Nnedi Okorafor - Lagoon

“It’s not bad, honey,” Adaora said, looking over her daughter’s arm. Blood pumped from the gunshot wound to the beat of Kola’s heart. It took all Adaora had to stay calm. “Relax,” she breathed. “Lie down, sweetie.” As Kola did so, Adaora took her arm and held it up. Gravity would slow the blood loss. She wasn’t sure if she should apply pressure with the bullet possibly still in there. Beside her, Fred began to cry.

Adaora glanced at Anthony. He was looking down at Ayodele, who screamed and undulated and… began to melt. The sound of marbles on glass was everywhere, filling Adaora’s head, the noise making it hard to think. Adaora could feel even the tiny hairs on her face vibrating and pulling. Her stomach shuttered and her head throbbed. Benson and five soldiers stood over them, pointing guns at Ayodele, expressions uncertain.

Benson was shouting at Ayodele; he’d been shouting the whole time. “Don’t move! Just, just, just stay right there, now.”

A soldier knelt beside Kola with a first aid kit.

“Keep her arm up,” he said, opening up the box.

“Ah!” she heard Fred cry. She turned round to see Chris wrapping his arms around the boy, and every muscle in her body tensed.

“It’s OK,” Chris whispered into his son’s ear. “Shhh.” He looked at Adaora. “Is she OK?”

“She’s been shot,” Adaora said.

They looked into each other’s eyes for several seconds. Then Chris nodded at Adaora and she nodded back. The soldier was examining Kola’s arm. The bleeding didn’t appear to be slowing.

Yards away, Ayodele was still shrieking as Anthony stood over her, unsure of what to do. She had bled not a drop of blood. She wasn’t just melting, she was disintegrating . Her skin was growing grainy, her hands and the lower part of her face losing their shape. She was staring at Kola and Kola was staring at her. Then Ayodele looked up at Benson, her gaze moving wildly between him and the other soldiers. Her left eye had dissolved to nothing but the look in her still intact right eye was one of pure hatred.

Benson fired his gun, hitting Ayodele in the leg. Anthony leaped to the side. “Shoot it!” Benson yelled. “Kill it! Kill it!” Three soldiers opened fire on Ayodele again. They shot her in the thighs, chest, face, everywhere. Her fragile, greying body was hopping and jerking on the ground. Adaora pulled Kola close as the child screamed and sobbed. She hoped Chris was doing the same for Fred.

The sound of marbles grew so loud that she hunched over Kola to protect her from the harsh noise. She struggled to keep Kola’s arm up. Through it all she could hear muffled screaming. The voices of men, not Ayodele. Then she felt more than heard a wet pop! , and hot liquid sprayed across her face. And then… silence.

She opened her eyes and immediately wanted to shut them again.

Where the soldiers had stood, heaps of raw meat wriggled and then became still. Her husband was covering Fred’s face. The one soldier who had been tending to Kola’s arm had his hands over his ears and his eyes shut. Anthony was on the lawn, mere steps away, his head pressed to the grass, his hands over his head. All of them were wet with blood. Adaora was the only one in the group who had her eyes open. There were people from the crowd in the yard, some running into the house, others standing yards away, staring. Most were still cowering, terrified by the gunshots and alien noise. However, Adaora focused only on her children, husband, the soldier beside her, Anthony, and… the alien. Ayodele slowly got up and stood tall before the veiny masses of yellow-white fat, pink-red tissue and muscle, bunched brown skin, and broken bone. She was whole, spotless, and now wearing a plain brown dress. She was scowling at Adaora.

Adaora looked up at her, pleading silently. She didn’t know what she was asking for but she was pleading. These aliens had come in peace. Had come. Had .

Ayodele turned to the bloody lumps and Adaora hid her face in Kola’s neck. “It’s going to be fine,” she murmured into her daughter’s ear. She heard the sound of marbles again. And when she looked up this time, she hoped that Ayodele would be gone. She was not. But the wet piles of meat, the scattered clothes, even the spattered blood, were gone as though they had never been there.

In their place was a plantain tree, heavy with unripe plantain. Adaora stared at it, understanding what had happened. She felt like both vomiting and sighing with relief. Ayodele had taken the elements of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine and magnesium that had been Benson and the other soldiers and rearranged them into a plant. Does the soul transform, too? Adaora wondered. She’d never believed in God but she was a scientist and knew that matter could be neither created nor destroyed. It just changed form.

“Are you happy with that ?” Ayodele snapped at Adaora.

Adaora nodded.

“I am not,” Ayodele said. She walked toward the gate. In the emptying street, a few people were fighting, some were gawking, others crying but most of them fleeing. Adaora’s mouth fell open as she noticed this for the first time. She’d been so focused on what was happening in the yard that she hadn’t realized that something worse had happened in the street! There were bodies lying on the road, wounded people crawling to safety, a car burning, people crying. Adaora could hear the sound of glass breaking.

“Don’t,” Kola whispered. She cringed at the pain in her arm. She was looking at Ayodele, now halfway across the yard. “We need you.”

Adaora looked at her daughter, shocked. No! No, leave us. Keep going , she thought to Ayodele. I beg you.

Somehow, over all the noise, Ayodele heard Kola’s soft words. She stopped.

“I’m sorry that you hurt,” Kola said, weakly. “So do I.”

Ayodele came back to them. Chris got to his feet and picked up Fred, backing away from Ayodele as she knelt beside Kola. There were tears in Ayodele’s eyes. Adaora put a protective arm around Kola as Ayodele looked at them. As Adaora watched, two tiny, dented metal objects fell from beneath Ayodele’s brown gown; one landed in the grass beside her and the other landed on her thigh and tumbled to the grass. It was still hot, but not enough to burn. A bullet.

Ayodele looked into Adaora’s eyes. Adaora held her breath. The warm, curious, light-hearted being that Ayodele had been was gone. The eyes Adaora looked into now were those of an angry, bitter old woman. Adaora didn’t move away with Kola as Ayodele leaned closer. It was instinct. Despite the look on Ayodele’s face, Adaora knew this creature would not harm her child. Ayodele unwrapped the tight bandage from Kola’s arm. Blood immediately began to seep out of the wound.

“Mommy,” Kola moaned. Adaora took her other hand.

“It’s OK,” Adaora whispered.

The expression on Ayodele’s face softened as she ran her hand over the blood on Kola’s arm. Wherever her hand touched, it absorbed the blood like a sponge. Soon, there was only the bullet wound left. Adaora’s stomach clenched at the sight of it. Ayodele lightly touched the injury and her hand seemed to disintegrate into a colorful mist like the type one would see rising from a waterfall in the early-morning sun. Kola tensed as the mist sank into her arm.

“Does it hurt?” Adaora asked, trying to keep her voice calm.

“Feels like ants,” Kola whimpered. “I hate ants. I hate ants, Mommy!”

“They are not ants, dear,” Ayodele said, her voice gentle and soft, almost as it had been before. “It is me. I am speaking with you. Rebuild yourself, Kola.”

Kola closed her eyes, and Adaora could have sworn she felt heat pulse from her daughter. She smelled smoke.