He Comes in Peace

The nearest store from their house was about ten minutes walk. The lake house Skye and her mother went to during every long weekend was situated near a part of the forest that was less occupied than any other.

Skye remembered being spooked and scared when she was younger, and she dared not wander about the streets alone.

But that was quite a few years ago. Ever since Skye could remember, the lake house was something of a vacation away from home, even if it was only a few hours' drive away.

The area around the lake house had always been occupied by old couples. Couples like the Gardners, who had children that didn't live with them anymore. Skye had always felt at peace when she strolled around; that was after she got over her fear of traversing alone, of course.

Over the past year or so, more and more couples in their early twenties were moving into the vacant houses. And as expected with just-married couples, parties accompanied every single Saturday night. Skye could always feel the booming, 120bpm music sending deep vibrations through the foundations of the lake houses.

Skye's mother was right; it was raining. She hurried down her street towards the nearest corner store, the hood of her jacket pulled up. She rubbed her mitten-clad hands together and tried to fend off the cold.

She walked against the battering raindrops, her head bowed down against the weather. Skye stuffed her hands deep inside her pockets and tried to un-numb her fingers. She had just passed by the small little hill that lead down to the forest and to the lake, when a bright cherry and blueberry flashing and the tell-tale wee-wah-wee-wah siren brought her head up.

Three police cars could be seen racing down Brittley Avenue in her direction. A peculiar shape was leaping from the cherry trees lining the sidewalks; from one trunk to the next, the thing flitted faster and faster, staying just a couple of meters ahead of the police cars.

From where Skye stood, whatever the thing was appeared to be the picture of a human drastically distorted on a computer program.

"What the—?"

The figure leaped into the air, flying rather majestically over Skye's head. He whizzed so close over her that she could count all the little bumps and scales of his...spikes? They seemed to be protruding from his back. Though his skin looked normal enough, and so did the rest of him, there was something about him, something besides the long row of two-foot spikes growing out of his spine, that didn't make him look like an experiment gone wrong. This thing, this boy (or so it seemed), looked like another being entirely.

Everything seemed to be passing in slow motion, and even the sound of a bullet being fired from the policeman's gun entered Skye's mind a half second slower. Her thoughts were sludgy and groggy as she wondered whether using a potentially life-threatening weapon was allowed on a boy that seemed barely older than Skye herself, even if it was under a very special circumstance.

The hit was precise, and right when the boy's feet started to glide over Skye's head, the bullet hit, and he dropped onto Skye, knocking her straight down onto the ground.

Silver spread from the wound he now had in his shoulder, and flecks of it splattered onto Skye's clothes. Her head felt light and woozy where she had banged the back of her skull against the sidewalk. The brunt of the fall lay in her arms; they were screaming in agony, but all her mind could focus on was the half-boy.

His eyes flickered to her jacket, her own blood starting to stain around her elbows where she had landed.

In the same second, the boy's eyes flicked back to the cars and the men with guns, now on hold because a missed shot would result in bleeding from the innocent.

Without a second more of hesitation, the boy grabbed Skye, held her by the waist, slung her across his shoulders, and plunged into the forest.