PARABLE OF THE
HUNTED
By Dasha Ariel Clancey
A parable of Jessica Yui and Dasha Ariel
Clancey
I think Elisa, different, as she
is, wishes just as we do.
*A silent tear of loss and mourning
falls, shed from the ache of a heart trapped within iron walls of its mere
human body. *
* * *
One cool morning, before the crystal sunrise would peak above the
mountains of Corinth, a single figure rose out of the bushes, head peeled back,
as she calls out to the morning. Her roar filled the valley and her entire
frame with the adrenaline euphoria. She took her battle in again anew, sizing
up her opponent.
Talons unfurled, she hissed at the creature. She would NOT be
beaten again! This terrible monster would not take her if she could help it!
The hiss of air was heard, and a sudden stinging she felt in her
arm. Snarling in fury, eyes enraged, she tore the dart from her fur.
The sleepiness began to overcome
her.
No! She could not let herself be
taken again! She was the last of her kind! She had to survive if her kind were
to live on!
She stumbled, as she tried to muster the energy to spread her
wings and glide away. Instead, she found herself rolling in the grass, waning
toward the beckoning darkness.
* * *
She awoke in chains.
Dizzily, her vision unclear, she
tried to understand how she had allowed herself to be chained. She had no
energy.
She could feel the tap pumping strange substances into her blood
with every sluggish heartbeat.
She could hear her breathing, harsh, and shallow. Heartbeats were
slow and throbbing, and audible in the room... Yet, somehow there was another
heart audible, hurting like hers. She opened her eyes weakly, and saw the vague
blur of... another strapped and chained to the table across from her?
* * *
Upon awakening again, she first became aware of a warm sensation
beneath her. Her wings lay between her and it. As she came to, she found
herself in a brightly lit room. There was a prevailing odor here, sweat, rot,
and staleness. She winced from the bright light, and began to stir.
The sounds oohs and aahs filled the
air.
As she stood up, she discovered
what she had been laying on.
She and another gargoyle had been thrown atop on another haphazardly.
When she had moved, the other had stirred.
A male gargoyle, she suddenly realized! She had never seen any
sign of another in all the jungles of the Amazons, until now. When he saw her, he suddenly scrambled his
feet under him, flared his wings, and held his paws defensively before him,
talons threatening.
The voices oohed louder.
"Calmly, my brother! I am not your
enemy!" she tried to explain to him. She perceived that he was trembling. She
folded her wings, trying to appear less threatening. He cowered into one corner,
sweating.
"P - please! Lu - leave me alone!"
he stuttered.
She knelt down beside him, paws
held out in greeting. "I mean thee no harm. I am Auriana. What is your name?"
"Reiga." he replied, reserved. "Are you from my land of the Amazons?"
"Aye... but I have never seen any
others before thee."
"I... always thought I was the
last." he replied.
She touched his paw. For a moment,
they were one.
The oohs and aahs in their ears
peaked once more.
The female turned about, to see whom
it was who made that sound. She found herself to be in a prison of glass bars,
with monsters all around the outside looking in at her, gawking with mock
amazement.
She beat against the bars with all hers strength, but they were
harder than all stone or steel. She could not escape.
Her male companion's breathing had turned heavy. She turned to see
him rubbing his shoulders in pain. "What is wrong?"
"Hurts... all over..."
He suddenly convulsed. Time almost
seemed to slow down as his fur, striped and brilliant as hers, began to fall
out to be replaced by pale skin, his wings and tail died away, and fifth fingers
and toes appeared. He cried out in pain, and became nothing more than one of
the monsters from all around her, lying on the floor of her cage.
Horrified, she tried to help him. He could not stand, but could
only cry. What had happened to him? What had those monsters done to him?
Then she began to feel it too. With all her strength she fought
it, but soon it ate away at her, and turning her into a pale, weak little
monster like all the others.
* * *
As Auriana walked from school each night with her books under her
arms, she dreaded coming home to a fighting family, want, greed, envy, and
malice. She would look at her face in the mirror. She always seemed to see
something more there. It was almost as if she could touch her face, and feel
more than her eyes saw.
That strange little nerd boy she had seen in the halls at school
that day had struck her the same way. That kid, Reiga, he almost seemed to mean
something important.
Though how, or what these things meant to her always seemed to
fall from her grasp before she could understand them. Was there something out
there that she didn't know? Could it be possible that she had once been
something more?
She would sigh, cast the thought aside, and take up her gun. Tonight they were going hunting for
gargoyles again, and she didn't want to be late.