Page 65 of Satisfied By the Slime
He crouches, pressing his palm flat against the sand. Gold threads pulse through his body, racing from his hand up through his arm and across his chest. He stays like that for a long moment, perfectly still.
“Someone came through here. Recently.” He lifts his hand and points up the wash, toward the old mining claim. “That way.”
“How recently?”
“Hours. Maybe less.”
“Do we follow?”
Oz rises to his full height, his form rippling with something that looks like anticipation. The gold in him brightens. “I want to know what it is.”
His hand finds mine again. His palm is warmer now, or maybe I’m colder. The desert leaches heat fast once the sun goes down, and I left my jacket on the porch.
We go deeper. The mining claim opens into a shallow canyon, the walls pocked with old blast holes and the dark mouths of tunnels that were abandoned before my grandmother was born. Oz slows as we approach and lowers himself, spreading out and growing denser. His colors dim to near-black.
“Here,” he murmurs.
I kill the flashlight. The darkness is immediate and total, pressing against my eyes until they adjust. When they do, I can make out the shape of the ridge against the stars, the pale ribbon of the wash below us, and something else—a faint glow from the base of the canyonwall.
A cave mouth. Low and wide, the rock around it has been worn smooth by water that hasn’t flowed here in centuries. The glow comes from inside, a pale green that pulses once and goes dark.
Oz goes rigid beside me. His surface flickers with jagged static—distress, I’ve seen it before—then settles into a deep, slow violet. Focus.
Before I know it, he’s moving toward the entrance, his form compressed low, gliding over the sand like something that belongs here. I follow, my heart hammering as my feet find purchase on loose scree.
The cave smells like mineral water and old stone. The air is cooler here, damp, and there’s a sound underneath the silence—a low, resonant hum that I feel in my molars more than hear with my ears.
Then the glow returns, and I see it.
A white shape huddled against the cave wall. Fur matted and dull, ribs visible beneath the skin, but alive, like it’s been fending for itself for months.
Captain. Gary’s cat.
The green light pulses again from deeper in the cave, and Captain’s head turns toward it. His eyes are wide, the pupils blown, and he makes a thin, trembling mew that echoes off the stone.
Oz moves past me. His form shifts as he approaches the cat, spreading wider and lower until he’s barely a foot tall, just a warm pool of teal on the cave floor. Captain hisses, ears flattening, but doesn’t run.
“Hush,” Oz says, and his voice drops to something barely above a whisper. “I know. I know you’re scared.”
Captain’s hiss dies in his throat. The cat watches Oz with those blown pupils, trembling, and Oz inches closer. Slowly. So slowly. His surface reaches the edge of Captain’s paw and stops, a hair’s breadth away, waiting.
The cat sniffs. His whiskers twitch against Oz’s surface. A long moment passes.
Then Captain leansinto him.
Oz gathers the cat with the same careful attention he uses for everything—pouring soap, reading my spine, handing me tools before I ask. His substance rises around Captain in a gentle cup, supporting the cat’s weight without restraining him, warming the body that’s been alone out here for months. Captain tenses, claws out, but Oz holds. The tremors gradually slow.
I crouch beside them and reach for Captain’s head. His fur is gritty with sand, but he’s solid beneath my palm.
“Hey, buddy,” I whisper. “Gary’s been looking for you.”
Captain’s eyes close. He presses into my palm, and Oz’s warmth spreads up through my fingers, the three of us connected in the dark while something pulses deeper in the cave, watching us with its green light. The hum in my teeth sharpens, and Oz’s colors shift, deep violet threaded with something uncertain. Captain’s ears swivel toward the sound.
“We should go,” I say.
Oz doesn’t move. His attention is fixed on the glow, his form perfectly still around the cat. “It’s been here a long time. Waiting.”
“For what?”
