by Bryan Nyaude
“This can’t be real.”
For once, I wished to solve my problems with no issues or having to resort to violence. The anger inside me swelled up and I took out Rick’s gun and fired proton bullets at the big guns. The blasts had no effect on their metallic hulls. I couldn’t even see a dent on them. It was futile effort on my part. Realizing this, I stopped firing bullets to conserve the rounds and just kept running for my life. The other gun opened fire, barely missing both my legs. Had I not jumped into the air at the time, I would have been missing two limbs.
“What kind of test was this?”
It felt like they were trying to end my existence. There had to be a way out of this mess, but unfortunately, I hadn’t thought of it. I looked up and saw about 8 small cameras, hidden within the debris. These aliens were watching me and analyzing my armor. What did they want from me? Unexpectedly, the two big guns began firing at the same time, directly at me. Everything became ablaze in red fire and smoke, the air around me filled up with cloudy haze from the unknown powder, as the surrounding area became a hot zone. I ducked away, crawling between wooden stumps as I tried to get away. There was no escape for me this time. Just before I could jolt again, the big guns stopped firing and began to sink into the ground quickly.
“Well, this is new, but I’ll take it,” I whispered to myself and gripped my gun even tightly.
Was it over now? I panted heavily, lifting up to my feet. This experience was by far one of the worst things to happen to me, I thought.
“If I were you, I would begin running, now,” the girl yelled at the top of her lungs, from a branch of a really tall tree.
I looked up and saw her hidden tightly, a bit far away from my position. I had no idea how she got up there. At this point, nothing surprised me anymore. Something bad was about to happen. But what did she mean by start running? I pondered at the thought for a minute and looked straight down. The ground was shifting again, without warning, and this time, small terror beasts appeared. They didn’t exactly look like baby terror beasts in that they were a bit bigger and were armed with blades and guns on their abdomens. My heart faltered out of sheer terror; this was the last thing I expected to see.
“Seriously! When will this nightmare end?”
Times like this were the ones I wish I was in my lab coat, using my mini electron centrifuge, trying to isolate electron particles. Those days were boring, but at least I still had my head intact and I was happy. I looked at the new monsters before me and slightly backed away. There was something out of the ordinary about these creatures. Aside from having blades on their abdomen, they moved distinctively different from normal terror beasts. Without realizing it, I was struck from behind, causing me to stagger on my feet. Everything was blurry and obscure for a second. Once I got hold of myself, I firmly gripped my gun and switched my flight system on. I soared sorely out of range, distancing myself, far up, regaining a better coverage of the situation.
“I know already!”
My suit blinked frequently, warning me about the low power I had remaining. I landed far away from the creatures, on high ground, in order to conserve my remaining power. The ground beneath my feet was really unstable—all I felt was a slow tremor that shook everything silently. More armed terror beasts came out of the ground, launching a massive assault on me. I was certain now; I wasn’t dealing with normal terror beasts at all. The way they moved and executed their attacks was more consistent and coordinated. It was definitely not what normal terror beasts did. This sort of flabbergasted me. Instinctively, I turned on my flight thrusters and took off for the skies. I had less than five minutes of flight, so this had to be perfect execution. My body shivered at the thought of losing power and falling victim to these beasts.
Quickly, I retaliated and fired proton bullets at the terror beasts, planning to destroy them while I still had the chance. I was playing right into their hands. This was what the enemy wanted. To study all my tactics, moves, and weapons, in order to duplicate and use them against us. I still had my revolvers, but I wasn’t going to let the enemy see them and possibly seize them, before I could truly use them. I had to find another way to destroy these creatures without using my last resort. I felt my movements become sluggish as the suit vibrated at small intervals. It was likely my fate rested within the next few minutes of play. I stopped shooting my gun for a minute and thought carefully of a plan. As I was thinking, I noticed that they were still some trees still standing at a distance.
“If only I can make it that far.”
Speedily, I hovered my way towards them, conserving as much of my power as possible. One of the thrusters gave out a distinct noise informing me of the impending danger. There was a loud and alarming noise coming from it.
“Please make it.”
By some fortunate chance, I made it there and landed roughly on the nearest tree closest to me. The first phase of the plan had worked perfectly, but now came the hard part. I began firing my weapon at the terror beasts in order to get their attention. They fell for my snare and dashed towards me quickly, completely gullible to my scheme. What I didn’t expect was them firing weapons at me from their mouth like that giant lizard did. I ducked and hid against the bark of the tree—while carefully keeping my attention towards them. Were they all robots as well? That would explain the movements and their weapons. That being the case, I was still in over my head. The tree vibrated as if something had hit it. I looked down and saw one of the terror beasts climbing up. More followed suit as they shacked the tree in great numbers. Fortunately, this tree was a strong one, but I doubted it would hold out against that much combined weight. It was just a matter of time before they were all up here. Second phase of the plan might have worked too well. This was absolutely the worst test anyone could ever give me. Were they expecting me to fail? But what would happen if I passed? Nothing about any of this made any sense. How would I know if I passed or failed? Oh well, I gambled all my cards onto the floor and set up Rick’s gun to self distract with a remote detonator. The last phase of the plan involved blowing up the tree and making it fall onto the creatures. It wasn’t exactly what I would call perfect, but it was better than nothing. Only problem with it was too many flaws. Despite all those kinks, my strategy had worked. The armored terror beasts were halfway up and climbing the tree quickly. I had a few more seconds to carry out the last phase. Looking around, I spotted cracks and quickly placed the gun on the biggest one I could fit the gun through. Out of nowhere, one of the monsters attacked me and lunged onto my throat plate, lashing to rip it apart. Its grip was hard and tight, I could barely shake it off. Dangerously, I took a gamble and used a burst charge in my suit to electrically stun it. Doing this, I saw the remaining power take a massive plunge down, towards critical low levels.
“Darn it,” I whispered out frustrated.
My attempt to kill the creature with electricity had failed. The armored terror beast let go off me and fell below to the ground hard. It was only stunned for a few seconds before getting up to climb the tree again. Just what were these annoying creatures? I locked my knees with all my senses at high alert. The creatures were coming in really fast and would attack without mercy. This was definitely not in the pay description for this job. To think I had spent all that time studying in school, just to be eaten or ripped apart by monsters? What a joke. I definitely needed to have a talk with my guidance councilor again after this was all over.
“Wait, what am I saying?” I slapped myself back to reality, in time to dodge what looked like a blade that had been spat out at me. “Great! Now they can spit blades, too?”
It seemed things kept getting worse with each minute, and I was right smack in the middle of this huge storm. Quickly, I rotated my body, vertically, and jumped swiftly out of range in time, nearly avoiding two terror beasts that were coming from below. I had no way to predict their movements. It felt like they had been trained by someone. Perfect, they were nearly all centered on the tree. This was the moment I was waiti
ng for. I took out the detonation trigger and held it tightly with my right hand—there was no margin for error. I waited for a few more seconds to allow myself to get out of the blast radius. Suddenly, one of the creatures readied itself to jump towards me, which was totally unexpected. I pulled the trigger too carelessly and exploded the gun before the creature could attack. There was a big blast centered on the tree hoarding the creatures. All I could see were bright red flames and a burning sensation as if my body was on fire. I landed hard onto the ground, groaning in agonizing pain. My whole body felt like it was engulfed in an inferno. It seemed I had not escaped the blast barely unharmed. But it was finally over. I trembled onto my back as I observed the surrounding, by rotating my head. There was debris, far and wide, and everything was synched and burning in red fire—nothing could have survived that, or at least I hoped. I struggled to get up, but my body wouldn’t let me. I had sustained damage beyond a few drugs and good night’s sleep. Definitely not good, taking into account, where I was, at the moment. All I could do was rotate my head, back and forth, and even that took a lot of effort. Thinking back, it was probably not a good idea to blow the tree so close to myself. Oh well, it had already happened and there was no going back.
“That’s enough,” a voice roared from somewhere, and echoed throughout the sky.
I looked up and saw a small armed terror beast near me, with it jaws aimed at my thigh, just frozen there. A chill of fear ran down my spine at the thought of what could have happened, if that voice had not spoke out. Although this feeling of fear seemed logical, pending my current dilemma.
“Take him and clear this mess already,” the voice commanded.
It was a feminine voice and sounded so powerful. You could tell a lot by the way someone speaks, and in this voice—I felt a lot power. Maybe, I was just delusional, but there was something about this voice that seemed familiar, like it belonged to someone I once knew. No, it couldn’t be, could it? Nah, I was just imagining it and I needed to stop. The last thing I needed to do was reminisce about the past in a situation like this. I heard footsteps; however, couldn’t pinpoint where they were coming from.
“This guy looks heavy,” an alien man appeared from nowhere and spoke. “It won’t be easy to carry him without removing his armor.”
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” I yelled out from the ground as loud as I could. “Nobody is removing my armor, not today or any other night.”
I had no set of clothes, except for boxers, so it was bad if they took off my armor. Probably my shy nature talking for me.
“Use your head, Maury,” another alien approached, walking confidently towards us. “His body is not used to our gravity; if he takes off the armor, he will most likely be crashed under the weight of our gravity.”
“Yeah, what he said,” I said, supporting the other guy. That excuse seemed more probable, compared to telling them that I had no clothes under this armor. Besides, this armor was stuck on me, but there was no point telling them that. The less the enemy knew, the better it was for me. Could not afford to compromise our mission any further, even if it was to save my own skin.
“Use my gravity lift,” the man handed the guy called Maury a strange device and left, shortly after. This day was turning out a lot better than I expected. I mean, I had not bit the dust yet which was good. My future seemed uncertain at this point. What were they going to do to me next? Barely breathing, I was at their mercy. My stomach tightened at the thought of them torturing me to my demise for information.
“I really can’t believe you did that though,” Maury commented, readjusting the strange device in his hands. “Not a whole lot of fools out there still willing to pull out dangerous stunts like that. You must have nerves of steel or something.”
He tinkered with it for a moment and pointed it down at me. Something happened as I could feel a flash of rays lift me off the ground. It felt like I was weightless, like a heavy burden had been lifted off my shoulders. Hated to admit it, but that was an amazing work of technology.
“But you know what?” he walked in front of me, and at the same time, pulling me behind him. “I am very impressed with your generation. You have taken technological advancement to the next level. It seems, earth went through a lot of changes since we left, centuries ago.”
He knew our language quite well. In fact, every alien I met seemed fluent in it. That being said, his physical appearance was not that of an earthling. I mean his skin, mainly, of course. There were no gray men on earth, and trust me, I knew. Every earthling was a mixture of different races that all blended together a few centuries back when the world government formed a one earth country. It was just illogical for there to be gray people, but then again— accounting what I had been through, I could be wrong. Since he was willing to talk, I saw my opportunity to get some answers.
“When was that, if you don’t mind me asking?”
He glanced back me and chuckled, “a few centuries ago; back then, things were different. From what I can see from you, there has been new development.”
“Yeah, well, if you can call terror beasts wreaking havoc on earth a development, then yes, there is definitely major change,” I sarcastically replied back.
“What is a terror beast?” he paused and looked backed at me, with a serious look on his face.
It suddenly dawned on me. How could I not have realized this? On earth, we called them terror beasts, but on this planet, they called them something else, possibly.
“Well, you see,” I tried to find better words to explain it to him. “Those creatures in the forest, on this planet, are actually finding their way to earth.”
Not subtle; however, he got the message. I definitely could have said it in better words, but this wasn’t a public speaking contest after all.
“What! Impossible” he growled, with shock filled eyes, like he had heard something terrible.
Oh wait, I had told him something terrible so this reaction was to be expected to say the least. But why did he care? What was earth’s future to him? Maurice stood still for a couple of seconds with his head down. There was a sense of anger brewing inside of him—I felt it like a cold piercing dagger.
“So it has already started,” he whispered, with sweat dropping down his head; it looked like he was basking in the oven.
His once vibrant movements had now been replaced with irrational frantic gestures that spooked me out a little. Something about what I had said had left him feeling irrational. I was curious as to know what it was. Asking him questions right now seemed like a really terrible idea.
“This is bad, I have to warn the others,” he said and started to walk quickly, while dragging me behind on the gravity lift.
So did this mean he didn’t know about what was happening on earth? But what could it all mean? His facial expression had changed when I told him about the beasts coming to earth, but what I couldn’t tell was why. More importantly, were these people my enemy or friends? We went right past the debris and rubble, going to an unknown location. Maurice suddenly stopped by a latch door, leading directly underground. He walked directly by it and typed in an access code. The door let out a loud noise before sliding open. Maurice pulled me inside as he walked through it. It was so dark, I could barely see anything. My com link lenses had also drained out of power, which meant my sight was really bad. I felt a slight ting of discomfort build inside me—getting dragged inside an enemy base was not something I was particularly fond of. I knew I had to find some way to escape. By now, Dalla and Rick had acquired the engine equipment and were possibly on their way back. That was if they had not run into unexpected trouble. We finally came to this grand, big door, far to the right, at the end of the tunnel. It was red, blue, and very bright like it was reflecting an invincible sun. As I lay there, floating in the air, I pondered to myself, wondering what was on the other side of the metal door. Was it more enemies or terror beasts? Maybe, it was a clinic or the kitchen. Well, to be honest, I hoped it was both. The mind blowing sensati
on of starvation and pain was just too much to overcome. I desperately longed to have some fresh food going down my throat alongside pain easing therapy capsules.
“Ow! Ow!”
I had involuntarily pulled a muscle on my neck, which made the chronic pain more aggravating. For a second, it felt like my entire body went numb. The more I tried to fight it off, the more excruciating it got.
“I will leave you in here, the nurse will take care of you,” Maurice said, leaving the gravity lift lying on the floor.
He paced his way out of sight, hurrying up the corridor. My mind was in agonizing pain, but I could still tell what was going on. Just what nurse was he talking about? Everything was quiet all around me. I was lying in front of the big door and I started freaking out of my mind. Trapped in enemy territory, I didn’t know what to expect or what was going to come at me from any direction. Suddenly, the big door opened up slowly, with a screeching noise. I wanted to close my ears to stop the screeching from aggravating my pain, but I couldn’t. Once it opened all the way, a reverting darkness loomed all around me. There was a chilling frightening sensation coming from the room. Someone or something was stalking me, hidden within the dark. I suddenly caught sound of footsteps approaching from the room. My heart paced a little bit as I was spooked. I tilted my head up to see who or what approached me. Shockingly, I saw no one. Although, I knew someone was there. The footsteps got louder and louder, drawing closer. My conscious screamed out towards me to flee. Whatever approached me was probably not friendly.
“This is a surprise, indeed,” a cold voice spoke, and suddenly, a woman appeared out of the dark.
She had a gray tone to her skin just like the others, but scars on her arms, like a giant needle had been used to saw back her arms. Her persona was entirely chilling and weird. She carried herself like a lady, walking with confidence in her steps. However, something about her eyes though was out of character.