“Aw, damn,” she muttered, hitting her forehead with her hand.
“What?” I asked.
“I almost forgot that I have to do my daily report on you.” She pulled out the all-too-familiar folder from under her bed. “I’ve always wanted to do this without getting dressed in the morning,” she teased, trying to lighten the mood of the interrogation. She opened the folder to a new page and snapped her fingers, which sent a pen hurtling across the room and into her hand. “That was cool, hey?” she asked, winking at me.
I nodded and laughed.
“So do you have any family?” she asked, getting right down to business.
“Not really. My mom is dead. I don’t know where my father is, and I have two sisters, but I have no clue if they’re still alive. Our bases were getting hit pretty hard before I left.”
Lara glanced up from her page. “What are their names?”
“Tina and Kate.” I pulled a heart-shaped necklace from my shirt—I’d been hiding it from the fiends.
“Wow, how did you ever manage to keep this?” Lara asked me as I opened it up, showing her the picture inside of Tina, Kate, and me when we were younger. We were sitting on the doorstep of our old apartment, before the war.
“I stuck it in my mouth when I was captured and then buried it in the courtyard the first chance I had when I arrived here.” I stared down at it fondly. “Before I met you, it was the only thing keeping me going,” I whispered passionately, staring at it one last time before snapping it shut and tucking it back around my neck underneath my shirt.
Lara stared at me silently for a moment and then continued her interrogation. “What was your field shift like as a sniper?”
“Seven days on, two days off,” I replied.
“How many confirmed kills do you have?” She looked up from her folder to me. I looked away, hoping she would skip the question, but she continued to stare at me persistently. “Come on, Lance. I won’t be upset.”
“Seven hundred sixty-two,” I told her, and her face filled with shock as she stared at me in disbelief.
“You were in the resistance for three and a half years, right?” When I nodded, she asked, “What was the average age for a fighter?”
“They wouldn’t let the children or the elderly fight, so it was around sixteen to twenty,” I told her.
“Why did you go to Dublin City when you knew that would be a suicide mission?” she asked.
“I guess I wanted it over with. I was tired of hiding in caves, watching my friends die, and listening to the constant barrage of air and artillery strikes,” I told her with a shrug. “I had five friends who came with me—they all died.” A tear trickled down my cheek as the memories of my previous life flooded back into my brain.
“I’m sorry, Lance,” Lara whispered sincerely.
“It’s okay. I’ve always asked myself why they died and I didn’t. I still haven’t found that answer.” I wiped away another tear that was threatening to trickle down my face.
Lara must have felt bad because she put the folder back under her bed and patted my back. She lay her head against my shoulder in an attempt to make me stop crying as we cuddled in silence. “Do you think Lara has nice tits?” she asked with a smile, wiping away a tear from my face.
“They’re all right for a sixth grader,” I sniffled with a laugh. She punched me playfully and gave me a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Can I ask you a question?” I asked her hopefully.
“Anything,” she whispered, snuggling closer with me.
“That day when you guys killed Toby—why did you do it? Why didn’t you kill me?” I asked her, finally getting the burning question off of my chest.
“We were in charge of the two of you. It was Domelski that gave us the order. Kill one, and the other will talk, he told us,” Lara explained as we relived that day, which seemed so long ago now. We sat there in silence for a few moments as I let her explanation sink into my head. “I’m going to be your lawyer,” Lara told me after a few minutes.
“For what?” I asked.
“In a month, you have a court date. You’re sentenced to death by firing squad—don’t worry; all resistance fighters are. I can prove that you were only fighting to defend your species and that you can adapt to sharing this world with the fiends,” she reassured me.
“Gee, that would have been nice to know before,” I joked nervously.
She laughed. “Do you know how to read and write?”
I nodded hesitantly. To be completely honest, I had a learning disability growing up, and I had barely used any school-related skills for more than four years, ever since the invasion.
“Good. I signed us up for a class tomorrow,” she informed me happily.
“What is it?” I asked, zoning out as I stared at the ceiling fan spinning overhead.
“It’s a class on how to solve problems peacefully. You’ll learn about fiends a little, and about how to treat us, and stuff like that.”
“That sounds like fun,” I replied sarcastically.
She rolled her eyes. “I know it’s going to be bullshit, but you have to take it in order to be guaranteed that you won’t be sentenced to the death penalty.”
I sighed unhappily as Lara and I began to get dressed. Once we were ready, she held out her hand to me, which I grasped. I smiled, indicating that I was ready to go. We walked down the hall to the cafeteria, chased by questioning stares of fiends as we passed by.
“Relax; there’s no law that says we can’t be in a relationship,” she whispered to me as we walked down the hall.
I relaxed my grip on her hand but still was nervous. “How can they tell I’m human? We look exactly the same,” I asked her as we sat down in the cafeteria with my tray of food.
“Humans have a scent that is released from them. It’s different from the scent that comes off us. Humans can’t pick up on the scents because their noses are pretty bad, but we can smell about twenty times better than you can.” She gestured for me to eat my food. She began to eat some kind of fiend food; it was kind of slimy-looking and bland.
“Pralango, Lara!” someone called out in Jural. I turned to see a girl strutting over to us. She sat down beside Lara and stared at me in shock—we recognized each other.
“You remember Luna, right?” Lara asked, trying to break the awkward lull at the table.
I nodded. “Nice to meet you,” I told Luna, offering my hand to her across the table.
She looked at it for a second and then glanced over at Lara with a laugh. “If you’re going to take your pet on a field trip, you should at least have him trained.”
I glanced at the both of them, confused.
“You’re not allowed to touch other females when you’re in a relationship. It’s against the laws of Dracona,” Lara told me, looking up from her food but ignoring the comment Luna had just made.
“Oh,” I muttered, quickly withdrawing my hand.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. You know now for next time,” Lara told me with a friendly smile. She resumed eating her plate of food.
“So what are you up to today, buddy?” Luna asked Lara when we had all finished our breakfast.
“We’re going down to the arcade, if you’d like to come,” Lara offered. She stood up and gestured for me to stand up as well.
“We?” Luna asked her.
Lara nodded, and Luna whispered something to her in Jural, nodding over to me. Lara answered her, and Luna looked at the two of us, seeming kind of stunned. Without a word, Luna picked up her tray and left.
“I don’t think she likes me, hey?” I joked.
Lara smiled, grabbing my hand with a shrug. “She’ll come around. Don’t worry about it.”
The arcade was pretty amazing. I had been disconnected from technology for more than four year
s, so to see so many flashing lights at once was kind of overwhelming. I felt like a kid in Disneyland at first. Lara and I played a couple of war games to pass the time.
We would strap headbands to ourselves, and then it was as if we no longer were in reality; we were thrown straight into a realistic war scene, fighting with each other to stay alive, which was pretty sick. For the most part, it was an uneventful day, but after being locked up for so long, it felt like the best day of my life.
After the arcade, Lara and I went back to her room. The two of us ate in silence that night, listening to a radio program in Jural. Lara would talk about nothing important, just to spark a conversation. As night finally came around, I grabbed a blanket and lay down on the couch.
“What are you doing, silly?” she asked, patting a spot beside her on the bed.
I obediently got up off the couch and lay down beside her, figuring this sleeping arrangement was permanent. I snuggled next to her warm body, letting sleep overcome me within a few minutes.
“Time to get up, Lance!” Lara chirped happily the next morning, waking me with a gentle shake.
“Mmm, go away,” I muttered sleepily into my pillow, rolling away from her.
“Fine. Have it your way,” she shot back. She left the room and when she returned a moment later, it was with a bucket of water.
“Unghh, fine … I’m up,” I groaned sleepily, sitting up in the bed.
“I got up early and bought you some clothes since you’re going to be staying with me from now on,” Lara informed me, throwing a black shirt and a black pair of sweatpants over to me.
We quickly ate breakfast and then headed down the hall to an open door. “Ah, you must be Lance and Lara. Welcome.” A middle-aged woman greeted us as we entered.
“Yes, we are sorry that we’re late,” Lara told her as we looked around the classroom.
The first thing I noticed was that unlike the entire base, this was the only room I had seen that was lit with a standard white lightbulb. “Wow, I can actually see,” I whispered to Lara, who laughed. The instructor checked us off her list and motioned for us to take our seats.
“Lance, would you mind standing up and reading to the class what is written on the board?” the instructor asked me.
I gulped nervously as Lara prodded me. As I looked around, I saw that everyone in class was staring at me. “The plan … planet Fraturna was a stylish in … um,” I began.
“Established,” Lara whispered to me, seeming confused by my poor reading skills. Maybe she’d think I was just nervous.
“Established,” I corrected myself, glancing at the back of the class, where one fiend was chuckling with another.
“The filthy dog can’t even read,” I heard one of them say to the other with a laugh.
Rage boiled over me as I angrily turned toward them. “How about you shut the—”
“Lance!” Lara said angrily, stopping me mid-sentence by yanking me down and placing her hand on my lap to prevent my getting up and starting a fight. I glared angrily at the pair of fiends who were laughing at me. I sat there in embarrassment as Lara patted my leg, calming me down.
I found the class, for the most part, to be a waste of time—probably because I was pissed off for most of it. It seemed to me that the instructors tried to make it sound as if the fiends were the peaceful creatures, and the humans were the ones provoking all the violence, when in actual fact, it had been the fiends who’d come hunting for us when we fled into the woods to rebuild our lives.
I somehow managed to make it through it, though, without protesting once. Finally, at three thirty the class ended, and I got a little certificate saying I had successfully completed it. Lara took it from me as we walked down the hall.
“Don’t worry; I’m going to put it in your portfolio when we get home,” she told me, reading my questioning look.
We arrived at her dorm about five minutes later, where I thankfully flopped down on the couch as she rummaged around under the bed, placing the certificate in my folder, and then going over to the window and opening the curtains, allowing light to come dancing through. “Want to watch some television?” she asked, flopping down beside me with a bag of chips.
“Sure,” I muttered grumpily, staring in front of me but seeing nothing that even slightly resembled a TV.
She snapped her fingers, and a bright white light came shooting out of three walls, meeting in the middle of the room and forming holograms of people who began talking in Jural. I realized it was the news. Lara popped open the bag of chips, offering me a handful. “Thanks,” I said contentedly, eating them one at a time, savoring each bite.
“So how did you find the class?” Lara asked me casually as we watched the program.
“It was all right,” I lied, grabbing a chip and chucking it into my mouth. I kept my attention focused away from her.
She stared at me for a moment, apparently deciding to let the conversation go without arguing. “Thanks for going. I know it was a pretty boring class, and the instructors may have fabricated some of their facts a little, but you needed that certificate,” Lara reminded me.
I nodded, and she patted my shoulder happily. She turned up the volume on the television and sauntered over to the kitchen to start cooking supper. I followed her and helped to cook a moment later by cutting up some vegetables for us as a side plate, while she cooked our main course.
It was chicken, which we served to ourselves about twenty minutes later. I quickly realized she was really horrible at cooking human food. The entire thing was black, and each bite tasted like a new brand of charcoal-flavored gum, which took forever to chew into a piece that I could swallow.
Once we were finished eating, she told me to go wash the dishes. I did, obediently, as she went over to the couch to watch more of the news. Finally, Lara flicked off the TV and collected a few plates I hadn’t gotten to yet. A few minutes later, I saw her clutching her stomach. “What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“I just don’t feel good,” she muttered moodily, drying the dishes I had just washed.
I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it, so we finished in silence, and then she went over to the bed, flopping down on it and looking exhausted. I stripped down to my boxers and flopped into bed. I snuggled beside her, trying to cheer her up. “Thanks for making me supper.”
“Shut up,” she giggled, knowing that I hated the chicken she had cooked.
“Oh, cool,” I said, staring down at her stomach.
“What?”
“You have no belly button.” I lifted my shirt, glancing from my stomach to hers.
“Oh, ha-ha. Yeah, fiends don’t have umbilical cords. When the mother’s pregnant, the baby just absorbs all the nutrients through the skin.”
She began purring affectionately and pulled out the book I had been looking at when I first arrived at her place. She lazily perched herself on my chest and read to me in English before we fell asleep.
The next morning, Lara let out a shaky groan, and I woke, startled, when I felt warm liquid spill across my stomach. I yelped in pain—it felt like someone had poured a steaming hot cup of coffee onto me. I jumped out of bed, frantically flicking on the red lamp on her nightstand. Lara was on her hands and knees, clutching her stomach and groaning in pain.
She puked up some purplish blood onto the sheets. Her eyes flashed red as she let out a cry of pain. I looked at the puddle of purplish fiend blood, which was spreading across the sheets and dripping onto the floor. I grabbed some paper towels and started to clean it up, but she motioned for me to stay where I was.
Lara was still on the bed as her muscles began to spasm. She closed her eyes, taking in deep breaths to calm herself. Suddenly, as fast as the pain had come, it was gone. She lay down on the bloodstained sheets, catching her breath, as her chest heaved in and out uncontrollably.
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“What’s happening?” I asked her.
“My tricnoses is starting,” she whispered to me.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Tricnoses,” she repeated. “It happens once a month and ranges between a couple hours to a full day. On the days I used to have it, I’d send Luna down to give you your food. You remember that, right?” I nodded. “It usually starts off with weird stomach feelings, and then progresses to puking, mood swings, cramps, stuff like that, until it goes away.” She bit her lip nervously.
I could tell there was something else. “But?” I asked.
“But if I get a really bad one, I could transform into a fiend,” she mumbled, regaining control of her breathing. This sounded really bad for me, and Lara must have seen my frightened expression. “It will be okay, Lance. We’re going to be fine,” she promised me.
I came over to her side, helping her up and guiding her into the bathroom, where she wiped the blood off my stomach with a wet rag. Then she shooed me out so she could take a shower. Nervously, I began to make her breakfast. Occasionally, a weird growl would erupt through the door, making me jump, but then her voice would call out to me a minute later that she was fine.
Once I finished making breakfast, I entered the bathroom cautiously, making sure she was still in her human form. I brought two plates of eggs in with me. “At least you’re puking up solid stuff now instead of blood,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood as she finished throwing up in the toilet.
She glared at me in disgust, and as I set her plate down beside her, she instantly grabbed it and threw it back at me. I luckily dodged it as it sailed by and smashed against the wall behind me. “What the hell is your problem?” she yelled at me angrily. “I’m here in pain, and all you can think about is food?”
I turned to leave, but she grabbed hold of my leg and started crying, begging me not to leave. Her mood swings were so erratic that I didn’t know whether to stay or go, but I foolishly sat down, ignoring my better judgment. I hugged her close, reassuring her that I loved her and that everything was going to be okay, even as she had an emotional breakdown beside me.
The Unexpected War Page 6