Axa

I was running for my life, knowing that if I looked back it would be the end of me.
My life depended on a brutal getaway in a place that I knew not.
With a punch of adrenaline I turned upon a crowded sidewalk ledge of an alien metropolis, colliding once again with a familiar chest in the mass of moving bodies.
As I looked up I could not stop the joyous outpour that resulted in a heartbreaking smile upon my face. It echoed in a twisted way also in his eyes, shaking some inner conviction. Still shivering from an intoxicated ambrosia delight of once again meeting this man-shaped creature, I was swept into the moving masses of partly frozen and angered expressions.

I couldn’t help feeling a mixture of relief and tension at finding even the most suspicious of mates in this distorted supernatural hive. Even in a blink of an eye it was visible that I had fallen through the rabbit hole into the epicenter of an evil wonderland threatening to take over all of us. The only difference was that my rabbit wasn’t white but tall, handsome and dark-haired. Actually he put me in mind of a Latino gigolo, the kind you always see in movies seducing young and old ladies of fortune. He had the looks, the style and even the walk just right, but somehow it all seemed fake, as if a staged scene right out of the silver screen. There were many like him prowling these streets, looking for some form of prey, the kind that would show any sign of indecent emotion.
I had seen enough in the few days after the virus attack, as well as on my previous visits to the inner sanctum of the invader’s city to know that rage and hunger were acceptable - positioning you among the lowest class; the gigolo wannabes with their gaudy smiles and smooth talking – some form of spy taking up the middle; while those of higher rank seemed devoid of emotion as such. Everyone else was cattle.
We took a sharp turn into a smaller corridor just as swollen with people as the sidewalk, when somebody grabbed my ass in a provocative manner. I tried to act cool and show as little emotion as possible, but ended up tumbling forward and knocking over a cook that was exiting the kitchen sector. The bowl of salads and tub of ice he was carrying flew in the air covering half the immediate crowd around us. With a quick movement of his arm my companion snatched four ice cubes in mid-flight perfectly between his fingers of the right hand. In so doing he turned to flick a conspiratory smile at his associate in the back that had instigated the whole incident, thus labeling me his private feast.
We continued onward in earnest through several winding hallways until suddenly I was pulled inside a solitary chamber, the door shut tightly and sealed off. He went to pour us a drink, plopping in the still chill ice-cubes, while I sat on a lone couch facing a portal with a view of the kaleidoscope city shield.

Finally alone I could ask the burning questions that would confirm my premonitions: “Why the ice?”
“It is to test your impulses and make you more susceptible to emotional penetration.”
“So it is true that you want to eat us from the inside out?
Sipping bit by bit all the feelings that make us human?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.
My masters want only the finest of your litter - those that had the will to fight and are still resisting their invasion.
All the rest are simply mindless slaves to them, but other like you – they are the cream on the cherry, that one and only delight that they favor to bring them out of total deprivation.”
“So your job is to pick us out like plumb grapes and then let us brew into fine wine?”
“Yes, I and other like me are the sommelier if you would have it.
We ourselves can not enjoy the taste, but are created to imitate its basic bouquet – shower you with pleasantries and make you seep with yearning, only to drain away your piquant essence.
For some reason females of your species produce the best emotional syrups, thus we are created in the likeness of your male idols. Our soul purpose is to seduce you and bring out a variety of reactions.”
“But you are different – how come?”
“Because of you.
Somehow you broke through the protective measure installed within me.
You’ve started a chain reaction and now I am starting to feel.”