The Reef

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Authors: Mark Charan Newton
children who misbehaved. Rumour being the main source of lore, in the absence of information. There were stories that they were a leftover from before the rebellion against science. The Qe Falta had all sorts of combinations of animal parts grafted onto them, in the previous age. Legs exchanged with those of a dog or a cat or worse, and stitched on by science. Monsters were grafted, the stories said, and the people of the age couldn’t stand them or the science that accompanied them. They were forced underground, hidden, secret. They did not want the world to hunt them down, to kill them.
    An Age passed, the Qe Falta rose again. Some took to the cause to fight for their recognition, for them not to be shunned as ghouls. Some began to focus on the cities, mainly Escha, since it was industrial, anti-nature. More recently, lives were taken by ‘equality bombs’. A wave of terrorism emerged just so that they could be treated as normal, to live in peace. Small battles were fought. There was much blood, a failed attempt to rid the world of them once again, but they stayed. They remained undetected.
    Now they were in front of her: the ghouls, the terrorists.
    Jella said, ‘We need your help.’
    The creature turned his head without moving its torso, taking everyone of the other riders in view, before it gazed at her again from within the darkness of his hood. ‘Help you? Why should we help you? What do you want that would possibly be in our interest to help you? ’
    Jella turned to her companions, looked back. ‘I’ve contacted others of your kind race. We’ve a plan that you may be interested in. We think you’d want to support our cause.’
    The Qe Falta said, ‘Oh, really? Please, tell more.’
    Jella wasn’t sure if the creature was humouring her, but she walked back to the horses to fetch her plans and charts. ‘I’ll show you,’ she said out loud. She couldn’t look at anyone, so she stared out to the desert.
    That evening, Jella had watched what thought was possibly the greatest sunset she had ever seen. She was in awe as she sat on the sand with Lula in her arms, staring at the sun as it enlarged. The sky turned purple, and she could see desert mammals rising in the cooler climate. It had become cold now, so they had made a fire using a small pile of wood that the Qe Falta had brought for them. They cooked spiced meats, which satisfied even Menz, who sat with his legs crossed alongside Yayle, playing dice. The four of them remained seated under a dark sky, which seemed somehow larger than they had ever seen, now that they were so far from civilization. The stars came out in their billions.
    Lula had said that it was quiet, calm, pretty-which was exactly what Jella thought of the woman in her arms. She did not tell Lula this, as she thought it would be patronising. Sometimes, Jella felt that she was controlling to the point of misogyny-a strange concept for a woman. She wanted a pretty, young girl, one who would not answer her back, and one who would pretty much just sit there, being attractive. It helped if she could shoot well, too. It wasn’t shallow,just that Jella simply couldn’t connect with people on a personal level. The problems she’d experienced in life forced her to focus internally. She was not capable of sharing experiences with someone.
    Jella had worked through dozens of ‘relationships’, none of which she had told Lula about. She remembered her teen years where she wanted to have sex with as many women as she could, just to prove she could. She felt an absurd level of control and power when she had her tail inside a girl, rumel or human, though she always preferred the latter. She wondered if she was mistaking sensation for emotion, but in the end she didn’t really care. It wasn’t important. But what she had with Lula was special. Jella could lie in her arms sometimes, and let the girl’s soft nature take over, or she could get a kick out of pleasuring the woman endlessly. There was

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