by Stella Sky
My hands shook uncontrollably as the creature turned to me, looking winded.
It whipped forward so that I was now face to face with its deep, black eyes. I fired the laser pistol into the black, blinking orbs, remembering always to attack my enemy’s eyes first when cornered.
“Reina!” I could hear Willow scream as the creature fell forward onto me, letting out a low, terrifying hum as its body vibrated against me.
“The knife!” I cried, reminding Willow she had grabbed a blade we used for skinning animals before we left. She pulled it from her belt and ran toward me.
I scrambled to get the creature off and could feel the warmth of the foreign being on my skin, making me want to throw up. I fired the rest of the pistol’s charges into its clammy skin and Willow jumped on the tall creatures back, slashing it and hacking at it like she might an attacking bear.
It cried out again, the noise loud in my ear: a crack of vocals that deafened me.
And then, suddenly, nothing.
Willow grabbed my hand and pulled me up into a firm hug, releasing me from the alien: her arms wrapping around me like a shield.
We stared down at the creature. It twitched and then finally went still.
“What do we do now?” Willow said, gripping my hand so hard I thought both of our palms would be white when they parted.
I exhaled loudly, as though my body had waited the whole time to breathe. “Do they…? I mean… should we get rid of it?”
My friend stared at me, puzzled, and then I explained to her that perhaps they could smell one another, or something about his pain or death might trigger them. I didn’t know whether the logic was mature and sound or incredibly, incredibly stupid. But, I’d never run into a Vithohn before.
What did I know?
“Get rid of it,” Matthew coughed out.
Willow ran up to him and immediately cried out when she saw the state of his wounds. I winced back and couldn’t look.
“You’re sure?” I said, shaking.
“Get rid of it, trust me,” Matthew said.
“We should…” Willow breathed out in a frightened sob and tried to compose herself as she whimpered out, “We should try and get you patched up, first.”
“Hey,” he said, grabbing Willows hands weakly and pointing toward me. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Are there any more around?” I asked, trying not to make eye-contact with our fallen friend.
“No,” he said with agony. “No, not that I saw.”
“There’s an old well around the bend,” Willow offered meekly: her breathy voice becoming lost against the wind. “My father and I went there a couple of times. It might be worth a look.”
“Dump the alien body in the drinking water,” I repeated nervously. “Not my first choice.”
“Oh shut up,” Willow snapped, half embarrassed. “It’s abandoned. Come on, let’s just get rid of it before its friends find it and come back for revenge or something.”
I nodded and hoisted one of the sticky legs through my arms. The creature felt cold and rubbery against my skin. Blue blood began to spill out from the long, serrated cuts along its body. The liquid poured out over my forearms, and I lurched back in surprise.
The creature began to rapidly shed its skin: the limp spire coming off the back of its head the first thing to completely disintegrate from the creature: the tentacle falling hard onto the ground and melting into the stone ground below.
“What… the hell?” Willow said with annoyance, trying to secure its arms with her own before dropping the creature along with me, watching the creature transform.
It turned from a human-like form into a thick tube with dozens of eyes, eight tails, and black teeth.
I swallowed hard and looked up at Willow, stricken with fear.
“It was a bad idea,” I finally admitted.
“Thank you!” she exclaimed back to me with annoyance. Then she leaned forward and continued to pick up the creature.
My eyes went wide as its slippery, pink veneer slimed up against her thin fingers. She struggled to get a grip on it before looking up at me in frustration, wondering why I wasn’t trying to help.
I jerked forward, grabbing at the many tails and helping her lurch it along the vague path into the wilderness.
Somehow, we managed to drag the creature down through the forest, creating a trail of goo behind us.
We reached the well: thick, gray bricks piled on top of one another. With a thick huff, I dropped the creature and walked up to the hole, peering down into it. Like a child would, I picked up a stone close to the well and dropped it down into the dark below, waiting to hear the drop.
The rock finally let out a sharp and tinny “PING,” and I was satisfied with the well’s depth.
I had intended to do an ‘easy does it’ lift and slump the creatures body into the well in a smooth, concise action.
Instead, Willow impishly tugged at the alien and began stuffing it down the rock hole as fast as she could. I helped her lift up the clumps of blistered flesh, and we watched as the pale pink heap of body went tumbled down the well unceremoniously.
I was prepared for it: for his screams or for him to somehow float back up and grab me by the neck. I could nearly feel the cold press of his fingernails against my jugular as we threw him down.
But there was nothing.
The woods seemed hauntingly vacant after he was gone.
Chapter Four
Oron
I watched the females run back toward the mountain and wondered what they might do now. I held back on the trail, watching from a far distance as they carried the man they were with back to the mountain’s base.
“There!” the dark-haired woman yelled, letting the male slump uncomfortable onto the wet ground. “Was that enough exploring for you?”
“For the rest of my life, basically,” the blonde said and flung her dampened hair behind her shoulder.
I watched her carefully: her defined jaw and pleading eyes. There was something in her wide hips and smooth skin that made me want to be closer to her. It was a strange feeling that pulled me forward.
A low groan left my throat, and I cursed myself as my foot stepped ahead and cracked a hollow root under-toe. It snapped loudly, and I hunched down like an idiot, waiting to see their reaction.
The dark-haired woman continued to berate her friend, and I cocked a brow, thinking I had gotten away with it.
But, because it’s me, the blonde looked my way.
There was no change in her demeanor as she met my eyes, but we made clear contact.
I inhaled sharply and watched her, standing tall.
“You should head back,” I heard the blonde say suddenly.
“What?” he friend protested, furious. “No!”
“Just go, Willow,” the girl said lowly. “What are we supposed to do? Drag him around together?”
I perked an amused brow, scratching my chin at her plan, scraping my teeth against my bottom lip as I continued to listen in.
“Are you out of your mind? Just leave him!” the brunette protested. Their voices suddenly went low, likely trying to avoid their injured friend from hearing them. But I could still make out the words: “He’s done, okay? Now don’t make me do this, please. Don’t make me leave you.”
“I'm staying. So you can stay with me and watch him die or bring someone back down here. The minute you get back, I’ll leave with you, I promise. But we can't just leave him here to die.”
The breath left my nose quickly, and I hurried up
Good plan, I thought.
She spotted me and was making a valiant effort to spare her friend. Little did she know she was about to make life that much easier for me.
“Go ahead,” I whispered to myself. “Send her away.”
I waited for some time, keeping a keen eye on the blonde in front of me. I figured whatever she was going to do next would be calculated. But besides some scuffling, I didn’t hear much.
My body stayed hidden at the edge of the forest, and I watched as the setting sun dragged out the shadows of the trees until the sky went dark.
I didn’t want to lose track of her and so began to make my move, stepping out of the darkness.
The girl had dragged the wounded man into a nearby cave. I stood at the entrance, waiting for her to come back out, unsure when her ‘reinforcements’ would arrive.
Impatient, I started to walk into the cave but then hesitated: back-stepped. She did have blood all over her.
I wasn’t afraid of a fight, but it was enough to give me pause. The blood was blue: Vithohn blood. Telling me it wasn’t her friends wound that had sprayed her arms and chest, but one of my own. It was enough to give me pause.
Before I had the chance to make my next move, the girl ascended from the cave and let out a loud scream as she accidentally bumped into me.
I nearly made a noise myself and felt my face going red from it.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I said, collecting myself.
She gulped back and pressed her body into the side of the cave’s entrance.
“You didn’t,” she breathed, trying to get a better look at me in the darkness.
I laughed at the sentiment and raised a brow, smiling down at her frail body. “Your friend,” I said, gesturing into the cave. “Will he be okay?”
Lower her defenses. That was the plan.
I had seen many Vithohn attack humans throughout the war. A full-frontal assault. But no one ever tried to truly disarm the humans where it was most effective: their minds.
“He’s not my friend,” she snipped back at me, all but slithering away from me.
I took a step forward and gave a disbelieving nod. “Oh, he isn’t?”
“No, he’s not.”
“Your enemy, then?” I gestured to the blood that had dried and stained down her arms.
She rolled her shoulders and in her best nonchalant tone muttered, “None of my concern, really.”
“Then you didn’t lure me to you by coming back out of that cave so I would approach you instead of him?”
The girl stiffened and began to visibly shake.
I could feel a tooth snag my lower lip as I smirked up the side of my mouth.
“Or to prevent me from going after your little friend who crawled up the mountain?” I continued.
The blonde said nothing but looked as defiant as one could when they were absolutely terrified. I looked down at her shaking hand and realized it wasn’t shaking at all, it was clenching and unclenching a sharp rock.
“So you want a fight, do you?” I seethed, knowing I couldn’t hurt her even if I wanted to. Not if I were going to bring her back to Sylas as a prize.
“I’d rather be left alone,” she said quickly. Her voice was high-pitched, but low. She sounded so young, I was almost endeared to her.
“Or throw me into that hole, right?” I said, speaking of the Vithohn I’d seen her drag off to the abandoned well.
She fluttered her lashes and gripped the rock harder. “Your choice.”
“Who was that?” I asked of the deceased Vithohn.
She side-stepped away from the wall and began walking back into the forest.
I tilted my head to the side and smiled.
Taking a step forward and walking along with her, I decided I would play her little game.
“It was a Vithohn who tried to mess with me,” she spat out, trying to sound tough.
I laughed. “Is that right?”
The blonde looked at me, blinking in quick succession. I could hear her heart beating loudly. Thump-thump, thump-thump. The vibration of it sent tingles through my tentacle.
My tongue cascaded across my bottom lip and within an instant, she took off running. Right toward the well.
I lurched forward, knowing I was faster than she was, and ripped her back toward me, wrapping my spire around her and tightening my grip.
Pulling her over to my face, I could feel her scraping her sharp nails against my tentacle. I winced with pleasure. This chase had been the most fun thing I had done in a long time.
“I’m going to make this simple for you,” I snapped. “Either you come with me, or I will march back to that cave and murder that human. Then I will climb the side of that mountain, find your friend, and sacrifice her body to my people.”
“I told you,” she whimpered out, a sob etching up her throat, “I don’t know him.”
“Fine,” I said with a shrug, walking her deeper into the forest. I raised her up with my tentacle so that she was high above me: a beacon in the sky. “But what about the girl?” I said, and she immediately flinched.
There it was. My in.
“So you’ll sacrifice her?” I said, both my brows shooting up impatiently. “Ah. Something tells me you won’t.”
“And why’s that?” she said tersely.
“Humans have this thing about being noble,” I said, swirling my fingers around. “It’s how most of them died in the war.”
I grinned.
The girl craned her long neck to look at me: big, expressive eyes watering with disgust as she bore into me. “You’re a monster,” she said.
“Shall we do this the easy way or the hard way, then?” I ticked impatiently.
To my surprise, the stupid girl managed to wriggle out of my grip. My tentacle went flailing as she fell to the ground. It pushed my body back and took me a minute to right myself.
I grunted at the effort and raced after her, again. It was made easy this time, considering she had given herself an impressive limp from her high fall.
This time I grabbed her by her slender waist and hoisted her over my shoulder.
“Hard way it is,” I said.
My eyes skimmed her body in the dark as I threw her over my shoulder: wanton eyes, wide hips, and sunshine blonde hair. Yes, she would make a perfect present for the Voth.
Chapter Five
Reina
It happened.
It really happened, and I didn’t even have the opportunity to head back, red-faced, with my figurative tail between my legs to tell my family they were right, and how sorry I was, and how I should have listened to them.
I left the safety of my village, and I was … kidnapped?
By the strangest kidnapper ever.
The sky turned a bitter shade of purple as the evening of day four came upon us.
I’d been in the company of the strange Vithohn for four days, and we’d barely said anything to one another. I tried to run, twice, but he was too fast. Since then he hadn’t let me out of his sight. Everywhere he went, I followed.
I let out a long, drawn-out sigh and felt the night chill start to form in the air. I pulled my jacket tighter around me, bundling up as best I could as I watched him throw the last of the wood we’d collected into a blazing fire.
Secretly I hoped the fire would blaze out of control so that my people would see it, if they’d bothered to come looking for me.
“How many?” came the Vithohn’s sudden, unfinished question.
I looked up at him, blinking in surprise as his sudden desire to speak. Suddenly my mouth went dry and sticky.
“How many…” I repeated slowly and then looked up to meet his eyes before quickly looking away. “What?”
He swallowed nervously and kept staring at me. “How many humans?”
“Just me and Wi—” I began to say my friend's name but then thought better of finishing it, in case he could use it against her somehow. He kept staring at me, and I started to feel like an idiot, so foolishly finished, “Just me and Willow.”
“And the man in the cave?” the Vithohn asked with a cocked brow, resting his chin in his palm as he sat in front of the fire: elbow rested on thickly armored thigh.
“We don’t know him,” I lied, trying to sound firm.
I sounded like a mouse.
“Still stickin’ with that, huh?” he said: his English perfect, yet somehow muddled with a strange alien accent.
“I’m impressed.”
I set my jaw and looked away from him, feeling the heat of the fire leave the side of my face I had turned.
“Where was she going, if there were only two of you?” he asked, still looking bored.
She was going up to our village to get help, but I didn’t want him to know that. I struggled to come up with a lie and knew that too much time had already passed since he’d asked the question. Now whatever came out of my mouth would probably sound forced or untrue.
“There’s an herb on the side of the mountain called lilandra. It’s said to have healing properties,” I nipped.
Outside, I was trying to be laser-focused. Inside, I was giving myself a million air high-fives. Good lie, Reina. Good lie.
“Is that right?” he said slowly. “Rumor has it there are hidden packs of you people.” He waved a regal hand my way. “Hiding out, just waiting to take your planet back.”
“You fought in the war?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Of course,” he said, curiously, staring me down. “Didn’t you?”
I blinked quickly and felt slightly taken aback by the question. I must have had an ‘are you stupid?’ look on my face, because he began to get agitated.
“No,” I said flatly. “I wasn’t born yet.”
“How very odd,” he said, more to himself than to me.
“How old are you?” I asked.
He pursed his lips, deciding whether or not to answer me most likely, and then seemed to roll with it. “I’m not sure, exactly.”
“That’s weird,” I half-scoffed.
“Why are you talking to me?” he demanded suddenly.
“I’m… not a big fan of silence,” I shrugged. “Besides, you were the one who started talking to me.”
“Huh,” he puttered out before standing from the wet rock he was seated on. I could see the spring dew and bits of grass still stuck to his armor as he walked around the fire.
“Willow says I’m too stupid to stay quiet,” I offered, splaying my hands out in front of me.
“Maybe she’s right,” he said slowly, walking by me and turning his back.
I could use his turning as an opportunity to run, I thought, but I probably wouldn’t get very far.
