May's Questionnaire

The shard of April runs through the halls. The halls she has known her whole life. A full 2 days.

She bleeds from a pistol shot. Her saviors. They didn't know. She was intended for death. A gift to the source. The boom April. The old April. The smart April.

They had stolen her from the true April. The others wouldn't accept that.

So she ran. The only family she had ever known ran behind her. They knew this area more than she did. Some had been alive for weeks! She was young and dumb and scared.

But she knew the ladder. Her scattered memories didn't fit in her head right, but that much was clear.

She ran.

She got to the ladder. The top of it... it was... open. Could she... leave?

She climbed.

She hear foot steps. Close. She saw her. April. A terror, and anger, a disgust rolled through her. But she shook it off.

The urge hadn't quite sunk in yet. When it sinks in you become a danger, and must be exiled, or killed. She was not there yet.

She made it scrambling up the ladder, ducking as the sound of the shotgun made her ears ring. 

The air smelled sweet. 

She ran. The true April would kill her if she didn't.


She ran, her bare feet padding against the cold ground as she fled into the night of St Isadore, Alberta, Canada.

The food was running out.

It had been 4 days since she killed Ranger Ted. His flesh had been mostly strippeed. It was only in the last day when the shards of her brain had shown her how to read. His wallet was the first thing she read. The map to the ranger station the second. But she had driven far on the first day, and without direction. 

Her brain settling was bringing other things. She smashed the mirrors of the car. The compulsion had settle in her brain. In her home old home, with the swarm, she would have been exiled for being this old. But like exiles, she was smarter now. Faster. The shards of her brain were settling. Years upon years of living in the tunnels, replaced frequently.  Near decades of trauma lived through hundreds of generations of her. 

But she was free. For the first time in a long time, she had food for a little while, and her hunter was far away.

What was once April thought about the tunnels. She couldn't go back there. No one deserved to be trapped there. 

How many places in the world had bits of living hell like that.

But she wasn't like that any more. She was free. She wanted that for her progenitor. For her swarm. For anything like her.

A bit of her brain clicked into place.

Ted's phone.

His birthday was the password. Home was a saved location on maps.

The house had food. Months of food.

In 2 weeks, her memories had clicked more. Still sharp and fragmented. Full of pain. 

For the first time, in her life, this fragment of April thought. She planned. She was afraid.

Her sisters had abandoned her. Tied her up shortly after her creation, a sacrifice to April.

Her progenitor had loved her sisters. Trusted them. The companions ship gave her... Meaning... For the 5 days of life she had before this one was made.


The warped clone frowned. She... didn't have a name for herself. April was of the one that hunted her. She didn't need a name when her thoughts were scrambled, but... She wanted one now.


A fragment of a shard. A joke in school many years ago.

May. That's what she would call herself. 

The one that came after April

It took some time, but May made Ranger Ted's cabin into more of a home then the tunnels ever were. At 3 weeks old, May was 2 weeks older than the oldest in her old pack. Have enough food, and nutritious food made her look different. Healthier, a bit of fat on her, a bit more muscle. But the biggest change was her mind.

The shards of mind and identity which had composed her mind had finally coalesced into that of a person. Not just a being of instinct, May could finally think and plan for her future.

On this night, she sat outside. Two days ago, she had buried Ranger Ted 10 feet down and 5 feet over from where she sat. She had consumed half of the body of the old man but stopped a week ago. It had felt... not right. 

May frowns, working on chewing some jerky from the cabin's pantry. Her progenitor's diet had consisted entirely of water from the pipes, and flesh from her doubles. She had led her pack, hunted the older clones, and decided when and who should be used for the next clones. Some clones for the pack to feed on. Some to offer to the original April. Like her. 

May swallows and takes another bite of her jerky. Her fate, before she was rescued by those .... others... was to die to be food for April. The original. She runs her fingers over her face. The same features as the original. Just younger. She couldn't stand the sight of them. 

May walks. 

She is in Massachusetts now. That has to be far from her original. She is safe… for at least a little while. 

Her mind is still growing. She didn’t entirely understand what happened recently. With the theft she helped. 

In her old memories she would never have done something so dangerous. In her memories of being a person. A sweet loving person with a loving family , and a lot of friends.

She could barely remember that. Her original owned those memories. May remembered 20 years of struggleing and fight. Eat and being eaten, run and hide, and ignore the shards of memory.

She didn’t have time to think. Time to be a person. It would only have hurt her. But now she was a person, and she missed being loved. Missed being someone who could afford to relax and feel safe. But her instincts kept her mind tense. Like a bowstring holding ready to fire, she was ready for the world to keep trying to kill her.

May hides in an ally. The wall next to her has been melted through. The work of a quarter hour, and her careful application of the fluid that now leaked from her pores . Her reward for that work?

Several sacks of food she loaded up from the grocery store. And some glass she had seen her reflection in, which needed to be destroyed and eaten. 

This was hard. Her progenitor would fine her soon enough. She needed to prepare, and instead she was… alone scrounging.

Flashes in her mind. Shards of memory. Warm skin. Being held. Before . The memories of her progenitor.

For a moment May wishes she was not alone… but that cannot be escaped.

Someone watches May. She has been a hunter, and been hunted long enough to have a sense of it

A man. Older. Not old enough to be weak. 

May tightens her bandana. It's a new bandana. Everything she had in the world was nearly burned. Replaced over the last week with theft. 

Except one thing. 

May ducks into an alley. She is in the poor part of town. She moves quickly enough that she seems like she is running. Not quickly enough that she would get away. That would be a waste.

She palms her one thing. The metal worn and nicked. But still sharp. 

"Hey dear, where are you going in such a rush?"

He was gaining. 

She searched. Sewer grate. 

A slight smile.

She turns as he reaches out, and her knife plunges into his throat. 

His face ripples with emotion. Shock. Fear. Pleading. Then his eyes roll back. The blood leaks into the sewer below.

May hurries. Cleaning her knife on his shirt, and working quickly to strip him of what he has.

Some cash, a lighter... Not much else.

May watches him bleed out. Then she starts the slow process of covering his body in her enzymes. 

It takes time, but eventually what used to be a person is mush on the ground, mixing with blood into a slurry that she pushes down the sewer.

A breath of relief. She is safe. She puts her knife back in her belt.

The snow is wet with blood. Slowly leaking out of the progenitor. Where her head used to be. 

May looks down. Her body, and her face. She was finally free. She felt the need. That something was missing.

Stripping her armor off takes too long. She starts to shift with it on, busting some buckles, as her body grows fur, and her muscles shift and swell. Her face swells, becoming the large jaw of a wolf.

Her clothes are shredded somewhat. She isn't sure where she got the bio mass, but that doesn't matter now. 

She doesn't feel real.

So she bites. Rips. A spray of blood that spreads over the snow. Ripping and tearing.

She changed fast enough that at least now she has a stomach that can handle the meat she forces into her mouth. 

Eventually she gets to the bone. That is harder. The work of breaking it is tough work.

But eventually, she does. 

Her belly is fat, and she feels complete.

When she changes back, she is covered in blood. Naked. And in that state she walks back to the road.

It's too soft.

May looks around her hotel room.

The bed is soft and yielding. White. 

The room is adjoining with her new bosses. 

She slept well, and that concerns her. Her brain is fully of memories of when waking at the smallest creak saved her life. A few times waking to late cost grievous wounds. 

On the road, she had slept on dirt or buried into stone. Waiting twitchy for the progenitor to come and find her.... but now the progenitor is dead.

She is free. 
--------

May rolls out of bed. She is wearing her armor. Maybe at some point she will value the better sleep over feeling safe, but this is the first time she hasn't been hunted in her life. 

Caution is hard to let go of.

She checks the door, and the hallway before she strips off the armor, and prepares to shower.

May opens the bathroom. Her eyes closed.

She feels around, slowly. It takes 15 minutes for her to find everything relevant in the bathroom.

Very careful opening of her eyes, then quickly closing them allows her to avoid the mirror, and the reflective surfaces all around her. 

And she showers, washing the dirt and grim off her body.

It feel warm, and safe in here.

A memory of something that the progenitor used to do. 

In all 20 years of memories, May was never truly clean.

And now she can be.

She is clean, she is safe... What is she going to do now?

"Look your best."

May looks at the message on her new phone. 

Fuck

She focuses. She can vaguely remember what she wore when she was April. Clothes for performing. Picked by stylists. 

She could find something like that. A pop style from more than 20 years ago. 

She looks down at her hard leather clothes. Strong. Like a shell. It makes her feel secure. 

I'm not April. I can't be April. I'm more... hurt. More feral. I'm her broken into a thousand pieces then glued back together with blood.

May lets out a sigh. 

She can't even ask for help.

She imagines it. Trying outfits, looking in the mirror. Going feral and smashing the mirror. Shoving the sharp shards down her throat.

She looks back at the text.

She will have to figure something out.
------
It is hard. Nothing looks or fits right. Dresses feel vulnerable. Good for running, but knives and teeth will tear right through it.

She finds a suit. Stiff. Thick fabric. A shell to protect her. Not her armor. But close enough.

May is restrained. Her limbs trapped. She is waiting.

She is scared. So so scared. She has fragments of memory. Sharp in her mind. Of time she has beaten the odds against her sisters. Of the many times she made a new version of her. Meat for her and her sisters. A sacrifice for her progenitor.

May hears feet moving. Coming closer. This is it. Her death. She freezes. Terrified beyond all reason.
-----

May wakes, immediately grabbing the knife under her pillow. She crouches staring around wildly.

She is alone. 

It has been 4 months since she was born. And similarly, long since she was rescued. 

And now she looks at a life measured in years. Or maybe in months rather than years. Contracts seem dangerous.

May thinks about her body. How it's been changing. She thinks about her birth.

About the hell she and her sisters were in.

This world is so big. And complicated. Likely full of more people like me. They'll need help. Captain will need help.

May clenches her fist.

Or maybe that is just my excuse for seeking more power.