SHORT STORY: BEYOND THE SELF

Here's all the pieces of the story.                                                                                     BEYOND THE FREEZER  -  BEYOND THE SELF  -  BEYOND THE HERD BEYOND THE FEW  -  BEYOND THE EDGE  -  BEYOND THE STARS

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“A little bit farther, Patty,” he said, using the name he'd heard others calling him by. “Just a bit farther.”

Something was calling to him, drawing him onward and he had to know what it was. The great light had come and gone more times than he could count. His grease trail had long since diminished and movement was getting difficult. Birds flew overhead, seemingly uncertain what to make of the strange entity he had become. Every once in a while, once of the birds would swoop down at him and he would have to leap out of the way. Each time he barely made it, and each time became a little more difficult.

The birds left him alone in the dark times, and that was a relief. But there were other things to worry about in the dark. He never slept, he didn't need to, but he couldn't stop to take a rest either and that was beginning to wear on him. Shifting forms in the black haunted his nights, threatening to overtake him and devour him should he ever cease his vigilance.

A bird swooped and, this time, Patty wasn't fast enough. Beak pierced flesh and the bird gulped down a chunk of meat. Patty reeled from the blow and dodged out of the way as the bird came in for another bite.

Oddly, Patty was still aware of the piece of himself inside the bird. He took a hold of it with his mind and bird flopped to the ground, ridged. Patty found himself in two places at once: on the ground, where he was following his dodge, and on the ground where he'd landed after falling out of the air. It didn't make sense. The bird was the one who'd fallen, but there, in his mind, he saw out of the birds eyes, knew the birds thought, he even felt the dull pain on the birds side where it had landed wrong. He knew everything the bird knew and had all of its memories, though most were of little interest to Patty.

Another bird took advantage of the apparent delay and swooped in. Patty swooped up and pecked at the other bird, knocking it away. The other birds scattered at this sudden change in their companions behavior and Patty was left alone with himself, both of him. The bit of Patty inside the bird shifted within the gullet and Patty's hold over the bird wavered. The closer to complete digestion that Patty's segment got, the weaker his hold over the bird. Not wanting to lose this opportunity, Patty gingerly picked himself up in his beak and flew off toward the horizon, toward the call driving him on.

It was nearing the end of the light when at last Patty knew he'd arrived. Spread out before him were more of his kind, or at least what he had been before he'd been taken, tortured, and changed. It was just in time too since the bird was beginning to come back to itself and Patty was eager to get out of it's beak. The moment Patty was back on the ground, he flew the bird as far away as he could. By the end of it's flight it felt less like a part of him and more just a being that Patty was giving strong suggestions to.

Calm lowing reached Patty as the light faded and with it went his hope of reaching his kind that day. Here, at least, there were no dark forms moving about like specters, and at last he could rest. As soon as the light returned he would finish his search. And now he had a new idea, a new goal. It was a remote hope, but perhaps revenge upon those who so tortured him was not so far outside of his reach.

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 Sequel to BEYOND THE FREEZER. I'm laying around a bit more with the beef patty, we'll see how far it goes.