In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater

by J Alex McCarthy

  Everywhere else around them are suburban houses and small apartments with green grass lawns and alien but eerily similar looking to pine trees. It’s like they are on a whole another ship.

  Noata stares at the other side. Where they came from.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers. Explosions erupt from the plaza and the Eliite converge onto it. Wilker places a hand on Noata’s shoulder.

  “There is no going back.”

  …

  Cole’s eyelids pop open, his eyes roll back. He can see again. He floats above an empty city, standing as if there was a floor beneath his feet. No walls, no ceiling, only an endless sky and city surrounds him.

  He looks ahead. There sits a crystal throne and Leif who lies in it.

  “How is it like? To be a god?” Leif asks. Leif sits leisurely in his fragile looking throne. He seems bored.

  “Where is she?”

  “Who?”

  “Thora, I know you have her.”

  “Ahh, Jahum was right, that’s what he was using,” Leif says with a laugh.

  “What!?”

  “Don’t worry, she’ll be here soon.”

  …

  Lance and Serena look up as Noata and Wilker ascend to the other side. They hear laughing around them. It’s the Damon and grunts the surround them. Serena grabs Lance’s hand and squeezes it.

  “Let’s do this,”

  They attack. The grunts come first. Lance and Serena ping pong from grunt to grunt, taking them down with ease. They are nothing to them, they’ve fought a lot worse.

  The civilians in the plaza run as the battle intensifies, maybe the humans aren’t to be reckoned with. With the grunts gone, the Damon stare from above, one of them smiles.

  “This is going to be fun.”

  The Damon rush down toward them. Serena doesn’t give them a chance and leaps up and smashes her fist into one of them and sends it hurling into a restaurant. Serena follows him into the building and search for him.

  “Serena wait!” Lance yells. She’s too far off, they need to stay together. She looks back at him. The Damon grabs her and flies off into the air. Lance runs for her and—

  He’s hit hard from behind by a Damon and skids across the ground about two-hundred feet. He catches himself as he skids to a stop. Adrenaline pumping through his veins. Every Damon lands around him, surrounding him in a circle.

  Lance swings out his hand. Two long force fields erupt from his hands, long thin energy planks. He flips them horizontally and spins. The blades spin and cut clean into half of them as the others leap out of the way.

  Their tops halves slide off, red blood spurts out like a fountain, spraying on the fleeing Serephins. A reminder that they bleed as red as we do, that gets Lance blood pumping.

  He flips his blades vertically and swings his arms together catching the jumping Damon like fish in a net. He presses hard, his arms pump up, veins pop out of his skin and crush!

  They’re smashed under the pressure, their limbs, cracking and breaking, spurt out blood, coating Lance.

  Lance releases them, the Damons fall like rag dolls in a bloody clump. He wipes himself off.

  “Disgusting.”

  Three Alphas hover in the sky above, just observing him. They all look like Kabus, flashing his toothy grin. Lance wants to fight them off but—

  He looks around and behind him in the sky. Serena is gripped by a Damon, flying through the air. He needs to help her. He looks back at the Alphas in the air behind him.

  One of them is gone.

  In the sky above, Serena struggles in her captive’s hands. “Not today, buddy.” She jabs her elbow into his gut and pushes herself free. She flips off his chest and kicks him straight to the ground.

  “Boo.” a voice comes from above her. She looks up.

  Wham! Kabus drives his foot into her face and sends her to the ground with the Damon.

  Two of the Kabus land in front of Lance. “Not so fast, Lance.” They says in unison.

  “When I kill you this time, make sure you stay dead.” Nothing surprises Lance anymore, not that there are three of him and certainly not that he survived.

  Both of the Kabus’s walk casually toward him, with a swag only Kabus can have.

  “Unlike you I was chosen by Leif, our Numenwolfe, to undergo a special procedure. Numenwolfe by the way means Godeater. It’s a phrase we’ve made up to have a little fun on our pilgrimage.” Kabus One smiles.

  “Anyway, the procedure was to speed up my ascension, like a dear acquaintance of yours,” Kabus Two says. Lance slowly backs up as Kabus steps closer.

  “My powers are like a muscle, I can chose to isolate one or work them all together. Ironically I came back from each defeat stronger and with the knowledge of which muscle to work on to make your life a living hell.” Kabus One gives Lance the finger. Both Kabus disappear.

  Crack! Left, right, up, down, sideways.

  The Kabus’ fists appear as quickly as they disappeared. Hitting Lance from every angle possible.

  Lance is hit up into the air.

  They’re moving so fast that he can’t see them. One of the Kabus appears on the ground. He points up at Lance and aims his hand like a gun.

  “Bulls-eye,” Kabus one says with a grin. He flicks down. Lance thinks fast. His force field explodes apart as the force rips through it.

  Serena pushes a concrete slab off her body. She brushes herself off. She stands in a pile of rubble. The hole she crashed through is the only thing providing light.

  Did she land inside a restaurant? There’s over-turned tables, knocked-down walls, destroyed pieces of concrete, damn, she must have landed hard.

  “Did you know that a simple object such as a piece of metal can go right through your battle hardened flesh, even with your new strength, even with your power.” Kabus’s voice echoes through the dark halls of the building.

  She looks around frantically, nothing.

  “All you need is a just a bit of spin and a whole lot of thrust and it’ll go right through.” Kabus’s voice echoes everywhere, she can’t pinpoint it, but frantically tries too. Screw it, she should just fly through the hole she came from.

  “Like so.”

  A two-inch inch piece of wire shrapnel rockets through the air and pierces Serena in the right shoulder and pins her to the wall.

  She screams as she tries to pull herself free.

  Her screams are cut short when the third Kabus appears in front of her and covers her mouth. She tries to scream through the pain but all that comes out are muffles.

  “Shh. Now now, I don’t want you to bring any unwanted attention to yourself. I want to take a long long time getting my revenge on you for what you did.”

  She wants to beg and plead but it’s useless. She just looks him in his cold eyes with her teary ones. There’s pain and anger in them.

  “I’m a fucking laughing stock now, for only lasting a few minutes in each fucking battle on your stupid little fucking planet! That boyfriend of yours physically hurt me but it was because of you that my fun was cut short.” He smiles. “I’ll admit though, I have a pretty big ego so I’m going to love every second of this.”

  …

  In the sky above, Leif stands up from his crystal throne. He reaches out and opens up his hand. A glass cage builds up from nothing next to his throne. As if doing such a thing was simple, as if it wasn’t a marvel in itself.

  There’s a flash, Cole shields his eyes. When he regains his vision, Thora lies in the cage, curled up in a ball, passed out.

  “Thora!”

  To Cole, she looks so innocent. Cole steps toward her but stops when Leif puts his hand up.

  “But first...”

  Cole stands his grounds looking at Leif.

  “What is it like to become a god?”

  “What is your definition of a god?”

  Leif doesn’t answer.

  “An all knowing omniscient being that created the universe, a being that has powers and abilities that no
one has ever seen before, a being who can alter reality itself or a homicidal ruler who only got a taste of that power and thinks he’s a god?”

  “Jahum didn’t create this universe, only the stars.”

  “Still.”

  “It’s our universe’s flaws that made us what we are, death is a natural part of our universe. Our imperfect little universe, slowly consuming us. You’re not like the other ascended, you can help me, you can help us and the universe. I found a way to fix it, to fix it and it’s flaws. If you join me we can save our universe. Imagine a place without pain, without destruction, I can make it with your help.”

  Leif stretches out his hand to Cole.

  “By killing millions, by destroying my planet!? My home?” Cole yells. Leif pulls back his hand and looks down at the empty city below. His home-world, his city, the one he destroyed to get to where he is now.

  “It get’s easier, when you become a god.”

  “I guess we’re at an impasse.” Cole stiffens up.

  “Before we begin, can you tell me why, besides my people attacking Earth, do you want to stop me? When I can save the universe, when you don’t want to live anyway.”

  How did he know that? That he really didn’t want to live. He would never thought he would ask that, definitely not by the thing standing in front of him.

  “Because…Jahum saved me. And my wife. And he told me whatever you are trying will not work.”

  “Beware the false idols.”

  Cole powers up. He’s done talking, he’s made up his mind. His spheres spin majestically around him. Cole shoots forward.

  Leif smiles.

  They swing at each other, testing their opponent. Leif pushes Cole back. Cole swings up and sends ten of his spheres flying at Leif.

  Leif simply puts his hand up and halts the spheres. Cole tries to call them back but they don’t budge. Leif grabs one of them and cups it in his hand.

  “No! Wait—“

  Leif crashes down. Cole screeches out. The spheres explode in a puff of light and Cole falls to his knees.

  “What did you do!?” Cole asks as he slowly gets to his feet.

  “Join us or I will wipe you from this plane of existence.”

  “What about my race? My wife? You expect me to abandon them!?”

  “They’re needed casualties. In the end we all are Cole, my people are all ready to sacrifice themselves for the greater good for when that time comes. I can save us, our universe through the starkiller, your planet will be the first to begin the effort.”

  “I won’t let you wipe us out!” Cole flies for him. Leif waves his hand around the other nine spheres and groups them up in front of him.

  “My guess is that Jahum told you that these are a part of you. He was right.” Leif squeezes down hard on them.

  “Noo!”

  The spheres explode in a flash of light. Cole collapses hard and hurls. The mess falls right through the floor and down to the city below.

  It feels like a part of him was just forcibly ripped away, a part of him he didn’t even know he had but a part of him that he needs.

  “But he forgot to tell you that it’s a measure of your power. Every ascended has them,” Leif claims.

  Hundreds of thousands of small sunlike spheres flicker around Leif, coating the sky.

  “The stronger you are the more you can call and the more powerful you are, the more integrated they become. At a certain level they disappear, becoming one with the air, but the power and the strength is still there.”

  Leif starts to walk toward Cole. Cole crawls back.

  “Why? Why do you have to be so narrow-minded when you can help the greater good? Are humans that selfish?”

  “No—“

  Leif flicks his finger. Cole is lifted into the air. “I won’t,” Cole says struggling in his invisible grasp.

  “Why listen to Jahum, your so called savior, just because he’s the first outer being you’ve met? When he’s the one who caused the pain you’re feeling, the lives your people lost. It’s his fault your planet is in flames and yet you continue to deny me?” There’s a hint of anger on Leif’s face.

  “Jahum and the council wanted to stand back and do nothing while the perfect erased us! While his mistakes are destroying us, forcing us to live in the mistake he made, when he created the stars. The mistakes that are eating through our universe, your home.”

  “You claim to be saving us but you’re killing billions!”

  “Whatever foolish things he did at the beginning of the universe had a lasting effect. At the center of the universe there is nothing. No energy, no mass, no black holes, not even reality itself. When our universe expands out there is nothing to pull everything back, it will fade into nothingness. The only way to save us is to start a new.”

  A bundle of spheres rockets into Cole and sends him hurdling into the air. He lands hard on the invisible floor. Leif continues his approach.

  “I’ve seen the beginning and ends of time, the limitless amount of universes surrounding us and how a ‘perfect’ universe functions. Death is a natural part of every universe, yet in our own, our matter, our energy is useless, it’s not used in star matter, or our planets, once we drift past a certain point, we float into none existence. Where in a normal universe we would be brought back to a central point to start over again for an eternity.”

  Cole isn’t going to join him, no matter how much Leif pleads, he’s killed almost every single person he loved.

  “I’ve been through the same journey as you have, I’ve been ripped apart molecule by molecule and put back together.”

  His spheres slams into Cole as he tries to stand.

  “I’ve followed the journey of a single atom becoming a majestic star, I’ve died and have come back.”

  The spheres hit Cole once again.

  ”And I’ve experienced true emptiness and learned the answer, matter in this universe are building blocks for something better.” Leif walks up to Cole’s bent over body.

  Cole doesn’t care, he doesn’t care if it was Jahum who caused these problems. He doesn’t care if Leif is right. He just wants for this to end, he wants to be left alone. He doesn’t give a damn about Leif and whatever the hell he’s talking about.

  He glances at Thora, static in her cage. Alone with her, he wants to tell her he’s sorry, that they should get a house somewhere out in the countryside, just the two—three of them.

  But.

  “Our pain, our pleasures, our experiences are for nothing. They don’t matter in this universe, but in the next they will. Join us, join us and save the universe. Your race is gone, Cole. And so is mine.”

  Cole looks up at him, he once again stretches out his hand. This psycho path must be stopped.

  “No.”

  Disappoint flashes on Leif’s face. He must be stopped so he can be alone once more. Cole powers up and—

  “No!”

  Before Leif can move, Cole swings up, his spheres spin around his hand and—

  With a sickening crack, Cole’s spheres thrust into Leif and forces his upper body back until his head meets the back of his legs.

  The deformed Leif falls to the ground in a lifeless lump. Cole gets up and runs toward Thora.

  ---

  A Kabus holds Lance over the plaza, on the edge of what looks like a hover car. The driver holds it there like Kabus asked, he doesn’t want to meet his wrath.

  Lance is beat to hell, so badly he can’t even move. The other Kabus hovers higher in the sky watching over them.

  “You won’t be needing this anymore,” The Kabus says. He grabs Lance’s necklace, it has his locket. Kabus rips it off.

  There are no visible marks on Lance face besides it being partially swollen. But Kabus can fix that.

  “I was hoping you were going to be more fun. Oh well,” Kabus says. He thrust his hand into Lance’s gut.

  Lance spits up blood. Kabus lets go of him and his locket. As he falls, he can see Kabus laughs, time seems to s
low down.

  He stood no chance, to them they are just ants, his power wasn’t even close to enough to win. He can see his locket fall for him as he approaches the ground, the fall should kill him, but he wants to hold the last memory of Earth and his family he has left.

  He reaches for it. His skin starts to give off a faint glow.

  Dying is strange, he can feel it. The warmth of the matter around him. His locket gets closer as if it’s being pulling toward him.

  Serena.

  He can hear her screams in the background, he tries to reach for his locket one last time before he meets the ground. It’s off the cusp of his fingertips.

  Serena…I’m sorry. His fingertip touches the locket.

  A blue light explodes from him. Four spheres circle him. He lands gracefully on the ground.

  “Shit,” Kabus says from above. Lance feels an immense power pulsing through him. This is it. The power he needs.

  He looks at Kabus, Kabus looks back and smiles. Lance rockets up. Kabus jumps and flies down. They clash, meeting each other with fist, hit for hit, they match.

  Fist and energy blast come from every direction in a blinding light. Lance doesn’t have time for this.

  While Kabus plays around, Lance gets faster, stronger. Lance pulls his arm back as Kabus comes for him. Lance swings and punches Kabus in the gut so hard that the punch explodes out of Kabus’s back and Kabus is ripped in half.

  His top half laughs as it flies through the air.

  In a destroyed building, Serena is still splayed on the wall, Pierced by two metal pillars in the gut. She is in too much pain to scream. The pillars keep her in place.

  Kabus moves closer to her.

  “I’ll be needing these.” He pulls them out as she screams—

  Lance comes crashing down in front of Kabus. A furious blue light smokes off him. He thrust out his arms and yells. A blue force surrounds him and Serena. Serena looks up at Lance. Her husband came to save the day. At least she can see him one last time.

  The force pushes out, it expands in a half spherical motion destroying everything it engulfs. Kabus tries to run but he’s engulf in it. The blue death.