Kedy

Kedy was a teddy bear, a plain brown teddy bear. Her stitching was a little gilded, and her edges were looking worn. She loved a little girl named Karoline, who hugged her every night and told her what a good teddy bear she was. For five long years she kept by Karoline's side, through laughter, tears, and many hugs.

One day Karoline asked Kedy a question. It was an odd question to be sure, who else would have thought to ask but a young girl who loved her teddy bear. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Kedy thought long and hard, hard and long, before it finally occurred, "I want to be a little girl, and laugh and sing and play with Karoline!"

"But teddy bears can't grow up to be little girls," Karoline told her. "But I want to do it anyway!" Kedy replied. "You can't do it, Kedy!" Karoline scolded. "I just want to be a little girl and laugh and sing and play with you! Don't you want that too!?"

And Karoline was quiet for a while, then stood and left the room. Kedy could only wait, wondering if she had hurt the best little girl she'd ever known. Karoline came back, with something hidden behind her back, "now Kedy, tell me really, no games, and nothing impossible, what do you want to be when you grow up!?"

"A little girl, is all. It's all I'll ever want!" But Kedy's answer made Karoline angry, and she pulled out what she'd been hiding. With one swift stroke her first stab landed, the knife cutting brown and gold. "I'm sorry" cried the little bear, as her only love attacked. "Sorry!?" Karoline called with manic glee as she ripped the bear to shreds. "How dare you say such awful things to me, stupid bear, stupid useless bear!"

The police arrived the following day, but called others on there way. It wasn't there's to take her, despite the gruesome scene. The men in white would come for one who holds her little girl and screams, "What a bad little teddy bear you've been! You should have listened to me!"

(Untitled)

I just keep playing it back in my mind. Over and over the images spin up to speed then slow down as I examine every agonizing frame. Somewhere part of me is raging, angrily fighting the truth that my memory stubbornly replays. Most of me is in too much pain to care though.

She stepped left when she should have stepped right, rushed in when she should have held back. These are observations, I know eventually I'll attach blame or find some sort of meaning in them, but for now it's just the simple facts before me. Then time slows down and the blade whistling through the air seems to be moving effortlessly. It's strange how the moment just before seems to take forever, but once it hits everything happens so fast. The blood spraying everywhere and the people around me yelling, all at once and yet all separated as if everyone were on their own layer of time.

I don't really remember anything after that. A general feeling of things being hectic, maybe, but nothing concrete. I guess it's shock. Maybe it still is, I mean this person is trying to speak to me but I honestly can't seem to focus in on what they are saying. Oh well, they just left.

It's dark now.

So dark.

The New Night Dawns.

Jen held her wife close, resting her head on the womans shoulder. The room around them was dark, and silent but for the sound of their breathing.

"Jen?" The silence broke.
"Yeah?" She replied, wishing she didn't have to. She didn't like that tone.
"Will you promise me something...?"
"No." Jen replied automatically.
"What!?" Her wife looked at her incredulously.
"You were going to ask me to do something after... I won't promise anything."
"...I just want you to be happy."
"I will be, because you'll still be here. You aren't going to... die." She'd had to pause, it might as well have been a physical impact for all the pain it caused her to say it.
"How can you be so sure?"
"I just am."
"But.. just in case..."
"In case nothing. It's not going to happen."
"But if it does... I want to know you'll be happy."
"Then you'll just have to live and make sure."

Her wife pulled away a little, Jenn just held her closer. She wasn't letting go that easily. But then the connection was cut, and the room around her faded back into the more familiar setting of their bedroom in Pennsylvania, and she was alone. 'Damn that woman.'

She had just settled back in to go to sleep when the doorbell rang. She brought up her mesh overlay to check the identity of her visitor. Three visitors, all with government quick tags, could be a lab, but she didn't recognize the numbers as being inside the normal researcher range. She took a few moments to get some semblence of dressed then answered the door.

"Mrs. Cruise?" A man in a formal Air Force uniform asked her politely. He probably didn't have to ask, her civilian quick tag would have shown him all the information he needed.

"Yes? May I help you?" She asked, trying to keep some guard to her expression.

"We have immediate need of your expertise. You are an expert in evolutional mutations in microbiology, correct." It wasn't really a question. "Rest assured you will be well compensated for your trouble, and we believe you will find the situation very... interesting."

She paused for a moment, "How well compensated?"

He smiled slightly, "I'm glad you asked. You'll be given a working salary of four hundred thousand a year, and have a stake in whatever products or research evolve from this project. It's difficult to estimate what those could be worth, but if I were to hazard a guess, the amount coming back to you would be upwards of a hundred million."

Jen felt her knees go slightly weak. The salary alone was enough, but everything else sealed the deal. "I'll take it."

"Good, if you'll follow me to the car, ma'am. I'll explain the situation during the drive and we'll get you set up with a military nanite injection."

-

It was a couple hours of driving before they let her out in front of the currently grounded airplane. Something had torn a hole above the wing, and she could only assume the red streaks in the paint around it were blood. She took a deep breath and steeled herself, it wasn't like she hadn't worked around dead bodies before... it was just that the last time had been in med school.

The stairs up into the plane creaked every other step, and once inside the smell was over powering. A major broke away from a couple forensic investigators and walked up to her. "It's good to meet you Mrs. Cruise, or is it doctor?"

"It is doctor, though I try not to shove it other people's faces."

"Well, Dr. Cruise, there isn't much I can tell you about what happened here. We were kind of hoping you would be able to tell us. What I can tell you is, it's a biological life form, and has very long, very sharp claws."

"Have you collected any samples of foreign tissue or bodily fluids?" She asked, easily slipping back into her field research days.

"We did manage to collect some of a black substance from behind one of the chairs. Other than that, we haven't got much to go on. There is an eye witness back at the terminal, but she doesn't seem to be talking." As he mentioned that they stopped in front a latrine with a ragged hole in the door. Inside a woman lay slumped over a sink, half naked.

"This is where you found her?"

"yes, ma'am."

"I think I have an idea..." She picked up a coat off the floor, and opened the dead woman's purse pulling out a bottle of perfume. "Let's go see this witness..." She pulled the coat on, it was a bit bloody, but the sleeves were still unstained and it fit almost perfectly.

--------------------------------------

Just tying the thread into some of my other writing. Can't say I was really planning this when sat down to write it yesterday, but it seemed like a logical enough progression.