After Earth Read Free

several feet. A quick thrust from one of its legs sends furniture crashing about
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    Senshi sidesteps, allowing the furniture to tumble past her. At the same time the Ursa tries to move in on her. Senshi pivots, jabs. The creature knocks the point of her weapon aside but fails to knock it out of her hands
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    For long, awful seconds it goes on, the give-and-take, the thrusting and the jabbing. Then the Ursa bunches its powerful hind legs and lunges for her—and Senshi goes low, bringing up her cutlass in a move that is certain to impale the creature
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    But it doesn’t
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    Instead, the Ursa lands clear of the cutlass. It is a moment that Senshi wasn’t expecting, and she tries to bring the cutlass back around so that she can slice into the beast’s body
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    Whether she is too slow or the creature too fast is something that Kitai would never know for sure. All he is certain of is that the Ursa lashes out with its clawed foot, striking out at his sister. Its claws catch her right shoulder, and she cries out in pain, stumbling backward beyond the creature’s reach
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    Or at least that is her intention. Her backpedaling is too slow, her movements clearly impaired by pain
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    Kitai still cannot see the monster clearly, hidden as it is behind the cloth between the rooms. But he can hear. Oh, God, can he hear. He can hear as Senshi tries to thrust forward with the cutlass, and he can hear as the cutlass is struck from her hand, landing noisily on the ground. He can get a brief glimpse of her shadow as she tries to move toward it and can hear the triumphant howl of the Ursa as it intercepts her
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    Another claw lashes out, and the sound of flesh, his sister’s flesh, being torn from her body is so deep and so loud that Kitai wants to do nothing but scream in terror. And he hears Senshi’s high-pitched shriek of agony. Kitai can briefly see an image of her clutching at some point of her upper body, wherever it is exactly that the Ursa has struck her. Then, suddenly, just like that, she goes down, and that is when Kitai realizes that the Ursa has knocked her feet out from under her
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    It lunges forward then, the Ursa does, and it lets out a deafening roar that mingles with Senshi’s terrified shriek
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    In the distance Kitai can hear rushing feet, the shouts of Rangers. He tells himself that they’re going to be in time, that they’re going to rescue Senshi. Everything is going to be just fine, and years from now they will laugh at this time when Senshi almost died squaring off against an Ursa to protect her kid brother
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    It is at that moment that Kitai wants to leap out from his enclosure and go up against the Ursa. He heard Senshi’s cutlass fall away, and he can see that it is lying not all that far away. All he has to do is emerge from his enclosure and grab it, and he can attack the Ursa himself.He is completely positive that he can take the creature out. He can attack, thrust forward with the cutlass, and strike the monster where it’s not expecting any sort of attack
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    He can do it. He can take the creature on. He can defeat it. All this he knows with absolute certainty
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    Instead he does nothing. He lies paralyzed within the enclosure, and hot tears roll down his face. Kitai cannot move. He is terrified
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    Then there is a final crunching noise, and he can actually hear Senshi. She doesn’t sound like a Ranger at all. Instead she sounds like nothing but a terrified young girl, and a single word passes through her lips
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    “Dad,” she says softly
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    And it’s not because he’s just entered to save her
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    Kitai knows that his father is nowhere nearby, that he’s on a “mission,” wherever that meant. Maybe Senshi is saying “Dad” because she is seeing him in her own mind, or maybe she’s apologizing because she has somehow let him down. Or maybe she’s just scared
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    Then there is more crunching and a final gasp from Senshi, and just like that, she is gone and Kitai is alone in the world
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    The Ursa grabs