by Devon Loos
The sound of splashing water wrenched me free from my thoughts. Something was thrashing about just off my dock. The water calmed and the location of the thrashing turned red with blood. The upper half of an animal bobbed above the surface for a few seconds, before it was pulled back under. Something began to circle the tree. It was serpent-like, yet the creature swam forward gracefully by alternating dozens of small fins. The serpent continued to circle the tree, appearing only for a moment before diving beneath the water again. I crawled towards the trunk of the tree, then turned to find that the creature was nowhere to be found.
“Sapphire!” I called, quietly. “Wake up, I need my rifle.” I could hear the faint movements of Sapphire getting up.
“Your what?” I looked down to see the serpent’s head resting on the edge of the crate. A reptilian claw took hold of the edge, and the creature pulled itself up. The serpent did not show any telltale signs of poison, like the other creatures, but rather was a single dull grey color. Its mouth was filled with long, curved, fangs. The serpent seemed to have been blind, yet it knew I was here, whether through smell or sound, I was not sure. Four small flaps opened and closed, rhythmically. They were not gills; those ran down the sides of the serpent’s body into the water. Beneath each gill was a small fin. We both stood perfectly still, each waiting for the other to move. The faint sound of the water was soon drowned out by a racing heartbeat. Time and space felt irrelevant. There was only this strange creature and me. The creature snapped its jaw, then froze again. It was toying with me. Slowly I turned my eyes upward. Sapphire had set the rifle just between the floor of the shelter and the first wooden blank of the ladder. It was just beyond my reach. I would have to stand up to get it. Slowly I retracted my legs. Instantly the serpent jerked back, and began to hiss. A strike would be fatal, and predators like this one had an uncanny ability to strike in half a heartbeat. The serpent’s head swayed to and fro, as if it was locking onto me. Then it stopped, unlocking its jaw. My body ceased to respond, frozen in horror. I was this thing’s prey. If I moved or made the slightest sound, I would die. For the time, the entire world became still.
A falling figure broke the stillness, causing me to flinch in shock. The figure fell on the neck of the serpent, trapping it against the crate. Sapphire wrapped herself around the creature’s neck, preventing it from escaping.
“Shoot it!” She shouted, just before biting into its neck. I jumped upwards without a second thought, grabbed the rifle, then fell back down. Sapphire was too close to the head.
“I can’t get a good shot!”
She spat out the creature’s blood. “Why?”
“I might hit you!”
“Then get over here and shoot it!” Sapphire was beginning to struggle herself. I quickly moved to point blank range. Before I could shoot, the creature ripped itself free from Sapphire and struck me with its head. The movement was too quick, and before I realized what had happened, I was against the tree. The serpent’s jaw crushed my left side. There was an intense crushing pressure around my side, with several pinpoint sensations where its largest teeth were. Warm blood ran down my left leg. My thoughts simplified. The world seemed brighter, more colorful. I felt numb. I looked at my right hand. The rifle was still in it. Slowly I rested the rifle on the neck of the serpent. Two words came to mind. Whether I said them or merely thought them, I could not tell.
“Piss off.” I pulled the trigger. The recoil flowed through my arm and into my body. The noise of the discharge sounded hollow. My ears were filled with the sound of wind in an echoing chamber. I wondered if my hearing was failing. I pulled the trigger again, then again. Four. Five. The sixth time shredded enough flesh for the serpent’s head to tear free from its body. I dropped the rifle and let my legs collapse. Sapphire was immediately by my side. Looking down, I watched as my hands, with minds of their own, removed the serpent’s head from my body. My shirt was in tatters, and my stomach was shredded worse. A puddle of blood formed around me. As the adrenaline began to wear off I was seized by the unbearable pain. My breathing became short, weak, little gasps; anything more caused my abdomen to move, and amplified the pain.
“Oh no, I’m… I’m sorry Jacob. That serpent was a lot harder to hold than I thought and,-” She began to look around, as if to find some sort of convenient means of saving me. There was none. Even if she could stop the bleeding and somehow fix the shredded flesh that once was my abdomen, there was nothing she could do to counter the serpent’s venom. I came to this conclusion before she did, but I did not believe it. I couldn’t. I had come so far, and had so much of my life ahead of me, only to die here. It wasn’t fair. I did not want to die. I tried to speak, only to realize my voice had been replaced with short, force gasps for air, and quiet shrieks of pain. My limbs grew cold, my vision blurred and my hearing faded. Sapphire only stood there. Was she going to watch me die? I wondered what she was thinking. Perhaps she was still trying to save me? Or maybe she merely wanted to watch. She was a carnivore, after all. She turned away and looked at her hands for a moment. Darkness bordered my vision. I was falling. Sleep was a seductive lure in front of me. I resisted it. Why? I was not finished with… something. What was I doing? I no longer felt myself. I wanted to sleep. Darkness was everywhere, the eternal night.
I felt a hand rest upon me.
Instantly sight, sound, touch, everything was amplified. Sapphire stood in front of me, glowing, her hand resting on my side. My limbs burned, as if dipped in hot water. I felt blood rush through my veins and my heart was racing just to keep up. I felt my intestines realign, the muscles and skin encasing them. I could feel everything as each individual sliver of shredded flesh grew, changed shape, and fused with other strands. The process was not extremely painful, but unbearable none the less. I began to hyperventilate. Sapphire put her other hand on my chest, just below my collarbone. My heart rate slowed and my breathing steadied. I passed out.
[Chapter 15: The Beacon]
My body jerked the moment I woke. My hand was immediately drawn to my injured mid section. Not even a scar. I looked at Sapphire, who rested on her side at the edge of the crates. She was staring at me.
“You’ve been asleep for so long! I thought you might have been in a coma.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” I joked.
“Sure, because me saving you from death had nothing to do with it.” She smiled. She looked exhausted.
“So, what did you do?” I asked.
“Well, in the heat of the moment I remembered something. I remembered… that the life gem can heal nearly any wound or disease, but it wears me out in the process.”
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah, I just need to rest for awhile.” She tried to get up, but fell again. I got up to help her. My arm flew to my side in response to the searing pain.
“That’ll still hurt for awhile. You need rest too.” I ignored the pain and picked up Sapphire. “I told you not to touch me.” She wasn’t serious. I replied anyway.
“You can’t rest down here and you can’t get up by yourself.” I turned and carefully pushed her up the tree. Once she was up I retrieved the rifle and climbed the ladder myself. I looked at Sapphire who was already curled up in her usual spot in the tree, ready to fall asleep.
“I’m glad you didn’t die…” I smiled, crawled over, and covered her with the blanket. Then I took to my own side of the shelter.
The rain stopped the next morning, but the ground was still completely flooded. We rested all day, eating more than we usually did in order to regain our strength. Most of the rest of the day was spent either napping or talking to pass the time. We continued to explain each other’s worlds and make the occasional joke. During one instance, I described what a video game was, while she listed the ten different reasons why she would kill me if I pulled her tail. I told her about a dog I had as a child who bit me for doing that exact thing. Time passed quickly during these conversations and soon the day was over.
By the
next day the water level fell to just below our knees. I woke before Sapphire and moved out of the shelter to observe the wildlife. After tying the serpent’s head to the tree, the other serpents typically avoided us if at all possible. The fish were already gone, but the amphibians traveled in groups, ignoring me as I watched them return home from their expeditions. Sapphire joined me, and we began to plan for tomorrow while we watched the animals. Tomorrow, if the water was gone, we would finally head out to the ship to find the beacon. I packed all the tools we had while she packed food for the journey. I was glad the storm was over. We were running low.
We left early the next day, the water was gone but the ground was still muddy and wet. Small ponds were everywhere. I took a moment to examine one. Swarms of newborn creatures would hatch from their eggs, swim around for a moment, consume their own egg shells, then bury themselves deep in the mud. It was a curious little ritual that allowed me to understand why the creatures traveled so far during the flood. Here there were no predators, so these hatchlings would grow in peace, at least until another flood. We continued on.
We made sure to take breaks every so often. Sapphire seemed full of energy again, and my pain seemed almost nonexistent now, but I was not going to take any chances. Once we reached the ship we began to make our way to the bow, farther forward than we had previously gone, mainly because there were only ruined lifeboats up here. Past the lifeboats was an evacuation transport. The very tip of the bow was capable of detaching, and flying on its own. It was primarily used as a much larger lifeboat, specifically for transporting wounded, or VIP’s. The ship even had its own jump engine, though it was typically only capable of two or three short range jumps before exhausting it’s systems. Once we reached it, I noticed that the airlock door was sealed. Someone tried to escape using the evac ship. I wondered why they didn’t. After a few twists of the door handle, followed by a second door, we entered the evac ship and passed through a small hallway between the ship’s engines. Beyond them, two large elevators were situated across each other in the hallway. They led to the ship’s med bay and cargo hold. We continued on past the crew’s quarters until we reached the command bridge. The blast door was wide open, and the sun shone brightly through a large gap in the ceiling and part of the wall. I speculated that a round from the attacking ship’s main gun scraped the roof of the evac ship, ripping it open and sucking out anyone who was unlucky enough to be inside at the time. Patches littered the ground, knocked free during the crash. We looked onward. The bridge used a thin, rectangular viewing port for visual guidance. Despite the size of the window, the ship only needed two pilots to function, much like the average freighter. Technically, the ship was designed so that anyone could understand the controls and fly the ship. If this was not the case, pilots would have to be stationed here at all times. I climbed into a seat and, while checking, found the power systems intact. Once the terminal was active, I checked the diagnostics of the ship. Aside from its power connection, and the forward guns, and a few minor systems, nothing else continued to function. The elevators, however, were run on separate systems, designed to keep them from jamming. We resolved to check the cargo hold later.
“Ok… So, the portable long range emergency beacon is located under a hatch between the pilot seats.”
“Got it.” Sapphire kneeled down and opened the hatch. The beacon resembled a small generator, but with the telltale dull white color of Rovanekren technology. A pipe on the corner held the antennae, which would extend several meters once activated. “It’s lighter than I expected.”
“It’s Rovanekren tech. Armor is about as heavy as it gets in terms of anything smaller than a tank.” I got up and turned to leave but stopped when I suddenly realized that I had not yet looked out the window. While my thought became kindling for my curiosity, Sapphire continued on to the end of the room.
“Hey Sapphire, put the beacon down and come look at this.” I had never seen a view like it before. An endless expanse of great rivers and towering trees outstretched before me. I remembered seeing pictures like this in history books. They referenced a place once known as the Amazon Rainforest. That place didn’t exist now, ruined with radiation and fire during the war, simply to spite the country that exploited it. I looked out into the great expanse. The clouds dotting the blue sky amplified its beauty. I wondered how much more striking it would have been if we had waited until sunset. I saw rivers flowing this way and that and wondered what would the Earth look like if we had only learned how to preserve its beauty sooner.
“Wow…”
“Supposedly there used to be a place on Earth like this.”
“Used to?”
“Yeah. We destroyed it… in our hatred of each other.”
Sapphire remained silent.
“We always fought each other for what seem like pointless things now, but back then, it must have seemed so important. We’ve learned to unify now, but it was only just in time to save ourselves from extinction.” I sighed. “If we had learned just a century sooner… I don’t know. I guess I just feel sorry… that no one will ever get to see anything like this.”
“It’s never that easy.” Sapphire looked down.
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter what species you are, we’re all stubborn and we hate adapting to new things. For something like that, you need to change what people believe to be true, and nobody will ever let you do that without anything less than a tragedy, or a miracle.” The wind blew through the ship, causing a faint whistling sound. Sapphire returned to her cheerful self. “But at least we get to see it now!” She pressed her forehead against the window. “How far down do you think it is?”
“I’d rather not-” BANG BANG! The loud, rumbling sound of metal bending filled the room. I looked around. The sturdier wall was split just under the rift in the ceiling. There was a moment of silence. The ship dropped suddenly, knocking us off our balance. The front of the ship was bent downwards fifteen degrees. The metal began to cry again.
“Move, move, move!” I began to run. The ship bent forward again, causing me to fall. I was halfway to safety, and the ship was now roughly 45 degrees lower than the horizon. I continued forward on all fours, making it to the top and rolling onto level ground. Immediately the ship began to roar, and the entire front section broke free. I heard a single sound above it all.
“Jacob!” I searched the deck for Sapphire. She was not up here. The sound of metal hitting the ground echoed out across the canyon. I felt sick. I was in complete disbelief.
“Jacob!” The second time startled me. I crawled awkwardly to the edge. Sapphire was desperately holding on to the outer plating of the ship. The view had lost its beauty only to be replaced it by nauseating fear. Two hundred meters below her sat the front of the ship, in the center of a circle of freshly cleared trees. A thin layer of clouds could be seen between us and the ground. Small birdlike animals I had never seen before circled below curiously. Sapphire held onto a center layer of the ship’s floor, between a variety of sharp pipes, wires, and metal plates, struggling to catch a decent foothold.
“I’m here!” I began to reach over the edge.
“Help… me.” Her words came out in a whisper instead of a shout.
“It’s alright. It’s alright.” I began repeating it, as if saying the words enough would help. It did not.
“I… I can’t reach.” I admitted. She began to cry. I looked around for anything I could use as rope. There was nothing. A different idea came to mind. I remembered when I would mischievously rip my friends from their sleds when it snowed. If the snow was hard enough, I would create footholds, then tear them free from their sleds by their arms.
“Ok, listen. I’m going to come down there, we’ll lock arms, and I’ll pull you up ok?”
She had shut her eyes and turned away. “How?” She half whispered.
“Just trust me.” Sapphire remained silent, and struggled to keep from hyperventilating, but slowly nodded. I crawled away and
stood upright. I would have to break through the metal.
“Hold on tight!” I shouted, then slammed my foot into the wall. The energy did not spark, and I shouted in pain.
“What’d you do?!” She shouted in a desperately.
“Just hold on!” I tried my right foot. It was engulfed in a purple glow in an instant, and my foot traveled halfway through the wall. I quickly ran over to the edge, turned around, then bashed two holes into the floor. I twisted around, set both feet in them, then swung my upper body over the edge. I grabbed onto her arms, moments before she lost her grip on the metal. She closed her hands around my arms without hesitation.
“Good job. I’m going to swing you to your left now so that you can get a foothold, ok?” She nodded. “One,” I began to swing her to the left and right, “two,” I mustered all my strength and swung her to the right, “three!” Sapphire caught the metal parts between the paneling with her foot, and used the footholds, allowing her to slowly climb up. She reached the top and rolled over me onto the floor of the deck. I in turn, rolled onto my back. We both were breathing heavily.
“If you want… I can throw some of the blankets down… so that you can sleep on the ground. That way… you don’t have to climb the tree. Sapphire?” I got up to look at her. In an instant, she threw herself on me and held me tight, her face buried into my shoulder. She was hugging me? This Anth who threatened me often for such things… was hugging me? I was at a loss for what to say or do, so I awkwardly patted her back as if she were a child. We sat there for several minutes. Without warning, she got up and recomposed herself.
“Right, so… let’s get that beacon outside, shall we?”
“Um… ok.” I was confused about what had happened and considered it carefully while carrying the machine. During every other incident she seemed so much more composed. Half of the time, she seemed almost calm. Yet, something about this was different. It scared her. I half expected a joke about how this didn’t make us even or something, but she remained silent. She avoided any eye contact, looking at the ground ahead of her the whole way back. Her ears were bent downwards, and her tail dragged behind her, awkwardly, disturbing loose dust and dirt as she walked. She was troubled by what happened. I wondered if her normal self still hung on the cliff. Once we were outside I activated the beacon. We continued on for a little while until I could no longer tolerate the silence.