“What is your name?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied, cringing, expecting her to hit me. I glanced over at her nervously, but she was still sitting calmly next to me.
“My name is Lara,” she told me, extending her hand to me. I ignored it. Her beautiful complexion began to darken, and her smile faded as her hand retreated to her lap. She returned my stare without emotion. “I admire that you are willing to fight and die for the freedom of your country, but you giving me your name is not going to win us the war. So I ask you, as a comrade, what is your name?” She paused for my response, which did not come. “If you cannot tell me something as simple as your name, I will be forced to resort to different measures that I may regret and that you definitely will not like,” she warned me.
I stared at the ground, watching two ants fight, as I unhappily considered my options. “My name is Lance,” I muttered, breaking the tension between us. This was the first piece of information I had given to the fiends since being taken prisoner more than two weeks ago.
“It’s nice to meet you, Lance. It’s too bad it’s like this.” She offered me some water from her canteen as a reward, which I accepted gratefully.
The fiends always denied water to prisoners as a form of torture. It had been close to a day and a half since I’d had my last drink. “I’m sorry about your friend,” Lara apologized. I assumed she was referring to Toby.
“I didn’t know him,” I muttered coldly. I finished off what was left of the water, wiped my mouth, and handed her the canteen.
She remained silent. I guess she took the hint that I didn’t want to talk about Toby. A short time later, she spotted me cradling my ribs and asked, “Is anything broken, Lance?”
“No,” I lied, defiantly not wanting her help.
Lara ignored me, grabbing my arm forcefully so she could inspect it. Her eyes seemed to quickly scan my hand and took note of my broken index finger and the numerous missing fingernails. She touched my hand and whispered something to herself, sending five blue lights from the tip of her fingers. The light crawled across my hand like worms and disappeared into the wounds, healing them instantly.
I glanced down at my hand in surprise. I clenched it into a fist and then flexed it open. The pain was gone. “I didn’t know fiends have healing powers,” I said, glancing thankfully at her.
“I’m a pure-blood,” Lara explained as she lifted my shirt, revealing the purplish bruises on my ribs.
“What’s a pure-blood?” I asked. I sighed with relief as she cast the same spell on my ribs and caused the pain to fade away almost immediately.
“I will be the one asking the questions, Lance,” she said firmly. She brushed her hair away from her eyes as her attention shifted back to me. “What was your rank in the People’s Liberation Force?” Lara asked. She pulled out a notebook and jotted down something.
I immediately knew she was playing nice to get information from me. I ignored the question, but her blue eyes seemed to burn a hole into me as she waited for an answer.
“Did you not hear me, Lance?” she asked impatiently.
“I’m not a part of the PLF. I’m a civilian,” I lied.
She snickered and then ordered, “Get up.” I did, and she ordered me to take off my shirt, which I did obediently, sighing as I realized what she was doing. “Turn around,” she said. I turned my back to her, exposing the PLF letters seared into my lower back. “Busted,” she muttered with a small smirk. I turned back to her in embarrassment. I was surprised to see that she didn’t seem angry with me. After a pause, she asked, “So tell me, Lance … what is a civilian doing in the clock tower of Dublin Hill with a sniper rifle?”
I offered an innocent shrug. “Uh … I was trying to flee from the fighting, and it seemed like a good hiding spot. I found that sniper lying there.”
Lara chuckled to herself, definitely not buying into my story. “Well, at least we know you’re funny.” She returned her gaze to her notebook, and as she did, I reached into my pants pocket, pulling out the shank I had designed last night.
She began asking me something but stopped halfway through the sentence as she spotted the shank in my hand. I saw her hand moving to her holstered pistol, but I quickly held up my hand, peacefully surrendering the shank to her. She examined it, patting a spot on the flower bed to indicate I was to sit back down beside her. She glanced from the shank to me, clearly knowing that I’d had more than enough time to attack her with it.
“I had no intention of using it on you. It was meant for them,” I explained to her, referring to Domelski and his henchmen.
She finished examining it and then tucked it into her pocket. “You know that building a weapon is illegal and punishable, possibly with the death penalty, right, Lance?”
I nodded, staring at the ground, ashamed.
“We all make mistakes. As far as I’m concerned, it didn’t happen, okay?” she said.
I nodded, relieved, but I didn’t give her any information for the rest of the day, despite her best efforts. By the end of the day, as the sun slowly began to set in the distance, she was becoming understandably frustrated. She had refrained from hitting me all day, though. I watched the stars slowly appearing overhead and listened to the faint sounds of artillery fire rumbling off in the distance. We sat on the edge of the flower bed in silence.
Finally, Lara broke the silence, saying, “I came from there when I was a little girl.” She pointed up to the sky between two stars. “It was a small planet known as Fraturna. I was sent here to blend in with your species, as a sleeper, many years ago. It was before this war began, in case we ever lost our world.” She sighed and leaned back on her hands while staring up toward the night sky.
“That explains your English. I was wondering how you were so fluent.” I smiled, kind of letting my guard down.
She nodded and returned my smile but then looked back up to the stars.
“What was it like up there?” I asked her, following her gaze.
“There was a war going on between fiends and reliks. It was very cold on Fraturna—minus-fifty was a warm day. Fiends all spoke a universal language known as Jural, unlike you humans, who for some reason have decided to use twenty thousand different languages to communicate with one another.” She laughed playfully.
I couldn’t help chuckling, knowing that her logic was right. “What are reliks?” I asked her, hoping she wouldn’t get angry with my nosiness.
Lara snapped her fingers, causing her entire arm to ignite with flames and illuminating the pitch-black garden. I watched in amazement as the flames jumped off her arm and formed a wall of flames in front of us. Her eyes flashed red, and figures of holograms appeared in front of us, playing out a scene in the air.
There was a little fiend girl who was laughing with her friends. They were all on what appeared to be a fiend’s version of a playground. Then, without warning, there was a sudden, blinding flash of light. Screams erupted from everywhere, and the image instantly evaporated into the cool night air, plunging the garden back into darkness.
Lara remained silent for a moment, giving me time to let the scene sink in. Then she explained, “The reliks showed my world no mercy. All of my friends were killed in less than a minute. I was the only survivor.” Lara stared emotionlessly at the ground.
“Why would you show me this?” I asked her cautiously.
She turned toward me, responding with a shrug. “I guess to try to justify to you why I’m here.” She seemed embarrassed.
I remained silent, holding back from saying anything that might set her off. We sat there in the cool night breeze for a little while longer, and then Lara attempted to interrogate me a bit more. When she was unsuccessful, she left the courtyard but returned shortly afterward—to my surprise with some food and water. She placed it on the flower bed beside me.
She then silently attached a chain to my neck and ankles, clipping the other end to a wall, which allowed me to move around the courtyard semi-freely, in about a two-hundred-foot radius. In a normal situation, I probably would have thanked her for her hospitality; instead, I felt an anger rise up within me, realizing that this generosity was probably part of her secret agenda to obtain information from me.
“You’re no better than the reliks!” I spat at her angrily as she left. “Just because your world was taken over doesn’t justify your coming to my world and wiping out the entire human race!” I swiped the food that she had set down away from me and onto the ground. I don’t know why I did it; I suppose her being nice to me somehow triggered me to hate her even more than the fiends who would beat me senseless every day. She paused at the gate, turning around to face me. I could tell she was about to say something, but then she just turned away and silently exited through the gate, vanishing into the darkness.
I was jolted awake the next morning by the sound of a plane’s engine. Joy overtook me as a Canadian fighter jet streaked overhead. Cries of excitement from other prisoners around the compounds erupted as the plane began to circle the fort, while the fiends’ emergency alarm began blaring throughout the base.
The jet did a somersault in the air, letting out blue smoke before it sped away, which was the signal that it knew we were here. There was a huge explosion off in the distance, followed by a brief barrage of anti-aircraft fire that lit up the morning air. “Hell yeah!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I jumped off the side of the flower bed, onto the edge of the cement wall that encompassed the courtyard.
Huffing and puffing, I hauled myself briefly above the huge wall, catching a glimpse of billowing smoke from a wrecked fiend vehicle, along with a patrol of fiends scattered everywhere. Some were dead; most were struggling back to their feet in a daze. I yelled out happily, as mass pandemonium rang out around the base. I could hear the cheering of other prisoners, followed by the sounds of windows around the fort shattering, as PLF prisoners began to riot. The whole ordeal lasted only about two minutes or so, but it was the greatest two minutes of my life. I was still screaming at the top of my lungs, with my fist pumping in the air, as the airplane vanished unscathed into the distance. It was strange how something so little could have such a dramatic outcome.
I was wrapped around the edge of the wall, watching the chaos outside, when Lara stormed into the courtyard. “Get down from there, and shut up right now!” she ordered me angrily, grasping the chain around my neck and yanking me down.
Without thinking, I whirled around and punched her in the side of the face. It was like hitting a steel door. My hand throbbed with pain as I backed away. My punch sort of knocked Lara back, but that was about it.
She wiped her nose, glancing down in surprise at her hand, which had some purplish blood on it, before glaring at me. Boiling over with rage, she smashed me to the ground. She then unleashed a barrage of brutal punches, one of them connecting with me, square in the face. Pain exploded as I heard my nose crack from the force of her blow. She let out a non-human growl, baring her fangs at me as her eyes glazed over and became completely bloodshot.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped, closing my eyes as I awaited the end of the brutal assault. I felt her pause for a second. She was breathing heavily, and I guessed she was deciding if she was going to kill me or not. I let out a sigh of relief as I felt her soft touch as she wiped away the blood from my eyes with a cloth. I was surprised that she hadn’t killed me. Lara’s appearance had returned to her human form, and she smiled faintly at me. “You should probably get off me, or people may take this the wrong way,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.
She giggled and got off me, lying down beside me. “So what kind of plane was that?” she asked, staring up at the now-clear sky.
“It was an F-35 scout plane,” I muttered.
“What does it do, Lance?” she asked.
I hesitated, not wanting to give her information about the plane, but then I decided that the least I could do to repay her for my violent outbursts over the past two days was to tell her something. “It records locations and takes pictures of the area, and that information is sent to our officers.” I knew she was smart enough to decipher what I meant.
“The information is used for planning attacks, right?” she asked, turning to face me as we both lay there.
I nodded, knowing I had given her too much information.
“There will be more?” she asked. I remained silent, but I didn’t need to say anything—she already knew that the answer was yes. “My superiors are happy with your progress, Lance,” she informed me. “I will be in charge of you from now on, not those men who always beat you,” she said happily.
“Sweet!” I replied, trying to throw some enthusiasm into my voice.
She smiled as she began to rummage around in the backpack she had brought with her. “I bought you a few presents last night,” she told me, taking out a new set of clothes and an apple.
It took everything I had to contain myself from jumping into the air as I happily grabbed the apple, devouring it in seconds. It had been so long since I last tasted anything other than water and bread. Once I was done, I exchanged the old torn pants and shirt that I’d been forced to wear for the outfit she had bought me. It consisted of a white T-shirt and a gray button-up shirt, along with a clean pair of gray pants and a ball cap.
She even gave me a pair of shoes and healed my feet and fingers, inspecting them to make sure they were healing properly. “It looks so cute on you,” she told me as she inspected the outfit. She placed a canteen of water into the side pocket, informing me that it was mine to keep.
“Why are you doing this for me?” I asked her skeptically as she headed for the gate to leave.
“Because you’re a good person stuck in a bad situation,” she told me as she unlocked the gate.
“I’m not a good person, Lara,” I said, leaning lazily against the wall.
She shrugged, glancing over at me with a faint smile. “Join the club.”
I laughed, and to my surprise, she took a step back toward me. She extended her hand and said, “Friends?”
I stared at her hand for a second and then nervously grasped it. We stared at each other for a split-second. “Friends,” I replied hopefully.
Chapter 3
Over the next few weeks, the People’s Liberation Force attempted to make a push toward the fiends’ base where we were being held captive, but it was to no avail. I once spotted troops outside of the compound in the tree line. Their artillery fire hit so close to the base that it sent heaps of debris over the walls into the courtyard, but within a couple days, the cracking of gunfire and explosions began to retreat deeper and deeper into the forest. My hope of freedom faded with it.
A celebration soon ensued for the fiends’ victory. Music blared out through the windows that night as I sat perched on top of the garden’s wall. I scanned the wood line for any PLF soldiers but deep down, I knew they were all gone or dead. The fiends had dragged a few bodies out yesterday and had hung one in front of my compound. They threatened me that I would be next if I tried anything.
“Hey, cutie.” Lara’s voice rang into my ears as I felt a light tug on the chain around my ankle.
“What’s up?” I called back, ripping my attention from the tree line down to her.
Over the past few weeks, Lara and I had slowly become attracted to one another. We both denied it to ourselves, though, knowing a fiend and a human could never be together. I was surprised to see that she wasn’t dressed in her usual military uniform; instead, she was in a pretty blue dress, and her long dirty-blonde hair was let down, slightly covering her face. She beamed up at me. “How was the party?” I asked her casually, pretending to not be attracted by her presence.
“I don’t know. I never went.”
&nbs
p; “Why? Shouldn’t you be celebrating your spectacular victory over the inferior humans?” I nodded toward the hung soldier swaying in the gentle breeze in front of me.
Lara glanced sympathetically from the soldier over to me. “I’ll make sure that he is cut down by tomorrow, Lance,” she promised, taking a seat on the edge of the flower bed. She motioned for me to sit with her.
I did so, obediently. She unzipped her backpack and set out a bowl of noodles, an apple and cheese, and a piece of bread. I took the meal from her gratefully, and she filled up my canteen with some juice she had brought.
I glanced at her in surprise. Usually, I just got bread and water, and she would sometimes try to sneak in an apple or something as a treat if I gave her some good information. She pulled out some exotic fiend food—it was a kind of greenish slime with red stains all across it—and she then began to eat. It was kind of awkward at first because Lara had never eaten with me, but the silent tension between us soon faded.
“So why didn’t you go the party?” I asked as I sipped on the juice.
She shrugged, glancing over at me. “I guess I wasn’t in the mood.”
I could tell by the way she kept glancing over at me that she wanted to tell me something. I just nodded understandingly, and we both returned to eating. “You look really nice tonight.” I complimented her as we finished our supper.
“Thank you, Lance. You like the dress?” She blushed as we sat there in silence.
“It’s not just your dress,” I said affectionately, trying to earn some brownie points.
She giggled to herself. I guess she didn’t know what to say. She remained silent, packing up our garbage into her bag setting it aside into the flower bed. Music continued to drift through the windows of the compounds around us. Lara glanced over at me nervously as a slow song played. “Would you like to dance with me, Lance?” she asked, standing up energetically.
The Unexpected War Page 2