Chapter 3: Here Comes the Reaper

As I watch myself struggle to breathe, I dig my nails into the skin of its neck. Hopper skin is thin and it isn’t long before thick, orange-brown blood is oozing out of its neck. It hisses and gurgles in pain but doesn’t let any weight off of my body. It isn’t much bigger than me, if I could only get it to loosen up….

I finally inhale a large breath of air. And dust. I cough into its face, and with a shriek it blinks spastically and pulls its head back. The eyes are the most sensitive part of a Hopper’s body. If only I could do more! But I don’t dare take a hand off its throat.

It glares back down and hisses. I take another deep breath and spit into its eye.

It pulls up with another horrible, gurgling shriek. The instant I feel it lift off my legs I pull them up as hard as I can and put all of my weight into rolling backwards. And the moment I’m on top of it, I jab my right elbow into its left eye.

I feel myself hit the bone behind its eye, which is strong enough to protect its brain. Its giant eye ball, however, is completely ruptured, and black goop bursts out onto the rest of its face.

I jump off and get away as quickly as I can. It kicks and convulses and wails. I reach for my gun. It isn’t there. It must have fallen out of the holster when I fell off of Angeles.

As I frantically search the ground around me, the Hopper struggles back to its feet. It waits for my eyes to return to it before it rears its head back and opens its jaws wide for the loudest shriek it can muster. Chills scurry over my shoulders and to the base of my back as my heart tries to beat itself right out of my chest. No time for the gun. I reach for my machete as the Hopper leaps at me, teeth bared and ready to feast…

It stops short with its face less than a foot away from mine. Its arms, which had been aiming for the ground behind me, drop on each side of me. Its head, which had been poised to sever mine, falls limp. And its body, which had been lunging forward to knock mine to the ground, sinks as dead weight into my machete. I look down in disbelief as Hopper blood oozes onto my glove and inside the sleeve of my coat. I let go of the machete and step back.

I pulled it in front of me just in the nick of time. One second later-no, half a second later- and I would be dead.

My body tingles with energy. But not the energy of excitement or victory. No, this is something else. It’s the energy of…fear. Of terror. It pulses from my chest into every limb, through every vain. I stare at the dead Hopper to try and remind myself that I’m alive, that I’m the one who’s still standing, but it doesn’t help. I can’t stop lingering in that moment. That split second in which there was no hope.

Because now I understand what it is to know I’m about to die.

I experienced the moment before death. And death did not take me, but I felt its breath on my skin, in my blood. And there it lingers.  

Minutes pass before I remember the other Hoppers. They’ve disappeared. Angeles nudges my shoulder, and I realize that I have no idea what he was doing or how far he might have run while I was fighting. Had he gone too far on his own, he could have been killed and or lost and I would be stuck in this god-forsaken stretch of land with no ride or supplies.

My body is still tingling as I pull the machete out of the Hopper and saw off its head. Yet, something else in me-the rest of me, really-is numb. I throw the head in a netted bag which I tie onto my saddle. I look around for my gun. Once I find it, I shove it back in the holster and mount up. We go over to the other corpse. I collect my second trophy.

After a few swigs of water, we head again toward the northeast. I don’t bother to check how good my angle is. I don’t care. I feel too wretched to care about anything right now. As the adrenaline fades, pain grows in my arm and head. The blow of the Hopper’s body onto my blade was a heavy one, and my muscles are aching. My head begins to pound and throb and it’s almost unbearable. I must have gotten a concussion when I was knocked off of Angeles. And what’s worse…what, for some unfathomable reason, is bothering me the most…is how acutely aware I am of two bagged heads bumping against each other and Angeles’ side as he walks along.

We go on until the Sun is hidden and both Moons are well in the sky. We come to a grassy area with a few trees and settle down beneath one. Mud Hoppers have never attacked anyone carrying the remains of their kind. It’s believed that they may smell their dead from far off and know to stay away. And, to an extent, they seem to acknowledge grassy areas as our turf. An Outpost’s chances of survival increase tenfold once they get crops or even decent shrubbery to grow.

So I guess this will be a safe night’s sleep. As safe as it can be in the Outlands, anyway.

As I drift off, I still have a knot in my stomach. A knot of….ugh…I don’t know…of jumbled emotions. Negative emotions.

I’ve slayed two Hoppers. My new supervisors will no doubt take notice of me. This is what I wanted. Adventure. Victory. Glory. To eliminate the enemy. To be a true protector of my people. Of my planet.

And yet, I don’t feel victorious.

I had always thought that I would not fear death. That I would have little objection when it called, little difference toward the time or manner in which it came for me. But death was more frightening to face than I had thought it would be…and life was less satisfying to take.