Chapter 1

Rain. Small drops of liquid that fell from the dark sky and gathered in the cracks of the tar-ridden pavement. I watched as the images in the puddles danced and multiplied over and over and over again, split by the ever-changing surface of the water that captured them. I stopped and stared at my own reflection in the puddle, listening as the rain created a curtain of sound that covered the area.

The human ear can hear sounds between the roughly twenty and twenty thousand Hertz. The average Terran dog can hear roughly between sixty-seven and forty-five thousand.

My species can detect ranges far beyond this spectrum. The calculations are beyond my reach, as science was not always my gift even back home.

So, I suppose I can put it like this. A human, walking along this rainy street at the halfway point of moonrise and moonfall, would likely say things were quiet. Perhaps the aware human would be able to clock the sound of the electricity flickering in the streetlamp above, or would listen to the pattering of the rain against the street and call it light ambient noise.

To my ears, each and every drop could be heard in a smattering of sounds, from the ones that hit the muddy puddles to the ones that hit the soaked concrete. Each different. Each unique. Each carrying different notes through the air to create an array of notes that my ears could pick up. I could also hear the creak of the metal in the wind, the buildings sighing as they settled against their foundations, the squeak of my soaked leather boots against the pavement, the rustle of my wet jacket as it rubbed against my shirt and jeans. The sounds of the insects scuttling for dry patches. The sounds of the humans in the buildings surrounding me. The mechanical whir of air conditioners and the whispered conversations and the secrets and the shifting and the moving and the ever-going cacophony of sound that comes with living on this rock.

Of course, one learns to dull the senses to survive. My ears could pick it up. But my species were also born with the ability to filter what sounds made it to our ears. So while I had the ability to hear it all, it didn’t mean it was all the time. Hearing all that could - and did, a long time ago - drive one mad.

The magic making me human helped in that regard as well. I could access my species’ abilities, but each and every one was dulled anyway when stuck in this…two-legged form.

Not that it was of any great matter. My ears, even in this form, were more than enough to hear the creature stalking me from behind. It was cute, the way it thought it could hunt something like me.

I made my way towards the end of the street. Up ahead, the light from the above electric lamps refused to cross some unseen barrier. That hesitation of light allowed the shadows to collect there, the street's end not too much further past. There was a place the concrete ended, the street and the sidewalk and the tar and the lights and all man-made structures gave way to nature's own.

There, where darkness overtook the path, was my destination. The grasses started to grow wild where there were no more constraints, weeds curling in freedom. Vined plants clawing their way up any structure that was left. Mother nature retaking her own, ensuring that the humans remained afraid and aloof of this place.

It was the perfect trap, and if the one tracking me had any sense they would have known it as well. But they were far too focused on me to even admit that there might be something they hadn't accounted for. I had my own setup deep in the forest, something I had been working on ever since I had begun working in this feeble little scratch mark of a town.

I led my mark deep into the forest, the skittering footsteps light and growing more and more sporadic the less and less concrete cover there was. The space between the crumbling end of the concrete and the overtake of woodland grass was practically empty of cover, nothing for them to hide behind or use to cover their tracks.

I listened intently, even as I walked, tuning out the crunch of my own footsteps in favor of the patter of the one behind me. The hesitation. The ceasing of movement until I was almost gone into the forest. Then the sudden rush forward.

Ah. So they were trying to just get across this space as fast as possible to make up for lack of cover. It was…an idea, I guess. Not one I'd choose, for the race against the ground made more noise than if they'd just walked out into the open space. I hid as soon as I was in the cover of the trees, leaping several steps from my path and up into the lower branches of said tree, hiking my way up a few more branches and steadying myself as I yanked a knife free.

There I waited, coiled and ready to spring. The breeze shifted, sending my scent their way, but their senses were not as refined as mine…or rather, they didn't know how to use their senses in the way that I did.

Something they would learn, if they survived long enough for the lesson to take hold.

I waited until they skidded to a stop under me, ears attentive as they looked around. They had the sense to stop. To look, listen, and analyze. To kneel and see if they could track my movements, and as they did I leapt from my spot and slammed into them, rolling my mark over on to her back. She fought well, for one so young, but it was within seconds that my knife was at her throat. She froze, one hand on my arm and one elbow pushed up against my stomach, but she was had and she knew it.

"No fair," she grunted, pointed ears twitching. "You never said anything about jumping on me from the trees!"

I snorted. "You must be ready at all times for any attack from anywhere. Didn't I tell you as much?"

She grumped and pouted at me. "I don't know. I wasn't listening."

I heaved a sigh. "And if I were a Keeper, you would be knocked out and hauled away by now to one of their facilities, to be tortured and maimed until you could either produce what they wanted or prove that their theory about you is incorrect. In which case, you would be either retained to be trained as a weapon, or discarded." I leaned forward with a slight growl. "And I would fall with you, [little princess]."

She pouted harder, ears going down as her eyes somehow seemed to get wider, and the desired effect on my stubborn countenance was had. I relented with a growl and got off her, sheathing my knife with a stab and holding out my hand. Her ears went up as she grinned, reaching for it, and I hauled her to her feet.

"Again."

She groaned. "Really?! Can't we be done?? I'm soaked through and the rain is cooold."

I let out a sigh and shifted to look at the sky through the trees. When they shifted I could just see the dark beyond, the light of the stars faded thanks to the flickering lights of the nearby city and road. This spot was far removed from what humans would consider normal civilization, but the fingers of humanity had reached out and begun scattering even this wilderness. The stars, as always, were the first to be blotted out by artificial living.

The ran pattered against the leaves in a soft blanket of noise, scattering the senses further. The water caught glints of light, artificial and natural, as they fell like tiny diamonds that scattered upon hitting the ground and littering the air with the scent of fresh wet earth.

I took in a deep breath and turned to back to her. "Fine, Layla. Let's head back to the motel and dry off."

Layla grinned at me in that childish way she had somehow managed to retain through all her troubles, and somehow I found it lifting my spirits as well. She was so young for the things life had brought her way. Perhaps, in that, we were evenly matched. Perhaps that is why I took her on in the first place. I knew what it was to be so young and already so old in my bones.

I followed her as she practically skipped back, the rain suddenly not seeming to bother her as much as she claimed it had. I was tempted to call her back and force her into the exercise again. But I simply followed behind, closing my eyes and allowing myself to get washed away in the moment.