by Kate Rudolph
Until she heard the clang.
Stella shot up, banging her head against a piece of stone overhang that she couldn’t see. She couldn’t see anything. And the only thing she could hear was the echo of her breathing, the sound bouncing strangely off the walls all around her.
What was going on?
She looked towards the tunnel opening, but where she’d been able to glimpse the sky before she went to sleep, now all she saw was darkness. She could have poked her own eye out and still not seen her finger.
“Hello?” she called out, though she didn’t know whether she wanted anyone to respond. Her voice echoed away from her, spinning down the hallway she could recall seeing before she fell asleep. She couldn’t have been asleep for long. Her bones still ached with the weight of all she’d been through and her stomach was a knot of hunger. And worry.
Actually, mostly worry at this moment.
She trailed her fingers along the wall she’d just banged into and took cautious steps toward where she knew the opening to the woods must be. Perhaps the nights on this planet plunged into total darkness, the sun failing to illuminate any moon. But that didn’t seem right to Stella, not that she was any planetary expert.
Even though she couldn’t see, her other senses were in perfect working order, and she was almost certain that where there’d been an opening a few hours ago, now there was nothing but solid wall. Thus the clang. A door slamming shut.
Why?
Her fingers traced a curve in the wall and she turned, following down on careful feet. The ground had seemed mostly level earlier, but she couldn’t risk getting hurt when she had no supplies to fix herself back up and no light to see by. She walked for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, and at the pace she was moving, she doubted she’d covered more than twenty meters. But there should have been an opening, and all she felt was the wall.
Stella traced her steps back and sat down near where she’d slept, hands shaking. Okay, she thought to herself, scared to speak out loud again. This is not great. But maybe it’s on a timer. Maybe they close them at night and open them at sunrise.
If she’d been asleep for hours, that could be any time now. But it was the sound of the doors closing that woke her up, which meant she might have hours and hours of darkness until the doors opened again.
If they opened again.
No, she couldn’t think like that. That way lay despair, and once she gave into despair, she might as well sit down and rot. And Stella was scared, but she wasn’t ready to die. She was going to make it out of this tunnel, off of this planet, and back to the civilian fleet, and she was going to do it in time to watch the basketball final back home.
The decision to survive did little to stop her hands from shaking, but at least her teeth didn’t chatter any more. The closed door made the room a bit warmer—not quite pleasant, but she doubted she was at risk of freezing to death. At least she wouldn’t freeze quickly.
Shut up, she told her thoughts. If her brain wasn’t going to help, she needed to ignore it. Humans had survived through much worse conditions than a single cold, dark night. She could handle this.
Somewhere ahead of her, rocks tumbled to the ground and Stella froze.
She wasn’t alone.
AREST LEFT THE GIRL sleeping by the entrance to the cave alone. She was huddled in close to the wall, her skin glowing from the bright moonlight. Unlike the man back at the ship, he felt no threat from her, and when he paused to look at her, the swirling void in his head calmed into a fist of ordered chaos for a moment.
Woman.
He’d known women before, and not all of them were friends. But he wanted to lie down next to this one and give her some of his warmth, to hold her close and keep her safe. She smelled of the same wreckage he’d escaped from, but her walk through the forest to get here had overlaid her scent with something woodsy and ancient. He breathed deep, drinking in the smell of her along with the musty scent of the cave.
Bad.
He jerked back as something foul tickled his nose. Not the woman. This smell was old and deep and dangerous. This was something that fed on the creatures in the bowels of these caves and spit out bones and blood. Something that this woman needed protection from.
Arest moved on, running deep into the system, his eyes adjusting to the encroaching darkness. But every step he took away from her tried to pull him back. He blocked that out. Danger lurked and he needed to find it, needed to end it so that she was safe, so that he could find her once more and show her that nothing here would harm her.
He hadn’t left the chamber when the air changed. Rotten fish and oil tickled his nose and something scratched along the floor on the other side of the chamber.
Near the woman.
It hadn’t been there only moments before, but Arest didn’t take time to think. Instinct crashed over him, sublimating all thought until he was nothing but furor and death. He sprang across the distance, rolling into an open space and staying crouched low. His senses were open, waiting. The woman still huddled in her corner, her body stiff with fear. But the sound from whatever monster lurked in the dark hovered just this side of silent, barely louder than a rat’s scurry.
The air moved, a whisper against his skin, but Arest flowed with it, following the currents with a predator’s silence. His claws connected with a scrap of flesh and it tore, his prey letting out a belabored bellow, but bounding back before Arest’s claws could sink deep and do damage.
No light shone here and whatever Arest fought used that to its advantage, blending into the deepest shadows where not even a hint of movement could be seen.
Arest knew that he’d fought blind before, though he didn’t know how he knew that. The past was too much of a blur.
The stench shifted, and Arest’s gaze narrowed in on another corner. His prey had moved silently, but nothing was silent enough to evade him for long. His lips drew up in a sharp facsimile of a smile and his blood sang. The woman was out of danger for the moment.
Now he didn’t need to play nice.
His ears found the creature and tracked it as if by sight. The thing was trying to scurry into the wall, into a crack that Arest hadn’t seen. But he would not let this creature get away. Especially not when it might summon more and put the woman and Arest in danger. No, this ended now.
Using a trick he’d learned long ago and ultra-light feet, Arest crept up on his enemy and finished it in swift movements, killing it before it knew that it was dead. The only evidence of the violence was Arest’s own heavy breathing, the thump of the body against the floor, and the putrid smell of the blood that poured out of the thing’s wounds.
A slip of movement behind him alerted Arest that the woman was getting up, but he remained over the creature and investigated the little hole. Was that how he’d entered this chamber? He hadn’t come in through the hallway. There were no sounds or scents coming from there. That didn’t make it safe, but for the moment it posed no threat.
The thing beneath him was mostly naked, covered in scraps that might have once been clothes. Whether it’d worn them for so long that they’d rotted off, or it’d scavenged them from its victims, Arest couldn’t know. He felt around the hole in the wall and was satisfied that not much could get through. As an extra precaution, he wedged his victim into it and blocked it off as best he could. Rocks might have made a better boundary, but he’d need to see to do that work.
Footsteps pounded behind him and Arest turned. The woman was gone.
CHAPTER THREE
STELLA RAN BLINDLY, both literally and figuratively. She could barely see the hallway in front of her face and even if she could, she’d have no idea where it led. But she had to get away. The scary monsters, creatures, animals, or whatever they were, had fought. One had killed the other, she was sure, based on that final sudden scuffle and the horrible smell that had flooded her little sleeping chamber.
Why had she hidden here? Why hadn’t she stayed by the ship where
rescue crews were sure to find her? Why was she so stupid?
A sob tore out of her throat and her fingers came away wet when she wiped at her eyes.
What kind of planet had monsters living in caves? For the first time since she crashed, she wished that this planet had been a barren wasteland, incapable of sustaining life. At least then she wouldn’t have to hide from invisible threats and deal with caves that trapped her when all she wanted was a little shelter. Was that really so much to ask?
She tried to suck in deep breaths, but she was running too fast and her lungs were overworked. Bile rose in her throat and she was afraid she was going to puke. Or pass out. Stella forced herself to slow down. As she slowed, she came to a fork in the path and solid rock blocked her from continuing forward. Only then did she realize that the light was getting better.
She hoped that meant she was moving towards an unblocked opening. Without pausing to think, she turned right, towards the brighter of the two paths. Even if it didn’t lead to an escape, she’d take a little bit of light. She’d happily trade one of her candy bars for a flashlight at the moment.
The light was getting brighter and Stella slowed even more. Once her feet stopped pounding, she couldn’t hear anyone behind her and came to a complete stop. Fatalism crushed her. Either her pursuer would catch up or not. She was too tired to do anything but move slowly. Her heart beat a hundred times faster than it should have and she could barely gulp down a breath.
When she’d joined up with the civilian fleet she’d been looking for more excitement in her life. Now she’d happily go back to the boring drudgery of LA if it didn’t involve ship crashes and scary monsters.
She looked behind her, but if the survivor from earlier trailed her, he wore darkness like a suit. She could feel something back there using some sense that her ancestors who’d evolved in the caves of Earth had used for survival. Never before had she needed it, but now it was the only thing that kept her alive. And sane. She needed her wits now, and every bit of survival instinct that lived deep within her. There were monsters in these hallways and she didn’t want to be dinner.
She moved on soft feet, carefully walking on the balls of her feet and leaving her knees soft, ready to sprint or jump. The light got closer, a weak but steady stream at the end of this interminable tunnel. How long had she been walking? How long had she been stuck here? Her fear said days, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour or so.
The hallway narrowed around her and as the light grew stronger she became more sure in her conviction that this was a hallway and not a cave passage. The walls were smooth, almost flat to the touch, and they met at angles at the roof and the floor. It was all solid stone, but this had been carved by machine. It didn’t look like a mine, either. If someone bothered to lay a carpet down on the ground, she might think she was in an office basement.
Strange.
Her critique of the decor cut off when she made it to the source of light. Despite her hope, nothing seemed to lead outdoors. But there was a small cylinder wedged into a crack in the wall. It was small enough that she could wrap her hand around it, and one quick tug pulled it out.
The light didn’t shut off. In fact, it looked a little bit like one of the flashlights she so dearly needed. Unlike what she was used to back home, there wasn’t a power button and the light bulged out, illuminating a bubble of space around her rather than a straightforward beam. It meant that she had more light within arm’s reach, but she couldn’t make anything out more than a few meters away.
Still, it was much better than what she’d had before.
Stella pointed her flashlight at the crevice that she’d grabbed it from, trying to see if there was a power source or anything else she could pry out. She didn’t know why the light was there and it worried her to think that someone else might have abandoned it.
But it didn’t worry her enough to put it back.
When she couldn’t find anything useful, she continued down the hallway. Now that she had light, it didn’t seem so scary. The sound of her breathing and echoing steps made her twitchy, and she wished there was some kind of comforting ambient noise. But the light made the quiet less terrifying. Only a little less terrifying, true, but every bit helped.
When the hallway forked again, she went right since it had worked so well the last time. The hallway crawled on and on, and there was no light at the end of this tunnel.
But there was a door.
Stella let out a whoop of joy and shimmied from side to side, doing her happy dance. Yes! Just what she needed. She took a steadying breath and stood there for a moment, basking in her good fortune.
Or stalling. She really hoped this wasn’t a supply closet.
She pressed her ear up to the dark metal surface and tried to hear beyond it, but the door was thick and heavy and all she heard was her own heartbeat.
She reached out a hand to test the handle and it took a moment for her to figure out how it worked. This wasn’t an Earth door and it didn’t act like any of the doors on the ship either. But when she found a little latch and flipped it up, a small depressor sprung out and Stella figured all she had to do was press it down and she’d be in.
Wherever “in” was.
Air rushed up around her and she jerked her head back, but she was already moving. The punch of a body slammed into her, rocking through her as the air whooshed out of her lungs.
“Bad!” came the guttural cry of the beast on top of her. He held her carefully, cradling her head so she didn’t bang it against the wall. But when she struggled to sit up, he kept her down, not even straining as she put as much of her weight into it as she could. But he had all the leverage.
Was he one of the monsters she’d seen fighting earlier? The one who hadn’t died?
He pulled back, not quite letting her up, but giving her space to breathe. Stella wedged her light in between them as if it might serve as a weapon or a shield, something to keep her safe. What she saw stole her breath.
He was a man, but not. He might have been human once, but now his skin had turned almost as purple as an Oscavian warrior. His hair was cropped short and kept dark. Claws protruded from his index and middle fingers, and from her angle, he looked nearly seven feet tall. He was all muscle and strength and devastatingly blue eyes.
Stella could barely breathe, but the air she dragged into her lungs carried him with it. She caught a hint of the creature he’d battled in the entrance to the tunnels, and the charred remains of the crash she’d run from. But under that he was pure male, salt and sweat and something she wanted to sink her teeth into.
Huh?
Stella scuttled back and stood, placing a hand on the wall behind her and moving slowly, deliberately. She didn’t want to scare him and send him into attack mode, not when he was watching her with that terrifying intensity.
He still had a hand on her arm and his fingers were like fire, but in a strangely soothing way. She realized he had a bag strapped to one shoulder, which seemed odd. When Stella pulled all the way back, she felt cold and wanted to reach for him again, but she forced herself to stay still.
“What’s bad?” she asked. In the silence of the tunnel, her words wrapped around them, creating an intimate little world where only the two of them existed.
He sucked in a deep breath and nodded towards the door. “Bad,” he repeated.
Okay, he didn’t like something about the door. Did it lead outside? Was he trying to keep her in here so he could... have company? But he was staying still and not moving to take her. Had he stopped her to protect her?
“Why is it bad?” she asked. And if he was so certain, should they really be standing outside the door and talking about the danger?
The man opened his mouth, revealing teeth a little too sharp to be human. They weren’t quite fangs, but they could definitely tear her apart. His face scrunched up and pure frustration poured out of his throat as he looked at her, like he wished she could understand. Finally he scrunched up his face like
he smelled a dirty diaper and waved a hand in front of it. “Bad.”
“It smells bad?” She couldn’t tell, but her nose had never been the greatest.
The man nodded, eyes lighting up as she caught on.
“Can you understand me?” she asked, eyes narrowed. Subdermal translators were common across the galaxy and Stella’s could handle nearly a thousand languages. She could also speak Interstellar Common, the common language in space. But right now she spoke English, which meant he had a translator or he’d been to Earth.
The purple man nodded again.
“Can you speak?”
AREST WANTED TO HOWL in frustration at the woman’s questions. Death and decay emanated from the door and here she was trying to force him to do something he couldn’t remember. His mouth had no trouble figuring out bad, but he couldn’t manage much else.
Now that the woman was awake and facing him, he had time to study her. Unlike him, her skin was a pale beige. Human. Long dark hair fell in tangled waves over her shoulders and soulful, scared brown eyes stared at him like he might bite at any moment. Her black shirt was torn at one shoulder and it was covered in dirt. He noticed the swell of her breasts even as he knew he shouldn’t stare, some old instinct urging him to tear his eyes away.
Instead, he wanted to touch.
She cleared her throat and Arest dragged his gaze back up, startled to see even more fear. She breathed deep and pulled her shoulders back, adding to her height and somehow appearing even more vulnerable than before. He wanted to comfort her, but he forced himself to step back, to put a little bit of room between them.
The chaos of his mind was calm now and he didn’t know why. Was it this woman? Was it that he was sated from the kill? The past remained a swirling blur, but for the moment he could think.
He placed a hand on his chest. “Arest,” he said, giving her his name. “Safe.”
