Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1)

by Stephen Landry

  The Tritan, the smallest of our ships, was barely a mile long. It was meant to be much smaller when it was designed. It was originally nothing more then a scout ship when originally conceived. Some scientists imagined it as a two-man vessel no bigger then our a drop ship. The original blueprint actually became what we base most of our transports and drop ships on now and the Tritan after a major re-design became the first starship built, a testament to the engineering of man. The idea bigger is better latched on and the second starship the Aelita was made to be three times the size of the Tritan while the Erebus became a ship the size of New York City. Both the Aelita and Erebus would drop into orbit above Errikus that night with the Erebus landing close to the outskirts of the city.

  “In a few days we’ll be leaving. Are you excited?” my mother asked.

  I told her I was and smiled. I was lying. I knew she could tell but that didn’t matter. She had taught me to be strong. All I could think about was Dom and the undertow. I had another nightmare that night. I had been having nightmares ever since he drowned. I dreamt of the red river. I was swimming alone but then I heard him. I swam towards Dom as his voice grew louder and louder but he was nowhere to be seen. It was there then I realized I had swam too far and I was in the deep. That was when I looked down and saw his silhouette below my feet. I started to feel his cold fingers touching the tip of my toes and then there was a sharp stabbing sensation. It felt like pins and needles being jabbed into the entire bottom half of my body. I could see his figure and at first I thought he was simply pulling himself to the surface. I thought for a moment that Dom had come back from the dead and then at the last minute he turned into a Skrav. The Skrav climbed over top of me and the stabbing sensation paralyzed my entire body. I watched the Skrav shift into a snake and wrap itself around me while its head twisted into the form of a shark. I felt its gaping jaw grab me and pull me under. I was caught in inside the undertow screaming. That was the moment I would wake up.

  Six Days.

  Aira and I sat alone at Dom’s memorial. Hayden was with his family. They were teaching him some mourning ritual that involved painting his face with a black streak, fasting, and lighting incense along with a number of prayers spoken to praise the dead and pittance honoring fallen warriors. I’m glad that his family respected Dom in that way.

  “What if we see him die?” Aira cried, “what if we use the nexus and we have to watch Dom’s last breath?” she was in tears. “The chance of that happening are near impossible,” I said but she had already come up with a reply, “the chances of us finding all the Skrav ships and changing our future were said to be impossible too.” I sat speechless for a moment before telling her that if that were to ever happen then we would honor him… we would watch no matter how bad it hurt and we would honor him by living. We sat for hours after and I held her in my arms. Before the night was over she asked, “How do you live for the dead?” a question I felt unable to answer. Five Days.

  The city was more alive than ever. Music littered every street corner and alley as people strummed, plucked, and sang in the streets. Even the ghettos were full of dancers and singers both male, female, and in-between. Everyone was celebrating. Everyone except Aira, Hayden, and I. “Just because you can’t be happy right now doesn’t mean you should stay home or lay in bed,” my mother had said before telling me I needed to go and be with the others. My mother didn’t want me to spend my last days on Errikus sad and depressed. She wanted me to remember the city for everything it was.

  Aira and I decided that afternoon to stop wasting our last week on Errikus and continue to explore the city the way our friend would have wanted us to. We skipped school and using what little money we had we found a scribe. For half of everything we had the furry Pok took our picture and gave us two copies. Each of us would have one, something to remember each other by. We wrote this on the back of each and signed our name, “We may be on two ships but we will never be far apart.” With the last bit of change I had left I bought Aira a small dagger. “Even if I can’t protect you, this will.” She gave me my first kiss after that.

  Night came and we watched the various ships come and go from the port as the sky disappeared. “They look like fireflies,” she said. For the first time in a long time you could see the stars above Errikus and there directly north a wide empty black space where the Earth had once been. It was a reminded, we didn’t belong here. It was a reminder what would happen should we stay in one place for too long, a reminder that we would be leaving soon.

  I wonder what the ‘Sons of Sol’ and the forefathers would be thinking now. I wonder if this was the great and miraculous journey they had visioned. Would they still hve let the Skrav destroy our sun? I don’t think anything the nexus could show me would make me believe this was the right path that humanity had been meant to be on. So many had lost their lives and yet here we are celebrating and moving forward simply because it was all we really could do. Maybe this was how we live for the dead.

  Four Days.

  Hayden is back with us. We try to spend the day playing, we run through the strets like rabid dogs tease and tangle with aliens we don’t recognize and throw rocks in the woods and climb trees as high as we can. We do everything we can but go near the red river. The day feels ‘blah’ bland like it never happened. I go to bed and have nightmares again.

  Three Days.

  We mourn together at the river. No one tells us to go play. No one tells us anything. Strangers pass us by in the streets and pay their respect with prayers and flowers.

  Two Days.

  Every belong I have except for some clothing is now packed and loaded at the dock. Aira spends the day with her mother. She knows this is the last time she will see her little girl the way that she is. She spends her day trying to make up for a lifetime of resentment. Hayden and I spend half our day at the river and the other half walking, memorizing the smell and look of the alleys and streets of Errikus.

  One Day.

  The streets are flooded with music and species of all shapes, sizes, and color. My mother buys me an instrument called a guitar. It is an instrument she says originated on Earth. It is as long as both my arms and has seven pieces of metal wire running down from top to bottom (or rather from one side to the other). When I first saw it I thought it was weapon but a Pok named Flet showed me how to strum it and pluck the strings. It was far from being a weapon. Flet told me how he learned to play from a group of humans and how this instrument had changed his life for the better. I’m glad for all the whispers of savagery and war we have still made a small difference to some. The music it makes is beautiful. He tells me I’m a natural and even cuts my mother and I a deal on the price (not that we needed the money, everything on the Erebus would be shared or rationed). I thank him for making me smile.

  Day Zero.

  I woke up screaming again. Another nightmare about the undertow. Another nightmare about Dom. I spent the morning in a cold sweat wrapped in my mother’s arms before she finally got up and brought me medicine and something to eat. After breakfast she takes Aira and I to the memorial. We never thought our last few hours on Errikus would be in mourning. The red river had been dyed blue for the festival. The city founders had thought it would be a neat trick to dye their river the color of the ones of Earth. There in the deep I could still see the red. I could still imagine Dom’s body sinking to the bottom. I could feel the pins and needles stabbing at my feet. Any moment now I thought the jaws of a shark would come out of the water in a wave that would pull me under wrapping its snake like body around me. I was all in my head. It made me sick.

  We finally made it to the docks. It took us several hours even by airship to make it to our designated positions. The city square up to the landing rail was filled with thousands of people. Everyone was counting down the minutes until the Tritan would arrive. If I had to compare this event to something on Earth I would call it the ‘Burning Man’ of the stars. I was standing next to my mother. Across the heads of dozens of other
men and women stood Aira on top of someone’s shoulders.

  5,4,3,2,1 . . .

  Silence. Nothing happened. I looked at my mom for answers. I was about to ask her the same question that had overtaken everyone’s mind. Where was the Tritan? I didn’t ask. I didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t have any answers. Like everyone else we stood there waiting. She looked at me and grabbed my hand. She squeezed firmly. Hysteria slowly began. People began talking and causing a small uproar. The founders of the city scratched their heads. A group of Myra screamed and then we heard them smash a window as they began trying to loot a store. They wanted chaos. Their boney crowns and armor were no match for the Eek security. No one knew what was happening and no one could have planned on what happened next. It had only been a few minutes and everyone was on edge reacting in many different way.

  Then it appeared. It came out of thin air. Parts of it seemed to appear and disappear. I felt like the world itself was being torn in two. The air would heat up and then immediately grow cold. I became harder and harder to breath. It was then we saw what was happening. The Tritan had appeared and pieces were breaking off like rain falling from the sky. Falling over our heads. The sky was literally falling. People began screaming and running but for those closest to the center there was only silence. No time to run. The last sounded like a train tearing apart on its tracks. The Tritan burned and twisted as it came out of the immer piece by piece raining hell down onto the ground. I reached out for my mother’s hand but couldn’t feel her. Why did I let go in the first place? I didn’t have time to react. I fell to my knees. The crowd moved around me and shoved me bruising my sides and shoulders. If felt like hours but it had only been a few seconds before I turned and looked to my left. I found my mother lying on the ground. Everything after seemed to fade to black. The Tritan screeched one more time as it positioned itself on the ground in two colossal pieces less than a mile away like ship sinking on the ocean floor devouring any poor soul stationed underneath. There it settled. I watched as a cloud of dust came towards us like a tsunami. Everything had gone silent or perhaps I had just gone deaf. Dust and ash flew out from below the ship covering every in of the air. I could hear the Myra screaming again, I wasn’t deaf after all. The closest to the epicenter were dead already, the ash and air mixed together turning their lungs into cement suffocating them in an instant. Others had become nothing more than black shadows etched onto walls and the ground. It was their remains mixed with the debris of the Tritan that surrounded me now. It was then we heard the cry of the beast…

  The purge had begun.

  The Purge

  Some blame the Skrav for what happens next. Others blame humanity. Truth is it doesn’t really matter. The Purge was the worst three days of my life. The worst moment of my life began with my mother screaming my name telling me I had to run. She was trapped lying on the ground a large piece of the Tritan’s hull covering her broken legs. I was ten yards away from her crying on my knees. I couldn’t believe one moment we were right next to one another I could feel her gripping my hand and now it seemed we were miles apart. I had bruised (if not broken) one of my ribs from where some Eek hit my side to hard. I didn’t want to run. I didn’t want to leave my mother’s side. I was the only person moving against the crowd towards the chaos. If I could just stand up, if I could just get over to where she was. I imagined her holding me in her arms, she was my angel, always there for me and this was my moment to be there for her. Any moment now I imagined she would lift the metal and push it away from her and stand. She wouldn’t die like this. She shouldn’t die like this. She was my mom and she wouldn’t leave me like this. She was my mom and she was screaming for me to run.

  “We have to go now!” it was Aira; she found me and grabbed my shoulder. I felt the entire world fall back into place and through the roar of the crowd I heard the beast again. Crawling out from the ruins of the Tritan came an animal, not far off from the kinds of kaiju you would imagine seeing in a horror film. It had skin that was completely black aside from several massive red tumors that seemed to cover its sides. It had spider like limbs protruding from what I assumed were its shoulders and hips. Its face looked like a mix between a crocidile and shark except that its jaw was broken into three different parts; its teeth where solid white, the smallest the size of two or three people standing upright. It had a tail that stretched several hundreds yards and swayed against the sides of buildings knocking them down as if they were nothing. Where I assumed its eyes would be there was only darkness. Thirty maybe forty black circles stood on the side of its face. It was bleeding from some parts of its body a phosphorescent blue liquid. The blue blood filled the air with the smell of decay. It must have been at least two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet tall. Staring at the creature I felt as if reality itself was being sucked away and destroyed. Then I saw it. Its claws were tearing apart survivors on the ground. It barely noticed them. It was like crushing ants. Its teeth were stained red with the blood of Errikans, the blood of Eeks, Poks, Droks, Myra, humans, and other species I couldn’t recognize.

  We were nothing to the beast; as far as it was concerned we didn’t even exist. The sounds of bone bending and breaking filled my ears. I was more terrified now then I had ever been. Aira shook me and yelled at me pulling my paralyzed body away. I was in shock. I couldn’t even feel the pain in my side anymore. Finally I came to and took her hand and ran joining the stampede around us leaving my screaming mother behind. I knew that it was what she would have wanted me to do but I can’t stop wondering if there had been another way. The last thing I remember of her was seeing her broken body, her eyes staring at me and her lips screaming at me to run. I was all she cared about. All the kids she had watched, fostered taught it was I alone that she truly loved. I was hers. I was her son and she was begging me to survive.

  I seriously thought I would see her again. I thought I would run and then around the next corner she would be there arms spread ready to embrace me. I thought I would have at least had a chance to say goodbye.

  I wanted to die. I wanted to give up. I wanted to stop running. Surely if there was an afterlife Dom and my mother would be there so why couldn’t I join them. “Where are we going?” I yelled towards Aira. “Anywhere but here,” she said just as scared as I was. She was strong though she hadn’t looked at the creature like I had. If she saw what I saw we both would still be sitting caught in its shadow. I don’t even think she saw my mom the way she moved through the crowd so quickly. If she had she wasn’t saying anything. Aira was so much stronger then I was.

  The beast continued to stomp and screech tearing and ripping away at the Tritan and the buildings that surrounded it. The entire dock was nothing more than a mess of metal, bio-organic walls and body parts. It was the end of the world - the end of Errikus. We made it to a shelther less than a mile away from ground zero. Everyone was still screaming and crying. Some Errikans were running around with holo projectors looking for loved ones. Some of the Erika guards were aiming and shooting at the creature from rooftops; their bullets had no effect. Other guards were aiming at the citizens. Everyone was in such a panic they were killing each other. Shots fired wildly into crowds that were breaking barriers and seals trying to get into the bunkers and fallout shelters that led underground; all of which had already become overrun.

  “Take aim and don’t let anyone else in,” the COM of a guardsman shouted. Aira and I were at the door. The guard, a tall and slender Eek in full battle armor was aiming his rifle at us and shouting at us to turn back. It was an M44, a special pulse rifle that fed of kinetic energy, designed by humans and traded with Eek. Normally it would have been used on expeditions beyond the wall. It was designed to send out a blast of radiation. How strong the blast would depend on how long you held down the trigger. An enraged Pok dived in front of us trying to use its small size to make it past the distracted guard. When it failed he turned his teeth on the guard and the rifle moved away from us and the Eek shot the little enraged man dead. T
he guard never let go of the trigger for ten seconds and the Pok had become a corpse of melting flesh with small pieces being carried away by the wind.

  “How could you!” Aira shouted, “we are all just trying to survive, don’t you see what is happening?” The guard quickly turned his gun back on us. Then we heard the creature scream again. It was moving closer. We were too afraid to turn and face it but it was getting louder and louder. The guard had turned his COM to silent and slowly he began to speak to us, “two blocks down there is an alley, a closed bar full on munitions and rations, tell them Gerad sent you…” he paused, “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want to kill him.” He stopped looking at us and looked towards the Pok who stood as a statue of dust. We could see the shadow of the beast reflecting in the corner of the Eek’s eye. “Run and tell them you are taking my place, you are now soldiers of Errikus.”

  We ran down the alley just like he told us. “Sev, there it is!” Aira said pointing towards a rundown bar. It had metal boards bolted over its windows. There was no else around as we walked insde. Empty chairs and tables lined both sides. There was archaic artwork hung on the walls, colors running together with cracked textures. “This place looks abandoned, I thought there would be other guards here, do you think he was lying?” I said taking Aira’s hand and moving back towards the bar’s kitchen. We continued past the bulkhead door and through some kind of holographic wall and found ourselves surrounded by fifty guards. The fifty guards were a mix of Eek, Pok, and some humans I hadn’t recognized. The humans were deserters, a group skipping out on the exodus to stay on Errikus, augmented with alien implants that made them blend with the Eek from far away but this close we could see their faces. They were human and they were very afraid.