Through the Abyss

by Daniel Litchfield

  GREOW! GREOW! GREOW!

  The echoing yelps rang off the walls from all directions, making it sound like there were hundreds of suffering creatures nearby. His heart ripping at the seams, Euphretes took off in the direction of the frantic cries for help. “Neuma, where are you?!” His fearful voice cried in his abandoned mind space. Euphretes threw his weapon’s firing selector off of safety, in an effort to be prepared for whatever he was about to encounter.

  GREOW! GREOW! GREOW!

  Adrenaline once again flooded his veins, giving him a high that zeroed in his senses, in spite of Neuma’s absence. The distractions of his mind fell to the wayside as he pursued the cause of the anguished howls.

  GREOW! GREOW! GREOW!

  Euphretes burst into a small room and nearly collided with a strikingly large white creature that was lying on the damp ground. “That thing’s huge!” His subconscious screamed.

  THRACK!

  He managed to throw his body weight away from the stunning animal at the last moment, causing him to crash into the nearby wall. He picked himself up in a defensive posture, ready for the animal to lunge at him. Instead he saw a frightened apex predator that happened to be lost in an even more frightening world. The animal had no intention of pouncing. It cowered against the far wall and continued to make heart wrenching sounds. Seeing that there was no real threat, Euphretes re-magnetized his MR870 to his back and went down on all fours in order to get a closer look.

  Flicking his eyes while whispering “vitals,” Euphretes’s visor began projecting what information it could gather. The helmet quickly told him that it was a she, and that she was a sturdy one hundred and fifty pounds. More importantly, the scan showed that she was still in excellent internal health. However, confusion set in when the equipment came up empty for external wounds.

  “Hunting trap.”

  The voice, tranquil yet powerful, rang out suddenly and filled Euphretes’s mind space with a raw passion.

  “Neuma?” Euphretes’s asked in a state of bewilderment, only to be met with the cold embrace of his empty mind space.

  Shaking off the feeling, Euphretes contemplated what the transfixing voice said. He remembered that certain poachers used traps that concealed an injury from an atomized scan, so he cleared his visor and began visually inspecting.

  CLICK. CLICK. SHSSSSSS.

  The petrified animal’s massive frame was made even larger by a thick coat of extremely fine white fur. Her bushy tail, split in two at the end, was currently curled between her hind legs, and the poor animal’s sleekly curved head was pressed against her chest. She was too afraid to even look at the human about to cause her more harm.

  “It’s okay girl, it’s okay. I can help if you’ll let me,” Euphretes soothed. He hoped the sound of his voice would calm her and allow him to assess the situation. “It’s okay girl. If you can, show me where are you hurting,” He said while visually scanning for an external flesh wound, but coming up empty. Finally, the white apex predator decided to open her alluring eyes. One was blue and the other was magenta, making for a striking appearance. She appeared to be glowing, as if her fur absorbed the light from Euphretes’s helmet. The animal's ears began to rise, and the black nose at the end of her narrow snout, twitched as it drew in her visitor’s aura. Euphretes felt comfortable to continue his cursory examination.

  GGGRRRRRR! GGGGRRRRRRR!

  He could hear a soft growl escaping her throat as he began approaching her again; one that said, “Proceed, but remember that I have teeth.” With the ears still up, he began scanning the gorgeous animal.

  GGGRRRRRR! GGGGRRRRRRR!

  “It’s okay girl, I’m here to help,” His voiced softly pleaded.

  Now within biting distance, Euphretes’s eyes finally came across a spiked steel trap mostly hidden under her fur. It had lodged itself on her back right leg, and in her initial struggle, had managed to cut open several areas of skin. Dark orange blood trickled down to her paw.

  Something about the beauty of the animal and the stark contrast it was to the world around them stunned Euphretes. She looked at him with the most innocent, pure eyes he had ever encountered in an animal, or maybe even human for that matter. Her very presence seemed to offset the painful emptiness Euphretes carried inside of his mind space.

  “Alright, alright girl. I’m going to help you. Just please don’t blame me for this,” Euphretes said with the most upbeat tone he could muster. Gently sitting down beside the trap, he waited to let the terrified animal get used to his presence once more.

  GGGRRRRRR! GGGGRRRRRRR!

  Once she calmed down enough for him to start moving again, he slid his hands down the leg, feeling around the object for a release mechanism. Unable to set her free because of the trap’s angle, he had to move it slightly in order to see the entire thing. “I know, I know. This hurts. I’m so sorry. I’m almost there.” Ignoring his loving words, the animal vocalized her displeasure.

  GGGRRRRRR! GGGGRRRRRRR!

  The growls became threatening as his hands began to cause pain in the eyes of the suffering creature. “Easy girl, easy. It’s ok,” Euphretes reassured, his hands finally finding what they were looking for.

  SSCCRRAAPP!

  The trap sprung open and the white creature bolted from the area, knocking over Euphretes in the process.

  “You’re welcome,” he called after her, feeling like he had saved purity in animal form. As soon as he got back to his feet, however, a single magenta dot pierced the shadows. Then, her snout slowly came into view; followed by the rest of the majestic white fur. She crouched low to the ground and stopped inches from his armored legs.

  Euphretes carefully placed his hand by the animal’s head and gave a soft stroke to the fine fur, making sure to be as gentle as possible. A huge smile radiated from his face as a few tears trickled down his cheeks. “Neuma, you should see this,” Euphretes joyously whispered.

  CLICK!

  “What’s this?” Euphretes’s pleasantly surprised voice exclaimed as his fingers found a hidden collar. Finding the identification panel, he said her name out loud. “Kyurious.”

  BBBBOOOOOOOOMMMM!

  Natural light suddenly invaded the darkness while dirt and rubble poured down from above, sending Kyurious scrambling for protection between Euphretes’s feet. “What’s going on?!” He cried out with angst. The ceiling was gone. Lifting his head, Euphretes gazed upon what might well have been an entirely different universe. Feeling an insatiable urge to escape from the underworld’s dungeons, he climbed out of the gaping hole, with Kyurious in tow, and assessed his new situation.

  CLICK. CLICK. SHSSSSSS.

  Closing his visor, he gazed at the new world around him. Fire raged in the sky as Fleet Vessels, engulfed in destruction, raced toward the planet’s surface. Contrails from missiles created virtual grids in the sky while deep space fighters right on top of each other raced through the chaos. It was truly a battle historians could only dream of. Thousands of miles from the debased planet’s surface, Combat Teams, made entirely of what looked like Flagships twice the size of Dawn of Creation, fought to the death. In-between the two infernos, however, was something that started to tie Euphretes’s soul in knots.

  He stared at what looked like a gateway into another realm hanging in interstellar space, piercing the planet’s charred atmosphere. Abysmal blackness floated there in the void, twisting and bending any energy that reached its borders. Arrays of intertwined colors squirming around the edges confounded Euphretes, as if the rift slowed down light and allowed it to form colored lines in the sky. The site was utterly terrifying and magnificent all at the same time. Immediately, an overwhelming desire to go to the fractured hole in space wormed its way into his subconscious. Familiar murmurs seeped into his bones, bestowing a sense of purpose and direction the more Euphretes studied the rift.

  VRIP!

  Out of nowhere, something grabbed his core and knocked him to the ground, nearly flattening the terrified animal hiding undern
eath him. Looking around for a foe while getting back to his feet, he found that he was alone. It was as if Destiny itself was frantically trying to get Euphretes to realize that the answers he sought, and his escape from the nightmare, lay on the other side of the void.

  “I’m so sorry girl,” He said with a light pat on Kyurious’s head.

  Setting his eyes back on the hole in the universe, determination almost boiling over inside of his essence, his peripherals caught the image of a Hunter parked and left unattended. From his vantage point, he could see that the vessel’s access door was wide open and no aviator was in site. Even more to his delight, dirt billowed behind the primary exhaust vents, conveniently indicating that the stranded Hunter was primed and ready to go. Looking down at the cowering animal, “Looks like something wants me to take a little ride.” Euphretes remarked apologetically to Kyurious, knowing that he would have to leave her behind.

  Sprinting up to the Hunter, Euphretes quickly checked for any obvious damage, leaks, or missing equipment. Satisfied that it looked deep space capable, he started to climb up inside the fighter.

  GREOW! GGRREEOOW! GRAWOL!

  The same pitiful cries that previously ripped open his heart filled his helmet. And while the thought of leaving her behind was almost unbearable, the thought of being responsible for her death was far more frightening to him. Kyurious’s eyes pleaded with him, “Please don’t leave me here!” Her anguished aura was enough to make Euphretes nauseated, as she reached out her paw to him. “Deep space combat is no place for an animal to be, especially in one of these. And I don’t know what I would do if you got hurt up there. It would kill me, sweet girl. I’m. So. Sorry.” He whispered as he continued climbing inside, the guilt nearly crushing his soul. Just then, a sudden flash of white streaked past his field of vision.

  THUNK!

  Just as fast as the flash came, it fell back down before unleashing more heart wrenching sounds. Immediately turning back around, Euphretes hated what he saw. The stunning animal lay curled on the ground, licking her wound and whimpering while pausing to look up at him between licks. The morbid erosion of abandonment continued to consume her aura, becoming almost too much to bear. At that moment, he truly looked around at the total destruction of the poor animal’s home. Her owners were assuredly gone or dead, and he was about to leave her with only a hole in the ground where she was once held captive by chains and fear.

  “She wouldn’t last a cycle out here on her own,” he realized. Having felt the stinging agony of abandonment at the hands of one’s most trusted companion, Euphretes’s empathetic heart reached out to the vulnerable Kyurious, latched on, and hauled her into the Hunter. “Alright girl, we’ll get through this, together. And I promise. I promise to never let you go.”

  Euphretes racked his MR870 in the pilot’s weapon cage before looking around the cramped cockpit. “Where am I going to put her?” Setting her down on the flight chair, he looked for a way to create more room. Because the rear seat’s harness would offer the animal no protection, she needed a place large enough to fit her but small enough to prevent her from being thrown around too much in-flight.

  “Come on. Come on,” Euphretes chanted before, “Gotcha!”

  Rearranging the non-flying aviator’s command chair, which sat directly behind Euphretes’s flight chair, and taking out some emergency response gear that was placed in-between the two seats, Euphretes created the perfect spot for his new companion. As if she knew what he was doing, Kyurious happily crawled right in without any prompting and anxiously watched her human. As soon as Euphretes strapped himself in and began running an abbreviated pre-flight checklist in his head, a damp snout peeked out of the compartment and placed itself on his thigh.

  The Empirical Admiral wanted to melt at the site of her sweet face. Her heavy head trustingly placed on his leg seemed to say that she claimed ownership of her new companion as well. Overflowing with compassion and love, he lightly stroked Kyurious behind her ears. “Neuma, I really, REALLY miss you,” he whispered to the emptiness inside. Despite the tender site and the two mystical eyes looking up at him, a darkness hovered around the edges of Euphretes's consciousness, ever waiting to strike with its lies and deceit.

  CUSTOS DATE: 24,950 Years PE, 0316:13 CT.

  “EUPHRETES! COME BACK!”

  “COME BACK TO ME EUPHRETES!”

  “PLEASE.”

  Euphretes looked up at the utter chaos he was about to enter before looking back down at his lap, “Ready or not, right?” He chuckled while initiating a launch sequence. Looking back up at the strange phenomena to get his bearings, he was hit with the feeling that he had to make it to the other side; as if his entire life had led up to this exact moment.

  “Here we go girl!” The Hunter eased off the ground and hovered in the air as he let the ship’s landing gear get secured inside the hull before igniting the launch sequence.

  WWWOOOOOOSSSHHH!

  The cockpit rumbled as Euphretes sent full power to the rear exhaust nozzles, rocketing the Hunter toward the rift in space. Reaching the outer atmosphere in a mere fifty seconds, it looked as if molten rock was burning through the canvass of the sky. Fleet Vessels by the hundreds were engaged in a vicious close quarters battle that left the air blackened and distraught. Even the stars entered the fray as their supernovas lit up the blackness with their colossal orbs of unimaginable power. Their hypnotic displays of emerald, magenta, turquoise, and sangria swirling together in a typhoon of new birth and destruction was astonishingly breathtaking.

  Looking down at the precious face resting on his thigh, Euphretes flipped the switch that finalized his course settings and assumed complete manual control of the Fighter. “Hope you know what you signed up for little friend,” he jested, giving the soft ears a gentle scratch.

  “Hope you know what you signed up for too.” A distant voice scolded from deep within his core.

  Euphretes hoped that by checking the Hunter’s navigation systems he would get an idea of where he was, but they were completely shut down. After a few attempts, he shrugged it off as the reason why the Hunter was left in the first place and kept pushing toward the rift. Because of his overpowering desire to get to the strange hole just outside the atmosphere, Euphretes convinced himself that he wouldn’t need the navigation assistance as his objective was pretty hard to miss.

  The Hunter effortlessly glided toward the gigantic hole in the cosmos at full speed until light seemed to slow down all around it. Stars turned into long, white streaks that lined the cockpit’s monitors. Suddenly, a supernova blasted into life, momentarily filling the entire chamber with psychedelic, elongated shapes in a billion different colors.

  “This is absolutely astounding,” was all Euphretes’s tiny brain could tell his mouth to say while his hand nervously stroked the white fur. He had never seen anything like it, becoming completely captivated by the outrageous display. It was as if the bulging explosion was alive and trying to escape the confines of the physical realm.

  After another few minutes of the mesmerizing manifestations, “Were close girl.” Euphretes words came out elongated and seemed to float through the air. Distinct lines and shapes melded together inside the cockpit, making it impossible to pin point specific instruments. Colors melted together across the screens while depth perception became increasingly difficult. Looking down, a blur of white and grey floated inches from his chest. A small haze of blue next to a short streak of magenta slowly darted back and forth, creating more hypnotic streaks of color.

  ZZZRRRIIIPPP!

  “What the?!” Euphretes thought out loud when total darkness canvased the inside of the Hunter’s cockpit. Flipping on his helmet’s light again, Euphretes started to second guess his decision to fly into the unknown phenomenon. None of the Hunter’s diagnostics were registering any sort of information within the cockpit and piloting instruments appeared to be completely frozen. Adding to the puzzle was the Hunter’s Navigation systems. Not only had they turned on, but they were t
elling him that he was two and half million light years away from the nearest known colony. Upon further investigation, he was shocked to see that the ship was saying that they were only two hundred and fifty miles from an uncharted planet’s surface. With outside visual sensors rebooting, Euphretes was left blind until they were able to relay the truth of his surroundings. Disconcerted, he tried to pull the Hunter up and away from the planet until he could see what he was dealing with, but the steering mechanisms were unresponsive.

  BBWWEEEE! “IMPACT WARNING! IMPACT WARNING!” BBWWEEEE!

  “No freaking way!” Euphretes screamed in desperation as he yanked and pulled on the flight controls with all of his might. Looking at the heads up display’s navigation information, he could barely believe it; the Hunter was only fifty miles from the surface and closing fast.