Shattered Stars

Fury of the Night

I sought to distract myself for the rest of the day by finishing my pitiful log cabin. Once the walls were in place, I put a few layers of logs over the top, crisscrossed to prevent most of the snow from falling through. After clearing out the excess snow from the inside, I put my things in one of the corners and stepped outside to view the finished product.

It was the ugliest thing I had ever seen. I could always pretty it up later, assuming I didn't have anything important to worry about, like the fate of my planet.

The sunset was an hour past and the stars had begun show themselves again. When I looked to the skies this time, however, I was filled with a sense of dread. Aliens were real, and not only that, some of them were out to get me.

I needed a break from all this drama or else I'd go crazy. I ate a few power bars to sate my slowly growing hunger, then walked over to the edge of the frozen pond. I wasn't enthusiastic about the idea of taking a bath in ice-cold water, but I felt unclean, and I normally took a shower at the end of the day anyway.

I broke the ice of the pond just by standing on it. The water gave me a jolt at first, but my body adjusted to the temperature quickly. After spending a few minutes exploring the murky depths, I returned to land and dried myself off.

It was 8:30 PM. I usually went to bed later than that, but by brain had other plans. It seemed with each passing minute my eyelids got a bit heavier. I curled up in a corner of the hut with my blanket.

Despite my need for sleep, my mind wouldn't calm down. Would I live until the end of the year, or even the end of the week? I didn't know what I was going up against, which left all the details to my imagination. I kept inadvertently imagining everything bad that could happen, and every time my fears seemed to subside, my brain would conjure up another dreadful scenario. For the next few hours, I was trapped in this terror-trance state, unable to fall asleep.

At some point during the night, there was a soft thump somewhere outside. I cracked open an eye and checked the time with my phone. 1:00 AM. I rolled my eyes, groaning in frustration. I still hadn't managed to fall asleep yet, and that sound outside had only pushed me further into wakefulness. I crawled outside to investigate.

Dim moonlight lit up the landscape, giving it a ghostly appearance. Nothing was immediately out of the ordinary.

"Neval?" I croaked, looking around.

There was movement off to my left. My arm jerked up instinctively just before some invisible force rammed into me. Trees whizzed by me as I hurtled through the forest. Something latched onto my arm with several sharp objects and blinding pain erupted in my arm. My roar of agony was muffled by the thick layer of powder that softened the landing. Our momentum sent me and my attacker into a tumble up the white mountainside. I used my free arm to try to pry the thing off my arm but was unsuccessful. Just as we stopped tumbling, it yanked my arm and sent me spinning through the air.

The brief flight ended with a deafening smack on the side of a large boulder. My back stung as if all the scales and hair had been ripped off all at once. As it happened, I had impacted the boulder upside-down and promptly snout-planted into the snow. My limbs crumpled forward in front of me and I fell flat on my belly, and let out a small whimper.

After the momentary shock, I used an aching wing to turn myself over. It didn't feel like there were any broken bones anywhere, but it still felt like several hot rods had been driven through my forearm. I clutched my arm and glanced down at it to inspect the damage. To my amazement, there wasn't a single drop of blood. Instead, my arm had a shark-like bite mark with dents that were at least an inch deep, disrupting the muscle below the scales. My hand hung limp at the end of my arm. I tried to close it, but could only muster a tiny twitch from my thumb.