by A. G. Wilde
As her little-self began to run through the forest, trying to find her way, Evren tried to focus.
This was not real.
It couldn’t be.
Her little-self tripped then, her body falling face down hard. The pain in her little bones felt real.
Picking up herself, she began to run again.
Which way was home?
She didn’t know which way was home.
Alone.
Alone.
She was alone.
A sound somewhere in the forest had her freezing, her breath held in her little throat.
She didn’t know what that was.
She needed to find Mama and Papa.
She needed to get home.
The fear was creeping into her as if she was right back there.
She could feel her little heart beating hard, the chills running up her skinny, little arms and down her spine.
It was getting dark and she was terrified and alone.
Mama and Papa weren’t close.
She couldn’t find them.
She was lost.
She was alone.
No! Her real-self fought back against the thoughts. You’ve lived through this before. Don’t let it get to you.
This isn’t real.
THIS ISN’T REAL.
Evren wasn’t sure when they moved from the shuttle to another vessel. She was barely aware of her surroundings or how much time had passed. She was barely aware of anything.
When they finally removed the patch, she’d awakened in a cage beside some strange four-legged round, furry things in cages like she was.
It took her a few moments to realize she wasn’t on the shuttle anymore and that they were on some sort of cargo ship.
Had they already given her to the Tasqals?
As the thought came, a large metal door opened, and she could make out M’Agunt approaching through her blurred vision.
He stopped by her cage and regarded her. “Still lucid. Apply the patch again. She will be broken by the next day.”
No.
She tried to rise and realized she was no longer restrained but her body was still weak from whatever drug they’d given her.
No.
She opened her mouth to scream as the yeti-alien opened the cage and came toward her, but no sound came out.
No.
She didn’t want to go through that again.
“D-Don’t.” Her words were lost on him.
His large hand reached out and grasped her head, his palm so huge it covered her entire face as he pressed a fresh patch to her temple.
No.
Please.
Trying to break me.
Trying.
She chanted to herself as her vision went black.
Be strong, Evren.
Fight it.
Don’t let them break you.
Warp speed wasn’t fast enough.
As his space cruiser shot through the dark void of space at blinding speed, Kyro paced along the small control bridge.
He needed to hurry.
He wished he could go faster.
For one whole day he had been traveling and, for a whole day, every molecule in his being writhed in agony.
She’d been taken...and he hadn’t been there to protect her.
It weighed on him, and as the hours went by, the fact he had no idea whether she was safe or not, alive or dead made every second that passed seem longer than the last.
There was no way M’Agunt had arrived on Klepna 89 already. The handoff had not been completed yet. Still, the fact didn’t console him.
She was too close to danger. Too close to being lost forever.
If the Tasqal got a hold of her...
The image of his mother being used by one of the vile beasts came rushing back into his mind. Gripping the metal of the control bridge, he squeezed tight, willing the image away.
His pristine memory was sometimes a curse of his Vorti blood.
The Tasqal would use her, infect her, breed her...and then leave her for dead. He’d seen it happen before. He’d lived through it.
A tortured growl left his lips.
He couldn’t let it happen.
He wasn’t a young Vorti anymore. Now he was grown and that made all the difference.
The hatred boiling within him had been boiling for years, and for years he had held it down.
Not any longer.
They’d gone too far this time.
Staring ahead through the shuttle’s gazer, his features set into hard lines.
Polvrak keep her alive, for he was coming to get her, and he was coming with a vengeance.
38
The scene kept playing over and over in her head. As real as the breaths she took, she relived it over and over again.
They kept removing the patch to replace it with a new one and each time, the effect was greater.
It was ripping her apart slowly, the fear of that time when she was lost as a child now so thick in her blood that she was shivering on the floor of the cage.
She wasn’t sure how long they’d been traveling for—there was no night and day she could use to judge. The artificial lights of the cargo hold were always on. But she knew they’d been traveling for a while because it felt like she’d been tortured for days.
She was barely aware of being transported from the cage to another ship and then to another shuttle, the movements coming back to her like instances in a dream.
Yet, she fought.
She fought what they were trying to do to her.
Whatever the patch was, it was affecting her brain by making her relive her most traumatic experience.
Break her.
The words echoed in her mind, pulling her from the illusion they were creating and planting her back in reality for moments before she fell into the illusion again.
They weren’t going to break her.
She was stronger than this.
What they didn’t know was that this traumatic experience was the thing that made her fall in love with her profession. It was being lost that made her find her purpose in life.
Had she not run after that rabbit...had she not gotten lost...had she not spent days in the forest alone, fending for herself, then she’d have never become an ecologist and she’d have never experienced the freedom that doing something she loved brought to her soul.
So no, they wouldn’t break her.
The fear she’d felt back then, it had spurred her to fend for herself.
And she was going to do that now.
She just had to fight it and recall which one was real.
She couldn’t let them win.
Remember, Evren. Remember your reality.
For a moment, her vision cleared, and she spotted two large hands lifting her from the floor.
Yeti hands.
That’s not real.
That’s her imagination.
Yetis weren’t real.
Her vision blacked out and then she was in the forest again.
But that didn’t seem real either.
As her vision cleared once more, she spotted a tentacle and large teeth spread in a grin close by her face.
Tentacles.
That grin.
She should know that’s not real, but it felt real.
It felt real because there was an immediate feeling of disgust and hatred that accompanied the sight of those tentacles.
Real.
That was real!
Grunting, she tried to push away the memory of the forest just as she felt something cool against her temple.
It took a few moments for the thoughts of being lost to subside and then she was blinking up in the face of the one with the grin.
It came back to her quickly.
M’Agunt.
He was grinning down at her, his eyes holding a question as he surveyed her face.
“I hope His Excellence likes how proactive I have been.” He beamed. “He will like you willing
to his demands.” He peered down at her before looking at the yeti standing beside him. “The memory-chaser must have worked. The jekin doesn’t look nearly as alive as before.”
“Eat shit,” she snarled and M’Agunt’s grin fell as he pulled back, an unhappy look covering his features.
“Barbaric beast.” The skin over the top of his eyes fell in a frown. “Bring it. His Excellence has arrived.”
With that, what she assumed were the yeti-aliens lifted her, each taking one arm with her hanging between them like a rag doll.
As they stepped out of the cargo ship, she tried to make sense of her whereabouts but everything apart from her direct surroundings looked hazy.
They were walking for just a few meters when M’Agunt stopped suddenly.
In front of him, she could just about see the doors of a large white vessel opening. But her vision was still blurry from the after-effects of the patch. She wasn’t sure what was out there, but she was sure of one thing: M’Agunt had suddenly perked up, his grin widening and his face expectant.
Fuck.
The Tasqal.
It had to be the Tasqal approaching.
The yeti-aliens set her down and she almost fell on her face, falling to her knees instead.
She needed to do something. She needed to run at least.
Her legs were free. She was no longer restrained.
They must have freed her while her brain was being manipulated.
She guessed they didn’t expect her to try to escape?
Maybe because her legs still felt like jelly.
Trying to rise again was a no-go.
It was the sounds of boots hitting the ground that made her raise her head to find that they were surrounded with what looked like twenty or so tall aliens that looked like alligators walking upright. The gator-guards.
Fuck.
The last time she’d seen those guards she’d been on an alien slave ship praying to God that she didn’t die or get eaten.
Seeing them again was like witnessing the end of days.
And she was on her knees.
Forcing herself to stand, the pressure on her legs was almost too much and she fought not to fall. But she refused to be on her knees in front of the Tasqal.
She would never bow to it.
Whatever the patch had done to her better wear off quickly because if there was any hope for escape, she’d need her body fully functional.
As the last of the footfalls fell, there was silence. An unnatural silence, as if everyone around her was holding their breath.
It didn’t take her long to see why.
Above them, descending from the ramp of the docked vessel, was a large toad-like beast. Its robes of white were gleaming with jewels and it had a smug look on its strange face.
This, she assumed, was the His Excellence she’d heard so much about.
Even though the Tasqals looked like overgrown toads, this one held an air of superiority that she could feel in the air.
As it approached, the sound of bubbles popping filled the space.
That sound.
It was laughing. How could she have forgotten the disgusting sound of its laughter. Hearing it again was giving her flashbacks of being in a room full of Tasqals and being auctioned. Their bubble-popping-like laughter had filled the space then as this Tasqal’s laughter was filling the space now.
It made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
“My precious.” It took her a few moments for her to realize it was referring to her as it drew closer and she felt her lips curl with disgust.
“His Excellence.” M’Agunt dipped his head. “It is a blessing being in your presence.”
Ignoring M’Agunt, the Tasqal walked straight toward her, his white robes hovering just above the ground. “My precious. How I longed for you,” the High Tasqal said, his large dark eyes moving slowly over her body.
She didn’t realize she was backing up till she bumped into a hard, hairy chest.
Glancing behind her, she realized one of the yeti-men blocked her way.
Behind the Tasqal, M’Agunt bowed repeatedly, two of his tentacles outstretched, with the lighter side up, a grin on his face.
Slimy piece of shit. What a kiss-ass.
He deserved to be turned into sushi.
“She looks...lucid.” The Tasqal turned to M’Agunt as he said the last word and she swore M’Agunt paled.
“I used the memory-chaser on her, oh Great One. The jekin’s mind is frail. Do not misinterpret the look in her eyes. She is broken. I saw to it.”
It was a pity M’Agunt didn’t look her way because her eyes were narrowed to such slits, they could cut him.
The Tasqal paused a few steps away from her, and another chill ran down her spine.
He was just staring at her and with eyes so dark, she had no idea what he was thinking.
“You took care to not be followed?” the Tasqal finally asked, looking directly at her as he did.
It seemed the question was directed at her, but she knew that he was talking to M’Agunt.
“Yes, your Excellence.”
“Goood.” The way he pulled out the word made her shiver once more and she wasn’t sure if he saw her shiver or whether something else pleased him but as soon as the word left his lips the bubble-popping sound of his laughter echoed in his throat.
“Kill them.”
It took a second for his words to click and apparently, the two yetis and M’Agunt had the same delay.
“Y-your excellence.” M’Agunt raised his head a little. “I thought you wanted to keep the human—I don’t care either way but the Kleeba are my hired men. I paid a lot for their allegiance.”
The Kleeba she assumed were the yeti-men because they both grunted at M’Agunt’s proclamation—a sound that didn’t come off as them agreeing.
“It would be...highly disadvantageous for me if you killed them,” M’Agunt finished.
The bubble-popping sound grew loud as the Tasqal turned slightly to regard M’Agunt.
“You misunderstand,” the Tasqal said. “You die too.”
It took a second before M’Agunt’s face dropped, fear plastered over his pupils.
“Y-Your Excellence, I—”
“Bring the human to my quarters,” the Tasqal finally said before turning. “Get her cleaned before you do. She smells like dirty Kleeba.”
The yeti-men grunted again.
At his words, the High Tasqal turned and headed toward his ship as the gator-guards converged on their small group.
Evren gulped.
It was now or never. She needed to get away because shit was about to go down.
The first spray of blood hit her cheek as one of the gator-guard’s fists connected with one of the yeti men. The yeti’s roar that came next almost made her go deaf.
Panic flooding through her veins, Evren glanced around, looking for a space between the approaching guards where she could make a break for it.
Reaching for the cutting instrument nestled against her spine underneath her blouse, she grasped the handle just as two tentacles circled her shoulder.
A yelp left her lips as she was pulled forward, M’Agunt’s tentacles like a death grip on her skin as he put her in front of him.
Another of his tentacles tightened around her neck.
“Come any closer and I will kill the jekin.”
The gator-guards in front of them hesitated.
This slimy asshole. He was really going to use her as a hostage?
He had a surprise coming.
“Let me go, M’Agunt.” It was hard breathing when he was cutting off her oxygen. Even as he tried to back away, his grip was tightening, probably from his own fear.
“Let me go!”
“I will do no such thing,” M’Agunt breathed. “It was an unlucky day when you came on the base. First, I cut a tentacle trying to cut some material for you and then I get a call from His Excellence to track you. And I did it.” He laughed. It was a high-pitche
d sound as if he was now losing his mind. “I did it. I followed. Tried to get you to trust me. All the while worrying each sun cycle whether I’d be found out and executed.”
His voice suddenly got eerily low as he moved backward, trying to put distance between him and the guards. “I will not die because your species have soft, wet cunts that the Tasqals find favorable!”
That said, he began laughing again, the high-pitched sounds making her ears hurt.
It was getting hard to breathe but she knew there was probably no reasoning with him at the moment. And she wasn’t going to beg.
He was still moving backward with her in his grasps and she was barely aware that there was still a fight going on around them with the yeti-men trying to save their own lives.
The remainder of the guards who were not fighting the yetis must have parted from behind M’Agunt, giving him space to walk backward, because no one attacked him from that direction.
Shit.
Did he really think that meant he was going to win though?
They weren’t going to win. One of them was going to die and it wouldn’t be her. She wasn’t going to just let him choke her to death because he was a coward piece of shit.
Clutching the cutting instrument in her hand, she pressed the button to activate the blade.
“Fuck you, M’Agunt.” Her words came out low and raspy as she brought her arm back and buried the blade into M’Agunt’s side.
With a sudden howl, M’Agunt released her and she was flung to the ground.
As she struggled to get up, her legs protesting with weakness, the sounds of the fight behind her began to slowly die.
Shit.
The two yetis must be losing.
Shit shit shit shit.
She was right, for when she turned her head to glance behind her, she saw that one of the yeti-men was down, his red blood staining his snow-white coat.
She was hardly able to blink before strong arms encircled her arms and she was being lifted by two gator guards.
“Let me go!”
She struggled against them to no avail. They were much too strong for her. Much too strong. And her body was weak. Weak, weak, weak.
Fucking M’Agunt. If he hadn’t been so easy to please she’d still have her strength.
As they brought her forward, they stepped over something bloodied, limbless, and purple on the ground.
