Aspirant: A Sci-Fi Harem Adventure

by Whittaker, Maxx

  Syl cocks her head. “Excellent choice. Let’s go.”

  Mika moves just behind me, Inferno flaring brighter as we scramble across the street. We pause before the alley, gasping though we’re not out of breath.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready,” they say, clearly bullshitting me.

  I feel the same way. “Quick run through, end to end. Mika, stay between us, light the way. I lead, Syl backs us up. Be ready for anything.”

  Syl’s eyes narrow, measuring.

  “Syl? Does that work for you?”

  “Yes.” She relaxes, if only a little. “I am used to leading. To acting when needed. This will take some getting used to.”

  I put my hand to her shoulder and squeeze. “Thank you for trusting me.”

  “You are worthy of trust, Sam. And I am ready to take your lead.”

  I grin, forcing bravado. “Let’s go.”

  We’re not even a step into the alley when the screaming starts.

  A shriek splits the stillness from back in the square, so loud I almost drop my rifle as my hands go to my ears. It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard, a horror movie howl made real and magnified a thousand times. It’s brief, tearing the night like a jagged knife before dying.

  Seconds later, it’s echoed. From every direction, rising from a million throats, shrieks that chase the first upward into the dark. This time my rifle bounces against my chest as the three of us crouch, covering our ears with our hands and arms. Anything to shut out the cacophony.

  It all ends, as abruptly as it started.

  I grab my weapon and stand as fast as I can, ready for whatever’s coming next. “Jesus… What the hell?’

  “What?” Mika yells, squinting into the dark. Inferno is dull, loose in her grip.

  I can only tell what she yells by the shape of her lips. My ears ring, drowning out most her question. I don’t bother answering, just point to my ears.

  Mika nods.

  Syl’s recovered faster than either of us, unsurprisingly, and is already prowling the alley. I look up just in time to see her draw up and stop short, back rigid. In a swirl of dark scales, she spins and sprints back to us. Instead of speaking, she taps Inferno’s crystal with one long claw. She holds her fingers apart just a bit.

  Light. Just a little.

  Mika gets it immediately and raises Inferno high. She grips tighter and the staff’s crystal floats free, igniting with a gentle glow that’s just enough to light the length of the alley.

  Enough to make me really wish she hadn’t.

  People stumble toward us from the far end of the dark corridor. Dozens of them. They move slowly but inexorably, already almost on top of us. Fingers like claws reach for us, framing bared teeth. Almost like…

  No, they’re not zombies. Their eyes are lit with something like fear and hatred, emotion I can’t imagine on the faces of the dead. Spittle drips from wide mouths that are bracketed by black, rotting teeth. Men, women, and children; they hold pitted, old weapons high in the air that look more terrifying for their damage and age. Scythes, small axes, even a few swords; they stand above the mob’s head in a dense thicket. Their clothes are ragged, leathers and woolens that look like they were made ages ago.

  I can barely hear, but I don’t need to. They don’t speak or scream like before.

  They just come.

  “Back!” I shout. “Back to the road!”

  Despite our deafness, the women hear me, and we turn to run. With our weapons, we still can’t cut through that many of them. Not without taking way more damage than we’re ready to bear.

  “Why, why now?” Mika shouts.

  “We deviated.” Syl backs us up, staying close. “The moment we left the road…”

  “Shit,” I mutter, too quiet for them to hear. Fuckup number one.

  We clear the alley in seconds, skidding to a halt. Syl collides with my back, almost pitching me into the street.

  “Fuck.” Mika’s word is barely audible, but I hear it. Maybe because I agree.

  There are thousands more waiting.

  They stand in an enormous ring, filling the street. Behind them, more pour from alleys and now open doorways. Some fall from rooftops and second story windows, landing in heaps before rising to stumble forward, broken bones and all.

  The slope is gentle enough that I have a good view of the boulevard in both directions. And as far as I can see, there are more of them. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, an army that fills the street.

  Maybe millions.

  I turn in place, look for something I’ve missed. Can we escape? Climb? No; more of them hang from the windows above us. They don’t drop to the street, just wait with wicked blades that flicker red as they reflect the moon. They’re behind us, and in a ring to the front with no exit, nowhere to run.

  Can we fight? I’d laugh if I didn’t want to scream. What’s the point? We could kill ten thousand of them, but it’d be like pulling a drop of water from a lake.

  My throat is so tight I can’t breathe. For the first time since coming here, I’m at a complete loss. Not with confusion, like when I woke with Mika, naked and scared. No, this is much worse.

  This is hopelessness. There’s no way out.

  What did we fuck up? Where did we go wrong?

  What did I miss?

  I raise my weapon uselessly, check that it’s in shotgun mode. The women flank me, ready to fight, but by their wide eyes I know what they’re thinking.

  We’re screwed.

  There’s another shriek, but not from the horde. An echo of the first, audible through ringing ears.

  The beast.

  From up the street it comes. Standing now, it towers above the bodies around it. At least twenty feet tall, its flaming skull is a beacon in the dark, floating above an army that parts wordlessly around it. It covers the distance effortlessly, each stride eating yards at a time.

  I know it’s useless, know that there’s no point, but I have to try something. I’m not just going to sit here and die. “Come on!” I shout, pulling Mika along.

  The mob ahead of us doesn’t advance, just stands in a wide ring as if giving us space. Probably so the beast can take care of us instead. But we’ve got a little room to work with, so I run toward army of bodies that block the path to the cathedral.

  They wait for me, a barrier of a thousand flashing eyes and weapons. In my mind I’m screaming that this is crazy, stupid, pointless. What choice do I have?

  When I reach the edge of the ring, so close I can look into their mad eyes and smell their decay, I raise my rifle and fire.

  They disintegrate.

  In a blink, a hundred of them explode, throwing a tidal wave of gore and bone backward over their comrades. It clears a space the size of a garage in a spectacular detonation of violence. For a moment, I dare hope that it’s enough and that this might work, that the rest will flee and clear us a path.

  But that hope lasts only a moment. Bodies fill the space immediately, pushed forward by those behind as they fall over each other. Some die, impaled on upraised weapons as those behind shove and fight to find room in the space I’ve cleared.

  I halt, arms outstretched, pushing the others back, and in moments, the slot is filled again. A hundred bodies replace the dead in a few beats of my heart.

  But they don’t advance. When they fill the space, they stop again, leaving us in our little clearing. A circle about twelve feet across. I stumble to the center of it, herding the girls as I turn desperately and look for anything else. A way out, escape, something.

  But there’s nothing. We’re surrounded.

  And in the distance, the beast still comes.

  “Clan,” Syl says, voice ragged. “If it comes to it, I will find a way to get you out. Cut you a way through. Find some advantage. Do not wait for me.” She draws a hissing breath. “Just escape.”

  Mika’s hand runs along the scales of her back, a firm caress. “No. No point. And we won’t leave you.”

  �
��No. You must–”

  “We’ll find a way,” I say, stopping them both. “No goodbyes, no suicide. There has to be a way out of this.” I try to believe my words, try to buoy myself. We wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t a way out, right?

  But under that strained hope I can’t help but think the same thing over and over: That there were aspirants before us.

  And those aspirants failed.

  There’s no point in speaking, now, so we wait. The beast is almost here, its flame so bright that I can’t look directly at it. A few more seconds. I dare a last glance to my display.

  01:12:01

  At the edge of the crowd, it stops. Framed by hundreds of bodies, it towers above us. Its head tilts slowly down, and though it has no eyes, I know it’s watching. Bits of liquid fire drip from bone, landing in the street and on the townspeople around it. Terrifyingly, a fat drop lands on a scythe held in the shaking grip of an old grinning man with a pockmarked face, and where it hits metal ignites. Another droplet lands on a woman holding two short knives, and instantly, her head and torso burn. As we watch, wide eyed and terrified, she melts into a pile of bone and scorched flesh as a child with a small axe steps into her place.

  Mika’s fingers strangle mine. Surprisingly, Syl squeezes my other hand just as tightly. My rifle hang from its loop around my neck; holding it feels pointless. We don’t speak; anything we might need to say to each other is conveyed by touch.

  I’m so scared I want to vomit, but I don’t show it. I stand, back rigid, even if I’m shaking. Staring into the beast’s nightmare eyes.

  Waiting.

  Long moments pass where the only sounds are the shuffles and low moans of the crowd. I can smell their sweat and something disgusting, like they’re rotting in place. Some of them mumble, sounds I didn’t notice before, but my hearing is slowly returning. Growls, angry and afraid. A chorus of hate.

  But of us? Or the beast? I have no idea.

  It stares at us for a long time. Part of me wants to raise my rifle and fire, seize the initiative. If we’re going to have to fight this thing anyway, why wait? Maybe the mob isn’t here to tear us to pieces. Maybe they’re just here to keep us from escaping.

  But I don’t move, don’t attack. If there’s any way out of this…

  Finally, it moves. Its arm comes up slowly, finger extended. It’s so sudden that, tense as we are, we all startle. Syl’s claws dart from her free hand, and Mika throws Inferno up between us like a shield. I don’t release my grip on their hands, though, to take up my gun. Something about its movement is so strange, so different than what I’d expected that it stays my hand.

  An arm longer than my body finishes rising, and the beast points.

  Behind us.

  With a swell of rage filled muttering, the crowd behind us parts. We turn in place, watching in disbelief as tens of thousands of shuffling bodies part and open a long path for us. They’re not happy, slashing weapons through the air and baring teeth in dark snarls.

  But they move.

  The beast’s arm doesn’t lower. Its long finger just points.

  “Uh,” I cough, almost unable to speak. “Think we’re supposed to go that way.”

  “A trap?” Syl whispers.

  “I have no idea. Maybe. Probably.” I turn back, squinting into the beast’s sockets, then take in a crowd that seems to only be held from ripping us to pieces by the thin thread of their flaming master. “I think anything’s better than this.”

  “Agreed,” Mika says fervently, already tugging us toward the path. “Let’s go.”

  I don’t question it further. She’s right. Behind us is a wall of death we have no hope of fighting. Whatever’s ahead has got to be better.

  Syl darts ahead of us, but just barely. We jog after her, eyes on the crowd, and I try to avoid the looking into the incandescent hatred that burns in their eyes. I don’t know what this place is supposed to be, what Mika recognized about it, but these people want us dead. Need us dead.

  They path they’ve opened is barely six feet wide. The mob keep their weapons upraised, out of our way, but my skin prickles at the sight of hundreds of blades and clubs poised and ready to fall on us in an instant. I can hear their breathing and low words as we pass. The only thing louder are our gasps as we try to fill stiff lungs. Sweat drips into my eyes again and again, stinging. I clear it away with quick wipes of my shirt, sure that the second I close my eyes they’ll be on us, killing and ripping.

  But they don’t. They just watch us pass in semi mute fury.

  Why?

  I’m about to ask Mika what she knows, what had her so spooked, when one of the people falls into our path. Jostled by those behind, he immediately raises on shaking legs, using a long axe haft to push himself upward. I see why he fell; one of his shins is shattered and useless, and he has to balance on one foot.

  We stumble to a halt as he raises wide, bloodshot eyes. He’s young, maybe twenty. His skin is so dirty and pocked that I’m sure he barely survived some ravaging disease long ago. A long thread of spit drips from his lip as he glares at us.

  He doesn’t move out of the way.

  Mika stands, ramrod straight at my side, Inferno before her in shaking hands. Syl is just ahead, waiting.

  The man spits, a fat gob that lands at Syl’s feet. “Cursed beast,” he growls.

  Mika screams. I don’t know what it is about his words that ignite her, but she stabs forward with Inferno as she shouts out her fear and anger. Every bit of tension this place has planted in her seems to pour out at once, and a torrent of flame erupts from her staff’s tip. It engulfs the man and a huge portion of the crowd ahead of us. It’s so bright I have to shield my eyes, and Syl falls back against me with arms upraised.

  I don’t look until Mika goes quiet and the red blur of her flame fades. She stands, breath rasping, staff still extended and frozen in place.

  Ahead of her is devastation. The man who stumbled into the path is gone, blasted to ash, as are hundreds of others in an arc on both sides of the path. Like before, more are already shuffling forward to fill in the empty space, but there’s no sign of the ones Mika melted.

  “Holy shit.” She hasn’t done that before. Apparently, it’s not just our bodies that are powering up.

  I barely rest my fingers at her shoulder. “You okay?”

  She relaxes at my touch, but only slightly. She lowers Inferno and heaves a huge breath. “Yeah.” She shudders and glances from side to side at the already reformed wall of staring eyes and clasped fists. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “An excellent plan,” Syl says, stepping ahead of us. She pauses, uses one claw to gently lower Inferno, then turns to give Mika a half grin. “Perhaps we should let you lead.”

  Mika’s cheeks color, and she gives the alien a grateful smile. “No, no… You go ahead.”

  The path ahead is still clear, and we don’t waste any more time. I don’t look at the clock, not yet. I don’t want to be reminded of how much time we’ve already wasted trying to figure out what to do in this nightmare city.

  The horde around us doesn’t get in the way, and no more fall into our path. They don’t jeer or shout insults. If I stare straight ahead it’s almost easy to forget that something like a million armed maniacs are just a few feet away, and that every one of them looks like they’d like to kill me and do horrifying things to my corpse. They churn like an ocean, changing positions, clawing to get to the front so they can watch us pass.

  The worst are the children. Their stares are as hate filled and insane as the adults, and in the faces of the young it’s far more jarring. More frightening. I suddenly understand why so many horror movies use kids as the bad guys. We pass a girl who can’t be older than eight, wearing pigtails and a dirty dress. She stabs the air with a carving knife, leering. It’s the kind of shit I’m going to see in my dreams for weeks after this.

  It doesn’t take long for the path change. At a distance, the wall of bodies seems to end, but it’s an optical illusi
on I don’t detect until we’re almost at what looked like a dead end. “Right turn, here.”

  Syl holds up her hand. “Let me look.”

  She darts ahead fearlessly, and in the midst of all this it’s hard to tear my eyes from her long, lithe body. I’m finally past the fact that she’s essentially naked, even if her scales are like skintight armor, but it doesn't make her any less beautiful. Some of her movements are almost sexually predatory, like right now. She crouches on all fours, back bowed like a cat, peering around the artificial corner of flesh.

  I cough, avert my gaze, and have one of those “oh shit, I’ve been staring too long” moments every guy knows to be aware of. I turn to Mika, mouth open to make some stupid joke, but she’s staring at Syl as hard as I was, and by the blush still dusting her cheeks, I’m pretty sure she was thinking the same thing I was.

  I shake my head. We’re ogling her together in the midst of all this?

  The Citadel is making some weird shit seem almost normal.

  “All clear,” Syl says. She laughs, a strangely adorable combination of a chuckle and a hiss that I haven’t heard from her before. “Relatively speaking.”

  But she’s not wrong. Rounding the “corner,” it’s another long straightaway, a corridor bracketed by the churning mass. At its end, just far enough that I can’t see it clearly, a warm orange glow radiates. “What do you think it is?”

  “No way to tell from here,” she says. “But we are clearly being led.”

  “Yeah.” I take a last look back before we make the turn. The beast, distant now but still shining like a star fallen to the earth, stands completely still. Watching. “I kind of hate that. Hard not to feel like it’s a trap.”

  “Do we have any choice?” Mika asks, almost dancing from foot to foot. She stares toward our apparent destination. “Anything’s gotta be better than this.”

  Considering what we’ve been through, I’m not sure if she's right, but I don’t see any other options. “Syl?”

  She bites her lip, sharp little teeth glinting in the moonlight. “Tactically, it is our best option. Time is running, and we cannot fight.”

  “Pretty much what I was thinking.”