer just prey. Suddenly, it’s bigger than simply run, hide, survive. Other instincts rear their heads. Family. Protect. Brother. Sister.

Orion has a glorious and terrible second of dueling emotions. Life feels vivid and clear, yet death seems only seconds, only inches away. But he is something more than prey, more than a simple animal again. Orion isn’t alone anymore. There’s someone right there, someone else to live for.

The man dies with relief in his eyes as Orion darts forward, snatching the baby clumsily in his jaws as he’s seen countless parents do throughout his young life. But he’s no parent; he’s inexperienced, and his jaws are too small, and the baby squawks in discomfort. A Beast looks up, screeches, pursues.