encounter

It was a beautiful evening with the promise of an even better night as Alex walked into the rugged terrain just outside the city. Only a week ago, he had overheard a couple of miners in the pub talking about a wierd strangely humanoid creature appearing close to the mine. They had only seen it when the moon was out and behind the creature.

Now Alex was out with a full moon in the sky and a camera in his hand to see if he could get a picture of it. Since it was still light, he sat down while he looked at the rising moon. Around him, he could hear the crickets until the light of the sun was completely gone. The field in wich he sat was mostly dryed out grasses and a couple of big boulders scattered around like someone had trown them there just to see how it looked and then just left them there. Above Alex the stars came out one by one next to the moon that continued its climb in the sky.

He took pictures of his surroundings to drive away the boredom when he heard the dry grass behind him move as is something was stalking towards him. Alex’ free hand slowly dropped to the gunholster at his side. He removed the clip holding the gun in place so he could reach for it if the need should arise.

The sound stopped when Alex looked in the direction it was coming from. He slowly took out his gun and lifted his camera with his other hand. When he was holding it up as high as he could, he pressed the button. The flash lit up the area for a short second. In the flash he could see something dash away from the light. It had the movements of a cat, but looked more like a small human. The rustling in the grass stopped and the night became silent again.

There would have been reports if a big cat like a lion or a tiger had been close to the town, so Alex guessed that the creature he saw couldn’t have been one of those. And no humans lived out here, so he wondered what it could have been. Alex waited for some time, listening for whether he could hear other sounds, before he relaxed a bit. He looked at the moon again. It was at its highest point now, but seemed impossibly close and big. It was not a strange phenomenon here in this time of year, but it always fascinated Alex.

Again, the sound of something stalking in the grass was now getting closer, this time from the front. The field in front of Alex was scattered with the big boulders so his camera wouldn't do much to help him now. The creature wouldn't be scared off that easily this time.

"Who is there?" he called out, while gripping his gun tighter. It felt like a pointless thing to do, but Alex felt the need to do something even if it was. When he called out the stalking stopped, but after a few minutes of silence it continued, though in another direction. Alex took another picture. In the flash, he could only see a shadow of a tail disappearing behind a big boulder. This really seemed like a big cat and Alex pointed his gun at the boulder. If he got out of there alive, he could tell the miners that there was a big cat lurking around here and if he could kill it he could tell them that they were safe.

The moon started to surround the boulder he was pointing the gun at and Alex moved a bit to the side, when something on top of it caugth Alex' eye and he stopped. He wouldn’t have noticed it if the moon wasn't behind the boulder. When he looked closely, he could see the silhouette of two ears pointing upwards from above the edge of the boulder. As far as Alex could see the ears looked like those of a cat, but seemed too small for a big cat and too big for those of a normal cat. Alex couldn't help but wonder what kind of feline would have ears like that.

The silhouette moved up slowly, and attached to the ears was a human-shaped head. Alex lowered his gun in astonishment. Two big round orange eyes appeared and stared directly at him.

"Who are you?"Alex asked once he had recovered from his astonishment of seeing a human head with those ears and eyes. At first he thought that the ears were like those headbands you saw in the city and the eyes some kind of lenses, but then he could see the ears move independently from each other. The silhouette disappeared behind the boulder again.

Alex holstered his gun against his intution, so he made sure that he kept his distance to the boulder. "I know you’re human and that you are out there, so you better come out", he said in the hope that whatever was behind the boulder would show itself. The ears appeared again and Alex tried to encourage it. "I'm not going to hurt you." He still had his camera pointed at the boulder so that he could blind it if it decided to atack him.

"Can you put that bright light maker down?" a soft voice said. Alex was surprised when he heard a female voice. He hadn’t expected any response, but here he got one. He looked at his camera and lowered it, so that it pointed at the ground. The eyes became visible again.

"You know, if you want to sneak up on someone having the moon at your back isn’t the best way", he said. There came a short hissing sound from behind the boulder. "What are you doing here, with that bright light maker and that noise stick?" came the next question, ignoring Alex' remark. The word choices of the one behind the boulder surprised Alex a bit. It didn't say ‘camera’ or ‘gun’, but described them by what they did.

"The gun is for my protection and the camera is to take pictures. I heard a rumour in town that a creature was around that looked like a cat and a human. So I thought I’d try to take a picture of it." Alex was curious of what kind of reaction his answer would trigger. The head came up a bit higher and the eyes of the creature seemed to light up a bit. "I'm called Selexa", it said. The more it talked, the more Alex was convinced that it was a female. "I came here to get a glimpse of the creature that lives in dens made of stone and moves in big packs."

There were still large parts of this world unexplored and the city Alex lived in was build on the frontier of an unexplored erea, but Alex hadn’t expected to find a creature that could talk and think on a human level.

"You are one, right? Can you tell me a bit about you?" it asked, before Alex could say anything. He looked at the head, a bit unsure. "How can I talk to someone who hides behind a rock?" he asked in an attempt to stall for time so that he could think over what he could tell it.

It tilted its head a bit and then climbed on top of the boulder. Now Alex was sure it was female; although he couldn't see how she looked, he could see her silhouette against the moon as it sat crouched down on the boulder. To Alex' surprise, she was wearing clothing. He was captivated by the silhouette of the creature infrond of him. Soft flowing curves told of a slender body, although the clothes in the backlight of the moon made it dificult to see. Her orange eyes were as bright as the moon and lit up from her dark silhouette. When she smiled, he could vaguely see bright white teeth. "Your mouth is open", she said. Alex saw two slightly longer than normal teeth that could have been fangs.

He repostured himself and swallowed. "I'm sorry. I have never seen anyone that looked like you before", he apologised.

She gave a soft, but warm laughter. "You are funny, not like others that I have seen. At some point they must have seen me, because they all started to run away." Suddenly she twisted her ears, listening to something. "I have to go, my pack is looking for me", she said and made ready to jump off the boulder.

"Wait, can I take a picture of you? I promise I won't show it to anyone" he asked and when he saw her doubting look he quickly added "I won't use the flash, so no bright lights."

She sat back down again. "How long will it take?" she asked. Alex shook his head while he changed the settings of his camera. "It wil only take a second. "She looked a bit puzzled on how he was going to do that in a second, while he set the camera in front of his eye and took a couple of pictures.

"I really have to go now",she said and leaped off the boulder. "Next time we meet show it to me, okay?" She dashed away through the grass.

"When will that be?"he shouted his question after her and further in the field he saw her silhouette come up from out of the grass pointing up to the moon. Then she disappeared again.

Alex looked at the picture he’d taken. She looked almost human, except for the tail, the bright orange eyes and her ears. He stared in the direction she had disappeared in, wondering and filled with questions.