by Hana Starr
“No, I am a Rath. Ethrans have been causing pain for us since the beginning of time. Now, you will pay in blood.”
“You have already tried to make us pay. And you failed. Ethra is stronger than ever, thanks to Zipporah. You can kill us here. But that won’t change the strength of our planet. We are stronger than your hatred.” Arden held his chin defiantly, proudly against her evil glare. It was a brave act. Zipporah could see the fear in his eyes. She felt an overwhelming rush of emotion run over her body for him, seeing how brave and proud he was. That he could stand strongly against the face of death. Even if he died there, he did not desert his beliefs. Belle had not robbed him of who he was. Zipporah found herself wishing that she had a lifetime with him. That they would have endless morning and endless evenings to discover each other. Endless moments of love and passion, and all of the things he had shown her up till now.
In the dimly lit cave, Zipporah could see Arden’s face only if she concentrated with all of her might. A surprised look overcame his face, changing his features drastically. She looked around, wondering what had taken him so aback. Suddenly, his head snapped to her and they locked eyes. A faint smile flickered across his lips.
“Close your eyes, love.”
Zipporah’s eyebrow shot up in curiosity, but she obeyed, knowing he was not arbitrary. She shut her eye slowly, taking one last look at him. Perhaps it would be her last. She heard Belle murmuring something, but she ignored it. She had spoken enough.
There was another sound of death, and a pained noise from Arden’s lips. It had been another Ethran that Belle had killed. She was going at a faster rate now, slicing into them as if her life depended on it. Which in fact, it did.
Chapter Eight
Zipporah heard a noise that sounded like a violent crashing. She was tempted to open her eye and turn to see what it might have been, but she remembered Arden’s request for her to keep her eyes closed. So she allowed the curiosity to itch at her while the noises continued. Someone screamed, whom she assumed to be Belle. A warm, overpowering sensation covered Zipporah’s body and flooded her closed eye. She knew, just from past experience, that Ethrans were present. Ethrans who were furious.
“We are more than you are,” Belle shouted, staring at the Ethrans we appeared in front of her. For some reason, her gaze did not change their shape. She was baffled, but tried not to show it on her face. They would not come and destroy everything she had worked so hard to create. The Earth was just ready to fall.
“Yes, but the dark cannot live in the light.” A soft yet powerful voice spoke out. Zipporah’s eyes filled with tears for reasons she couldn’t explain and she began to think of her family. Arden was now surrounded by his family. Wounded and strong. They were together, and she knew that they would be able to conquer.
“You can’t hurt me,” Belle spat, “I am Ethran too. Ethrans do not kill each other.” Her words were venomous as she stood in the pools of blood that she had spilled—Ethran blood. Now it was Arden’s turn to speak.
“You are no more Ethran than a Rath is. You are nothing.”
Zipporah heard a struggled. They were having a hard time wrestling her human form into submission. But the Rath could do nothing to the light. The Ethrans had killed them all the moment the revealed themselves.
Belle advanced on Zipporah’s idle body, pressing a blade against her neck. Zipporah, now sweating, continued to keep her eye closed. She would not give Belle what she wanted.
“She is the only way any of you can free the Earth. I will kill her now. Do not test me.” The blade pushed a little further into Zipporah’s neck, but she still didn’t budge. If she died, at least she hadn’t killed all of them with her.
“You will die here, too, Belle. There are no more Rath. You will be all alone on a planet of darkness until you wither and die. You will not have a life, a family, a community. Not even an insect to hear you cry. Do you want to be on this vast planet by yourself? If that is what you want, then kill her. You will have won nothing. There are no more Rath. They are extinct. You are the last piece of anything from that dark and wretched place. No one will mourn when you die.”
Belle froze, considering what Arden had said. It was well put, she had to give him credit for that. She hadn’t thought about what would happen after the humans were gone.
“Earth is for the Rath now. It will be a burial planet if it must. I have worked too hard.” She grunted and swung at Zipporah with her fist, knocking her to the ground. Zipporah cried out, but still managed to keep her eye closed. She knew that they needed it. The blood in Zipporah’s mouth boiled out and flavored with the taste of iron. She wanted to kill Belle. She wanted to take the knife that had killed so many Ethrans and stab her in the heart. But she couldn’t open her eyes. So she stayed still and took the beating.
She felt a knife come to her arms. Something was being traced, just has Iilor had etched his name in her chest. Belle was etching her name on Zipporah’s arm.
“Arden!” Zipporah shrieked when she could no longer bear the pain. “Please! Stop her!”
Belle laughed and looked to the Ethrans. There was nothing they could do so long as they were simply light. Zipporah cried out as Belle finished her name on her skin and moved to her other arm, ready to write something out.
“I will kill her slowly before you all unless you even the playing ground.”
Arden was the first to step forward to Zipporah and open her eye. He changed into his human form as Zipporah’s eyelid opened. She cried for a moment, but quickly brought herself to her senses. She looked around at the other Ethrans that had come to save them. They all changed into human form as her eye swept over them.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Belle asked, swinging her blade tauntingly. She had to kill Zipporah last in order to kill off the last of the Ethrans.
Zipporah unclenched her fist and allowed her blade to extend. The glowing blade impaled Belle through her stomach, turning her skin the color of paper as soon as it happened. Belle’s eyes met hers’. There was something in them that had not been there before. It was regret. Zipporah could feel Belle’s regret for obeying her evil sire and attempting to take over the Earth. But it was too late. Belle’s body crumpled to the floor hopelessly, her blonde hair spilling out all around her.
As she breathed her last breath, she turned into the soft, glittering dust that every dead Ethran shed. It made Zipporah a little sad to see such a desolate person turn into such a beautiful thing right after death, and wondered where she would go from there. What happened to the dust?
****
Arden approached Zipporah after Belle’s body had floated away and put a hand on her cheek, as if to say he was sorry. She had taken so many scars for him. Two names and a blind eye, and they still weren’t done. She was beginning to realize that there was a very good chance that this mission would kill her.
“Thank you all for coming to our aid,” Zipporah rasped, looking up at the humanized Ethrans. If they had not shown up, surely she would have already been dead. She looked to Arden as if to ask if they were the real deal, and he nodded assuredly.
“They are real. They formed into light when you looked away. Belle didn’t.”
That was good enough for Zipporah. She stood as gracefully as she could and nodded her head in thanks to each of them. There were twelve, as well as four other Ethrans that Belle had not yet been able to kill. They were all frozen, shaking at the sight of other people. They had been so harshly tortured that they had no idea who to trust.
Sixteen Ethrans and one human destined to save the world. It didn’t seem like enough, but despite that, Zipporah would do it. She didn’t have a choice. She spent the next twenty minutes tending to the Ethrans who were corralled on the ground, shivering and holding on to each other for dear life. They seemed so painstakingly human that she had to pause for a moment before approaching them.
“Hello,” She whispered, sitting on the ground to be near to them. They looked at her like deer in a
headlight. It broke her heart.
“I am Zipporah.” She put a hand on her chest, then dropped it and looked for signs of recognition. Two of the Ethrans were female, and two were male. All of them seemed very young—younger than her, even. Of course, they were more than likely a great deal older than her.
“Do you have human names?” She asked gently, putting her hand on the arm of the girl nearest to her. She had pale blonde hair and wide blue eyes, featuring the same general features of Belle. Belle had been the first to change them into human form, so they would be stuck with that for the rest of their days. It made Zipporah sick.
“No,” the girl answered, looking down at her bare feet. They were all naked as newborn babies. In a sense they were newborns. She reached into her bag and pulled out a few pieces of clothing for the girls to wear. Arden did the same for the boys.
“You look like a Kate,” Zipporah smiled, offering her the clothes. Kate accepted the name and the clothes with timid hands. She repeated the name several times to make sure that it belonged to her, and to her delight, it did. Zipporah could not make them forget what they had just seen, but she could give them a small shred of decency.
She turned to the other girl. She was slightly older than Kate, with more pronounced features. Her cheekbones were higher and sprinkled with freckles. Zipporah gazed at her for a moment, touching her shoulder as she handed her something to wear.
“Lilah?” she offered, thinking the name suited the girl well. She nodded, flashing a small smile. Lilah it was. Kate and Lilah, the blonde girls. They would go through their lives as sisters, as they had the same appearance. Perhaps even the boys would be included in their new family. Zipporah was glad they all had each other.
Arden kneeled beside of Zipporah and began to speak to his kin in a tongue that Zipporah did not understand. She suspected that he did not want her to hear what he was saying, but made no move to ask him to switch languages. They were certainly allowed a bit of privacy. She stepped back while he spoke with the boys, very likely gathering information about the situation of the world.
Zipporah stood and went to the Ethrans that had been standing back. She wanted to know who to thank.
“Thank you all,” She began softly, putting a hand to her braid self-consciously. The undoubtedly knew who she was, and what she was destined to do. She also assumed they knew most things about her relationship with Arden.
“No need to thank us, Zipporah,” One woman stepped forward with a sad smile on her face. She looked exceedingly kind—perhaps compassionate. She had long red hair that was held back in a bow. There was a human weapon in her hand—a gun, and her body was clothed with traditional American work out gear.
“Beth,” she smiled again, sharing her human name with Zipporah. There were others less friendly. Seven men and five women in total. Most of them looked as if they were created from the same human. Five of the men had dark black hair and dark skin with piercing eyes. None of them had names yet, and they expressed that they were not interested in having names at all. Then there were two who were made from light brown hair and sun kissed skin, along with muscular builds.
Zipporah gathered that Ethrans did not like to travel alone, because it was very clear that most of them had been changed in groups. The other four women were different from Beth. She must have come down alone. The other four were split two by two regarding their looks. Two of them were Middle Eastern in appearance—very close to Zipporah, which made her believe that they were formed from her. One looked to be middle aged, and the other perhaps in her early twenties. They informed her that they were named Rose and Rain, respectively. And the other two Irish, still nameless.
“How long have you been here?” Zipporah asked Beth, taking the friendliest face and attempting to create a friendship. Beth shrugged, and thought back for a moment.
“My first memory of Earth was 1939. I was put to work in a factory and I have been on the move since. I’ve been all over the world. Earth was by far my favorite planet.” She sighed, looked around the dark cave. Zipporah honed in on the word was.
“So you’ve been here for two hundred years?” She asked Beth, calculating what the year on Earth must have been from the time she spent on the Star Liner.
“Just about,” Beth responded, glancing down at her feet. She didn’t look a day over twenty five. Zipporah couldn’t believe that she had been walking the Earth for two hundred years. Rose and Rain informed Zipporah that they had been on earth for five years, living in the sky and providing light. They had never taken a human form until they came to her aid.
A few moments more of conversation and Arden stood with the rest of the traumatized Ethrans and they began to make their way towards the opening of the cave. Zipporah’s arm continued to drip blood, but she attempted to mask the pain for the sake of the Earth. She knew that when she came to Earth to help break the darkness that it would be difficult, but she had never imagined exactly what would happen.
The group of Ethrans made their way ahead of Arden and Zipporah, who had purposely hung back to have a few moments alone together.
“Are you going to be okay?” He asked her, coming up against her back with as much support as he could offer her. Zipporah rolled her head towards him and smiled. Her whole body was on fire. She wished that she could erupt into a great ball of light and escape the pain that she felt. Arden reached his lips down and kissed her neck tenderly, offering some sort of ease to her agony. She stopped in her tracks and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him fiercely.
If she was going to save the world, and perhaps die, she wasn’t doing it without feeling his lips on hers one more time. Their kiss deepened and she pushed him against the wall, covering his neck in kisses and moving her hand down the hard muscles of his stomach. He moaned with suppressed desire, thrusting his hand into her shirt to bring her breasts forward. Like a natural, he sucked on them, popping her hard nipple in and out of his mouth expertly.
“Tell them to give us a moment,” Zipporah breathed into his ear, reaching her hand down to the swollen member threatening to burst through the seams of his pants. He paused for a moment and then nodded, confirming that they would wait for them.
Hungry for him, Zipporah pulled the shirt from his body and licked her way down his torso, savoring the taste of him. He slipped his hand between her pants and bare skin, sending a tingling sensation all through her body. He thrusted his fingers deep within her dripping pussy and they both gasped as he reached deep into her, pulling towards a powerful orgasm.
Unable to bear the distance between the two of them, Zipporah slid her pants off and kicked them away, inviting him into her. But Arden shook his head, grinned at her, and dropped to his knees. Grabbing her by the ass, he pulled her wet mound to his mouth and ate as if he were starved.
A scream of pleasure erupted from Zipporah’s mouth as his fingers worked artfully inside of her and his mouth sucked on her precious bundle of nerves. She began to cry as his mouth left her aching center. He moved up her body with his own, running his swollen, rock hard dick around her entrance. She bit her lip to stop from begging, but he saw the desire in her face.
“Beg,” he whispered into her ear.
“Please,” she gasped, tears falling down her open eye. “Please, love.” It was all in good fun, but she would have begged on her knees if he had asked. She wanted him—for longer then she could have him. With the word ‘please’ leaving her mouth, he pushed her gently against the wall of the cave and entered her slowly, as to drive her mad. She moaned wildly and threw her hands around his neck, smearing his body with blood in the process. They became one as his dick pushed deeper inside of her. Her heart beat doubled as they found a rhythm that brought both of them a weakness in the knees.
Arden’s hand fell down between Zipporah’s legs and touched again the electric bundle of nerves. A severe heat began in the pit of Zipporah’s stomach, and she knew it would not be long until she showed him just how much she wanted him. His pace increase
d, becoming harder and more forceful with each stroke. His mouth met hers, kissing her passionately as they made messy, dirty love.
The heat rose to Zipporah’s heart and she burst forward like a river onto him, gripping on to his arms as she came. He then filled her with his white, wet ropes of life. She gasped as they both finished, and then collapsed into each other.
Arden moved a step back to look at her, staring intently at her chest. She grinned suggestively, but alarm crossed his face instead of pleasure or mischief. Zipporah looked around, thinking perhaps another attack was underway, but his eye stayed focused on her chest. She looked down to see a soft glowing coming from the area on her chest where her heart lived. She gasped, touching the light gently.
“What is this?” She whispered, looking up at him with a startled gaze. Perplexed as he was, he had no answer for her. He had never seen a human glow organically before, and she seemed to have no ideas either.
