by Amanda Churi
“Lay off?!” Mabel repeated, grabbing my arms and trying to escape from my hold. “Those things tried to kill me!”
“Hey, you were yummy!” the lerial piped defensively. “Don’t blame us!”
“I hope you drank so much blood that you explode!”
“Calm down!” Griffin demanded sharply, taking a step forward and placing himself between the two of them.
In response to his request, Mabel inhaled sharply through her nose, making a sickly snort before spitting in Griffin’s direction so that it landed right next to his feet.
Griffin recoiled slightly, grunting in repulsion as he stared down at the ball of slime quickly swallowed by the starved ground. He glanced up at Mabel through shadowed eyes, just about done with everything. “That’s not very ladylike.”
“I wasn’t raised to be a lady,” Mabel snarled slyly. “I was raised to be a fighter.”
“You didn’t do so well against us,” the lerial input smugly.
Mabel snapped her head to the young creature, my arms around her stomach tightening and giving her a sharp pull so that she stayed under control. “You better get out of here before you wind up like all of your other friends,” Mabel threatened.
The lerial looked surprised. “You’re the ones who took me!”
“No one took you…?” Laelia responded unsurely.
“Believe me, none of us want you,” Mabel muttered with hate.
The speed in which the lerial moved her arms at rapidly decreased, the lessened frequency making her slowly descend from the air until she was standing on the ground, staring up in our direction with wide, overwhelmed eyes. Her small, thin tail coiled around her legs nervously. “Then how did I get here?”
“You tell me,” Mabel huffed. “Little stowaway is what you are.”
“I didn’t mean to!” she screamed, looking around in fright. “I would never leave the forest, especially with you people! You’ll just try to kill me!”
“You’re right,” Mabel confirmed, an evil sparkle in her eye. “So why don’t you head on back before it’s too late, hm?”
“F-fine! I will!” She quickly turned her back on us, pausing almost immediately. Unsure, she shifted her head around the barren environment, swallowing anxiously as she took in her surroundings. “Uhm, where’s the forest?” she asked awkwardly, glancing back over her shoulder.
“No clue,” Griffin said.
She huffed in annoyance, turning back to face us. “You guys aren’t helpful.”
“Nope!” Mabel quickly agreed, a ravenous smile of glory emanating from her face. “Find your own way back; we’ve got better things to do.”
The lerial looked like she had just been shot, her jaw unhinging itself and her large ears quickly falling behind her head. “W-what?!” she exclaimed shrilly, shaking her head. “On my own? I-I can’t! I’ll die out here!”
“Not our problem.”
“Please!” she squeaked.
“Mabel, come on…” Laelia argued in a surprisingly gentle tone, shifting her focus to the fiery child. “She doesn’t look like she can do much harm…”
“Excuse me?!” Mabel fumed. “You’re not suggesting her to come with us, right?”
Laelia grinned awkwardly.
“You want something as messed up as her traveling with us?!” Mabel reiterated. “How do you know she won’t just murder us in our sleep?”
I nodded in agreement, as did Griffin. “We can’t trust her, Laelia,” Griffin said simply.
“Aw, no, come on!” Laelia begged, moving slightly closer. “Look how cute she is!”
“Since when do you ever find anything besides yourself cute?” I wondered.
“B-but I am cute!” the lerial agreed, nodding frantically. “Y-you all should listen to her!”
“Please?” Laelia tried again, flashing us an innocent smile.
Griffin and I exchanged a wary glance, unsure what to do. Laelia really seemed to be inclined to trust her, which was odd, but none of us were; I wasn’t even slightly compelled to take the little beast with us. She had still attacked us, and we had narrowly escaped death from their kind. Who was to say she wouldn’t try again, especially out of a fit of rage?
I looked at Mabel, the furious knit of her brow already telling me her answer. For the most part, I was on her side, but…
I turned to look back at the lerial. She was so little… We could easily put her in her place if she did in fact decide to have a change of heart. Besides, maybe we could use her to our advantage as we tried to figure more out about this world.
Griffin and I looked at each other once more. He was very cautious, but I could tell that he saw the sense in it also. He smiled slyly, rotating his head towards the lerial while gripping his knife tightly, flexing his muscles so that the creature took note of his strength. “If you even try to touch us,” he warned her, “you’ll pay with your pathetic life. Got it?”
“WHAT?!” Mabel bellowed, snapping her flaming eyes to Griffin. “What the hell, dude?!”
“I-I won’t!” the lerial stuttered, pulling her arms up to her mouth fearfully. “I’ll be a good girl!”
“And we’re not taking you back,” Griffin added sternly. “We don’t have time; we are traveling our own path.”
The lerial didn’t look too satisfied, but she didn’t argue. “So long as you don’t leave me out here,” she whispered. “Where are you going anyway?”
“We don’t know,” Griffin answered, Mabel roughly breaking away from my arms and standing off to the side, appalled by how Griffin was negotiating with the enemy. She turned her flustered eyes to me, urging me to do something. I understood her anger, but I chose to ignore her for the moment, waiting to see how this would unfold. “We’re trying to get to safety.”
“Well, I don’t know any place besides the forest,” she conceded.
“Then you’re of no use to us,” Mabel snapped, grabbing my arm and trying to move me, though I stood my ground. “We’re going. NOW.”
“No, I can still help!” the lerial squeaked desperately. “I may be young, but you all look more lost than I am! If you need some help, I’ll do whatever I can so long as you let me live! I can find my own way back when I’m bigger, but just please help me for now.”
I was quiet, staring into her eyes and debating whether to accept her offer. It was true; we really did know nothing, and any allies we could obtain to increase our chance of getting out alive was something we needed to do. We couldn’t just keep walking; we needed more information and direction.
Perhaps she could even enlighten me on how the other lerial knew me…
“What’s your name?” I asked firmly as I made my decision.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Mabel screeched.
“Sybil…”
“Well, welcome to the team, Sybil!” Laelia said, smiling and extending her hand towards Sybil invitingly, doing her best to ignore Mabel, who looked angry enough to slug all of us on the spot.
Sybil smiled, her small fangs beaming in the dull light. She tottered over to Laelia as she lowered her hand, Laelia’s eyes shining in adornment as the young lerial slowly climbed into her palm, kneeling as Laelia raised her up. Sybil looked her over for a moment before hesitantly climbing onto Laelia’s shoulder and taking a seat, looking around curiously but remaining silent.
I’ll admit, I was surprised by the way Laelia stared at her. I had never seen her so entranced by anything other than her bow or her own reflection.
“Keep an eye on her, Laelia,” Griffin warned.
“Don’t worry, I got her,” she stated confidently, looking over to Sybil for confirmation, who quickly nodded her head.
Griffin stared at me for a minute before giving me a cautious thumbs up and turning his back on me, him and Laelia walking off in the direction we had been heading before the small skirmish. I looked at Mabel, who stood there stiff and disgusted, definitely not the happiest camper that there was. She folded her arms, her eyes small and beady
as she watched the two of them walk across the landscape with the enemy.
“Hey, look, we need all the help we can get,” I pointed out, seeing just how on edge she still was.
She rolled her eyes, scoffing as she angrily grabbed her satchel and threw it back over her body. “I don’t care,” she growled, turning to face me. “I had a bad feeling about Tah. I had a bad feeling about the future. I had a bad feeling about the forest. When will you start trusting me, Eero?!”
“Mabel!” I exclaimed in disbelief. “I do!”
“No, you don’t!” she argued. “If you did, you would at least consider what I have to say occasionally! Start picking your battles more wisely, or I swear, you’re going to wind up dead or alone because of it!”
My throat ran dry. “…Alone…?”
She answered my question by throwing her arms down at her side, rolling her eyes and storming away so that she was near neither me nor the others. She was so fed up that all of the weakness that had plagued her body only minutes ago was reduced to ash, flames of resentment taking their place.
Watching her walk away put me in a state of unrest. I didn’t know what to expect next. I didn’t know what was happening to my friends. I didn’t know anything out here, and as I stood there and watched the others walk away, I could feel a wave of depression swallowing me.
They were all I had left… And the way things were going, I was going to lose them all one way or another.
***
In the land where nothing grew, where Death lay in wait for all, a broken figure lay on the ground, their armor demolished and skin blackened—a body caved in from the force at which the electricity had raced through their veins and disoriented brain.
In the still air around him, the frigid atmosphere suddenly distorted, giving way to a small cloud of dark smog, which appeared from nothingness, hovering over the body of the murdered man. From the center of the malevolent presence, the gas expanded outward, growing in size and falling into the shape of a human as though it had invisible boundaries in which the gas could not pass. The smoke was dense and purple, clashing against the ice-filled air and creating a vicious hiss as the burning pollutants collided with the frozen world. Plagued gray mist was expelled from where the gasses battled, smothering the ground around the fallen man and mysterious beast.
The presence was too heavily warped to make out any characteristics. The only thing one could tell was that it was a living embodiment, the toxins contracting as though the entity could taste the air. Their breathing was cold, rough, and deep—so heavy and eerie it sounded like someone breathing through a machine.
Silent, the presence bent down and observed the man with its invisible face, rotating in the air around his fried body as it inspected the condition of the fallen soldier.
A grueling, threatening hiss shot out from the ghost, the creature screeching violently and thrusting its shadowy purple hand through the shattered armor. They felt around for a minute before abruptly yanking their hand back up through the glass-like material, holding a small metal cuff in its misty hands that radiated a deadly red hue.
The being flicked up the latch of the silver cuff, revealing an array of buttons that flashed in ever-changing colors; they were still functioning despite the massive electrocution that had personally taken the man’s life, though they were not in good condition.
The presence was irritated, the red light from its purple hands shining all the stronger. It abruptly raised the cuff up to where its mouth would have been had it had one. Its sharp, claw-like finger pressed a large white button; a wave of communication immediately opened with the sound of static, frantic clicks and voices shooting through the small speaker within the cuff.
“Haxor 02301!” a metallic voice came, hardly audible through the petrified electrical system that struggled to keep itself in working order. “Where have you been?!”
“This is Elite 0001,” the ghost breathed calmly, the voice on the other end of the call falling silent immediately, as did the other noises, intrigued by who was speaking to them. “Search the database and pull up the last twenty-four-hour activity log of Haxor 02301.” It lowered the cuff slightly, turning its enraged, swirling purple face back towards the fallen Haxor. “We have a problem.”
Six
Breaching Time
They say time heals wounds.
I quickly found out that day that boredom does too.
After dwelling over just how severe our situation was for a long period of time, I finally did my best to pull myself together. The only thing I could do was look on and hope… Pray that if there was still someone watching over us, that we would get through this in one piece, both mentally and physically.
There was no talking for quite a while. I kept my distance, as did Mabel, so we walked on in a staggered group. Surprisingly, Sybil pulled us back together. For a creature of the dark, she was oddly playful and upbeat, especially in spite of the circumstances, making goofy faces and doing parkour from shoulder to shoulder in an attempt to disperse the tension brewing between the four of us. Somehow, it worked. Before you knew it, each and every one of us had regained interest in one another in some shape or form, and we were walking together across the dead land once more.
Day two in this frigid world was finally coming to a close as the temperatures began to fall once more, and there was still not a thing in sight. We were all exhausted beyond comprehension, and as we pushed ourselves forth, I lost interest in our safety; shelter or not, we all agreed to sleep tonight, and so help me if Mabel went against us again, I think it was a silent, unanimous agreement that the three of us would put her to sleep ourselves if we had to.
“I’m sorry,” Sybil randomly apologized while sitting on Laelia’s shoulder as we continued to be guided by the river, the bodies accumulating. “I didn’t mean to do this.”
“Do what?” Griffin asked.
“Make all of you upset with each other…” she stated warily, sitting on Laelia’s shoulder and tucking her head under the flap of her wings.
“Eh,” Laelia grumbled. “It’s not exactly your fault. You guys attacked us; not all of us are obviously going to agree on the decision of taking you along.” She looked over her shoulder in my direction, scoffing. “Him, though? That idiot will always find a reason to be upset, no matter what you say or do. Ignore him.”
Oh, how many times I wished I could just bash her in the face.
Mabel didn’t come to my defense, unfazed by the insult. She walked behind Griffin and Laelia who took the lead, though she made sure to keep at least five feet from me at all times. I didn’t try to mend things at the moment; even I knew that sometimes it was just better to let someone vent.
Sybil looked down, her ears falling beside her. “I know… And I feel bad, but it’s our job,” she explained quietly. “Anything in the forest is free game, and it’s rare that we get food in the first place because no one ever goes into our territory. They’re not that stupid.” She looked up at Laelia, her shoulders collapsing. “No offense…”
“None taken.”
“Why is that your job?” I asked, my interest spiking. “You’re telling me you’re told what to do?”
Sybil fell silent, fiddling her sharp black claws with each other. “No,” she responded hesitantly. “We’re designed to do what he wants. Just like you were created to serve the Lord, we were created to destroy those few creations that malfunctioned.” She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “Like you guys.”
I warily looked at her, holding the lerial’s eye contact. Created? Designed? Something very strange involving each living being occurred here. I quickly recalled the sparks and the code that flew through the man’s eyes that I had killed, along with the electricity that infiltrated his body. We were right; that man wasn’t human at all.
And if Sybil took us as one of them, humans weren’t even humans anymore; they must have been created just like she was.
“Sybil, do you know me?” I asked absentminded
ly, my friends’ heads turning to me suspiciously.
Sybil cocked her head to the side. “I don’t think so?”
“Oh…” I grumbled. “Ok, then…” I wasn’t sure whether to feel happy or sad. I wanted an explanation surrounding the strange reunion from last night, but she didn’t seem like she could give it to me. Maybe it was some crazy coincidence and nothing more… At least, I hoped that was it.
I fell back into my pit of solitude, watching the ground as we walked on. So many things were wrong; life was now nothing more than mere illusions and mutations of their original forms: humans, lerials, water, even trees. Who was to say that the very earth we walked on wasn’t just another twist in this terrible realm?
Sybil looked at Laelia curiously, who had a blue tint to her face, clutching her arms as the temperatures fell once more. “You ok?”
“N-no, I’m freezing,” she stammered bitterly, glaring at Sybil who seemed perfectly comfortable with the frigid weather. “How are y-you not?”
“Hm?” Sybil prompted, looking up in amusement. “Why would I be? I was built to withstand the cold. This weather is nothing; it’s the winters when it gets a bit nippy, though.”
“Winter?!” Griffin exclaimed, snapping his sight to Sybil, baffled. “Then what season is it right now?!”
“You can’t tell?” she speculated. She stretched her fragile neck back, extending her thin arms and curling her claws as she absorbed the coming night through her skin. “The absence of snow and wind? The long, warm days? It’s summer! Do they not educate you people?”
“Summer…?” I breathed in awe. “No way. When it’s summer, the sun shines all day and makes you sweat like a hog.”
Sybil brought her head down, watching me with broad eyes. “Sun?”
“Yes, sun, you stupid rat,” Mabel snorted smugly. “You know, the big ball of flames in the sky?”
Sybil was silent, tilting her head back and forth, unable to process what we were telling her. “Sun…?”