The Acrobat had many things that set him apart from other people. One of those things, however, was not the ability to go without sleep.
He slept when he was tired, but most often, that happened shortly after the bright grey light from the surface turned to dark blue, then to an inky blackness. It was on a night like any other that he allowed his eyes to shut softly.
But the morning was anything but ordinary.
His eyes snapped open, the result of a nightmare he couldn't recall. Filling his field of vision was a sight he'd never seen before: another person.
She had close-cropped black hair, and was certainly shorter than him, but not by much. She had tanned skin, and wore red lipstick around her calculated sneer. A sharply-penciled wing of kohl framed pupils of gunmetal-grey. She hung from a matching rig, not a metre away from him.
His expression flitted from surprised, to defensive, to concerned, before eventually settling on confused. "Who are-", he began, his voice whispery and low.
Leaning forwards, she placed a black-gloved finger across his lips. "I am Zai," she said, her voice echoing out into the dark light of early, early morning. The junction seemed to bristle at the unfamiliar sound.
"Zai," he repeated. "How did you get in here? How are you using my tracks? What are you?"
She smirked. "Ah, so many questions. Must you be so prying?"
"I must," he insisted. "I am the guardian of this place. Please explain this to me."
She grabbed the front of his tunic, and drew him close. He cast about in his mind for the rig's controls, and found nothing. Panic began to set in. "What have you done?", he asked, eyes widening to reveal wide ebony marbles.
"Nothing that you need to trouble yourself about," she murmured in his ear as he flinched under her warm breath. He tried his best to recoil from her uncomfortable closeness.
"Stop," he said emphatically, holding her at arm's length. She grabbed his hand with intense strength, bringing him close again. His pulse quickened with fear. "What are you doing?", he asked desperately.
Zai's sneer came back, full force. "This." She flung a hand around the back of his head, and jerked him to her, mashing his lips against hers. He kept himself rigid with fear, not knowing what any of this was. She probed against his closed wall of teeth with her tongue, digging her claw-like nails into his scalp. He kicked and fought, but she only drew them closer, her grip like a vise.
His muscles screaming with effort, he managed to push her away. He gasped in air, and, with shaking hands, pressed the release catch on his band. He ran from her in the only way he knew how: the silks. He dropped away like a diving seabird. Zai's smirk turned into a snarl, and, spiderlike, she scrambled after him.
The Acrobat lost his grip on the silk, sending terror into his pattering heart. Controlling his weight, he caught ahold of the silk in fistfulls, halting his fall. His toes were mere millimetres above the ground. His arms ached from the shock. He looked up, only to see Zai shimmying down the silks, her expression like a lightning storm.
She was a fraction of a metre away from him, when his instincts kicked in. With a strength borne of adrenaline, he swung himself upwards and landed a solid kick. She hissed in pain, stopping her progress. He swung again, this time launching himself higher onto the skeins, wasting no time in scrambling away from Zai. With a snarl more befitting of a wild beast, she started after him.
In his flight, the Acrobat missed one of his footholds, and fell with a jerk to where he dangled by a single arm. In a moment, Zai was perched above him, gripping his arm like a vise. She drew a short obsidian knife from a belt looped about her waist, and held it aloft. "You could have made this easy. You could have been like most men, and simply let me take what I needed," she snarled. Her hazy reflection wavered in the Acrobat's widened eyes.
"I do not understand," he cried. "Why do you want to hurt me?"
She let out an exasperated growl. "Your body contains something I need. To keep living. A chemical, unique to your species." Her expression shifted, and it was her smile that frightened him more. "But you know? You are only the first I have seen here. And you are different. Modified. You are a poor source for what I need."
The smile grew, splitting her face like a gash. "But you will be a good source for entertainment." She climbed down so that she gripped the skein he didn't have a grip on, and pushed off. She hovered in the air at the top of her arc, then came back at him with a vengeance, slashing away deliberately at him. He screamed, holding on for dear life.
She swung at him like a pendulum, slashing and laughing like a wild hyena. The Acrobat's thoughts started to dull. All there was in that moment was the pain, the need for relief, and Zai's laughing face, spattered with his blood.
Wet, hot, red ichor poured out, all over his body, wherever there was sharp, stinging pain. His bloodied arms were locked around the silk, soaked through as it was. He was swallowing bile, his heart beating out of his chest.
On her next pass, Zai halted her momentum, locking a hand around his skein. She planted a kiss on his helpless lips, and whispered, "You are beautiful. Such a pity."
The expanse of darkness all around them seemed alight with hellfire.
Then, with a savage, careless flick of her arm, she slashed the silk. The Acrobat plummeted like a stone, plain unwillingness and unpreparedness to die evident in his eyes. The only thing he felt as he saw the ground was a sharp pain.
And then there was the darkness.