flashFiction-jungleSciFi

Grace Liquifies

No one would hear her noises, not tonight as the two shadows moved in on each other with impossible serenity. Grace liquefied into a ghostly dance. Her miniscule effort  focuses and faces her little nemesis, who stares back with his own set of nerves. She is, beyond all else, driven; she wishes only to be left alone, to return to her banyan grove. The universe, her universe, suddenly feels slow and cold, distant from everything. There is the shift, a shift at the blink of an eye; there are the tall trees and their fresh smell; there is the deep lush jungle valley; there is the rising river and its one directional rush. She leads her prey back into her corner, redirects him with a rising of her back feet so fluid even the cold light of the moon couldn't expose her.  Once she is satisfied, she returns to a more focused battle, without a pause, picks up her prey and dumps it on the jungle floor before her. The body lands with a surprising quiet, a bright tropical red streaks below her. She increasingly feels nothing, as if a weight had been driven from her heart. She can return now. According to the distant horizon, it was still early.

She has enough time to make it back to the banyan grove before sunrise. This day she will not invite the intruder into her world. This day she will forget the tides of battle and rest on the mountain. Simply a decision to vanish, and she was gone.