by Mark Alders
To put it simply, Zane was fucked.
Even so, he overpowered the assistant through sheer brutal determination and many blind punches, some finding their mark, and sent the man crashing to the floor on his backside. At the same time, Zane felt a pin-prick on his neck. The tussle he’d had with the assistant had given the doctor time to prepare a needle.
Zane’s vision became blurry.
We’ve been drugged!
No fuckin’ kiddin’.
Tink had dispensed with the assistant he was tackling, who was now nothing but a dead man slumped in a pool of blood. The second assistant, however, had scrambled to his feet and activated the extractor before Tink could send him to oblivion to join his freshly killed friend.
Zane fell back down onto the bed, his knees buckling from under him. The drug had already taken effect. “You fuckin’ bastards. You don’t know what you’ve done. You’re all fucked now!”
The doctor said, “I’m sorry, but you’ll understand soon.”
With those words reverberating around Zane’s mind, the beam from the extractor struck him, blinding and paralysing. Motac screamed in agony. Zane, for the first time since he had been bonded to the coalition eternal, felt fear, sheer and absolute.
Tink rushed to Zane’s side.
Zane turned to look at him, his whole body numb. Unable to form words, he couldn’t do anything but witness with increasing darkness crowding his vision, blurring the events that followed.
Goodbye, my beautiful.
A brief moment after the beam struck, the effect of the drug took its toll. Zane collapsed. Before he found unconsciousness, the feeling of being empty pervaded all his thoughts and emotions.
Motac was gone.
Zane managed to watch the medical unit become flooded with Banshan warriors. Tink was taken away, as was Motac.
One of the Banshan was their leader. Erkla came over Zane, brandishing an ornate knife. “We needed you conscious so we could extract the traitor. Now that we have him, your purpose has been served. On behalf of the empire of the eternals, we thank you, human. Your death will be the first of many who dare to resist us.”
With a cruel smile, the Banshan leader plunged the knife deep into Zane’s stomach. Zane felt no pain. It seemed the drug did more than incapacitate him. It numbed the agony of his death.
Zane gasped the last breath of his life. There was no tunnel of light. No relatives long lost to greet him as he had been told when a spirit passes into the afterlife.
He was dead.
To be continued…
To be continued in Ripples in Time Eternal, Episode Three of Diary of the Eternal War.
Here’s a sneak peek:
Emergency access input override, automated wake up response. Diary algorithm activated. Ship time, unknown. Date, unknown. Internal and external input initiated. Loading…now.
Zane opened his eyes. It hurt to do so.
A stranger, a man of ragged features and scars all over his face looked down upon him. “Welcome back to the land of the living, warrior Zane. I’m Kort—Kort Sirus, leader of the human resistance here at Super. Thanks to our dear doctor and his quick thinking injecting you with a preservative serum, you’re able to fight another day.”
Zane tried to get up. He couldn’t move. He tried to speak. Nothing. He called in his mind for Motac. No answer.
Kort gestured for Zane to calm. “It’ll take a few hours for your systems to come back to life, especially after your surgery to repair the wound to your stomach. For now you can see, think and breathe. More than many who have been murdered by the eternals for resisting them, that’s for certain.”
Zane looked at him intently.
The man added, “Don’t worry, the cat beings known as Tink and Mirko are safe. We organised an ambush and retrieved them from Banshan custody before they could be killed.”
Zane opened his mouth. Again, no sound emerged except a pained and barely audible moan. With that moan, Zane managed to utter, “M…o…t…a…c?”
Kort shook his head. “Dead, I’m afraid. We can’t take any chances here, Zane, you’ve got to understand that. Humanity is at war and as a result, all eternals, whether in a host or not, are destroyed on sight. Look, some have taken over people I have loved. When it comes down to it, we all have to do what we have to do for the greater survival of our species.”
Zane couldn’t help but feel a great loss. Then again, if what the man said was true, why was Mirko still alive? He couldn’t live without Zoltan.
“I will leave you to rest, my friend. I’m sure you’ve got many more questions. Besides, Tink wants to see you as soon as you’re on your feet. He’s a mighty fine looking man, that one, and you’re lucky to have his attention, I must say.”
Before Zane could answer, either with a groan or a nod, Kort left him. A door slammed with a metallic thud.
For the longest time silence, haunting and somewhat scary, was Zane’s only companion as he lay in the den of the human resistance. Then, from the corner of his eye, he was sure he saw movement in the darkness. Sure, he was on a makeshift bed, dim lights illuminating an otherwise dull and featureless room, but he was certain he wasn’t alone. Who would be in here with him? And more importantly, why? No one would know he was here, would they?
Zane tried to turn his head, to no avail. Immediately, a shadow came over him.
He gasped.
* * * *
Who is the other presence in the resistance recovery room with Zane? Is Motac truly dead? Are Tink and Mirko really safe? Or is all of this just another shadow eternal plot, an attempt to get Zane to reveal the whereabouts of more coalition eternals and seal humanities fate? All these questions and more will be answered in the next episode of the Diary of the Eternal War, Ripples in Time Eternal.
About the Author
I’m Mark and I live in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. By day I am a public servant, but by night, when I get in front of my computer, I can be anyone. I let my imagination go. I can go anywhere, from the farthest reaches of space, to the dilapidated house at the end of the street, and anywhere in between. I write about people from all walks of life, from teenagers finding out what it’s like to be an adult to adults who discover what it’s like to become a child once more. Characters move my stories just as much as they move me.
