by Adair Hart
It was the smell of rotting flesh.
She dry heaved and looked away.
The table had various human bones and parts slopped into buckets on and around it. A rack of various knives hung over the table, along with a crude rack containing bowls of something. In the center of the room was a pit fire with a pot hanging over it. Several rocks serving as chairs circled it.
The pot caught her eye. Whatever lived here was not a senseless monster. Her breath staggered as the image of the creature that attacked her ran through her mind. She swept her eyes across the entirety of the cave but did not see it. Was this its home? Regardless of what it was, she was in no condition to move.
She saw her clothes on another table. It looked like every piece had been cut off instead of pulled off.
She took stock of her body and noticed bruising was everywhere on her right side. That must be what was causing all the pain. The memory of being slammed into the cliff wall roared back into her mind. She had turned instinctively to the left, making her right side take the impact. Probably some broken bones, although after testing her movement, she did not think so.
Using one of the cell bars, she was able to stand after several more minutes. It took her a moment to orient herself. She rolled her head to the side gently, then to the other side. It felt good to stretch. She repeated this with her arms and legs.
Squeezing the bars confirmed to her that they were metal. The top had a ring where all the bars tied to it. The bars appeared to extend deep into the ground.
She knew this was engineered. After pulling and pushing on one of the bars, she sighed.
The bar did not budge.
After grabbing two bars, she tried to pull them apart, but stopped as pain took her breath away. Despair washed over her as she sat down and began to cry. The PSD had become her constant companion, and now even it had left her. She remembered it dropping out of her hand during the attack. Listening to Evaran’s voice always calmed her down. In the cell, though, there was nothing, not even her clothes. She sighed as she lay down on her good side and closed her eyes.
Several hours later, her eyes popped open at the sound of something coming in from the other side of the cave. Out of the entrance appeared the creature she had seen earlier. Her heartbeat ramped up, and her breath went shallow as she studied the creature. It had a middle-aged female human slung over its shoulder but carried her like she weighed nothing.
The creature walked over to her cell and peered in. White, curled, bony horns shaped like a ram’s sat on either side of its head. Its skin was semihairless, and its hands ended in large claws on each finger. Tiny black eyes with pointed ears on either side sat above a mouth with large, sharp teeth. The creature snorted, then carried the woman over to a horizontal metal spike that jutted from the wall.
Emily’s eyes widened as she saw that the woman was alive and barely breathing.
The woman’s eyes moved a bit in reaction to being impaled on the spike.
A shiver went through Emily as she swallowed hard. It was evident this creature was a killer. Her attention focused on a scraping sound.
The creature had pulled up a chair next to her cell.
She crawled over to the opposite side.
After several minutes of the creature staring at her, it spoke in a deep, gravelly voice. “Do you understand me?”
She tried to talk, but it was as if her throat was not moving. It took her a few moments before she could respond. “Yes …”
The creature smiled, revealing its sharp teeth in perfect detail. “I’m Kazaal. Who are you?”
“Emily.”
“Someone who I can talk with … finally,” said Kazaal. He let out a roar that made her flinch. “So … Emily … how can you understand me?”
“I … I … dunno.”
Kazaal laughed. “You don’t even know. How interesting.” He leaned forward, rapping his claws against each other. “You’ve probably guessed that this cave is mine. And humans are my prey.”
She nodded.
“You’ve earned some time … from being a meal. It has been a long … long … time since I’ve talked. We shall see if you are worthy of being spared … for now.”
She exhaled sharply through her nose.
“Now … I have some meal preparations to do,” said Kazaal. “There’s a hole for your body functions, if you haven’t seen it yet. I will give you food and water every morning for the day. Use it sparingly. It’s all you get. Do you understand?”
She nodded her head again.
“Good,” said Kazaal. He walked over to the table she had seen earlier. After perusing the knives, he pulled off two of them. One was wide like a butcher’s knife, the other was slim and reminded her of a small saw.
She looked away as Kazaal went over to the woman on the spike and began slicing. After thirty minutes, she glanced over at the remains.
The woman’s legs were missing, and entrails were inching themselves out to the floor.
Emily turned away and scurried over to the hole in her cell and puked.
Kazaal smiled at her as he divided up the cuts into various containers made of bone and skin. “Don’t like what you see?”
She shook her head while grimacing.
“Be thankful you can speak to me. Otherwise, this would’ve been you.”
After wiping away the vomit on her lips, she said, “Why do you hunt us?”
Kazaal paused as he laid down his knife. He walked up to her cell. “Have you seen what’s outside of here? This is a prison planet. Only the strong survive. If you’re weak, you’re prey. It’s that simple.”
“You … you could help them. Look after each other.”
Kazaal laughed. “That sounds like a lot of work. Why do all that when I can take what I want, when I want.”
She shuddered as the slopping sound of organs hitting the ground momentarily disrupted her attention. She focused back on Kazaal. “Did you … come through a portal thing?”
“Yes … the overlord’s eyes the humans called it,” said Kazaal. “They rounded up everything that wasn’t human, then tossed them through it, except for those of my kind. They just killed us outright. I escaped through, and here I am.” He smiled.
“You don’t have to kill others.”
Kazaal snapped his head toward her. “Oh? I think it’s perfect. Humans banish and kill my race. Now … they’re on the other end.”
“But what about those like me, who had nothing to do with that?”
Kazaal shrugged. “All humans are the same to me. Taste the same anyways.”
Her eyes dulled. “So you’re just going to keep me around until you’re bored, then eat me.”
“That’s the plan. If I were you—”
A metal pillar, similar to the one she had seen on the stepped pyramid, lit up at a far corner of the cave.
Kazaal put away his knife and headed toward the entrance. “Don’t go anywhere. Looks like today is my lucky day.” He exited the cave.
She glanced at the upper half of the woman on the spike. The woman’s blank expression made Emily’s eyes water. She never thought she would miss the enclosure that she had stayed at her first month. Getting out of the cave was her first priority. She lay on her back as tears ran down her cheeks.
In this situation, being alone was not a bad thing.
Emily spent the next week studying Kazaal’s patterns. Every time the metal pillar lit up, he would disappear for about a day, then come back with a dead, or barely alive, human. He would then slice them up and store parts away in his bone containers. Parts he did not like were tossed down a hole in another part of the cave. Personal items and clothing were stripped and tossed into a side room in the cave. He did not spend much time in the cave, leaving her alone most of the time. When he did come into the cave, he usually moved bodies, cleaned up his prep area, or wanted to talk. Although time was hard to gauge, it seemed like he left around nighttime.
Their discussions covered many topics, and over
the course of the week, she had learned a great deal about Kazaal’s race. They were known as the Dool Tak’ra. The thing that threw her was that the planet Kazaal described was unlike any Earth she knew of. The Purifiers had established themselves on Kazaal’s planet, then purified it of any nonhumans. When tossed through the rift door, any exotic energy or matter was stripped, leaving a weakened being on the other side. She must have retained her abilities with the nanobots since they were not exotic by nature.
Being alone was not as difficult as she thought it would be. It meant Kazaal was not around. She could be left alone with her thoughts, and memories of her past kept her going. She had dreams of the facility where she had been prior to coming here. In it, she could control a swarm of nanobots and with minimal effort killed all those who sent her here. They were vivid and lucid, as if she were actually there. Then she would wake up to the silence and death around her.
Her pain had dissipated for the most part, and she spent much of her free time practicing the close-quarter combat moves she had learned from the training videos. It kept her mind occupied.
The water Kazaal gave her tasted strange, but after a while, she got used to it. For food, she had fruits and boiled vegetables that Kazaal would make. He had given her a piece of smoked human flesh, but she did not touch it. The hole Kazaal tossed the body parts down seemed to be some type of geothermal vent, keeping the cave warm. What scared her was she was settling in, getting used to the routine, and this was not a place where she wanted to do that.
On the night of last day of the week, Kazaal brought back a young, thin, fair-skinned male human who was still alive. Kazaal carried him over to a cell similar to Emily’s and tossed him in.
The young man curled up into a ball while sneaking glances at Emily.
She could tell he was having the same reaction she did when she first awoke.
“I brought you some company … for a short while,” said Kazaal. He eyed Emily. “Tell him to take his clothes off and then toss them out, or I will.”
Emily sighed and leaned against the cell bars. “My name’s Emily. The creature that abducted you is called Kazaal. He has asked that you take your clothes off and toss them out of the cell, or he will.”
The young man turned toward Emily with wide eyes. “What’s going on? What is this place?”
“Calm down … what’s your name?”
“Ezekial.”
“Okay … Ezekial … just do as Kazaal says. Otherwise …”
Ezekial’s head trembled as tears streamed down his face.
“Just do it. We can talk afterward.”
Ezekial nodded and stripped down. He tossed his clothes out of the cell.
Emily noticed the patch of the telltale red triangle with a circle in the middle emblazoned on the right arm of Ezekial’s shirt. Although the situation was tough, she was happy to have someone to talk to other than Kazaal.
“Very good … hmm … ,” said Kazaal. “You may be more useful than I thought.” Kazaal roared at Ezekial, causing him to curl into a ball. Kazaal then exited the cave.
Emily wondered where Kazaal went. Maybe he had another cave he lived in. She focused on Ezekial. “Hang in there.”
Ezekial peeked his head out and gazed around before looking at Emily. “What is that thing?”
“It’s a Dool Tak’ra. I know more about him than I care to,” said Emily. She pointed at the shirt he tossed out of the cell. “I see that you’re a Purifier.”
Ezekial shook his head. “Was … I got caught helping a friend, so they tossed me through.”
“That seems like an odd reason …”
“My friend was a Wildborn,” said Ezekial as he stretched out his legs. “I didn’t even know he was. Still, I tried to warn him they were coming.” He gulped. “We both were sent through, but I appeared here alone, then ran into … Kazaal. How long have you been here?”
“About a week.”
“Why does he make us strip?”
“I dunno. Maybe he had a bad encounter with someone who had something hidden in their clothes.”
Ezekial whimpered as he focused on the human remains. “So … this Kazaal … eats us.”
“Yeah,” said Emily, nodding. Although she would have preferred more light in the cave, this was one instance where she was glad it was dim to hide her nakedness.
“So what are we supposed to do then?”
“I dunno. Guess we wait until he’s tired of us. Until then, do something to keep your mind occupied.”
Ezekial sighed.
Emily could almost feel Ezekial’s frustration and terror, but she had gotten over her jitters. She tilted her head. “So … this portal thing. Kazaal called it the overlord’s eye. What does that mean?”
“They’re rift doors. They weren’t created by us. They were … from a civilization that died out long ago. The overlord just figured out how to use them. He was able to decipher the language and figured out the destination code for this prison planet.”
“It’s appropriately named.”
“Yeah …”
Emily heard Ezekial’s breath shudder. She felt bad for him, but the thought that she would get out or that Evaran, Dr. Snowden, and V would appear kept crossing her mind. Ezekial had none of that. “Well … hang in there. Get some rest.”
Ezekial walked up to the nearest cell bars and, with wide eyes, looked at Emily. “How are you so calm?”
“Been here a while.”
“Have you found anything that might get us out of here?”
“Not yet. If there is a way out of here, we’ll figure it out.”
Ezekial sighed and slumped down.
Over the next week, Emily learned a lot about the Purifiers. They were run by a powerful overlord who seemed to have special gifts. It was his decree that all nonhumans be wiped out. It seemed to her that the overlord was nonhuman, but Ezekial insisted the overlord was a god in human form. The overlord had found these rift doors and began expanding his human supremacy empire wherever they went. The prison planet’s ability to capture exotic matter and energy from individuals passing through it gave the overlord unusual levels of power. He was feared by all Purifiers.
Ezekial had adjusted to the situation, and even smiled a few times.
Emily had talked him through various training exercises to keep his mind focused. Her body had healed up, and she could feel the tingling sensations more often now. She had tested the metal bars again and found that with some focus, she could bend them slightly.
On the first day of her third week there, after Kazaal had left for the night, she gestured for Ezekial to come over. “I have a plan. I think I can bend these bars. If I can, and I get out, I’ll get yours. There is a room nearby with some clothing we can get and a table with some knives to defend ourselves. Then we make a break for it. Are you up for it?”
Ezekial nodded. “I’d rather die trying than become food for this monster.”
“Okay,” said Emily. She walked up to the bars facing Ezekial’s cell and put her hands on two of them. The tingling in her arms went wild as she began to pull the bars apart. They separated easily, like they were made of thin wood.
Ezekial’s eyes widened. “Are you … a nonhuman?”
Emily shook her head as she walked over to Ezekial’s cell. “No, just human … with an edge.” She opened Ezekial’s cell, and they went to the clothing room.
After donning some robes and footwear, they grabbed some of the knives from the table. They crept to the cave entrance and peered out. Emily had expected to see some type of rocky hills, but it was grassland all around them, with a tree here and there in the distance. She felt a tug in her mind toward a direction. The feeling was slight, but any direction was good. She waved for Ezekial to follow her, and they exited the cave.
As they ran across the grassland, she took in the fresh air. Being down in the cave had made her accustomed to the smell of death and rotting flesh. She looked back and saw a speck in the distance. Although she could
not fully see what it was, the unmistakable movement made her heartbeat go into overdrive. “Ezekial! Run!”
Ezekial looked back. “Oh, Overlord!”
They ran for several minutes but were losing ground to Kazaal. The edge of a forest loomed in the distance.
Emily pointed at the trees. “In there!” She continued running, and when she looked back, her heart sank. Ezekial was on the ground, his head pulverized into pieces, and Kazaal was charging toward her. As she got to the trees, she felt Kazaal right behind her. She wheeled around and extended the butcher’s blade she had taken from the cave.
“Ahh … so you thought to escape me … how interesting.”
“I’m not going back!”
“I think you are,” said Kazaal. He charged Emily.
Emily thought time slowed down as she stepped out of the way and sliced at Kazaal’s side. He howled as he pivoted and backhanded Emily. She flew across the field. Kazaal rushed over to her as her eyes fluttered. She struggled to get her breath. As her vision dimmed, she heard Kazaal say, “I’m not done with you yet.”
Dr. Snowden surveyed the assembled group in the Helians’ chamber.
Cyrus, the elder Helian they had talked to initially, sat at a circular table surrounded by pathways up to raised, slanted seating areas, where Dr. Snowden sat alongside V. Evaran and Lord Vygon sat in front of them. To Evaran’s left was Lord Noskov, and some of his men sat in the seating area behind him. Delia sat to the right of Evaran and Lord Vygon, and behind her sat her group. Opposite all of them was another Helian council member named Ira. Behind them sat several others of their race.