Some mornings... Were just [i]shit,[/i] weren't they? Some mornings did not deserve to exist in this world. 

See, a good morning should be like an apple fresh from the tree. Red, smooth, delicious to the eyes, and you took one bite out of it and [i]ah,[/i] so sweet and juicy! The kiss of life in your mouth, crisp under your teeth, and you still had that whole apple waiting in your hand, a dozen more perfect bites to take. Whoever needed more of a reason to live than that?

Then there were the bad mornings. The awful mornings. The ones where you bit into that apple to find it already bitter and rotten, full of tiny sticky writhing things that squirmed against the surface of your tongue. You couldn't spit it out, oh no: you had to chew and swallow and wince at the vile taste it left in your mouth. And then you’d look down, at the soft and stinking mass still in your hand, and think:

[i]Fuck me, I still have to eat this entire thing.[/i] 

Could you really go through with it? Once, twice, three or four days in a row? So much quicker, so much easier, to just curl up in a crying ball and die forever.

Now Halima, she had a sense for these things. She did not even need to open her [i]eyes[/i] to know the taste of this morning. Fetid, foul, awash with the lingering poison of a particularly nasty nightmare. The air here felt different from anything she’d known before, and when she reached back through her memories for the point where she’d fallen asleep she found only a jagged cutoff. A quiet moment, basking in the satisfaction of a job well done, and then [i]snap[/i]—nightmares, horrors, mind-shattering pain, and now a damp floor surrounded by the whisper of leaves and the wet sucking slurping sounds of far too many mouths all chewing at once.

The closer Halima listened, the further her mood spiraled off down the drain, into a black pit filled with hideous and unmentionable things. A wide smile wrapped its way around her face, toothy as a shark’s. Languidly, gracefully, she rolled up into a sitting position and let her eyes focus themselves upon this latest portrait of horror, this disgusting fruit that life had chosen to serve her.

Just in time, as it turned out. Her lovely pinprick pupils caught movement in the air, an adorably fat and fuzzy creature mid-way through its pounce. What a cutie! Maybe it wanted to be friends. Just look at those slavering mandibles, held wide open like arms awaiting her embrace.

Just look at them explode, scattered fragments of chitin flung this way and that in a glorious rain of red confetti.

The sound of thunder rang out an eyeblink later, though by then Halima had already moved her attention to worthier places. Who cared about dead things, right? She knew she’d placed her bullet well, right where the animal’s hide didn’t protect it. She knew also that the smack of the round landing dead-on would throw the fuzzball’s trajectory elsewhere, far away from poor vulnerable Hali. On a better morning she might have paused to enjoy the fireworks, but this was one of the shitty ones, and she had no time to spare for pleasure.

The apple wouldn’t eat itself. Hatefully, pitifully, she sank her teeth deeper and ravenously devoured bite after rotten bite.

More friends, more fuzzy animals, more hugs and greetings she couldn’t afford to return. Instinct pinpointed the next one to jump before it left the ground, and the thunder of her Valentine smashed its front end open just like its dear eager brother. Oh, a kindred spirit, only wanting to kill and eat and live! How it pained her to put down such wonderful beasts. Her smile widened, straining at the confines of her face.

No matter how many bullets she had on her, there would never be enough for that entire swarm. On her feet now, the tall woman darted for the trees, away from the oncoming tide. Oh, she was quick, and so were they—but those bodies on the ground, two of them yet to rise to their feet, they weren’t moving very fast at all, were they? Far better friends than she, so politely offering themselves up like that. 

Let them both enjoy the party, then, while Hali raced between and among the trees like she’d been born to flee through the forest. Surely, if she could only survive this morning, she would find sweeter fruit to feast upon in time.