HUNDREDS #2/100: "I'll Sleep When You're Dead"

Your jaw snaps. My blood spills. This time you’ve got me.

I need to shift. 

Into what?

A forest scowls nearby. A mouse? No. You’d shift into a hawk. I’d die in seconds. 

Eons in flight. In each weary new form you find me and strike. 

I, a pedestrian, centuries ago; you, a curb-hopping cabby. I, a mint leaf; you, a hungry aphid. Wildebeest; lioness.

You know you’re close to the kill. You’re eager. Careless. 

I sense deliverance nearby: A meadowlark egg, corrupted with disease. 

I shift. 

You, now rattlesnake, strike recklessly, swallow. 

You die first.

Then, I finally rest.