Scientifiction

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One of her knobs itched.

Lala reached inside her vest and scratched it with the hand not holding the spear.

Something made a sound to her left. She unbuttoned her jacket’s elbow flaps so she could hear better, turned back and forth. Nothing else.

She stood at the guard post on the cliff outside the Settlement overlooking the water. The sun lay as it always had, low on the horizon, big and dull in color, speckled with black, giving off much below-red along its rim. Out of the black dots, occasional other colors flared through, sometimes in long slow curtains that faded as they rose.

The water was flat. There was a thin cold wind that barely rippled its surface. A thick crust of salt, reddish-brown in the dim light, lay along its edges.

The sound came again. This time she saw one of the roaches down to the left, along the shore. She shifted her spear. Then she saw it was one of the smaller, solitary, purple-colored ones, not one of the ones who ran in the great packs.

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