Alesha returned to the campsite she'd discovered earlier after a few more hours of searching. Everything about this destroyed city, which she had determined from a few broken landmarks really was Iritia, was weird. There continued to be far too few corpses for a sudden disaster; and those corpses she did find were all partially buried in the rubble. None of them matched the method of invasion she'd seen in the streams before.
"It's so strange," Alesha muttered.
[You think so?]
"Yeah. I just, I know something weird is going on here, or rather already went on, but I just can't figure out what it is." She poked despondently with a stick at the previous occupant's fire pit -- which held only a scant bit of charcoal, seeing as she had no way to start a fire for herself. It was getting dark outside. Thanks to the fact that it was early summer, it wasn't very cold, but Alesha wasn't looking forward to sleeping under the stars tonight.
She sighed heavily and looked upwards. Tears came to her eyes as she remembered how much she'd looked forward to seeing her family again… were they alright? Had they gotten out okay? The one upside to Iritia's bizarre destruction was that there was a much higher chance that they were fine. Had the disaster been like the one in Faxton, she would have had little hope.
Was it better or worse that she had reason to hope for their survival? She didn't know.
Alesha was lost in thought like that for a long time.
----
Beebee was annoyed. She hadn't found anything shiny today. Had she collected everything shiny nearby? Couldn't be, not yet. That was impossible.
Pausing, she cursed. "Aw flip, I'm losing it again. Damn shiny things. Why did I start liking them so much after turning into this?? I mean, they are so pretty and shiny… and pretty… and shiny…"
Slapping her furry cheeks with tiny rodent paws, she shook herself, sending her big ears flopping and making the fur down her body and tail shimmer in the moonlight. Most of her fur was rather ordinary (although coral was perhaps an unusual base color), but what really stood out were the strands of longer hairs intermingled with the rest. These longer strands were thick -- and had an appearance like that of holographic film. They looked almost like the semi-transparent faux grass old Earthlings used on Easter. Under the bright, waning moon, these shining strands were quite pretty. Or, at least, Beebee thought so.
Was she supposed to be nocturnal or diurnal? She had no clue. After turning into this weird rodent thing, she'd decided to rebel against all rules and get up whenever she wanted. It just so happened that, for the week or so after she'd been changed, she would sleep during the day and wander around at night.
One of her ears twitched, catching a sound she had not expected to hear. She paused in her tracks, rising up on her hind legs like she'd seen prairie dogs do in the movies. It felt kind of cool to mimic them now.
Refocusing her attention, she listened intently. She heard it again: a slow, deep breath. In, 2, 3, pause, out, 2, 3. Was there an actual person nearby?! But how?! Everyone had disappeared!
Beebee was excited. She didn't know how or why someone was here, but if a person was around and sleeping, then it meant that someone else had survived. Maybe she wasn't alone in this Ghost City! Would they end up traveling together? Could they become friends?!
She quickly scampered over, utilizing the incredible agility unique to whatever-she-was-now to leap effortlessly from debris chunk to debris chunk without stumbling in the slightest. Having four legs turned out to make running around quite a bit easier.
It didn't take long to find the sleeping human.
Er, was that a human? Looking down at the figure below (she had climbed a nearby half-broken wall), Beebee cocked her head. The sleeping woman had small wings and a fairly long tail, as well as some big feathers on her head, but other than that looked pretty normal. Though a glint of shine on the woman's hands revealed scales there. Ah, they were pretty scales… so shiny…
Beebee shook herself, resisting the urge to run over and lick the woman's pretty scales. They were just so pretty…
What the heck. Maybe she could give in just a little.
Before she could hesitate again, Beebee scampered down the wall, around various scattered rocks and approached the sleeping woman's hand. Now that she was close, Beebee could see that not only were the pretty scales on the woman's hand but they were also on her arm and face! Wow! This woman just had to be a good person. With so much shine on her, there was no way she could be untrustworthy.
Then, Beebee caught sight of the woman's tail again. Wait… there were even more shiny, pretty scales there! Woah! Jackpot!
Squeaking happily, she rushed over and started licking and cuddling up to the shiny tail without hesitation.
She stopped moving when she heard a groan. "What was that? Huh?" A groggy woman's voice asked, sounding half-asleep.
Uh-oh. She'd lost herself to the pull of shiny things again! What should she do? Yep, she should just stay still. To move would be to die. She'd just stay still like a statue, invisible as -
The woman had propped herself up on one arm and looked around. Then, the two met each other's eyes.
Shit.
This was no human, no comrade, no friend.
This was a predator.