Taken to Voraxia

by Elizabeth Stephens

  I bite back the insult on my tongue. The one who raped me? Who ran after me and pinned me down and pulled me up into a fucking tree like a scarecrow? He has the audacity to run his mouth about me and call me heroic when all he did was laugh at me, mock me, and destroy who I was? I liked her. I liked her much more than me, the Kiki that was.

  “Just take it.” I thrust a scrap of bra at her and turn to the last woman left. The bitch. “Give me your suit.”

  Her ridges flare black, but I see the hesitation in her silver eyes.

  “Give me your fucking suit. Your woman here says we don’t have much time. You want the Okkari for yourself, don’t you?”

  Again, she doesn’t answer, but when I finally lunge for her and drag her suit away, she lets me take it, putting up no resistance. I don her suit as quickly as I can, needing help to get back into it, particularly because this suit is so much longer than mine and bunches up around my middle and my feet. Gonna make it harder to run in, but I won’t need to do much running.

  “I’m heading for the swamps. I need to disguise my scent as much as possible. I need three other women with me, four need to brave the caves, and three need to head to the trees. They’ll provide the least cover, but are there climbers in this group?” Four of the women raise their hands tentatively. “Good. And those in for the caves? Don’t be in a group with someone whose scent you’re wearing. We need to disperse them, muddle them. Make it hard.” A few more hands go up. “Fine. That leaves you left with me.” I point to the leader and to one women who hasn’t spoken yet, a female with the strange white hair of an older human to compliment her lavender skin even though I can tell she’s young and maybe even sort of pretty. Who knows? And who cares? They’re fucking aliens.

  The leader nods. “Your plan is to hide in the mire?”

  “Just until nightfall. Then I make my way across the forest and to the skyport. You said there’s a city over here, right?” She nods. I nod. “Then there must be a skyport. Some kind of transportation center to other planets and worlds. I need off this one.”

  “We among the Okkari do not believe in such things,” the bitch snaps, but then her tone gentles, “but you were brought here on the Okkari’s private transport. He keeps it here, just behind us. It is not far, but you couldn’t seek it out now if you wanted to. This is the way the males will come from. You will need to get there under cover of darkness.”

  My assessment that she’s in love with the rapist Okkari must be spot on. Or at the least, that she wants to be his right hand whatever. This is the first helpful thing she’s said all solar. The leader wears an unsettling color in her brow — something like dark red, the color of blood my blood, when I bleed from the wounds he gave me — my mind flashes with images, memories long buried. I gasp and the sound is disguised by the thick stone half gates creaking. They slide to the side, stone on stone, sounding very much like thunder. I heard of rain, but I actually heard thunder. I always wondered what rain would be like. Our water came from below, but apparently, in the old world, it fell from the sky. Much like ice is falling from the sky here.

  Only I heard rain was warm. I’d have given a leg for anything warm right then. A touch, a caress, a bitter truth that Miari and Svera are dead and my home world is ruined. But I don’t have the time or the stomach for it. Right now is all about escaping the claws of the one who came for me before in snarling black and red. I’ve trained with Jaxal every day since I could walk again. Every day. But still I’m trembling. I’m so fucking scared. No! He won’t get me. I won’t let him. And when the gates slide open and a shockingly white world assaults my senses I bury anything resembling a question or a fear or a weakness and I glance at the leader and the woman in my group and together, we run.

  I understand the sensation of pain quickly. My feet are heavier than lead. The wind whips my face, cutting into it in a way I’ve never felt wind before. My whole face feels like it’s bleeding. My lips are swollen my nose can’t stop running. I can taste the disgusting flavor of my own snot whenever I lick my lips.

  The leader looks at me worriedly several times, but I refuse to slow our pace. I thought I was a warrior, but am realizing that even if I could outfight either of the women with me, they were born in this place. Or at least they know it like a parent, and they treat it like kin. Even when the white powder they call kree’in is in our path up to the knees, they just calmly wade through it, like they’re dry leaves dancing in a summer breeze. Doesn’t matter if we’re going uphill or not and we’re always going up a fucking hill. They call it a run of the mountain for a fucking reason. The mountain is a bold and treacherous thing, knobby and stark. Mostly cold layered atop stone. There are no trees I can see in the haze of the storm. It just gets thicker, and I can see less and less. But I can feel the calm of the women beside me, married only by their excitement when the sky starts to darken and their sure the men are on their way. My heart is a fucking spike in my sternum, punching and clawing and biting and shredding… no. He has no power here. He can’t get me. I won’t let it. I’ll fight — I’ll die — before I let him laugh at me like that again. The memory only amps up my frustration and my determination. I set the pace. I lead them in the direction the leader dictated on the map. I am the first of us to reach the mire.

  It’s hard to notice when we reach it at first because the snow is layered on thick, but eventually it begins to thin and sometime after that, it even begins to warm. “What is this?” I say, glancing down at my body, covered in mud up to the waist. It frightens me at first, but it snuck upon me so quickly I didn’t have time to process that didn’t have time to assess its danger level.

  It’s warm mud though, and there’s no snow in sight. Just a thick pall of white mist surrounding us like the dome we were just in. Even the sky is white. Steam rises from the thick purple mud around me. I try to keep my arms out of it, but my hands are frozen and eventually I decide that I came here to hide my scent, so I just sink all the way into it.

  The woman beside the leader giggles. The leader even laughs. I don’t care. Let them laugh. I wrap my hair up in my fist and try to keep the bushel of frizzy black curls out of the soup I’m submerged in. I’m well aware this is going to feel like hell when I get back into the snow but for now, I just enjoy it. Letting the mud seep into my clothes while I stare up at the blank face of a grey sky.

  It sounds like thunder, somewhere far away. It looks like ice. It feels like…like that goop that smelled so funny. Like an oasis. Like home. It carries me like the goop too, the mud. Which smells of minerals and rich, fragrant earth. It smells like something ancient. And for a moment, just staring up at the sky I feel like I…belong.

  “Va’Rakukanna, this way,” I hear the leader say after a while longer. “I think we have gone far enough. Soon we will be out of the mire and on the tundra. We may be too far for even the most fearsome warriors to follow…”

  “I thought you said we were supposed to be far.”

  She considers her answer. “There is far and then there is dangerous. It is expected that we want to live, and since we do, we should act accordingly. We shouldn’t go onto the tundra. There are creatures there far more fearsome than a few males.”

  There is nothing more fearsome. I plunge ahead without answering.

  She tries again. “There is a place we can rest…” Her voice cuts off. She hears it. I heard it a few seconds before. The sound of pounding. There’s a scream — no, not a scream, a cry of rage. A deep, booming cry. A resounding sound that makes my toes curl and my tailbone tuck under. It’s a roar that hearkens only death and demands. He’s here. He’s coming for me. I’m fucked. No. I don’t know who I am anymore, all I feel is my bones start to unravel. Jaxal wanted me to be strong but he didn’t prepare me for this. For seeing him again and the horror that it would bring because right now it’s washing over me like a frontal assault. I can’t stand. I can’t fall either. The mud holds me in place, I feel carved into it now and I don’t dare move as the mist to my right
shifts and shudders.

  I duck down lower, quickly trying to kick up into a horizontal position so that the top of my head doesn’t stick out of the mud. I kick and stroke the mud, but I must make too much noise because I can hear the male roar, his cry different and more imminent than the last had been because he’s right here, right on us.

  The other woman squeals, giving away our position entirely and I hear thrashing in earnest now. I try to stay still. I know I won’t be able to outrun him and I refuse to fucking run. I will fight with everything I’ve got.

  It feels like eternities pass in less than a heartbeat. I lie there, hoping not to be found. Hoping he doesn’t find any of the others either. Where did that thought come from? Just leave them. They’re aliens they’ll probably enjoy it. But when the leader lets out a shout and I hear the sounds of struggle return in earnest, my whole body comes to life.

  I come upright to see the leader just a few paces from me, though the mud made it feel like she was so much farther, an alien — a man one — curled over her. He has a strip of my fabric in one hand and seems to be staring between her and it in confusion. I feel lightning rip up my spine at the understanding that I’m what he was looking for, but an equal lightness. His skin is blue. Not red. A little balloon bursts just below my lungs and suddenly I can breathe. And if I can breathe I can fight.

  The male isn’t armed, which sucks because I’d been counting on being able to take his weapons away from him. Doesn’t matter. I wade closer towards him and see that he’s got the same idea, only he hasn’t let go of the female even though he’s looking at me. Like he thinks he’ll be able to take the both of us.

  He stretches his other hand towards me, like he’ll grab me by the neck. I block with my left forearm and upper cut with my right. He’s tall so it takes some effort but I reach his chin. His head whips back and I’m grateful for my fur lined gloves because otherwise I might have broken a fist. Jaxal luckily had me practice on wooden boards until my hands bled. He said they’re skin would be stronger, tougher. That they’d be hard to kill. And I’m ready.

  I grab the female’s arm and wrench her out of his grip. “We have to fight him together!” I shout to her.

  White lights up her face, and I catch it at a glance before returning my gaze to the male. He’s got white on his face too, but I quickly clear it. Mud sprays across his expression when I hit him again and then a third time, and then another. Frustrated, he swipes both claws for me, catching my forearms and tearing through the leather covering them. He’s nicked me a couple times, but he hasn’t hurt me yet. There’s too much mud between us, and I’m wearing too many clothes and him, almost nearly as many. His hides look thinner, more agile, but are no less tough when I try to gouge them with my nails, wishing, not for the first time that I had claws.

  The fight lasts ages. I’m alone. The other females don’t help. I hope that they’re running away but when I get a second to spare and glance around, I see them just standing in the mud side-by-side wearing mud on their cheeks and white on their foreheads. For fuck’s sake.

  I punch the male again and this time when his head cocks back it pops up with ridges red and angry. He cocks a hand, I block, but then his other makes contact. I knew it would hurt. Jaxal hit me a thousand times in preparation for this moment. It wasn’t preparation enough. It hurts. His fists are made of marble and I feel my whole body take the hit all at once.

  Suddenly the females are shrieking. I can hear the fighting renewed as I struggle to stand and regain my bearings. Then there’s a roar. It comes again, this time louder, closer. I glance up towards the perimeter of the mire and as soon as my vision settles, I see something that numbs my withered core.

  Like a treeline sprouted in the beat of a breath, there are at least eight males standing there, shrouded in shadow. The one I’d been fighting moves swiftly ahead of me, wielding my swatch of bra like a sword. He stands in front of me, blocking my body with his own, and shouts something to the rest that my translator doesn’t catch.

  “Oki phondaeron!”

  Hisses sputter through the men, and even the women behind me gasp and whisper. But then there’s a silence. The fog stirs. The men glance around between one another and I can see foreheads flashing in what I thought were nature-defying colors, and I can hear meaty fists pounding against plated chests, and I can feel the masculine energy whipping through the air like a tornado we had once when the Drolax Dome was broken. Like a riotous undercurrent.

  The rain I’ve heard so much about, before a storm. I almost miss it, these things I have never known except for in my mother’s stories that were passed down from her mother.

  But then my heart catches and the fog clears and I see a male even larger than the rest, more terrifying, more imposing, more severe slash through the crowd. “Taka’ana,” comes the booming, terrible base, the one that seems to let loose something inside of me as I drink in all of his form. I recognize him. The one from the Hunt. The one beside Miari’s captor. I hate him. And yet, there’s only one thing I think. One thing that occurs to me.

  He isn’t red.

  He’s purple. “Oki phondaeron Xiveri. Taka’ana!” And when he let’s loose a feral growl the ground shakes beneath his feet.