Time slowed down in my mind as the nightmare continued. The creature charged toward us across the plane, its every footfall shook the ground as though the earth itself shared our dread. I tried with every fiber of my being to think of something, some way in which to escape or defeat the animal, but my mind was just kept playing the image of my head being crushed under those gargantuan talons. I could actually hear the sickening crunch of my skull, the pressure that made my ears pop and eyes tear up.
There were suddenly several faint puffs of air to my left, that came so fast it sounded like the propellers of a distant helicopter. I snapped back to reality and realized it was Gohn already firing away at our ever approaching enemy. I closed my eyes and bowed my head. As a long slender blade slide slowly from the sheath of my symbiot, I prayed a short prayer, “God help us” I pleaded under my breath.
My eyes snapped open and I felt myself fill with rage. I raised my now long blade high over my head pointed at the creatures barreled thick hide chest, and charged with everything I had left.
My fear was gone, my pain was numbed, and I… I was unstoppable. At least at that moment that’s how I felt. In my heart at that moment I knew that I would kill that monster.. Even if it brought me down with it.
As I closed the gap between us, Gohn’s darts whizzing past only inches from my head, I felt a final rush of adrenaline flow through me. When I met the behemoth, it roared its awful roar, and swung hard from above, its razor sharp claws aimed for my head. I rolled my shoulder hard forwards, hitting the dirt in a mid sprint somersault, the demonic claw raking down my back missing my head by a needles width. As I completed my acrobatic endeavor, I continued my momentum forward thrusting upward with everything I had determined to pierce its heart and end the fight with this single attack.
The force of my attack was strong in spite of my various injuries. I felt a twinge of excitement as my weapon hit home. A perfect unhindered hit right into the creatures exposed chest.
There was a satisfying crunch, but my arm suddenly felt light. In puzzlement, I looked up to my symbiot. A feeling of complete despair and shock rocked my mind, as I watched in seeming slow motion my blade shatter into a hundred shards, destroyed on impact with the creatures still uninjured body.
I only stared on in disbelief making no attempt to cover myself from the blow of the monster kick to my stomach. Lucky for me the claws of its talons only impaled my obliques as my body fit easily between the creature “toes”. I flew back several feet landing on my back.
In the past several months I had come to know despair. It is a truly maddening emotion. Most people from my time don’t truly appreciate the totality of this particular feeling. I guess I would describe it like this, imagine working for years to finish some life goal, putting everything you have into that one project and then waking up one day to find it has all been destroyed. Take that feeling and multiply it by a thousand, and then you will still have no idea what it’s like to experience true despair.
I didn't have anything left. I didn't even have the energy to look away as the vile being stood over me. I felt a sudden gust of wind brush over the tall grass all around us. It washed over me like a final blessing. The soothing kiss of sorrowful angel.
I’m sure my friends were doing everything in their power to save me, but I knew it was over…….. Thank God I am not always right.
There was a unexpected shout from my left, an unfamiliar cry. Instinctively, I rolled my head over to see what it was. Suddenly there was a flash of movement from the tall grass that surrounded our battleground, as a tall figure leaped from the hidden area. It moved like the wind itself a blur of white headed straight for me and my current opponent.
To my surprise, the figure was a man. Though towering above me, there in front of that monster he looked more like some mythic being, sent from God to protect us. Long mangled black gray hair fell around his shoulders framing his worn face that was so stern and emotionless it could have been hewn from stone. A long lab coat hung loosely from his broad shoulders twisting and flailing in the now growing wind. It was worn tattered and stained. It’s once white fibers were now a dingy faded mix of black brown and gray, and at the shoulder blades of the coat were two large tears with dark red blood stains that made it look like two demonic eyes were staring at you.
Without a word or even a look the strangle man engaged the creature. The beast roared infuriated at this intrusion and lifted its right arm into the air to skewer this new morsel, but the man made no indication of fear. He only continued to stare at the beast with his stone face. As the claw of the monster sped down toward the mans head, he quickly lunged forward dropping to one knee directly under the creatures belly.
Without warning a third arm tore up from one of the bloodied tears in his coat. The arm was inhuman, it was black and bony. It seemed to be attached to man in a way that allowed it to fold down through the holes and cling tight to his back, with a sort of reverse joint, so it would be able to come easily over his shoulders. At the end of the arm was no hand, but a pincer like claw. While shut it came to a sharp point and when open had only two sharp flexible digits….and it was fast very fast.
With one single fluid movement the arm tore into the belly of the creature and the retracted. The whole movement took no longer than a blink of an eye, and there in the pincer of the mans symbiot was the creatures heart. The stunned monster only stared on. It made no sounds of anger. No roar bellow or even grunt. It lurched hard to the left and fell in a thunderous heap. The mans symbiot dropped the heart in the dirt and he turned to face me for the first time.
His small brown eyes were barely visible under his disheveled hair, but as I looked into them, they seemed hollow to me. As though he looked through you. Wisdom showed in the many creased lines of his face though they were hidden as well by a thick beard. Furthermore, he hung his head downward so a constant shadow was cast over what little could be seen of his features.
“This one was a female.” The strange man explained unsolicited. “you can tell by the extra claw on its left hand.” We all continued to stare at the man in disbelief still too shocked for words. “The females have a very thick breast bone that protects the baby while they are pregnant. That’s why David’s attack failed. If you want to strike at the heart you have to reach under the breast plate from the abdomen. It is an easy mistake to make.” when none of us responded to the gruff mans lecture he turned to me. "Are you alright David?" he ask not even the slightest hint of real concern or any other emotion for that matter showed in his stoic visage.
"I ...I am fine" I stammered finally. Millions of questions flew through my mind, who was he, how did he know my name, what in the hell was he doing out here..... The list went on and on.
But it was Terry that asked the first question "How old are you?" she whispered an air of desperation laced in her voice. I arched an eyebrow at her question as I slowly picked myself off the ground. I looked at our savior once more and the light finally clicked in my head .
My eyes widened as I realized what all my friends had seen immediately. Scyll had told me that nothing in this world lives past 30 yet this man standing here now looked to be at least 40.
The man smile, the first human expression he had shown thus far. He lifted his head peering directly into Terry's eyes from under his matted hair. " That was sooner than I expected. I must be looking worse than usual today. I know what you are really asking though... And sadly the answer is no. I suffer from the same affliction that plagues each and everyone of you. " he said in his deep gruff voice. " I have just been fighting it longer than most. Though, I am not quite as old as you probably think I am."
"How have you managed to stay so healthy if the disease has been active in you for that long?" Gohn pried suspiciously.
The man grunted out a coarse laugh. "I am far from 'healthy' but I would have to say that life outside the dome is hard ....hard enough to keep you going through it. Regardless of the pain.”
My mind was reeling, a moment ago I was sure I was dead. Now I stood facing a man that had done in a single blow, what had taken, all of us, everything we had, to accomplish. "Who are you?" I said finally.
The man looked at me his face returning to its statuesque appearance as he once again lowered his head. His eye pierced mine as he peered at me from the shadows of his face. When he finally spoke the words were slow and deliberate. “My name is Virgil. I am here to show you the way.”
“The way.. To what?” Scyll asked softly still kneeling next to Caulin. She looked exhausted tear stains still covered her face. The events of the day had clearly taxed her more than she would ever admit. Though looking around I guess the same could be said about any of us at that point.
Once again the stranger spoke, “ I know that you have been searching for a mutant, and that that mutant is believed to live near the impact crater. I have traveled that far before, though not without difficulty. We call it hell’s basin, because the things I saw there would bring fear to the devil himself. Nevertheless, if you are willing to follow I will be your guide through hell.”
We stood in stunned silence. None of us could have ever expected to find someone who had made it that far out alone and survived, but after what he had just accomplished I was inclined to believe him.
I looked to each of my friends trying to get a feel for what everyone was thinking. Caulin still lying on the ground looked confused his brow knitted in thought still trying to get a handle on the situation. Next to him Scyll was biting her lip a pained expression of fear and uncertainty showed in her soft eyes.
As my eyes drifted to Gohn I instantly knew what he was thinking. His demeanor was unmistakable. His body was stiff, tensed to the point of breaking. His jaw was clenched so hard that his face had gone blood red, and his fists were trembling. Finally he could hold it in no longer. “WHY WOULD WE EVER TRUST YOU!!!” he screamed. “YOU BETRAY US AND SEND YOUR MEN TO ATTACK US. YOU TRICK MY BROTHER INTO LEAVING THE DOME! TELL ME PLEASE WHY SHOULD WE TRUST YOU?!”
“because we have no other choice…” Terry said slowly. “This is our only real hope.”
Gohn spun around to face her, his eyes bulging from his sockets as the normally aloof young man struggled to control himself. “WHAT!!! HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!! WE CAN MAKE IT THERE ON OUR OWN! WE DON’T NEED HELP FROM TRAITORS!”
“No……we can’t Gohn.” Caulin said with uncharacteristic wisdom. He stood slowly clutching his broken body as he did. Scyll cringed attempting to pull him back off his feet, but Caulin shook her off as gently as he could. “I above all hate to admit weakness, but we were dead a minute ago man. He just did something that no man in the dome could have done. If we seriously want to do this we will need his help.”
Gohn’s shoulders sunk defeated. He walked toward the edge of the clearing, as he passed me our eyes met and he muttered under his breath “we just can’t trust him”.
I looked back to Virgil, our mysterious savior. His rugged face looked back at me always singling me out of the group. I chill ran down my spine. “Why do you want to help us,” I asked. “ I thought the outlanders hated the dome.”
“Hate is a strong word, David.” he said once again calling only me by name. “ We chose not to live in the dome, and there are as many reasons for that as there are outlanders. I personally chose this path because I want the freedom to choose…my way of life and where I go. I think that mankind can survive in this new wild and someday thrive once again. I fear that staying confined in the dome will only weaken us as a people. As to my reasons for wanting to help you that is simple enough. I am a human. I wish for nothing more than for mankind to survive. I know that only the dome has the ability to cure this disease. So I will do everything in my power to help you reach that goal.”
I looked to Terry. Her face was solemn, the playful smile I loved was gone from her face as she considered the help from this total stranger. More than any of us I knew that Terry was driven to complete this task. This mission that she seemed to have taken on as her sole responsibility. I still didn’t understand why she was so committed, what secrets from her past made her feel so much more connected to this than most others in the dome, but at that moment one thing I did know was what her response would be. “We will do it.” She said finally. “We will have to return tonight to get supplies from the dome. When and where do you want to meet us?”
Virgil nodded in approval, “Leave when you are ready, and I will find you.” and that was all he said. We watched the enigma as he slid silently into the tall grass all traces of him seeming to vanish the second he left our immediate sight, and once again we were alone in the treacherous wild.
The hike back to our mounts was a silent one. Each person reacting to this sudden unexpected change of events in their own way. I lead the way back using my symbiot to blaze a trail through the tall grass. Terry and Scyll both helped Caulin walk behind me, and Gohn sulked in the back still fuming about our new “ally”.
When we made it back Terry and Scyll tended to Caulin with a few extra medical supplies we had left near our camp. As I worked on loading the basilisks up Gohn approached me. I eyed him over seeing he was still in a foul mood. “Are you going to be ok with this Gohn?” I asked him.
“no.” he said flatly, “but seeing as how I have little choice in the matter now, I am willing, if for no other reason than to tell you I told you so when he screws us.” He grabbed up a pack and shoved it roughly onto his mount, and then sighed, “He stole my brother from me David. We used to be close. After our mother died, he had a hard time dealing with things. Back then he was a lead soldier in a special combat squad, he used that to take out his anger. One day his team was attacked by a group of mutants and apparently Virgil saved him after the rest of his squad was dead. It was a month before he returned, and it was like he was a different person. He came in ranting about how the dome was evil and everyone in it were just mindless drones. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. When I refused to leave the dome with him. He never spoke to me again. That was five years ago. The first time I saw him again was on that excursion with you. Virgil brain washed him somehow. I am warning you…I won’t let him do the same thing to us!” he took a deep breath trying to calm himself down. “You are like a brother to me now David. I need you to tell me you won’t let him do anything that will jeopardize this mission. We are the only hope for the dome, and I think it is obvious why he would want to interfere with that. I go along with this, but only till we get the source and our only mission is to get the source. Nothing else he says will affect you or me.”
“ok, Gohn.” I swore, surprised at his seriousness. “We won’t let him do to us what he did to your brother.” I said the words, and I wanted to believe them, but how could we do this if we don’t trust him. We can’t do it without him so we will just have to take what we can get. My mind flashed back to the picture of Virgil’s face. His deep piercing eyes. Can we trust him…….
Friday, October 2, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Chapter 18 Pleasant memories
We hiked through the thick brush till we had reached the top of the hill Jessica had pointed toward. Sure enough as we peered over it we saw a great expansive plains. It followed next to a long river that wound its way up for miles. Even from where we stood we could see an innumerable count of wildlife, big and small every shape and size. Even my friends couldn’t contain their awe.
We stood there jaws agape as enormous herds of eponi raced across the fields below us, and there were others too. A family of giant bear like animals emerged from the river and shook there thick fur hides dry revealing the rippling muscles that fur concealed. Farther down stream was a lone behemoth of a animal bathing in the water.
The creature easily stood two stories tall on all four legs, but it looked like the creature could stand up right if it so desired. I didn’t even want to imagine the size of it if it were to do that. The creature massive tail swung out extremely dexterously like an elephant’s trunk the animal used the tail to sweep water over it’s body. It’s front legs were slightly longer than it’s back legs and a gruesome retractable spike protruded from the forearm. It’s head was small, and mildly disfigured by the large protruding lower jaw.
Needless to say the other animal steered clear of this brutish thing, I felt that we should do the same.
"Wow." Terry whispered. "I have never seen so many mutants in one place."
"I know." Scyll added. "I can’t identify half of these." She looked anxiously across the plain. " I don’t know about this. Maybe we should find a less populated route."
Terry shook her head. "No. this has to be it." She sighed. "We can’t put this off any longer. That river will take us as close ground zero as any path in the woods, and at least out here we will be able to see anything coming from a ways off."
Gohn groaned. "Yea. That way we can get a good look at them before they eat us." He said. Caulin and I chuckled at that.
Terry rolled her eyes, "None the less, that is where we are going. Get ready we will make camp over in that grove for the night and tomorrow we will check out those plains before we head back to the dome."
Caulin snapped a quick salute. "Yes ma’am" He said patronizingly.
We set up a quick camp using few trees as cover. The spot wasn’t quite as safe feeling as our last spot and as close as we still were to all those giant mutants it took the others quite a while to fall asleep. I took watch again. I told the others not to worry about taking shifts and just to get a goodnight sleep. Terry didn’t like the idea, but I was able to persuade her eventually.
I woke the others early the next morning. "Great the sun is almost up, I am so glad to be awake." Caulin grumbled looking around with his still partially glazed eyes.
Gohn sat up, winced and then started to rub his neck, "Sleeping outside is wonderful, I never felt so well rested." He muttered sarcastically.
As the others slowly started to clean up and get ready to head out, I climbed back up the ridge to scout out the path we could take down the cliff. From on top of the ridge once again I saw the open fields below me teaming with life. I scanned the plains and watched for a moment as the tall grass rippled like a wave from a sudden gust of wind. I let the air wash over me as I enjoyed the view. In spite of the ominous look of many of the creatures below it was hard not to feel refreshed in the warm dawn light and a cool breeze, but the day was just starting and this fair weather felt like a mask for the deadly world around us.
I found a place where we would be able to safely climb down. I tested the rocks to make sure the were sturdy while I waited on the others. A few minutes later others arrived and followed me down the path I had found. We then stood at the base of the cliff
starring across the plain. From atop the cliff the area had seemed enormous, but now that we stood at the same level as everything we were awestruck. The scale of our surroundings was immeasurable. Before the creatures we had seen looked large, but now even from a distance it became painfully clear that "large" was an understatement.
The grass came to our wastes and seemed to blanket the world around us. Gohn anxiously scanned the area. "This grass is so thick anything could be lurking ten feet from us and we wouldn’t even notice." He grumbled.
"We will just have to move carefully." Terry replied. "Lets go." We walked for a while. I was amazed at how long it took us just to reach the river, from the cliff it had seemed like a short walk. As we approached the river the grass became shorter and more rocky because of the river bed. We could hear the roar of rapids coming from about a mile downstream. The river here was enormous I scratched my head trying to think what river this could have been from my time, there seemed no way a river this big could have developed out of no where.
As we walked up stream next to the river we saw several of the same mutants we had seen from the cliff. The most intimidating of which were the bear mutants. They stood about the size of an elephant on all fours, luckily for us they currently were fishing up enormous trout from the river as we passed there were four of them, one had leered at us let out a terrible below when he saw us, but he seemed to occupied to leave his fishing position. The teeth on the bears reminded me of some sort of saber-toothed cat. Needless to say I was quite relieved that the beasts let us pass unmolested.
Scyll continued to sketch out crude maps of the area as we traveled, we moved slowly not really wanting to go too far before we had to head back to the dome.
Suddenly there was a sound like thunder that came from behind us, and the ground shook beneath our feet. We spun around and watched in surprise as a herd of eponi tore across the fields only about a hundred feet away from us. As they ran they devoured the tall grass with their sweeping mandibles leaving a nice low cut path behind them. A small cloud us dust sprang up from their trampling hooves and started to sweep over us. I coughed and waved my hand futilely attempting to clear the air in front of me.
Gradually the stampeding herd slowed by the riverside, by the hundreds the creatures waded into the water to drink and bathe. To our left there was a small wooded area, I squinted my eyes to peer into the small forest. Something about the trees looked out of place. Terry came over to me to see what I was looking at. "Do you see something?" she asked attempting to trace my line of sight.
"I am not sure, but.." suddenly I knew what I was looking at. My heart dropped into my stomach as my eyes begrudgingly made out the silhouette of the same type of mutant that we had run into last time we were near eponi. "Oh God…." I prayed. "Not again."
Terry looked at me with a puzzled expression. Her confusion was soon dissipated when the creature finally decided to make its move. It tore out of its cover ripping a tree from its roots as it ran. It was halfway to the eponi herd before a rippling scream went through the eponi herd. They were jumping over and trampling each other in an attempt to escape. Before we could move we were caught up in the middle of the stampede. Deadly razor sharp teeth of the eponi cut through the air all around us. We spun around this way and that, but in spite of our efforts I received a large gash down the side of my left arm, and Caulin got a slice on his calf when he narrowly avoided being gored.
We ran with the herd as best we could trying to weave our way out of the fray. All the while the giant creature tore through the eponi. It would kill one then leave it where it lied moving to the next one. We were not as fast as the eponi. It became terrifyingly apparent as the majority of the herd escaped that we were going to be left behind with the monster, and it wasn’t going to stop till everything still around it was dead.
The last of the living eponi finally scampered past us. The behemoth was currently chewing on the haunches of one of its kills holding it’s prey with one hand as it lumbered around looking for more to kill. I seriously considered running for my life, but last time the only thing that did was wear us out, no this time we had to go in fighting.
It didn’t take long for the beast to notice us, we were small compared to its normal prey so it wasn’t terribly interested in us, but none the less it wasn’t going to let us leave. It started to bound toward us almost like an ape using its forelimbs to brace itself as it ran.
Caulin licked his lips and took a deep breath, "So here we go again." he said a slight tremble in his voice.
"You think Janus is going to barge in to save us this time?" Gohn said half joking. We all managed nervous smiles at the remark.
A shudder went down my spine. The last time we had fought one of these I had almost gotten my head crushed, I didn’t want that to happen again.
We charged together attempting to hit hard and fast and catch it off guard. Caulin circled around behind the beast while Gohn distracted it with a steady fire of darts concentrating at the head. I charged straight at him growing out a long scythe like claw. Scyll’s symbiot screamed from her arm and began tearing at the beast’s right arm while Terry’s caudal’s tail wrapped around the left hand.
The creature was stunned by the force of our combined attack. Caulin stuck the beast hard in the back of the knee with his symbiot let loose a strong jolt bringing the beast to the ground. I jumped up onto its chest to deliver a final blow before it could react to our attack, but the monster pulled its monstrous arm away from Scyll’s symbiot, and with one massive swing, I was flung to ground.
The beast let out a horrendous roar, and climbed back to its feet. Drool fell from putrid mouth. We braced ourselves for the creature to attack. I wiped the sweat from my eyes. The beast eyed each of us. The ravenous ever hungering eyes passed from person to person until it finally settled on me.
I cursed under my breath. "Here it comes." I said to myself. I started to run to get away, but a thought came to my mind. Even as I thought it I felt like screaming "No you idiot!"
In the corner of my eye I saw Terry signaling for to run to her. I slowly shook my head. I made eye contact with each of my friends. Without saying a word they knew what I was planning. Terry’s eyes went wide. She shook her head violently in opposition.
I hesitated for a second, but it was too late to back out now. Finally, the beast lunged, the bloodied claws tore the very air . I took a deep breath cringing. My teeth clenched so hard that lost feeling in my face. Terry’s blood curdling scream pierced my somewhere in the back of my mind. The creatures massive hand filled my vision. At the last second, I rolled my shoulder back and dropped to one knee.
The creature’s claws ripped into my shoulder. I felt the muscles and bone wrench and tear. I couldn’t breath. I felt dizzy. The creature lifted me from the ground pulling me right up to its gaping jaws. Its breath reeked of death, and it made me nauseous.
I shook my head trying to clear my thoughts. I mustered all my remaining strength to drive my blade up through the lower jaw of my opponent. It let out a terrible cry and flung me to the ground.
As the creature writhed from my wound, the blade still protruding from its chin, Gohn and Caulin rushed in to finish the creature. Caulin wrapped his symbiot around the creature neck and let loose a series of jolts. With a strong jerk the creature fell backwards still wailing from my attack. I wasted no time jumping up onto its barrel chest, as I grew out a spear length claw.
Terry and Syll both used their respective weapons to hold the mutant's arms down.
I released the claw I had formed and held it with both hands pointing the tip at the creatures exposed chest. It snapped at me with its injured jaw but was still to disoriented from Caulin's shocks and Gohns darts to shack us off.
With one fluid motion I plunged the spear downward into my enemys chest. It let out a bellow of despairing rage as the mortal wound struck deep.
Then to my shock rather than give up and die the beast tore itself free of our combined shackles. I fell to the ground as the seeming juggarnaut returned to its feet.
We stared I awe at its sheer force of will. It bellow another awful roar, as if to say the fight was not over yet. It charged me clearly wanting revenge for the two barbs that stuck out from its mouth and chest.
I grew another blade and move back to my freinds for support. As the beast attaked I lunged foward slicing across its left leg. The monster ignored the new wound brought its fist down hard upon my back. I dropped to the ground the air nocked out of me.
Gohn came to my aide standing over me and firing his darts directly up into the animals open mouth. The wounds in its mouth quickly turned into deep holes, filed with blood and puss. The creature was forced to back away from us for a moment to regain its focus.
This gave me the cahnce to return to my feet and prepare for another go, but Caulin jad already beaten me to it. Once again from behind he struck the thing in the back with point of his symbiote making sure to keep his distance from our dangerious enemy.
unfortunatly, this distance wasn't enough and the beast with a quick turn and a short step managed to pin Caulin to ground under its massive foot. Syll's snakes viciously ravaged the leg of the beast, the assault went unnoticed. The creature raised it right claw to skewer him. Terry's caudal quickly caught the arm and held it from its deadly work.
None the less Caulin was fadeing fast under the weight of the tremendous foot. I arrived behind it shoved my blad deep into the back of the knee on the leg that held Caulin down. That did it and the unrelenting thing finaly steped off a now uncounsious Caulin.
This time however instead of charging any of us the creature merely stumbled a few feet and then collasped. Finally the loss of blood from its wounds had caught up to it.
To our relief, this time our opponent stayed down. It flailed about weakly for a moment and then layed still. With one final bought of rage it opened its ravenous blood soaked jaws and let loose a terrible howl. The howl persisted for several minutes, I held my hands to my ears to fend off the fallen animals moans. Slowly the cry faded until it at last went silent.
We each let out a small sigh of relief. Even Caulin was back awake giving a pained smile, as he clutched his ribs.
Terry rushed to treat him. Kneeling next to him and giving him a shot of painkillers, as Syll joined her at his side. "I can't believe we did it" Caulin said cheerfully in spite of his pain.
Terry brought her hand to his mouth. " try not to talk for a bit I need to make sure no ribs were broken."
I winced at that thought as I felt my own injures. I was quite certain I had a few broken bones. Terry looked over at me in concern. " are alrigh David?"
I straigtened up and tried to play off the tension of the moment. "of course who do think I am. Caulin?" Gohn smirked, but Terry just rolled her eyes.
"you have been spending way to much time around these two." she remarked with fake distain.
Gohn laughed "what are you saying we are a bad influence on Dav..." his voice trailed off as a piercing howl riped through our ears. ...a howl that seemed to be a twin to the one the behmoth we just killed had let out in its death throws.
Syll stood up from Caulin's side trembling as she looked out toward the origin of our shared fear." no...no not another." she cried louder than her normal timid self. " we can't do this again." her words tore at my soul... She was right. This was it.
Me and Gohn readied ourselves for the impending attack. Neither Terry nor Syll seemed to have the heart to even put up that much of a charade.
The trees shook as the new monster appeared. It was as if our last oppenent had been resurected to exact its revenge. The creature took one look at its fallen mate and then another back at us. A bellow of rage was our only warning as it tore out across the plain towards us.
We braced ourselves as best we could. "at least we will go down fighting" Gohn said under his breath. I don't know if the remark was a serious one or not because at that moment it really did seem like we were about to "go down".
We stood there jaws agape as enormous herds of eponi raced across the fields below us, and there were others too. A family of giant bear like animals emerged from the river and shook there thick fur hides dry revealing the rippling muscles that fur concealed. Farther down stream was a lone behemoth of a animal bathing in the water.
The creature easily stood two stories tall on all four legs, but it looked like the creature could stand up right if it so desired. I didn’t even want to imagine the size of it if it were to do that. The creature massive tail swung out extremely dexterously like an elephant’s trunk the animal used the tail to sweep water over it’s body. It’s front legs were slightly longer than it’s back legs and a gruesome retractable spike protruded from the forearm. It’s head was small, and mildly disfigured by the large protruding lower jaw.
Needless to say the other animal steered clear of this brutish thing, I felt that we should do the same.
"Wow." Terry whispered. "I have never seen so many mutants in one place."
"I know." Scyll added. "I can’t identify half of these." She looked anxiously across the plain. " I don’t know about this. Maybe we should find a less populated route."
Terry shook her head. "No. this has to be it." She sighed. "We can’t put this off any longer. That river will take us as close ground zero as any path in the woods, and at least out here we will be able to see anything coming from a ways off."
Gohn groaned. "Yea. That way we can get a good look at them before they eat us." He said. Caulin and I chuckled at that.
Terry rolled her eyes, "None the less, that is where we are going. Get ready we will make camp over in that grove for the night and tomorrow we will check out those plains before we head back to the dome."
Caulin snapped a quick salute. "Yes ma’am" He said patronizingly.
We set up a quick camp using few trees as cover. The spot wasn’t quite as safe feeling as our last spot and as close as we still were to all those giant mutants it took the others quite a while to fall asleep. I took watch again. I told the others not to worry about taking shifts and just to get a goodnight sleep. Terry didn’t like the idea, but I was able to persuade her eventually.
I woke the others early the next morning. "Great the sun is almost up, I am so glad to be awake." Caulin grumbled looking around with his still partially glazed eyes.
Gohn sat up, winced and then started to rub his neck, "Sleeping outside is wonderful, I never felt so well rested." He muttered sarcastically.
As the others slowly started to clean up and get ready to head out, I climbed back up the ridge to scout out the path we could take down the cliff. From on top of the ridge once again I saw the open fields below me teaming with life. I scanned the plains and watched for a moment as the tall grass rippled like a wave from a sudden gust of wind. I let the air wash over me as I enjoyed the view. In spite of the ominous look of many of the creatures below it was hard not to feel refreshed in the warm dawn light and a cool breeze, but the day was just starting and this fair weather felt like a mask for the deadly world around us.
I found a place where we would be able to safely climb down. I tested the rocks to make sure the were sturdy while I waited on the others. A few minutes later others arrived and followed me down the path I had found. We then stood at the base of the cliff
starring across the plain. From atop the cliff the area had seemed enormous, but now that we stood at the same level as everything we were awestruck. The scale of our surroundings was immeasurable. Before the creatures we had seen looked large, but now even from a distance it became painfully clear that "large" was an understatement.
The grass came to our wastes and seemed to blanket the world around us. Gohn anxiously scanned the area. "This grass is so thick anything could be lurking ten feet from us and we wouldn’t even notice." He grumbled.
"We will just have to move carefully." Terry replied. "Lets go." We walked for a while. I was amazed at how long it took us just to reach the river, from the cliff it had seemed like a short walk. As we approached the river the grass became shorter and more rocky because of the river bed. We could hear the roar of rapids coming from about a mile downstream. The river here was enormous I scratched my head trying to think what river this could have been from my time, there seemed no way a river this big could have developed out of no where.
As we walked up stream next to the river we saw several of the same mutants we had seen from the cliff. The most intimidating of which were the bear mutants. They stood about the size of an elephant on all fours, luckily for us they currently were fishing up enormous trout from the river as we passed there were four of them, one had leered at us let out a terrible below when he saw us, but he seemed to occupied to leave his fishing position. The teeth on the bears reminded me of some sort of saber-toothed cat. Needless to say I was quite relieved that the beasts let us pass unmolested.
Scyll continued to sketch out crude maps of the area as we traveled, we moved slowly not really wanting to go too far before we had to head back to the dome.
Suddenly there was a sound like thunder that came from behind us, and the ground shook beneath our feet. We spun around and watched in surprise as a herd of eponi tore across the fields only about a hundred feet away from us. As they ran they devoured the tall grass with their sweeping mandibles leaving a nice low cut path behind them. A small cloud us dust sprang up from their trampling hooves and started to sweep over us. I coughed and waved my hand futilely attempting to clear the air in front of me.
Gradually the stampeding herd slowed by the riverside, by the hundreds the creatures waded into the water to drink and bathe. To our left there was a small wooded area, I squinted my eyes to peer into the small forest. Something about the trees looked out of place. Terry came over to me to see what I was looking at. "Do you see something?" she asked attempting to trace my line of sight.
"I am not sure, but.." suddenly I knew what I was looking at. My heart dropped into my stomach as my eyes begrudgingly made out the silhouette of the same type of mutant that we had run into last time we were near eponi. "Oh God…." I prayed. "Not again."
Terry looked at me with a puzzled expression. Her confusion was soon dissipated when the creature finally decided to make its move. It tore out of its cover ripping a tree from its roots as it ran. It was halfway to the eponi herd before a rippling scream went through the eponi herd. They were jumping over and trampling each other in an attempt to escape. Before we could move we were caught up in the middle of the stampede. Deadly razor sharp teeth of the eponi cut through the air all around us. We spun around this way and that, but in spite of our efforts I received a large gash down the side of my left arm, and Caulin got a slice on his calf when he narrowly avoided being gored.
We ran with the herd as best we could trying to weave our way out of the fray. All the while the giant creature tore through the eponi. It would kill one then leave it where it lied moving to the next one. We were not as fast as the eponi. It became terrifyingly apparent as the majority of the herd escaped that we were going to be left behind with the monster, and it wasn’t going to stop till everything still around it was dead.
The last of the living eponi finally scampered past us. The behemoth was currently chewing on the haunches of one of its kills holding it’s prey with one hand as it lumbered around looking for more to kill. I seriously considered running for my life, but last time the only thing that did was wear us out, no this time we had to go in fighting.
It didn’t take long for the beast to notice us, we were small compared to its normal prey so it wasn’t terribly interested in us, but none the less it wasn’t going to let us leave. It started to bound toward us almost like an ape using its forelimbs to brace itself as it ran.
Caulin licked his lips and took a deep breath, "So here we go again." he said a slight tremble in his voice.
"You think Janus is going to barge in to save us this time?" Gohn said half joking. We all managed nervous smiles at the remark.
A shudder went down my spine. The last time we had fought one of these I had almost gotten my head crushed, I didn’t want that to happen again.
We charged together attempting to hit hard and fast and catch it off guard. Caulin circled around behind the beast while Gohn distracted it with a steady fire of darts concentrating at the head. I charged straight at him growing out a long scythe like claw. Scyll’s symbiot screamed from her arm and began tearing at the beast’s right arm while Terry’s caudal’s tail wrapped around the left hand.
The creature was stunned by the force of our combined attack. Caulin stuck the beast hard in the back of the knee with his symbiot let loose a strong jolt bringing the beast to the ground. I jumped up onto its chest to deliver a final blow before it could react to our attack, but the monster pulled its monstrous arm away from Scyll’s symbiot, and with one massive swing, I was flung to ground.
The beast let out a horrendous roar, and climbed back to its feet. Drool fell from putrid mouth. We braced ourselves for the creature to attack. I wiped the sweat from my eyes. The beast eyed each of us. The ravenous ever hungering eyes passed from person to person until it finally settled on me.
I cursed under my breath. "Here it comes." I said to myself. I started to run to get away, but a thought came to my mind. Even as I thought it I felt like screaming "No you idiot!"
In the corner of my eye I saw Terry signaling for to run to her. I slowly shook my head. I made eye contact with each of my friends. Without saying a word they knew what I was planning. Terry’s eyes went wide. She shook her head violently in opposition.
I hesitated for a second, but it was too late to back out now. Finally, the beast lunged, the bloodied claws tore the very air . I took a deep breath cringing. My teeth clenched so hard that lost feeling in my face. Terry’s blood curdling scream pierced my somewhere in the back of my mind. The creatures massive hand filled my vision. At the last second, I rolled my shoulder back and dropped to one knee.
The creature’s claws ripped into my shoulder. I felt the muscles and bone wrench and tear. I couldn’t breath. I felt dizzy. The creature lifted me from the ground pulling me right up to its gaping jaws. Its breath reeked of death, and it made me nauseous.
I shook my head trying to clear my thoughts. I mustered all my remaining strength to drive my blade up through the lower jaw of my opponent. It let out a terrible cry and flung me to the ground.
As the creature writhed from my wound, the blade still protruding from its chin, Gohn and Caulin rushed in to finish the creature. Caulin wrapped his symbiot around the creature neck and let loose a series of jolts. With a strong jerk the creature fell backwards still wailing from my attack. I wasted no time jumping up onto its barrel chest, as I grew out a spear length claw.
Terry and Syll both used their respective weapons to hold the mutant's arms down.
I released the claw I had formed and held it with both hands pointing the tip at the creatures exposed chest. It snapped at me with its injured jaw but was still to disoriented from Caulin's shocks and Gohns darts to shack us off.
With one fluid motion I plunged the spear downward into my enemys chest. It let out a bellow of despairing rage as the mortal wound struck deep.
Then to my shock rather than give up and die the beast tore itself free of our combined shackles. I fell to the ground as the seeming juggarnaut returned to its feet.
We stared I awe at its sheer force of will. It bellow another awful roar, as if to say the fight was not over yet. It charged me clearly wanting revenge for the two barbs that stuck out from its mouth and chest.
I grew another blade and move back to my freinds for support. As the beast attaked I lunged foward slicing across its left leg. The monster ignored the new wound brought its fist down hard upon my back. I dropped to the ground the air nocked out of me.
Gohn came to my aide standing over me and firing his darts directly up into the animals open mouth. The wounds in its mouth quickly turned into deep holes, filed with blood and puss. The creature was forced to back away from us for a moment to regain its focus.
This gave me the cahnce to return to my feet and prepare for another go, but Caulin jad already beaten me to it. Once again from behind he struck the thing in the back with point of his symbiote making sure to keep his distance from our dangerious enemy.
unfortunatly, this distance wasn't enough and the beast with a quick turn and a short step managed to pin Caulin to ground under its massive foot. Syll's snakes viciously ravaged the leg of the beast, the assault went unnoticed. The creature raised it right claw to skewer him. Terry's caudal quickly caught the arm and held it from its deadly work.
None the less Caulin was fadeing fast under the weight of the tremendous foot. I arrived behind it shoved my blad deep into the back of the knee on the leg that held Caulin down. That did it and the unrelenting thing finaly steped off a now uncounsious Caulin.
This time however instead of charging any of us the creature merely stumbled a few feet and then collasped. Finally the loss of blood from its wounds had caught up to it.
To our relief, this time our opponent stayed down. It flailed about weakly for a moment and then layed still. With one final bought of rage it opened its ravenous blood soaked jaws and let loose a terrible howl. The howl persisted for several minutes, I held my hands to my ears to fend off the fallen animals moans. Slowly the cry faded until it at last went silent.
We each let out a small sigh of relief. Even Caulin was back awake giving a pained smile, as he clutched his ribs.
Terry rushed to treat him. Kneeling next to him and giving him a shot of painkillers, as Syll joined her at his side. "I can't believe we did it" Caulin said cheerfully in spite of his pain.
Terry brought her hand to his mouth. " try not to talk for a bit I need to make sure no ribs were broken."
I winced at that thought as I felt my own injures. I was quite certain I had a few broken bones. Terry looked over at me in concern. " are alrigh David?"
I straigtened up and tried to play off the tension of the moment. "of course who do think I am. Caulin?" Gohn smirked, but Terry just rolled her eyes.
"you have been spending way to much time around these two." she remarked with fake distain.
Gohn laughed "what are you saying we are a bad influence on Dav..." his voice trailed off as a piercing howl riped through our ears. ...a howl that seemed to be a twin to the one the behmoth we just killed had let out in its death throws.
Syll stood up from Caulin's side trembling as she looked out toward the origin of our shared fear." no...no not another." she cried louder than her normal timid self. " we can't do this again." her words tore at my soul... She was right. This was it.
Me and Gohn readied ourselves for the impending attack. Neither Terry nor Syll seemed to have the heart to even put up that much of a charade.
The trees shook as the new monster appeared. It was as if our last oppenent had been resurected to exact its revenge. The creature took one look at its fallen mate and then another back at us. A bellow of rage was our only warning as it tore out across the plain towards us.
We braced ourselves as best we could. "at least we will go down fighting" Gohn said under his breath. I don't know if the remark was a serious one or not because at that moment it really did seem like we were about to "go down".
Chapter 17 Gun shots
Two days passed in the blink of an eye and already it was time for us to make another trip out. We met together at the cafeteria as usual and then headed to the stables we had gone to before to pick up our rides.
As I walked through the large training area, I found myself scanning the crowd to see if Hector was here again. My heart sped up as my eyes drifted from one soldier to the next, but when we reached the stables I still had not seen him. However, there was a tingling on the back of my neck that told me that somewhere, in that massive room, he could see me.
We rode off in the same direction as we had the day before. Our mounts flew through the underbrush even faster than they had before, after one trip there and back on this trail they had become familiar with it. Their powerful legs tore through the foliage, we hardly had to steer them as they followed almost exactly the steps they had taken a few days prior.
We passed the field the birds had attacked us in. Not a bone was left from the fight. The ground had been picked clean, most likely by scavengers, but to us it looked a trap that had been reset by a skilled hunter. Needless to say we decided not to there stop again.
We passed the place where we had camped. An anxious feeling built up in my stomach as once again we ventured further into the twisted forest. We slowed a bit as the basilisks became less familiar with the terrain. We looked around all curious of this new surrounding.
I saw that the trees in this area were actually getting smaller. They seemed to be choked by the underbrush. Vines climbed up each limb smothering them. The bushes were lined with thorns and seemed to dominate the ground.
We were forced to slow our progress even more as our mounts began to get cut repeatedly by the jagged plant life.
"Wow, I thought that the things were bad before this is crazy." I remarked. " If this gets any thicker we will have to get off and cut our way through."
Scyll nodded, " I think your right. We need to start looking to see if there is an easier path. Lets leave our mounts here and work our way around on foot."
Gohn sighed. " Yay. Now instead of the lizards getting scratched up we will be." he said sarcastically.
I jumped down from and reached up to help Terry down, but before I had a chance her little caudal sprang down from its perch on her shoulder and with its tail lifted her gently to the ground and then jumped back to her shoulder. She stroked its head.
I grew out a machete shaped blade and began methodically carving a path. We progressed slowly. Caulin yawned taunting me, "Hey David pick up the pace."
I cocked an eyebrow and then turned to him. I leveled my arm with the blade pointed right at him. I tensed the muscles and the blade shot forward. It whizzed by Caulin’s head and stuck into a tree next to him.
"Hey! What is the big idea?" He yelped in surprise.
I laughed, "there you go now take that blade and give me a hand." I grew out a blade for Gohn as well and we proceed to cut our way through.
As we slowly moved about Scyll jotted down notes about our surroundings attempting to put together a crude map for our next trip out this way.
Suddenly Terry’s caudal shot its tail out sweeping in a circle surrounding us. We stopped and looked over toward Terry. She signaled for us to be quiet. "He must have smelled something." She whispered.
We crouched together silently straining our ears in hopes of hearing what had spooked Terry’s pet. There was a sound of movement in the brush to our left.
Carefully we edged over to peered through the thorn bushes. Three tall four legged animals stood about a hundred yards away. They stood about ten feet tall and were thin as tree branches. Three quarters of their height came from their long legs. They had a thick scaly hide that showed through a thin covering of fur. They seemed perfectly bred for this thorny environment. They strode easily with a strange deer like grace.
Caulin sighed, "Well they don’t look very threatening. Terry, your caudal is too jumpy." He started to stand when a shrill shriek range though our ears. Our heads snapped back around just in time to see something spring from the trees.
It was a dark greenish brown that camouflaged it with the trees and had kept us from seeing it earlier. Its claws dug into wood and it crawled down the trunk with frightening quickness.
The creature had clearly descended from so sort of lizard, but though the physical similarities were clear the ferocity was unlike anything I had every seen. The creature leapt from the tree and sank its teeth and claws deep into one of the unsuspecting deer-like mutants. The remaining deer-mutants tore off through the brush like lightning, but the tree beast had already bagged its prey. With a sickening crunch the predator snapped its prey’s neck.
We backed away slowly, taking care not to alert the feasting animal. I took a deep breath. The sudden shock of the animals attack had taken me by surprise. I looked at each of my friends. A general look of discomfort was on all of their faces. Uneasily our glances shifted toward the trees around us. None of us would have been able to stop the creature if it had attacked one of us at that moment. It took the creature all of a second to kill its prey. There was no doubt that the world we were in now was even more dangerous than the one we had grown a costumed to.
"Can we really do this?" Gohn said, his voice just above a whisper. "Just the five of us, can we make it?"
Without stopping or hesitating Terry firmly answered him, "We have to." Gohn nodded back in agreement.
We walked for another hour in silence, still wary of our surroundings. The going was slow even with Gohn, Caulin, and I cutting through the brush we were still moving at a snails pace.
Finally, Caulin decided to break the silence. " I can’t take it anymore. We need to talk if for no other reason, we need to talk to keep our sanity. I don’t care if we are heard by the mutants out here, its not like they can’t hear all this chopping as it is."
Gohn sighed, "Yea, this will be a very long trip if we just edge slowly and quietly all the way there….. Though, making it there in one piece is slightly more important to me than being bored."
"We will be fine. I will protect you, my fragile little friend." Caulin said playfully slugging Gohn in the arm.
Gohn rubbed his arm and shot Caulin back an irritated look. He opened his mouth to say something snide in reply, but was cut off by Scyll. "Evander?" she said putting her hand to her mouth and pointing up toward a ridge above us.
Our eyes shot up toward the unfortunately familiar face looking down on us with hate filled eyes. Gohn’s demeanor instantly changed. Without saying a word he aimed his symbiot at the ridge. His fists were clenched so hard his knuckles were a ghost white.
From the ridge Evander shouted down at his brother. "In a hurry to start a fight," He said and then added with disdain, "little brother."
Gohn swallowed hard, as though he wanted to yell something in reply, but the usually verbose Gohn was at a loss for words. Instead he opened fire. Terry spun around and shouted, "NO! we can’t do this here its to dangerous." but her warning went unheeded.
With effortless grace Evander sprang from his perch, Gohn’s darts whizzed harmlessly into a random tree. Evander reached up and grabbed a branch high up on one of the nearby trees and with one hand vaulted himself like some sort of monkey, higher into the air, positioning directly over Gohn.
Gohn continued to fire fruitlessly into the branches, but Evander was just too fast. Finally, He came to rest on a branch over Gohn’s head and pushed off of it straight toward the ground. Caught off guard by the sudden attack Gohn staggered. Evander hit him head on, and the two of them went rolling into a briar bush nearby.
As quickly as he had attacked Evander leapt back into the branches. Caulin ran forward and struck the tree with his symbiot. Sparks flew from the branches as Evander from that tree to another, but not before the shock reached him.
Sparked from the blast he missed his target branch and tumbled back to earth. Caulin cheered for himself as Terry rushed to Gohn to help him out of the thorns
"Serves him right." Gohn muttered picking the bristles out of his hands.
Evander still un-phased returned to his feet, a large cut now showed down his right arm. "You are going to pay for that dome scum." He cried in anger.
He charged us again. Gohn fired several rounds, but was still unable to hit him. Caulin stepped forward with renewed confidence after his last "victory". I grew out a club and readied myself.
Evander reached us in only an instant. He jumped up and kicked off a nearby tree trunk and flew into Caulin, knocking him to the ground. I stepped up and swung at the back of Evander’s head. He leaned forward dodging my swing and kicked backwards at the same time. His foot connected with my chin and I sprawled down to the ground.
I rubbed my chin in pain and returned to my feet. Evander was squared off with Caulin. Caulin held his staff up defensively and the two of them circled each other each one waiting for the right time to strike.
I signaled to Gohn to move in behind him. Slowly Caulin, Gohn, and I circled around Evander. His eyes darted back and forth between us as turned paying close attention to every move we made.
As I looked into his cold eyes my mind flashed back to the that day in the military training area. Where Hector had squared off against a group of enemies with that same look in his eyes. I shuddered as I recollected what happened then.
I struggled to think of some sort of plan that would counter act his frightening strength and speed. I looked over toward the girls. They stood at the edge of our little fight. There was a look a fear and sadness in their eyes. I could see Scyll held her right arm tighter than usual, clearly they didn’t want to participate in this fight, but both seemed afraid if they didn’t something bad would happen.
I returned my concentration to the fight at hand. This stalemate wouldn’t hold much longer, the emotions were running far to high. I had an idea. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all I had. Before the others had a chance I rushed Evander.
With lightning reflexes he spun toward me and braced himself for my attack. As I ran I fired my club out at him. He easily dodged it. Before I reached him I grew another claw this one was sharp at the tip. Once I was in arms reach I swung at him as hard as I could.
Of course he dodged the attack with ease. By now Caulin and Gohn were coming to join the fight as well. As my blade skimmed by Evander’s chest, he grabbed my arm and spun me around bringing my own blade toward my throat. He then positioned me so that I was between him and Gohn.
"You had better lower your arms little brother." Evander said. " Those darts my hurt your friend."
Caulin and Gohn both froze. Scyll gasped. Terry screamed, " Evander! Stop this!" but he just sneered.
I looked forward at Gohn and with a faint smirk I said, " Fire away Gohn." Evander’s eyes opened wide not believing what I had said. He looked up just in time to see Gohn’s arms raised and ready to shoot him through me.
Caulin and Scyll looked on in disbelief and Terry started to yell something, but before anyone could do anything a loud crack rang out through the forest. The noise was loud, louder than anything in this new world ever was, but the sound was vaguely familiar to me.
We all stopped, like curious children and looked around for the source of the noise. Slowly each of our gazes landed on a ridge about a hundred feet away. A small girl stood atop the ridge brandishing a handgun in the air.
She kept her long blond hair up out of her face using a small bandana that seemed to have been cut from an old shirt. She looked to be about the same age as Gohn and Scyll. Her clothes were tattered and dirty, just like Evander’s, repeated use outdoors. She had an athletic build clearly developed from years of rough living in outside the dome. The most defining feature about her was the fact that she was geared from head to toe with guns and ammunitions. At her sides were two handguns in addition to the one she held, and strapped to her back was a large automatic rifle equipped with an impressive scope.
She slid down the ridge and nonchalantly walked right in the middle of our little fight, positioning herself directly between Gohn and Evander. She completely ignored us and looked right at Evander.
Evander stared back at her coldly, "Jessica, What are you doing here?" He said irritated.
The girl scoffed, " Well I am about to shoot you in the leg." She said pointing her gun at him. " What on earth are you doing?"
Evander sneered, " Get lost, this has nothing to do with you." He replied still holding my arm tightly.
Jessica sighed and put her hands on her hips the way girls do when they get angry. " Nothing to do with me huh." She said. "Virgil, sent me to watch you because for some reason he was afraid you might do something stupid. Well I can easily see here that he had absolutely nothing to worry about." She continued sarcastically while haphazardly waving her gun around the area.
My friends all looked one in confusion. It took me a moment to realize they most likely had never seen a gun in their life.
Jessica continued, " You were given precise orders, find them and report back. Even I thought you couldn’t possible screw this up, but I underestimated your immense stupidity." I laughed a little despite my circumstance. The girls sarcastic tone reminded me a little of Gohn. She put her hands to her head and massaged her temples and then said. " Good grief Evander. Let go of him I can’t talk to you seriously when look this stupid."
Begrudgingly Evander released me and immediately began to walk away. Gohn quickly brought up his symbiots and aimed them at Evander, " You are not going anywhere." He shouted.
In an instant Jessica’s gun snapped up pointed directly at Gohn. "Yes he is." she said calmly.
Gohn brought one of his arms over and aimed it at Jessica. "What the heck are those?" He asked
"they are guns from my time." I said. Then looking at her I added, "Where did you get those?"
She looked over at me. "around." She said, "We scavenge a lot of things and then refurbish them. It may not be as pretty as life for you dome dwellers, but we get by." She added the last part with a hint of bitterness. Though she didn’t seem to like the dome she did not seem to share the seething hatred of it with Evander. Slowly she lowered her gun and said, " Virgil asked us to find you."
"Who the hell is Virgil and what does he want us for?" Caulin yelled still wound up from the fight.
"I guess you could call him our leader." Jessica answered. "as for what he wants, I honestly don’t know he doesn’t usually take much interest in dome dwellers." She started to walk off after Evander, and then called back to us. "I imagine he will try to contact you soon, now that we have found you. By the way if you head about a mile to west over that hill there is a clearing that you can use to travel easier through this area."
Terry stepped forward. "Why are you telling us this. How can we trust you?"
"Do what you want." She replied indifferently. "But I will give you this warning. The clearing is a well traveled feeding ground for larger mutants. The travel will be easier and you won’t be bothered by smaller stealthier mutants, but keep your eyes peeled because every once in a while you will hit a very big one." With that she disappeared over the ridge.
Gohn shook off the stun that seemed to have settled over all of us and said. " Are we really just going to let them walk away after everything that just happened. I want some answers."
"Answers or revenge?" Scyll asked softly. Gohn shot her a look and she bowed her head quickly.
I straightened myself up and looked off in the direction the two outlanders had left. Who were they and what were they up to. I looked over at Terry. She was giving me a sour look. I cringed as she walked up to me. "What were you trying to pull back there?! Were you seriously going to have Gohn shoot Evander through you?!" She yelled.
"I.. Uh.. Well," I stammered. "I would have been ok. You know I recover fast."
She clenched her jaw and turned away from me. "Reckless moron." She muttered. "We should get going, and at least check out this clearing before we make camp for the night." She said marching away toward in the direction Jessica had indicated.
"Hey wait!" I called, but she kept going and ignored me completely. Scyll caught up with her and they walked together. Slowly I fell into step with Caulin and Gohn. Gohn walked silently still sulking, but Caulin wouldn’t stop talking.
"Ouch are you going to let your woman talk to you like that?" He teased completely over the fight we had just finished.
"My woman?" I asked rolling my eyes then with a sigh I added. "Shut up Caulin" That sparked a slight smile from Gohn as we continued after the girls.
As I walked through the large training area, I found myself scanning the crowd to see if Hector was here again. My heart sped up as my eyes drifted from one soldier to the next, but when we reached the stables I still had not seen him. However, there was a tingling on the back of my neck that told me that somewhere, in that massive room, he could see me.
We rode off in the same direction as we had the day before. Our mounts flew through the underbrush even faster than they had before, after one trip there and back on this trail they had become familiar with it. Their powerful legs tore through the foliage, we hardly had to steer them as they followed almost exactly the steps they had taken a few days prior.
We passed the field the birds had attacked us in. Not a bone was left from the fight. The ground had been picked clean, most likely by scavengers, but to us it looked a trap that had been reset by a skilled hunter. Needless to say we decided not to there stop again.
We passed the place where we had camped. An anxious feeling built up in my stomach as once again we ventured further into the twisted forest. We slowed a bit as the basilisks became less familiar with the terrain. We looked around all curious of this new surrounding.
I saw that the trees in this area were actually getting smaller. They seemed to be choked by the underbrush. Vines climbed up each limb smothering them. The bushes were lined with thorns and seemed to dominate the ground.
We were forced to slow our progress even more as our mounts began to get cut repeatedly by the jagged plant life.
"Wow, I thought that the things were bad before this is crazy." I remarked. " If this gets any thicker we will have to get off and cut our way through."
Scyll nodded, " I think your right. We need to start looking to see if there is an easier path. Lets leave our mounts here and work our way around on foot."
Gohn sighed. " Yay. Now instead of the lizards getting scratched up we will be." he said sarcastically.
I jumped down from and reached up to help Terry down, but before I had a chance her little caudal sprang down from its perch on her shoulder and with its tail lifted her gently to the ground and then jumped back to her shoulder. She stroked its head.
I grew out a machete shaped blade and began methodically carving a path. We progressed slowly. Caulin yawned taunting me, "Hey David pick up the pace."
I cocked an eyebrow and then turned to him. I leveled my arm with the blade pointed right at him. I tensed the muscles and the blade shot forward. It whizzed by Caulin’s head and stuck into a tree next to him.
"Hey! What is the big idea?" He yelped in surprise.
I laughed, "there you go now take that blade and give me a hand." I grew out a blade for Gohn as well and we proceed to cut our way through.
As we slowly moved about Scyll jotted down notes about our surroundings attempting to put together a crude map for our next trip out this way.
Suddenly Terry’s caudal shot its tail out sweeping in a circle surrounding us. We stopped and looked over toward Terry. She signaled for us to be quiet. "He must have smelled something." She whispered.
We crouched together silently straining our ears in hopes of hearing what had spooked Terry’s pet. There was a sound of movement in the brush to our left.
Carefully we edged over to peered through the thorn bushes. Three tall four legged animals stood about a hundred yards away. They stood about ten feet tall and were thin as tree branches. Three quarters of their height came from their long legs. They had a thick scaly hide that showed through a thin covering of fur. They seemed perfectly bred for this thorny environment. They strode easily with a strange deer like grace.
Caulin sighed, "Well they don’t look very threatening. Terry, your caudal is too jumpy." He started to stand when a shrill shriek range though our ears. Our heads snapped back around just in time to see something spring from the trees.
It was a dark greenish brown that camouflaged it with the trees and had kept us from seeing it earlier. Its claws dug into wood and it crawled down the trunk with frightening quickness.
The creature had clearly descended from so sort of lizard, but though the physical similarities were clear the ferocity was unlike anything I had every seen. The creature leapt from the tree and sank its teeth and claws deep into one of the unsuspecting deer-like mutants. The remaining deer-mutants tore off through the brush like lightning, but the tree beast had already bagged its prey. With a sickening crunch the predator snapped its prey’s neck.
We backed away slowly, taking care not to alert the feasting animal. I took a deep breath. The sudden shock of the animals attack had taken me by surprise. I looked at each of my friends. A general look of discomfort was on all of their faces. Uneasily our glances shifted toward the trees around us. None of us would have been able to stop the creature if it had attacked one of us at that moment. It took the creature all of a second to kill its prey. There was no doubt that the world we were in now was even more dangerous than the one we had grown a costumed to.
"Can we really do this?" Gohn said, his voice just above a whisper. "Just the five of us, can we make it?"
Without stopping or hesitating Terry firmly answered him, "We have to." Gohn nodded back in agreement.
We walked for another hour in silence, still wary of our surroundings. The going was slow even with Gohn, Caulin, and I cutting through the brush we were still moving at a snails pace.
Finally, Caulin decided to break the silence. " I can’t take it anymore. We need to talk if for no other reason, we need to talk to keep our sanity. I don’t care if we are heard by the mutants out here, its not like they can’t hear all this chopping as it is."
Gohn sighed, "Yea, this will be a very long trip if we just edge slowly and quietly all the way there….. Though, making it there in one piece is slightly more important to me than being bored."
"We will be fine. I will protect you, my fragile little friend." Caulin said playfully slugging Gohn in the arm.
Gohn rubbed his arm and shot Caulin back an irritated look. He opened his mouth to say something snide in reply, but was cut off by Scyll. "Evander?" she said putting her hand to her mouth and pointing up toward a ridge above us.
Our eyes shot up toward the unfortunately familiar face looking down on us with hate filled eyes. Gohn’s demeanor instantly changed. Without saying a word he aimed his symbiot at the ridge. His fists were clenched so hard his knuckles were a ghost white.
From the ridge Evander shouted down at his brother. "In a hurry to start a fight," He said and then added with disdain, "little brother."
Gohn swallowed hard, as though he wanted to yell something in reply, but the usually verbose Gohn was at a loss for words. Instead he opened fire. Terry spun around and shouted, "NO! we can’t do this here its to dangerous." but her warning went unheeded.
With effortless grace Evander sprang from his perch, Gohn’s darts whizzed harmlessly into a random tree. Evander reached up and grabbed a branch high up on one of the nearby trees and with one hand vaulted himself like some sort of monkey, higher into the air, positioning directly over Gohn.
Gohn continued to fire fruitlessly into the branches, but Evander was just too fast. Finally, He came to rest on a branch over Gohn’s head and pushed off of it straight toward the ground. Caught off guard by the sudden attack Gohn staggered. Evander hit him head on, and the two of them went rolling into a briar bush nearby.
As quickly as he had attacked Evander leapt back into the branches. Caulin ran forward and struck the tree with his symbiot. Sparks flew from the branches as Evander from that tree to another, but not before the shock reached him.
Sparked from the blast he missed his target branch and tumbled back to earth. Caulin cheered for himself as Terry rushed to Gohn to help him out of the thorns
"Serves him right." Gohn muttered picking the bristles out of his hands.
Evander still un-phased returned to his feet, a large cut now showed down his right arm. "You are going to pay for that dome scum." He cried in anger.
He charged us again. Gohn fired several rounds, but was still unable to hit him. Caulin stepped forward with renewed confidence after his last "victory". I grew out a club and readied myself.
Evander reached us in only an instant. He jumped up and kicked off a nearby tree trunk and flew into Caulin, knocking him to the ground. I stepped up and swung at the back of Evander’s head. He leaned forward dodging my swing and kicked backwards at the same time. His foot connected with my chin and I sprawled down to the ground.
I rubbed my chin in pain and returned to my feet. Evander was squared off with Caulin. Caulin held his staff up defensively and the two of them circled each other each one waiting for the right time to strike.
I signaled to Gohn to move in behind him. Slowly Caulin, Gohn, and I circled around Evander. His eyes darted back and forth between us as turned paying close attention to every move we made.
As I looked into his cold eyes my mind flashed back to the that day in the military training area. Where Hector had squared off against a group of enemies with that same look in his eyes. I shuddered as I recollected what happened then.
I struggled to think of some sort of plan that would counter act his frightening strength and speed. I looked over toward the girls. They stood at the edge of our little fight. There was a look a fear and sadness in their eyes. I could see Scyll held her right arm tighter than usual, clearly they didn’t want to participate in this fight, but both seemed afraid if they didn’t something bad would happen.
I returned my concentration to the fight at hand. This stalemate wouldn’t hold much longer, the emotions were running far to high. I had an idea. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all I had. Before the others had a chance I rushed Evander.
With lightning reflexes he spun toward me and braced himself for my attack. As I ran I fired my club out at him. He easily dodged it. Before I reached him I grew another claw this one was sharp at the tip. Once I was in arms reach I swung at him as hard as I could.
Of course he dodged the attack with ease. By now Caulin and Gohn were coming to join the fight as well. As my blade skimmed by Evander’s chest, he grabbed my arm and spun me around bringing my own blade toward my throat. He then positioned me so that I was between him and Gohn.
"You had better lower your arms little brother." Evander said. " Those darts my hurt your friend."
Caulin and Gohn both froze. Scyll gasped. Terry screamed, " Evander! Stop this!" but he just sneered.
I looked forward at Gohn and with a faint smirk I said, " Fire away Gohn." Evander’s eyes opened wide not believing what I had said. He looked up just in time to see Gohn’s arms raised and ready to shoot him through me.
Caulin and Scyll looked on in disbelief and Terry started to yell something, but before anyone could do anything a loud crack rang out through the forest. The noise was loud, louder than anything in this new world ever was, but the sound was vaguely familiar to me.
We all stopped, like curious children and looked around for the source of the noise. Slowly each of our gazes landed on a ridge about a hundred feet away. A small girl stood atop the ridge brandishing a handgun in the air.
She kept her long blond hair up out of her face using a small bandana that seemed to have been cut from an old shirt. She looked to be about the same age as Gohn and Scyll. Her clothes were tattered and dirty, just like Evander’s, repeated use outdoors. She had an athletic build clearly developed from years of rough living in outside the dome. The most defining feature about her was the fact that she was geared from head to toe with guns and ammunitions. At her sides were two handguns in addition to the one she held, and strapped to her back was a large automatic rifle equipped with an impressive scope.
She slid down the ridge and nonchalantly walked right in the middle of our little fight, positioning herself directly between Gohn and Evander. She completely ignored us and looked right at Evander.
Evander stared back at her coldly, "Jessica, What are you doing here?" He said irritated.
The girl scoffed, " Well I am about to shoot you in the leg." She said pointing her gun at him. " What on earth are you doing?"
Evander sneered, " Get lost, this has nothing to do with you." He replied still holding my arm tightly.
Jessica sighed and put her hands on her hips the way girls do when they get angry. " Nothing to do with me huh." She said. "Virgil, sent me to watch you because for some reason he was afraid you might do something stupid. Well I can easily see here that he had absolutely nothing to worry about." She continued sarcastically while haphazardly waving her gun around the area.
My friends all looked one in confusion. It took me a moment to realize they most likely had never seen a gun in their life.
Jessica continued, " You were given precise orders, find them and report back. Even I thought you couldn’t possible screw this up, but I underestimated your immense stupidity." I laughed a little despite my circumstance. The girls sarcastic tone reminded me a little of Gohn. She put her hands to her head and massaged her temples and then said. " Good grief Evander. Let go of him I can’t talk to you seriously when look this stupid."
Begrudgingly Evander released me and immediately began to walk away. Gohn quickly brought up his symbiots and aimed them at Evander, " You are not going anywhere." He shouted.
In an instant Jessica’s gun snapped up pointed directly at Gohn. "Yes he is." she said calmly.
Gohn brought one of his arms over and aimed it at Jessica. "What the heck are those?" He asked
"they are guns from my time." I said. Then looking at her I added, "Where did you get those?"
She looked over at me. "around." She said, "We scavenge a lot of things and then refurbish them. It may not be as pretty as life for you dome dwellers, but we get by." She added the last part with a hint of bitterness. Though she didn’t seem to like the dome she did not seem to share the seething hatred of it with Evander. Slowly she lowered her gun and said, " Virgil asked us to find you."
"Who the hell is Virgil and what does he want us for?" Caulin yelled still wound up from the fight.
"I guess you could call him our leader." Jessica answered. "as for what he wants, I honestly don’t know he doesn’t usually take much interest in dome dwellers." She started to walk off after Evander, and then called back to us. "I imagine he will try to contact you soon, now that we have found you. By the way if you head about a mile to west over that hill there is a clearing that you can use to travel easier through this area."
Terry stepped forward. "Why are you telling us this. How can we trust you?"
"Do what you want." She replied indifferently. "But I will give you this warning. The clearing is a well traveled feeding ground for larger mutants. The travel will be easier and you won’t be bothered by smaller stealthier mutants, but keep your eyes peeled because every once in a while you will hit a very big one." With that she disappeared over the ridge.
Gohn shook off the stun that seemed to have settled over all of us and said. " Are we really just going to let them walk away after everything that just happened. I want some answers."
"Answers or revenge?" Scyll asked softly. Gohn shot her a look and she bowed her head quickly.
I straightened myself up and looked off in the direction the two outlanders had left. Who were they and what were they up to. I looked over at Terry. She was giving me a sour look. I cringed as she walked up to me. "What were you trying to pull back there?! Were you seriously going to have Gohn shoot Evander through you?!" She yelled.
"I.. Uh.. Well," I stammered. "I would have been ok. You know I recover fast."
She clenched her jaw and turned away from me. "Reckless moron." She muttered. "We should get going, and at least check out this clearing before we make camp for the night." She said marching away toward in the direction Jessica had indicated.
"Hey wait!" I called, but she kept going and ignored me completely. Scyll caught up with her and they walked together. Slowly I fell into step with Caulin and Gohn. Gohn walked silently still sulking, but Caulin wouldn’t stop talking.
"Ouch are you going to let your woman talk to you like that?" He teased completely over the fight we had just finished.
"My woman?" I asked rolling my eyes then with a sigh I added. "Shut up Caulin" That sparked a slight smile from Gohn as we continued after the girls.
Chapter 16 Uncharted territory
The nights were always long for me. Sleep is a nice tool to fast forward through an existence that is too painful to handle. We use sleep to calm down, keep us from driving ourselves mad with our own thoughts. I no longer had that luxury, but I had sworn that I wouldn’t lose myself to that madness again, for Terry, all my other friends, and now… for Mahlah.
I whittled that painful night away in the gym. Taking my frustration out on the various training equipment. All the while deciding what had to be done next. Tomorrow, after her funeral, we would set out. I decided that we would go as far as possible and spend the night outside. Hopefully, after a doing that a few times each week, going farther each time…Hopefully, after a month or so we would be ready. We would be ready to find the cure.
When morning had come I was all set to convince them of my plan, but when I got to the cafeteria they were already there. Caulin looked up and nodded to me as I approached. "You look tired, man" He said concerned. " Did you rest at all?"
"Of course I did." I lied. "So I have been thinking about how we should do this. I think we should go out today. Right after Mahlah’s funeral. We can go out as far as possible and then camp outside for the night. We will come back the next morning, but I think I would be a good start at making a break into uncharted territory. I know we weren’t planning on an excursion today but…" I trailed off. The others were exchanging worried glances. I swallowed hard and tried to continue. " Look, I know I am the least qualified person here to be making plans like these, but I just feel like this is the best thing for us to do."
Terry’s eyes watered a little. She bit her lip the way she always does before giving me bad news. "David, its not that. We all agree. That was actually kind of what we had planned anyways, after we left you last night, but…" She sighed deeply. " But as for Mahlah’s funeral." She paused. "Hector had her cremated early this morning."
I stood frozen. My mind struggled to understand. I looked up and asked, " Why so soon?"
Terry winced not wanting to answer, but she did anyways. " Hector, didn’t want anyone else there. He said he want to do it alone."
I closed my eyes and shook my head, " You mean he didn’t want me there." She averted her eyes and said nothing. I took a deep breath. " Ok, well that is his decision to make. I have to respect that. Well I guess that means we don’t need to wait. Lets go, we will be able to make it even farther this way."
The others looked up at me, concern and pity seemed to pour out of their eyes. I didn’t look back at them. Instead I started off toward the exit, but I could still feel their sad stares baring down on me.
We arrived at the main exit, still walking in silence. A guard stopped us, as we walked up. "Please, wait here for a moment. Janus wanted to address you before you went out." The guard said.
I turned to Terry with a puzzled look on my face. "How did Janus know we were coming?"
Terry smiled, "I stopped by early this morning and told him we would be going out today." she said. I smiled for the first time in a while. It was hard to believe that she knew me that well.
The guard returned after a few minutes with Janus. Janus stroked his chin and walked up to us. "So, Terry tells me that you guys are wanting to go out today even though no excursion was previously planned, and on top of that you are wanting to stay out there overnight." He said scratching his head. "I was wondering what spurred this sudden decision?"
I started to speak up, but Caulin beat me to it. "Well sir, to be honest I was the one who made the decision." He said slyly. I shot him a questioning glance. " You see, Janus, I was just getting so bored with our usual assignments. I figured that this way I might actually get to have some fun."
Gohn couldn’t help himself. He rolled his eyes and sarcastically added, "yea, it’s bound to be a great time. I don’t know about you, but it has always been a dream of mine to go out with no idea where I was going or what to expect." He laughed and then threw an arm around Caulin. "But I am sure it is nothing the almighty Caulin can’t handle."
Caulin scowled at him, while Terry and Scyll both stifled giggles. Janus continued to stroke his chin and eyed us all. Finally he spoke, " Well, I guess there is no persuading you, so instead I guess I will give you a hand." The last few words he said staring me straight in my eyes. " Please come this way."
We walked slowly down a long corridor that was attached to the room we had been in. I had never seen this area, and from the looks on my friends faces all but Caulin hadn’t either.
The hallway opened into another enormous room, this one was filled with soldiers. I had no idea the dome’s army was so big. There had to of been ten thousand men in there. My friends all looked around with wide eyes, curious of this unknown area in their home. Only Caulin’s eyes were downcast, probably the first time I had ever seen him be anything but his cocky self.
The soldiers marched around in well organized lines, performing drills and breaking off into several training areas. Their movements were crisp and well rehearsed, It was hard to believe a force like this had been wiped out the last time someone tried to venture into uncharted territory. Hard to believe and a little scary.
Everything in this area was larger than life. An entire obstacle coarse lay in one corner of the room, currently being used by some of the soldiers. The coarse looked rough, I wondered if even Caulin could complete it, without being exhausted. There was a weight room next to it that made the one we had been using look like a playground.
Janus lead us toward the far side of this room. As we walked I saw something in the corner of my eye. Four men circled one soldier in what looked like a small sparring wring. I looked closely at the man standing in the center of wring. His back was bare and a strange symbiotic backpack lay at the side of the wring next to his shirt. His fiery red hair was what gave away his identity to me. It was Hector, he was in the middle of a combat demonstration. Several younger soldiers lined the wring ready to watch his amazing abilities.
It bother me, that he was able to be here though. As his four opponents circled him I began to understand. For a spit second I was able to see into his eyes. There are several stages of grief. One of them is anger. From the look in his eyes, it was apparent he was stuck on that stage, but at that moment, I had to admit, I probably was too. Unfortunately, I think we were both angry at the same person.
Hector stood unmoving as the four men stalked him, like wolves in a pack. A quick hand signal from one of them was the only warning as all at once the four men charged him.
Hector stood undaunted by the assailants. As they approached he took a quick step forward toward one of his opponents. With a single fluid movement he side step the man and grabbed the back of his shirt, sweeping his feet out and throwing him head first into one of the other men. The two smashed their heads together and fell unconscious to the ground.
The other two men quickly backed off and started to recircled him. Again, Hector stood completely unnerved by the situation. Then without any warning Hector pivoted on his left foot and sprinted toward the combatant on his right. He was on him in a second. The man had no time to react. Hector grabbed the soldiers shoulders and kneed him hard in the stomach. The soldier doubled over and collapsed.
The last uninjured fighter rushed to his teammates aid, but Hector had been counting on that. As the final assailant reached him Hector dropped to one knee and lunged forward catching his opponent around his legs. With an outstanding display of strength and agility, he lifted the soldier off his feet and used the soldiers own momentum to flip him over his back.
As the last fighter lay stunned on his back, Hector spun around and stepped his boot on the soldier neck. The soldiers eyes widened in fear, but Hector looked away from him. His gaze landed firmly on me.
I froze and for that moment the crowded room seemed empty. He had known I was watching from the beginning. My heart skipped a beat. I could feel his anger from across the room. I soaked it in.
After an endless moment, he broke our stare and lifted his boot from the soldiers neck. Without so much as a second glance he walked back, picked up his symbiot and left the arena. Stifled cheers rose up from the ranks that had been watching, as he left the wring.
"Hey, David." I heard Terry call out from up ahead. " What are you doing, crazy. Come on." She smiled and beckoned me to hurry. I jogged to catch up with them.
Terry looked at me questioningly when I rejoined them. I tried to wipe the emotions from my face and said, " I uh, saw some guys sparring and couldn’t help but watch." She gave a sad smile, not quite accepting my answer, but she seemed content to leave it be for the moment.
We made our way through the rest of the huge room, weaving in and out of the ranks of uniformed soldiers, till finally we made it to the far side of the room. This far corner seemed to be broken into a series of small stable like areas. Each stable holding at least two or three dozen large lizard mounts, the same ones that Janus’s soldiers had used to rescue us from the behemoth.
As we approached a soldier emerged from one of these stables. He was guiding three of the large beasts out from their pins and leading them in our direction. The soldier stopped in front of Janus and gave off a crisp salute. Janus returned his salute and then took the reins from the soldier.
Janus turned toward us and said, "These Basilisk mounts can reach and maintain speeds of up to forty mile per hour. They are adapted for climbing through the dense undergrowth of the forest out there. With these you should be able to reach the edge of our charted territory in only a few hours." He motioned to the soldier who had just lead out the beasts. "Lt. Vincent here will walk you through the basics of handling them. I have to attend to some things, now. I trust you all will be safe in your trip. I will await your report with great anticipation." With a small bow he then took his leave.
I climbed up onto one of the monstrous lizards, and tried to get a feel for it. Gohn and Caulin each took one and then Scyll climbed on with Caulin and Terry with me. The lieutenant led us out of the dome through a back door.
The lieutenant showed us some of the basics for handling the Basilisk mounts. It wasn’t really all that different from riding a horse, except it was bigger… and scaly. However, Janus had been right about them. They were fast and perfectly adapted for life in the thick undergrowth of the forests.
After about an hour of practice we were able to handle the creatures well enough to head out. We thanked Lt. Vincent and started off.
The air rushed past my face as we sped along, climbing over giant roots and over the thick bushes. It was incredible to watch the scenery fly by as we moved. The familiar landscape that we had been training on for the past several months passed quickly before my eyes. It wasn’t long before we had made it farther than I had ever gone before.
As we rode I could feel Terry’s hands around my waist, holding me tightly. It was hard to stay angry in the midst of this blissful situation, but somehow I managed.
We moved so quickly through the forest that we didn’t run into any hostile mutants. The ride in truth was quite peaceful. So peaceful it made me sick. I didn’t feel like I deserved for this trip to be this easy. Plus, I needed something to take out all this frustration.
After riding for about two hours, we came upon a large field that opened up in the middle of the forest. The area seemed safe, we would surely be able to see any danger from far off. The others were tired, so we decided to rest for a little while. I really didn’t want to, but I decided it would best just to go along with the group.
We dismounted and let the lizards roam around a little on their own. The lieutenant had said they were well trained so they wouldn’t run off without us. Caulin fell back onto the soft grass. "Whew, talk about sore. Man I feel like my legs are going to fall off." He said.
Gohn stretched his legs and sat down next to Caulin, " No, kidding, but I have to say it would have taken us most of the day to make this kind of distance on foot."
Terry sat down on the grass next to me. She held her caudal in her arms and stroked it gently like a cat, its long tail twisted around her arms and then her waist. She looked over to me, concern filled her eyes. "David, you have been really quiet this whole trip."
"I know," I said trying not to look at her. " I am tired that’s all." She arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. I sighed. " Yea, I am sure she believed that one." I muttered to myself under my breath.
We rested there for a little while. The others slept, but as usual I had no such luxury. No, instead I stared into to the distance. Looking off toward the unexplored territory ahead of us. We were all so caught up in everything that had happened that we seemed to all have forgotten how dangerous it was out there, but yet, I knew that this was what we had to do. It was what I had to do, or I would never forgive myself.
A sudden cry shook me from my daydream, and woke the others. One of the Basilisks had gotten spooked by something. It was jumping around and screeching in a painfully loud way.
I looked around, startled by the sudden ruckus. Terry turned to me and asked, "David, what is going on?"
I knitted my eyebrows and shook my head, " I don’t know the stupid lizard just starting screaming for no reason." I said as I continued to scan the area to find the source of the beast’s fear.
It wasn’t long before the other two basilisks were freaking out too. Caulin threw his hands up in frustration. " I don’t see anything. Those things are losing it over nothing. Come on lets get the dumb things and leave."
It was Scyll that figured it out first. She looked down at the ground for a moment with a vexed expression. I looked to see what had caught her eye. I saw shadows dancing all over the ground. Slowly my eyes eased upward.
They were circling us, like vultures circle some near dead beast in the desert. The mutant birds looked so small, but as they circled us they descended from where they were high in the sky. As they descended it became apparent that these mutants were not small.
Their wings were leathery and must have had at least a ten foot span. They were grayish in color and appeared to be all skin and bones. At the end of each wing was a small hand tipped with sharp claws. Giving them a hellishly demonic look. Their legs were reverse jointed and as they flew were tucked up under their bodies. Their small heads were attached to short stubby necks and had long beaks that came to a very sharp point. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like the basilisks were the stupid ones anymore.
I turned to Gohn, " What are those?!" I asked.
He shrugged, " I have no idea, nothing I have ever seen." He squinted against the sun trying to count them. "Man, there looks like a lot of them though." he was right there was a lot, more than I could keep track of.
Caulin laughed. "It’s about time this got interesting." He said pulling out his symbiot. "Now all we have to do is figure out how to get them down here."
Gohn rolled his eyes. "A hundred, most likely blood thirsty mutants are flying over our head, and Caulin wants to play." He sighed deeply and readied his symbiot. "Looks like it is going to be another beautiful day."
I grew out a long sword, and looked over at Terry. Her caudal was perched on her shoulder its long tail flailed out completely unraveled, it snaked through the air showing off its absurd length.
Scyll stood next to Caulin, looking up uneasily. Honestly, we were all nervous. Even Caulin gripped his staff a little tighter than normal. We had never fought so many mutants before, especially not ones that could fly.
Gohn raised his right arm and steadied it with his left. "Lets get this started, already." He said grimly. He fired six darts in rapid succession. The darts tore through the air and imbedded into six different mutants. Gohn chose the most putrid form of death for these poor beasts. As they fell from the sky they rained down gore from the wounds he had inflicted.
Caulin snickered, " Yea, lets see how they react to that." He said his cockiness returning as he relaxed a bit, and the mutants did indeed react, though not in the way we had hoped. In a swarm they dove from the sky, like a summer downpour. I raised my arms instinctively to fend them off, but strangely we were not their target.
I watched in disgusted amazement as the beasts landed. They walked on all fours using their wings as another set of legs. Nipping at each other they approached the corpses of their fallen friends. One of the larger ones stepped up first fending off the others. It stood over one of the dead mutants and drove its long beak into it, sucking out the innards.
Caulin turned and gagged in disgust. We stood by as the scavengers tore the six fallen mutants apart. In mere seconds there was no trace left of the fallen beasts, but it was clear that these hellish birds weren’t satiated yet.
Their attack was blindingly fast. The crowd on the ground tore back into the air all at once like dust kicked up by the wind. They circled us, the sheer number of them was astounding, looking at them from below I would have sworn I was looking up through the eye of some terrible storm cloud, and without warning once again the cloud opened up in a downpour.
My mind went numb. Different emotions bubbled up amazement, shock, terror, but above all those was rage.
The first of them tore through the air diving at an unfathomable speed right toward me. The razor sharp beaks closed in on me like a rain of daggers. I heard Terry scream, but I wasn’t scared anymore.
I thrust my blade upwards as hard as I could as the first one came close enough. My blade connected with the creatures head and the sheer momentum of its dive forced the beast to be spit open as I sliced through the air.
The others were suddenly spooked not used to such small prey fighting back. They flared theirs wings and circle me again. In the mean time my friends had broken from their daze and started to engage the demon birds as well.
In the corner of my eye I saw Caulin dodging left and right swinging his staff frying one after another as they dove after him.
Gohn stood by his side firing fiercely up into the swarm above us. The dieing birds fell from above in increasing numbers, but still they kept at us.
Another group came diving after me. I started running. The creatures flared their wings skimming the ground shooting after me. After about thirty yards I spun around just in time to slice the wings off the first two chasing me. The others blew by me, leaving a gust of air in their wake. I leveled my blade at one of the escaping beasts and fired it out just as the creature arced up back into the sky. The blade impaled it and it fell lifelessly back to earth.
I turned back to see how the others were handling themselves. They had huddled close together and were working with each other to fend off the attacks of the swarming birds above. Terry’s caudal flung its tail out snatching one after another out of mid-flight. Then dashing them to the ground. Even Scyll’s symbiot was unleashed. The ravenous snakes shot out from her arm in every direction each snake searching out its own prey.
Caulin stood his ground at the center of them and would fend off any of them that came to close. Gohn stood, still by his side firing relentlessly. Altogether they formed an impressive defense, in spite of being hopelessly out numbered, it seemed it was the attackers that didn’t stand a chance.
Terry looked worriedly toward me and beckoned for me to join them. I turned back toward the group that had broken off to come after me. They were turning around now to make another pass. I steadied myself growing out another long sword.
The beasts broke off into four groups and circled me again. This time they dove at me from every direction. I spun and my heel and sprinted off toward the one on my right. I jumped into the air to meet it and severed its head as it came close enough. As I landed I spun around as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough. Three of the creatures flew into me. I flailed up my arms and parried the first ones beak, but the next one skimmed my shoulder taking a large chunk with it. I fell backward and grabbed my arm in pain.
I gritted my teeth, furious. I quickly returned to my feet and launched my blade straight into the creature that was still chewing on my flesh. The blade sunk in just below the neck. Once again the bird fell to the ground.
The remaining two let out a blood curdling screech that made me cover my ears in pain. I looked up and saw a significant portion of the flock that had been engaging my friends break off and swoop down in my direction.
There was easily a hundred of them. As they sped toward me I could see their shadow moving swiftly across the field. It danced like some kind of mythical dragon. I could vaguely hear Terry screaming something at me, but my mind was lost in the fight. I simply stood there and grew out another blade to fight with.
I am not sure exactly what I was doing. Maybe I honestly thought I could win.….. Maybe I really just wanted to die, but whatever it was I certainly wasn’t thinking clearly.
I thrust my symbiot forward into them as the black wave washed over me. Like a mad man I flung my sword around slicing at everything that moved. I was coved in scrapes and cuts. Suddenly one of them knocked head first into me and we tumbled backward together. I struggled as the monster raked at me with its claws. I lied on my back with it pinning me down, the wave of black still flying only feet above our heads. In the midst of the frenzy over me, another bird raked its claws through the one that pinned me down. Then another and another till the creature fell over dead.
Still lying on my back I continued flailing my claw uselessly. Finally, they all were past me. I staggered to my feet preparing for the second attack. Now certain that this time I would not make it out alive.
Suddenly, there was a deafening roar that came from the forest behind me. The birds instantly started to screech amongst themselves. Their once uniform flock now broke. Each of them tearing off in different directions. There was another roar and then a new massive beast
erupted from the forest. Standing at least two stories tall this new creature had no arms or tail. It literally appeared to be a giant set of jaws mounted on two powerful looking reverse jointed legs. This new creature sprinted out across the field and then leapt into the air snatching four of the birds in its massive jaws with one snap. There was a nauseating sound of bones crunching as the creature inhaled its meal.
I stood there entranced as the creature chased the birds back into the forest disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. The few remaining bird mutants were flying off as fast as they could.
I could hear the others cheering. "Awesome we did it!" Caulin shouted.
"I am just glad everyone is alright." I heard Terry say. I began to tremble in anger. I wasn’t done with them yet.
I looked over to my left and saw one of them its wing had been injured and it was now pathetically trying to hobble away. "I am not done with you!" I sneered. In three steps I was on him. I plunged my blade deep into the creatures back. Then I started to hack into it. I heard myself screaming something, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I just kept hacking into it. Like it had done something terrible to me, but I don’t think I was really angry at that wretched thing.
Finally I sunk my blade into the beast a final time and released the sword into it. I looked down at my hands. Once again they were soaked in blood. Without thinking I began to vigorously wipe them on the grass and dirt. I just kept wiping them as hard as I could, but the blood wouldn’t go away.
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Terry’s face. Her eyes watered with the same fear I had seen that night. I snapped back to reality. I looked around at my friends fear and sadness was all over their faces. I looked back at my hands. They were rubbed raw. The blood I now saw on them was my own, but even as I looked at them I could see the cuts slowly dissolving away.
I stood up wiping the blood and dirt onto my pants. I swallowed hard. Looking back toward where the basilisk mounts had run away to, about a hundred yards off near the edge of the forest.
"We had better get going." I said coldly. As I walked away, in the corner of my eye, I saw a single tear slide down Terry’s face. My heart hurt for her. Why did I have to cause them all so much pain?
We rode on for about another hour after that, by then the sun had started to go down and the looming shadows of the trees were making it very hard to see. The fight with the bird mutants had slowed us down a lot, and we hadn’t made it as far as I would have liked.
"Hey David," Terry said over my shoulder as we rode. "it is going to be dark soon we should think about finding a place to camp for the night, don’t you think?" I reluctantly nodded.
"Look over there." Scyll said pointing to a small clearing that nestled up between to massive trees. " That looks like it would be a good place to camp. The roots from those trees will provide some decent shelter and there is enough room to make a fire."
She looked to me for approval, as if I had suddenly taken the role of leader for this particular excursion. I shrugged, " Yea, that spot looks fine." I said.
We tied the basilisks up near the entrance to our makeshift camp, hoping that if anything unsavory came around they would most likely alert us as they had before.
We cleared the camp site and started the fire. Afterward we unpacked some of the supplies from the basilisks and had a small meal of meal crackers, before lying down to rest.
"We should probably sleep in shifts." Gohn said. " That way we won’t be caught off guard, I will…"
"I’ve got the first shift." I interrupted. "You all look tired get some rest I will wake one of you up in few hours to take over."
Gohn sighed and then shrugged his shoulders. Caulin stood up and walked over to me. He put his arm around my shoulder. "Hey you know you could be a real sport and just pull a double for me. I got a heck of a work out today, and I really could use some beauty sleep." He said with a smile.
Gohn scoffed at him and then added as he rolled over to sleep, " What are you talking about Caulin? All the sleep in the world can’t help you." Caulin frowned and tossed a small rock at Gohn. Scyll and Terry both chuckled at them. I stomached a half-hearted smile, but at the moment I really didn’t feel all that much like laughing.
Terry pulled up a sleeping bag over to where I was sitting for my watch. " Wake me up first, I will take the next shift." She said.
I nodded, "alright. Goodnight." I replied staring off into the darkness around us.
I wasn’t long before they were all asleep. Gohn had to get up and force Caulin over on his side because Caulin was keeping everyone else awake with his snoring, but after that even Gohn seemed to fall quickly asleep.
I wondered to myself what I was going to tell them when they woke up in the morning and I hadn’t changed shifts with any of them. I had never told them about my problems sleeping, and honestly I didn’t want to.
I spent the next few hours listening to the sounds of this strange new world. The cries of animals, the wind whistling through the trees.
I stood up and climbed to the top of one of the tall roots that made up our shelter. I peered out in the direction that I knew we still had to go. We were already in uncharted territory, but we were still so far away, and even if we did make it. How would we ever find this "special mutant". I sighed deeply.
"You weren’t planning on waking any of us up, were you?" I heard Terry’s voice say from below me. I cringed at the veiled rebuke.
"Well I was going to get around to it eventually." I lied pointlessly, as I slid down to where she was standing.
We sat down together by the fire and didn’t say anything for a while. Finally, Terry cut to the heart of the issue. "it’s not your fault you know." She said.
I looked up at her. She had a troubled look on her face, like she was concentrating on the fire as hard as she could. I looked away, " I know." I said.
"Earlier, as you were…." She stopped searching for the word.
"Losing it?" I volunteered.
She frowned, but continued. " You were screaming, "I am sorry" over and over again."
I rubbed my head, anxiety about the memory was burning in the pit of my stomach. "So that is what I was saying." I whispered.
"David, you did everything you could for Mahlah. Even Hector will realize that someday. You can’t torture yourself about this. There was just no way for you to save her." Terry said looking pleadingly into my eyes.
Slowly I answered, just now coming to this realization myself. "I….I know. I know there is nothing I could do to save her, and that is why I am so mad." She knitted her eyebrows not quite understanding. Actually I was only just then starting to myself. "While I was watching her, from the second I saw her pass out. I kept seeing you. Even though I did everything I could I still couldn’t save her. It made me realize how powerless I am against this disease, and it made me really scared. Because I can’t just stand and watch that happen to you!" I said fighting back my own tears. " That is why I have to find the cure. Because I don’t know what I would do if I lost you."
Terry looked back at me stunned. Her eyes turned very sad. Quietly she said, "Everyone dies eventually, David. You can’t try to stop everyone from dieing. It is not possible and its not healthy. All you can do is make the best of the time you are given. Besides I believe that even after death, life isn’t over. Don’t you?"
My heart skipped a beat. I froze. She was right. I remembered my mom always saying things like that to me. I looked back into her now teary eyes. I nodded. She smiled back at me. That smile alone seemed to be able to make everything better.
We sat there for a long while after that in silence. She scooted close to me and laid her head on my shoulder. Within minutes she was asleep. I still decided not to wake the others. I wanted to think some more, alone. No, not alone. I would never really be alone.
As I sat there, I thought about Mahlah and the small amount of time we had spent together. I remembered her cute little daughter and I even remembered Hector. She really loved them. I looked back at Terry sleeping there next to me, and I let myself relax for the first time in what had seemed to be a very long time.
The sun rose early the next day. Small rays of light escaped the ominous forest ceiling and sprinkled down among us. Gohn was the first to squint his eyes at the new light.
Stretching, he looked around as though lost for a moment until he remembered where he was. He rubbed his eyes lazily and sat up leaning against the massive tree that constituted our shelter. He noticed me and with a yawn he said, "David?" he rubbed his temples trying to banish the morning fog, "Did you stay up all night?" he asked.
I nodded quietly. He cocked and eyebrow and started to say something, but I held up a hand and said, "It’s ok. I fine now." He frowned unconvinced, but shrugged and let it go.
Caulin stirred next, woken by something other than the early morning sunlight. Begrudgingly he sat up looked at me and then Gohn, his eyes still half closed. "I am going to use the toilet." he grunted.
"What toilet?" Gohn replied with a coy smile. Caulin took another look around and then cursed under his breath. He stood up and lumbered off into the woods, carrying his staff.
I shook my head and laughed a little. Gohn nodded at me, "Good to see you smiling again." he said. "You going to be alright now?"
I nodded, " better at least." I replied, I took a deep breath and asked. " How do you deal with it?"
He shook his head. "You don’t." he replied simply. " when you have been dealing with death your whole life, you learn just to …. To bury it."
" I guess I see why you don’t talk about it." I said. He only nodded.
Suddenly I heard Scyll’s soft voice from behind me, "That is why we fight." she said. "So that one day people won’t have to deal with this."
I turned toward her she was sitting up now as was Terry. My face reddened as I realized they had been listening the whole time.
Just then Caulin strolled back into the camp. " Well I feel better." He cracked his neck and stretched his arms and then continued, " How about we have some breakfast I am starved."
Gohn rolled his eyes and tossed him a meal cracker from his pack. " Come on lets get packed up we have a long trip home today."
Caulin caught the cracker and downed it in one bite. His mouth still full he grumbled, " Do we have to?" He gave a sidelong glance at the Basilisk mounts and sighed, "My butt is still sore from yesterday."
I loaded my bag onto one of the large lizards. "Oh you’re just scared that we are going to run into another pig-beast and you’re going to be beaten up again." I said with a chuckle.
Caulin sneered, "Since when is he in a good mood again? I think I liked it better when he was moping." We all laughed, as we finished packing up.
The trip back was much easier. The basilisks seemed to run much faster and easier when heading back in the direction of their home. We sighted several mutants along the way, even a few that the others had not seen before, but we encountered no real resistance. We arrived home well before sundown, but we were still tired and decided to rest for the remainder of the evening after giving Janus a short report.
I whittled that painful night away in the gym. Taking my frustration out on the various training equipment. All the while deciding what had to be done next. Tomorrow, after her funeral, we would set out. I decided that we would go as far as possible and spend the night outside. Hopefully, after a doing that a few times each week, going farther each time…Hopefully, after a month or so we would be ready. We would be ready to find the cure.
When morning had come I was all set to convince them of my plan, but when I got to the cafeteria they were already there. Caulin looked up and nodded to me as I approached. "You look tired, man" He said concerned. " Did you rest at all?"
"Of course I did." I lied. "So I have been thinking about how we should do this. I think we should go out today. Right after Mahlah’s funeral. We can go out as far as possible and then camp outside for the night. We will come back the next morning, but I think I would be a good start at making a break into uncharted territory. I know we weren’t planning on an excursion today but…" I trailed off. The others were exchanging worried glances. I swallowed hard and tried to continue. " Look, I know I am the least qualified person here to be making plans like these, but I just feel like this is the best thing for us to do."
Terry’s eyes watered a little. She bit her lip the way she always does before giving me bad news. "David, its not that. We all agree. That was actually kind of what we had planned anyways, after we left you last night, but…" She sighed deeply. " But as for Mahlah’s funeral." She paused. "Hector had her cremated early this morning."
I stood frozen. My mind struggled to understand. I looked up and asked, " Why so soon?"
Terry winced not wanting to answer, but she did anyways. " Hector, didn’t want anyone else there. He said he want to do it alone."
I closed my eyes and shook my head, " You mean he didn’t want me there." She averted her eyes and said nothing. I took a deep breath. " Ok, well that is his decision to make. I have to respect that. Well I guess that means we don’t need to wait. Lets go, we will be able to make it even farther this way."
The others looked up at me, concern and pity seemed to pour out of their eyes. I didn’t look back at them. Instead I started off toward the exit, but I could still feel their sad stares baring down on me.
We arrived at the main exit, still walking in silence. A guard stopped us, as we walked up. "Please, wait here for a moment. Janus wanted to address you before you went out." The guard said.
I turned to Terry with a puzzled look on my face. "How did Janus know we were coming?"
Terry smiled, "I stopped by early this morning and told him we would be going out today." she said. I smiled for the first time in a while. It was hard to believe that she knew me that well.
The guard returned after a few minutes with Janus. Janus stroked his chin and walked up to us. "So, Terry tells me that you guys are wanting to go out today even though no excursion was previously planned, and on top of that you are wanting to stay out there overnight." He said scratching his head. "I was wondering what spurred this sudden decision?"
I started to speak up, but Caulin beat me to it. "Well sir, to be honest I was the one who made the decision." He said slyly. I shot him a questioning glance. " You see, Janus, I was just getting so bored with our usual assignments. I figured that this way I might actually get to have some fun."
Gohn couldn’t help himself. He rolled his eyes and sarcastically added, "yea, it’s bound to be a great time. I don’t know about you, but it has always been a dream of mine to go out with no idea where I was going or what to expect." He laughed and then threw an arm around Caulin. "But I am sure it is nothing the almighty Caulin can’t handle."
Caulin scowled at him, while Terry and Scyll both stifled giggles. Janus continued to stroke his chin and eyed us all. Finally he spoke, " Well, I guess there is no persuading you, so instead I guess I will give you a hand." The last few words he said staring me straight in my eyes. " Please come this way."
We walked slowly down a long corridor that was attached to the room we had been in. I had never seen this area, and from the looks on my friends faces all but Caulin hadn’t either.
The hallway opened into another enormous room, this one was filled with soldiers. I had no idea the dome’s army was so big. There had to of been ten thousand men in there. My friends all looked around with wide eyes, curious of this unknown area in their home. Only Caulin’s eyes were downcast, probably the first time I had ever seen him be anything but his cocky self.
The soldiers marched around in well organized lines, performing drills and breaking off into several training areas. Their movements were crisp and well rehearsed, It was hard to believe a force like this had been wiped out the last time someone tried to venture into uncharted territory. Hard to believe and a little scary.
Everything in this area was larger than life. An entire obstacle coarse lay in one corner of the room, currently being used by some of the soldiers. The coarse looked rough, I wondered if even Caulin could complete it, without being exhausted. There was a weight room next to it that made the one we had been using look like a playground.
Janus lead us toward the far side of this room. As we walked I saw something in the corner of my eye. Four men circled one soldier in what looked like a small sparring wring. I looked closely at the man standing in the center of wring. His back was bare and a strange symbiotic backpack lay at the side of the wring next to his shirt. His fiery red hair was what gave away his identity to me. It was Hector, he was in the middle of a combat demonstration. Several younger soldiers lined the wring ready to watch his amazing abilities.
It bother me, that he was able to be here though. As his four opponents circled him I began to understand. For a spit second I was able to see into his eyes. There are several stages of grief. One of them is anger. From the look in his eyes, it was apparent he was stuck on that stage, but at that moment, I had to admit, I probably was too. Unfortunately, I think we were both angry at the same person.
Hector stood unmoving as the four men stalked him, like wolves in a pack. A quick hand signal from one of them was the only warning as all at once the four men charged him.
Hector stood undaunted by the assailants. As they approached he took a quick step forward toward one of his opponents. With a single fluid movement he side step the man and grabbed the back of his shirt, sweeping his feet out and throwing him head first into one of the other men. The two smashed their heads together and fell unconscious to the ground.
The other two men quickly backed off and started to recircled him. Again, Hector stood completely unnerved by the situation. Then without any warning Hector pivoted on his left foot and sprinted toward the combatant on his right. He was on him in a second. The man had no time to react. Hector grabbed the soldiers shoulders and kneed him hard in the stomach. The soldier doubled over and collapsed.
The last uninjured fighter rushed to his teammates aid, but Hector had been counting on that. As the final assailant reached him Hector dropped to one knee and lunged forward catching his opponent around his legs. With an outstanding display of strength and agility, he lifted the soldier off his feet and used the soldiers own momentum to flip him over his back.
As the last fighter lay stunned on his back, Hector spun around and stepped his boot on the soldier neck. The soldiers eyes widened in fear, but Hector looked away from him. His gaze landed firmly on me.
I froze and for that moment the crowded room seemed empty. He had known I was watching from the beginning. My heart skipped a beat. I could feel his anger from across the room. I soaked it in.
After an endless moment, he broke our stare and lifted his boot from the soldiers neck. Without so much as a second glance he walked back, picked up his symbiot and left the arena. Stifled cheers rose up from the ranks that had been watching, as he left the wring.
"Hey, David." I heard Terry call out from up ahead. " What are you doing, crazy. Come on." She smiled and beckoned me to hurry. I jogged to catch up with them.
Terry looked at me questioningly when I rejoined them. I tried to wipe the emotions from my face and said, " I uh, saw some guys sparring and couldn’t help but watch." She gave a sad smile, not quite accepting my answer, but she seemed content to leave it be for the moment.
We made our way through the rest of the huge room, weaving in and out of the ranks of uniformed soldiers, till finally we made it to the far side of the room. This far corner seemed to be broken into a series of small stable like areas. Each stable holding at least two or three dozen large lizard mounts, the same ones that Janus’s soldiers had used to rescue us from the behemoth.
As we approached a soldier emerged from one of these stables. He was guiding three of the large beasts out from their pins and leading them in our direction. The soldier stopped in front of Janus and gave off a crisp salute. Janus returned his salute and then took the reins from the soldier.
Janus turned toward us and said, "These Basilisk mounts can reach and maintain speeds of up to forty mile per hour. They are adapted for climbing through the dense undergrowth of the forest out there. With these you should be able to reach the edge of our charted territory in only a few hours." He motioned to the soldier who had just lead out the beasts. "Lt. Vincent here will walk you through the basics of handling them. I have to attend to some things, now. I trust you all will be safe in your trip. I will await your report with great anticipation." With a small bow he then took his leave.
I climbed up onto one of the monstrous lizards, and tried to get a feel for it. Gohn and Caulin each took one and then Scyll climbed on with Caulin and Terry with me. The lieutenant led us out of the dome through a back door.
The lieutenant showed us some of the basics for handling the Basilisk mounts. It wasn’t really all that different from riding a horse, except it was bigger… and scaly. However, Janus had been right about them. They were fast and perfectly adapted for life in the thick undergrowth of the forests.
After about an hour of practice we were able to handle the creatures well enough to head out. We thanked Lt. Vincent and started off.
The air rushed past my face as we sped along, climbing over giant roots and over the thick bushes. It was incredible to watch the scenery fly by as we moved. The familiar landscape that we had been training on for the past several months passed quickly before my eyes. It wasn’t long before we had made it farther than I had ever gone before.
As we rode I could feel Terry’s hands around my waist, holding me tightly. It was hard to stay angry in the midst of this blissful situation, but somehow I managed.
We moved so quickly through the forest that we didn’t run into any hostile mutants. The ride in truth was quite peaceful. So peaceful it made me sick. I didn’t feel like I deserved for this trip to be this easy. Plus, I needed something to take out all this frustration.
After riding for about two hours, we came upon a large field that opened up in the middle of the forest. The area seemed safe, we would surely be able to see any danger from far off. The others were tired, so we decided to rest for a little while. I really didn’t want to, but I decided it would best just to go along with the group.
We dismounted and let the lizards roam around a little on their own. The lieutenant had said they were well trained so they wouldn’t run off without us. Caulin fell back onto the soft grass. "Whew, talk about sore. Man I feel like my legs are going to fall off." He said.
Gohn stretched his legs and sat down next to Caulin, " No, kidding, but I have to say it would have taken us most of the day to make this kind of distance on foot."
Terry sat down on the grass next to me. She held her caudal in her arms and stroked it gently like a cat, its long tail twisted around her arms and then her waist. She looked over to me, concern filled her eyes. "David, you have been really quiet this whole trip."
"I know," I said trying not to look at her. " I am tired that’s all." She arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. I sighed. " Yea, I am sure she believed that one." I muttered to myself under my breath.
We rested there for a little while. The others slept, but as usual I had no such luxury. No, instead I stared into to the distance. Looking off toward the unexplored territory ahead of us. We were all so caught up in everything that had happened that we seemed to all have forgotten how dangerous it was out there, but yet, I knew that this was what we had to do. It was what I had to do, or I would never forgive myself.
A sudden cry shook me from my daydream, and woke the others. One of the Basilisks had gotten spooked by something. It was jumping around and screeching in a painfully loud way.
I looked around, startled by the sudden ruckus. Terry turned to me and asked, "David, what is going on?"
I knitted my eyebrows and shook my head, " I don’t know the stupid lizard just starting screaming for no reason." I said as I continued to scan the area to find the source of the beast’s fear.
It wasn’t long before the other two basilisks were freaking out too. Caulin threw his hands up in frustration. " I don’t see anything. Those things are losing it over nothing. Come on lets get the dumb things and leave."
It was Scyll that figured it out first. She looked down at the ground for a moment with a vexed expression. I looked to see what had caught her eye. I saw shadows dancing all over the ground. Slowly my eyes eased upward.
They were circling us, like vultures circle some near dead beast in the desert. The mutant birds looked so small, but as they circled us they descended from where they were high in the sky. As they descended it became apparent that these mutants were not small.
Their wings were leathery and must have had at least a ten foot span. They were grayish in color and appeared to be all skin and bones. At the end of each wing was a small hand tipped with sharp claws. Giving them a hellishly demonic look. Their legs were reverse jointed and as they flew were tucked up under their bodies. Their small heads were attached to short stubby necks and had long beaks that came to a very sharp point. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like the basilisks were the stupid ones anymore.
I turned to Gohn, " What are those?!" I asked.
He shrugged, " I have no idea, nothing I have ever seen." He squinted against the sun trying to count them. "Man, there looks like a lot of them though." he was right there was a lot, more than I could keep track of.
Caulin laughed. "It’s about time this got interesting." He said pulling out his symbiot. "Now all we have to do is figure out how to get them down here."
Gohn rolled his eyes. "A hundred, most likely blood thirsty mutants are flying over our head, and Caulin wants to play." He sighed deeply and readied his symbiot. "Looks like it is going to be another beautiful day."
I grew out a long sword, and looked over at Terry. Her caudal was perched on her shoulder its long tail flailed out completely unraveled, it snaked through the air showing off its absurd length.
Scyll stood next to Caulin, looking up uneasily. Honestly, we were all nervous. Even Caulin gripped his staff a little tighter than normal. We had never fought so many mutants before, especially not ones that could fly.
Gohn raised his right arm and steadied it with his left. "Lets get this started, already." He said grimly. He fired six darts in rapid succession. The darts tore through the air and imbedded into six different mutants. Gohn chose the most putrid form of death for these poor beasts. As they fell from the sky they rained down gore from the wounds he had inflicted.
Caulin snickered, " Yea, lets see how they react to that." He said his cockiness returning as he relaxed a bit, and the mutants did indeed react, though not in the way we had hoped. In a swarm they dove from the sky, like a summer downpour. I raised my arms instinctively to fend them off, but strangely we were not their target.
I watched in disgusted amazement as the beasts landed. They walked on all fours using their wings as another set of legs. Nipping at each other they approached the corpses of their fallen friends. One of the larger ones stepped up first fending off the others. It stood over one of the dead mutants and drove its long beak into it, sucking out the innards.
Caulin turned and gagged in disgust. We stood by as the scavengers tore the six fallen mutants apart. In mere seconds there was no trace left of the fallen beasts, but it was clear that these hellish birds weren’t satiated yet.
Their attack was blindingly fast. The crowd on the ground tore back into the air all at once like dust kicked up by the wind. They circled us, the sheer number of them was astounding, looking at them from below I would have sworn I was looking up through the eye of some terrible storm cloud, and without warning once again the cloud opened up in a downpour.
My mind went numb. Different emotions bubbled up amazement, shock, terror, but above all those was rage.
The first of them tore through the air diving at an unfathomable speed right toward me. The razor sharp beaks closed in on me like a rain of daggers. I heard Terry scream, but I wasn’t scared anymore.
I thrust my blade upwards as hard as I could as the first one came close enough. My blade connected with the creatures head and the sheer momentum of its dive forced the beast to be spit open as I sliced through the air.
The others were suddenly spooked not used to such small prey fighting back. They flared theirs wings and circle me again. In the mean time my friends had broken from their daze and started to engage the demon birds as well.
In the corner of my eye I saw Caulin dodging left and right swinging his staff frying one after another as they dove after him.
Gohn stood by his side firing fiercely up into the swarm above us. The dieing birds fell from above in increasing numbers, but still they kept at us.
Another group came diving after me. I started running. The creatures flared their wings skimming the ground shooting after me. After about thirty yards I spun around just in time to slice the wings off the first two chasing me. The others blew by me, leaving a gust of air in their wake. I leveled my blade at one of the escaping beasts and fired it out just as the creature arced up back into the sky. The blade impaled it and it fell lifelessly back to earth.
I turned back to see how the others were handling themselves. They had huddled close together and were working with each other to fend off the attacks of the swarming birds above. Terry’s caudal flung its tail out snatching one after another out of mid-flight. Then dashing them to the ground. Even Scyll’s symbiot was unleashed. The ravenous snakes shot out from her arm in every direction each snake searching out its own prey.
Caulin stood his ground at the center of them and would fend off any of them that came to close. Gohn stood, still by his side firing relentlessly. Altogether they formed an impressive defense, in spite of being hopelessly out numbered, it seemed it was the attackers that didn’t stand a chance.
Terry looked worriedly toward me and beckoned for me to join them. I turned back toward the group that had broken off to come after me. They were turning around now to make another pass. I steadied myself growing out another long sword.
The beasts broke off into four groups and circled me again. This time they dove at me from every direction. I spun and my heel and sprinted off toward the one on my right. I jumped into the air to meet it and severed its head as it came close enough. As I landed I spun around as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough. Three of the creatures flew into me. I flailed up my arms and parried the first ones beak, but the next one skimmed my shoulder taking a large chunk with it. I fell backward and grabbed my arm in pain.
I gritted my teeth, furious. I quickly returned to my feet and launched my blade straight into the creature that was still chewing on my flesh. The blade sunk in just below the neck. Once again the bird fell to the ground.
The remaining two let out a blood curdling screech that made me cover my ears in pain. I looked up and saw a significant portion of the flock that had been engaging my friends break off and swoop down in my direction.
There was easily a hundred of them. As they sped toward me I could see their shadow moving swiftly across the field. It danced like some kind of mythical dragon. I could vaguely hear Terry screaming something at me, but my mind was lost in the fight. I simply stood there and grew out another blade to fight with.
I am not sure exactly what I was doing. Maybe I honestly thought I could win.….. Maybe I really just wanted to die, but whatever it was I certainly wasn’t thinking clearly.
I thrust my symbiot forward into them as the black wave washed over me. Like a mad man I flung my sword around slicing at everything that moved. I was coved in scrapes and cuts. Suddenly one of them knocked head first into me and we tumbled backward together. I struggled as the monster raked at me with its claws. I lied on my back with it pinning me down, the wave of black still flying only feet above our heads. In the midst of the frenzy over me, another bird raked its claws through the one that pinned me down. Then another and another till the creature fell over dead.
Still lying on my back I continued flailing my claw uselessly. Finally, they all were past me. I staggered to my feet preparing for the second attack. Now certain that this time I would not make it out alive.
Suddenly, there was a deafening roar that came from the forest behind me. The birds instantly started to screech amongst themselves. Their once uniform flock now broke. Each of them tearing off in different directions. There was another roar and then a new massive beast
erupted from the forest. Standing at least two stories tall this new creature had no arms or tail. It literally appeared to be a giant set of jaws mounted on two powerful looking reverse jointed legs. This new creature sprinted out across the field and then leapt into the air snatching four of the birds in its massive jaws with one snap. There was a nauseating sound of bones crunching as the creature inhaled its meal.
I stood there entranced as the creature chased the birds back into the forest disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. The few remaining bird mutants were flying off as fast as they could.
I could hear the others cheering. "Awesome we did it!" Caulin shouted.
"I am just glad everyone is alright." I heard Terry say. I began to tremble in anger. I wasn’t done with them yet.
I looked over to my left and saw one of them its wing had been injured and it was now pathetically trying to hobble away. "I am not done with you!" I sneered. In three steps I was on him. I plunged my blade deep into the creatures back. Then I started to hack into it. I heard myself screaming something, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I just kept hacking into it. Like it had done something terrible to me, but I don’t think I was really angry at that wretched thing.
Finally I sunk my blade into the beast a final time and released the sword into it. I looked down at my hands. Once again they were soaked in blood. Without thinking I began to vigorously wipe them on the grass and dirt. I just kept wiping them as hard as I could, but the blood wouldn’t go away.
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Terry’s face. Her eyes watered with the same fear I had seen that night. I snapped back to reality. I looked around at my friends fear and sadness was all over their faces. I looked back at my hands. They were rubbed raw. The blood I now saw on them was my own, but even as I looked at them I could see the cuts slowly dissolving away.
I stood up wiping the blood and dirt onto my pants. I swallowed hard. Looking back toward where the basilisk mounts had run away to, about a hundred yards off near the edge of the forest.
"We had better get going." I said coldly. As I walked away, in the corner of my eye, I saw a single tear slide down Terry’s face. My heart hurt for her. Why did I have to cause them all so much pain?
We rode on for about another hour after that, by then the sun had started to go down and the looming shadows of the trees were making it very hard to see. The fight with the bird mutants had slowed us down a lot, and we hadn’t made it as far as I would have liked.
"Hey David," Terry said over my shoulder as we rode. "it is going to be dark soon we should think about finding a place to camp for the night, don’t you think?" I reluctantly nodded.
"Look over there." Scyll said pointing to a small clearing that nestled up between to massive trees. " That looks like it would be a good place to camp. The roots from those trees will provide some decent shelter and there is enough room to make a fire."
She looked to me for approval, as if I had suddenly taken the role of leader for this particular excursion. I shrugged, " Yea, that spot looks fine." I said.
We tied the basilisks up near the entrance to our makeshift camp, hoping that if anything unsavory came around they would most likely alert us as they had before.
We cleared the camp site and started the fire. Afterward we unpacked some of the supplies from the basilisks and had a small meal of meal crackers, before lying down to rest.
"We should probably sleep in shifts." Gohn said. " That way we won’t be caught off guard, I will…"
"I’ve got the first shift." I interrupted. "You all look tired get some rest I will wake one of you up in few hours to take over."
Gohn sighed and then shrugged his shoulders. Caulin stood up and walked over to me. He put his arm around my shoulder. "Hey you know you could be a real sport and just pull a double for me. I got a heck of a work out today, and I really could use some beauty sleep." He said with a smile.
Gohn scoffed at him and then added as he rolled over to sleep, " What are you talking about Caulin? All the sleep in the world can’t help you." Caulin frowned and tossed a small rock at Gohn. Scyll and Terry both chuckled at them. I stomached a half-hearted smile, but at the moment I really didn’t feel all that much like laughing.
Terry pulled up a sleeping bag over to where I was sitting for my watch. " Wake me up first, I will take the next shift." She said.
I nodded, "alright. Goodnight." I replied staring off into the darkness around us.
I wasn’t long before they were all asleep. Gohn had to get up and force Caulin over on his side because Caulin was keeping everyone else awake with his snoring, but after that even Gohn seemed to fall quickly asleep.
I wondered to myself what I was going to tell them when they woke up in the morning and I hadn’t changed shifts with any of them. I had never told them about my problems sleeping, and honestly I didn’t want to.
I spent the next few hours listening to the sounds of this strange new world. The cries of animals, the wind whistling through the trees.
I stood up and climbed to the top of one of the tall roots that made up our shelter. I peered out in the direction that I knew we still had to go. We were already in uncharted territory, but we were still so far away, and even if we did make it. How would we ever find this "special mutant". I sighed deeply.
"You weren’t planning on waking any of us up, were you?" I heard Terry’s voice say from below me. I cringed at the veiled rebuke.
"Well I was going to get around to it eventually." I lied pointlessly, as I slid down to where she was standing.
We sat down together by the fire and didn’t say anything for a while. Finally, Terry cut to the heart of the issue. "it’s not your fault you know." She said.
I looked up at her. She had a troubled look on her face, like she was concentrating on the fire as hard as she could. I looked away, " I know." I said.
"Earlier, as you were…." She stopped searching for the word.
"Losing it?" I volunteered.
She frowned, but continued. " You were screaming, "I am sorry" over and over again."
I rubbed my head, anxiety about the memory was burning in the pit of my stomach. "So that is what I was saying." I whispered.
"David, you did everything you could for Mahlah. Even Hector will realize that someday. You can’t torture yourself about this. There was just no way for you to save her." Terry said looking pleadingly into my eyes.
Slowly I answered, just now coming to this realization myself. "I….I know. I know there is nothing I could do to save her, and that is why I am so mad." She knitted her eyebrows not quite understanding. Actually I was only just then starting to myself. "While I was watching her, from the second I saw her pass out. I kept seeing you. Even though I did everything I could I still couldn’t save her. It made me realize how powerless I am against this disease, and it made me really scared. Because I can’t just stand and watch that happen to you!" I said fighting back my own tears. " That is why I have to find the cure. Because I don’t know what I would do if I lost you."
Terry looked back at me stunned. Her eyes turned very sad. Quietly she said, "Everyone dies eventually, David. You can’t try to stop everyone from dieing. It is not possible and its not healthy. All you can do is make the best of the time you are given. Besides I believe that even after death, life isn’t over. Don’t you?"
My heart skipped a beat. I froze. She was right. I remembered my mom always saying things like that to me. I looked back into her now teary eyes. I nodded. She smiled back at me. That smile alone seemed to be able to make everything better.
We sat there for a long while after that in silence. She scooted close to me and laid her head on my shoulder. Within minutes she was asleep. I still decided not to wake the others. I wanted to think some more, alone. No, not alone. I would never really be alone.
As I sat there, I thought about Mahlah and the small amount of time we had spent together. I remembered her cute little daughter and I even remembered Hector. She really loved them. I looked back at Terry sleeping there next to me, and I let myself relax for the first time in what had seemed to be a very long time.
The sun rose early the next day. Small rays of light escaped the ominous forest ceiling and sprinkled down among us. Gohn was the first to squint his eyes at the new light.
Stretching, he looked around as though lost for a moment until he remembered where he was. He rubbed his eyes lazily and sat up leaning against the massive tree that constituted our shelter. He noticed me and with a yawn he said, "David?" he rubbed his temples trying to banish the morning fog, "Did you stay up all night?" he asked.
I nodded quietly. He cocked and eyebrow and started to say something, but I held up a hand and said, "It’s ok. I fine now." He frowned unconvinced, but shrugged and let it go.
Caulin stirred next, woken by something other than the early morning sunlight. Begrudgingly he sat up looked at me and then Gohn, his eyes still half closed. "I am going to use the toilet." he grunted.
"What toilet?" Gohn replied with a coy smile. Caulin took another look around and then cursed under his breath. He stood up and lumbered off into the woods, carrying his staff.
I shook my head and laughed a little. Gohn nodded at me, "Good to see you smiling again." he said. "You going to be alright now?"
I nodded, " better at least." I replied, I took a deep breath and asked. " How do you deal with it?"
He shook his head. "You don’t." he replied simply. " when you have been dealing with death your whole life, you learn just to …. To bury it."
" I guess I see why you don’t talk about it." I said. He only nodded.
Suddenly I heard Scyll’s soft voice from behind me, "That is why we fight." she said. "So that one day people won’t have to deal with this."
I turned toward her she was sitting up now as was Terry. My face reddened as I realized they had been listening the whole time.
Just then Caulin strolled back into the camp. " Well I feel better." He cracked his neck and stretched his arms and then continued, " How about we have some breakfast I am starved."
Gohn rolled his eyes and tossed him a meal cracker from his pack. " Come on lets get packed up we have a long trip home today."
Caulin caught the cracker and downed it in one bite. His mouth still full he grumbled, " Do we have to?" He gave a sidelong glance at the Basilisk mounts and sighed, "My butt is still sore from yesterday."
I loaded my bag onto one of the large lizards. "Oh you’re just scared that we are going to run into another pig-beast and you’re going to be beaten up again." I said with a chuckle.
Caulin sneered, "Since when is he in a good mood again? I think I liked it better when he was moping." We all laughed, as we finished packing up.
The trip back was much easier. The basilisks seemed to run much faster and easier when heading back in the direction of their home. We sighted several mutants along the way, even a few that the others had not seen before, but we encountered no real resistance. We arrived home well before sundown, but we were still tired and decided to rest for the remainder of the evening after giving Janus a short report.
Chapter 15 To learn first hand
The next day both Gohn and Caulin told me they were going to take the day off and rest, the fight had taken a toll on them and they need time to recoup. I on the other hand did not. Terry and Scyll both had work to do in the lab, and didn’t need my help. So that left me for the first time in a while with nothing to do. I was suddenly reminded again that outside my circle of friends I was very unfamiliar with the dome and the people inside it. When I thought about it to be honest, other than Terry, Caulin, Gohn, and Scyll, I really didn’t know anyone. I set out that day to explore the dome and maybe meet someone new.
The dome was really very similar in structure to that of a small city. There were a variety of jobs, most involved some sort of biology, but not all. Those jobs were located throughout the dome. Besides work people in the dome did do other things for entertainment. Some chose to work out like Caulin, but most participated in other activities. I found on some of the lower floors several children played strange games that involved some sort of chemistry and manipulation of a sort of biological cube. The children would place different types of mineral cards into the cube and manipulate it to perform certain tasks. I watched the children play for a while, but despite my best effort could not determine the rules of the game.
As I continued I saw there were a great many children, even young children running around with seemingly no adult supervision. My old instincts kept asking where those children’s parents were, but then I would stop myself. Those children most likely had no parents.
After walking on that floor for a while I decided to explore a different one. I went to one of the lifts that was on the side of the dome. I reached into my pocket to get a mineral card, but to my surprise I hadn’t brought enough. I stood there for several minutes contemplating what I was going to do with no mineral cards. I would be stuck here till someone came looking for me.
Luckily, at that same moment a familiar face walked up to that same lift. It was the nurse, Mahlah, that I had encountered when I first woke up in the dome. She a had a young girl with her no older than three.
I approached them and said, " Well I haven’t seen you in a while."
Mahlah turned and a look of surprise came to her face as she saw me. " Wow, David I have been hearing a lot about you. You have become rather famous around the dome."
"I have?" I replied a little surprised. " Why is that?"
"Well first of all you never gave those scientist the interview they wanted, so you are still quite an enigma to the majority of the public. On top of that news about you and your friend’s adventures outside the dome is becoming common small talk."
I scratched my head a little embarrassed about my new found stardom. Just then the little girl tugged on Mahlah’s arm and said, " Come on. I am bored."
I smiled, "So who this little cutie." I said and tickled the chin of the little girl.
She nodded, "This is my daughter, Antigone."
"Who’s the father?" I asked
"My husband, Hector." She said.
"So your Hector’s wife? Wow, I have to thank you, he saved my life out in the wild a few weeks ago."
She smiled, "Yes, he does that, they call him the hero of the dome. Though, sometimes I just wish he wouldn’t take so many risks, I worry about him."
It was then that I remembered why I had approached her in the first place. I hesitated for a second a little embarrassed about having to ask.. "Um…yea so I was wondering." I said awkwardly, " but I don’t have any mineral cards on me and I was hoping I could share this lift with you."
She eyed me strangely, confused by what I had just said. "But why would you be out of mineral cards?" She asked suspiciously.
"Well this is the first time I have really gone out around the dome on my own and I never know how many to bring." I replied. She arched her eyebrow for a second so I continued. "I was trying to look around and see the dome. I have been here for a few months, but I have never really been able to see that much. I had a free day and thought I would do some sight seeing."
Mahlah smiled and nodded her head. "well if you’d like I could show you a side of the dome most people don’t get to see." I nodded with interest. " Good, well come with me while I drop off my daughter at the nursery and then we will get started."
We talked for a while as we rode the lift to the floor where the nursery was. She asked me about my life before, and once again I found myself retelling what had become an all too painful tale.
"It must be hard…" she said after a few minutes of silence. "I can’t imagine what it must be like to have lost everything you lost."
I faked a smile trying to mask my pain. "It’s been hard," I admitted, "but everyone here has helped a lot. Living in this time has showed me how to be strong. You all are fighting this terrible disease, and yet everyone is still able to keep going."
She looked away seeming uncomfortable with the subject. I swallowed hard, chocking on the bitter taste of my own shoe. "ah-em, well," I said awkwardly, " Is this the nursery?"
She nodded. "This will take just a moment. How about you watch Antigone for me while I talk something over with the caretaker." she said slipping the young child into my arms.
I held the child awkwardly as her mother walked over to a lady and began to talk about something. I had never been comfortable holding other people’s children, it made me nervous. Suddenly with a giggle the small girl reached up and tugged hard on my ear. I was caught off guard. The child was surprisingly strong. " Oww!" I shouted, " Hey that’s mine."
Mahlah looked up from her conversation and brought her hand to her mouth stifling a laugh. The little girl in my arms eyed me curiously and then loudly said, "DOWN!" she looked me in the eyes with the surety and confidence that only a toddler can have, and then repeated herself once more, "DOWN!" this time she shoved me hard her tiny hands catching me in the neck. I stumbled backward tripping over a poorly placed toy and collapsing backward with a thud. The toddler landing on my chest knocking the air out of me.
I laid there stunned for a moment gasping. The toddler simply stood up, still on my chest and calmly walked over to the toy I had just tripped over and contently began to play.
Mahlah rushed over to me. "Are you alright!?" she asked.
I propped myself up on my elbows, and looked up at her. "Wow, you’ve got a strong little girl there." I said panting. With that me, Mahlah, and even the women she had been speaking to, burst out into an uncontrollable laughter.
Mahlah stooped down to help me to my feet. " Yea, she has a lot of her father’s strength in her, a fact he is quite proud of." She said still smiling.
I rubbed my bruised backside. "I imagine, she is only three and she can already beat me up." I said jokingly.
She chuckled and walked over to her daughter. "Antigone, now you apologize to Mr. David, for pushing him. You know better than that."
The small girl looked at her mother and then at me. Those sweet little blue eyes seemed to sparkle as the girl gave a shy little smile and said, "Sawy" then giggled as her mother tickled her.
"Come here you little rascal." Mahlah said sweeping the toddler up and giving her a big hug. "That’s my little girl, now mommy has to go to work. You behave yourself." She set her back down and patted her head and walked toward me. " Well, how about it? You ready to head out?" She asked.
I marveled for a moment. This women, Mahlah, she wasn’t much older than me. I imagine she was no older than 26 or 27, yet, she displayed the mothering abilities of someone much older. I was impressed at how mature she was. "I am ready if you are." I replied. "So where exactly are we going?"
"Well, if its alright with you I was going to show you where I work." She answered.
"and where is that?" I asked.
"I work in the health ward." she replied, " I am a nurse, remember?"
I was intrigued by this. Before the accident I had been a premed student. It might be interesting to get a look at what medicine was like here in the future. I nodded and said, "Sure, I would love to come along, I used to work in a hospital part time to help put myself through college."
"Wow, that would be great, we could use another helping hand." She said excitedly. With that we took off toward the health ward. She asked me tons of questions about what hospitals were like back in my time, while we walked. Each time I would say something she would have another question. As we talked I came to realize that the medical field I was used to was slightly different from this one.
When we arrived at the health ward, I was amazed at how large it was. It occupied an entire floor of the dome. As soon as we arrived Mahlah went straight to work. I spent most of the day following her around, trying to learn the bizarre treatment methods they practiced.
Some of the treatments were fairly similar to the one I had seen from my time. They used a battery of medicines and shots to counter the illnesses and infections we saw, but on top of medicines there were also many biological symbiots that the doctors and nurses used. Unlike mine these came on and off easily and different ones were used for different tasks. I saw one doctor performing a surgery in the middle of a crowed room all by himself. His symbiot attached to his shoulders and acted as four extra arms. Except at the end of each arm was a different tool that the doctor would use to either cut, sew, or even cauterize veins. Some of the nursing staff also used symbiots to aid multiple patients at once.
The whole scene was unreal. There were so many sick people. As I followed Mahlah I helped as best I could. After a while I got used to several of the treatments and was able to do some by myself. I was able to do this mainly because most the people here were suffering from the same disease. As I went from patient to patient the symptoms made it painfully clear what we were dealing with. I was used to a lot of diseases. As I had said before, when I was a premed student I worked in a hospital to put myself through college. I had worked in several wards, from intensive care to oncology. I had seen my share of terrible diseases, but …..nothing like this. My mind flashed to the vivid description Caulin had given me of the disease., but now seeing it first hand I realized that Caulin’s earlier words paled in comparison of the truth. There are no words that can fully describe the horror of this disease.
I understood why Mahlah had been hesitant before to talk about the illness. We treated as many as we could rushing from bedside to bedside, doing the best we could to ease their pains. I watched Mahlah, her mothering instinct shown clear as she treated the many sick patients. Even in the midst of so many people that she had to care for, she was able to talk to each and everyone of them. She was more effective at her job than simply giving out medicine. She gave out love. To be honest as I watched, I think it was that love that helped the patients more than even the strongest of the medicines.
After eight grueling hours her shift ended. I dragged my feet exhausted from simply trying to keep up with her, but she seemed utterly unaffected. She still walked with an air of pure life flowing from her. I felt like she may have even been more lively then when we had started the shift. I guess helping others was what she truly enjoyed doing.
We stepped onto another lift heading up from the health ward. "Thank you so much for all your help David." She said to me. " I am going to be meeting my husband for diner in a little while. He said he would pick Antigone up from the nursery so I have to head home and cook something for when they get back." She reached into her purse and pulled out a mineral card. "Here I know your out so use this one to get to the floor you need to go to."
I took the card, and said, " Thanks, for everything. This was a really good experience." her cheeks reddened, as I continued. "You were really amazing up there. The people are really lucky to have a nurse like you. I know you all don’t like to talk about the disease, but I know it is hard to deal with so much pain and suffering day in and day out. The fact that you are able to do that and still have so much joy and life to give. I find that truly incredible." I felt awkward after saying that like maybe I was being to forward.
She stood there in silence for a long time before finally saying, "Your right…it is hard for any of us to talk about the disease. There isn’t a person in this dome that hasn’t lost someone to it. Though I’m glad to finally be able to talk about it. I just know it can’t be healthy to lock up so many difficult emotions. You know, you’re the first person I have ever been able to talk to about
t. It is something no one ever talks about here. Thank you."
Suddenly my cheeks were the ones that were red. The lift we were on slowed as we came to the floor she was to get off on. A gust of air whistled past my face as the doors of the lift rushed open. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Mahlah," I said holding out my hand.
She smiled and threw her arms around me in a big hug. I froze for a second a little shocked, but then I let myself embrace her. "It was very nice to meet you too. David." She said seeming to choke back tears.
As she walked away I called back to her. "You had better come and find me again. I want to spend another day helping out at the hospital with you as soon as I can." She smiled back at me, but her smile was sad.
A terrible feeling burned down in the pit of my stomach. Something wasn’t right. I continued to watch her as the doors on the lift closed, with an unreal slowness. With only a sliver of her form visible through the closing crack I saw her fall. I felt my heart falling with her, like a glass vase knocked off its pedestal, and when she reached the floor, I felt my heart shatter . Everything was in slow motion now. The doors had closed completely, but I had to get out. I grew a blade from my symbiot. With one violent slash the doors tore back open. A viscous gray slime oozed from the dome’s wound.
I ran to Mahlah, shouting her name all the while. I dropped to my knees and slid to her side. Her pale skin had turned to a ghost white, and she was colder than ice to my touch. I gasped for air, my heart pounding so hard I swore it would burst. I didn’t know what to do. I looked around frantically for help, but there was no one to be found. I screamed for help, but no one came.
She started convulsing. Every muscle in her body tightened at the same time. I saw blood starting to drip down from her nose, eyes, and ears. My mind reeled. Suddenly without warning she vomited blood. It was everywhere. My vision seemed painted red.
Finally I knew what I had to do. I scooped her up into my arms, and ran. The lift I had come from was clearly no longer an option. I looked around frantically. Then I looked to the edge of the floor we were on. I rushed to it and peered over. The health ward was five floors down. On that floor was a moving platform, that connected through the empty space in the dome. If I jumped at the right time I could land on it. I saw the platform rush from the other side. I didn’t think, I just jumped.
I fell for an eternity, and as I fell I prayed that I would hit the platform because if I missed, Mahlah and I would both surely die. I shifted her to hold her with only my left arm. As we approached the moving platform I reach out with the blade on my right arm. I dug it into the platform, and we made a gut-wrenching stop. I felt my shin bones crack and the muscles in my right arm tear, but we had made it.
I ignored the pain and the shocked stares of the other platform riders and as soon as I reached the other side I jumped onto the floor and fell to my knees. I screamed for a doctor, and then I passed out.
The only sleep I ever seem to get now is when I pass out, and the same voice plagues me each time. This time it’s echo said only one thing. "good" . I shook myself back to consciousness, now was no time to sleep.
I awoke in one of the hospital beds, with a nurse standing over me. " Where is she?" I asked still groggy from unconsciousness.
The nurse answered. "Mahlah is in the intensive disease ward. They are doing all they can for her, you need to go back to sleep that was quite a fall you had."
I struggled back to my feet. The nurse fought with me trying to get me back into bed. "I don’t sleep." I said. "I am fine." I hobbled away toward the intensive disease ward, my right arm still hanging limply at my side.
I looked at each bed as I limped down the hall, until I found her. A steady flow of medication was already hooked up to her with a strange heart-like thing pumping the medications into her like an IV. I walked up to the bedside. Her breathing was shallow. A doctor walked past me and saw me standing by her. He noticed my injuries and said, "You really need to get off your feet, you look like your going to fall apart."
I ignored him and asked, "Is she going to be alright.?"
The doctor sighed, "I don’t know. The disease affects everyone differently. There is no telling how this will turn out. From our records it seems she has only been displaying symptoms for about a month. This is only her second attack, but it is much more serious than most attacks are at this stage."
I looked up in disbelief. "So she has had this disease for that long, but she was just here running around full of life. How could she do that if she already had the disease?"
The doctor looked at me quizzically. "The disease is episodic. It attacks in waves usually each one is progressively worse until it kills you. I have seen people live with the disease for four years before it killed them, but I have also seen some who died on the first attack. There is just no telling."
With that the young doctor walked away to treat another patient. I looked down at Mahlah’s now seemingly lifeless body. "only a few minutes ago, I had commented on how full of life you seemed. How can this be!?" I muttered under my breath.
I kneeled down by her bedside waiting, hoping, praying for her to wake up….
Her death was quiet. She didn’t scream, whisper, or even gasp. There was a monitor hooked up to her. It swung a pendulum back and forth measuring her pulse. All at once it slowed….and then stopped. She was the first person to ever stand up for me in this new world. I had seen her now on three separate occasions and on each one she had done something to help me, and now seemingly without warning she was gone. I had only really known her for a day, but I cried like I had known her all my life.
When I finally had time to dry my tears and stand, I saw Hector hurrying across the hall leading Antigone by the hand. He stopped ten feet away. He collapsed to his knees and sobbed. Antigone, looked around frightened and confused, she waddled up to her mother still lying in the bed. She reached up and tugged at her mothers hand. "mommy." she just said…. over and over, while her father continued to cry uncontrollably.
My eyes were dry now. I had no more tears, but that scene was burned in my memory forever. It made me glad I never slept anymore because if I did this moment would surely haunt my dreams.
After a while, Hector was able to stand. He grabbed the doctor and shook him violently saying, " You said… You said she would live another year or two!! What happened to my wife!!?
The doctor placed a concerned hand on his shoulder. "You know how this disease works, Hector." the doctor said. "it affects everyone differently. Maybe if she had been brought to us sooner. Maybe then we could have saved her, but as it is. There was nothing we could do."
I felt the doctor’s words pierce my heart. I looked down in despair at my still blood stained hands. I had gotten her here as fast as I could. Hector looked to me. Hatred and anger still burning in his eyes. "What are you doing here?" He asked coldly.
I choked on my words. I tried to explain everything that had happened. I thought her husband deserved to know everything that had happened the day of her death. His eyes narrowed, and in two strides he was on me. He grabbed my by my shirt and shook me. "What was this just a game to you!!!??" he said screaming now. "What you just take your time. No hurry it’s just her life!!!"
I shook my head, "No." I tried to say, but he wouldn’t listen to me, and at that moment, I felt maybe I did deserve this…maybe it was my fault.
"How do I know that this isn’t your doing. She wasn’t suppose to die yet!!! Not yet!!" he beat his fists on my chest. The doctor tried to pull him off me with no success.
I looked over Hector’s shoulder and I saw my friends running towards us. As they approached, Hector threw me to the ground and stormed off leaving Antigone still standing there balling. A nurse picked her up and ran after him.
I sat there on the floor. I rested my head into my hands. Terry walked slowly up to me. "We heard what happened. Are you alright?" I looked up into her caring eyes. All I could manage was a small nod. "Come on, lets get you back." She helped me to my feet and with her arm around my waist guided me away.
Caulin walked over to the other side of me and said. "Don’t worry about Hector. He is just upset. He won’t hold this against you." I nodded as if I agreed, but the truth was, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t hold it against myself.
As we walked away I stopped and looked back. The doctors had covered her now, and were preparing to move her away. I choked down more tears and force myself to say, "We have to stop it." they all turned to face me. "We have to stop this disease. For good."
Terry looked me in the eyes and nodded. "David is right. This is it. We have to get serious about our mission. No more training missions. It’s time for us to move out and start exploring the uncharted areas." The others all nodded. After that we walked in silence.
When we reached my room, I told them I would need to be alone for a while. So they left me there. Terry stayed for a little and held me "Are you sure you are going to be ok?" She asked not sure if she should leave me alone.
"Yea. I will be fine." I lied. I didn’t think I would ever really be fine. That kind of experience changes you. I just hoped that this change would be enough to push me to end this disease, once and for all.
The dome was really very similar in structure to that of a small city. There were a variety of jobs, most involved some sort of biology, but not all. Those jobs were located throughout the dome. Besides work people in the dome did do other things for entertainment. Some chose to work out like Caulin, but most participated in other activities. I found on some of the lower floors several children played strange games that involved some sort of chemistry and manipulation of a sort of biological cube. The children would place different types of mineral cards into the cube and manipulate it to perform certain tasks. I watched the children play for a while, but despite my best effort could not determine the rules of the game.
As I continued I saw there were a great many children, even young children running around with seemingly no adult supervision. My old instincts kept asking where those children’s parents were, but then I would stop myself. Those children most likely had no parents.
After walking on that floor for a while I decided to explore a different one. I went to one of the lifts that was on the side of the dome. I reached into my pocket to get a mineral card, but to my surprise I hadn’t brought enough. I stood there for several minutes contemplating what I was going to do with no mineral cards. I would be stuck here till someone came looking for me.
Luckily, at that same moment a familiar face walked up to that same lift. It was the nurse, Mahlah, that I had encountered when I first woke up in the dome. She a had a young girl with her no older than three.
I approached them and said, " Well I haven’t seen you in a while."
Mahlah turned and a look of surprise came to her face as she saw me. " Wow, David I have been hearing a lot about you. You have become rather famous around the dome."
"I have?" I replied a little surprised. " Why is that?"
"Well first of all you never gave those scientist the interview they wanted, so you are still quite an enigma to the majority of the public. On top of that news about you and your friend’s adventures outside the dome is becoming common small talk."
I scratched my head a little embarrassed about my new found stardom. Just then the little girl tugged on Mahlah’s arm and said, " Come on. I am bored."
I smiled, "So who this little cutie." I said and tickled the chin of the little girl.
She nodded, "This is my daughter, Antigone."
"Who’s the father?" I asked
"My husband, Hector." She said.
"So your Hector’s wife? Wow, I have to thank you, he saved my life out in the wild a few weeks ago."
She smiled, "Yes, he does that, they call him the hero of the dome. Though, sometimes I just wish he wouldn’t take so many risks, I worry about him."
It was then that I remembered why I had approached her in the first place. I hesitated for a second a little embarrassed about having to ask.. "Um…yea so I was wondering." I said awkwardly, " but I don’t have any mineral cards on me and I was hoping I could share this lift with you."
She eyed me strangely, confused by what I had just said. "But why would you be out of mineral cards?" She asked suspiciously.
"Well this is the first time I have really gone out around the dome on my own and I never know how many to bring." I replied. She arched her eyebrow for a second so I continued. "I was trying to look around and see the dome. I have been here for a few months, but I have never really been able to see that much. I had a free day and thought I would do some sight seeing."
Mahlah smiled and nodded her head. "well if you’d like I could show you a side of the dome most people don’t get to see." I nodded with interest. " Good, well come with me while I drop off my daughter at the nursery and then we will get started."
We talked for a while as we rode the lift to the floor where the nursery was. She asked me about my life before, and once again I found myself retelling what had become an all too painful tale.
"It must be hard…" she said after a few minutes of silence. "I can’t imagine what it must be like to have lost everything you lost."
I faked a smile trying to mask my pain. "It’s been hard," I admitted, "but everyone here has helped a lot. Living in this time has showed me how to be strong. You all are fighting this terrible disease, and yet everyone is still able to keep going."
She looked away seeming uncomfortable with the subject. I swallowed hard, chocking on the bitter taste of my own shoe. "ah-em, well," I said awkwardly, " Is this the nursery?"
She nodded. "This will take just a moment. How about you watch Antigone for me while I talk something over with the caretaker." she said slipping the young child into my arms.
I held the child awkwardly as her mother walked over to a lady and began to talk about something. I had never been comfortable holding other people’s children, it made me nervous. Suddenly with a giggle the small girl reached up and tugged hard on my ear. I was caught off guard. The child was surprisingly strong. " Oww!" I shouted, " Hey that’s mine."
Mahlah looked up from her conversation and brought her hand to her mouth stifling a laugh. The little girl in my arms eyed me curiously and then loudly said, "DOWN!" she looked me in the eyes with the surety and confidence that only a toddler can have, and then repeated herself once more, "DOWN!" this time she shoved me hard her tiny hands catching me in the neck. I stumbled backward tripping over a poorly placed toy and collapsing backward with a thud. The toddler landing on my chest knocking the air out of me.
I laid there stunned for a moment gasping. The toddler simply stood up, still on my chest and calmly walked over to the toy I had just tripped over and contently began to play.
Mahlah rushed over to me. "Are you alright!?" she asked.
I propped myself up on my elbows, and looked up at her. "Wow, you’ve got a strong little girl there." I said panting. With that me, Mahlah, and even the women she had been speaking to, burst out into an uncontrollable laughter.
Mahlah stooped down to help me to my feet. " Yea, she has a lot of her father’s strength in her, a fact he is quite proud of." She said still smiling.
I rubbed my bruised backside. "I imagine, she is only three and she can already beat me up." I said jokingly.
She chuckled and walked over to her daughter. "Antigone, now you apologize to Mr. David, for pushing him. You know better than that."
The small girl looked at her mother and then at me. Those sweet little blue eyes seemed to sparkle as the girl gave a shy little smile and said, "Sawy" then giggled as her mother tickled her.
"Come here you little rascal." Mahlah said sweeping the toddler up and giving her a big hug. "That’s my little girl, now mommy has to go to work. You behave yourself." She set her back down and patted her head and walked toward me. " Well, how about it? You ready to head out?" She asked.
I marveled for a moment. This women, Mahlah, she wasn’t much older than me. I imagine she was no older than 26 or 27, yet, she displayed the mothering abilities of someone much older. I was impressed at how mature she was. "I am ready if you are." I replied. "So where exactly are we going?"
"Well, if its alright with you I was going to show you where I work." She answered.
"and where is that?" I asked.
"I work in the health ward." she replied, " I am a nurse, remember?"
I was intrigued by this. Before the accident I had been a premed student. It might be interesting to get a look at what medicine was like here in the future. I nodded and said, "Sure, I would love to come along, I used to work in a hospital part time to help put myself through college."
"Wow, that would be great, we could use another helping hand." She said excitedly. With that we took off toward the health ward. She asked me tons of questions about what hospitals were like back in my time, while we walked. Each time I would say something she would have another question. As we talked I came to realize that the medical field I was used to was slightly different from this one.
When we arrived at the health ward, I was amazed at how large it was. It occupied an entire floor of the dome. As soon as we arrived Mahlah went straight to work. I spent most of the day following her around, trying to learn the bizarre treatment methods they practiced.
Some of the treatments were fairly similar to the one I had seen from my time. They used a battery of medicines and shots to counter the illnesses and infections we saw, but on top of medicines there were also many biological symbiots that the doctors and nurses used. Unlike mine these came on and off easily and different ones were used for different tasks. I saw one doctor performing a surgery in the middle of a crowed room all by himself. His symbiot attached to his shoulders and acted as four extra arms. Except at the end of each arm was a different tool that the doctor would use to either cut, sew, or even cauterize veins. Some of the nursing staff also used symbiots to aid multiple patients at once.
The whole scene was unreal. There were so many sick people. As I followed Mahlah I helped as best I could. After a while I got used to several of the treatments and was able to do some by myself. I was able to do this mainly because most the people here were suffering from the same disease. As I went from patient to patient the symptoms made it painfully clear what we were dealing with. I was used to a lot of diseases. As I had said before, when I was a premed student I worked in a hospital to put myself through college. I had worked in several wards, from intensive care to oncology. I had seen my share of terrible diseases, but …..nothing like this. My mind flashed to the vivid description Caulin had given me of the disease., but now seeing it first hand I realized that Caulin’s earlier words paled in comparison of the truth. There are no words that can fully describe the horror of this disease.
I understood why Mahlah had been hesitant before to talk about the illness. We treated as many as we could rushing from bedside to bedside, doing the best we could to ease their pains. I watched Mahlah, her mothering instinct shown clear as she treated the many sick patients. Even in the midst of so many people that she had to care for, she was able to talk to each and everyone of them. She was more effective at her job than simply giving out medicine. She gave out love. To be honest as I watched, I think it was that love that helped the patients more than even the strongest of the medicines.
After eight grueling hours her shift ended. I dragged my feet exhausted from simply trying to keep up with her, but she seemed utterly unaffected. She still walked with an air of pure life flowing from her. I felt like she may have even been more lively then when we had started the shift. I guess helping others was what she truly enjoyed doing.
We stepped onto another lift heading up from the health ward. "Thank you so much for all your help David." She said to me. " I am going to be meeting my husband for diner in a little while. He said he would pick Antigone up from the nursery so I have to head home and cook something for when they get back." She reached into her purse and pulled out a mineral card. "Here I know your out so use this one to get to the floor you need to go to."
I took the card, and said, " Thanks, for everything. This was a really good experience." her cheeks reddened, as I continued. "You were really amazing up there. The people are really lucky to have a nurse like you. I know you all don’t like to talk about the disease, but I know it is hard to deal with so much pain and suffering day in and day out. The fact that you are able to do that and still have so much joy and life to give. I find that truly incredible." I felt awkward after saying that like maybe I was being to forward.
She stood there in silence for a long time before finally saying, "Your right…it is hard for any of us to talk about the disease. There isn’t a person in this dome that hasn’t lost someone to it. Though I’m glad to finally be able to talk about it. I just know it can’t be healthy to lock up so many difficult emotions. You know, you’re the first person I have ever been able to talk to about
t. It is something no one ever talks about here. Thank you."
Suddenly my cheeks were the ones that were red. The lift we were on slowed as we came to the floor she was to get off on. A gust of air whistled past my face as the doors of the lift rushed open. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Mahlah," I said holding out my hand.
She smiled and threw her arms around me in a big hug. I froze for a second a little shocked, but then I let myself embrace her. "It was very nice to meet you too. David." She said seeming to choke back tears.
As she walked away I called back to her. "You had better come and find me again. I want to spend another day helping out at the hospital with you as soon as I can." She smiled back at me, but her smile was sad.
A terrible feeling burned down in the pit of my stomach. Something wasn’t right. I continued to watch her as the doors on the lift closed, with an unreal slowness. With only a sliver of her form visible through the closing crack I saw her fall. I felt my heart falling with her, like a glass vase knocked off its pedestal, and when she reached the floor, I felt my heart shatter . Everything was in slow motion now. The doors had closed completely, but I had to get out. I grew a blade from my symbiot. With one violent slash the doors tore back open. A viscous gray slime oozed from the dome’s wound.
I ran to Mahlah, shouting her name all the while. I dropped to my knees and slid to her side. Her pale skin had turned to a ghost white, and she was colder than ice to my touch. I gasped for air, my heart pounding so hard I swore it would burst. I didn’t know what to do. I looked around frantically for help, but there was no one to be found. I screamed for help, but no one came.
She started convulsing. Every muscle in her body tightened at the same time. I saw blood starting to drip down from her nose, eyes, and ears. My mind reeled. Suddenly without warning she vomited blood. It was everywhere. My vision seemed painted red.
Finally I knew what I had to do. I scooped her up into my arms, and ran. The lift I had come from was clearly no longer an option. I looked around frantically. Then I looked to the edge of the floor we were on. I rushed to it and peered over. The health ward was five floors down. On that floor was a moving platform, that connected through the empty space in the dome. If I jumped at the right time I could land on it. I saw the platform rush from the other side. I didn’t think, I just jumped.
I fell for an eternity, and as I fell I prayed that I would hit the platform because if I missed, Mahlah and I would both surely die. I shifted her to hold her with only my left arm. As we approached the moving platform I reach out with the blade on my right arm. I dug it into the platform, and we made a gut-wrenching stop. I felt my shin bones crack and the muscles in my right arm tear, but we had made it.
I ignored the pain and the shocked stares of the other platform riders and as soon as I reached the other side I jumped onto the floor and fell to my knees. I screamed for a doctor, and then I passed out.
The only sleep I ever seem to get now is when I pass out, and the same voice plagues me each time. This time it’s echo said only one thing. "good" . I shook myself back to consciousness, now was no time to sleep.
I awoke in one of the hospital beds, with a nurse standing over me. " Where is she?" I asked still groggy from unconsciousness.
The nurse answered. "Mahlah is in the intensive disease ward. They are doing all they can for her, you need to go back to sleep that was quite a fall you had."
I struggled back to my feet. The nurse fought with me trying to get me back into bed. "I don’t sleep." I said. "I am fine." I hobbled away toward the intensive disease ward, my right arm still hanging limply at my side.
I looked at each bed as I limped down the hall, until I found her. A steady flow of medication was already hooked up to her with a strange heart-like thing pumping the medications into her like an IV. I walked up to the bedside. Her breathing was shallow. A doctor walked past me and saw me standing by her. He noticed my injuries and said, "You really need to get off your feet, you look like your going to fall apart."
I ignored him and asked, "Is she going to be alright.?"
The doctor sighed, "I don’t know. The disease affects everyone differently. There is no telling how this will turn out. From our records it seems she has only been displaying symptoms for about a month. This is only her second attack, but it is much more serious than most attacks are at this stage."
I looked up in disbelief. "So she has had this disease for that long, but she was just here running around full of life. How could she do that if she already had the disease?"
The doctor looked at me quizzically. "The disease is episodic. It attacks in waves usually each one is progressively worse until it kills you. I have seen people live with the disease for four years before it killed them, but I have also seen some who died on the first attack. There is just no telling."
With that the young doctor walked away to treat another patient. I looked down at Mahlah’s now seemingly lifeless body. "only a few minutes ago, I had commented on how full of life you seemed. How can this be!?" I muttered under my breath.
I kneeled down by her bedside waiting, hoping, praying for her to wake up….
Her death was quiet. She didn’t scream, whisper, or even gasp. There was a monitor hooked up to her. It swung a pendulum back and forth measuring her pulse. All at once it slowed….and then stopped. She was the first person to ever stand up for me in this new world. I had seen her now on three separate occasions and on each one she had done something to help me, and now seemingly without warning she was gone. I had only really known her for a day, but I cried like I had known her all my life.
When I finally had time to dry my tears and stand, I saw Hector hurrying across the hall leading Antigone by the hand. He stopped ten feet away. He collapsed to his knees and sobbed. Antigone, looked around frightened and confused, she waddled up to her mother still lying in the bed. She reached up and tugged at her mothers hand. "mommy." she just said…. over and over, while her father continued to cry uncontrollably.
My eyes were dry now. I had no more tears, but that scene was burned in my memory forever. It made me glad I never slept anymore because if I did this moment would surely haunt my dreams.
After a while, Hector was able to stand. He grabbed the doctor and shook him violently saying, " You said… You said she would live another year or two!! What happened to my wife!!?
The doctor placed a concerned hand on his shoulder. "You know how this disease works, Hector." the doctor said. "it affects everyone differently. Maybe if she had been brought to us sooner. Maybe then we could have saved her, but as it is. There was nothing we could do."
I felt the doctor’s words pierce my heart. I looked down in despair at my still blood stained hands. I had gotten her here as fast as I could. Hector looked to me. Hatred and anger still burning in his eyes. "What are you doing here?" He asked coldly.
I choked on my words. I tried to explain everything that had happened. I thought her husband deserved to know everything that had happened the day of her death. His eyes narrowed, and in two strides he was on me. He grabbed my by my shirt and shook me. "What was this just a game to you!!!??" he said screaming now. "What you just take your time. No hurry it’s just her life!!!"
I shook my head, "No." I tried to say, but he wouldn’t listen to me, and at that moment, I felt maybe I did deserve this…maybe it was my fault.
"How do I know that this isn’t your doing. She wasn’t suppose to die yet!!! Not yet!!" he beat his fists on my chest. The doctor tried to pull him off me with no success.
I looked over Hector’s shoulder and I saw my friends running towards us. As they approached, Hector threw me to the ground and stormed off leaving Antigone still standing there balling. A nurse picked her up and ran after him.
I sat there on the floor. I rested my head into my hands. Terry walked slowly up to me. "We heard what happened. Are you alright?" I looked up into her caring eyes. All I could manage was a small nod. "Come on, lets get you back." She helped me to my feet and with her arm around my waist guided me away.
Caulin walked over to the other side of me and said. "Don’t worry about Hector. He is just upset. He won’t hold this against you." I nodded as if I agreed, but the truth was, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t hold it against myself.
As we walked away I stopped and looked back. The doctors had covered her now, and were preparing to move her away. I choked down more tears and force myself to say, "We have to stop it." they all turned to face me. "We have to stop this disease. For good."
Terry looked me in the eyes and nodded. "David is right. This is it. We have to get serious about our mission. No more training missions. It’s time for us to move out and start exploring the uncharted areas." The others all nodded. After that we walked in silence.
When we reached my room, I told them I would need to be alone for a while. So they left me there. Terry stayed for a little and held me "Are you sure you are going to be ok?" She asked not sure if she should leave me alone.
"Yea. I will be fine." I lied. I didn’t think I would ever really be fine. That kind of experience changes you. I just hoped that this change would be enough to push me to end this disease, once and for all.
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