by Hana Starr
Horule spat, and it came out as flame. He spoke as he transformed, his words garbled and forming a roar. “You are the only murderer here!” and then he lunged.
Rornak felt like he couldn’t move. His mind was still so utterly blank, and he was reeling from the information. Horule had been going behind his back for who knew how long, feeding information to these demons! Reporting upon their location, their secrets. All his selfless patrols were missions to share information with these invaders who took so much that he was willing to accept even the most vague and absurd explanations from them rather than face the truth.
He felt like a failure. He would deserve it if Horule ripped out his soft throat now, tore into his intestines and ripped him limb from limb.
But what about Nelly?
Nelly was a miracle, and so innocent in this matter.
He looked up. Horule’s front legs were outstretched, about to make contact, and then that would be it. His eyes were open, and his mouth trailed flame. The invaders were all still and silent, merely watching.
Rornak looked into those dark, tortured eyes, searching. One single moment stretched out for an eternity as he glimpsed the pain and sorrow, the regret held in those depths. And then he knew that Horule had only ever done what he thought was right.
I can only hope he didn’t give away all of our secrets.
He was angry no longer, but only one of them could come out of his alive. Would the same trick work twice?
There was only one way to find out.
As Horule collided with him, Rornak closed his eyes and shifted. Claws hit scales along his shoulder, sliding away uselessly as Rornak let himself go limp and sprawling. They churned in the air, and he felt claws lash out for his soft underbelly, leaving his opponent’s throat unguarded. He knew exactly where it was, and flicked up his protective pair of eyelids to protect his eyes from the spray as he grabbed Horule’s throat in his jaws and bit.
Burning warm gushed into his mouth, flavorless and hot. Horule thrashed, and his claws ripped, but there was no strength behind the blows as his long, broad body thrashed and then went still.
There was nothing but stillness in that moment, as though he had bit the throat of the world. Then, chaos. Weapons were lifted and fired. And Rornak fled for the secret tunnel, barreling straight through the line of attackers with his wings fluttering madly. He simply ran, his mind and his body joined as one so there was no separation. His heartbeat were his footsteps, and he knew not how he escaped or the extent of his injuries as he fled back into the world of stone far ahead of them. They may well have known the existence of every secret entrance and exit however, and so he kept running as fast as he could with his tail whipping around behind him. Even as the walls began to close in on him so that the scales at his shoulders were rubbed raw, and even when he had to struggle to move at all, he kept going.
At one point, a desperate struggle left him caught. He merely transformed and kept pushing his way through, knowing that he was near the exit now.
Almost as soon as he thought it, he saw the sliver of light and fell through it hard onto his side.
For a moment, he just lay there sobbing, and then he looked up and around. Where was Takla? Was she gone?
Looking out into the distance and blinking rapidly to cleanse the last of the white blood from his eyes, Rornak stared out at the long plain between here and his hiding place. There was nothing, no flapping wings, no dragon-shape and sled behind. Then where…
It was then that he smelled it.
Rising shakily to his feet, already grieving with hot tears steaming on his flushed face, Rornak pulled himself over to the small outcropping where their sleds were hidden. Both were smashed beyond repair, and there were splashes of white on every surface. He stepped in a puddle of heat, and finally forced himself to look down.
Takla lay there in her dragon form, mouth forever frozen into a snarl. Another sob escaped him as he saw what had been done to her from the neck down, her body riddled with the explosive holes caused by the invaders’ weapons. If not for her face, he would not have been able to identify this body.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I am so sorry. I apologize so much. My poor friend.”
Poor Takla, who would never have a chance to mate with the male of her choosing or to raise a chick, who would never fly again. He couldn’t bear to think of it. So much loss…
Transforming again, Rornak grabbed her body with his claws and prepared to slide himself beneath the carry her home when he remembered something he had been forgetting. Where was Nelly’s body?
His tongue flicked out, but he couldn’t scent anything. No more death, and no more sources of blood. Letting Takla slide gently from his shoulders, Rornak moved away from the mountain and began a search in a widening perimeter. Here and there he caught scent of her, but she herself was nowhere to be seen.
Only when he was so far distant from Takla’s white body that he could hardly make her out from the ice and stone, did he have to admit to himself what this meant. And his legs gave out with the realization, and he lay his cheek against the ground as despair washed over him.
Whoever had killed the youngest member of his group had also taken their only hope.
Chapter Nine
When Nelly woke, it was cold. Colder than cold. So cold that it was bitter, stinging her fingertips and biting at her toes. Something about that didn’t seem quite right, so she tried to tug her arms and legs in closer to her body and found that she couldn’t. There were bands of something hard and stiff around her ankles and wrists, preventing any movement.
Trying to open her eyes left her groggy, so she didn’t try again and just took stock of her situation as best she could. She was flat on her back, prone and spread-eagled while pinned to whatever hard surface was beneath her and pressing uncomfortable against her tailbone and shoulder blades. There were restraints on her, and she had obviously been wearing them for a bit because when she moved, she felt her skin chafe uncomfortable.
What happened to me?
It was so cold. She was shivering like crazy, and her nipples were like icicles which meant she was unclothed. Her whole body was just so numb that she could hardly feel anything…
She tried to open her eyes again, just a little. The ceiling was grey, which didn’t mean anything. However, the blue light did. The sight of it was soothing and yet alarming at the same time. If she was with the Akait, why was she so cold and why couldn’t she hear anything? She hadn’t been cold since she got here thanks to that neck device Rornak placed on her…
Her eyes opened all the way as it hit her exactly the kind of danger she was in. Pluto was deathly cold. No human could survive here for long, not even inside some sort of building like this…
“Please,” she whispered, unable to hear if she actually made a sound. Her eyelashes were frosting over, and the next time she blinked they stayed frozen shut. Her heart felt so slow…
A low voice spoke in a language she didn’t understand but was reasonably sure that she had heard it before. It wasn’t the language of the Akait that she had been learning, which was composed more of sound and intent; this was a string of guttural words voiced from deep within the back of the throat.
Nelly examined her body’s hysteria from a sheltered niche in her own mind, knowing that her shivers would quickly turn from convulsions to seizures if this kept up. And it was insane, almost laughable, but somehow she thought that the words sounded an awful lot like German.
It was the invaders, of course. There came a touch upon her body but it was so distant, she didn’t know if it was actually there at all.
She knew she was dying, but she had to try…
“Please,” she whispered again, lips hardly moving. “Please, the neck…device… You’re killing me…”
Perhaps that was what they wanted. Her consciousness began to go, slithering in and out. More voices joined in on the conversation, and there were more distant touches upon herself by large, flat hands
.
Begging again, wordless now. Her hands fluttering against the restraints. Darkness closed in around her, and she could swear that she felt herself die. It was like dropping through artic ice and into the dark waters below.
Hanging suspended, completely outside of herself.
And then, not so much. There was no telling how much time passed between losing herself and managing to find herself again, only that it was rather a long while. Turning her head, she felt metal move against her neck and felt a rush of relief. Everything was cold, but no longer so cold.
These idiots must have removed the device, figured out it was keeping her alive, and given it back only just in time from the feel of it.
Morons, Nelly thought disdainfully, and then passed out once more.
Chapter Ten
Waking up again was next to impossible. It simply didn’t want to happen. Nelly wavered in and out of a state of awareness, but her eyes wouldn’t open and her thoughts were drifting sideways like ice floes carried by the current. Everything she tried to think came out slightly wrong, as though someone who didn’t speak English was translating.
She wasn’t cold anymore, but her whole body was buzzing like a beehive. There was no other way to describe the all-over tingle that was nagging and infuriating, making her fists curl and grab at her surroundings as if she could somehow climb out of her own body. It was too much, too much sensation all at once and she didn’t know what to do with it or how to handle it. It was like her mind was splitting apart, like she was cracking in half. Was this insanity? All she knew was that she would rather die than feel this way, and it just went on and on and on forever!
Well, maybe forever was an exaggeration but it was certainly a hellish half-hour as her body adjust to awakening and the tingling died away to just at her extremities. Then and only then was she able to think and understand, still with her eyes squeezed shut tight because the rest of the situation wasn’t going to exist unless she was actually seeing it for herself, that it was the sensation of blood flow in her body returning to normal. The return of her temperature-regulating neck device was bringing her back to a proper and survivable situation, versus her very intimate brush with hypothermia, and that meant her body itself was waking up. The tingling was good, but damn it didn’t feel like that.
At least now she finally felt like she could open her eyes and deal with everything else going on around her.
Slowly, she peeled her eyes open all the way in a single blink and looked around to take in her new surroundings.
She had known they were new before opening her eyes, because there was a blanket beneath her body and no part of her was restrained. The air felt cold but it was no longer bothering her. Now, with her eyes open, she took careful stock of everything.
She was in a glass enclosure approximately ten-by-ten-by-ten. Perfectly square, it was enough for her to stretch out, stand up, and pace a bit and no more. There was the blanket beneath her –but it was a blanket! Not a fur! There were no identifying marks on it after a full examination however, and she quickly lost interest- and a tray near her feet that contained two cups. One appeared to be water, while the other was a grey sludge that smelled of too many things all at once: meat, gravy, vegetables, broth; obviously someone had blended a meal together and just poured it in a cup like a smoothie.
Retching a little, Nelly moved on but that was all she could see. Really, that was all there was. Opposite her was a rectangular line set in the glass, obviously a door without a knob.
There was no point to it, but she pushed herself up to her hands and knees and crawled over to the door, and then pushed at it. Naturally, it did not budge in the slightest and she slumped down, winded and wheezing as she took a look around outside of her new “home.” Her heart sank, because she knew this setup very well. In fact, had she not been the subject to be experimented upon, she would have been impressed with the lab around her. It was all very complex, with touchscreens everywhere and the most modernized equipment.
And there in the corner was a sample cart, fully decked out with vials, syringes, slides and a microscope, blood pressure cuff…Anything a scientist might need to study a new form of life, of which she saw several others around her in other tanks. None were as big as hers however, as the creatures were all of varying sizes. The largest resembled a four-foot-tall octopus with three faces, all of which were nearly lifeless with sadness and dejection.
Wait, Nelly thought rapidly, her heart starting to pound. She recognized all this stuff! Before, she had obviously been somewhere that belonged to the Akait because of the blue lighting but these were all human instruments.
Human. Earth technology. How…
Why?
What was going on?
She tried to turn around too quickly, and it made her dizzy. Then, another thought entered her mind. “Rory?”
It all came rushing back, everything she had been trying to hide from. She remember it all. Takla, the little white dragon who spoke so fondly of a certain male back in the hiding place, who was gruff and pure and hardworking, leaping at an enemy who ran up behind them. Bullets fired…
Bullets?
Where were all these human things coming from? Now she was panicking, her breath coming too fast, fearing that earth had been invaded as well. Was everywhere doomed? There was nowhere to hide! Everything she knew, everything she had just gotten used to, and everything she was hoping to go back home to…
A door in the lab opened, and people in white suits began to pour inside. There were at least a dozen, all of them speaking in the same gruff language she’d heard while freezing to death, and they all began to line up at the perimeter of her enclosure.
Nelly backed away and pressed her back against the wall, picking up the blanket and using it to cover herself as best she could, but it wasn’t enough. One of them pointed at her, and a muffled huffing sound came from behind the wide, dark visors which hid their faces.
Her face flushed with heat and she scowled at them, and then cringed as one tapped at the glass and made a rude gesture that was also somehow distinctly human. Some terrible form of understanding began to shape itself in her mind, but she couldn’t face it. Even considering the possibility made her feel so dreadfully close to insanity again that there was just no way to think about it for now.
Instead, breathing rapidly and watching the invaders bustle around and prepare for something that clearly involved her, she tried hard to think of Rornak. He couldn’t have died. That was impossible. Men like him never died, no matter the species. He was destined to rebuild his colony, to repair the city, and there was simply no other way that the scenario could go.
Which meant she would survive, too. They both would.
Grabbing onto that thought with both hands, Nelly tried to breathe deeper and to relax herself to prepare for anything that might come next. She was going to come out of this alive and better for it, just as she had worked her way through so many things in the past.
One of the suited invaders strode past her. Instinctively, she turned to watch him as he grabbed at the sample cart and started to wheel it over. Most of the other invaders backed away but for the one with the cart and two others. The rest positioned themselves at perches around the lab, either before touchscreens or else holding various cameras and recorders.
They spoke amongst themselves, with one invader in particular seeming to throw out questions which were then answered rapid as machinegun fire. A pause and then the speaker nodded and spoke again, giving his approval in a much more sedate tone while pressing something on his screen.
The glass door opened automatically, swinging outward on the tiniest of clear hinges.
Everything inside her screamed to run, but she knew she would never made it. She still felt as shaky as a newborn lamb and there was no way to get past those big, bulky suits standing right in her way even if she felt strong enough to get to her feet at all. Swallowing hard, Nelly just watched as the door swung behind them. Her already-tiny
enclosure had shrunk to the size of the head of a pin, and she was in very real danger of being poked and prodded.
These three did not need to speak to each other. Moving as twins, the two who were not behind the cart came at her from either side and grabbed her arms.
Her whole body seemed to explode! Screaming and clawing and thrashing, she struck out at their suits and put up as good a fight as she could with every single thing she had, kicking and hitting and even biting as their hands struggled for a grip. She was slippery as a fish, wriggling like crazy, but unfortunately she was also a curvy woman and had a good many places for the wrong hands to grab and hold on. And so she found herself squashed up against the glass so hard she couldn’t breathe with one of the enemies draped sideways across her whole body while the other had her arm.
