Glitch- V

Diana continued to watch Allure in amazement. She never thought that a gnat could be pretty; there was no way to assure perfection without the aid of genetic engineering. Also there were many gnats that had chemical dependencies so more often then naught gnat children were often born with very strange defects. Something about the imperfections of Allure made her beautiful. Diana contemplated how the width of Allure’s body made her curves all the more pronounced and attractive and the thin oval of her face set her dark eyes in such a way that when they caught the light they seemed to be aflame. When Allure swayed, everything went into the motion; her long, wavy, dark chestnut hair flowed carelessly about her shapely neck and face bringing out the blush in her comparatively light cheeks.1

By the end of the next song, all of the Men had fallen asleep. Allure quietly, with all the grace and ease of a cybernetic cat-pet, jumped off one of the tables. She bent over and put her hand into the pocket of one of the sleeping men, then pulled out a wallet. “One of these bustards brought me in here forcefully hoping to make me drunk enough to get a cheep lay; luckily I always bring my sleeping powder with me. I can’t remember which slime ball it was who drug me in here, so I’m going to take things from all of them.”  Allure went to the next man and took his belongings as well, Diana moved slowly forward to help out. After an hour Allure and Diana had more things then they could carry so they sorted out the money from the useless junk. Diana was amazed at the way the money looked. She was used to her father using his special card which had a picture of him and his finger print on it. The card could only be activated if his finger was pressed against the fingerprint on the card. The money they carried was in the form of small coins with holes in the middle so that they could ware their money as jewelry or secure it to them in some other means. After another hour Allure lead Diana out of the sleazy bar and down a small road. 2

“You have to be really aware of your surroundings around here.” Allure said her head turning in each direction, reminding Diana of the cybernetic owl she saw in a pet shop once. “Even though the sups with their pollutants and their purges nearly drove animals to extinction, there are still some really dangerous ones lurking around this area. And not the kind you read about in books ether! The sups, before they decided to make robotic pets, would make animals and genetically tailor them they way they would humans. The animals were made very intelligent, but that was a mistake because the animals realized that they should be out in the wild and rebelled. The decedents of those are still higher in intelligence then the regular animals and are extremely wary of humans.” Diana nodded she knew a little bit about this but not as much as Allure had just told her,  she silently looked around, wandering what real animals looked like. “I feel really bad sometimes.” Allure was saying in a hushed voice so as not to attract too much attention, “this area is so polluted that some of the animals were altered on the genetic level and now they are practically going extinct because of it.” Allure concluded and they walked along in a heavy silence for quite some time.3

Diana was so apprehensive that she heard every breath echo loudly in her ear. Every flickering shadow was a cause of dismay and she was silently glad that Allure was not far ahead.  Diana inched closer, she could feel the warmth from Allure’s body and could smell the sent of firewood upon her hair and cloths. The smell comforted her. From behind her, she heard a loud noise, like the crashing of a trash can. Allure turned on her heal and pulled from an invisible pocket in her skirt a large thin dagger she pushed her arm in front of Diana and scooted her behind. Diana tripped over something behind her and fell, with a soft thud, on the ground. Allure turned quickly to lend Diana a hand in getting up; the contrast between the height of her head and the position of Diana made it seem as if the moon were lending its soft glow to the shape of Allure’s body. The sight was nearly breathtaking. As soon as Diana was on her feet, Allure turned again and looked daringly into the darkness. Diana inched closer to Allure; she felt like a frightened child from the books she read who would think it would suffice to burrow their heads into their mother’s leg. 4

After a few minutes of nothing, Allure turned again and nearly fell into Diana. She smiled sweetly and with a light push scooted Diana’s small frame so that they could continue walking. Allure took the lead; silently, effortlessly, she weaved though the labyrinth of houses and alley ways. Diana’s heart started racing when they came to a small clearing which lead to a large forest.  Allure smiled at Diana, her smile was comforting enough for her to walk upon the part of the city which was given entirely to the gnats which Subs were told was extremely dangerous.5

Allure quickened her pace; Diana nearly had to run to keep up. They got to the edge of the woods, Diana smelled a very sweet smell, this was a heavy smell, not like that of flowers or grass after the rain, it filled Diana’s nose nearly to the exclusion of all other smells. She tried to identify all of the smells which came and danced upon her. There was the smell of dirt near running water and the smell of the water itself. There was the heavy, musky, smell of the moss growing on the trees, the smell of the tree bark cooling down after a long day under the hot sun. But the most prominent smell of all was the smell of wood burning somewhere close.6

Allure lead Diana though the trees. Diana could barely see Allure’s form in front of her. She tripped over roots and rocks, her eyes seemed to sear with want for light. She got such a headache from trying to see through the darkness that that sensation nearly over rode everything else. It was then that Diana realized that she had never actually experienced darkness before. Allure slowed her walking so Diana wouldn’t hurt herself as much trying to catch up. The darkness of the woods was nearly overwhelming. Pain shot though all of her body as she walked right into a bush of thorns. After a few more minutes of intense pain in her eyes she started seeing the path, at fist, she could only see shadows and it worked for a while but often misdirected her foot steps so she felt like she was tripping over thin air, then slowly and a little painfully she began to see everything clearly. She looked around constantly, she felt in awe of how amazing the forest was.  Without the distraction of pain, Diana could now hear and smell the forest and therefore experience much more of it. 7

The trail they walked was just a small dirt path, in some areas it was barely wide enough to walk single file, trees and bushes and grassy hills pressed in on the trail threatening to over run it. The trees were all much wider and taller then Diana had ever seen a tree to be.  She wandered how long those trees had to have been growing in order for them to be so huge. Some of those trees looked like it would take ten Allure’s standing fingertip to fingertip to encircle them! They each had a distinct smell to them, the smaller trees tended to smell more spicy and flowery while the bigger trees had a tendency to smell like rich soil, these smells in combination with the smell of running water and moss made it seem as if the forest had breath.  Some of the animals didn’t seem to mind crossing paths with Allure and Diana; they were very cute and very noisy. On one occasion, Diana nearly stepped on a big round nut which had fallen from one of the trees, and got a good long squeaky chastising. 8

Diana saw the clearing up ahead and inched her way closer to Allure. Allure took Diana’s hand in hers, squeezed it, and silently smiled. They walked ahead together, Allure slowing her pace a little more for Diana to continue marveling at the trees.  The mouth of the clearing got wider and wider as Diana got closer. At the left side of the mouth of the opening there was a big hut, looking like it had been actually built into one of the humongous trees, which stood at the entrance almost like guards. Diana allowed a small giggle to escape from her lips as she imagined the trees with black suits on, branches crossed like arms and sunglasses on. The way the guards of the pope and other important figures looked9