Notes: Gaia Moore © Francis Pascal.
Gaia Moore befriends a lonely mutant. 

                                A Simple Gesture


    Gaia sat down on a set of stairs leading to an apartment building. It was
early morning and the sun hadn`t even risen yet. She had been out all night
and didn`t feel like going back home now.
    She unwrapped the burger she had just bought. Something underneath the
stairs moved catching her attention. She stood up and tried to see what it
was. It`s form was some what concealed by the darkness but she could make out
what looked like a human sized porcupine."Huh," she whispered, not believing
what she saw. It crawled out into the dim light and looked at the burger.
Gaia could see it better and realized that it did resemble a porcupine except
it was a dull red color. It was staring at her food like it was starving.
Gaia handed the burger to it. It practically inhaled the burger. "Wow, I
guess you needed that more than me. Can you talk?" There wasn`t any response.
"I guess not." It looked at Gaia and smiled hugely. Gaia smiled back. "I
guess you came to me because you know about me. A normal person would`ve ran
screaming from you but I won`t. And here`s an added bonus: You can trust me,"
Gaia said to it. Gaia accidently brushed her arm against it. Just that slight
amount of skin contact sliced Gaia`s arm open. "Ow!," she screamed. The
creature didn`t even flinch when she yelled. "Hey," she yelled at it, just to
make sure what she was thinking was true. It just stared at her. "Oh you`re
deaf," Gaia said, a liitle surprised. She shrugged. "Oh well, atleast this
way I can tell you anything and not worry about you running your mouth off
about my secret. I`m a mutant. Not like the rest of them, though. I don`t
have powers or an extra gene," she said, shaking her head. "No, not me. My
mutation came artificially. See my dad is this bigwig government guy and he
agreed that they could experiment something on me. They manipulated my genes
and made it possible for me to live without the fear gene. So hear I am. The
Fearless One."