Prologue
I haven’t yet tasted everything that can keep me alive. -- Albert Camus, Caligula
— Cal —
I died at night in a dry place, in the soft body of an animal. It happened under the Northern Lights, which dazzled my companion and me so that we ran wildly across the road. She made it to the other side. I did not.
Then—
Scream of tires on asphalt.
Reek of burning rubber.
The breath went out of me and the cold stillness gathered like a cradle.
The next eyes I opened belonged to the driver of the car that had hit me. He, I, was bleeding from several wounds. My head ached where it had struck the wheel. My leg felt stiff. Automatically, I climbed out of the car and limped toward the carcass on the road.
I stared down at it for a long time: a white-gray curl of bone and fur, too small to have been the body I’d considered so strong.
I looked for my companion, but she was gone.
I stretched to fill my new consciousness.
Pink and green lights wavered across the sky.
If you have seen them, you will know why I wept.
