by Vivian Venus
“Come,” the man said, and he took her hand. The can of pepper spray clattered to the ground. Her hand felt tiny, engulfed by his armored gauntlet. He lifted her hand up, and only then did she notice her ring’s luminous glow. She thought he was going to kiss her hand, but he brought it up to his forehead and touched the gemstone to his skin. As it made contact, Heather felt a surge of energy move through her body, like she had been touched by an electric wire. Her hair lifted, and she realized her entire body was floating upwards. A light extended from the sky, engulfing the two of them, and her body was filled with warmth. They were floating, moving higher and higher above the concrete.
There was a deafening crack like a bolt of lightning.
A flash of pale blue light.
Blackness.
CHAPTER THREE
Rhys Vandell opened his eyes as he felt the stone beneath his feet. He looked up and saw the millions of stars spread over the night sky. At the horizon was the Elder Brother, the monstrous ringed yellow gas giant that shared the sky of both this moon and his home planet. He smiled. He had stepped through the portal and survived, and he had retrieved the prize. He had completed his rite of passage.
“What the hell?”
The girl yanked her hand from his and wheeled around, her eyes wide with shock. “What just happened? What is this place?”
“Quiet,” he said firmly. They had been transported back to the top of the temple, next to the now empty stone frame that had held the transportation portal.
“What the fuck is that!” the girl shouted in surprise, pointing at the decapitated corpse of the tentacled creature lying down at the base of the stone steps that led up to portal frame.
“Listen,” Rhys said. “There might be another one of those around, or worse, so you really should be quiet. That one was already hard enough to kill.
“Will you just please tell me what the hell is going on here? I was at home, then you smashed onto my roof. Then you came swinging that sword around and—”
Rhys held up a finger. “Shh. Follow me, hurry.”
He dashed down the steps and she followed him, cursing. At the bottom, he slid up next to a broken and crumbling low stone wall and put his back up to it. Heather slid up next to him. “Oh, God, what is that smell?” she whispered, covering her face.
“One of those,” Rhys said, pointing at the slain beast. “Only alive.”
“Alive?” she gasped.
Rhys pressed his finger to his lips and held a hand to her mouth. The girl’s eyes widened as the ground vibrated with the thunderous steps of some terrifying beast on the other side of the wall.
Taking on this second creature would not be easy with the girl slowing him down. He had already nearly lost his head taking on the first. Rhys felt a little rush of excitement. There was nothing better than a good challenge.
He tightened his hand around the grip of his sword and slowly drew it from its scabbard. The metal shimmered in the starlight, the yellow face of the Elder Brother reflecting off its polished surface. The feeling of the sword in his hand was so familiar it was like an extension of his own arm. He had practiced with it every day since he had first received it as a young boy, and today had been the first day its metal had been quenched with the blood of a foe.
“What are you doing,” the girl hissed. “You’re not going to—”
Rhys leapt to his feet and vaulted over the wall. The giant beast lumbered on four clawed legs, its body covered in a mass of squirming tentacles, each tipped with an undulating maw of yellow fangs. Its head was covered with glowing red eyes on stalks, and they turned to zero in on him.
A shiver ran down Rhys’ back. Ugly fucking thing.
He charged. The beast let out a piercing shriek and shot its appendages out at him, the ends reaching to grab him and rip him apart. Rhys dove to the side, dodging and rolling. He swung his blade in a clean arc above him, severing two of the arms in mid-air. He rose and spun around, narrowly avoiding another tentacle. He swung his sword down and severed it, then he charged at the beast.
Suddenly he felt his feet being pulled from under him and he smashed face down onto the ground. He twirled over and sliced the tentacle that had grabbed his leg. The beast reared back and charged at him, sending out a mass of its arms to grab him. He rolled away and bolted up, just narrowly dodging as they slammed into the stone ground.
An opening!
Rhys spotted a way in to the beast’s foul neck and he charged, his sword drawn high.
“Look out!!”
He sensed the sneak attack too late – the creature had created the opening to lure him in! Tentacles reached from around his blind spot and he felt impact on his torso plate. His body flew through the air, his sword wrenched from his hands.
The ground rushed to him. The air escaped his lungs. He saw his blade clatter to the stone, too far to reach.
Shit.
His lungs burned as they filled with air, and he pulled himself to his feet. The beast turned to Heather, alerted by her yell. He looked to his sword – could he close the gap in time?
No time to think. He bolted for it. The beast charged barreling down at Heather, its tentacles writhing wildly in the air.
Rhys couldn’t believe what he saw next.
The girl leapt over the stone wall, and with deft precision she evaded the creature like she could see each of its movements coming from a mile away. She leapt and sprinted and dodged, its snapping appendages reaching into the empty space where her body stood just a second prior.
Her eyes were wide, like she couldn’t believe what she was doing. She somersaulted on the ground, snatching up Rhys’ fallen sword.
“Take it!” she screamed, and she flung the blade through the air.
Rhys leapt for it. His hand caught handle, and he hit the ground running, blade primed. The creature was distracted, infuriated and confused at its inability to catch the girl.
He let out a mighty roar and swung, the blade whistling down in a deadly arc. Its edge bit flesh, and the muscles in his arm tensed and flexed to push the cut through. His blade was sharp, and his arm was strong. The sword passed through the beast’s neck. Its head fell to the ground in a splatter of black red liquid. Moments later, the body tumbled over, lifeless.
Sweat dripped down Rhys’ face as he steadied his breathing. He turned to look at the girl. Her face was splattered with the creature’s blood, her eyes still wide in shock. Swinging his sword in a quick downward arc, Rhys flung the blood off the blade.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, walking over to her. She didn’t respond. Her shoulders were trembling and her eyes were locked on the creature’s headless body.
“Hey.” He grabbed her shoulders, turning her and looking deep into her eyes. Who was this girl? From her shocked reaction, this had to have been her first battle. She didn’t have the build of someone who trained with weapons, but looking at her long, toned legs, Rhys knew that she had some physical training. But how was she able to evade the attacks the way she did? He had only seen that level of foresight in master warriors who had trained their eyes to see even the smallest movement of the muscles in order to predict attacks.
“Are you hurt?” he repeated. She blinked and shook her head.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice weak.
“What’s your name?” Rhys asked.
“H-Heather. Heather Clemens,” she answered. He felt her relaxing, coming back to her senses. He let her go.
“Heather Clemens,” he said. “Rhys Vandell. Now let’s go, before more of those things come around.”
He turned to leave.
“Wait. Wait,” Heather said, grabbing his arm. “What’s going on? Where the hell are we?”
Rhys had been raised his entire life preparing for this day – his rite of passage. Every member in his family had completed this rite, and he had heard countless stories of the deed, especially from his father and grandfather. When they were his age they were all given a mission from the oracle: to tr
ek into the sacred moon temple and step through the ancient portal, defeating the beasts that guarded the pathway there.
“You mean you don’t know?” Rhys said.
“How the hell would I know?!”
“My apologies. I’d never known that a prize could connected to a person before.”
“What prize? Would you start making sense already?”
“This place is called the Younger Sister. It’s the forest moon of the planet Van-Raspharion, where my homeland is. The portal brought me to you, meaning you, or at least the ring on your finger, are the fated prize that I am tasked to return to the oracle in order for me to receive the rite of the dragon shift.”
“What? Okay, can’t you just, I don’t know, open up that portal again and toss me back through?”
“No,” he said. “The portal only opens once every week. Besides, there would be no way to know where it would take you.”
“Jesus,” Heather said. “I’m fucking stuck here?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Heather ran closely behind Rhys as lead them down the pyramid-like temple, past the defeated bodies of bizarre and terrifying looking creatures.
Aliens are real, and I’ve been kidnapped by one of them.
That thought was somehow less strange to her than what she had experienced going up against that monster. She had watched from behind the rock as Rhys had fought the thing, when he was knocked to the ground. At that moment she had felt a strange sensation in her head, like the feeling she had when she did readings only much stronger. In her mind she saw the creature grabbing Rhys and ripping him apart, and then she saw a way she could defeat it. Her body acted almost on its own, running as if it were purely on instinct. She could see where to go, what to do to avoid the monster’s attacks, and when she reached the sword she saw herself throwing it to Rhys, and him cutting the creature down. So she repeated the action, exactly as it had felt in her head.
“There,” Rhys said, pointing. “My ship, the Fang and Claw.”
Up ahead she saw a large metal vessel, its long body paneled and intricate like Rhys’ armor plating. The front had a glass cockpit like an airplane, but the thing was wingless and sat on four large turbine-like things, almost like a quad-copter.
Rhys grabbed a handle protruding from the hull, and there was a click and hiss as latches within the metal unlocked and turned. The handle pushed in and turned, and a door appeared. Rhys grabbed it and pulled it open, lifting himself onboard. He turned around and extended a hand to help Heather up. With a strong pull he hoisted her up with one arm like she weighed nothing, sending her into him. Rhys caught her with his other arm, pulling her close to prevent her from falling. He was so tall and built, she felt tiny in his arms.
Heather felt her face going red.
“Don’t get so excited,” he said.
“Excuse me?” Heather said, pushing away from him. “I’m not getting excited.”
Rhys laughed and pulled the door closed, then turned a latch to seal it shut. “Sit,” he said, pointing to a pair of chairs up at the cockpit. “We’re leaving.”
The cabin was crafted from dark metal and an organic material that looked like lacquered wood. It was all quite intricate and designed, like the outside of the ship. Heather fumed and sat down in one of the chairs as Rhys unbuckled the fasteners of his chest armor. He hit a button on the wall and a panel opened to reveal a storage space, and he removed the armor and placed it inside. He then pulled off his gauntlets and placed them in their space, and then pulled off the skin tight black cloth tunic he wore beneath.
Holy shit!
Heather couldn’t help but look – the guy’s muscles were huge, chiseled and defined. Scars crossed his skin, all over his arms and chest and rippling abs.
He pulled out a clean white tunic and pulled it over his head, and then walked up to the front of the ship. Heather turned her gaze, pretending she hadn’t been staring.
“Heather,” Rhys said.
“What?” she answered, trying to play it cool. God, I hope he didn’t just see me staring at him.
“You’re in my seat.”
“Oh.” She quickly stood up and switched to the other seat, and Rhys sat down, hitting some buttons and pulling some levers on the panel in front of him. A display lit up across the glass cockpit window, the image materializing in the air like it was comprised of a million tiny points of light becoming denser until it made up a holographic form.
“Wow,” she whispered. “That is super cool.”
Rhys flicked a few more switches, and the ship began to vibrate as the engines kicked to life. Outside, the four turbines glowed with blue energy, and as he slowly pushed forward on a control handle the ship lifted off the ground and floated upwards into the sky. He then clicked a button, and she was jolted back into her seat as the ship rocketed forward and upward, racing towards the stars. Flashes of flame crossed against the cockpit window, and an alarm chime sounded out. Heather squeezed the armrests of the seat for dear life.
The ship’s acceleration slowed, and Heather peeled herself off from the seat. “Holy shit,” she laughed.
Rhys laughed with her. “You don’t have these where you’re from?” he said.
“Not like this.” She looked out the window at the blanket of stars. Rhys touched the controls, and the ship turned bringing the Younger Sister, the purple moon they had just left, into view.
“Oh, wow.”
Behind it sat the gigantic ringed yellow planet, its surface swirling with turbulent gas clouds. “That is the Elder Brother,” he said. “And if you look off there—” he pointed out into space, and the holographic display shifted, highlighting a blue orb between the Younger Sister and the Elder Brother, “—you can see our destination. My planet, Van-Raspharion.”
He moved his hand and the display expanded, magnifying the planet. It looked almost like earth, covered in oceans with blue clouds and sprawling continents. “And that’s my country,” he said pointing. “Raspharion.”
Heather was too overwhelmed to speak. How could any of this be real? Just a few hours ago she was hanging out with Rachel, enjoying a glass of wine… Oh, God. Rachel.
Suddenly the fortunes all made sense.
Why did this happen to me?
She looked at her ring, and remembered when her grandmother had given it to her as a little girl. Wear it always, she had said. And it will bring you hope when you think you have none.
She felt the blue gemstone’s smooth, cool surface. I could use some hope right now.
“Well, our destination is set,” Rhys said. “We have some time ‘til we arrive. If you’d like, you can wash up in the back.” He smiled. “Unless you like being covered in blood.”
Heather touched her face, suddenly remembering she had been sprayed when Rhys had cut down the tentacle creature.
“It’s probably not my worst look,” she said. “But I’ll take you up on the offer.”
“Right back there,” he said, pointing. “Unfortunately it’s not very private. But I promise, I won’t look.”
“Can I really trust a guy who just kidnapped me from my planet?”
He shrugged. “Trust me, I’m not so happy about you being here either. It would’ve been so much easier if you had just given me the ring.”
“Why the hell didn’t you just ask me for it then?!”
“Didn’t want to chance it. Maybe I needed you as well. Anyway, from the way you constantly are touching that thing I somehow doubt you would’ve given it up.”
Heather clenched her fists. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so mad. “Hey, listen, buddy. I saved your life back there, remember?”
“You would’ve gotten ripped to shreds if you hadn’t gotten me my sword.”
“Ugh.” She turned and stormed off to the back of the ship.
In the back was a rectangular metal tub about the size of a large bathtub. The floor surrounding it was porous, covered in tiny holes. The inside of the tub was completely smooth, an
d Heather looked around it trying to figure out how to turn it on.
“The way you’re looking at that thing, I’d think you’d never had a bath before,” Rhys called from the front.
“I thought you said you wouldn’t look,” she shouted back.
“Right in front of you. Touch it,” he said.
Heather ran her fingers along the edge of the tub, and to her surprise a series of buttons raised up from the metal.
