by Pearl Tate
Settling more, I let my mind drift, enjoying the pin pricks of lighter color I’ve never seen before as they cascade in my vision in tune with the water’s lulling beat.
“…shouldn’t have made it. We didn’t follow the prophecy… supposed to be Mihile…”
The mention of my name makes me concentrate on the droning voice I’m imagining. But as it continues, I can’t help wondering, am I imagining it? The cadence is identical to my mother’s. Even the phrasing as she pauses before continuing in a higher pitch…
“…sent the Sinth. They agreed to stop him. To make sure that he’d never reach the Ashen. Then, they didn’t even have the common courtesy to let us know how he did make it or what went wrong…”
Another voice murmurs in response, and I’m shocked to realize that I recognize that voice too. It’s one of the council members who frequently comes to meet and confide with my mother. She sounds angry as she responds.
Could I actually be hearing their conversation?
How is that possible? It shouldn’t be—at all!
The stone walls around me are thick and never, in my almost thirty annual rotations on the planet Quasar, deep in the ground and living with my mother, have I ever experienced being able to hear another conversation outside my room. Sure, my hearing is better than anyone else I know. Without the use of my eyes, I’ve been told that my other senses are better than average.
During the first ten annual rotations of my life, many doctors studied my eyes, trying to determine what disease could have caused the blindness I’m afflicted with. But according to everyone and every test, there’s no disease. Nothing is lacking in my body or corrupted to such a degree, that would make my vision as it is.
Unfortunately, I just can’t see.
Hence, I’ve been blessed with exceptional hearing. Most of the people I’m surrounded by, I’ve known my entire life. As such, I know the way they walk and I’m able to identify them long before they announce themselves to me.
“…I agree. As much as it pains me to admit it, it must be done.”
My mother’s voice trails off as Vina Likana continues to complain. That female is never here to share good news or just celebrate the fine things that are going on in all our lives. No… her main goal is always to complain. Usually with the ulterior motive of wanting something.
She’s discussing someone named Bren. I’ve never heard that name before. My mother’s voice is clearer to me as she responds.
“Yes, it can’t be allowed to continue. Proceed with initiative two as planned.”
“On all the crafts?” Vina Likana sounds surprised. Since I’ve no idea what initiative two is, I imagine it’s something Vina wasn’t necessarily totally in agreement with.
My mother’s response is firm and ends the conversation because I don’t hear anything after that. I still don’t understand how I could have heard anything at all?
Giving up on my reflections for the moment, I stand slowly, watching the flickering pinpoints of light dance in what appears to be just out of my reach. Taking a step forward, I listen to the water cascade down the stone wall, falling into a pool of water used for bathing. I’m fortunate to have one of the few waterfall bathing pools in the underground dwelling.
As I begin to turn in a slow circle, I watch as the pinpoints of light stay in place where my waterfall continues to cascade down the wall. Instead, I notice two tones of black have begun to form around me. There are still some flickering pinpoints of light, but they’re moving slower or stationary altogether as they seem to outline the different shapes materializing around me.
What exactly is going on? Could this be more than just my overactive imagination?
I can’t tell you the number of years and the number of times that medical professionals have studied me before announcing that except for the strange coloring that’s exclusive to my eyes, I appear normal in every way. Normal with absolutely no reason for the black veil that shrouded me my entire life.
There was some discussion during my adolescence about me potentially gaining my sight at adolescence but that never materialized. Now…now it appears I could actually be seeing… something…
Walking closer to what I know is a bench, I reach down and run my finger along the hard surface carved out of the wall of the cave that surrounds me. It’s somewhat deceitful when you know exactly where everything is… to tell whether the one hope you’ve harbored for your entire life could potentially be coming to pass. I know where everything is. Am I deceiving myself?
Turning around again, I look back at the wall of cascading light, dancing to the rhythm of the water sounds crashing into the pool. Releasing my robe, I let the material part and fall to the floor as I walk slowly to the stairs ten paces away.
Sure enough, as I begin to descend the stairs into the water, I notice the prickles of dancing light stirring around my feet, then my calves, and finally my waist. Covering the distance between the wall and myself, I let my fingers dip into the surface of the cascade, watching as the location my hand hovers in appears darker in my vision while the light coalesces around it, parting the water.
This is definitely me! I can see!
CHAPTER THREE
- Nitara
PRESENT DAY
A strange premonition pulls me to consciousness, but even as I blink my eyes, I ponder whether I’ve woken. The lighting is dim with a strange humid feel to the air that I haven’t experienced since I left Earth. After I’d been attacked and assaulted on the bus in New Delhi on the way to college, I’d ended up in the hospital on a ventilator. It was a blessing I didn’t remember anything after being beaten and assaulted. The ventilator made me incapable of answering any questions for the police.
During that time, I’d slipped in and out of consciousness. So when I’d been approached by a beautiful woman named Janette, telling me that the odds of me living through the next couple weeks in the hospital were slim, my first thought was that I’d never get a chance to bring my attackers to justice. Even though that thought saddened me, she was there to offer me a chance to start over. Completely healed.
And when I say healed, I mean totally healed. No more thalassemia intermedia. No more doctor’s visits and blood transfusions. Instead, I’d be given the opportunity to begin my life again with a new people on a new planet.
Only based on what I’m looking at right now, we aren’t there yet! Above me is a huge… ant. With antennas and a segmented body, there’s nothing else I can compare it to. Only it’s bigger than me!
I’ve been exposed to millions of ants during my lifetime. Army ants, carpenter ants, and of course, the dreaded fire ants. They’re the smallest but most painful of them, but they’re the ones I’ve had the most exposure to. In fact, when I was three or four years old, I’d been outside with my favorite blanket right after nap time and accidentally wandered into a bed of fire ants.
They traveled up my legs and body so quickly, biting and injecting their painful venom into me before my father rescued me. It’d been excruciatingly long, painful minutes of him brushing me off and getting all their tiny, red bodies off of me before he whisked me inside to put me into a bath.
I’ve never forgotten. I watch where I walk, carefully avoiding any piles of sand or debris that could be their homes. I hate ants!
Only this ant looming over me is huge… and I open my mouth, screaming bloody murder… just like I tried to do on the bus. The creature has locked something around my neck and upper body that’s keeping me pinned to the floor. A collar of some kind? Then, I really freak the fuck out as I realize there are two of them. Two big—and I mean giant, ants! Bigger than me—bigger than men!
A loud, high-pitched alarm echoes around me. This must not be normal because the one, huge ant not holding me to the floor moves away slightly, and I realize they have wings, too. Wings on the back of them! This is even worse… flying ants.
My jaw is aching from the way it’s locked open as I pierce the air with my screech. Thrashing
uncontrollably, I’m reminded again of my assault on the bus and how panicked I’d felt at the time. It’s nothing compared to right now.
This is what I get for agreeing to be part of this “rescue mission”. I mean… the concept was great. The spacecraft Discovery we’ve been traveling on needed to get back to Quasar because I’m one of the women with a mate there on the home planet. Plus, they’ve set up an underground railroad of sorts for the abused males. Our small group split off from the Discovery a day ago in another spaceship to try and sneak to the surface of the planet without being detected.
Our mission is to rescue the males that Matthias, one of our team members, has set up to pick up and find our mates at the same time. This is all supposed to happen while the Discovery’s captain tries to find out why one of the men on the Discovery tried to sabotage the ship on our trip back.
Metal screeching competes with my screaming right before the floor vibrates beneath me. Swallowing hard, a flash happens in front of me, so quick I don’t even realize what’s occurred. Well… yeah, there’s the fact that I’ve been screaming so hard I’ve almost passed out. Gasping, I swallow, practically choking and try to stop my hyperventilating.
Glancing to the left, where the object seemed to be taking off, I freeze, realizing it’s Brock, one of the members of our party. He has tackled the disgusting ant alien who was holding me down. No… wait, he’s moved on already. In fact, while I sit there holding onto the pole wrapped around my neck, I watch, blinking slowly as he goes from one strange ant alien to the next, ripping through them like tissue paper.
My ears are ringing. Between recovering from my own screaming, the drone of the alarm ringing, and now Brock’s roar of anger echoing off the walls in the room around us, I can barely comprehend what’s going on.
Thankfully, Brock’s winning because the strange aliens are pouring into the room—like ants— and toward him…like ants. But not one of the creatures he’s slashed or… pulled apart, is getting up. I watch in fascination as he literally rips them in half. Some at the segmented parts of their bodies, but not always. A lot are decapitated. Even when some of them appear at the door with weapons, it just bounces off Brock, making him even angrier—which didn’t seem possible.
The ones with laser guns are the next to die. Black ooze shoots out, splattering the strange equipment surrounding us and even the floor only feet from me. It’s horrifying—but at the same time… satisfying, to see something I fear so much being taken care of so easily.
If only I could do the same. I’m jealous of the strength and power he displays as he moves around the room, killing them. If only I could be that strong. It doesn’t seem fair that I’ve always had to be fearful and calculating, watching where I go and with whom. What would it be like to not have those concerns?
Brock doesn’t slow. Methodically, he works his way around the room until he’s left with the aliens at the door. After he makes quick work of them, he takes off out of the room, leaving me looking around at the carnage in awe. As soon as I get my bearings and twist around to see where I am, I realize that Karen, Selas’s mate, and April, the other woman that’s traveling with us because her mate is on the surface of Quasar, are lying next to me—entirely nude.
Ah! I’m naked too! How’d I miss that?
I’ve never been nude in public… or in front of anyone else for that matter. My trembling hands try to swivel the strange device around my neck but there’s something about the way it’s attached to my chest. It feels almost suctioned to me. “Help! Please…”
My voice dies as I look over at the other men still standing at the other side of the room. They’re clearly Quasar men, but they look like they’re in a trance. Leaning over as best I can, I shake Karen and April, pulling on their arms with my trembling hands. “Karen! Oh, god.” Panting heavily, I reach across her to pat on April, soft at first, but then harder when neither responds. “Please… April! Fuck!”
A new banging sound has me glancing up, noticing that there are stasis chambers identical to what we were traveling in lined up… wait! It’s Selas!
He’s banging on the transparent front of the stasis chamber, mouthing words I can’t hear through the cylinder pod. But it’s clear he wants out. Ignoring my nudity, I scramble to my knees, gingerly stabilizing myself on shaking legs, using the pole on the contraption around my neck as a crutch. The air feels sticky as I gingerly tip-toe over the ten feet or so to his pod.
Selas is gesturing to the controls at the front, and I know he expects me to get him out. Frantically, I begin pushing buttons, but nothing happens. He’s trying to tell me something, but the seconds tick by as I push one button after the other, wondering what the hell I’m doing wrong.
When we left the Discovery and climbed aboard our smaller spacecraft to travel to the planet Quasar, we all loaded into the stasis chambers. We’d intended to accelerate our travel and reach the planet at the same time as the larger ship. But I didn’t have anything to do with loading us into the chambers. I was pretty much the first one in, depending on everyone else to make sure I was set.
Selas and Matthias took care of everything. Glancing up at him, I realize he’s changed the gesture. It’s more like a cranking motion with one hand, and he’s pointing to one side. Tears are almost obscuring my vision as I sniff and try to keep myself together. Nodding, I move around to the side and see a lever he must be referring to.
Grabbing it, I yank hard, slipping off the smooth pull almost immediately before realizing there’s a fine mist of blood coating most of this side. Ignoring it, I grasp the crank lower, pulling with all my might. When it finally jerks with a hiss, I let out a sigh of relief as the seal releases with a whoosh.
Selas is out instantly, grasping me by the shoulders and yanking me over to where the other women lay on the floor. “Karen! Are you okay, Tara?”
I can only nod as I watch him take a moment to assure himself the others are all breathing, mentally kicking myself for not doing the same thing. Selas glances around, giving the room a once over, and I realize he must have woken after Brock did his thing. Pointing at the chamber on the other side of us, we both study what remains of the cylinder tube.
The stasis chamber is in two parts, the front and back where the door hinges. As the weakest part, it makes sense that when he broke out, that’d be the way he’d have had the most success. “Brock?”
“Yes—” My response is cut off as Karen sits up with a start, flipping her head left and right.
“What happened?”
CHAPTER FOUR
- Mihile
PRESENT DAY
Swallowing the morning meal, my body tightens. A thread of fear so intense that my vision fades to red shoots across my nerves. I’m exposed to a flash of something that isn’t really here with me. A black head with bulbous eyes and shiny skin. What is that?
Choking on the meal that should have slid down my throat unobstructed, I can’t catch my breath. It’s then that I realize—the fear isn’t mine that I’m choking on as I experience it—it’s my mate’s. The female I’ve been seeing in my daily reflections now—since my vision changed at least. It’s still weird to think I can see anything, especially something as beautiful as her.
The last ten daily rotations have been incredible but disheartening. For every wonderful thing that happens, I’m exposed to more treachery and knowledge that I’m clearly not supposed to know. Every good has its bad.
For example—discovering my vision—even just experiencing the light dancing off the surfaces surrounding me, should have been a cause for celebration. It’s incredible! A miracle, but there was something in everyone’s responses, both intuitively and visually, that’s given me pause.
When I went to my mother with the exciting revelation of what had begun appearing, she sent the physician who went through a customary and generic examination at first. Stripped down, he studied every part of my body. My questions were ignored, including what the results were. I realize that any information s
hould be shared with my mother and the other physicians, but shouldn’t I be able to learn what’s found as well. I’m no longer a child? Or even an adolescent.
This has caused me to be cautious with what changes have developed since then. Especially since now I seem to be able to hear so much around me. Even with the development of something that resembles vision, my extraordinary hearing is still as sensitive as ever. All the conversations that others believe private aren’t as secret as they think.
One thing is certain. My mother isn’t celebrating. She isn’t happy at all. In fact, she knows exactly why I’m changing, and I’ve overheard her say I’m undergoing some kind of “mating emergence phase”. The burning and strange tingling on my chest were actually the mating marks developing.
And now, my mate’s in trouble!
Standing, I ignore Helper Tracala who asks me quietly where I’m going. She’s been my constant companion since this process began. When I ignore her, she stands to trail behind. Realizing she’ll follow if I don’t appease her in some way, I pause. “Something doesn’t agree with my stomach. I’ll be back shortly.”
Rubbing my belly, I allow the panic I’m feeling to bleed into my features. I don’t think I could totally disguise my fear if I tried, so better to use it to my advantage. I watch her form sink back into her seat before I turn away and head back to my private rooms to use the facilities. I’m positive now that it’s the only place I’m not monitored.
Not only can I see around me perfectly, I can also see beyond my surroundings. I discovered how during my daily reflections. In fact, everything began there.
As I hurry through the halls, my heart pounds, vibrating into my throat as the panic bubbles up inside me. I think back to all the changes in my life over this short period of time. Everything happened so quickly. My vision, the premonitions, the contact in my dreams… meeting my mate.
