Aberrant

  Part Three: Paradise?

  Penned, Ms.Mural

  Talon couldn’t remember how she ended somewhere with many tall evergreen trees and blue skies. But, she did know that she was alive, given all the pain that was shooting through her nerves from head to clawed toe. Talon peeled open her eye lids. She was on the floor, some ways behind the cockpit she started in. The shuttle was shattered apart, the roof was gone, allowing a bright blue sky to leak through. Smoke bellowed out of the accidental skylight.

  Talon stood as she acquired her bearings. Her memory returned to her as she grabbed her backpack. Unimaginably, her shark plushie was sootless, untouched by the grime that otherwise coated the entire ship, including the backpack it was strapped to. Talon’s eyes went wide as she realized something- someone -was missing. Talon panicked and she raced into the cockpit. As she clambered into the small space, her right ankle unleashed a torrent of pain. Talon let out a grunt as she looked to Derrick's seat, where he was still strapped in. He was unconscious, with a slowly bleeding wound in his abdomen. Talon walked over to the seat, and unlatched him. The dark crimson fluid dripped down atop Talon as she pulled him free from the seat, slinging him over her shoulder. The blood slowly dripped down her hulking form, staining her soot ridden clothes. She walked to the door of the shuttle and pushed the manual override on the door. After a moment of pushing the door creaked, then fell outwards, slamming into the ground outside. Talon jumped out of the burning craft, and landed, rather hard, on the moist soil.

  Talon’s eyes glanced around. They took in the landscape, it was a tall, dense forest. The trees around her rose thirty or forty meters into the sky, each like little spires clawing at the heavens. The ground was dense, muddy soil. Shrubs and bushes surrounded the crashed shuttle and vines hung from the tree’s branches. Brightly colored flowers and ferns scattered the forest floor. Talon could only assume the faint sweet, almost sugar like smell in the air was their doing. Rays of sunlight danced through the canopy, giving a patchy network or sunshine.

  The air was thick with a cool morning humidity. Glowing specks of dew or leftover rain glinted in what rays of sunlight managed through the canopy. Overhead, imported Terran birds sang out, and in equal weight, native fauna retorted with their own melodies and song. A gentle breeze drifted through the underbrush, slipping around Talon. The trail of downed trees and burned brush followed the shuttle for about one or two hundred meters until it lifted up through past the broken canopy. This was, to Talon, as close to Paradise as places could be; this was the world of Gaia.

  Talon stumbled for some distance until she found a large boulder that seemed like it would be pleasant enough to lay Derrick on. A thin layer of moss coated parts of it near the ground, but most of the rock was as clean as a boulder in a forest could be. Talon delicately laid Derrick’s unconscious body upon the rock. She felt his pulse, doing her best to avoid her claws digging into his skin. His pulse was slow and calm, but clear and strong, he was just unconscious, likely as a result of extreme g-force. Talon sat down on the large rock next to him. He seemed so peaceful in his sleep, yet Talon knew he’d be in pain the moment he woke.

  Talon leaned in and examined Derrick’s wound. It was fairly small, just a flesh wound, no more than a few centimeters deep. Talon grabbed the medical kit from Derrick’s waist. Talon opened the kit, and grabbed the clearer from it. She pulled back her memory of growing up on Caribia. It was a rural world, barely sixty million spread out across its many islands. Talon grew up on a small island off the coast of the largest landmass on the planet. It was scenic, if also dangerous. First aid was a mandatory school class on Caribia, everyone was expected to be able to patch a wound. Stitching was as common as spelling or algebra.

  Talon poured the cleaning solution over her hands, letting it dry, vaporizing into the air. She poured some onto some gauze and wiped the wound clean of the dried blood and soot. She made sure to get the inside of the wound too, even if it would've hurt like hell. She could tell there was a piece of metal stuck into Derrick, but she feared pulling it loose would cause more bleeding or damage. The wound wasn’t deep, nor was it bleeding very much, so she went with her gut, and against better logic, and pulled the small metallic fragment free from Derrick. It looked like a small nail, though the wound it made was larger than it was.

  Thick red blood leaked from the injury. Talon wiped it away, the bleeding was slow, but she had no way of knowing how much Derrick had bled beforehand. Talon sighed and took a deep breath before she got to sewing it closed. Each stitch was careful, but with her large clawed hands, it was slow going. The long piece of metal has stuck in at an odd angle, creating a long puncture wound. Talon bit her tongue as she reached the halfway point. It wasn’t quite the same as the leather models she’d learned to stitch on, Derrick was softer, flesher, tastier looking.

  Talon’s eyes grew wide as she realized the thought she’d just had thought. He was her friend, not her food. Her stomach turned at the thought of eating Derrick. It terrified her. She vowed, silently, in that moment, to never again eat a human. Talon kept stitching, yet a feeling in her gut told her she was lying, after all that man she ate tasted so very good. Talon shuttered as she pulled the needle through, and completed the stitch. She made sure to do a cute little tie she’d learned as a kid, one that would hold and not break loose. Talon had learned it in the Star Scouts. The Star Scouts were an organization dedicated to helping kids learn how to live on the distant frontiers of space. She would spend hours each week learning skills and training to, in effect, join the local militia. Talon only realized this when a therapist walked her through the drills they did, the rifle training they completed, and the organizational tactics they learned. It was basic military training, and she thought it was a summer camp; everyone did.

  Talon still remembered life in the Outlands of Caribia, a vast wilderness that covered most of the world’s land. It was a complex socio-political web with a network of alliances between raiders, towns, and the central government. Talon still could remember her father leading the town militia to fight off the bandits on the far side of the isle she grew up on. The sounds of gunfire, artillery, and the odd aircraft still haunted Talon’s memory. Fifteen percent of the island’s population died in the forty three hour battle, but they won. The raiders were wiped from the island, and for the rest of Talon's life there, they never returned, but then again, neither did Talon’s father.

  Like Carbia, Gaia was a world dominated by its outlands. They formed dense forests, wide plains, and massive mountains that cut continents in two. They, at points, could go on for hundreds of miles with civilization a distant prospect. Talon had read a dozen stories where people went in hoping never to be found. Whole towns and villages were likely so deep into the Outlands of dozens of worlds as to be next to impossible to reach by anything but aircraft or a hike over rough terrain.

  Talon stood up from Derrick’s sleeping body. He seemed peaceful, which Talon took as a good sign. She looked around the forest, finding it completely empty of anything man made, aside from the recent addition of the crashed shuttle. Talon had half a mind to leave Derrick in the shuttle and go off on her own, but she didn’t want to leave a man who suffered blood loss to his own devices in what could be a hostile forest.

  Talon once more pulled Derrick off the rock, and over her shoulder. She picked a direction, east if what felt like the morning sun had any indication, and started onwards. It was rough going, the forest floor was dense with plants and little sharp rocks that made Talon cringe with every step she took. Soon, however, Talon found a pace. It was odd hiking without shoes, but she supposed she’d need to get used to it, it wasn’t like Aberrant fitted boots were commonplace, nor, for that matter, were clothes sized to a woman of her girth.

  The forest slipped by, all of it felt the same. Occasionally, there’d be a large rock, valley, even a pond or two, but none of it felt like it was very unique or meaningful, and Talon was sure would be lost if she wasn’t following the sun’s direction. The trees were all alien, all were two or three meters wide, with large spiraling bark that spun up their height. The green foliage of the world was dense, and fresh. Perhaps it was spring? Or maybe it just rained a lot. Talon pondered as she walked, her mind growing anxious in what felt like a needless panic. The whole world around her felt fake on some level, as if none of the past several hours were real. Had Talon really just done that? Ruined her life so fully, just to be with her wife? She knew what Eleanor would’ve said, “I’m not worth it, Talon. Find a new girl, please, be happy. It’d make me happy.”

  The day grew warmer as Talon marched on. Sweat spread from her armpits and between her thighs, going up to her face, and around to buttocks. The heat wasn’t so bad, but the dense, soupy air was. She wasn’t sure how far she’d gone, only that the sun, which she’d been walking towards at the start of the day, was now at her back. Her legs burned from walking so far, but she ignored the pain, she needed to keep going, she needed to keep up on the imaginary race she found herself in.

  The forest came to a ridge some distance in front of her, dropping off for some distance until it reappeared two dozen meters farther forward. Soon, it became apparent why; there was a large creek running through a small gorge in the land. It flowed quickly down hill, to an unsure fate. It however, was a direction to head. Talon logicked it out; freshwater meant people, people meant a starport, a starport meant being able to find her wife.

  Talon slid down into the gorge, it seemed a decent spot to rest, fresh water, cool sinking air, shade from the sun. Talon took a deep breath. It felt wonderful to take a rest after hours of walking. Was it really hours? Talon couldn’t tell, she felt trapped both inside, and outside of her head at the same time. Talon set Derrick down on a downed log. She looked up to the sun, its rays falling at an angle through the forest. The natural clearing of the creek allowed the sunlight to pass through unabated. The sun glittered and refracted through the clear stream of water. Talon down next to the creek on a large rock. The rock was a pure burnt black. The entire small gorge was made out of the same dark rock. It was basalt. Talon didn’t know enough about geology or Gaia for this to give a clue as to her location, but it did give an odd sense to the entire place. It was calm, safe, but also foreboding.

  Talon sighed as she set her feet into the water. The muck and blood and ash all slipped away with the cold current, forming spirals and filtering down the river. Talon bent down, and cupped the water in her hands. It was crystal clear, fresh, cool, a wonderful reprieve from heat of the air. Talon smiled as she pulled the cupped water to her lips. It was only as she drank the water that she realized just how thirsty she was. She pulled another cupped hand, then another, then another. Her head spun for a moment, it was as if all the exhaustion of the hike had just hit her all at once.

  Talon stood, looking back at Derrick. She stumbled for a moment before landing hard on the bank of the creek next to him. She felt like her brain’s worth of nerves were each individually plucked at the same time, and headache spilled forth. Talon groaned as she felt the small spasms in her legs over used muscles. A powerful sense of exhaustion grabbed at Talon’s mind, demanding her to cede itself to it. Talon resisted the sensation, tried to force it back. But she found little energy to bring herself around. The ache of her ankle, the growing soreness of her thighs, her parched mouth, her aching head all screamed at her to stop, to rest.

  Talon laid there for a moment taking deep breaths, running through everything that could go wrong with taking a nap. She looked to Derrick, then around the gorge, then to the creek. It surely would be ok if she fell asleep for just a few hours, that’d leave time for her to start a fire by sunset, surely. Talon crawled across the rounded river stones to Derrick’s side and allowed her mind to fall into the slumber it so desired.

  #

  The crackling of a fire, and homely smell of burning wood filled Talon’s lungs as she sat up, nearly panicked. It was dark, and the only light was a small blaze to one side of her. She looked around, the creek ran calm, slow, and she was sitting upon the log Derrick had inhabited earlier in the day.

  Talon’s head spun around as Derrick’s spoke. “Look who had the pleasure of finally waking up!” Derrick sat on a rock next to the fire. He was roasting some animal over it, it looked like a small rodent.

  “Derrick! Jesus, don’t scare a girl like that!” Talon smiled, relieved, “Thank god you’re ok! I was worried.”

  “I was worried about you. You looked like shit when I woke up.”

  “Did I? I felt like shit when I fell asleep.” Talon sighed as she looked at Derrick

  “Explains a lot, you looked like you crashed out right here.” Derrick laughed.

  “I kinda did.” Talon blushed as she looked at the slow cooking rodent, the smell of the flesh cooking made her stomach growl like a ravenous wolf.

  “You’re hungry… Huh?” Derrick gave an odd, awkward, clearly forced smile, “Here, you can have the- uh -rabbit thing.”

  “Are you sure?” Talon smiled as Derrick set it down infront of her.

  “Yeah, I ate my food already.” Derrick avoided Talon’s eyes as Talon picked up the rodent and started tearing at it with her razor teeth. Derrick grimaced as Talon tore the carcass apart.

  Talon, however, barely noticed, the cooked meat tasted wonderful. It was barely a moment before Talon had eaten the creature down to its bones. She hadn’t realized, but she’d even eaten the organs. She hadn’t even noticed the gritty texture of liver, or the foul taste of intestines, all she could taste was meat. Talon looked to Derrick, his eyes dodged hers.

  “Meat tastes good, huh?” Derrick’s words hung in the air, infecting it with an almost frightened element.

  “Yes?” Talon grew an inkling of what Derrick was talking about.

  “The Talon I knew was a vegetarian, she would’ve never accepted the meat, even if it meant starving. This Talon though,” Derrick motioned to Talon, “She took the meat without second guessing herself. It wasn’t even on her mind that she’s a vegetarian. It’s as if she’d forgotten.” Derrick looked into the fire, watching the embers float into the dark night.

  The fire leaped from the logs, each flame spinning and twirling around in the pit. The crackling was slow, calm, yet in a paradox, it took Derrick’s angry energy, realised it, allowing it to return to aether. Derrick’s eyes befell Talon, an implied question in them. Yet Talon couldn’t make out what he was asking, it was a mystery that could self propagate if allowed to.

  “I- things have changed, clearly… Aberrant eat meat.”

  “They also eat vegetables, you know.” Derrick narrowed his eyes.

  Talon chuckled, “Sure, sure, but, meat is a larger part of an Aberrant’s diet than in Humans.”

  “Humans are also a big part of the Aberrant diet apparently, huh?” Derrick looked at Talon, his eyes held anger, his brow furrowed, his face in grimace.

  There was silence in the air. Not even the night birds sang, the fire seemed to be almost quiet, the creek paused, yet Talon’s breathing sped up. Her chest rose and fell and her tail nervously froze.

  Derrick looked at Talon, his eyes held a hate in them, “You ate a man, Aberrant.” Derrick looked at Talon, his eyes becoming alien to her in that moment. “I don’t know what you did to my friend, but you’re not her. You don’t look like her, think like her, sound like her even. You might have stopped yourself from being mind controlled, but you didn’t stop yourself from becoming inhuman.”

  Talon was at a loss for words. She just stared at Derrick, hoping, desperately he’d apologize, or his eagerness would break, yet no, he stood firm. Talon looked into the fire, her eyes welling with tears. “You think I wanted this, Derrick?” Talon’s voice cracked, she sounded like a child. That was ok, she was ok with that.

  “Well, are you going to eat me too, Aberrant?”

  “Fuck off, Derrick! I'm still me! I’m still Talon!” Talon stood from the log she was on, a wave of achy pain passed through her legs. She stumbled forward, towards Derrick, looming over him.

  “Are you trying to scare me? I already fucked over the entirety of the Lagoon’s crew for you, Talon. How many do you think are dead?” Derrick looked past Talon. His eyes locked into the fire.

  “That’s not our fault!”

  “You’re right I suppose. You didn’t decide to doom an entire ship’s worth of people. Talon did; it’s Talon’s fault. And now she’s dead.” Derrick looked up at Talon’s face, tears were in his eyes too.

  Talon felt a growing urge to make Derrick suffer for such indigent words. An urge to slash at his vulnerable throat, or at least scream at the man. To make him feel bad. “You sound like my mom when I transitioned, Derrick! I’m still right here!” Talon stepped away from the man, hoping that could contain her anger better. Was it always so hard to avoid exploding at people?

  “Well, ‘Talon,’” Derrick threw up air quotes around “Talon,” only serving to irritate her more, “What makes you think I don’t know my friend better than you?”

  “Cause I am your fucking friend, Derrick!” Talon spun around, and, slightly witless, jumped the meter between the two of them. She grabbed the man by his shirt collar, pulling him into the air from the rock he sat on.

  “My friend wouldn't have eaten someone! She wouldn’t have been so reckless!”

  Talon clicked, anger palpable in her voice as she spoke, “If Talon died, she died when her wife was stolen from her, Derrick!” Talon’s voice choked with tears, “If I’m dead then why do I still suffer? What is the point in that? Do you really think I’m dumb enough to think I can find my wife? She’s almost certainly dead, Derrick, or so far gone as to be just another hordeling! Death would be better at least.” Talon’s eyes let fourth a torrent of tears, “I wanted to die, Derrick! I- I wanted to die….” Talon’s voice rasped, her tears ran down her cheeks, her legs shook, and her tail whipped around, back and forth. Talon set Derrick down, he stumbled backward a few feet, landing on his ass.

  There was a long silence. The bugs returned to the air, the nightly birdsong began again, the creek flowed once more. Talon’s clawed feet dug into the soil as she walked back to her log. Her ankle throbbed from standing. Talon sat down, her tail swishing behind her like an annoyed cat. Then, the trip of it, which was dragging along the ground, hit something wet. Talon jumped slightly before realizing what it was. There was a dripping of slimy residue down the far side of the log from the fire, it was her foul slime. She couldn’t break her gaze from the slime. It shouldn’t have made her so fascinated, yet it did. The lichen and moss it had flowed over had died. Talon furrowed her brow, was it really so grotesque as to kill plants?

  Talon looked at Derrick, he’d come back to sit on his rock. He looked mournful, almost inwardly bitter. “I- Fuck…” Derrick sighed, “Talon, I’m sorry. You’re still you. I just… I wanted to believe in a vision of you that wasn’t real, I guess. An idealized person isn’t a real one. You’re hurt, I’m hurt… We’re all hurt. I- I didn’t mean what I said, I promise… You’re still my friend. My best friend, even.” He looked at her, she looked back at him. “You’re gonna find her. We’re gonna find her.” Derrick looked at Talon, his face contorted into a forced, yet paradoxically earnest smile. He dropped it as Talon refused to turn the look.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “I just… Derrick, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of this to happen… I just wanted to find her… I want to be with her so badly…” Talon’s eyes once more let a flood of tears out. They were stained the same purple as her sweat, as her awful slime.

  “I know you do.” Derrick paused, clearly wanting to say words he knew wouldn’t help, “We should get some sleep, huh? I’m sure one of my traps will have caught us breakfast, and then we can head out?”

  “You set up traps?” Talon wiped her tears away.

  Derrick laughed, “You think I caught that thing with my bare hands?” He laid down on the soil in front of the rock, looking at the fire.

  “Ha, I suppose.“ Talon laid back on the log, gazing up at the forest canopy above her. The log was too small for her, leaving her legs to bend down at her knees down towards the soil. Her claws dug at it. It was slightly warm, eight from the fire or the residual heat from the sun.

  Derrick let out a sigh, “Goodnight, Talon, I hope you sleep well.”

  “You too, Derrick. I’ll see you in the morning” Talon’s eyes slid shut, and the darkness of the forest encapsulated her.

  #

  Talon sat up, her eyes flying open as her gut wrenched in pain. The forest was lit by the earliest glow of the sky in the morning, giving the misty forest an ethereal shine. The fire had long since gone out, and the creek still quietly ran by. Talon winced as her insides threw themselves around, sending pain up and down her body. It emanated from her pelvis region where it ached and pained awfully. She groaned as realized her pants were cold and wet. She looked down and was leaking slime, it perforated her underwear and leggings, and now leaked onto the log. She looked at it, puzzled, is that where the slime comes from? Cause- gross… Talon tried to stand before she doubled over, her insides once more throbbing in pain.

  “Ahgh!” Talon cried out as she felt her abdomen muscles cramping awfully, “What the fuck is happening to me?” Talon writhed in the dirt, looking to Derrick’s rock, finding it empty. “Shit… I need to clean myself up before-”

  “Talon? Are you ok?” Talon rolled around and spotted Derrick running up from down the creek, in his hands was a large fish.

  “Err, ahhg.” Talon gave a few negative clicks as she looked at Derrick, then her pants, then Derrick again.

  “Was the rabbit-thing not cooked? Fuck, did I poison you?” Derrick set the fish down on the rock, it laid still, clearly dead.

  Talon “N-nooo… Am I dying? What the fuck is this?” Talon grabbed at her soft stomach, “Why do you hurt like this! What the fuck!” Talon yelled this as loud as she could, it echoed through the forest for several moments.

  “Relax, ok? Is it your alien bits down there?”

  “My what? My- Oh my god…” Talon cried out in ” Talon gestured vaguely to her stomach. As she forced herself to sit up and against the rock.

  “Mhm, that makes sense. It’s ok, just relax, I’m gonna get you something to drink, and I’ll start another fire for some hot rocks, and of course, fish!” Derrick pulled a flask from his belt, it was one he used to hide some alcohol on the Lagoon, where it was strictly banned. He marched over to the stream, diligent, and filled the flask with the water from it. He happily walked back over and handed Talon the flask. She took a sip from it. A hint of brandy still filled the water.

  Talon looked over the fire pit “I should help you start the fire, I-”

  “Not with cramping that bad, and, not with your ankle! Did you seriously run here from wherever we crashed?”

  Talon blushed, “You were injured, I didn’t want you to get more hurt and I wanted to find civilization!”

  Derrick snickered, “Well, you succeeded in that, there's a town on a river some, I dunno, ten kilometers from here? I reached the shore, it’s where I got the fish. There’s a beautiful ridge overlooking the river. The town’s on the far side of the river, three, four kilometers from where the creeks flow into it. It’d be best to probably wait until you can walk properly until we try to ford it, though.” Derrick smiled as he walked over to a pile of sticks he’d assembled, he grabbed several off the top and threw them into the fire pit. Small puffs of ash floated out from it.

  “That could be a week! Maybe more!”

  “Then we stay here for a week.”

  “What if it’s two?” Talon’s voice cracked, her eyes growing wide.

  “Then we stay for two, Talon. My point is, we’ll be fine. Remember how we made shelters out of sticks and twigs and leaves and shit when we were kids?”

  “A lean to?”

  “Yes!” Derrick gave Talon finger guns. “We should do something like that. Now, you can help, or not, don’t feel a need to! If you want to help, find a location for it, and move some sticks over there. Go slow! For the love of god. I know you, and you have ADHD and are jumpy, so please, be careful..”

  “Ok, ok, I know, I know. Thank you.” Talon stood, slowly this time. Her guts churned, but they didn’t throb quite so bad.

  “Oh… Your pants are uhh.”

  “Dirty, I know. I don’t have a clean pair.” Talon sighed as she pulled them and her underwear off, revealing her nether, which leaked the viscous slime.

  “Oh you’re just gonna- ok.” Derrick nervously laughed as he started rubbing sticks together, clearly not interested in looking at Talon’s genitals.

  Talon lumbered over the creek, taking slow, heavy steps. She bent down, and again, her insides pained, but it was bearable, for the moment at least. She dipped her leggings and panties into water, soaking them. Long trails of purple flowed down stream, mixing into the water. Talon trashed them around for sometime until they seemed properly clean. Talon found a rock that seemed requisitely clean, and laid her clothes out to dry upon it.

  Talon mandered over to the pile of sticks. She moved as slow as she could, as not to encourage her guts to cramp. She grabbed two large, straight enough branches from the pile. Talon hoisted them up over her shoulders, her insides spun for a moment, but, to her joy, they didn’t seize. Talon looked around for somewhere ideal to place the structure. The wide flat area next to the creek would be great, but it was clearly in the creek’s floodplain. Up on top of the gorge would be safe from flood, but not wind or heat. Then, a prime local caught her eye, located in the rocky outcroppings that surrounded the creek there was a large chunk of missing basalt. It was a few feet up from the water level, and rather hidden away in the dark stone. Talon walked up to the large area of missing rock. It was four or five meters deep, and she could feel the cool air leaking from it.

  “Jackpot.” Talon smiled as she looked into it. It was a small cave that went backward into the rock a few meters. Talon laid the two large sticks against the entrance to the cave. She marched back over to the pile and grabbed more of them before returning the dozen meters to the cave. She repeated the process, each time growing ever so slightly more reckless, less careful of her cramps.

  On the sixth journey over, however, as she neared the cave entrance, her muscles spasmed and she doubled over, the wood she was carrying clattering down with her. Talon screamed out nonsense as she grabbed at the dark, rocky soil she crashed into. Her stomach pained as she rolled around for a moment before ending up on her back. She groaned as beads of sweat formed, then quickly began to race down from her face and body. Derrick’s footfalls filled her pointed ears as he ran over from the fire pit.

  “Jesus Talon! Are you ok? That’s the second time you’ve fallen like that! Is your ankle ok? Or is it your-” Derrick looked down at her nether, his jaw falling slack. “Oh- it’s- that’s a lot of slime…”

  Talon felt another wave of pain flood over her. Yet, in equal parts to the pain, Talon felt a deep, passionate pleasure emanate up from her loins. She could feel it now, whatever it was. She hated the sensation, yet loved it in equal parts. It wanted out of her. It called to her. Talon nearly panicked at the sense, what was this feeling? It took a moment of intense, painful pleasure for her to realize what it was doing. It was speaking to her telepathically, it called her mother. It desire to be free. Talon shivered as a sense of euphoria rushed up her body as she fired her muscles in a way she’d never done before. All at once, she felt it leaked, then spilled forth from her vagina. The cramping, the muscle spasms, the pain, all faded. All that was left was the strong sense of pleasure. Talon hated that she enjoyed whatever just happened to her so much. She hated it, yet in a horrible paradox wanted nothing more than it.

  “Oh my fuck… Talon? Talon!!” Derrick leaned down, his eyes glancing between Talon, and whatever just came out of her.

  Talon, dazed, pushed herself up. She gazed down, looking at what had come out of her. Her eyes went wide at the recognition of what she was looking at: Fal parasites, a dozen of them, coated in Talon’s slime. Once by one they started wrigging to life, all moving towards her, towards her legs, towards her nether, towards Talon. Talon pushed herself away, standing up, dazed. Then they spoke. They spoke as a unified voice. They intruded Talon’s mind, forcing their way in.

  “Mother! Mother! We live! We thrive, let us turn this new world into a hive! Let you be a new matriarch!”

  Talon screamed. Her voice crackled, and strained, her throat seizing, her lungs burning as she screeched out longer and longer and longer. Finally her lungs ran dry on air, and Talon was left to hyperventilate. She looked at the small worms, their awful voices calling out to her. Asking to infect the world, turn it into a hive. Talon raised her right foot claw, and began to slice, and pound, and eviscerate the pile of parasites.

  “M-Mother, why do you hurt us? Please! We wish to serve the hive! To serve yo-”

  She clawed until the voices stopped. She clawed until the parasites were a mash of meat and slime mixed into the soil. She clawed until Derrick walked up beside her. “Hey, hey, they’re dead! They’re dead, ok? You’re ok Talon. You’re ok.” Derrick set his hand on Talon’s shoulder as he stood next to her. Talon’s eyes grew clouded with tears.

  “They spoke to me! They spoke to me Derrick!” Talon realized she was screaming only as she spoke the words.

  “Hey, hey, deep breaths,” Derrick smiled as Talon took several, though it seemed to do little to calm her, “Wh-what did they say?”

  Talon looked at Derrick, manic, “They called me mother! They-” Talon’s words choked in her throat. She shook, her tail running around through the soil. Talon couldn’t make sense of it. It made sense, from a biological perspective, the Aberrant needed to spread; she needed to create a hive. Again, Talon recoiled at her own thoughts. They weren’t just violent, she’d had awful, violent thoughts before, and they hadn’t bothered her. No, these thoughts weren’t even human. They were the thoughts of a monster.

  “Mother…” Derrick repeated the word, as if doing so would make him more comfortable with the concept.

  “I’m a monster, Derrick! And I’m making more little monsters! I- Fuck! I- Oh my god! Please god, please god, please…” Talon weeped as she looked at Derrick.

  “Hey! Hey, you’re not a monster, Talon.” Derrick spoke slowly, “Monsters don’t-” Derrick sighed, “Monsters don’t regret doing bad things. Monsters just act without thinking. Humans, us, we only act without thinking some of the time, you understand tha-”

  “I killed a man and ate his raw flesh Derrick! I killed two, maybe three other men because-”

  “Because they all had guns aimed at you! Hell, the one you ate tried to shoot you! And remember, I-I shot one of them!” Derrick paused, seeming to come to terms with this thoughts, “So that makes two monsters of us then…” Derrick took a deep breath, calming himself, “Talon, my point is that you are still you…” Derrick’s eyes grew teary, “If you weren’t the Talon I knew- the Talon I know -you would’ve just eaten me before I had the chance to wake up. You wouldn’t have patched my wound, and you wouldn’t have carried me the ten or, god, maybe even fifteen kilometers from the crash site on a twisted ankle. You wouldn’t have taken my manic bullshit last night, and you most certainly wouldn’t have just killed those parasites! You are Talon Kileandar, bitch extraordinaire, and xenogeneticist who found out how to break the encoding on the Fal genome!” Derrick smiled as he leaned against Talon, his head barely coming up to Talon’s shoulder.

  “That research was blown to shreds with the Lagoon, Derrick.” Talon sighed as she looked at the pile of muddy meat slime.

  “Well, all the research on the ship gets saved to one of the black box computers. Those things are practically indestructible.”

  There was a moment of silence before Talon raised her head, her ears perked up as she clicked, “That means if we get to one of the black boxes, we can prove the Aberrant can be-!” Talon looked at her own claws, “Changed.”

  “Exactly.” Derrick smiled as he walked around in front of Talon, ensuring to avoid the slimy mud pile, “Buuut, first things first, let’s get that shelter made. Are you still cramping?” Derrick looked at Talon. His face seemed so fatherly at that moment, someone who earnestly wanted to help Talon. It was the Derrick she met as a Star Scout Senior in their shared youth, he was barely older than Talon, but he always was a guide of sorts. He had always been the leader Talon was too caustic to be.

  Derrick had always been relatively level headed, decent under pressure. When dedicated to a task, nothing could distract him. It became a joke in Star Scouts that he was gay among the boys, as he was never once caught staring at the girl’s when they did swimming. Talon of course got caught doing it. Though in equal parts to attraction, she felt envy. As she looked back, it made sense, in retrospect, that he was asexual. Signs littered themselves throughout his life, the lack of crushes, the rolled eyes at Talon and Eleanor gushing over each other, the active disgust at the time of anyone coming onto him sexually, not to mention the two girls he dated, before promptly dumping when they asked to have sex. He seemed ok on his own, he rarely, if ever, lamented it, often even joking about it. Talon could always tell though, Derrick had a longing in heart for love, just not lust.

  “No, not really. There’s some residual pain and-” Talon paused, chuckling with a click, “Lots of slime!”

  “Yeah… Lots of slime is right… Why don’t you clean off in the creek, keep an eye on the fire, I got it started. I’ll put up the shelter. Damn,” Derrick looked at the small carve out Talon found, “It seems like you found a nice spot for it.”

  Talon smiled, sighing, “Thank you, Derrick. I’m gonna go clean up.”

  “Sounds good.”

  #

  Talon sat in the creek. The cool water was in stark contrast to the thick, humid, hot air. Talon smiled as she watched the fire crackle from the creek’s bank. It burned perfectly, the tripod of wood Derrick had assembled stood like a champion over the muddy bank. Talon smiled, it was the same way Eleanor built fires, she was the one to teach Derrick and Talon how to do it. Eleanor was always chastised and made fun of by the other girls at camp, she was too “manly” or “strong,” never pretty. But Eleanor was always pretty to Talon, she was truely as perfect as perfect came. Eleanor was made fun of in adulthood for dating, and then marrying Talon. Eleanor’s friends all said she wasn’t really a lesbian, and that Talon was still basically a man. The friends never came around after Eleanor blew up them for dead naming and misgendering Talon one too many times. Eleanor said it was ok, she would make new friends, ones who respected Talon.

  The cool water of the creek flowed around Talon, it was three or so feet deep in the small pool Talon had decided was hers. The pool was calmer, more relaxed than the rest of the creek. Talon smiled as turned her attention to Derrick. He worked, assembling a large wall in the front of the cave. Talon hoped his wound wasn’t hurting too much, that she disinfected it. He seemed fine, which, to Talon, was a good sign. She looked at her own flesh wound. The large nick on her left arm seemed, as if by magic, almost entirely healed. But Talon knew it wasn’t magic, it was Aberrant's genetics. Capable of healing ten times faster than a human, and regrowing entire organs or limbs, they were terrifying creatures.

  Talon’s large, pointed ears flicked at something, the crunch of a branch. It was some ways downstream of the creek. It was somewhere up above, in the forest. Talon’s head spun around to look, her eyes growing wide, yet nothing stood from the origin of the sound. A moment passed, then two, then three. No other noises, no movement, certainly no figure appearing over the gorge’s edge. Talon took a deep breath. Her lungs tightened in her chest, and her legs were shaking. The prospect of being found out in the forest was terrifying, most people carried guns in the Outlands of the Frontier Worlds. Not to mention the roving bands of looters and raiders that scoured the Frontier’s small towns and villages. So far from colonial apparatus, they had free reign. Most towns had milpitas, but they couldn’t defend outside the towns most of the time. Often, the conflicts between bandits and towns would boil over into small-scale wars between bandit lords and the local authorities, ravaging the local economy.

  The thought of being found by bandits was equally disconcerting as being found by the central government. The bandits wouldn’t just see a potentially dangerous Aberrant, they’d seen a bargaining chip with the colonial government. That, or they would torment Talon, force her to do unspeakable acts, practically keeping her as an attack dog.

  Yet, the forest stayed calm, swaying to and fro, waving in the wind. Talon took another deep breath, her mind anxiously spun through her thoughts. Talon turned back to the fire. It still crackled and burned, the fish Derrick caught sat on a spit overhead of it, cooking. Talon stood from the water, it ran down her girthy form, evaporating into the air. It shimmered and glinted off her skin. She was totally nude, something she’d only accepted as ok given the total isolation, and completely asexual man who was more worried about the stability of his cave hut, than the eight and half foot tall alien woman with breasts that Talon knew, in given time would cause a cascading number of backaches.

  Talon looked at her body’s reflection in the water, was she more muscular than she already was? Or was it fat? Probably some of both. She looked down at her breasts, it felt odd for them to be so prominent, so large. Her stomach was soft, sticking out and hanging downward two or three inches. Under the soft fat though, she could feel her muscles. Her arms and legs, and rotund prehensile tail all followed the same pattern. Soft fat cloaking strong muscles. She couldn’t tell how different she looked though, the creek water was too disrupted to give a clear enough image. That was fine, there was some relief in that. Why was that so relieving? Was she afraid of this new form? Somewhat, but that wasn’t what gave her reflieve. Maybe it was just anxiety, the same fear she’d known forever, the fear of rejection, the fear of dismissal, the fear of humanity itself. This was, however, no time for psychology, Talon concluded.

  Talon walked over to the fire and spun the large stick that impaled the fish. It spun over the fire until its opposite side was being cooked. Talon smiled as she looked over to Derrick. He was taking a break, drinking from his flask. He seemed so in his element in nature, which made sense, he, Eleanor, and Talon all grew up surrounded by it. It was nice to be back somewhere green. For half a decade Talon worked her ass off to get a position on an Fal research vessel like the doomed Lagoon. It took two more years yet to get her genetic testing approved, and by then, she’d been given approval to work on the Fal parasites themselves. The rest was history.

  Talon looked at the fish, she brought a claw up to it, and sliced through the tender flesh. It wasn’t quite done, but it was clearly coming along well. Talon started to walk around the fire, and over to Derrick. The strong pain in her ankle made her stomach flip up then down then up again. She took a deep breath, and made sure to put most of her weight on her left foot. Derrick was using some, clearly improvised, rope to tie the wood of the structure together. It formed a, albeit large, doorway.

  Derrick looked up to Talon from his work, he smiled as he saw her. “Feeling better?”

  Talon nodded, examining the doorway, “Why’s the doorway so large?”

  Derrick narrowed his eyes, fully standing to his six foot three stature. He was, evidently, dwarfed by the massive woman. “Why are you so large, Talon?”

  Talon blushed as she rolled her eyes, “My size wasn’t exactly a choice, Derrick.”

  “Well, the door was. If you can finish tying these sticks together, I’ll check on your dinner,”

  “My dinner? Don’t you mean our dinner?” Talon cocked her head, confused.

  “No, I’ve got a smaller fish for me. That one is for the big lady.”

  Talon wanted to be offended, but in any way you could cut it, she was, in fact, a very big lady. “Alright, I’ll tie these sticks together, and you can cook our food.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Talon sat down on a small rock outside the cavelet. She painstakingly began to complete the work Derrick had started. The most frustrating part of thatch construction was the initial part of it, the tying of the sticks and grass together, but Derrick had already completed that part. Talon had always enjoyed Derrick’s attention to detail. It wasn’t common that she needed to be able to work with a xenolinguist in xenobiology, but at the odd moment, deciphering the meaning of an ancient manual or lab procedure from the Deslaksa would come in critical to understanding a process.

  The Deslaksa were the beings that controlled most of Human space prior to Human habitation. Their ruins were scattered across dozens of worlds, in the orbits of others, left in deep space. They had been deeply studied, and, as it appeared, they had deeply studied Humanity in its infantile years, some five thousand years previous. The end of the Deslaksa was as clear as where the last recognizable vestibule of them lived, within the Fal Horde. The Aberrant had washed over them, and, like many Human colonies, they resorted to glassing their worlds. To prevent the Horde from spreading.

  The last major Deslaksa colony was just a hundred lightyears from Earth. Most records of Earth were destroyed, the small world, its children too young to fight back, protected. Located, disantly, in a stable orbit around Neptune was a small orbital station. It was only found just a few years after Talon was born, she remembered it made big news. It spoke of the Deslaksa, their people, their home, their wishes for humanity, and their final ploy. They sent a massive shock through the extra nervous network of the Fal Horde, killing most of them. This same shock, though, brought the end to the Deslaksa, who themselves held a similar extra nervous network.Humanity, in what they called the thirteen hundreds, was none the wiser.

  Talon sighed as she finished the final row of rope tying. She looked up from the door and out into the gorge. It was calm as the sun grew low, as the heat of the day slowly faded. Paradise, it was not, but perhaps it didn’t need to be.