The Briggins

There was the cold and wet snow that slushed around my shoes. I drag one heavy foot to another while the sun was still up. My eyes were already drooping because in our watch it was already close to midnight. We should be sleeping. We should be in out tents right now enjoying the warmth of our sleeping bags but of course someone has to hunt and stupid rotation duties should’ve supposed to be fair but to me it’s just an excuse to not look in to the list of the remaining abled bodied human teens and separate them based on what they can mainly do. They had to separate them in teams.

“We should get back” Jenny says who thankfully voiced my opinions because I would never say it out loud. I can’t complain or more like shouldn’t. She huffs, her already pink lips getting darker and her perfect nose red.

It seems to fall in deaf ears as the team leader Jason with his buffy arm on the rifle, keeps moving farther in to the wilderness. Jenny lets out an annoyed groan and stifling my own, we kept going. The rabbits on my arm was getting its meat cold and its blood almost drained from its body. I look behind me and see the trail of red blood.

“We have thirteen rabbits, Jason!” Jenny presses. Her mahogany hair getting swept up by the wind “Thirteen!”

“but it’s not enough to feed thirty people in our sector” Jason says and that made Jenny shut her mouth and the others follow him further. I was the one on the end of this expedition. I hated the cold, I didn’t like the cold and I would never say that to them only to Mom I would.

“The Briggins better not develop some kind of technology to get here” Arnold says with his red wiry curly hair falling out of his fur hat. His freckles on his face makes it look like you can spot an entire constellation. He shivers at the thought. “those monsters”

his word made me stop and freeze for a moment but resumed walking. The Briggins is the greatest enemy of the human kind right at this moment, not Ebola or some power hungry country or some nuclear war. Briggins is the new evolved species with high intellect and even higher senses but they cannot stand the cold because of it hence me. They didn’t notice I stopped walking because I was too far back. When I could finally feel my legs I continued trekking in the cold and wet snow. My skin under this clothes feel clammy and disgusting for some reason and a big part of me just wants to run out of Alaska all together.

“Carrier!” Jason shouts. I jump in attention and run to him which was the lead of the group and I panted to get to him. He glances at me then snatches the rabbits I was carrying. “wrap them in some cloth”

I took out a pelt of wolf fur and wrap it around the rabbits. I look at him waiting for more orders. Jason’s large brown eyes nodded approvingly. “We’ll go home when we find something worth bringing home to”

Then like a wish an Elk cry rang out through the cold air. We froze listening to the sound as everyone was looking everywhere trying to see where that animal was. Before they could look at me or glance at me because due to desperation to get home and want to hurry things up. I close my eyes and felt the glow in my irises heat and everything is more detailed and crisper in vision. I look away from them then there was the elk. completely camouflaged in some trees with his antlers protruding and using his nostril to get to something in the snow.

I blink my eyes back to normal. Tugging at Jason’s jacket I point where the Elk is. “There” I say.

“Where?” he says. He squints his eyes.

I forgot that normal human vision can’t reach the sight of something that’s 300 yards away. I grab his binoculars from his neck and waved it in front of his face.

“I saw something moving by those trees. There are four legs there and the antlers moving, I thought at first it was branches but look” the lie came completely out of nowhere.

Jason takes the binoculars and then he smiles. “there that animal is”

“Where?” Jenny says excitedly.

“Shh” Arnold scolds.

Jason waves his hand signaling for us to follow and I wait for everyone to surpass me before I continued to follow them. Knowing what comes next would not be pretty for the elk and for me. We got close to the elk, enough for Jason to position his rifle and then the loud sound of the gun made me wince. A large part of me wanted to cry out. But I bit my cheek so I won’t. my ears ringing while I see everyone shouting and smiling in glee then while the animal drops down to the snow. I quickly wipe away the blood trickling down my ears with my dark sleeve and smile to match their own.

Even though I’m the carrier of the team they don’t ask me to carry the Elk, thankfully so. We went back with the dead something pound animal and when we got back to the so called village we created which was an old army base here in Alaska. The wired fence opens for us and the adults immediately congratulates us.

I on the other hand just drop the rabbits to Jenny’s arms and I told her I’m going to take a breather then went to the tent to find Mom on the bed, knitting another blanket for me. She glances at me, her warm green eyes meeting mine and it lights up.

“You’re safe” she drops the knitting needles down and comes to cup my cheek. She frowns. “You’re cold. Come on, sit down and I’ll make something hot”

I groan “I don’t want another hot water” I lay down on the creaking metal bed then slide myself in the sleeping bag then covered myself with the three thick blankets and one knitted blanket over me. I’m so cold.

“You do” Mom says going to the corner where the kettle is. “I’ll be back and Maza…Daddy”

I nodded then she left. Daddy is code for “Remember what you are” which is bad. I’m half of the monstrous Briggin that Arnold has so eloquently said. I close my eyes and felt the heat of the glow of my irises going back. I cover my face under my covers to make it safe. But I’m tired and I want to rest which means a lot of my Briggin qualities would come out in times like this.

I hug myself and turn in to a small ball trying to stop the clammy feeling in my body and the feeling like my insides would groan in every movement. It sucks to be a Briggins though much more evolved that we are but our sense of touch goes dull in the cold and our bodies seems to react more to the temperature.

I’m only half but it’s enough to make me feel like a Briggin in this human sanctuary and human with a Briggin killer.

The story of me being born is that my mom fell in love with a Briggin who’s my Dad who loved her back. I was born pre-war, the war started when I was six-years-old and after ten years it never stopped. The Briggins just came out of this pods in the forest in the Mayan temples and the Egyptian pyramids. Every ancient civilization where the people mysteriously disappeared that’s where the homo sapiens branched off to another species, the Briggins. Yes, its not as cool as being called human but when you see one with their beautiful glowing eyes and their flawless features of beauty, you’d wish you were them especially when they’re chasing you with those beautiful face which would make you think a wingless angel has come to kill you

When the heat in my eyes fades that’s when I decided to sit up. It’s still cold and I’m sleepy but I have to wait for Mom. I look around and found the hidden picture of the three of us. It was just by the nightstand on Mom’s bed. Where the human, the Briggin, and the hybrid is in view. The Hybrid word sounds bad probably because it is bad. The Maza would be better since I’m the only one of my kind might as well be named after me.

I can imagine my name in a dictionary. The Maza, the mixture of human and Briggin with some attributes of Briggin and some human. Illegal creatures where they’re not known what specie they’ll co-align with but they live among us.

Mom comes back after thirty minutes giving me the rusty tasting hot water. She looks down on me with a raised brow. “Drink it all up”

I sigh and took a sip that would satisfy her which did and she returns to knitting. “You should sleep Mom”

She shakes her head. “No…nightmares come when I do”

I put down the cup on the ground and look at Mom. Her eyes never leaving the pattern she made for the new blanket. My poor beautiful Mom. Who fell in love with the enemy and tried to live the consequences of having the enemy’s daughter which meant running, hiding and a lot of other things. I could say my Mom is stupid as well as my Dad who has gone back to his own species to protect us from him.

“I’ll come back for the both you, okay Mazi?” he said back then. He had always looked handsome and well… a Dad. He protected us for a few weeks when the Briggins decided to attack stark naked around the streets of the cities and killing people like some genocide or slaughter. But we lived in the forest, in a cabin, the same place where Mom saved Dad. “No one would ever hurt you Mazi”

that was before he picked up a knife and attacked Mom. Then he heard me scream. I thought when our eyes met at that time he was going to smile and say it was just a joke but he only turned to me and lunges.

I sigh then smile at Mom who finally stops knitting and looks at me. “Why are you not finishing that drink?”

I look at the cup on the ground. “because it’s cold”

“I told you to finish it” Mom sighs putting aside her knitting again but I shake my head. “What?”

“Mom, I…never mind, I’m just tired. I’m going to sleep” I put the covers over my head and the heat in my eyes are back. I’m Maza again. I’m not Mom or Dad but Maza. Mazi, Maza either of those but I’m not…I’m just not any of those.

Where are you now Dad? You created me at least do your job. I open my eyes, there was a glowing light inside my space and I know it’s coming from me. I open and close my eyes, the heat never fading and it heats my whole body too. I sigh in bliss then finally Maza, the Maza is asleep.