Scales

• Kali Chadburn, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2013

It was cold and dark, the usually bright moon hidden behind the rolling clouds that lined the sable nighttime sky. The wind howled ominuously through the trees that surrounded the small settlement. The streets in the settlement were desolate, but for five figures.
A woman ran through the streets as fast and as quietly as possible, clutching a newborn to her chest. She wouldn’t – couldn’t - let the three shadowy beasts following her catch her. She caught sight of a dark cape, and immediately turned down the closest side street she could find, desperately hoping she would find somewhere to hide the child sleeping so peacefully and unawares against her chest. Not the child. No, The Child. Perhaps the only Child left, in fact. The woman pulled away from the thoughts of the desiccated home she remembered – It was gone now. The Child was all that remained. She had to get it to safety.
She couldn’t run for much longer – she could feel her unusually weak body tiring, even as the Shadows began to fall behind. The woman sped up, seeing her destination just ahead. A seemingly ordinary house on an ordinary street was her goal, the one with the bowing roof and the cracked door. Then again, most of the houses resembled the short description she was given. If she’d had the time to laugh, she would have. Time was running out – the sound of the Silence was closing in, but she was almost there. The knowledge that she wouldn’t survive the night was now sharp and clear – She would have liked to react, but she had arrived at the place. Or, what she hoped was the place, anyway.
The woman stopped running, and quickly flew up the few steps, depositing the newborn in front of a worn and weathered door, stopping shortly to remove the necklace around her neck. Glancing down at the child, she smiled lightly. Her daughter would live. Granted she would live among humans, but she would live. She clasped the necklace around the child's neck, the chain being far too loose, although she knew the child would grow soon.
She tucked the amber pendant under the blanket swaddling the child, and instructed it to hide the child till the morning. This would be the last time she used The Power, she realized. Letting out a humourless laugh, for the child was now safe, and she need not hide, she allowed herself this moment of rest. She felt the Silence close in. The last sight the woman saw was the child, Invisible to the Silence, open her eyes to glance at her mother, even as the woman disappeared into oblivion. As the figures faded out of existence, the sun began its ascent, the sunlight glittering against the child’s pale, blue scales.