Alien Sleeping Beauty

by Zara Zenia

I was blindly leading myself with the fumes of anger now. I waved the EMR device in front of her face, taunting her.

  “He has been communicating with me all along, since I got here,” I said. “He told me that you were the sinister one, not him. He said to wait for him, that he was coming for me and to not give up hope.”

  I couldn’t help myself. The words spewed from my mouth before my brain had a chance to stop them from flowing. I didn’t know what kind of damage I was doing to Jinurak’s quest, but I was so engulfed in the flames of my own rage that I was becoming reckless in my conversation with Nora.

  Nora attempted to grab at the device, but I whisked it away from her just in time. She growled with a fresh batch of anger threatening to consume her and push her over the edge. After she realized she wasn’t going to be successful in snatching the device from my hands, Nora did something that shocked me.

  Instead of lashing out at me or sending her dragon to destroy me in a fireball, she ran. She spun on a heel and turned swiftly down the hallway and out of sight. I didn’t try to chase her. I was too dumbfounded by her behavior to react.

  I had no idea what I had said to trigger her, but her eyes had widened in alarm and fear. Then the next thing I knew, she was gone in a flash. I needed to get to the fairies and alert them what had just happened between me and Nora. Maybe they could give me some insight.

  Either way, I felt the tide shifting. There was a new current in the air. Something was going to happen. The truth was about to come shining to the surface and Jinurak would be there waiting for me on the other side of the storm.

  Chapter 13

  Jinurak

  Our Trilyn military plane flew over the private island where we believed Nora to be holding Ariana captive in a virtual reality chamber against her will. I glanced down at the clouds. We were still in high altitude. It would be at least another fifteen minutes or so before we landed on a runway that David found to be safe and without any of Nora’s security men waiting for us.

  The trick was, we needed to land on the ground without initially calling attention to ourselves, although we had to already be prepared that Nora would be waiting for us and expecting our arrival.

  We didn’t know where she was. We had no time table. We just wanted to be as sneaky as we possibly could in order to remain under the radar of Nora and her own crew.

  “Look over there,” David said and leaned over to stare out my window.

  I narrowed my eyes and scoped the ground below, but I didn’t see anything but blue ocean, clouds and a few patches of green from the island trees that were still thousands of miles below us.

  “What am I supposed to be looking for?” I asked.

  “See that building?” David asked.

  I stared at him with perplexity. “You must have fantastic eye sight.”

  “Oh.” He chuckled and pointed to his glasses. “These are industrial strength. I always laugh and say when I’m wearing them that they give me super vison.”

  I nodded. “Good. We will need it for a quest like this.”

  David laughed. “Which is why I wore them.”

  “Anyway,” I let out a sad sigh, “I can’t see anything but clouds and Earth.”

  “If you look just there,” David pointed again and leaned even closer to me, thoroughly invading my personal space. “You will see a building off to the right in the corner.”

  “I am looking down,” I said. “But I don’t see it.”

  “Look in the bottom of the window,” he explained.

  I squinted and did my best to study the fields that were set apart from the teal colored ocean encircling the island. It was bigger than I had expected it to be.

  “Oh,” I nodded. “I see it now.”

  Down below on level with the island ground, there was a building. I couldn’t see many of the details, although I noticed it had a concrete roof and looked to be at least a couple of stories tall.

  “I see the building,” I said.

  A smile stretched across Yadav’s face. “No. Not there.” He nudged with his chin. “Look…there.”

  I followed his gaze and that’s when I saw it. That’s when I saw the castle. It was gray stone and spanned at least a few hundred yards across. There were magnificent rows of hedges and it stood out with splendor. It looked like it didn’t belong there.

  I stared at Yadav, feeling dumbfounded. “Did you know that she was going to build an actual castle on this island?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I just thought she had the building as her home base where all of her virtual reality resources and employees worked. I also assumed that was where she kept all her internal process servers.”

  “Shit…” I trailed off, not knowing what to do or where to begin. “This is going to make the witch hunt even more stressful.” My heart sank and it felt like I had a solid rock weighing down my stomach.

  “It might be a challenge,” Yadav admitted, “but it is something we can get through.”

  I felt the plane begin to descend as I watched the wings slice through the wispy clouds. My heart began to sink along with it. I didn’t know how I was ever going to find Ariana now.

  Yadav must have sensed my rattled frame of mind.

  He adjusted himself in the seat and propped his elbow up on the arm rest next to me. “I know it probably seems like we are in over our heads, but we have an entire plane full of trained Trilyn men who are willing to fight to the death if they have to. They have been told to stop at nothing to help rescue Ariana and I can assure you that is exactly what they intend to do.”

  “I know that,” I said with a sigh. “I just wish that it was over already.”

  “Nora is going to undoubtedly make this a very uncomfortable journey for us,” David admitted with a chagrinned nod. “But we already know to expect that much from her.”

  “I just have to keep telling myself that everything will work out in the end,” I said. I attempted and managed a slight smile.

  “It’s the most you can do. For Ariana, you must never give up hope of finding her. She is here on this island somewhere, we’ll find her.”

  “She’s waiting on me,” I said. “I don’t know how much time she has left.”

  “Nora will plan for some kind of elaborate spectacle,” Yadav agreed. “She wants the entire world to pay attention to her.”

  “She’s so damn needy,” I said with disgust. “I don’t see how she could possibly assume that any Trilyn or Earthly man would ever want her as a mate.”

  “She probably knows it underneath,” Yadav said. “I can assume that is one of the reasons she behaves so desperately. She is delusional and psychotic, though, so don’t underestimate her.”

  “Are you saying she probably would admit to herself that she’s grotesque?” I chuckled ironically.

  Yadav shrugged. “Perhaps not that far, but most people who act out in the ways that Nora is, normally have an underlying secret and that is the fact that they lack empathy and were probably born this way.”

  “Well she dug her own grave,” I said.

  I couldn’t feel sorry for a woman who captured someone I cared about and hid her in a place that was nearly impossible to find without an entire team of law enforcement advisors.

  “People like Nora feel like they have a laundry list of items they need to compensate for to make them appear still in the game and as if they have everything together.”

  “Even though underneath it all she’s just a fraying ball of nerves, a wreck that is falling apart?” I eyed him.

  “More or less.” He gave me a pondering glance.

  “Well I can’t speak for you or our troops, but I can’t wait to get back on solid ground again.” I felt anxious and fidgety. I noticed that my leg was involuntarily shaking.

  Yadav met my gaze and then his eyes trailed to my bouncing leg. “Just try to relax,” he said.

  “You want me to remain calm?” I gave him a taunting grin. “That’s like telling fire not to spread.”

>   “I suppose in a way,” he said. He rubbed his palms together. I knew he was gearing up for a war too. It was too nerve racking to endure alone.

  I narrowed my eyes and glanced down at the castle. “She’s in there somewhere,” I said in a low voice.

  “You think that Nora has Ariana stored in virtual reality pod inside the castle?”

  “It has to be,” I said. “Think about it. Ariana kept referring to a castle in all those encrypted messages she was sending us.”

  Yadav’s eyes lit up with recognition. “You may be onto something.”

  “I think we should have the troops storm the castle first and if we can’t find her there, then we can move onto the building.”

  Yadav looked determined. “Affirmative, I agree with your assessment.”

  I couldn’t explain it, but I had a gut instinct that the gray stone building down below was going to be where I was going to find my beloved Ariana. I hadn’t even met her in person yet, but I knew that once I did, sparks would fly, and all the constellations would align.

  The stars of fate would shine in our favor and I would have everything I had ever wanted right in front of me.

  I just had to get through this maze of chaos that Nora and her staff would undoubtedly unleash on us. But I knew that unlike Nora, we had love and passion on our side. Those two things were compelling enough to win any battle.

  “You look a little unsettled,” Yadav said, breaking through my thoughts.

  I grunted. “I’m fine.”

  “We have to stay positive,” Yadav said. “You will get her back.”

  I adjusted my weight in the seat and sighed. “I hope you are right.”

  The plane continued to make its slow decent down to the private runway that was in a secluded part of the island. It was an excruciating crawl. Once the plane landed and everyone stepped out, I knew it was time for me to command the troops.

  As a Trilyn Prince, I was their leader, after all. It was up to me to guide them and light the path. I would stand at the front of the troops. I wasn’t afraid to be in the back. I was a prince from Trilyn, and a human woman like Nora would never get the best of me. I refused to give up until I had Ariana safely in my arms once and for all.

  The soldiers stood in equal rows and stared at me expectantly. I gauged their faces. They were ready for war. Adrenaline pumped through my veins. Electric energy soared through my soul.

  “We will storm the castle,” I instructed. “Be on alert for anything and everything. Nora Morse will be ready for us. We have to be ready for her too. We have to be willing to expect the worst but hope for the best. Watch each other’s backs. Be careful. Stand guard. Keep your weapons drawn. Hesitate to fire, but don’t hesitate if your life or one of your fellow soldier’s lives is being compromised.”

  The soldier’s gazed at me with excitement flickering in their eyes. I had plucked them from the Intergalactic Space Station, so I knew they were trained for an event such as this. They had been waiting for something thrilling to happen to give them a rush.

  I knew that none of them wanted to sit idly by and wait for action to come to them. They wanted to be in the thick of the chaos in order to feel the fulfillment that I harbored in my own bones. It was a tingly feeling that I couldn’t escape.

  “Is everyone ready for this?” I called out to the troops that were super charged to serve not only me, but the cause. It was time to serve justice to the devious kidnapper Nora Morse.

  The soldiers began to roar. I had David Yadav on my right side. He was my right hand man. I could rely on him for anything. If not for him, we wouldn’t even be here on this strange and isolated island right now.

  I had him to thank, and if we got out of this alive, I would have to make sure to honor him in some noble way. We had gotten this far because of him and he needed to know how valuable he was to this operation.

  I glanced at him beside me. He had a determined and fierce look upon his face.. He had a gun in his hand and looked very comfortable and confident.

  “Yadav?” I attempted to capture his attention as our troops continued to chant, roar and pep each other up.

  He turned his head and gave me a curious look. “Yes, Prince Jinurak?”

  I patted his shoulder. “Thank you for getting us here.”

  Yadav grinned. “I’m glad you called us and that I am able to help. We’ll get Ariana back for you, don’t worry.”

  I smiled. “I hope so.”

  Yadav grinned. “Let’s go get your girl.”

  We walked to the front of the line. “Troops!” I yelled. “Let’s get underway! There is a woman out there in distress who needs us to rescue her and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  I began walking full steam ahead with David right by my side every step of the way. I relished in the muffled sound of the soldier’s footpath marches as they followed closely behind me and Yadav. They had been trained by Manzar after all and knew the need for a quiet approach. We all had to be on guard. The castle was at least a half a mile away from our current location and we had to trek through some pretty dense jungle in order to reach the clearing where the castle was planted on the other side.

  “This way,” Yadav said and pointed to the sharp right.

  He had a geographical navigation device that he was using in order to steer us on the right course. It was vital that we didn’t make a single misstep in the wrong direction or it would significantly set us back.

  We couldn’t afford to backtrack. Not when Nora could be expecting the ambush. I didn’t want to give her any extra time to prepare the castle to guard Ariana or make it any more difficult than it already was going to be to find her.

  My stomach was jittery. Anxious nerves made my hands shaky. It wasn’t that I was afraid of Nora. I just didn’t know what to expect from her.

  I didn’t have to wait long to find out either.

  I heard a wail behind me. I immediately stopped and turned around to see which one of my soldier’s was making the cry of distress.

  “What happened?” Yadav’s eyes were widened with alarm.

  “Who is hurt?” I asked.

  The troops spread apart as if they too were looking to see who had been injured, and how. Once there was a clearing in the soldiers, I began to walk slowly down the rows until I found a man lying in a fetal position on the ground. He was withering around in pain and his face was twisted into a grimace. The veins in his neck bulged and he tightened and tensed his body.

  I didn’t see any visible signs of injury or wounds on his body until I got to his foot. I gasped in horror after I found a bear claw trap made of jagged metal pieces hooked around his boot.

  It was already starting. I glanced over my shoulder. I could see the perimeter of the castle grounds. The clearing of the woods was just up ahead. We were so close. This was where the traps were going to start.

  How could I have underestimated the cunning cleverness of Nora? She probably had traps set up all over the place to hinder us from getting to Ariana quickly. She wouldn’t prevent us all from getting there. I refused to keep marching forward.

  “I can stay with him, sir,” another soldier said from behind me in a sure voice.

  I ran a hand through my hair and looked to Yadav for support. “What do you think we should do?”

  Yadav deeply sighed. “We can’t leave him here alone.” He pointed to the injured soldier. Thankfully the wound wouldn’t be fatal, but he wouldn’t be able to continue on with the rest of us.

  I nodded at the soldier. “Alright. You stay here with him and keep him safe. You can keep watch too. If anything happens, use the communicator on your belt. Call out to us if you see anyone coming from this direction or if anyone tries to take you.”

  The solider nodded. He stood at attention and said, “Whatever you need, Prince Jinurak.”

  “Everyone be on your guard, no more traps.” I walked back to the front of the troops and nodded at Yadav. “Let’s keep going. I can see the castle from here.”<
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  “Me too.” Yadav looked ready to pounce.

  I couldn’t blame him. I was thirsty for action too. I was on the hunt to take Nora and her own crew out. Victory was going to be ours. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  As soon as we got to the edge of the clearing and saw the stately castle sitting a few yards away, I halted in my tracks. It was almost as if the castle itself was taunting us, beckoning us in a hauntingly way. Something about the grayness of the stone around the castle, the row of thick and thorny edging around it made me skeptical that we should move any closer.

  “Do you feel like the castle itself is daring us to take one more move in its direction?” Yadav asked, giving me an ominous stare from beside me.

  “Yes.” I couldn’t believe that he had reflected my thoughts so accurately.

  “I can walk around the edge of the gate and see if I can find a viable way in,” a burly looking soldier pronounced.

  “If you are willing, then go forward,” I declared with nod, respecting the soldier’s bravery.

  He began to slowly edge his way around the lining of the gate. I held my breath and waited. I didn’t know what to expect, and I hated to admit that I was thankful that it was him and not me doing the scoping of the border.

  Nora would undoubtedly have a boundary waiting to incumber us, we just didn’t have any clues as to what we might face the closer we tramped toward the castle. The castle was going to protect itself from outside intruders. We just had to make sure we stayed ahead of the game and kept the upper hand.

  The soldier craned his neck and looked at us, waving us along as if he found something worth sharing.

  “This way,” I ordered the troops and we too began to creep toward the direction of the soldier flagging us down.

  My heart felt like it was pounding in my throat and my stomach felt like it was going to drop through my legs at any moment. I looked at Yadav. He looked hardened as if he was expecting trouble.

  It was unfortunate that his array of devices on hand didn’t have the capacities to detect any other traps that Nora had laid out to greet us. She had started in the jungle. Who knew what awaited us on the other side of this ensnaring gate?