GREEN [complete]

CHAPTER 03: Sekam

The old cottonwood groaned as Sekam climbed, limbs wagging against the bright grey sky. A hundred feet up, there was silence. There were no insects skittering beneath the cottonwood's bark, no birds to take flight as she neared, no chipmunks to balk and chitter at her. Only Ahl and his starry eyes, watching her with profound disinterest.

Sekam hooked her arm around a thick branch and leaned over the emptiness. Her ears swiveled to follow her gaze, trembling in the absence of wind. All she heard was the churning river, winding around one side of the marshlands and cutting deep into the faraway mountains.

Guts collectors moved through the marshlands, their hulking bodies the nearest things to life the basin would see for a long time. In the other direction, the aspens and cottonwoods were overtaken by pines that climbed into the mountains. The mountains rose so high snow still crusted their peaks—snow that wore a faint green shimmer.

Her stomach twisted and fuzzy warmth swamed over her tongue. She'd been hoping the green would break over the continental divide. But her hope was beginning to tarnish. West, she thought, we just need to go further west.

"Sekam, your human lives." Ahl's voice rattled the trees, scaring hundreds of yellow and brown leaves to the ground. The words that followed didn't reach Sekam.

Sekam climbed down the cottonwood, fingers sliding into the comfortable grooves formed by its bark. When she reached the bottom, Ahl was standing over the human, his long beard brushing their chest. The human looked right back up at him, lips caught open in a shallow pant.

"You're scaring them," Sekam informed him.

Ahl gave her a droll stare. "They has been in this state since you found them."

Sekam shooed him away nonetheless. The moose god muttered his grievances, but not loudly enough for her to hear. He wandered to the other side of the clearing and dropped to the ground with a heavy whmph that brought down another shower of leaves.

The human's fear only grew when they saw Sekam. "You-you're one of them," they whispered. Their wide eyes fixed on her ears—long and canid; covered in a layer of dusky fur.

"No, I'm not." Sekam knelt next to them and pushed back her sleeves to show them her wrists.

The human didn't look at her proof. Their shallow panting cut off to make way for a scream.

Sekam slapped her hand over their mouth. "They'll hear—"

The human bit her, teeth sinking deep into her palm. They planted their hands in the crunchy grass and kicked off her to propel themself backward. By the time Sekam had her hand cradled against her chest, they were in the trees, sprinting into a thicket of coyote willow.

"Your human has escaped."

Sekam clambered to her feet and took off after them. "Wait! We're helping you!"

The coyote willows whipped her exposed skin as she ran, leaving red stripes over her face and arms. She found the human not a hundred feet away, braced against an aspen and swaying on their feet. Their cheeks were flushed scarlet, the rest of their face a watery blueish color.

"We just want to help," Sekam said, lifting her hands palms-out.

The human stared at her hand, where the injury should have been. "I bit"—they sucked in another shallow breath—"you. Hard."

Sekam laughed. "Yeah, I know that."

"You're not hurt."

"No." Sekam dared take a step toward them. They held their ground. "I'm not a mongrel." She spit the name of the abominations humankind created in their laboratories with all the venom it deserved. Then, her voice softened. "And I don't want to hurt you."

"What are you, then?"

She drifted closer. "I don't belong to this world."

"So you're uh ... an alien?" Their legs wobbled.

"I'm me." Sekam offered a shrug. "I've been called a demigod by some."

They pursed their lips. "Humans are the only gods left. Gods don't have dog ears." They grabbed one of their own ears to demonstrate, showing off the countless metal studs and hoops that adorned it.

Humans? Gods? Sekam's words were stunned out of her. She wondered if the green had gotten to their brain. Quiet loomed over them as Sekam gawked at the human. Finally, she managed, "No."

Even a breath's reach from death, the human smirked at her. "You gonna prove to me you're more?"

She couldn't. Her power was out of her reach. For now. "Will you let me help you?" she asked, trying to divert the conversation.

"You're not with ORCTech?"

"No." Sekam shook her head.

The human nodded. Their hand wormed around in their pocket, feeling over an object Sekam couldn't see. "Okay." Then again. "Okay. So you're definitely not with them?"

"I don't even know what that word means. My name is Sekam." She offered her hand to them. They didn't take it. "Come on. I'm not going to bite you."

"Ha. Ha." The human's mock laughter was accompanied with an exaggerated eye roll. Sekam had found the singular least grateful creature left alive—did they not know she had saved them from the guts collector? "I'm Dylan."

The human—Dylan—allowed her to get close enough to put her arm beneath their shoulders. The positioning was awkward and walking was even moreso; Sekam was over half a foot taller than them. "Where is home for you, Dylan?"

Dylan made a noise in the back of their throat. "Nowhere, now."

"I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"So what is it? Nanobots in your blood? Some sort of healing microbe?"

Sekam looked down at them, trying to decide if their question was serious. Their eyes were fixed on the space in from of them, their brows pushed as far down as they could go. "I'm a demigoddess," Sekam repeated, this time more firmly.

Dylan's sigh whistled through the gap in their teeth. "Alright-y then." They gave her a knowing look, like this certainty that she was not a demigoddess was a shared secret between the two of them.

Sekam scowled back.

She helped them over and around the branches they hadn't crashed through during their escape attempt and pushed a path through the coyote willows. She was careful not to let any of the slender arms snap back and hit the fragile human, no matter how much she wanted to. Dylan didn't thank her.

Ahl awaited them, head nodded in front of him and massive horns stretching toward the sky. His puttering snore carried through the clearing. All the grass in front of his face had fled his mighty snore, leaving a patch of bare earth in its wake.

"I guess the giant moose is a god too, right?" Dylan raised an eyebrow at her. "Not some freak accident?" Their infuriating smirk returned. Did they want her to let them die the next time a guts collector came for them?

"The fourth creator god," Sekam told them. "Ahl crafted the mountains and valleys with his horns."

"Somehow, that's"—they labored through another breath—"exactly what I expected and baffling at the same time." Their eyes dulled and their face creased with discomfort. As difficult as they was being, Sekam still needed to help them.

"Come on. Lay down. Maybe when you wake back up, you'll listen and, by some miracle, understand." She held out no hope that Dylan would understand—they didn't want to understand. They seemed quite content in their bubble of science and sarcasm.

"Unlikely," Dylan grumbled. "Unless I've gone completely fruit loops by then."

Sekam didn't try to figure out what they meant, she doubted it was worth the effort. She helped them to the ground and collected the blanket she'd draped over them earlier. They pillowed their head on their arm and closed their eyes. Within minutes, their breathing leveled and their dreams danced behind their eyes.

Only then did Sekam reach into their pocket and pull out the object they'd been feeling over. It was a small chip, barely the size of her thumbnail, with fine writing across its front. Sekam brought it closer to her eye, squinting to make out the letters.

C9M / 2021.