GREEN [complete]

CHAPTER 06: Sekam

Asphalt. A dark scar on the land, stretching further than Sekam could see. Everything in its path had been destroyed; trees uprooted and mountains blasted away. Humanity had a certain fondness of destruction that Sekam could never understand.

Ahl's shoulders rose and fell in a long breath. "Look what they've done to my mountains, Sekam."

"I know," she said gently. "But they still stand."

"If it makes you feel better," Dylan said, "they're all dead now."

Ahl looked back at them. "That is kind of you, human. But I don't feel better." He stepped onto the road, his hooves loud against the hardness of it. A shudder passed through him. Sekam felt his anger stirring beneath his skin; the anger of a god who'd given so much, only to have his gifts thanklessly ruined.

They followed the road into the mountains. The pines thinned as elevation increased, getting smaller and smaller until they barely qualified as bushes. They were overtaken rocky outcroppings that jut from the earth. Dagger-like rocky spines rolled over the breadth of the mountains, all reaching toward their peaks. Pines clustered in the nooks between them.

Wind drifted lazily through ravines and tore over rock slides. Dylan had the blanket wrapped back around their shoulders, pulled tight to defend them against the biting chill the wind gifted them. Sekam breathed it in, lavishing in the growing cold. They'd barely traveled twenty miles from the marshlands, but the landscape was vastly different.

It almost felt like an escape from the green. Almost. Toxic green leaked from beneath the pines' bark like sap and the moisture that clotted in the rocks was tinged with poison. If she chose not to look, she may not have seen it ... but Sekam didn't have the luxury of choosing not to look.

Dylan shivered and pressed closer to Sekam, seeking her warmth. "It-it wasn't t-t-this cold when I c-c-came through a f-f-few days ago," they said, words fragmented through chattering teeth.

"It's not that cold." Unless the green is still in them. That would be bad. That would be very, very bad. Sekam swiveled to face them, pulling her leg over to sit sideways on Ahl. "Give me your arm."

Dylan eyed her suspiciously for a few seconds before submitting and sticking their arm out. Sekam peeled back the bandage she'd fixed over the wound. Their skin blackened around it, and squirming within the black was a distinct green tint. It was almost too hot to touch. Oh no.

"What?" Dylan looked down at their arm. "I mean ... it's ugly b-b-but ... it's alright—r-r-right?" Their shivering jerked their arm from Sekam's loose grip.
"The green isn't gone," Sekam said. "Not all of it."

Their lips pressed together. "No, it's gone. I'd be dead if it wasn't gone. That's how it works."

"You die when it reaches your heart. It hasn't reached your heart yet ... but it's still in you. Still affecting you." Sekam grabbed their chin and pulled their face closer, searching their eyes for any hint of the green. They were blue as they'd always been.

"C-c-cut it off, then!" Their voice pitched and their panic echoed into the mountains.

"If I do that," Sekam said, trying to keep her tone even, "you're definitely going to die."

Dylan's jaw clenched and they leaned closer. "I c-c-can't die. N-n-not yet."
What was worse—letting Dylan die or killing them in an attempt to save them? Sekam looked to Ahl for guidance, but he was silent. He just kept walking, his body shifting beneath them as he clip-clopped up the road, dashed white lines passing under his hooves.

Sekam was saved from having to make a decision by the growl of a gas engine.
Ahl stopped where he was, ears rotating forward just as the truck screeched around the corner. Flowers danced over its cab, wagging this way and that as the truck accelerated out of the corner. Their bright yellow heads jolted backward as the truck's breaks engaged and its painfully shrill horn blared a quick succession of warnings.

Ahl did not move.

The weathered old truck came to a screeching halt not a foot from the moose god, the flowers sprouting from a heap of soil in its bed still swaying. A woman with a halo of kinky black hair launched herself from the driver's door, one thought and one thought alone spilling from her cherry-red lips: "My darlings! My precious darlings! I am so sorry!" She sprinted around the back of the truck, racing toward one of the large yellow flowers that had been torn from the soil. "Oh ... my precious darlings ..." she lamented, dropping to her knees in front of the flower.

"Is there s-s-something w-w-wrong with her?" Dylan asked.

Sekam was too busy observing the woman to answer. She collected the flower, cradling it like one might cradle a child. "I'm so sorry," she repeated as she carried to back to the truck. "So so sorry, my darling." She hoisted herself into the back of the truck, forging a path through the other plants she had nestled there.

"Are you okay?" Sekam called, sitting up a little taller to see over Ahl's head.
The woman looked up so suddenly her hair bounced. "Me?" Her hands were still flat against the soil she'd pushed back over the roots of her flower.

Sekam looked around, confirming to herself that they were otherwise alone. "Yes?"

"Well ..." The woman carefully stepped between her flowers to hop out of the back of her truck. The driver's door was still hanging open, and she closed it gently as she passed. She came to stand in front of them. "I'm seeing an overgrown moose being ridden by a coyote mongrel and a human so ..." She adjusted the perfectly circular glasses that perched on her nose, thick enough to make her eyes look like they took up half her face. "Nope. I probably am not okay." Her chipper tone and the broad grin that blossomed over her face didn't at all match her words.

"Who are you, human?" Ahl asked.

The woman's head quirked to the side, her brows coming together as she looked at the moose god. "You talk?" she asked. "How delightful!" She stuck out her hand. "Bek!"

Ahl looked at the hand she offered, then, after a moment, nosed it. "I am Ahl, fourth creator god."

"Well, it's a delight to meet you, Ahl. And your friends?" She bounced up on her toes to see over Ahl's head. Her hair came down like a crashing wave, momentarily blinding her before it sproinged back up.

"Sekam and The Human," Ahl said.

"D-d-dylan," Dylan corrected harshly as they could through the cold that had taken them.

Sekam slid off Ahl's back and landed in an easy crouch. Bek gave her a longer look now that they were on the same level, eyes lingering over her weapons. Her smile faded to faint distaste, but only momentarily. "You look much smaller down here," Bek commented.

Sekam was over a foot taller than her. "Do you know how to perform amputations?" Sekam asked.