A crunching sound startled Stella and she started to turn as a figure snuck up on her.
“Boo!” her twin brother, Nathan, shouted.
Stella shrieked and punched his arm none-too-gently. “Don’t do that, you idiot!” she said. “We have an actual task at hand, and if you don’t mind, I would like to get it done.”
Nathan laughed loudly and a few birds nearby took off from the trees. Stella glared at him, looking resigned.
“If it was even here – which I doubt it ever was – I think you just scared it off.”
“Don’t blame it on me,” her brother said. “I’m sure it was your screaming that did it.”
They kept bickering for a while, but then a rustling in the trees came to their attention.
“Do you think that’s it?” Nathan whispered to his sister.
“I don’t know,” she replied, her British accent making the words harsh and curt. “Shut up and maybe we’ll see.”
They both stared purposefully into the shadowy shade between the pine trees. The mission was simple, really. Find the last existing polar bear and kill it. It was not surprising that the bear was located in Canada, as the most northern part of America, several hundreds of years ago, used to be home of most of the world’s polar bears.
That was back before they became unhinged creatures of hate and evil, before they ripped at the seams, before they started running amok. Before the hunt began.
It escalated quickly. Scientists researched, discovered, and invented a radar device that allowed the bearer to sweep the landscape, looking for polar bears. Many people from all over the world swarmed around the great white bears’ homes, eager to try to bring one down.
In the end only one remained. It had escaped a few days preceding Stella and Nathan’s mission, when all other bears had been exterminated. No one had spotted it since. But still, Earth’s population was told that the planet was now rid of the monsters that had terrorized it and killed its people time and again, because Christ, it was only one bear, they would find it easily.
Boy, had they been wrong.
Even with the device, it had taken the two siblings several days to get even close to where the bear might be, and then when they arrived, all there was left to do was look.
And look they did. Their eyes continued the pursuit for a clue as to whether their victim was in the trees or not. Clues like gleaming, red eyes, sharp, white teeth, or sharp-clawed paws.
Instead they found warm, brown eyes, small, slightly pointed teeth and tiny, fluffy paws.
Stella and Nathan gasped simultaneously. The weapons that had been pointed directly into the shadows were lowered as fast as the blink of an eye, as the little, white fuzz ball bounded out from underneath a Black Spruce pine, heading directly toward the two humans. Neither moved an inch, staring with wide eyes while the cub rubbed itself against their legs, nuzzling its muzzle in the thick material of their pants.
Stella’s eyes slowly went back to normal size, and she shot Nathan a pleading glance, a glint in her eye.
“We can’t kill it,” she said slowly.
Nathan, being the tougher of the two, wrinkled his brow and started to protest, but Stella stubbornly continued.
“It hasn’t got the decease, Nate.” Her eyes were getting wider, resembling dog’s eyes.
Nathan sighed. She never called him Nate unless she really wanted something. “Well, what’d you suggest we do then?” he asked, agitated.
Stella silently debated with herself for a moment. Then she simply said, “We let it live.”
Nathan looked at her with a look that was a mix of sympathy and impatience. “Stella–”
“They’ll never know,” Stella said urgently. “We’ll tell them we killed it.”
“The device,” Nathan said with finality, trying once again to force some sense into his sister.
She did stop for a moment. Then the glint in her eye intensified. “The device won’t do them any good after they destroy it.” She smirked at her own cleverness.
“What do you mean ‘destroy it’?” Nathan asked, a mockingly questioning look in his eyes.
“I overheard someone say that after all the white bears are dead, they’re going to destroy the device, to keep it from being altered into a means of evil, or something like that.” Stella waved her hand, indicating that it didn’t really matter.
Nathan stared for a moment. Then he said, “Fine.”
Now it was Stella’s turn to stare. “What?” she said.
“I said, fine.” Nathan repeated. “You want to keep the bear, just keep the bear.”
And so she did.
