Flock

Chapter 2: Stranger

I kept my head down, and clutched the Kryifem in my hand. There weren't many people on the cobbled street but the ones that were there gave me some comfort. They were watchers, observing things around them. Mostly for their own safety, but I felt less panicked about my stalker with them present. A woman in the doorway of her cloth shop was leaned heavily against the door jamb smoking a dox, a long slim tube of herbs that burned yellow.
She eyed me for a moment before turning her attention away down the street. A mother and her child were walking towards the Kryjia's welcome rally. The mother's head turned this way and that looking for potential dangers, her child's hand securely held in her own. She paid me no mind, preferring to eye the shadows. That's where the rogues would hide, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting prey.

We hadn't had an attack in over 10 months, but occasionally purest, more militant Kryjia, called Rasjia, would plot attacks. The Kryjia were cold, calculating creatures - humanoid in stature. Their skin was slightly translucent, and with bright blue blood, it gave them a corpse-like blue tinge to their complexion.

I could hear the footsteps of my stalker, and I almost wished I would have hidden the Kryifem somewhere in the city instead of taking it home with me. But that ache to experiment, to figure out what was so important about this damn stone, it almost hurt to think I wouldn't figure it out.

There was an older man huddled against a brick wall a little farther ahead, all his worldly belongings scattered around him. Even here, in the Underground, amongst the poor - there were still those who were even worse off than mining orphans like me. I clutched the stones tighter and began to draw my hand out of my pocket. I wanted to drop them somewhere inconspicuous so if I was caught I wouldn't have any Kryifem on me. I slowed my pace and was about to drop the stones into an old shoe by the old man when the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

The footsteps stopped behind me, and a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. The woman in the doorway's eyes widened and she disappeared inside the shop, her dox forgotten and smoldering on the doorstep, the mother and child were gone, and the old man got unsteadily to his feet, his fingers splayed wide against the brick wall in terror.

I released the stones back into my pocket as my stalker spun me around. My voice, normally loud and cocky, fled. I gaped up at a massive male Kryjia. Males visited even less often than the females; and they never wandered amongst the humans. They were too volatile, easily angered and quick to respond in a physical and brutal manner. And this one, was glaring down at me.

"Ours," was all he growled at me before his grip tightened painfully on my shoulder. I squeaked out in pain, my hand wrapping once more around the Kryifem.

He flung me backward, and I crashed heavily into the brick wall near the old man who took one last look at me, his eyes apologetic and fled.

I gasped, the breath having been ejected from my lungs and scrabbled to my feet, the old man's possessions tripping me as I attempted to put some distance between myself and the hulking angry creature.

The Kryjia keened and rushed forward. Terror gripped my body, my mind begging for some part of me to respond. To either flee or make some sort of pitiful stand. His freakishly long-fingered hands wrapped around my throat and he lifted me slightly off my feet.

"Ours!" he roared, spittle dotting my face. My hands went to claw at his, but my body refused to let go of the Kryifem.

Light blinded me the second my hands and Kryifem made contact with the Kryjia's skin.

My skin and blood were on fire. I felt more than heard myself screaming, and the creature in front of me seemed to wither away. The light blue skin hardened and as the light died away the creature's grip stopped tightening. My flight instinct kicked in and I wrenched away as hard as I could.

The creature's arms shattered, frozen pieces of flesh falling to the ground around my feet. Fissures appeared across the skin of his arms and as I backed away slowly - my eyes never leaving the creature's agony frozen face - the rest of him cracked apart and crumbled onto the street.

My necked burned where his frozen hands had sliced at my skin. I dropped the Kryifem, the weight of what I had just done hitting me so hard I doubled over, retching into the street in terror-racked heaves.

When I finally looked up, weighing my options - another Kryjia stepped out from the shadows. He was slight in comparison to the male I had reduced to a heap of ice-cubed remains and I felt my whole body lock up.

"I'm...I don't..."

"Pick those up," he ordered. His eyes scanning the street.

"I, no, they aren't mine, I didn't mean..."

He looked at me then. His piercing ice blue eyes seemed to measure me up. It wasn't that he found me lacking, but I certainly wasn't enough.

"Pick. Them. Up. I can not touch them."

"But," I stuttered. He sighed, pulling a thick red velvet cloth out of his pocket and gingerly picked up the Kryifem.

"Follow me," he said. He handed the stones in the velvet cloth to me and started off down a dark side alley.

I didn't move right away and he paused once, not looking back. "If you choose to stay here I can guarantee you'll die a very, bloody death. Follow me."