*
“STUPID GIRL,” SHE SAYS as she removes the blindfold from my eyes. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this.”
It’s an underground prison I’m in. My hands are bound with leather straps to a chair. There’s ample light like in an operating room. I feel weak, perhaps under the influence of narcotics.
Two aliens work hunched over a table. Two more aliens are chained to the wall. From their indifferent expression, I know they’ve been in that state for some time and by now they’ve lost all hope.
“I trust you’re not hurt?” the Empress says. “I need you quite healthy.”
“No,” I say as I come to fully realize my predicament.
“Everything’s ready for you,” she goes on. “It’s been ready for some time now.”
I look around not sure what I’m hoping to find. I get startled as I hear a loud thud coming from somewhere above.
“You will lose the war,” I say.
“I don’t care about villages and plantations anymore. I won’t waste time defending them. Your friends can have them. I’ve prepared a nice underground base for us miles away, unconnected to the network. We’re getting out of here as soon as the embryos are implanted. You’ll stay in a state of semi-coma until they come to term. It will only take a few weeks. You won’t feel a thing.”
I scream and I writhe like a snake caught on barbed wire. She picks up a syringe and holds it against the light.
“Such perfection,” she says, almost dreamily, examining the green viscous liquid. She turns to me. “I knew you would serve me well.”
Before I get to respond, she sticks the needle in my belly with one swift motion. My mind freezes. I’ve never felt such hatred for anyone or anything before. I’m instantly consumed by my feelings of rage and vengeance. I’m not human anymore. I’m beast. I want to eat her alive.
“There,” she says. “Now all we have to do is transfer you to your safe new location. My legion will take care of that while your legion fights a noble fight.”
She’s outsmarted me at every single turn. She’s right to look at me with contempt. I am merely a young human girl and she is an evil conqueror of many worlds.
Three huge Ghost Legion monsters slip into the room. One of them pushes a wheelchair. All of them stare at me as if I was dessert. They can smell my blood and they can smell my fear.
They grab me by the neck and remove the straps twisting my wrists until I want to scream with pain. They tie my hands behind my back tight enough to cut off blood circulation. Then they sit me on the wheelchair.
They take me out of the room and through a tunnel. I hear a strange, dying voice behind my back. “Only the hybrid can save the world.”
I quickly turn my head to look back. One of the chained aliens has said that. The Empress raises her receptor and burns him alive. Then she does the same with the second alien. Just like that they’re both gone. Who’s the hybrid? Did he mean Damian? Me? Someone else?
Then I think of what Marisa said. Some aliens are mutating. Is one of them the hybrid that can save us?
My head throbs as a guard wheels me down a dark, humid tunnel. My mind’s on overload. I make plans of how I’m going to use my hands to generate powerful energy fields at the first opportunity. How I’m going to cut a hole through her chest and pull her heart out. Then I wouldn’t mind death at all. I’d sooner die than let any alien embryos grow inside my body.
At the end of the tunnel, we come to a different room. This one isn’t a lab. It’s a torture chamber complete with padded walls, deadly serums, an interrogation chair and an electroshock table.
The Empress orders one of her beasts to untie my hands. She unfolds a weird looking white garment with sleeves longer than my entire body.
“It’s called a straightjacket,” she says when she catches my eyes on it. “It was created for unstable people like you. A nice human invention.”
I start kicking as soon as the guard unties my hands. His grip on my wrists is lethal. The Empress trains her receptor on me as another guard approaches with the straightjacket.
I focus on the things that Eric told me about channeling and controlling the energy in me. There are paths that can lead me there faster. With clenched teeth, ignoring the throbbing in my temples, I manage to generate an energy field with my right hand only. It’s a weak beam of light that hits the straightjacket tearing it in two before it dies out.
The Empress is furious. She waves the receptor with shaking hands but doesn’t blast me. I realize she can’t hurt me now that she’s got her precious genetic material inside me.
She puts the receptor away and slaps me hard twice. “I’m not always going to be so nice,” she yells with features distorted from anger.
“My energy will only get stronger,” I say.
“Not if you are broken,” she says. “You depend on that thing called emotion. Let’s see how you do when we break it in half.”
She walks to the door and orders the guards to bring me along. Two of them grab my arms and the third grips my neck. They walk me down the tunnel and then turn to the left through a door I hadn’t notice before.
We come to a cavernous area with a huge white glass screen in the back. They force me to stand in front of the screen with my hands behind my back.
The Empress barks something incomprehensible.
The screen rises and my heart stops. Pip and Finn stand next to each other under intense light that distorts their faces. Their hands are tied behind their backs. Pip is crying silently. I don’t understand why she’s here or how. Finn’s face is bruised and covered in blood. His mouth is gagged with tape. He stares past me at some image his mind has conjured.
A ghost warrior steps in and forces Finn and Pip to move further apart and stand on two slightly elevated round platforms. Their feet are locked in place with electromagnetic forces that make it impossible for them to move.
The Empress stands between them. “When I snap my fingers, the platforms will open up and swallow your precious ones. There’s a huge fire burning down there. You will never see them again.”
“Let them go,” I mutter. “You have me. You won.”
“You will have maybe three seconds,” she says, “to save one of them. If you pick fast enough. Which one will it be?”
I don’t know what she’s asking of me but then she snaps her fingers and the beasts release me from their clutches. Seconds. I can’t think. I dive towards Pip to push her off the stand but fly right through her.
“Wrong choice,” the Empress says with a satisfied grin on her face.
I struggle to get back on my feet. I blindly reach out to Finn with both hands. I barely have time to touch his fingers before he vanishes in the abyss that opens up under his feet.
I fall to the floor when my heart leaps out of my chest.
The Empress picks me up by the hair. “Are you broken yet?” she whispers with her mouth close to my neck.
I frantically try to blast her off the face of the earth through my tears but the energy won’t come to me.
The room gets shadowy and murky. My mouth is dry. Everything else is sticky with despair: fingers, eyes, nose, stomach. Who else is dead or will be soon? If Finn is dead, my whole world has died. The universe can implode for all I care.
It hurts to walk. It hurts to stay still. I’m pushed and pulled and prodded forward. I fall to my knees again and again. She’s wrong. I’m not broken. I’m gone. You can’t break what isn’t here anymore.
Finn’s face. Finn’s voice. The beautiful, kind, generous boy who took me under his wing when I was a mess. Who loved me when I deserved it and when I didn’t.
I was born on a dark day and I can die the same way. I focus what’s left of me on one single burning desire: attack my enemy at the first chance.
They bring me back to the torture chamber and the dreaded wheelchair. The Empress picks up scattered things while I’m being tied down and restricted by her ghouls.
“Were you wat
ching us?” I manage to say.
“When?”
“Before you grabbed me.”
“Of course. I told you I was waiting for you.”
“You know about the explosives?”
She squats in front of the wheelchair. “More than that. I plan to use them.”
She will detonate them while the fight is going on killing friends and foes alike. Except she doesn’t have any friends.
A beast shows up dressed in cape and hood like the Dark Legion. Only the colors are different. Green and gold instead of red and black.
“The hovercraft is here,” he says.
His mistress rewards him with a pat on the shoulder. “Good. Let’s go.”
Before she walks out, Commander Eldritch steps into the door frame. I must be hallucinating or he’s lost his mind.
“What do you want?” she hisses at him.
The commander steals a glance at me. “Is this necessary?” he says. His concern for me is mixed with some form of fear for himself.
The Empress raises her receptor. “Get out of my way or you’ll be next.”
I’m starting to hope I’ve been dreaming this whole time. Especially since Eldritch is walking without assistance. “Commander?” I say.
He looks intensely into my eyes for a second. When he takes a step closer, I see there’s someone else standing behind him, an Exodus officer. None of this makes sense.
Things get even weirder when I realize the officer is really Eric dressed in his military Exodus uniform. Now I really have no idea what is happening.
“Why are you here?” I say. “Did we lose the war?”
“Oh, shut up, you moron,” the Empress yells. “Why do you think we came to Earth? Humans called us.”
I’m having trouble understanding. It must be because it’s all a dream. I look to Eldritch, too tired to speak.
“You’re not going to get any answers from him,” the Empress goes on with as much contempt as she can muster. “He’s in it up to his neck.”
Eldritch loses his temper. “Stay out of this,” he tells her.
“You don’t tell me what to do,” she snaps at him. Then she turns to me. “You think he’s seventy years old? Try a hundred and seventy. We offered him a long life in exchange for his allegiance. It’s only recently he decided to change his mind.”
“I don’t understand,” I say looking to catch Eric’s eyes. But then it comes to me. “The key to immortality,” I whisper remembering Doctor Armand’s words about Ava and her ever-mutating genes.
Commander Eldritch has been the enemy. He reads my thoughts and shakes his head sadly. “Freya, you have to listen.”
“Listen? I’m done listening to you. You fooled us all. You got us to trust you so you could betray us. You are weak.”
“It’s not like that,” he says with sweat running down his forehead. “Yes, I facilitated things for them in the beginning but this is not how it was supposed to go down. That was not part of the agreement we made. I was betrayed as much as everybody else.”
I find myself screaming at him. “You got to live forever while so many good people died. So many young people. Children. Babies. Doc. Finn. You got them all killed.”
“Finn?”
“She just killed him.” I say the words but I don’t believe them. They can’t be true or I wouldn’t be able to breathe.
The sound of breaking glass interrupts my disturbing train of thought.
“You,” the Empress says with the receptor pointed at Eric. “What insolence is this? What do you think you are doing?”
Eric turns to face her. “I’m destroying your things. Shattering all your shiny objects.” He raises his hand holding some kind of test tube. He looks straight into her eyes as he crushes it within his fingers.
The Empress lets out a terrifying scream. She yields the power in the receptor until a gigantic energy field is generated. She hurls it at Eric furiously but Eric raises his own hand casually and stops the destructive energy in midair.
Her grin freezes on her face as the energy field is evaporated. “What are you?” she stutters.
Eric takes his time. He enjoys watching her distress. “I’m the one who truly lived in shadows, sister. I was born your father’s son,” he says. “The same father you killed and meant to replace.”
The mistress of shadows covers her mouth with her hand. “No!” she says. “You’re too grotesque, too human.”
“That I am and proudly such,” Eric says as he lifts all three guards off the ground with a wave of his hand. They stay suspended for a few seconds before they start shaking violently as if electrocuted. Eric lets them drop to the ground lifeless.
I don’t understand what I’m witnessing. All I know is I like it.
Eldritch decides to explain anyway. He doesn’t understand I’ve lost interest in anything he has to say. “Eric came to life when Lobart, master of the Lagerians, decided to create a hybrid species using both human and Lagerian genetic material. He started experimenting in order to blend both species into one instead of destroying humans when he discovered the similarities between human and Lagerian DNA. He wanted the next generation of Lagerians to look human so they would easily interbreed. He used his own genetic code combined with a human female’s to create Eric.”
“You knew about Eric?” I ask, confused.
Eldritch shakes his head. I detect a lot of sadness and regret in his voice. He comes closer and starts to undo the straps that hold me down.
“I didn’t know he had survived, no,” Eldritch says. “I certainly didn’t know what he was capable of doing.” His smile is not a happy one. “Lobart must have placed him in a plantation to protect him when his daughter formed a rebellious alliance to overthrow him,” he goes on. “She had no use for a peaceful co-existence with humans. She wanted absolute control. Since she took over, we have all been slaves.”
“Some of us a little more than others,” I say, bitterly.
“That’s all about to change,” Eric says. With his hand, he summons the Empress by his side. Her body is dragged across the floor. She’s powerless against Eric.
“Your human weaknesses will destroy you and you will destroy our people,” she says hoarsely. “Humans, they turn against each other, they organize groups and factions, hating and killing each other.”
“Don’t you know, sister, that greatness can only be achieved when there is a balance between light and dark? Humans have weaknesses, yes, and that’s why they have the capacity to understand the universe. You don’t understand a thing. You deal with absolutes. I’ll share with you something I learned recently. You can only find absolute truths in the grave.”
He grabs her by the throat and squeezes. Her eyes turn red as she gasps.
“Eric, no,” I yell at him.
He releases his grip to look at me. “No?” he says.
“She’s mine.”
Eric bows to show his respect. I rise from the wheelchair and walk to the hateful bitch who almost destroyed humanity. I refuse the receptor when Eric offers it to me.
She looks at me with a mocking face. “If I die, so will you. Maybe not today but you won’t last many more seasons.”
I study her eyes, saying nothing.
“Mutations like yours don’t come without a cost,” she goes on. “You didn’t think I’d make you completely autonomous, did you? You need me to stay alive, Freya. Only my blood can save you when your energy sources run out.”
I examine my hands. Strange, dangerous, abnormal hands that don’t belong in the world of the living.
“You will lose your powers and then your life. Only I know how to prolong your miserable existence.” She laughs hysterically. “Not to mention that your stupid nobility will never allow you to kill me in cold blood.”
I push my hand against her chest and release a lethal electric blast that burns a whole through her. She drops dead. Then I let my tears flow. She’s dead. And so am I.
“Freya,” I hear Eldritch’s voice
behind me. I turn quickly. His eyes are lifeless as he falls in my arms. Eric blasts away the beast who had enough life in him to pierce Eldritch’s heart with a magnetic knife. From the commander’s proximity to me, I know he just saved my life.
I turn to Eric. “So much blood,” I say. “There’s blood everywhere.”
Eric puts his arms around me. He strokes my hair patiently, brotherly.
“Can you bring him back?” I say pointing at Eldritch’s body.
He shakes his head sadly. “I can’t do that. Nobody can fix a heart that was destroyed by a magnetic knife. Not even the Lagerian technology.”
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Underground Level 10.”
“There’s a tenth level?”
He takes me by the shoulders. “Look into my eyes, Freya. The war is over. We’ve won.”
I want to be happy for him. I just don’t know how.
“You’re not very excited,” he notices.
I laugh. “Finn is dead and there are little devils inside of me.”
He hugs me again and squeezes my bones against his chest. “Let me go see about Finn,” he says. “You have to get out now. I’ll show you the way. And then we’ll take care of those little devils.”
*
I WALK OUT OF THE DEEP, underground caverns onto the open grounds of Plantation-15. There are fires burning around several buildings. The Armory has turned into a pile of construction materials. Smoke and ashes are filling the night sky. Plantation-15 is a place of doom and desolation.
My heart is broken. I walk about drenched in blood and tears, having no idea anymore if I’m a savior, a destroyer or a demon of vengeance. I knew we’d have to risk everything to save Earth but I wasn’t prepared for the cost.
Damian catches sight of me amidst the chaos. For a moment I don’t know if I should wait for him or if I should turn and run away. But when he takes me in his arms, my entire body and soul give in. I collapse into the familiarity of his embrace. I don’t want to move anymore.
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