Page 2 of Fathom

I stepped to the side to get a better view of the other piece of meat behind it.

It wasn't meat.

I saw the curve of an exposed breast, but there were no arms, no legs, no head. It was a torso. A human torso.

Freeze was the response that took over my body, preventingme from screaming or bolting, fear holding in my breath, keeping me silent as my eyes jittered away from the clear evidence of my imminent danger. My gaze landed on a table with four chairs, and lying in the center were bones that were about the size to fit that missing leg, with small bits of ligament and flesh still attached, the strips rough and chewed. Most of the flesh was gone, the remaining bits torn as if severed by sharp teeth. There were more bones on the floor, stripped of meat.

My heart pounded in my chest, and the world seemed to slow down around me, my awareness of the monsters in the room lifting the hair on the skin of my arms.

They were ignoring me because they didn't see me as a person, like men did when they clustered together in groups speaking to each other and ignoring any attempts for other voices to join, using their attention to build a wall of us versus them. I saw men like that while I tried to study la grand mesure in Paris. It became clear to me that if I tried to make my career there, I would never make it out of the backroom, because I didn't know how to get through that wall and be seen for who I was, rather than just a body to handle the busywork of hemming.

But now I was in a place where being seen as a slab of meat was a more visceral and immediate danger.

I didn’t know where I was, or how I got there, but I had to get away.

I looked back at the hyena monster aliens, using the familiar word to label something that was utterly strange and terrifying. They were a pack of hyenas. I had to treat them like they were wild animals with malicious, hungry intent.

I didn’t have time to freak out. I couldn’t scream or cry, or I would draw the attention of the group that so far had been ignoring me. I was the type that would tear up if I pricked myfinger on a needle, even though I'd done it a thousand times before, but in this moment, there wasn’t a tear in my eyes. I always thought I was the type who would die first in a zombie apocalypse, curled up and crying in my fabrics until my death staggered in to find me.

But for the first time in my life, I faced certain death, not just cruelty and disregard, and for the first time, I realized the kind of woman that had always been buried deep inside of me.

There was nothing inside of me but stillness.

Adrenaline.

Nothing mattered but surviving.

One of them was poking at the side of the pod. It grabbed onto a tub and pulled it. Nothing happened as it yanked harder, again and again, until there was a cracking sound. A side panel came loose, and more goo started glopping out onto the floor.

The voices of the other three grew as they all began gesturing and shouting at the tub yanker.

I tiptoed backward to the door, placing my feet down with a slow, deliberate motion of rolling ball to heel, keeping my eyes on the arguing group of predators. I took slow, deep breaths, focusing on the fact that I was invisible, hidden, unimportant, letting those thoughts soak into my posture and imbue my very being. I was out in clear sight, but I was nothing to them.

Their teeth were sharp, the points catching the light as they snarled at each other.

One of them let out a shriek and tackled the other. They all began yipping and screeching as the remaining two focused on the two on the ground, snarling and tussling, the clipped sounds of their words bouncing against the harsh edges of the room.

Now I could really move, while they were distracted with each other.

The door had a large handle twisted around and curved intoa loop instead of being smooth and straight. I pushed against it. Nothing happened, so I pulled. It opened with a soft shift of well-oiled air, nothing creaking or groaning, and I slipped through it as quietly as I could, closing it behind me. Cold air kissed my bare skin, and I shivered. At least it didn't smell like meat that was going off, and I sucked in a deep breath, trying to clear the last of the foul air from my body.

Where was I?

I was on a street with a sidewalk.

It was dark, but the sidewalk was lit by dull bulbs that flickered along it. Buildings loomed around me, the tallest of them maybe four stories tall. I didn’t stop to look around. I just ran, jogging down the street, the ground biting cold against my bare feet, my slippery arms crossed over my breasts in an attempt to keep my flesh from bouncing.

I turned a corner.

There was a sharp stab of pain as something cut into the bottom of my foot, and I cried out, stopping to lift my foot.

I heard a door slam open behind me, back the way I’d come, and a muted bark from one of the hyenas, as if it wanted to shout but was trying not to attract attention. They finally noticed I'd slipped away.

My foot didn't matter. The cold didn't matter. My nudity didn't matter. Where I was didn't matter.

The only thing that mattered was getting away.

I ran, my legs stretching as I flew down the sidewalk, ignoring the stabbing pain in my feet, a small thought of wonder fluttering through my mind as I observed myself from the outside.