Oh yes... from this point on, let the action commence...
Insert Traditional Disclaimer Here...
"I don't know why you'd want it," I whispered under my breath, my eyes narrowing as I stared in something akin to unbridled disgust and terror all in the same expression. The… thing… that Maya was holding up was so ghastly that I was literally feeling some fear of it. I had no idea what I'd do if she actually bought it, besides throw something over it to keep it out of sight…. If I can bring myself to get so close to it, "It's… ugly." I made sure to stress that word as much as possible.
"Oh, like you know what's ugly or not," Maya whispered back, clutching the… thing… defensively to her, "I think it's cute. Come on, you can't say it's not cute." As if to illustrate her point, she thrust the object towards me, and I leaned back, my eyes widening somewhat as I stared at it in nothing short of horror. It was… it was…
A fuzzy pink octopus.
"It's staring at me…" I said quietly, my eyes locked onto it. I was aware that there was no way a stuffed animal could ever actually be staring at anyone, but… there was just something sinister about this odd thing. Something so vacant in it's blank, glassy eyes that looked like they saw everything and nothing at once. I shuddered slightly, "It's creepy…"
"It is no such thing…! It's a fluffy stuffed animal, how can it be creepy?" Maya demanded, still whispering to keep the discussion from being overheard by the few other people in the store, "It's cute. I like it. How can you say this isn't cute?"
I glanced up to her; keeping my horrified look, before taking another good, long stare at the thing in her hands. My god was it ugly… all its limbs… tipped in that horrid pink fluff… And… the eyes. I looked back up to Maya, my look very serious, "Because it isn't cute… It's terrifying. Get it away from me."
"Spoilsport…" the human, catching my look and realizing exactly how much the stuffed animal bothered me, finally gave a defeated sigh and set it back on the shelf with all of it's other horrible brethren. I let out a long, long breath of relief at knowing that I wouldn't have to share a room with that hideous mass of material, "Fine, if you hate it so much, I won't get it. I guess I didn't need it anyway, it would mess up my room," apparently finished looking at the large display of various stuffed creatures, she glanced to her watch, "And it's getting late. We should get home before the roads start to ice over again." She let a small laugh escape her lips, looking no worse for wear about the incident with the plushie, a fact of which I was infinitely glad. Maya was never pleasant when she was denied something she truly wanted… an example being how whenever her parents called her from her room when she was up late on the Internet to do various chores, she became very moody and gruff, often sulking around for a good, long while. I supposed it was only human nature, "I think we've done enough shopping to last us a while, huh?"
"I had no idea there were so many strange and useless things to be bought," I replied promptly, though still quietly, as we threaded our way to the door of the store. We hadn't actually bought anything here, despite several discussions on various items, but at the other stores I had managed to find a few things that interested me enough to want to own them. Humans had many odd things that they made for apparently no reason other than to have them, and me, being the weird one that I was, found myself drawn to them. I already owned an object known as a 'Koosh ball', perhaps the most pointless out of all of the items I'd bought, but yet still the most intriguing somehow.
So lost in my thoughts on what I'd bought during the day, I made a short cry of surprise when a hand roughly gripped my shoulder, pulling me back from the doorway that I was walking towards. My antennae snapped down against my head, anger bubbling within me at the gesture, but before I could snap out at the perpetrator I found my voice dying in my throat, my eyes widening as I realized something almost subconsciously that prevented me from acting on my already fading anger. With a hesitant twitch, the tiny muscles along my scalp moved, lifting my feather-light antennae up, the scythe ends tilting to catch the faint sound through the annoyingly loud din of the store.
Pitter-patter…. The rain hit the roof and the sidewalk beyond the awning of the store, creating a constant, steady rhythm of noise. Outside, what had previously been a bright, nearly cloudless day had changed within nothing more than an hour, becoming a powerfully overcast, heavy storm. Only now that I saw the danger that I had so narrowly avoided did I feel the grip on my shoulder loosen, finally disappearing altogether, and still in some measure of shock, I turned my head, meeting Maya's eyes. She smiled a bit sheepishly.
"Sorry… I didn't-"
"Thanks," I cut her off before she could apologize any more than she already had. She didn't need to apologize for keeping me from danger… Though in an instant I realized with some level of horror that I had kept my slightly angered look, and with that thought it was wiped away, even despite knowing that the damage had already been done, "Thank you…"
She shrugged, not saying any more on the subject and moving to open the door, carefully going out a ways, and then looking back to me, acting as if nothing had ever happened. I narrowed my eyes very slightly at her behavior. She had every right to be angry, every right to be upset that I'd looked at her like that after she'd only been trying to keep me from pain. But she never showed for an instant that she'd been affected by it. The thought came into my mind that she might be acting with me as smoothly as she acted with the other humans.
I don't know why that thought unsettled me so much
"It's dry enough out here," she said, turning her head back to me, but now that I was looking more closely I noticed that her eyes never met mine, never showed any of that previous spark, replacing it with a slightly glazed, distant look. Inwardly, I could feel my own scorn at my actions begin to bubble up as hotly as the anger had from just a moment before, "You can wait under the awning while I get your tarp out from the car… It shouldn't take more than a minute, alright?"
Stupid, stupid Kiros, I railed at myself silently as I walked out the door and under the menial shelter of the awning, feeling the cold, biting wind strike my form, laden heavily with the humidity of the air and making just standing there very uncomfortable. Maya, to her credit, didn't press me for an answer, just hurrying off to do as she said she would. For a moment, I felt like I should just follow her, and let my body be burned. It would be fitting, for acting like such an ass, and the car actually wasn't all that far away… just around the corner, in fact. Just can't let it go, can you? Can't let any unexpected action be met with anything but anger? Think before you just fly off at someone, man! Otherwise you're no better than them, than the humans
So absorbed was I in my mental lashing that it was a long moment before I heard footsteps on the sidewalk. Figuring it was just Maya, I didn't look up for a moment, feeling far too guilty to want to look her in the eyes, but as one set of footsteps stopped, I suddenly realized that others were still continuing. My eyes widened as a small, ice-cold thrill of fear shot up and down my spine, my limbs stiffening as I trembled lightly. The others, I could hear, had stopped around me, forming a loose circle that afforded me no avenues of escape. From the heavy sounds I could tell instantly that they were larger humans, probably male, and not likely to be friendly.
Crap…"Hey there, little cock-sucker," the deceptively sweet voice was laced with derisive amusement, the cruel kind that sent a wave of nausea at me as I remembered that it was the same tone that my former master had used with us when planning some form of hideous humiliation, "What are you doing out here all alone in the shadows, hm? Afraid to go out and get your precious green skin wet?"
I didn't answer, continuing to stare hard at the cement in front of me. I wouldn't get into this… I couldn't get into this. There were four of them, all much bigger and probably stronger than I was. Common sense told me that getting into a fight with them would only end in death or serious injury for me, especially since this time, I didn't have a weapon nor the element of surprise on my hands. So I held still as stone, almost trying to sink into the wall behind my back, hoping they would just go away but knowing with cold certainty that they wouldn't.
Pain flared in my entire body as I was slammed with crushing force and speed into the brick wall behind me. A sharp yelp tore through my throat; straining my vocal cords and making my lungs ache with how the air had been expelled from them. I looked up slightly, writhing a bit at the pain and the fact that my feet weren't touching the concrete anymore, feeling my tentatively healed shoulder send sharp jabs of agony through me, reminding me that the old wound wouldn't be forgotten.
"Answer me when I talk to you, you stinking Irken! You afraid to get wet?"
The others… my antennae were rubbing roughly against the brick, and it hurt and muddled my hearing… but they were laughing. Laughing at how the human that was pinning me to the wall was tormenting me. Taking delight in my pained sounds and how I was trying to get his grip off from me.
Don't laugh at me!
I couldn't keep the fury from my expression as I stopped struggling, staring the human in the eyes with all the defiance I could muster.
I won't let them win…
"Oh, lookie here…" one of the other males… they all looked to be in their teens, but very dangerous. I didn't doubt that they all carried some sort of weapon on their person, "This one's feisty!"
The others all laughed harder, only adding to my anger. This was why I hadn't wanted to go out into the town… these humans didn't care about Irkens at all. In fact hated them. And if they decided to make my day miserable and painful, there would be no one willing to make the effort to stop them.
"Well, then… Do you know what we do to little Irkens that get out of line, cock-sucker?" he leaned in close, and I could feel his breath, disgusting, smelling of old beer and smoke, wash over me, and I made a face as he answered his own question, "We put them back in it."
I kept my disgusted look, still radiating as much anger and defiance as I could muster, which was a considerable amount, considering that I stared at those deplorable dregs of human culture. They reminded me all too much of my master, and what he'd been like.
I wish I had a baseball bat…
Don't we all...