by Alex Just
~ Island – pacific ~
Dawn began as a single ray of light struggling through the jungle’s dark, accompanied by the thin warble of a hatchling songbird. The sound petered out and was replaced by the loud obnoxious cawing of the native parrots as they established themselves amongst the other creatures. Pale wisps of light began to paint the world in bright colours. A golden hue tinted the world, promising a scorching day. A lone figure stood on the beach, back straight, head held high with stiff pride. A light breath of wind stirred his hair, the only movement surrounding his unnaturally still pose. Silently and smoothly another individual came to stand next to Tom. Finally a reaction. A quick glance at Julia revealed no trace of last night’s disaster in Tom’s eyes.
‘You seem to have recovered fast.’
Not a question, just an observation spoken with cold detachment.
‘It is part of what we are,’ Julia had wondered how to best approach the past events. For the first time, left faltering, she’d been forced to go with the only way she knew how. Bluntness laced with unintentional arrogance, the result of a wealthy childhood deprived of nothing, the exception being love and affection.
‘He will come back when he’s cooled down, he can’t survive by himself and trying to kill us in our sleep… even more unlikely. We’d hear him a mile off.’
Her words fell on deaf ears.
‘Why didn’t you tell me what I was? All this time I thought something was wrong with me and you could have made me understand. It’s ‘cos of you he’s so angry, ‘cos of you he left and ‘cos of you our friendship will never be the same.’
‘I didn’t know’
‘Don’t lie!’ Tom’s yell was loud and angry in the serene morning. The first sign of emotion creeping into his voice. ‘The sketch of me? Your uncle knew didn’t he?’
‘I don’t know much about shape shifters, only what my uncle told me. I didn’t understand why he had a sketch of you in there either.’ Her voice was steady, yet sincere, disguising the grief at her uncle’s memory.
Tom realised she was telling the truth, though it did nothing to make him feel better. Sitting down in the sand, looking out to the sea he let his thoughts wander. A memory, thirteen years old, wormed its way into his mind. He was in kindergarten, four years old, had already known Martin for two years of his young life. They’d just been caught trying to get the class pet – Ronny the mouse - to run up the skirt of some poor girl who was sitting on a chair in front of them innocently drawing. They were forced to sit inside during the lunch break and write lines under their teacher’s stern gaze. It was here that Martin looked up at Tom with big honest eyes.
‘Let’s swear a pact.’
‘About what?’ asked Tom.
‘That from this day, till forever we are gonna be best friends.’
‘Forever?’
‘Of course forever,’ Martin laughed, ‘otherwise there would be no point.’
‘Ok, I promise,’ said Tom clasping his friend’s hand.
‘Me too, I promise too.’ His grin stretched across his face.
Tom smiled at the memory, and marvelled at the naivety of children. Though since that day, the two had been practically inseparable, always in detention together for doing something or other that almost always involved breaking numerous school rules. Martin had become the only family left to Tom and he treasured their friendship above all else.
Sea birds had begun to test the morning thermals, their loud calls high and enthusiastic, bringing Tom back from his wandering mind.
‘You’re one of them and pretend not to know much?’ Tom’s voice was sharper than he intended and he immediately regretted the tone as he saw Julia flinch as if struck.
She sat down in the sand next to him, shoulder touching his.
His senses were immediately aware of her very being. His feelings for her were not as overpowering as they’d been earlier, something to do with the transformation he imagined.
‘I didn’t know who I was until seven months ago. I began to notice changes in me, my strength and reflexes took on inhuman forms and my thought processes were much quicker. I began having weird dreams. I broke a lot of furniture and glasses because I didn’t know my own strength. My parents began to notice my behaviour and distanced themselves from me, more so than usual. It wasn’t until my uncle, Roger, showed up and stayed at our house that I transformed for the first time. He helped me understand my new self. He explained my family history to me. It turns out that my mother despised her ancestry so much she decided to permanently ignore her powers. Marrying a mortal human she had a normal family, the only part of her history she kept, was she insisted that my father change his surname to Spencer, her one. She hoped that I wouldn’t become like her or her brother. Somehow though the genes got passed on and it affected me. My uncle taught me how to transform properly, because, the first transition is completely instinct based, therefore successful. He explained some important details about our kind. Regrettably he received a letter from someone he trusted and immediately had to depart. That was the last I saw of him.’ Her blue eyes were shining brightly. Tom hoped she wouldn’t cry.
‘When you say mortal, do you mean to say that we are immortals?’
She shook her head slightly, hair falling around her shoulders in silk waves.
‘Not immortal, but close enough. For every ten human years we age one. We aren’t affected by human illnesses either as far as I was told. We can be killed, only it takes more force and concentrated will than it would for a normal human. We’re born stronger and recover extremely fast as you can see with me. The one thing I remember Roger telling me over and over again was that lead is our Achilles heel. One shot from any gun, and the chances that we live are slim. The wound automatically closes within minutes sealing the lead bullet inside our bodies. We have roughly half an hour, before the lead poisoning kills us, to remove the bullet. Large amounts of lead also prevent us from shifting and using our powers.’
Understanding flooded his mind.
‘So that’s how you knew your unc… Roger was murdered by professionals. Because of the lead knife?’
‘Yes, a knife wound like that would’ve meant instant death. The person who killed him has to be one of our kind, no human could move with the speed required to successfully plunge a knife into the heart of Roger, let alone possess a knife made of lead.’
‘Oh,’ a small silence settled over the two. ‘So how come you didn’t recognise me changing?’
‘Well, when it came to recognising others like me, I stopped paying much attention to anything Roger said.’
Her words held an isolated sadness to them that touched Tom’s heart despite the anger he still felt at her.
‘I was so taken with the love, affection and attention he showed me, I only focused on reaping as much of that as I could, the lessons he taught me became meaningless, all that mattered was his company and hearing his voice. He was the only person to show an interest in me for more than half an hour, because he wanted too, not because he felt obliged too.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
Again they lapsed into companionable silence. Together they watched the morning develop as insect life began its orchestra of exotic buzzing, chirping and humming.
A curious gull meandered over to where the two sat on the beach, looking for scraps of food. The can of baked beans Tom had brought out with him lay open at his feet. He tossed its contents across the sandy shore a way from where they sat. With ferocious aggression, the sky dwellers thundered down towards the beach, flooding the ground in a heaving mass of white and black feathers. Suddenly curious, Tom let his mind relax and tried to shift into his panther shape. He felt a small amount of resistance at first, like the knot in a hose pipe where water was trying to flow through. He kept forcing his mind against the block, his whole person craving the change. Suddenly the knot gave and the part of him that was the change curled into existence. His body shuddered once and fu
r exploded outwards. He was the panther again.
Ignoring Julia’s startled cry he leered over at the flock of birds devouring his baked beans. A throaty rumble coursed through him. With and excited snarl he charged straight into the midst of feathered white, jaws gnashing emptily. A loud powerful roar ripped out of his throat. The entire flock of gulls took to the air, cawing in a panic stricken chorus. Tom leapt up and down trying to snare a leg or tail, revelling in childish glee at this ability to chase seabirds so easily and how much he still enjoyed something so juvenile. As quiet settled over the beach once more he padded back towards Julia who was smiling shyly and without breaking stride he shifted back into human form coming to stand in front of her. He offered her his hand to help her up from her sitting position.
‘That was a waste of perfectly good baked beans.’ Although she tried to make it serious she couldn’t help the smile that escaped her lips.
Tom felt his lips curling into a reciprocating smile and realised how comfortable he felt around Julia.
‘You should try it sometime, its good fun. Plus if I’m hungry I’ll go hunt something.’ His smile faltered as he was reminded of the last hunt he’d been on. Martin. As if a switch had been flicked his smile vanished and a cool demeanour settled across his handsome features.
Julia sensed his change in mood and realised sadly, that he knew it wasn’t her fault, but still blamed her for Martin running off. She tried to change the subject.
‘One other thing I know for sure is that we must feed off animal flesh once a month, in our alternate forms, I’m guessing that’s why you’re first transformation was so spectacular. You were starving.’
‘As long as it’s not human, that’s good.’
She peered into the two green orbs that were his eyes to be met with an opaque wall which masked untold depths from the outside world. She felt an ache inside her. How was she ever going to get him to like her again? She’d find a way, she knew it.
Tom forced himself to be cool and distant with Julia from now on. Martin would never forgive Tom if he allowed himself to get drawn in by her charm, no matter how much he might be tempted to. He knew it wasn’t her fault, but somehow he needed someone to blame and, irrational as it might be, Julia filled the role of the scapegoat conveniently.
So it was in silence that they made their way back towards the cave to await Martin’s return and the conflict it was bound to bring.
***
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