“What do you think?” smiled Ben, “been working on this for years, fixed up with salvage washed ashore and alien tech,” As I took a closer look the air craft seemed to become more alien. I could see that the black paint and green graphics covered the mix of bolts and pieces that had been sewn together. “This flies?” I asked nervously. “Of course!” Ben said motioning to one of the engineers in the cavern to ready the airstrip, “and we are going to take off in ten minutes so prepare yourself for flight!”
I had flown only a few times in my life. Few times had been in anything smaller then a passenger plane. Ben who had come from a time before flight had taken a huge interest in the subject after learning of the Wright brothers and discovering from other cast aways the wondrous changes that had taken place in history. Unfortunately the ability to build your own aircraft does not make one automatically a great pilot. From the moment we launched out of the cave it seemed as if Ben had no idea what he was doing even after he reassured me that he was the best human pilot on the island. He was probably correct but that was simply because there were no pilots on the island.
One hour and fifty two minutes in flight I could see the mountain in which the oracle lived. In the distance to my right I also saw a massive city made from ruins that looked like the skyline of LA. The city was surrounded by fires and more ruins that looked like spacecraft to me. I began to feel more and more as if I had entered some kind of virtual world and some game developer was messing with my mind. She pinched herself again to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming or in some kind of a trance. At that same moment two alien fighters came out of the clouds. Poor Ben didn’t stand a chance.
PART 4
We crashed hard against the surface of the ground. Somehow I was fine. Ben however didn’t make it out alive. The aliens were coming for me. I could hear them in the woods. They didn’t bother with stealth they must have known they had the advantage. Greater numbers. What would they do? My mind raced again. I ran through the woods as fast as my feet would carry me. I ran until I felt the soles of my shoes break and my feet begin to bleed. Never in my life had I ran so far and so fast. I was nearly out of breath when I began to approach the mountain that held the oracle. We had crashed relatively close. Without question I began to climb. I saw a small cave on the side of the mountain and began making my way towards it. I hoped to god that Ben had been telling the truth that ‘the others’ would leave this place alone. Perhaps they would make an exception to hunt me though. The lone human that ventures into the dark, into the unknown. I couldn’t stop now.
I felt something slip. A rock from my hand. I started to fall but gathered the strength to pull myself up. Never in my life had I done something so demanding of my body. I could feel my muscles getting more and more sore as I inched my way to the threshold of the cave. I must have looked like quite a mess. Covered in torn clothing, mud, tears of blood had fallen from the scratches that seemed to have just appeared on my body. I could feel them following me. As if there eyes were watching me. I imagined them gathering below me debating in whatever tongue they spoke whether they should climb. They probably could have easily waited me out. If there was an oracle here I doubt they would be very hospitable or looking to keep company.
I made it to the entrance of the cave. There before me I saw what looked like something from another world. The inside of the cave was lit up with lights. Real lights. I felt like I was looking down the hallway of the inside of some kind of prestige laboratory. No. Strike that. It was like I was staring down the inside of something from NASA. The inside of a spaceship. My vision began to blur. I felt one of the creatures push me down to the ground. They had appeared behind me. They had made their choice. They were coming after me. ‘Get up,’ I cried to myself as I tried to move. My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Never in my life had I felt so weak. So helpless. The creature looked like a daemon.
My body had been beaten. I was scared. Lonelier then I had ever been but there you were smiling at me. Maybe I was. If this is some bad dream then why won’t it just end. I am hurting. I have been here a month. Trapped inside a tiny cell alone with a toilet and blanket. There was no oracle. Some nights I use the blanket as a bed but most nights I wrap it around myself for warmth. There is always food waiting for me when I wake up but it always seems like it magically appears there. Once I tried to stay up just so I could see who was keeping me prisoner. I heard other prisoners call them daemons. The words purgatory and limbo echoed throughout the halls. I can hear the voices of the other prisoners as they cry at night. Sometimes there is a scream. My door has no lock on it. I have opened it a few times but this place just seems like some kind of maze. The last thing I want is to be caught with an open door. What would they do to me then? I thought for a moment I caught a glimpse of you. You were older. If I had to guess I would say four or five years older then you were when you died. I was naked laying in a pool of water. On the bad nights the prison cells flood with about an inch of water from all sides. You were singing to me. I couldn’t hear the words but I knew I could see your lips moving. Whenever you sang your face always looked a certain way. I couldn’t make out anything you were saying. There were other times. Perhaps I was hallucinating. I had become so lost since the day I died. You always looked at me like I was sleeping. Then there was that day. The day I looked at you and you looked at me like I was some kind of ghost. You told me you were coming for me. That you wouldn’t give up. You said, ‘as long as I’m alive, as long as I’m alive I’m going to survive this, I’m going to rescue you Vee, I’m going to wake you up.’ That was the moment everything changed for me.
Daemon
Rifle gone. Nothing but my pistol left. One clip. Probably no way I could fire a shot without giving away my position anyway. The daemon was nowhere to be seen. Night had fallen.No word from the others either. Where they dead? Did they leave me? No. I couldn’t think like that. We wouldn’t leave one of our own behind. Michael sure as hell wouldn’t leave me behind.
I was lucky to have survived the fall. My shoulder was dislocated. That was easy enough to fix all I had to do was find wall. Lucky for me I was looked straight up at the dark grey hull of the moon rabbit. I could hear gun fire in the air. The smell of forests burning. There was a fire south of me. I could see the light reflecting on the top of the starship’s hull. Something was going on. Something had gone terribly wrong.
I moved towards the sound and the blazing flames. My legs were tired. I felt like I had been unconscious for hours. I could feel the heat of the burning forests against my skin, the smell of daemons, sulfur stood out in the air against the burning embers of wood and leaves. When I finally reached the edge of the moon rabbit and could see into the distance I saw Emily. She was going supernova surrounded by a group of daemons. Her powers were like that of a god. She moved through them shredding them to pieces burning them like they were pieces of paper. She was unmatched. More and more came out after her. They seemed to never end. They were smaller then the ones that were attacking Earth. They looked weaker but they had numbers. They were a horde.
I aimed down the sight of my pistol. There was little I could do but sit and stare. There was no way I could reach out to her and she didn’t need my help dealing with the predators that surrounded her. Suddenly her human body began to take a toll on her. I could see the tears rolling down her eyes even as she stood there ablaze. Her suit had been made to withstand the heat. Specifically designed for her by the U.E.D but there were parts of it that were burning. She was losing control. The more she pushed herself the hotter she became. I knew she had been the one to set the forest on fire. Was it a desperate attempt to drive the creatures out or had something else gone wrong? Where were the others? I had enough information to figure out that while we were gathering intel on the ship we were attacked. I was pushed out the window by two daemons. Did they make quick work of everyone else? Had there been more than two? I had so many questions running through my head. I could feel a pounding in my
skull. I had a concussion.
I began firing. I’m not sure why. I didn’t think it would actually do much good. I didn’t expect to even hit any of the daemons but I did. All the training had paid off. It was like instinct taking over my body. From the darkness I killed them. One after the other as they made their way towards Emily. Her fire began to burn out. She seemed invincible but she was not. I stood my ground for as long as I could and began to run towards her.
“Light them up,” I shouted as another horde began moving in on her. Her skin began to glow blue. So hot that her suit began to tear away. She looked straight at me and held up her hand telling me to stop running towards her. I took cover and watched from behind a burned piece of debris as she went supernova.
A fire came out from her body surrounding her. At first it was orange and red then it turned blue and green. Finally it turned a hazy purple as it spiraled out around her. I felt the world slow down. My super power so far was the worst. First I was falling in slow motion and now I felt like I was going to slowly burn to death. The horde was swallowed by her flames. She fell to the ground like a bird with a broken wing. I could see the tears in her eyes as she was falling as they were caught up in the wind. She gasped for air one more time and then slowly began to turn to dust. I began reaching out towards her as she reached out towards me. The fire was still spiraling around us. I could feel it coming closer. I was about to become swallowed by her flames.
The debris around me shook and formed a shield. Time sped up again. Back to normal. I couldn’t see Emily anymore only the dark grey barrier in front of me that appeared out of nowhere. I could see it was protecting me as I heard the flames hit it again and again. I could smell the metal burning on the other side as it poured down against the debris. More barriers began to appear. Again and again. They began to surround me like a fortress. When the fire stopped the barrier disappeared crumbling away just as quickly as it appeared. Emily stood there in the dust surrounding her. A daemon appeared picking what was left of her up and carrying her away. I began firing immediately.
“Not necessary,” I heard. The voice sounded mumbled like it was being shouted inside a small tin can. it was Todd. Todd had made the barrier that protected me from the fire. He was wearing a large suit of battle armor that looked thrown together by the same debris that he had used to create the barrier.
“My power armor, not too bad right?” he said.
“What’s going on?” still trying to figure out what had happened back on the moon rabbit.
“That’s a long story,” he said.
“Why did you let that daemon take Emily?” I shouted.
“That wasn’t a daemon,” he said from the inside of his tin can.
“What was it then?” I shouted again. I was losing my patients.
“That was Michael, he saved you earlier, now he’s going to try and save Emily, Cassandra is waiting for us inside the rabbit, follow me,” he said.
We made our way back towards the entrance to the moon rabbit. The forests around us were still burning giving off plenty of light so that we could see. The rabbit seemed older somehow. I began to feel like I had missed something the first time. Small pieces of the hull were beginning to rot away, rusting in the alien atmosphere that surrounded us. Something was different about Todd too. How had he become so powerful? Before making our way to this hellscape he never would have been strong enough to create a working piece of armor that surrounded him. Slowly we trekked inside. I didn’t say a word. I knew all my questions would be answered soon enough.
We made our way through the hallways of the rabbit and entered a chamber set just below the bridge. It looked like it had been some kind of medical bay but there was something more threatening about it. It was some kind of laboratory. The devices that surrounded us weren’t for healing, they were for studying. Tearing apart the daemons and finding their weaknesses. There were a few back on Earth. Most of these places were in Europe or deep underground. The kind of secret labs that people don’t really talk about. I had nightmares about them.
The inside of the ship had working lights.
They flickered on and off like clockwork every few minutes.
Every time they went off I expected to see a daemon appear.
“I told her not to go out there,” said Cassandra. She was staring down at Emily who was barely breathing. Someone. The daemon that they said was Michael had brought her inside and placed her on one of the tables. There was still blood on it. Black dried blood from where a daemon had been laying there. Immediately she began working her power moving her hand across Emily’s severely burned body.
“It’s not use,” she cried, “I don’t have the strength, I don’t have anyone else’s life force to draw from either,” she finished.
“Put her out of her misery,” said another voice.
The voice was that of a young man that was half chinese, half american. I would soon find out that voice belonged to Chiru. He had crash landed on the alien world around us not long before we appeared. His ship was thrown in the opposite direction as our own carried by some kind of magnetic wind. He made his way to the ruins of the moon rabbit and found nothing. He left shortly returning to the wreckage of his fighter. There he gathered as much gear as he could changing from his flight suit into a more traditional wanderer outfit. He wore a dark robe with a hood over his head that seemed to blend in with the darkness around him. He carried with him the sword of Lü Dongbin. Nate had apparently given it to him as a token of appreciation. Nate, Lt. Barker, everyone but Michael were now standing in the room. The dropship came under assault by the yokai not long after we left towards the moon rabbit. Lt. Barker was continuing to try and piece together the fragmented logs.
“We can’t do that,” said Cassandra, “she is a part of our team.”
“She’s an immortal like the rest of us,” cried Todd.
“She’s in pain, if that were me I would want you to end it,” said Chiru.
“You weren’t a part of our team to begin with, it’s not your call,” said Cassandra.
“You weren’t a part of their team either. I may not be a part of your little pep squad but you’ve already lost two of your players and if we are going to survive out here we can’t have any dead weight,” said Chiru.
He began moving towards her slowly pulling the sword from his side.
A figure moved in front of Emily. A daemon.
“Move Michael or I’ll kill you too,” shouted Chiru.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was true. Michael had been hiding in the corner of the room. He had been staying hidden since I walked in.
Somehow Michael had taken the form of a daemon.
“I will kill you, don’t think I won’t!” shouted Chiru louder and louder this time holding out his sword.
“I have killed a dozen daemons now, you’re no longer one of us, sooner or later their thoughts are going to sink into yours and there will be nothing left,” said Chiru staring at Michael’s daemon form.
Michael stood there staring. For a moment he looked over at me. I could see a shame in his eyes. He hated the daemons and yet here he was walking around in the body of one of them. This was the ultimate form his power held. Everything began to become clear. Our powers were related to the daemons, many of whom seemed to have their own strengths and weaknesses. Michael was drawing upon their energy to the point he soon became the thing he hated. He was wearing his rage on the outside of his skin.
Michael’s body began to crack. He looked like he was in great pain. Chiru hadn’t moved. He may have said he would strike Michael down but it was his own fear and doubts that were swallowing him whole making him into someone that he wasn’t. Michael’s skin cracked and peeled. His human form began to appear. He stood in front of us vomiting black vile. I could hear him mumble to Jackson to grab him some clothes pointing over towards a bag near the side door. Chiru put his sword away, “let her suffer then,” he said. Michael’s compassio
n had broken through his daemonic shell and his human side was showing again.
“What the hell happened to you?” I screamed.
“I saved your scrawny ass,” Michael said.
“How the hell?” I replied as everyone stared at Michael who had just re dressed. His daemon skin flaked on the ground. We could smell the copper and sulfur in the air.
“Like shedding skin,” he said. He had black vile still hanging from parts of his mouth. He looked like he was stronger. Somehow his muscles seemed to have grown nearly double in size.
“Is that your same body?” asked Nate.
“I don’t think so, I feel stronger, healthier, superhuman,” said Michael.
“Interesting, so not only can you syphon small bits of power from those around you but you can transform into one of those daemons, what was it like?” asked Nate.
“No time, I have an idea. Something that might save Emily’s life,” he said.
Michael grabbed Cassandra by the hand. Parts of his body seemed to turn daemonic again.
“Listen you have to trust me, all of you,” Michael said reaching his hand out to the rest of us. I grabbed hold of his wrist. I could feel energy from my own body being transferred to his. I felt chills run down my spine.
It was euphoric.
By the time everyone joined together Emily’s wounds began to heal. Her burns began to seal themselves and her eyes began to open.
Michael let go and fell to the ground.
“She’ll be better then ok, we did it,” he said smiling.
We spent the next several hours interrogating Michael. Some of us, including myself, felt uncertain whether or not he was still the same man he had been before. What damages could such a sudden transformation inflict on the human body, the human mind. Michael seemed to be handling it pretty well. Enjoying his new found strength he realized he was able to tap into other’s powers more. He could even manipulate small pieces of matter like Todd. Heat his skin. His intelligence seemed to grow. I had no idea if he could slow down time the way I could, we weren’t really in a position to test it. Michael had become a living weapon. Our Ace against the daemon horde that was coming for us.
Sleepers (Convergence Book 1) Page 11
