Arkapeligo- Rising

by Ma West

  The wall shattered, and bricks flew as if they were glass shards. There were no screams, no whistle, and no movement. The bewildered, fatigued, and hungry prisoners stood motionless, too tired to either run or fight. So each one simply sought not to be seen as the huge beast entered the room. It stood tall and daunting, and came toward the center, near the edge of both cells.

  A green liquid was oozing out from several sores in the creature’s skin, where he had suffered injury in between armor points. At first, the creature moved slowly, observing the environment and its occupants. The prisoners remained still until one man broke out in a full gallop toward the opening in the wall. The alien, who had thus far been slow and meticulous, suddenly moved with incredible speed and agility, captured the man, and lifted him by his legs, high into the air.

  The alien grabbed a device from his belt and placed it deep into the man’s throat. A red light near the end of the device indicated that the result was negative, and the alien threw his carcass carelessly about like a flimsy doll. The alien moved gradually back toward the cages and scanned the cell intently before grabbing a handful of cell bars and bending them out of the way.

  The alien stood in front of the demon man, grabbed him by the neck, and lifted him high as his legs hung motionless. Again the alien grabbed the device from his utility belt, but as he prepared to insert it, he yelped out in pain, looking down. Captain Drexter had taken a short metal rod and, using a brick, smashed it down hard on a break in the alien’s foot armor.

  The alien dropped the demon man, who coughed vehemently. Tossing him aside, the alien picked up the captain by the neck and prepared to stuff the device down his throat.

  He just stood there, the creature who seemed to have appeared from out of nowhere, looking, observing, and planning. He towered seven feet tall, scaly armor covering his reptilian skin. He bore the face of a dinosaur, with three pillars protruding from his skull. The middle pillar appeared to bounce and move with a motion, and unconsciously Sasha had already identified it as a weak point.

  There were no screams to announce his arrival, no sounds as he almost seemed to glide across the floor. The smaller black female had been the first to notice him, letting out a ghastly sigh of fear. The motion was startling enough to swing the entire group’s attention. After regaining some composure, the paramedics and security stood in a scared yet defensive position around their patient.

  Only Sasha dared to step forward, driven not by bravery, not by adolescent arrogance of youth, but by the fog. Cloaked in its safety, guided by its wisdom, Sasha knew now was the time to embrace the fog—if only she knew how. There had been plenty of practice on exiting and avoiding the fog but very little on interacting with it.

  No words were exchanged as Sasha stood before the elevator door and the creature stood in the middle of the broken elevator carriage, two warriors silently preparing for battle. There was no need to announce friend or foe, no need to report the stakes, and no need for introductions. The wounds of killing always bore down on a soldier’s soul, worn as immobile badges spoken in a language healthy souls could never hear, but Sasha knew the language, a language she could never forget, and the time for conversation was over.

  Captain Drexter was held high, like the predator was displaying his catch before consumption. The beast looked into his eyes as a dominant animal would a challenger. The device blinked green as it neared the captain’s throat, and the alien’s demeanor seemed relieved.

  Drexter was lowered to the ground, and although his neck was squeezed, he could still breathe, some. Instincts screamed for him to kick, twist, and squirm, but he was stuck. Ice of the soul chilled his spine, freezing him in place. Surprisingly, the beast let go, so dominant over his prey that even in release, he dare not flee.

  The beast bent down and, without physical reaction, removed the small pipe from his foot. Moving as purposefully as a cobra, he examined the pipe, and then with great force and frightening speed, he slammed the pipe directly through Captain Drexter’s foot.

  It was devastatingly painful yet still unable to wake him from his trance. The captain dropped to his ass, winced in agony, but again failed to flee. The act of domination had been completed, and Captain Drexter awaited his death. Whether it was the ringing in his ears, a mind block from a telepathic alien, or just a plain old concussion, he was oblivious to the new sounds now distracting his captor.

  The speeding sounds of bullets whirred by his head again and again. Faint yelling echoed in the back ground. Then a terrible, loud burst picked him up and threw him from his captor’s side. All orientation now lost, the feeling and control of his body was now at the will of physics.

  Yet he felt motion—not a lifting motion, as before, but a pulling motion—and a growing speed with it. His eyes had been open, but only now as his conscious mind slowly returned did it begin to process. Men, prisoners, were carrying him. To where, he wasn’t sure, but he was sure of one thing: the demon man was a strong son of a bitch.

  Sasha moved with lightning speed, but it still wasn’t enough. The creature countered, dodged, and returned her attack. The fog was present. She could feel its presence guiding, focusing, and even protecting her, yet it wouldn’t be enough. This creature had vast physical abilities, military training, and a few centuries of evolution more than Sasha.

  The battle was intense, if not short. Sasha landed several blows but barely phased the alien. After taking a forceful kick to his head, the alien grabbed Sasha by the back of hers and threw her across the room. The alien drew a long shaft from his waistband and closed in on the group surrounding Emilia.

  Sasha was terrified. Her head hurt, the fog waned, and her body cried out to run and flee in terror. Fear had no hold over love, and no amount of fear was going to stop Sasha. Several bursts of pepper spray from the security guard did more harm to the group than their intruder. The creature approached to within arm’s distance of the guard, grabbed him single-handedly, raised him high into the air, and inserted the long shaft down the man’s throat. A red light buzzed, and the creature expunged the shaft and threw the man off to the side.

  The two female paramedics cowered backward, and the alien came toward Emilia. He stood high above her, examining her from head to toe. The creature raised the shaft and held it next to Emilia’s head as if measuring how deep it would skewer her.

  Sasha stood ready in a warrior stance. She couldn’t see Emilia’s face, but she knew the fear that must be in her eyes, and how desperately she would need her help. Sasha called in challenge to the beast. She had no plan, no hope of winning, and not a prayer of physical domination, but she had one advantage. Everything she cared for was at stake, and that made her highly motivated.

  Chapter 28

  Blue Dawn

  The parking lot smelled like burnt fumes and ash. Holes littered the vehicles along the alien’s path. A few bodies lay scattered about, those poor unfortunate or untactical officers who had gotten too close and paid for it with their lives. The city looked different, and not only because of his ass being dragged along the ground. The dark city was basked in a beautiful blue light, and as Captain Drexter’s eyes drifted farther upward, there it loomed: Earth.

  Their momentum stopped, and the demon man finally dropped to his knees in exhaustion. Captain Drexter, still wobbly from the explosion, was slowly coming around. “What the hell is this place?”

  There was a stern look on the demon man’s face. “Only interrogators insert answers into the questions they ask.”

  The comment confused the captain, but training and instincts moved his body as he continued to follow the demon man, who was running quickly. “What’s the rush?”

  “Gunfire has stopped.” He didn’t turn his head or seem to care whether the captain was able to keep up or not.

  With her lack of a plan also came a lack of response. Immersed in his task of examining Emilia, the alien paid no mind to Sasha. He made ready to insert the tool. Sasha grabbed some unopened MREs and began hurling t
hem at the creature, but he still paid her no attention.

  Frustrated at being ignored and fearful of failing in her task, Sasha charged, extended her leg out, and attempted to kick the back of his head. The creature was too fast, too aware, and too expecting, and easily dodged the assault. It confiscated control of Sasha’s body and tossed her aside, just as it had the security guard’s corpse.

  Sasha landed hard again, but she was spared any broken bones or head trauma. It was clear to her that she couldn’t physically harm the beast, couldn’t defeat him in battle, and would eventually be killed by this thing, but none of that mattered next to Emilia. Sasha charged again, attacking lower this time. The beast was ready again. He raised his foot in preparation to counter against her and bore down on his leg hard.

  The beast wasn’t the target this time, and Sasha was ready to dodge the blow. She made contact with her target, grabbing the alien’s tool from his clutches. There was no time to stop, only time to pray—pray that the alien would in fact follow her, and hope that she could in fact escape from him.

  It didn’t take long for the alien to relocate his prey, and in their exhausted state, the captain and the demon man were way too slow to escape. The captain howled in pain as he was lifted by the top of his head and shaken about while the alien closed in on the demon man. The alien showed no outward sign of strain, frustration, or even pain, yet the pockmarks showed that he had been injured repeatedly by gunfire, and he now had an oozing mark on one of his feet.

  Once the alien had his prey, he turned around, placed the two downward facing in the middle of an intersection, and released them. Panting hard, the two men looked at each other in fear They had only a moment to regain their composure as the alien grabbed for his belt device, and an unspoken, undefined plan emerged between the two. The alien held the device high, and in what appeared to be an animalistic display of domination, he turned his back to them and roared victoriously. With a nod of the captain’s head, the two spun in different directions and fled as fast as humanly possible.

  Sasha felt the alien’s presence behind her, but there was no time to stop, no time to look back, and after a few more seconds, no pursuit either. She held the device in her hand. It felt like a cane in size and weight, yet the interface on the top was incomprehensible. Whatever its value, it was certainly less than that of Emilia’s, and now Sasha would have to return to face an unbeatable opponent or face a lifetime of guilt. The choice was more difficult than she would have admitted to anybody.

  The image of the battle replayed in her mind’s eye ver and over. The speed, the agility, and the power were all on a level far beyond her own, and no scenario in her head ever played out in a victory. Sasha spun in circles, knowing that she once again faced an unfair and difficult decision. She held the alien’s cane and lifted it before her.

  Sasha looked up toward the heavens. “Come on, you bastard, give me something, anything.” Tears slipped from her eyes, but nothing happened. She prayed, “Come on, you bastard, don’t screw me over, after all of this.” There was still nothing, just nothing in response. Sasha wasn’t sure exactly what she was waiting for, but she knew what the silence meant. She was on her own.

  A strong feeling of abandonment crept into her heart, along with anger and rage. But she kept her composure, waiting for a sign. She even dropped down to a knee in hopes of a sign, one that never came, and the longer she waited, the angrier she became. She felt alone and orphaned by a Lord who would smite the innocent of their health, separate children from their parents, and let loose a plague of alien scum to destroy everything she loved and created. No, it was no longer time for prayer; it was time for revenge.

  His thighs burned, his head pounded, his throat burned, and his feet barely seemed to move. The captain scanned his surroundings, hoping and praying for help, but none appeared. He rounded a corner and took a second to catch his breath. Surprisingly, this area of the city, 56th and Lexington, looked mostly intact, and while this street was unfamiliar to him, he knew where he needed to go.

  Getting there was going to be a problem. Peeking around the corner wasn’t what gave his position away, but it was the start of his next round of problems. Seeing that the alien had pursued him, he hoped that the demon man would return with the cavalry, but soon the alien had the captain trapped in his clutches once more.

  The captain kicked, twisted, and shouted, but every blow that he landed seemed to be nothing more than a pat on the shoulder to his captor. The alien continued to hold him high while using his free arm to grab the tool from his belt. The captain pleaded in between gasps of air as he flung his legs out wildly. The captain pinched the alien’s arms, searching for a miracle, only to find one.

  An image appeared from the alien’s wrist device, and in rehearsed order, the captain’s captor dropped to a knee in some sort of ceremonial tradition. Noises ripped across his ears, but it was all incomprehensible except for the tone. The alien’s grip on the captain’s throat tightened to near-death levels, the pace of his breathing increased dramatically, and the constant interruption by the other alien gave the strong impression of an employee being scolded. And that led the captain to believe that he may want something to vent on.

  After several more seconds, the image disappeared and his captor rose with a howl, stared into the captain’s eyes, and then shoved the tool down his throat.

  His nasty reptilian body hovered over Emilia like a dirty old man on a desperate prostitute. He rested one of his hands across her face and the other on her stomach. Rage swirled through Sasha’s body as her heart primed its engine.

  It was Sasha’s intent to break the device, but it proved to be sturdily built, and as she slammed the device against the wall, it only rang out with a chime. Never before during any exercise had she ever felt weak, and she only hoped her anger would be enough to overcome it. Overcoming it looked like her only choice, for the alien’s attention was once again directly on her.

  She could feel the fog’s presence, but it lacked focus, unaware of how to protect itself. The alien burst through the air like a swimmer from a wall, and within no time, he held the other half of the tool and stood face-to-face with Sasha. She pushed the fear away with anger—anger that she fueled with the spite of a Lord who didn’t prevent shit but instead piled it on, tempting her over and over again, with relief just outside her fingertips. But that fear had no place in a determined mind on a suicide mission.

  Sasha could see death’s wake on her opponent’s soul. Human flesh hung from his teeth, and his breath stung her face. If this was the worst hell could give her, then she would bring down her deliverance. And with that, she sprang.

  There it was, a light at the end of a tunnel, no sound, no feeling, only light and dark. Death was much more like the stories than Drexter ever would have imagined. So this is it, he thought to himself, a lifetime of service to my country and Sasha, and this is how I die. His conscious mind flooded with the images of his past few days, the hardships, the anguish, and the simply unfair way he was treated. If that’s fucking God, he thought, then fuck God. He felt a seed of anger plant inside his chest.

  Falsely arrested, abandoned by the authorities, forgotten, and betrayed, Captain Drexter was getting himself angrier with every reason he could think of. “Where the fuck are God’s people? If God was so damn great, then why the hell does this hell exist? If God’s going to abandon us and the devil’s going to screw us, then it’s time to take care of ourselves.”

  The captain’s roar of rage startled a pair of strange men as one of them was shining a light into his eyes. The startle caused one of them to burst out with, “Oh shit,” as he fell back. The captain exploded off the ground, took a warrior stance, and began searching. The new group of strangers who had gathered around him didn’t register in his mind, as it was singularly focused on battle.

  The rage and adrenaline only lasted a few seconds, for after he stood up, his body’s physical demands became overbearing, and he fell back down to his knees,
dry heaved, and tipped over on his side.

  The light returned, but this time, the captain couldn’t fight it anymore. Exhausted and confused, he embraced the light, closed his eyes, and slept.

  Sasha’s body lifted through the air like an acrobat launching from a trampoline. Her body spun, rolled, and twirled in the air, making the alien’s counterattack look like a wild miss and allowing her to land down hard on his back. Sasha still held on to the device, and with all her might, she pulled it hard, hoping to lodge it in what would have been his neck, but again the alien was too powerful and too agile.

  The pullback from the alien ripped the device from her grasp, and as a bronco to an unwanted rider, Sasha was thrown back across the elevator shaft. This time, she felt the injury as her shoulder dislodged from its socket. The pain seized her body as it instinctively curled up into the fetal position.

  The alien stood tall over Sasha, grabbed her by the throat, and raised her like a trophy. He unholstered his staff and raised it in preparation for his victory slaying. Misfortune favored Sasha as the alien discovered a malfunction in his tool, rendering it useless. Discouraged by the lack of either progress or success, plus Sasha’s repeated interruptions, the alien was having no more of it. Sasha hung desperately as the alien grabbed her right leg and broke it in half before tossing her body into the kitchen.

  She shrieked as the alien turned his attention back to Emilia. With his primary tool damaged, he once again assumed the position above Emilia. Sasha crawled up to a sitting position, but her entire body winced in pain, her brow dripped with sweat, and tears fluttered down in between. Desperate and hopeless, Sasha could only watch as the alien bent down closer to Emilia.

  A stern slap to the face along with, “Stay with me, Captain,” took away the drowsiness, but the pain and fuzziness remained. People he didn’t recognize were talking to him in words that he was having trouble understanding. Even the needle poke barely registered through the muddle of information being thrown at his brain. The captain could feel his head bobbing slightly, but where his head was in relation to the world, he couldn’t say.