by Greg Ramsay
“Spare us. We. I... ” it begged, while its massively grotesque pustule of a body frantically pushed out minions.
“No,” Lia said coldly as her blade let loose a wave of power that sliced everything in its path in half. Her tendrils made short work of every once living being, making her the absolute, uncontestable ruler of those who made gods.
Lia returned to James to find him buzzing around the now inert Ravagok standing around Lia’s landed mothership. “It’s done,” she announced matter-of-factly.
“Obviously,” James replied sarcastically, irritated that she’d distracted his observations. He noticed her dirty look.
“Oh, I’m sorry Goddess of Death. May I present Tamashiri and all its remaining inhabitants for your pleasure?” he said as if offering a queen a gift to curry favour, even bowing to her mockingly.
“You may, but if you ever mock me like that again I’ll punch your face off!” Lia said with mock intensity, eventually breaking into a small grin. “So what now?” Lia asked bored.
“Now you rule two races as well as an entire planet and all the influence of its previous dominant species. So you can do whatever the hell ya want. I, on the other hand, request permission to work on a cure for the infected, so that the planet might flourish again,” James said still acting like a royal supplicant.
“Permission granted, mad scientist Barton,” Lia said.
Finally able to rest, she used her mothership to locate the royal homes – castles of sorts. Selecting Yanmoushala castle, she had James load up all their subjects so they could take over officially. “I’m surprised you chose the All Mother home,” James said as they arrived.
“Well I can’t very well be their All Father, and Yanmoushala was at least useful in the end compared to Yanmoushara,” Lia replied.
“Fair enough,” James said with a laugh.
Lia strode through a massive pillar-adorned, ornate hall lined with stone similar to marble and accented by purplish shiny metals. As she walked up to the heavily padded, huge ottoman style throne in the centre of the space, Lia could tell the metal was valuable by its prevalence. She sprawled out on her throne like a pleased feline back from a successful hunt. James gave her a moment before approaching; he could see she’d lost herself in thought.
“How’s it feel to be the ruling Goddess of the Universe?” he asked gently.
She looked at him with a hint of sadness. “Lonely,” she said, while her mind raced through all the hells she’d gone through to end up with a glorified chair.
“You’re not alone, honey,” James said as he gently kissed her face all over before kissing her lips. Lia could tell what he wanted and desperately wanted to distract herself, so she retracted her armour. James made love to her, happily oblivious to her distracted gaze, the stress in her face, the memories slowly overtaking her mind. Lia was lost in a living nightmare that his affections couldn’t fully distract her from, her past, all while cursing herself for being able to multitask. When he was finally done, James gave her a deep kiss then left to go work on his cure project.
Chapter 15 – Breaking Goddess
Appearing to realize her internal strife, her armour built representations of her Spec Ops team, her daughter, even Chadwick. Lia looked at each like they were nothing more than black mannequins. “Lies! I’m alone save for a mad idiot who doesn’t care!” Lia said in pain, using her sword to severe all the tendrils. She could feel James’ seed inside of her, burrowing into the inhuman blackness, doubtless failing to find humanity in her as she did herself. After a while of weeping alone, she let her loved ones and friends re-emerge from her, embracing them like the last real things on Earth.
Days droned into weeks that bled into months of the same empty tedium. Lia sat on her throne replaying the movies in her mind one minute, the next listening to James’ progress report with his latest advanced alien toy. Or more empty sex while he remained clueless, occasionally commenting how she’d feel better once she got used to the calm of peace. Over time, Lia became increasingly cynical due to her repetitive pain, seeing all the alien lives she commanded as nothing more than drones. Which, by their own bellowing admission was their purpose, every single time she asked. It didn’t matter if it was Ramashin, Ravagok, or a cross-breed made possible by merging fracture technology James made. It was a simple prototype that allowed them to join through holes in the walls, cross traits and split a fraction of themselves to essentially breed without an Yanmou. Rather than be happy to have new lives, they all wanted to serve KamaGiri... always...the...same, serve, serve, serve! The mundane repetition, coldness, indifference and overall pointlessness of her new all-powerful life was driving her mad. Lia’s only reprieve was her time secretly spent conferring with her self-formed loved ones.
Her subjects at least obeyed her request not to tell James, preferring to bustle about completing the tasks their Yanmous or she assigned. Reality began to blur for her without chaos to keep her sharp. She spent so many hours with her formed loved ones, she started believing them to be alive. Their consciousness, their intellect was reconstituted from her having stored it when she absorbed them. However, she paid no mind to logic that was just a sea of nightmares; lies were more comforting.
One day, James came to her with two syringes looking like he held the keys to every scientific prize on the planet. “Hi love, why so happy?” Lia asked nonchalantly.
“I’ve done it babe! I can make us human again!” he exclaimed joyfully. James quickly spotted the people she hadn’t bothered to retract into herself. He took one look at Tory; sadness filled him. “Lia, honey what are you doing?” he asked carefully.
“WE, are ruling this dump,” she replied, bolstered by agreement from her friends.
“Okay... well it’s time everybody was allowed to rest so you can have your life back with me!” James said trying to sound cheerful, while suppressing his growing concern.
“You have whatever life you want. I won’t take some poison that kills Tory!” she said seriously, while pointing at the striking representation of their daughter.
“Emilia, it can’t kill anyone; Tory’s already dead, remember?” James said pleading. Lia responded with a horrified look.
“How can you say that James?! She’s right there; she can hear you!” Lia said incredulously, pointing angrily at a now crying Tory.
“If you take that, we’ll get hurt,” Tory said to her sadly.
“Don’t worry baby; mama won’t let anything hurt you. Daddy’s just being silly,” Lia replied gently, shooting James a dirty look. Everyone else she ‘brought back’ turned against him openly, spouting offence, saying he should die. James was so shocked and hurt at her reaction, tears threatened to engulf his eyes.
“Lia, honey, don’t you remember all that time you lamented losing your humanity to these abilities, to all the inhuman things we’ve had to become and endure? Did you forget?” he asked with confused, pained anger.
“I’m a Goddess, now. The weakling I was that accepted loss is dead. Most importantly everyone is back because of these abilities!” she said seriously, her agitation growing again.
“They AREN’T ‘back’. They’re fucking dead, Emilia, the L-strain, your power...it’s fooling you! I know it’s all my fault so please... Please, let me fix you!” James said angrily through his tears.
“I AM NOT BROKEN! I AM FREE!” Lia bellowed, her voice resonating reflexively with her Ramashin/Ravagok voice.
“You aren’t free, you’re trapped by this never-ending curse, Lia. I’ve doomed you so much more than you deserve or even know. Testing showed as long as you can get energy from anything you won’t even age. I don’t want you doomed to an eternity of sadness because of me. We all deserve to live and die as we choose or when it’s our time. No one deserves to suffer forever!” James said with sadness and guilt.
“You haven’t doomed me, James; you gave me the means to feel whole, something I’d foolishly rejected for so long,” Lia said sweetly, her shoulders held by her f
riends supportively.
“NO I HAVEN’T!” James yelled, his emotional turmoil exploding like a crescendo.
“Fine you wanna die, go ahead! DO WHAT YOU WANT!” Lia bellowed, her combined voice ringing out through the planet’s unified broadcast array like a command. She happened to notice her drone subjects who had been wandering about completing their tasks up to that point, abruptly froze and started quivering on the spot.
“I did not risk the lives of the last indigenous species on this planet so you could go mad with power,” he started to argue.
“Oh enough!” Lia exclaimed angrily.
“Fine, I’ll fucking show you the cure works. I’ll remind you how we should’ve been this whole time if it weren’t for me.” Without another word James retracted his armour, rammed the needle into a vein and injected the clear red-tinged substance. Minutes later he dropped to the ground on all fours in violent convulsions. Black sludge like what Lia brought to him on Earth, coughed out of his mouth like blood. All of his pores oozed it like thick sharp sweat. For hours James convulsed, otherwise locked rigid by pain, blood and ooze dripping from him everywhere. Mercifully, he eventually collapsed to his side in a puddle of his own excrement, breathing heavily from the agony. Lia watched the whole spectacle judgementally, indifferent to his pain.
“You’re so stupid,” she said incredulous, ignoring him entirely afterward.
Suddenly any Ravagok or Ramashin in the area stopped their strange shaking.
What you want?! they demanded in unison. What! What? You? Want? Freee... they bellowed.
It means do what you want... you know, not what you’re told? Lia explained, frustrated by their sudden stupid confusion. Her reply set them into another fit of quivering. James finally rose to his feet. Lia looked at him like worthless garbage she wouldn’t associate with further. Noting this, James walked away sadly, leaving her portion of the cure on a table nearby.
After days of gradual recuperation in the mothership, James gave up avoiding Lia. Approaching her castle he was almost immediately set upon by her subjects. Ramashin and Ravagok alike surrounded him anxiously, bellowing like desperate animals that hadn’t been fed in days. We want. LED. Tell us. What DO?! No free, FREE BAD... bad... They all bellowed sadly.
James tried to wave them off, completely unable to understand. His mind was on fire like a major piece had been unplugged from the whole. James pushed through them to gain audience with his wife. Help... HELP! they bellowed, practically pushing him along.
“See, I’m fine; in fact all my old injuries are gone!” James said happily.
“Good for you, I’m staying as is,” Lia replied. James felt his frustration return.
Chapter 16 – Drowned By Reign
“What do your loyal subjects want, oh great Goddess?” he asked sarcastically.
“They want to be led, I told them you demanded their freedom. They’d like their oppression back, great King.,” she explained tiredly.
James sighed. Turning to his audience, he shook his head no with a shrug. “Figure out how to live for yourselves the way that makes you happy,” he said.
When they only quivered in confusion, he turned to Lia. “Relay that for me, will you?”
“The king says do what you want. He won’t help you,” she bellowed coldly. Her subjects quivered, their confusion becoming an audible rage from her perspective.
“LIA, I LOVE YOU BUT THIS HAS TO STOP! TAKE THE CURE!” James yelled over the increasing noise. He was becoming unnerved by Ravagok and Ramashin gradually moving to surround him. If she responded he couldn’t hear or see her through the protesting natives. Lia watched them, amused by his apparent concern. Instantly they all turned from beggars to rioters, unable to handle the identity crisis they now blamed him for. Massive serrated tendril-like legs snared him with astonishing speed. James’ neck was violently snapped and ripped apart before Lia even understood what was happening. Her aloof demeanor was instantly replaced with a distant confusion and something she didn’t quite recognize. They’re peaceful... she thought to herself.
Then all of a sudden, she remembered the name for that distant feeling – rage. Her kynari exploded from her body into her waiting hand like a bullet. She formed the katana with all her power. “RELEASE!” she screamed, launching a wave of power through all in attendance. James as well as all of her ‘loyal subjects’ were torn asunder, their dead flesh burning. Lia stared at the gruesome scene with a sense of absolute horror she thought she could no longer feel.
“James?” she said in a timid voice. “JAMES?” She rushed over to his corpse, cradling his head in her hands. “James David Barton this isn’t funny, heal yourself NOW.” Lia stared at him like a disapproving mother awaiting results, which never came. It took quite a while of anger and confusion before Lia felt something in her brain click. “He’s dead... he’s gone... all gone,” she said in eerie depressed singsong tones. She looked down at the katana reflexively clutched in her right hand. “James... James I killed you?! No no...no. James, please honey?” James didn’t respond. Lia looked at the blood seeping from points her power hadn’t seared. “I’ll make you better James,” she said finally. Lia let her tendrils consume all the corpses, leaving his for last. Minutes passed in agonizing tearful silence for Lia. Her over-stressed mind doing its best to re-write reality for her.
Lia we’re all dead, James said in her mind.
“James? You’re alive?! I DID IT HONEY!” Lia exclaimed proudly, tears of relief streaming down her cheeks.
No Lia... I’m dead, we’re all dead. All because of YOU, James’ voice said in a dark powerful accusatory tone.
“No, it isn’t, you’re alive. I can hear you James, don’t play games!” Lia said, pleading like he was about to beat her.
Suddenly his voice was joined by all of her friends, even Tory. Every single one of them echoing his accusation one by one, louder and louder in her mind. Lia screamed in agony, systematically murdering every one of her few subjects. One of the blasts from her blade destroyed the animal pens, letting James’ test subjects free into the wild. Blind with grief, Lia boarded a small ship. Minutes later she found herself in space just outside Tamashiri’s atmosphere. Her loved ones screamed louder and louder, their accusations blotting out her ability to think until there was only grief. Lia screamed and cried, her body suddenly feeling hot.
So she opened the airlock, throwing herself at the mercy of space. To make the pain stop, Lia held the run of her blade at an upward angle just under her nose. IT’S YOUR FAULT, YOUR FAULT, YOU KILLED US ALL! they chanted. Crying, Lia managed one thought: Release!
Her blade erupted faithfully one last time, burning her head clean apart from the bottom of her nose up. Quickly her exposed brain matter began to freeze as her body drifted back to the planet’s atmosphere from the force of the blast. The distant blue sun was too far to provide energy to help. Lia was dead. Her blade began to glow with fire while still clutched in her death-grip. Heat intensified with such friction that her armour began to absorb the kinetic energy; her body was still alive. Fire raged around her as tendrils grew around her corpse like a heat shield. Smaller tendrils gradually rebuilt her entire head from the inside out. Lia’s eyes suddenly shot open, staring into the abyssal darkness of her hybrid survival instinct’s shielding. Tory’s head emerged from the darkness.
“Don’t worry Mama... we’ll be fine!” she said cheerfully before receding.
Lia was suddenly embraced by hands all over, the familiar hands of everyone she ever cared about. They held her in place like they wanted to force her down. Lia flew like a meteor, crashing violently into a rocky outcrop with enough power to flatten the whole area. Her armour shattered, leaving her dead on the ground, her wings sticking rigid from her remains to slow her. She looked like a fallen demon. Minutes passed. Wake up! she heard Tory say cheerfully. Lia’s eyes shot open. She gasped in air like she’d never inhaled in her life, convulsing and coughing with the effort. Gradually, she could sit up. In time, aft
er staring at her scorched surroundings long enough, she came to remember it all.
Lia’s eyes went blank. James had been right; she couldn’t die. Her eyes went blank. Lia walked haphazardly all the way back to her castle like a zombie, praying she was wrong. When she finally got back she found the table destroyed by her attack, James’ last gift... Her last chance to die, had been evaporated by her power. She was right. She’d literally destroyed everything. Lia struggled to hear a voice, to call to James for help. No one replied, she felt dead, numb, disconnected.
Lia spent months sitting on her throne unmoving, willing her body to stop absorbing solar radiation from the planet. Failing that, she boarded her mothership, silently abandoning the planet she and James fought so hard to conquer. Lia spent the rest of her eternity drifting through galaxies, idly watching life struggle to flourish on distant planets. She intervened to help with the most deadly of threats only to disappointedly leave in search of her next suicide attempt. Forever alone, forever immortal she became a revered goddess to many a species, but couldn’t care less. Her only wish in the world was that her body let her die. It never did. So she continued endlessly searching the universe for purpose to fill out her never-ending life. Lia journeyed on, blind to any love worshippers gave her, burdened with endless guilt and self-hatred. She lived solely for the day she’d finally find a way to die.
Afterword/Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Lia, Human of Utah. If you enjoyed this collection of books please leave a review! And Like my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/authorGR/ to get updates on all my future releases. Thank you for your time.