Michael Siemsen - Exigency

Minnie’s wild flailing and screams sent Mama into a tizzy. She pinned Minnie’s arms to her body and pressed the ear against the bleeding wound, as if to reattach it. Minnie squealed with each movement as Mama delicately nudged the ear around with her snout.

“Owjt… toh… toh…”

LIVETRANS: Quiet. Fix. Fix.

Minnie focused on her own breath, tried to quell the panic, slow the hyperventilation. A mistake. Mama had made a mistake. She wasn’t being eaten. This didn’t have to be the end. Not yet.

The weight of Mama’s hand lightened and Minnie dared a peek. The toothy snout loomed right beside Minnie’s head; attentive, dilated eyes shone in the ambient light. Minnie could see the sandy texture of the iris all the way into the ocular cylinder’s dim inner wall. Like many organs with common roots across Epsy, the eye had evolved in its own unique manner. A fascinating topic, but Minnie was more interested in its sensitivity to damage. If unobstructed, could she thrust her fingers in there? Could she destroy both eyes in a swift attack? And most importantly, would a blinded Mama still come after her?

Minnie slowly slid an arm up from her side, timidly probing the side of her head. Her hair was wet with blood, but the wound wasn’t gushing. Mama had actually set the ear fairly close to right. With measured breaths, Minnie’s flat hand trembled near the ear—closer, contact, stinging, pressing—she rotated until it slid into its familiar orientation. Raw tissue burned, but she pushed harder and held there.

“Toh.” Mama repeated.

Yeah, fixed. Got a needle and thread?

As if all was now well, Mama scooped Minnie from her lap and set her in the dry nest bed. Minnie stiffened her body and was able to keep her hand pressed against her head. She didn’t know the likelihood of her ear simply healing without additional surgery, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to wrap her head in gauze. She considered her one remaining sock, but it seemed a tad too short, plus she’d been stuffing her other foot in there for warmth.

Mama busied herself with old critter bones, splintering them lengthwise and sucking out the dregs of marrow. It sounded like someone cracking nut shells or giant sunflower seeds, followed by gnawing, and then the desperate slurping of an all but clean soup bowl.

Keeping one hand on her ear, Minnie pulled an arm into her shirt, then back out over the top of her first tank strap. A careful handoff, and she followed with the other arm. She wriggled the tank down her body, Mama glancing over periodically with vague interest, until Minnie extracted her second foot, and the tank was free. Some fancy maneuvering, agony, and tears later, Minnie’s head was wrapped tight.

So what was it going to be? A perilous eyeball assault? A mad, futile dash out the door? Prior to the ingested and regurged gutful of exotic bodily fluids, and before she’d learned what it was like to lose a body part, she’d elected to wait it out—watch for escape opportunities. The approach hadn’t worked out so well.

Mama flung another bone shard and it slid down the wall to Minnie’s feet. Minnie eyed it, then peered up at Mama, still absorbed with extracting a calorie or two from every animal scrap in the burrow. The bone had a nice, dense knuckle at one end, tapering to an impressive point at the other. This was one of those auspicious decision moments. To grab or not to grab?

Minnie knew her strength still wasn’t close to normal. How much damage could she realistically do with that thing? Then again, what if this was her one opportunity? What if Mama’s frustration swelled with each unsatisfying slurp of marrow? Hynka were cheerfully cannibalistic; at what point did hunger trump maternal instinct?

Minnie flexed her fingers. She pumped her fists to test her grip strength.

Without warning, Mama swung around with a grunt, pinching Minnie’s legs between fingers, and dragged her away from the wall, releasing her near the burrow’s center. Was this it? Where was the bone? Minnie grasped about where it’d been, blindly searching.

Mama huddled over her, staring for a long second, and then reached down with both arms, digging into the nest floor. Minnie slid into the depression and Mama shoveled two giant heaps of tree litter over top, burying her.

Clamping her mouth shut, unsure if she’d be able to breathe, Minnie held onto the air in her lungs. She switched optics and looked around through closed eyelid.

Mama had left the burrow.

Minnie tried to move her arms beneath the load of particles. Surprisingly easy. She wasn’t all that deep. Without exhaling what she’d already reserved, she tested a sniff through her nose. Yes, plenty of air filtered into the loose pack. She could breathe. Could she sit up? Her hands worked their way down beside her as she shimmied and wormed her body. After another minute of work, she’d gotten her head and torso vertical, a foot planted on firm ground, and could see sprinkles of light overhead.

A quick countdown, the extension of sore leg muscles, and she breached the surface, her head, arms, and shoulders free.

Mama?

She found the lumbering figure southeast of her, glowing pink and yellow, and gaining distance. No other animals were in view.

With near-constant glances toward Mama’s shrinking glow, Minnie dug in with desperate gusto, scooping handfuls away from her chest. She placed her hands on either side of her and squirmed upward a few centimeters at a time, dug some more, pushed, until finally at thigh depth, she was able to kick herself completely free.

Her body was racked but her spirit renewed.

Beyond hundreds of overlapping gray-blue tree trunks and two low knolls, Mama was a featureless speck of yellow confetti. Minnie’s fone ranged the Hynka at 3.6K and still retreating. It was time to go.

Maintaining a steady (if slow) jog, Minnie headed due north. The camp was northeast of her, but distance from Mama still had priority over proximity to camp. And Minnie was fairly certain she was leaving behind a traceable scent trail.

The soil shifted from soft, saturated tree litter to dryer, pricklier bits. She cursed her dainty, callous-free station feet, and her absurd, defective glands.

Want to ditch your suit and boots? Pshh yeah. Who the hell needs all that crap?

She winced and paused, skipping on her drenched sock foot to pluck a sticker from its mate. Safety scan. Not even a blip of rootless life.

Unsure if it would make any difference for scent tracking, Minnie skittered up a leaning, semi-bare epsequoia trunk, hopped to a large snowcapped boulder, and slid down the other side. She continued on in this way, with random turns, and scaling unnecessary obstacles, until all of the skin below her shorts burned with the growing chill of sunset.

Three more kilometers behind her. No more snow-free soil patches to relieve her throbbing feet. Though her calves no longer seemed to offer heat, she stopped every twenty or so paces to alternate pressing the bottoms of her feet against them. Her jog had long since downgraded to a shabby hobble. On the bright side, the aching on the side of her head had subsided. Maybe the ear had frozen. Maybe it was now just acting as a pretty gross bandage.

No longer paying attention, route guidance surprised her with a ping.

She’d traveled to the same latitude as the camp. Less than 5K to go, due east. She might even be able to DC with John. Give him a heads up before she shambled into the site. Nope. Her looping DC request was still reaching out every ten seconds. He could be asleep. Hopefully he hadn’t sunk his paws into the med cookie jar again.

4K. Snow coming down from her left. Scary clouds overhead. Legs pattering along on autopilot. She’d probably move just as fast with long walking strides, but she was determined to keep her heart rate up. She fantasized about the heater. How outraged would John be if she brought it into her sleeping bag with her? “Fire hazard and rules and razzle frazzle grumple!” She smiled and felt her stiff cheeks tremble. A violent palm rub on the numb tip of her nose. She better not have frostbite on top of everything else. Man, her feet… how could they not be ruined forever?