Bugged Out!
Edania Chronicles: Book 1
Matthew S Porter
Copyright © 2020 Matthew Porter
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of critical articles and reviews—without written permission from the author.
All rights reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious. While some are inspired by real life people, the rest are just figments of my imagination.
ISBN:
Cover design by: Jenny Ahern (Instagram: aeonpigments)
Published by Matthew Porter
https://matthewporterauthor.com/
DEDICATION
To my best friend, Nick, who’s such a cool guy that he’s got a whole character based off him (with his permission).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Big shoutout to Natasja and Amanda for working with me every step of the way. Without you, this would definitely not be possible. For Jenny as well, for her awesome job with the artwork.
DOREN REPORT #1:
tHE sHADOW mANTIS
TOLLES ISLAND
DOREN CORP.
DEATHBORNE CAVE BRANCH
TRIAL CAVES
Neither subject knew how they got trapped inside the cave. Last thing they remembered, they’d been hiking down Deathborne Cliffs on the west coast of Tolles Island. The entire area was off-limits to the public due to dangerous conditions, but they were both skilled climbers, and they were always up for a challenge. They’d hiked the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains and Kalalau Trail, so this rocky little cliffside should have been a piece of cake.
But now the seasoned hiking couple was lost in a cave they had no recollection of entering, and its many twists and turns proved disorienting.
Fortunately, they both had their phones. Unfortunately, there was no service.
“At least we have some light,” the young man said, shining his phone’s light on the path ahead of them.
The woman shuffled right behind him, looking around nervously. “What good is that going to do if we can’t find our way out of here?”
A faint scratching noise that came from somewhere behind them made the woman turn around with a start.
“D-did you hear that?” she squeaked as she backed up so fast that she knocked into her boyfriend.
The man turned around and put his free hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, babe,” he said calmly. “Probably just a rock that crumbled from the wall or something.”
Her breathing quickened. “Do you think...we could get buried in here? We could suffocate, or get crushed! Nobody will know we’re here, either. W-we’ll be lost forever in—”
There was the scratching sound again—closer this time.
The woman squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t like this,” she whispered anxiously.
The scratching echoed around them, and this time the man heard it as well. He listened more closely. It wasn’t scratching exactly. It was more like...scurrying, like something was crawling along the walls of the cave.
He looked around as his girlfriend buried her face in his chest. The cold dampness of the cave made it feel like he was inhaling ice, but his insides felt as though they were about to burn from terror when he saw a pair of small glowing red eyes staring back at him from the pitch-black tunnel behind them.
With a startled gasp, he dropped his phone and it broke on the cold, stony cave floor. He tried to shake off what he saw as just a hallucination, but another pair of red eyes appeared from the darkness. Then another. Before he knew it, the whole tunnel was aglow with shimmering, crimson eyes.
The tunnel started to hum as the red eyes drew closer. The woman turned around to see what was making the noise and whimpered as the man took her phone and shone it toward the dozens of shimmering eyes.
The second he saw the creatures, he dropped her phone and it shattered right next to his. In a panic, he grabbed his girlfriend’s hand and they sprinted down the tunnel.
His adrenaline pumped as he heard those...things chase them. This can’t be real, he thought as they reached a fork.
He glanced behind them, but all he could see was darkness and small glimmers of red. But he could hear the monsters crawling along the walls and ceiling like a bunch of turbo-charged cockroaches. He picked up his pace, dragging his sobbing girlfriend along the dimly lit tunnel.
Deeper and deeper into the cave they ran, hoping to find a way out.
Eventually, they found themselves in a circular chamber that was much brighter compared to the dark tunnels they’d been traversing. Sunlight seeped through a crack in the cave ceiling high above them.
Their pursuers, whatever they were, didn’t seem to be chasing them anymore, and the cave was quiet.
The woman looked around, still out of breath. “There...doesn’t seem to be a way out of here, except for—” She glanced back where they’d just come from and winced. “But I’m not going back there.”
The man looked up at the crack in the cave’s ceiling. It was maybe...fifty feet high? They’d trekked much higher than that before. Maybe they could climb their way out.
He walked over to the wall and rubbed his hand against it. It wasn’t too damp, and it looked like it was nicely grooved. This could work!
“Sweetie?” he called. “I think we can climb this.”
The woman walked over to the wall and looked up at the opening. “Anything to get out of here.”
They both took their climbing packs off their backs, donned their gear and prepared themselves to climb.
It wasn’t a bad climb at all. Within a few minutes, they were halfway up the wall. The closer they got to the crack in the ceiling, the easier it looked to squeeze through.
The young woman got there first. She reached through the crack and grasped the dry rock above. She let out a long, relieved sigh and looked down hopefully at her boyfriend, who was three feet below her.
The ground above her rattled violently as something heavy landed right where her hands were. The man screamed when he saw the thing that had caused the trembling.
Something was oozing onto the woman’s hands, and they suddenly felt like they’d been dipped in lava. Her grip loosened as she looked up to see what was there.
Glaring right at her was a giant glowing red eye, about the size of a dinner plate. She was close enough to see thousands of tiny honeycomb-shaped lenses in the eye, like it belonged to a giant bug.
The red-eyed creature let out a piercing screech, and the woman lost her grip and dropped from the ceiling. Her boyfriend managed to support her with the rope, and she dangled from the side of the wall.
Sobbing heavily, she managed to grab on to the wall. “I can’t... We can’t...go up there!”
Her boyfriend glanced up, but the thing was gone. After a few moments of silence, he looked down at her. “I think...I think it’s safe to—”
Something crawled right on top of his hand. He turned to see what it was, but before he could register what he was seeing, he felt a sudden, sharp pain in his leg.
Just as quickly, something stabbed his arm. His girlfriend screamed in terror as she saw the rat-sized creatures that had attached themselves to him.
The man suddenly felt exhausted, more tired than he had ever felt. With his strength gone, he let go of the wall and toppled over. His weight was more than his girlfriend could handle, and they both plummeted to the cave floor.
***
The woman’s vision was blurred as she looked up at the wall and cracked ceiling. The wall looked like it was moving, but that wasn’t possible. Then she realized it was the fif
teen or so insect-like creatures that were crawling on it.
The woman whimpered and called for her boyfriend, but he didn’t answer. She slowly sat up and tried to figure out where he landed, and her heart froze.
He was buried in a swarm of monster bugs the likes of which she had never seen, even in her worst nightmares. They couldn’t be real... They were too big, too monstrous.
Her terrified thoughts were cut off when the room suddenly darkened. The crack in the ceiling had been obscured by something hanging there by its six giant legs.
The beast turned its head 180 degrees and stared straight at her with its big, hungry, red eyes. It let out another head-splitting screech and lunged off the ceiling, landing on top of her.
Those intense eyes glared down at her as she was pinned to the floor by a pair of pincers holding her down like twin vises. She opened her mouth to scream, but the titanic insect opened its mouth first, and its long, sharp, straw-like tongue shot out of it and—
***
And the test subjects were dead as doornails, Dr. Barbaas typed in his final report.
He read that last part and sighed. “Guess I should be a little more professional…” he mumbled to himself and erased it.
Experiment SMq+os successfully hunted and drained their prey of energy. Thus, the final trial was a success. Experiment case #244, trial 42, Dr. O. Barbaas, Chief of Genetics, Doren Corp. Archive 0045.
Dr. Barbaas sat back in his chair and read over the whole report. As his crazed, yellowish eyes scanned the document, he couldn’t help but smile when he read his description of the gruesome way his creations attacked and drained their prey of life energy.
The doctor was bald, except for two wild, curly white tufts of hair on either side of his forehead that resembled horns so that, in the dark room, he looked like a devil in the computer’s dim light.
One of his assistants entered the room. “Excuse me, Doctor?” he said, nervously adjusting the helmet of his hazmat suit.
Dr. Barbaas looked away from the computer screen and frowned at his assistant. “What is it? Can’t you see I’m super-duper busy here?” he said in his high-pitched, flamboyant voice.
The assistant shifted his weight from one foot to the other and did not meet his superior’s gaze. “Master Doren wishes to see you in the central control room,” he said. “He’s…summoned Flutura as well.”
“Oh, goody!” Barbaas said, and the frown on his face was quickly replaced by a psychotic grin. He leaped up from the chair and clapped his hands theatrically. “I can do the big reveal of my baby in front of that ugly mothlady.”
The assistant took a few steps backward. “So you’re really going to go through with it? You’re letting that thing loose?”
Barbaas put his hand on his hip. “That thing is more valuable to me than you are, Smith. Don’t ever insult a man’s child. Rude.”
“S-sorry, sir,” said Smith.
Barbaas shooed him away. “Just get her ready for transport, and make sure her cage is nice and snug.” He giggled. “Wouldn’t want her getting out and terrorizing the lab, at least not until Master Doren takes a look at her.”
Smith trembled in his hazmat boots. “You want me to cage it—erm, I mean, her?”
Barbaas rolled his eyes. “Puh-lease, it’ll be a piece of cake. Just take care not to get near her mouth. Or her pincers. You know what? Just avoid getting within fifteen feet or so and you’ll be fine.”
Smith’s eyes widened. “Then h-how am I supposed to get it—”
“Her,” Barbaas said reprovingly.
“Sorry, sir,” Smith said shakily. “How’re we supposed to get her in the cage?”
Barbaas sighed loudly. “Must I think of everything? Use one of our test subjects. Throw ’em into the cage and she should go in just fine.”
Smith nodded anxiously and left Barbaas’s office, almost falling over his own feet in the process.
Now, Barbaas thought. Time to show that uppity fluttering tramp how it’s done. I can’t wait to see her face when I reveal my baby, not to mention the fact that I’ve found the location of the object of Master Doren’s desire.
He pulled what looked like a smartphone out of his lab pocket, typed in a few words and hit the button under the touchscreen. He was surrounded by a green light, then vanished from the room.
***
Much deeper in the compounds of Doren Corp., in the very center of Deathborne Cave, was the central control room. A circular control panel stood in the room’s center, and a giant computer screen was stationed above it. This was no mere computer, however. Something evil was trapped within its hard drive, and it wasn’t a virus. It was something that had, at one time, been human. A man by the name of Doren.
Doren’s shadowy, pixelated form appeared on the computer screen. None of his features could be seen clearly, but his image still managed to send fear through his minions’ hearts whenever they had to present themselves before him.
“Come to me, Flutura,” he said through the computer speakers in a low, raspy voice.
A moment later, several beautiful glowing mechanical moths flew into the room one by one. Their elegant wings flowed behind them like twin tails of a kite, and their steely blue bodies danced in the air, forming a figure-eight pattern.
The robotic moths dove to the ground and merged in a mass of pale green light. A young woman stepped out of the light as it started to fade.
She was tall and slender with flawless alabaster skin and silky brown hair that was up in a ponytail. She wore a pale green lab coat with the image of a moth embroidered into the front, its wings stretching up to her shoulders and down to her waist.
The moth woman bowed in front of the computer screen. “You summoned me, Master Doren?” she said in a smooth, cold voice.
Doren’s shadowy face peered down at her. “My dear Flutura, did you find the whereabouts of the first Ark, like I asked?”
She winced at the sound of his voice. “I…haven’t found the exact location yet, sir.”
Doren let out an aggravated grunt, and the lights in the room flickered. One of them burst with a loud pop.
“Do you understand the importance of the Arks? I need them to free myself from this prison,” Doren said, clearly on the verge of anger.
“Y-yes, Master,” she answered shakily. “I’ve narrowed it down to Force-Pointe Island, and will continue my search without ceasing until I have found it.”
“Well done, simple girl,” squeaked a high-pitched, colorful voice. “You’ve narrowed it down to the largest island in the archipelago.”
“Barbaas—” Flutura hissed, looking around the room. “How dare you speak to me like that. Show yourself!”
A green light illuminated the room, and Dr. Barbaas materialized from it and skipped childishly over to her. He crossed his arms and grinned at her with an air of superiority. “Oh, I dare because I’ve done your job better than you have. I have found the first Ark’s location, which clearly makes me the better henchman,” he said, delighted.
“Impossible,” she protested. “I’ve been searching for weeks and haven’t found it!”
“Um, hello?” Barbaas said. “That’s why I’m the better henchman. Learn to listen, dear.”
Flutura was livid. “There’s no way an idiot like you could have found it before me.”
Barbaas crossed his arms. “If anyone’s the idiot in this room, moth girl, it’s you.”
She let out a loud hmph. “I’m not the one who got thrown out of Force-Pointe Island’s Scientific Publication Society for blowing up their laboratory.”
He glared at her with his yellow eyes. “Bite your tongue, wretch. I did that on purpose,” he said proudly.
“That’s enough, both of you!” Doren hissed, and several lights around the room exploded as the room shook from his rage.
Flutura and Barbaas stopped arguing and looked at the computer screen with twin expressions of fear.
“Barbaas, you said that you’ve found the locatio
n of the first Ark?” Doren asked, calmer now.
Dr. Barbaas bowed. “Yes, Master, I did, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted.” He cleared his throat. “The Arks, as we know, were forged by the Edania Organization for some disgustingly noble purpose. After some kind of incident thirteen years ago, they all vanished from the organization’s vault and scattered throughout the Force-Pointe Islands and deactivated, making them impossible to find.
“That is,” he continued, “until recently. One of the Arks activated a few weeks ago. My search, unlike somebody’s, was fruitful. I’ve found the Ark, and may I say, you are just going to love, love, love the location.”
“Why would he care about where it is?” Flutura asked snidely.
Barbaas sighed. “Well, if I must tell you everything, its location is somewhere near a high school.”
“I’m missing the interesting part,” she said with mock interest.
Barbaas gave her a derisive smile. “Better be careful, dear, your ignorance is showing. As you should know, each Ark is fortified by a barrier that protects it from us. As it is, no Corrupted can get near it because of the whole ‘lost humanity’ thing. According to my projections, to weaken the barrier, organic energy is needed. If enough energy is applied to the barrier, it will shatter, and we’ll be able to snatch the Ark. The most effective organic energy to weaken the Ark’s barrier is the life energy of humans, especially young people, and a high school is a convenient little prison for them.”
Doren cackled madly. “Well done, Barbaas. Now all that is needed is a plan to harvest the energy.”
Flutura stepped in front of Barbaas and bowed. “Master, I’ll formulate a plan to gather the energy we need.”
“Get your fat hind end out of my way, mosquito woman!” Barbaas snapped.
She turned to him and took a dagger with a moth-shaped hilt out of her lab coat. “You’re really asking to get sliced to pieces today, aren’t you?”
Bugged Out! Page 1