Red, Hand

Pending. . . .

A being still lived. Her gaze rose to the 

Red

barrier named Father that surrounded the city. It flashed rapidly, blinking out of existence so often it might as well not have tried to hold back the Dustorm. Her foot flexed once, a twitch in truth - grated, unraveled like an onion. With every iota of strength she rolled, letting gravity do its work, only acting to choose the moment she stayed on her belly.

Ellie crept through the mounds. She grabbed a handful of red dust, dragging herself over a hillock. The dust gave and she slid to the hard stone roadway near her Home. She coughed up dust as her body absorbed it. "Water," she begged, her voice a metallic scratch. She crept past a wall that had been decimated, going from belly to hands and knees by the time she reached a steel portable leaning against its twin.

The module creaked as she crept inside. Beneath her, a world of tranquility sprawled outward, trapped forever beneath the glassy floor. A marble of green and blue, suspended in perpetual darkness. To this she crawled, until she lay just over it. She let herself flop down, seeing a half-bottle of Earth's last water on a rickety old shelf but without the strength to reach for it.

And she spun through the floor, two worlds apart, the Otherearth an explosive kaleidoscopic cornucopia. She no longer lay but sat, feet in the pool, hands gripping the grass. The blackbird whistled, and she whistled back, echoing it more perfectly than could any human.

She felt a prod on her hand. She turned, but nothing was there. Children laughed, splashing in the water in front of her. She smiled at them, leapt in after, and felt herself drowning.

It was an odd sensation; she could not swim. She sank to the bottom, the crushing power of the water above her filling her lungs. Her smile persisted still; how would it be to die in a lush world of tranquility?

Her hand stung. Then, a tunnel opened up in front of her - no, it had always been open for her. Dust fluttered all around, spinning like a drill, and beyond, the slightest glint of a blue light waited for her.

She held out a hand as her body protested the lack of air. She spoke, but the words came out as bubbles. Even she could not hear them.

And walking forth, from the blue, were the shapes of many men. Dozens of them, many more than she'd seen in hundreds of years. Each of them wore suits, white and black and blue. Beyond all of them, the man in crimson garb opened his hands wide.

She threw her arms out. He wrapped himself around her, a moment before a vicious pain in her 

Hand,

like a current, snapped her awake. Her eyes opened to a small mechanical something emitting excited whizzing noises, buzzes and tweets. She whistled back at it. At that, its volume intensified, and it spun on the spot before moving to the old, pathetic shelf.

No more than a foot tall in this form, spherical atop but with four grasping arms equidistantly placed along its round body. It rolled about to move, but its body did not roll with it. With a series of mechanical grinding sounds, light and pleasant, its shell popped open to reveal spindly beams like chicken bones.

A small beam shot out of its back, quickly snapping into place, until it was about the width of a hair. The shelf had once towered over the curious little creature; now, the Meckia could have dwarfed it, assuming the roof of the portable permitted such a thing. At its highest point, the critter could have reached anything Ellie could have - it chose the bottled water.

"My," Ellie tried, but she could barely scrape together the wherewithal to care. The critter buzzed, turning rapidly, before gripping the cap and easily twisting it off. It rolled back to her, grabbing her lips between another produced appendage, and slipped the bottle in her mouth.

The sweetness of life drowned out the fetid taste. Ellie inhaled half of what she had before the critter stole it from her. It grew four more slender arms, one of which made a sharp pop! as it exploded into a convex disk, which it used to stopper the water bottle as it flipped the plastic over. The appendage sunk into its body, then the critter squealed with delight.

Ellie squeaked back at it in the language of the Meckia: "Who are you, little one?"

The critter whistled, hooted, beeped back at her. Its name was probably Carrie. Ellie called it that.

The Last Protomeckian rose herself up with shaky arms before grabbing Carrie in her hand. She flipped the little one around, which caused it to sputter an effective giggle. On its bottom, a tiny wheel spun quickly, trying to move through air and Ellie's superior grip. She laughed before setting Carrie down again.

It twisted, fizzled, revved. Tossing the plastic aside (now empty), the little critter zoomed to the open door, down the ramp Ellie had dragged herself up, and into the clean grounds of her Home. Ellie, standing with a bit more confidence, grabbed the nearest patchwork knit from the sole shelf, wrapped it about herself like a blanket shawl, and followed.