I will call her Emma
She was a little girl — perhaps six years old. I don’t know her name — I’ll call her Emma. It was a clear blue day — the sun shone bright; not that warm, but warm enough. The white clouds as solid as meringue dotted the blue canvass. The birds perched on their choice of branches and trees, sang. There were other people; some with their dogs; none with cats.
I sat on the fifth from bottom step of a fifty-steps flight of stairs wrapping around a dusty park, with hardly any grass to hold the earth. I was reading a book — I can’t recall which one, but it had a deep blue colored hard covering. I can’t also tell why I chose this spot for reading — perhaps, because it was peaceful — but that’s a guess. Emma sat two steps lower than me. She wore a cotton frock patterned blue and pink, with a crisscross strap on her back holding the garment. Her hair was orange; I could not see her face. She held a purple-silver walkie-talkie. I glanced around to see her partner, but could find no one.
“What was she doing alone? Such unruffled demeanor — she must not be lost. Maybe she comes here often.”, I reasoned.
“Hello”, she spoke into her device.
“Wow! She sounds mature for her age. Is she an orphan then?”
I was trying to give her a face, and likely, a character, from her sound and speech. But she was only a little girl — her character would be ephemeral, at best.
There was no reply for her Hello. At least, I heard none.
“Hello”
No reply.
“Hello, I’m here.”
She was definitely not a child. “Maybe a dwarf then?” I was cudgeling my brain about her appearance. But I could not go and just size her up — I kept dwelling with the book in my hand.
Her walkie-talkie produced a noise. The birds basking in the sun broke into a pandemonium of foul cries — the twitter and chatter gave way to hooting and shrieking. But no bird moved — they clung to their chosen branches. The masters and their dogs were unaffected.
“Yes, you can. It is warm, and the flesh is plenty.”
A chill ran up my spine. The words from the other end eluded me, but surely they must have been some speech that fell within Emma’s comprehension. The birds stopped talking and crying, all at once. The dogs continued to not-bark. The wind was stifling — it whirled; the branches swayed mad; the leaves could not hold to them, but the birds held onto their anchors. The air engulfing Emma was ominously quiet; unstirred even, despite the winds blowing madness about the plenty flesh. I sat there, waiting for something to unfold.
“It is better than my book.”, I amused myself. Expectant and Wary — that is precisely what I felt. Well, not precisely — it is much more complex to describe an emotion than just two words; I felt Expectant and Wary, predominantly.
The mad wind swirled into a vortex carrying with it, the grass-less ground, the unfortunate twigs, the orphaned leaves, when a gigantic bird landed with a thud. The vortex mollified; the dust reconciled with its ground; the withered leaves left to die; the windswept twigs scattered all over.
I coughed a hushed cough. I looked at other people; they were too far from me. I could not read their eyes or mind. But I could see Emma, and the lustrous enormous bird. The bird donned a coat of mail — I wondered who was it defending against.
The dwarfish Emma walked towards the Goliath. I wanted to stop her; she was a molecule under the nose of that creature. But she went on — she was sure of foot.
Her tiny hands met with the mammoth talons, and mayhem broke loose. The amber-red, bird-like burning things, with wings and beaks — all burning — came shooting out of the Goliath in immeasurable numbers. They singed the trees, and the unfortunate twigs, and the orphaned leaves. But no bird moved — much like me — much like the masters — much like their dogs.
I looked at Emma. She turned around. I saw her face for the first time; it was burning amber-red. Yellow suns for eyes, and a slit for nose, she had. I tried to find lips on the burning mass, but could not. Her character still eluded me, but I had more pressing concerns than that.
“Will they infect me? Or kill me?”
“Were they extraterrestrials? Or a man’s experiment gone wrong?”
I hysterically tried to size up the perilous situation that befell me, while the burning mass of flesh and bones — they must have had bones — slowly crawled towards me. I didn’t run — I could — but I didn’t.
I turned to Emma. She was looking at me. I expected her to deflect the burning things advancing towards me — I thought we had a connection. She did nothing. Her gaze was empty.
The burning critters were only a few feet from me. I could feel the heat.
“Better kill, than infect.”, I prayed.
I wanted to run, but now, I could not. Trying to break free from the invisible fetters, I squirmed.
And then, I woke up with a shudder.