I laughed uncontrollably for no reason at all.
My mother, a tall black seagull, didn't speak, didn't tell Kiarsshkoy to stop beating me. She just stood there and watched.
Even in bird form, the rejection hurt.
Sure, I hit Mom in the head with a fire extinguisher, but we're family! Didn't that count for something?
A tear rolled down my downy face, dripping off the end of my beak.
The water of the teardrop reflected the lab, the reality I actually inhabited.
Delusions! I flared my pores in frustration.
Despite the brain damage, I knew I really wasn't a seagull, I had merely been hallucinating. Still, I had difficulty shaking the images from my mind.
Some creative jumbling of life experiences, a documentary film about island life, and a book by Richard Bach. It seemed so real!
Weary of such illusions, I resolved that, once I had my friends safely out of harm's way, I would immediately seek a method of protecting my sensitive brain tissue.
I don't know how much time had elapsed between the moment I took my imaginary flight and when the `gulls' screamed, but I understood my friends would die if I didn't act fast.
Striking out with the object I perceived to be my wing, I `pecked' against Kiarsshkoy's face somehow, beating her back with a flurry of white feathers.
Not sure what I really did to her, but my attack succeeded. Temporarily, at least.
Whipping my beak to one side, I discovered that mom intended to only supervise the murder of my friends, for instructional purposes, rather than doing it herself. A smaller speckled `bird' darted out from beneath her wing, claws raised for the kill.
The hatchlings!
Furiously flapping my wings, I threw myself in front of the humans, letting out the strangest noise a Ss'sik'chtokiwij has ever made with her mouth. The squawking of a seagull, made with an alien tongue.
I blinked the lenses beneath my dome, and the bird visions vanished. The pug faced Sydjea, mom and Ahxalybij stared at me like my shell had just turned plaid.
I spread my claws like wings. "Yes. Xulrubdan."
As they backed away, I gestured to the children. "These children are xulrubdan too!My food brings sickness! Stay away!"
Hissandra muttered something to mother. Kiarsshkoy didn't seem very convinced, either.
For a few moments, we had what they describe in westerns as a `Mexican standoff.'
I thought for sure this would end in stalemate, resulting in one sister, Kiarsshkoy perhaps, boldly attacking my friends, but then something strange happened.
When my lens passed over my visual sense organ, I noticed a corona of light around each family member's exoskeleton. The moment I told them about this, they backed away further.
"It's the brain injury," Hissandra hissed. "Ignore it."
Mom didn't seem sure. "It's not safe. Even if Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik is not contaminated, why take the risk?"
"Surely you don't believe her!"
"A healthy Ss'sik'chtokiwij would not tear out her sister's suaakudsi or hit her mother with a metal thing that shoots Blinding Cold Thing." Mom had such a large vocabulary.
I pointed to Hissandra, who still held my key card. "That's my (amen) blue thing. Can I (amen) have it please?"
I didn't mean to say amen, it just seemed to pop out of my mouth. It seemed the brain damage had given me Tourette's.
Mom glanced at my sister expectantly.
Hissandra slapped the card down on the floor, protecting it with her claw. "I don't think so."
"Diseased. (Zebedee amen)." I kept on having to make these sounds. It felt like if I didn't get them out of my body, I'd explode. "The card is diseased. (Hell)."
"I guess I'll just have to take that risk."
Mom had a knack for browbeating her children without eyebrows. "Hissandra..."
My sister scooted the badge under her back claw. "It's a trick, mother."
Mom turned her dome toward me. "Why do you need this disease card?" Yeah. Like I'd tell her the truth.
"It's...pretty. (Hosanna). That's all. (Amen)." The extra words didn't fit there, but it felt good to let them out.
Even if I had been more coherent, I doubt my argument would have convinced my sisters. The card key remained pinned beneath Hissandra's claw.
I glanced back at the girls, changing to English. "Sarah, Rebecca, did any of you—" I whistled. "(Amen alleluia) see Kurt?"
They both nodded, tears rolling down their cheeks.
"He's dead," Sarah sobbed. "We saw it happen through the vent."
Before they could get too emotional, I blurted, "Where (thanks) is he, children? (Amen Lord Jesus)."
They both pointed to my left.
The problem was, the moment they pointed, Kiarsshkoy and the scaly one stomped in the way, blocking our path. Not only would it be difficult to reach an escape route once we got to the body, we'd have a hard time getting to the body. Doug's body lay closer, but if we got in that little narrow passage, we'd be trapped. "(Thanks hosanna)," I muttered in frustration.
"Why are you talking like that?" Sarah asked. "Why do you keep saying amen and hosanna?"
"Kiarsshkoy hurt Ernie's brain. (Alleluia amen)." I shook my head. "If only we could (chair) get that card."
Sarah pointed to a yellow metal cabinet a few yards down. "See that? That's a chemical locker. There's a bunch of dangerous things in there. Maybe we could use it to get out?"
I nodded, patting her on the shoulder.
As quick as I could, I snatched up the fire extinguisher, blasting Ahxalybij in the face.
I tried to do the same for Kiarsshkoy, but the can sputtered and coughed out compressed air and bits of foam.
My foes crept closer.
"Now what?" I muttered mostly to myself. "(Thanks)."
I shot the girls a pleading glance. "Any ideas? (Hell amen)."
Sarah slowly shook her head. "We're history."
"Wait."
Rebecca pulled a card key out of her pocket.
"Honey, where did you (amen) get that?"
She reddened. "I...kinda stole it."
"What!" Sarah exclaimed.
"It's Mr. Boger's. He left it on a cafeteria table."
"You took Booger Bell's card?"
My family stared and muttered to one another as I continued communications with my `food,' seemingly ready to strike at any moment.
"Stay back!" I shouted as Ahxalybij got close. "(Praise ye the Lord alleluia! Amen, Lord Jesus!)" That last part came out loudly, like a verbal sneeze.
The involuntary outburst caused her to jump back.
I stared at Rebecca. "Who is (amen) Booger Bell?"
Sarah smirked. "Boger Hernandez. He cleans the place. You've seen him."
"Hmm." I'd seen the brown skinned man buffing the floors outside my silo. Occasionally, near the end of the job, he would wave to me and say, "Bueños noches, señor."
"Rebecca, you know stealing is a sin (amen, alleluia), don't you?"
She nodded, looking ashamed. "Are you going to use it, or are you going to let them eat me?"
I swallowed hard. "We'll discuss this later."
My sisters crept closer.
"Children, I need you to (thanks amen) be my tail. (Perfect) and hurry."
Snatching the card out of Rebecca's hands, I raced to a security door, slammed the key in the slot and typed 2580 on the keypad.
The lock only buzzed and flashed red.
"It's 10-12," Rebecca said. "Kurt's wedding anniversary."
Kurt.
I coughed in sadness as I typed in the numbers.
The door rose sluggishly upwards on its track, revealing a narrow gray hallway illuminated by dim energy save lamps.
Lightning quick, before the door even had a chance to settle in the up position, I yanked the card out, hustling the children through the gap beneath this slow moving obstacle.
Plain concrete service corridor, with locked maintenance panels set in the walls. Light trickled from a reinforced window near the end, but other than that, it was just a concrete box.
I tried to close the door we'd come through, but the machinery stubbornly insisted on going all the way up to complete the operation.
"Damn! (Sanhedrin! Amen)!" I jabbed a claw in the direction of the tunnel's opposite end. "Children! (Hosanna)! Go now! Run! And don't come back! (Maranatha amen)."
Fear shone in the children's eyes, not merely of my Ss'sik'chtokiwij sisters, but my own unreliability. The moment I gave the order, they ran as far, and as quickly away from me as they could possibly get.
No goodbyes. Although saddening, I decided that self reliance, and reliance on their creator, would the only thing keeping them both alive.
One thought troubled me, though: What if they needed the card key?
"If you can't get out, find a place to hide, (Jesus)!" I shouted. I doubted they heard me.
As the door opened wider, my clan drew ever closer.
It seemed like an eternity before the mechanism at last clicked into its notch in the ceiling. My relatives now practically stood within the door frame, backing away only when I made bird calls, cried like a human, and blurted random words.
Hissandra snorted. "Can't anyone else see that this is an act? Am I the only one who saw what she did? She's yabjin us to send her food away."
Yabjin: Our term for what humans call `faking out,' `deceiving' or `deeking'.
"Xulrubdan makes you sluggish," Pebble Shell added. "Notice how quickly she moves!"
Mohawked Sanchirck nodded. "You're right!"
"Careful," mother hissed. "She could be infected by something else! Remember Ssaajhapic with her whitened shell!"
They retreated a few feet.
Click. The door stopped moving.
As quickly as I could, I shoved the card into the slot again, pounding the buttons.
The door groaned, rattling downwards.
"Stop her!" Hissandra snarled in frustration.
"Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik!" mom scolded.
"I'll take care of this!" Sanchirck launched herself through the doorway.
"Midianite!" I blurted, ramming my body into her. "Ashtoreth worshiping Jezebel!" Only half of that was Tourette's.
After a bit of clawing and punching, Sanchirck fell backwards, inside the lab, but she wouldn't let me go. I feared the door would slide shut with me stuck on the wrong side, or in the middle.
At least the children will be safe, I decided. In fact, I'd be locking myself and m entire family safely inside the lab.
The door kept grinding lower. I'm doomed, I thought.
Becoming frantic, I beat Mohawk with my fists and claws, kicking her in the thorax and abdomen, spitting on her as I rasped out the lyrics to Tony Orlando's Knock Three Times On the Ceiling, peppered with involuntary tics.
I at last broke free from her clutches, throwing myself over the threshold as the metal plate lowered below human hip level.
I shook myself off, watching the door descend. In just a few brief minutes, it would be closed. Afterwards, for a few blessed minutes, maybe more, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, for my sisters to hurt me or my friends.
A shiny black body burst through the opening, knocking me against the wall. A tentacled head with a mouth steaming from a gaping suaakudsi wound growled at me as claws reached for the holes in my skull.
I shoved the claws away, driving my own claws into her dome.
Why didn't the lab guys put probes in your head? I wondered. Did they find you too stupid to be worth the trouble?
The door lowered to ankle level. A domed head poked through the gap, then jerked back as the thing boomed shut.
My sister, lacking a suaakudsi, wasn't much for conversation. I still felt bad about the whole thing. "Kiarsshkoy, I'm sorry. I really didn't want to—"
Ms. Dreadlocks responded by punching me in the face.
I smashed her head into the wall, causing her to throw me to the floor and claw at my dome.
Needless to say, I'd had enough of that.
The moment her claws came near to my probe holes, I tried to crush them, break them off at her wrists.
As you probably figured out from previous encounters, I wasn't strong as mom, so I couldn't just rip body parts off my sister, or tear the front of her head off. I also couldn't punch through her head and yank out something vital. The only thing I had to work with: A concrete wall, which I banged her claws into again and again.
Kiarsshkoy, of course, already employed a similar strategy to crack my head open.
My dome slammed into a supply cabinet, and cylindrical metal object clattered onto the floor, something with a bubble on one end
Not really comprehending its use, I rammed the object into Kiarsshkoy's dome.
The first couple times, nothing happened. Just a blunt object beating against a tough dome of an attacker attempting to wrench it from my grip.
Kiarsshkoy clawed me, knocking the object out of my hand when I shoved those raking claws away.
When I threw her against the wall and retrieved the cylinder again, something fell off.
Presumably this had been the object's safety device, for the next time I struck my sister with it, a blue flash came out. Kiarsshkoy screamed.
By some horrible mistake, I had wounded her with a laser torch.
The beam sliced through Kiarsshkoy's dome like butter, reminding me of videos about preparing fish.
She let out an agonized shriek, desperately clawing at me in a last ditch effort to end my life, but then the laser cut further, and she moved no more.
When Kiarsshkoy's body at last slumped lifeless to the concrete, the horror of this wicked deed struck me, as necessary as it may have been.
Murderer! I thought. I'm a murderer!
"Jesus, forgive me."
I threw the evil weapon aside and wept.