Page 214 of Hunters and Prey

He gasped, jerking it up off the grass.

Looking down, blinking, he saw an iridescent blue and white spotted creature staring back at him. Around the size of a mouse, it looked at him like it didn’t understand where that dark brown, fleshy, potentially tasty thing that was Black’s hand had gone.

Black scowled at it.

“Piss off,” he told it, looking at its pointed nose, its large, pale gray eyes, the strange feelers on its snout that weren’t really whiskers. “You’re harshing my Zen, rat-thing.”

It blinked at him, with two pairs of lids.

One was clear. The other, a dark blue––like most of its body.

Black peered down at it, looking at it in more detail.

What he’d mistaken for fur now looked more to him like feathers. It had no ears, but a smooth, strangely hairless face, making it look almost like a primate.

“What are you?” he asked it, still staring down. “A bird? A mouse? A tiny monkey? What the fuck kind of ridiculous nose is that?”

When the creature didn’t move, Black snorted.

“And what’s up with that coloring?” he added, flicking his fingers in the animal’s direction. “Camouflage, buddy. Look it up. You’re going to end up in someone’s stomach. I hope, for your sake, you taste bad.”

It blinked at him again.

First one set of lids closed, then the other.

“Well,” he grunted. “You’re brave, anyway.” He motioned at it with his fingers a second time, watching the thing follow the ripple of his digits with its gray eyes. “Go on now. Piss off. What if I wanted to eat you? What if I decided to bite you? See if you’re tasty?”

The creature looked back at his face.

It blinked, cocking its head.

Black sent out a faint scan.

The instant he touched it with his light, the creature’s eyes widened abruptly. Stomping its thick back foot in alarm, it turned and darted away through the blue-green grass.

Black watched it go, a perplexed frown on his lips.

“Huh,” he said.

When he could no longer see it, he exhaled, gazing back up at the blue-white sun.

Then he looked down at his legs.

He decided to go for a walk.

HE WALKED UP the grassy hill first, after contemplating the forest.

It was strange to walk around naked, but so far, he didn’t feel overly concerned about his nakedness.

He hadn’t seen anyone else, so apart from possible sunburn, it didn’t really matter.

He still guessed this was a dream.

He’d started to wonder if he’d fallen into a Barrier construct of some kind while he slept. Not the Earth-bound type of construct, but the type that lived solely in the Barrier, the kind he’d heard about as a kid, like what the old seers used to make. Back in the time of the Pamir, before First Contact with the humans back on Old Earth, they used to make spaces like this just to hang out in, kind of like a Barrier-version of virtual reality.

Wherever he was, it didn’t seem to be dangerous.

The land continued to be strangely quiet.

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