by Ian Withrow
“You are mine. You will always be mine. Everything you are, and think, and feel, is mine to do with as I please.”
She felt the flutter in the air as his chest tightened, heard his eyelids blink and felt the vibration of him swallowing the lump in his throat. The sweetest sound, was the rattling gasp that slipped past his lips as she drained him completely. She tore through his lifeforce with reckless abandon, pulling it apart and letting pieces fall all around her like a lion pulling the choicest meats from a fresh kill.
She finally let go of his thin, wasted arm. It flopped to the ground beside his dessicated corpse.
Perception flooded her body, it was all she could manage to stand in place. Her body was awake in ways it had never been. Every sense was raw and new as she found herself in a world infinitely more complex than she could have possibly imagined.
Reality flickered in an out, replaced with momentary visions of other worlds, of her childhood home, of Valerie’s face the first night they made love, and a thousand other moments from her life and the lives of others.
It was utterly overwhelming.
Had he felt this way? Weyland’s incredible arrogance suddenly seemed natural, a matter of course.
Lauren took a deep breath, tracing the currents in the air to their beginnings across the world. She looked down at herself, the black, cracked stone of her skin was fading back to the cool cream of her normal complexion. The silver streaks remained, though, brighter than ever.
She clenched her fist, testing muscles that felt capable of lifting mountains. She watched in wonder as the sand around her melted to liquid glass. She shook her head, accidentally dismissing the heat waves pouring off her cracking skin.
She concentrated and in an instant the ground around her glowed red-hot for as far as she could see. The skin on her arms turned to thick plates that looked somewhere between cast iron and polished obsidian, with deep cracks of molten silver running between them.
With another deep breath Lauren furrowed her brow in concentration. Unseen by the eyes of mortal men she disappeared in a fiery explosion, leaving behind nothing but a cracked field of smoldering glass.
Epilogue
Lauren reappeared with far greater force than she intended. Nonetheless, she smiled at the success of her test-run on her new power. She was pleasantly surprised that she hadn’t experienced the nausea and discomfort she expected either, perhaps it only affected passengers.
She re-examined herself, noting that the thick plating that covered her body had once again dissolved to reveal her silver-threaded skin.
She knew she ought to be cold, that her naked form ought to be freezing at this altitude, but she was supremely comfortable.
The top of the mountain she’d landed on had been blown apart by her arrival. Even now she could see rocks tumbling thousands of feet into the forests and fields below her. The lush greenery of New Zealand spread out before her majestically, unspoiled by men and machines. Her keen vision could make out minute details from leagues away, and she scoured her surroundings for signs of human habitation.
Content at last that no one had witnessed her arrival, Lauren pondered her next move. It only took her a few minutes to come to the conclusion she knew she’d arrive at.
Weyland’s last offer hung in her mind, taunting her.
She cast around for a place to sit, frowning at the devastation she’d caused. She settled on a particularly large chunk of granite that her violent arrival had revealed. Lauren approached it and placed a hand on the cold stone. She did her best to heat the stone in a controlled manner, and after a few minutes of trial and error she managed to melt a crude seat into the rock.
She stood back and observed her handiwork. It was rough, but it would do. The boulder itself was larger than her childhood home, and the small alcove she’d carved into it was barely larger than a refrigerator. Still, she could sit comfortably out of the elements and she would be invisible from almost any angle, should anyone seek her out.
Lauren smelled a familiar scent and cast her eyes skyward just as dull gray clouds started to appear above her. Rain sprinkled down softly all around her, drawing a small smile onto her face as she perched upon her new throne.
Lauren closed her eyes, digging deeply into Weyland’s memories. She sifted through them until she had a fair idea of how to utilize the power she sought most desperately.
His ability to build worlds of fantasy.
She didn’t know how much time had passed when she finally decided she had enough information. It could have been hours or it could have been weeks.
Finally though, she told herself, she was ready.
Lauren took one last look out at the narrow slice of the world she could see from her hidden vantage point. A deep breath later and she closed her eyes once more.
Lauren’s senses went dark and then, suddenly, she could smell hay and fresh trimmed grass. Her ears picked up a soft bleating in the distance and she cautiously opened her eyes.
She was sitting in a pile of hay in a familiar barn.
Lauren stretched, noting with extreme satisfaction that her wings were gone, replaced with normal shoulders instead. She jumped out of the hay and did a slow spin, relishing the freedom she hadn’t felt in years.
“Lauren, honey?”
Valerie’s voice called from outside, and Lauren rushed excitedly to the door. She pulled open the massive wooden entrance and stepped blinking out into the sunlight of the English countryside.
* * *
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