Nascent Decay (The Goddess of Decay Book 1)

by Hash, Charles

  They were both utterly bald, and there was a gritty texture to their skin, as though it were peeling or flaking away. She squirmed beneath their touch as their hands became rougher on her. The whispered clicks became harsher, less eloquent. Demanding. The rustling melody became a sinister hissing, the clicking took on a more abrasive tone.

  She squinted through her fingers at them, doing her best to focus on them. Everything was a faded black and white, colors were washed out and muted. The gritty texture of their skin became tiny, intricate scales that covered an otherwise beautiful face. She thought they were wearing some sort of mask, until she noticed their eyes.

  The eyes, like their faces, were almost-human in their shape, but they were wider, and piercing. Doll-like. Lifeless. The tall one had deep green eyes that rippled like moss, split vertically with a serrated black slit. The scales that covered the face and body were a pale, soft green with brown and yellow streaks that resembled camouflage. Their noses weren’t quite human either, they were little more than smooth humps that protruded just enough to provide shelter for their nostrils. Still, there was something strangely beautiful about both of them, although their bodies were completely androgynous. The female did not have breasts, and the male was only slightly larger than her.

  Rhylie shut her eyes tightly and clenched her hands. It’s only a dream, she thought. Or a hallucination. She was just having difficulty waking up from cryostasis, or perhaps having a reaction to the process. Everything was going to be fine in just a minute. But the groping only got rougher, and the hands were getting uncomfortably close to places she didn’t want to be touched.

  “Stop,” she said as she squirmed underneath their invasive manipulations. They paused for a moment, and the whispering clicks resumed. She felt something cold on her throat, and flinched away instinctively, opening her eyes.

  The shorter silhouette was bent over her, blocking the light. She could see its face perfectly now, colors and hues beginning to flourish amidst the gray frost of her vision. It looked feminine, with fine, delicate features and vibrant red eyes that were dappled like crushed velvet, split by a clean black slit in the center. The scales that covered her were mottled, forming a patchwork of blood red diamonds over a black background, with a vertical row of three diamonds on each cheek.

  Rhylie was frozen with shock, transfixed, as the feminine one seemed to coo at her in their strange language, turning random scrapings of leaves over gravel into something that was almost soothing. She couldn’t tell if she was trying to comfort her, or mocking her.

  Mason would enjoy this, she thought to herself in a detached sort of way.

  There was a flow of movement behind the two silhouettes, and she noticed for the first time that there were others in the room with them. The strange being with the red eyes began stroking her forehead while whispering softly. It was trying to comfort her, she realized, but the hands were rough and dry, and its lifeless eyes just stared at her, unblinking. Like a snake’s eyes, she thought. She turned her head instinctively away from its touch, closing her eyes. The other one snorted derisively and said something in a decidedly mocking tone. It made Rhylie feel uncomfortable and vulnerable.

  She felt their hands upon her again, holding her down, with sharp fingernails digging into her skin through her uniform. She could hear murmurs from the crowd gathered behind them, speaking to one another as they began working to release her from the pod. The short female was gentle, but the tall male was pulling on her roughly, as though irritated.

  Her head swam as she slid free from the cryostasis pod, falling to her hands and knees. She struggled weakly to stand, but one of them wrenched her up by the hair and held her, dangling, at arm’s length. She reached up reflexively to grab its wrist and forearm to steady herself. The muscles felt like rocks beneath the scaly skin. Those dead green eyes studied her intently as she struggled to balance herself on her tiptoes.

  He held her there, semi-suspended, his face showing no emotion, no compassion. He looked her up and down slowly as though trying to decide whether to keep her or throw her away. When he took his eyes off of her for a moment, she kicked at him hard, catching him in the stomach with her boot. He let go of her and doubled over in pain, screeching and wheezing. She tried to back away but he recovered quickly and lunged for her, seizing her by the throat with his long, spindly arm. They had seemed so slow, and meticulous. His lightning quick movement caught her off guard. He squeezed, cutting her air off, and stopping just short of breaking her neck. The other one seemed to be imploring with him, begging him to cease, but those cold eyes just stared at her as he slowly strangled her to death.

  She grabbed his wrist with her right hand and fumbled at her waist for her utility device. She couldn’t find it. She could see the blood pounding in her vision, and darkness was beginning to waver around the fringes. Suddenly her hand found the utility device. It was almost as if someone had placed it there for her.

  “Blade,” Rhylie managed to croak out, and a short, silvery beam of light slid forth from the device in her hand. She lashed out, swiping wildly at the thing that held her. He let go of her throat and stepped back, unharmed.

  She fell backwards, landing on her ass. Pain shot through her tailbone as it bore the brunt of the impact. The thing hovered over her, screeching something that she couldn’t understand. When he bent over to take the utility device from her hand, she instinctively plunged it into his chest and swiped downward with it.

  It cut through the scaly flesh and bone far more easily than it did titanium alloy. He stepped back from her with a shocked expression on his face that somehow failed to touch his eyes. He put a hand up to his chest, and it came back dripping with blood. He fell backwards, crumpling to the floor in a heap of violent spasms. He began trying to push himself away from her, his legs kicking uselessly beneath him. A long trail of dark red blood smeared the sterile white floor behind him as he struggled to pull himself away from her, his innards spilling from the gaping slit in his torso. The shrieks he made were horrific, a cacophony of pain and terror.

  She stared at him in amazed horror, a prisoner of the gruesome scene playing out before her. She dropped her utility device, and it clattered on the floor beside her as the blade vanished. Her mouth worked soundlessly as the others in the room scrambled to get away from her.

  The feminine alien rushed to him, dropping to her knees and cradling him in her arms as the spasms began to subside. She shrieked frantically as she rocked back and forth, holding his head to her chest as blood began to pool around them on the floor. She sounded pitiful, wailing mournfully with a raspy sort of sobbing howl.

  A round door swirled open behind the two aliens, and several larger humanoids rushed into the room, pushing their way through the others to get closer to Rhylie. The door swirled shut behind them, vanishing. In their hands were long, slender black rods, and they were dressed from head to toe in dull gray outfits with faceless, reflective visors.

  She looked around herself in panic, for the first time taking a good look at the room she was in. She needed a way to escape, but there didn’t appear to be any. It was a wide room, with a low ceiling and gently rounded walls. She couldn’t tell where the bright, sterile light was originating from. It seemed to come from everywhere, yet nowhere.

  Against the walls were clean white tables, with what appeared to be several dozen translucent video and monitoring screens hovering above them in an odd assortment, resembling a patchwork quilt. She could see herself on several of them. The images on them were three dimensional, as if she could reach into one of them and touch herself, but vanished when viewed from the side. There didn’t seem to be any other way out than through the vanishing door the soldiers had used to enter.

  She raised her left hand between herself and the troops to show that she was unarmed, and realized it was covered in dark red blood. Her hands trembled violently as she fumbled to wipe them off on her jacket.

  The guards began to advance on her with their slender
black rods, and she pushed herself backwards, trying to crawl away from them the same way the alien had tried to crawl away from her. Her legs still weren’t working well, and they flailed uselessly as she tried to push herself across the floor.

  She had just reached the cryostasis pod when she felt a jolt on her back, between her shoulder blades. All sensation and control fled her body as she collapsed forward, sliding lifelessly down the side of the pod.

  She was lifted up between two of the guards, still fully conscious and aware of what was going on around her. Her head lolled uncontrollably as they turned and marched through the door with her. Slumping forward, all she could do was watch the floor as they carried her down a brightly lit corridor to another, smaller room and laid her down on a table.

  One of the things spoke, a barking rasp that was more abrasive than either of the two in the previous room had been. The clicks were sharp and grating. Harsh. The other one produced a small device that generated a hooked blade, similar to her own multi-tool.

  He began to cut the uniform from her body with it, tearing it away roughly with his other hand. He left scratches and abrasions on her with his sharp nails and rough, scaly skin, but she couldn’t feel them. He didn’t stop until she was completely nude, and covered from the shoulders down with welts and scrapes.

  Rhylie wanted to cry and scream. She wanted to protest, to kick and fight against the thing. But her body was unresponsive, and she was trapped within it, an unwilling spectator.

  Bands of a flexible white material slid from the table and bound her at the wrists, elbows, thighs, ankles, and neck. She stared at the alien in horror as it towered over her with its hulking form. She had never felt so vulnerable in her entire life.

  His eyes were an intense gold, veined with black and had a slit pupil dividing them. The scales covering his face were blazing yellow with pitch-black horizontal streaks.

  She tried to struggle against her bonds, but her body remained unresponsive. The alien kept his eyes locked on hers, emotionless yet threatening. The face was handsome otherwise, in a rugged sort of way. Two others stood in the room with them, but she could not take her eyes off of those burning golden pools that stared down intensely at her.

  The door swirled open and a woman seemed to glide into the room. His golden, soulless eyes snapped away from Rhylie, over to her. She was dressed in flowing, opaque, white robes trimmed with a glittering golden piping. Around her waist was a transparent golden sash that seemed to sparkle with an internal luminosity. He inclined his head respectfully towards her and stepped back. Rhylie tore her eyes away from him to look at the figure in white.

  She would have been a beautiful woman, if not for the scales, and her eyes. Her features were soft, almost girlish. Inviting in a way. Her lips were plump and pouting, though her mouth was uncannily wide. Her eyes were round and almost too large for her face. They were two pools of deep, mysterious blue streaked with silvery veins, divided by a narrow slit pupil, set amidst the lightly iridescent scales covering her face. Her skin tone was a soft, pale blue with hints of a shimmering orange peppered in when the light caught it at just the right angle. The opaqueness of her dress strangely accentuated the androgynous nature of her body. She only seemed to be more slender than the males, and she had no breasts.

  She unclasped her hands and reached up to gently brush Rhylie’s hair from her face as she whispered something softly. She began caressing it between her fingers as she spoke, as though she were fascinated by it. The large male gave a command to the others, much more softly this time, and the two guards left the room together. He followed after them, and the door swirled shut after they had stepped through it. She couldn’t even see where it had been.

  The woman looking down at Rhylie quirked her lips slightly. Rhylie couldn’t tell if it was a frown or a smile. The scales covering her lips were tiny, nearly invisible, giving them a shimmer, like a fine dusting of orange gloss over top of a blue that was so pale it was almost ivory. She let go of Rhylie’s hair and moved over to the side of the small round room.

  A curved chair seemed to spring forth from the floor, forming in an instant and hovering above the floor. She sat down and clasped her hands in her lap, watching Rhylie in silence. She didn’t move or speak, and she never blinked. She just sat there, staring at Rhylie with those stone-cold eyes set in that strangely beautiful face.

  Rhylie had no sense of time. The room they were in was boring other than the woman. It was a small chamber with soft lighting, the walls slightly rounded. It was a much smaller version of the room she had just been in. It felt like an egg, comforting in a strange way. Suspended against a wall was a small white table with a handful of translucent screens floating over it. One had her face on it, the rest seemed to be devoted to her vital signs. The language on them was strange, flowing and elegant, like nothing she had ever seen. Everything was silent, the only sound was her slow, rhythmic breathing.

  When the door finally slid open again, a figure in crisp, tight, fitted clothing entered. He handed a small, white device to the woman sitting in the chair before turning his gaze to Rhylie for a moment, then left hurriedly, as though he were afraid of her. The woman placed the device inside of her ear, and a thin white line spread across her face from cheek to cheek, leaving a stripe across the bridge of her humped nose. From it a transparent, silvery veil grew, draping down to cover her mouth and nostrils, stopping just below her chin. Rhylie could see the woman’s lips working beneath the veil as she spoke.

  “I supposed what just happened was avoidable on our part. We should have been more careful when waking you,” she said. Her voice was soft and lilting, musical. Rhylie tried to respond, but her lips were numb. She barely managed to produce some spittle and a couple of grunts. She closed her eyes in frustration.

  “I had been informed that humans were violent and unpredictable, barely more than wild beasts. But you seemed so peaceful and harmless sleeping in your pod,” the woman said. She sounded disappointed. Rhylie opened her eyes and looked over at her. She was standing now.

  “I should have made sure we had the human language programmed into the veil before we woke you. We had to push it up to high priority to get it done so quickly. I should have known better, and I accept my part of the responsibility for what happened. This was partially my fault, and I sincerely apologize for that,” she said, moving towards her. “And now I have lost one of my best researchers.” She reached out and put her scaled hand on Rhylie’s arm. The fingers were tipped with manicured, ivory claws. The scales on her hand were the same texture as those on her face. Those on her arms were more rugged and pronounced, yet still feminine.

  “I am Vorcia, Empress of the Siiroc, Masters of the Siirocian arm of the Galaxy. And you are my guest,” she said, smiling behind the veil. But the eyes did not smile. They remained frozen, unblinking. Dead. “You’ll be able to talk soon, and we shall have a chat. I promise, no more harm will come to you. But I ask that you please refrain from your violent outbursts in the future, no matter how much you may have to fight your savage nature,” she said in a matronly, yet patronizing tone. “After all you are very precious, dear. Very, very precious. The survival of your entire race depends upon you.”

  Vorcia spoke subtly with her hands as well as her words. Her movements were delicate and sweeping, when they occurred, as if they had been practiced until they looked natural. She may have been the most elegant woman Rhylie had ever met. If she was a even a woman. Rhylie really couldn’t tell.

  Rhylie struggled to speak, but she could only choke out garbled, gagging noises as Vorcia frowned. Her shoulders heaved in a sigh.

  “It does seem as though your emotions rule you, just as I was told. Please, do not make me regret this,” Vorcia said in a soft, pleading tone. She stared at Rhylie for a long moment with her huge eyes before turning and leaving the room. The door swirled shut behind her, its outline disappearing.

  Tears began rolling uncontrollably down Rhylie’s cheeks as she lay there, nak
ed, bound to the table.

  2

  It seemed as though several hours had passed before the door in the wall swirled open again, well after the tears had dried upon her cheeks. Two large guards came through the portal, each holding one of the slender black rods that they had used to stun her. One of them spoke a command. His dialect was a more guttural form of their language, sharp and harsh with a staccato flow. The table tilted forward and began to glide towards the door. Out into the hall it carried her, with the guards flanking her on either side.

  She had been struggling against her restraints after regaining control of her body, and while they were comfortable enough, they held her tight. She was going nowhere. Resistance was obviously futile.

  She drifted through a series of tubular white corridors that grew expansively larger with each turn, until she was brought out into a grand hall that was filled with movement and bustle. There were strange smells, a mingling of an ocean of aromas, from body odor to what was probably some sort of food. Shops lined the sides of the grand hall, and signs hanging above them were covered with languages and symbols she didn’t recognize. Every color imaginable was on display, glowing or glimmering or shimmering, anything they could do to draw your attention. Holograms danced and flashed above them, advertising products and services. She would have been embarrassed by the strong sexual themes some of them had, under more normal circumstances.

  Alien races of all shapes and sizes, far too many to count, passed by her as she drifted through the crowd. Some were feathered and some were furry. Some were smooth-skinned with tentacles. They were short and tall, muscular and frail. There was a myriad of colors and sizes, from scrawny to fat. Some even seemed to have wings, but it was hard to tell as the crowd jostled around her. A few were insectile as well, with a hard carapace covering their skin. Several even had mandibles, whereas others had tusks or even a short trunk similar to an elephant’s.