The Unexpected War

by Jean-pierre Breton

  “Yeah, sure,” he replied with a dumbfounded look on his face.

  “It’s good for Rashellia to spend some time with her guardian parents,” Lara said as she retrieved Rashellia and brought her out to the living room. She gently placed the baby in David’s nervous hands, laughing as he held her nervously. Rashellia yawned sleepily as she woke up and looked around, soaking in the sights of the room.

  “Are guys always nervous when it comes to holding babies?” Carana asked, showing David how to hold Rashellia the proper way.

  “Yes,” we both replied in agreement.

  The girls laughed. “She’s in a good mood today,” I told David, tickling Rashellia’s belly, who responded with her happy-baby gurgles and squirmed around energetically in David’s arms.

  “We should probably give Lance and Lara some time alone,” Carana told David after we chatted for ten minutes or so.

  David nodded, carefully handing the baby to Carana as he got up.

  Once Carana and David left to go back to their place, I asked Lara, “So what’s up? Why did you ask them to take care of Rashellia?”

  “I wanted to spend some time together. I have a surprise for you.” She kissed my cheek and grabbed my hand, leading me into the hall and locking the door behind us. We headed down the abandoned hallway toward the main gate. “I heard you and David explaining to Grant and Tina about tricnoses, by the way,” Lara told me, giggling playfully.

  I was kind of embarrassed. “Well, they didn’t know what it was,” I said bashfully.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. You guys sounded like professionals.” She paused and then added with a laugh, “It was kind of cute.”

  “So where are we going?” I asked as we jogged along the silent corridor, with the echo of our footsteps chasing behind us.

  “Hurry up, silly, or were going to miss it!” she told me, ignoring my question. We came to an abrupt halt at the gate and shuffled through our wallets to show the guards our identification cards. They nodded us through, and we trudged through the snow into the woods.

  “I don’t even have a jacket,” I complained.

  She ignored me as we waded deeper and deeper into the woods. “Aw, suck it up, muffin.” She started to take off her clothes, throwing them over to me.

  “I’m not having sex with you in a snowbank!” I told her.

  She laughed, beginning to transform into her fiend form. I saw the muscles in her body changing and bones growing and shrinking as she slowly transformed. With a sickening crack of her backbone, it was complete. She allowed the sheer power of her fiend’s wild side to briefly take over. She let out a ferocious roar, standing on her hind legs, before slamming back down to the ground and sending snow flying everywhere. I backed up a couple paces, and she took a step toward me, peacefully bowing her head to me. “Why are you so scared, buddy?” she asked me, lying down in the snowbank and watching me with her beady eyes.

  “I’m not scared,” I lied to her, speaking out loud with a nervous laugh.

  She playfully gave me a gentle tap with her enormous paw, sending me tumbling face first into the freshly fallen snow. I retaliated with a perfectly aimed snowball straight to her muzzle, realizing as it sailed through the air how bad of an idea it was. I saw the fiend anger rise up in her, wanting to kill me, as she jumped to her feet, but she quickly doused the fiend’s instincts and sat back down on the ground, letting me climb onto her back.

  “Sorry about that, Lance. Keep in mind I’m still on my tricnoses, so let’s take it easy, okay?” she suggested.

  “Sounds good,” I replied, relieved that she didn’t lose it on me.

  Once I got my tiny little hands wrapped around her enormous neck, she leapt into the air and took off into the starless sky. The cold air felt so good against my face as she flew along the tree line at a gentle pace. She caught a thermal and glided toward the shoreline, searching for a suitable place for us to spend the night. Slowly, she descended along the side of the cliff and landed in a small cave overlooking the ocean below.

  As we settled down inside the cave, the sky began to light up with red, blue, and green lights. Streaks of them exploded up from all around us, exiting the earth’s atmosphere. As if on command, the stars suddenly came to life above us, seemingly dancing in the air. I propped myself up on Lara’s shoulders, staring at the sky, transfixed by the flashing lights, which reminded me of a fireworks display.

  Occasionally, a rumbling sound would erupt around us, which sounded similar to thunder. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Lara asked. She lay down on the floor of the cave and let her fur absorb the dampness of the wet ground, while heating me up with her body warmth.

  “Yes, it is. Thank you for taking me out here.” The awe in my voice seemed to surprise her. “What is this?”

  “Draphila.”

  “What’s Draphila?” I asked, confused.

  “When a fiend dies, its soul wanders the earth, lost in constant sorrow until Lord Dracona comes to collect all the lost souls to guide them to my homeland, Fraturna. It’s basically a repatriation for all the fiends that were killed in the war, which happens once a month,” she explained.

  I gently slid off her back and sat down in between her paws, watching the sky as if in a trance. It was weird how once she explained this to me, I actually felt kind of sorry for the fiends that lost their lives here on earth, even though they were my enemies. I glanced down at the ocean, where slowly flashing blue light started to appear around the surface of the water.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing toward the sea, as the creatures emitting the light shadows could be faintly seen in the depths.

  “Those are shellians. They are aquatic creatures who are at war with us. We once lived in peace with them on Fraturna, but once the war against the reliks began, they saw the opportunity to become stronger and declared their allegiance to them, leaving us to be slaughtered.”

  “Why would they come to the surface, then, and make themselves a target?” I asked, confused as I watched the creatures swim around in the depths below.

  “They do that to taunt Lord Dracona. They’re basically laughing at all the dead fiends.” A hint of bitterness was noticeably present in her voice.

  A few moments later, the area around us returned to normal, as the last of the souls escaped the earth’s surface. Lara shook the water off her fur like a dog would, and she glanced apologetically at my now-drenched body. She cast a spell, instantly melting all the snow around us, drying it off and trapping the heat inside the cave, while lighting a small fire that flickered happily.

  She then transformed to normal, motioning for me to lie down beside her. “So Lord Dracona is like your God?” I asked as I snuggled beside Lara’s naked body, keeping her warm.

  She nodded and allowed me to ask a few more questions, which was rare for her. She usually didn’t talk about her culture unless I broke some rule.

  “Do you ever miss your home planet?” I asked a bit more seriously.

  She lay her head against my chest, listening to the dull thumping of my heart. “Not really.”

  “Why not?” I was taken by surprise to her response.

  “Feel my heart.” She took my hand and placed it against her chest.

  “You have no pulse,” I responded after a minute or two of silence.

  “Immortals have no pulse because they can’t die, Lance,” she told me dully. “I’ve been alive for hundreds of years, and you’re the first good thing that’s ever come around in my life. I’m a monster, and I hate it. I wish I could just be normal like you humans and not have these constant urges to kill and drink blood.” She stared gloomily at the ceiling of the cave.

  “You’re not a monster,” I whispered, stroking her hair and giving her an affectionate peck on her cheek.

  “I have a question for you, Lance,” sh
e muttered, abruptly cutting me off as I was about to speak.

  “I have an answer,” I replied, making her laugh. “So what is it?”

  “When you look through the scope of your sniper and see the faces of your enemies, what would flash through your mind?” She cuddled a little more closely, staring into my eyes to see if I was lying. “No bullshit, either. I want the straight-up truth.” She’d spotted that I was scrambling to think of an answer that would please her. “I promise I won’t be mad.” She assured me.

  “Well …” I began, grinding my teeth nervously as my mind raced for an answer. “I guess right before I pulled the trigger I would tell myself that if I was on the other end of the stick, they would do the same thing to me.” Then I turned the tables on her unexpectedly, asking, “What about you?”

  “Huh?” She looked shocked.

  “How did you justify to yourself that what you were doing here was right?” I asked impatiently.

  “That’s kind of personal,” she shot back, ignoring my hopeful stare.

  “That’s basically the question that you just made me answer!” I protested.

  She tossed me a warning glare to shut up. I let out an irritated sigh and removed my hand from her waist—I wanted her to feel guilty, knowing she had betrayed my trust by making me answer a question that she couldn’t.

  “Lance?” she said gently.

  “Hmm?”

  “Want to know the difference between a coward and a soldier?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Before I would rip their hearts out, one would scream for help, while the other one would just accept his fate in silence.” She looked away from me in shame.

  “There’s no right or wrong in war,” I replied slowly. I began to comfort her by stroking her gently.

  Lightning streaked across the sky as a heavy rain poured down outside against the cliff where we were taking shelter. “Should we go take Rashellia off Carana and David’s hands?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.

  She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Yeah, we should probably go spend some time with the little rascal.” She got herself back into her happy, energetic, teenage-girl mood.

  “So what’s next, if this city is attacked?” I asked as we lazily dangled our feet off the edge of the cliff.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. This is the last city open to the public.”

  “So basically, we’re screwed?” I asked with a laugh.

  She nodded.

  “We could probably get shelter by the resistance,” I reassured her after a moment of silence.

  She didn’t look too pleased with my idea, but she pretended she was to satisfy me. “Yeah, I suppose, if that’s our final option.” She stood up, starting to transform again. “Are you ready to go?”

  I nodded as her rib cage expanded, ripping through her human skin. A moment later, the transformation was complete. I shuffled onto her back as she waited patiently, and then she let out her triumphant roar as we sped away from our shelter and soared into the sky.

  Chapter 21

  Lara flew along the coastline slower than usual, letting me absorb the sights of the towering cliffs. I took my hands from around her neck and spread my arms out, as if I was flying. I could hear her purring happily as we flew through the gentle night breeze. The soft pounding of the rain against our bodies was ever present as we began our ascent to Brawklin City.

  It really was too good to be true, though, and like all good things, it had to come to a crashing end. It all happened so fast—a shot rang out and I felt it whiz by my head. Before I could get a grip on Lara, she let out a ferocious roar and took off toward the cliff’s edge. A lone soldier standing at the top of the cliff was armed with a rifle, and he took aim at us. “Stop!” I yelled in a panic, but it was too late.

  I was thrown off Lara’s back and smashed through the surface of the ocean below. It was freezing cold. I struggled to the surface, yelling for help. Lara swooped down. I felt her claws dig into my arm as I started to succumb to the water’s icy grasp. I felt my body momentarily lifted from the surface as she struggled to fly away, and then, with a sick plop, I fell back in, sinking deeper into the depths of the sea.

  “Lance, swim! You need to come to me!” she begged me in my head.

  I tried to move my arms, but I had no more energy left. I felt myself drifting off into unconsciousness from the lack of oxygen. My scar burned bright red, bringing me briefly back into consciousness. It was like a dream as I slowly sank to the ocean floor. A creature looking like a cross between a shark, eel, and dragon slowly swam toward my body. I sucked in my final gasp for air but filled my lungs with water. The creature’s beady eyes watched me as I slowly died, twisting violently for air.

  The next thing I knew, it transformed into a human-like creature, with webbed feet and hands, elf-like ears, sparkling green eyes, and ghostly pale skin. It was so beautiful; it had long, silverish-white hair that gently swayed back and forth with the current. It sang gently as it swam toward me. Its voice seemed to echo around me, and I stopped struggling. I fell into a trance from the creature’s beauty.

  She kissed me suddenly, allowing me to breathe underwater, cheating death by a fraction of a second.

  “Lance … Lance, please!” I heard Lara’s cry in my head.

  I tried to respond, but it just came out in a mess of sound. As I heard it in my own head, it made me grab my ears in pain—it erupted into a mixed scream that echoed all around. The creature grabbed me roughly, dragging me to the depths, as I struggled against it, trying to fight my way back up to the surface. I looked above as Lara’s elegant fiend body dove into the water. She spotted the two of us as the creature clamped steel shoes onto my feet.

  “Thank God you’re alive,” her relieved voice rang out inside my head. “It’s a shellian. It won’t hurt you. You’re not at war with it,” Lara reassured me. “But it must be blocking your thoughts from reaching me. Don’t worry; I’ll figure something out, Lance.”

  I looked up as she spread her elegant wings in the water and then broke through the surface, flying away. The shellian’s smile seemed to comfort me momentarily, as she pointed at my feet. “Does that hurt?” she asked, speaking to me for the first time.

  I shook my head. She smiled again. I realized that the shoes were to prevent me from swimming away by anchoring me to the ocean floor, where I could walk around freely.

  The shellian cast what appeared to be a spell on my shivering body, making the cold water seem warm to me. “You do not need to be afraid of me, human. I’m your friend.” She comforted me, motioning for me to follow her.

  I really did not have a choice in the matter. “Thanks for saving me,” I told her, surprised that I could talk under the water.

  “No problem,” she replied as we walked along the bumpy ocean floor’s terrain.

  I looked around in amazement as schools of fish peacefully swam by, along with other aquatic creatures poking in and out of a coral reef we were passing. “If you could just swim me up to the surface, my friend can take me home,” I told her hopefully.

  She let out a laugh, crushing what little hope I had of a painless escape from my underwater prison. “Once you’re in shellian territory, you’re not allowed to leave,” she explained to me, ignoring my protests of displeasure. “The first shellian to find you automatically earns rights to keep you as his or her own.”

  I unhappily went silent for a few minutes. We continued walking along the ocean’s floor for what seemed like hours. “I fell—I didn’t mean to invade your territory. I would never purposely invade your territory. I was attacked,” I objected.

  She ignored my plea. “I saw you with that fiend. Stuff like that should never be tolerated between a fiend and a human,” she told me passionately.

  I didn’t say anything, so she flicked her finge
rs, and the soldier that was on the cliff appeared beside her, smiling over to me. I realized it was a hologram. It then vanished, and the shellian glanced over to me with a devilish grin. “You set me up to fall!” I blurted out angrily, as the realization of what just happened hit me.

  “You should be thanking me; I saved you from getting killed by that fiend,” she told me. We appeared to be in what looked like a shellian’s version of a city, which was clumps of mud, forming igloo-like shapes beside one another.

  “She loves me! She wouldn’t hurt me!” I told the shellian angrily.

  “Sure, she loves you now, but believe me, one day she will snap, and that will be the end of you,” she debated convincingly. “Don’t worry; you and I will have a swell time together.” She broke out laughing at her own joke. I looked at her, unamused. “Get it?” she asked. “A swell time.” She continuing to laugh. “As in an ocean swell?” I looked at her, a blank expression on my face. “I guess you’re not in the joking mood today, hey,” she muttered.

  We walked up a rocky hill, stopping at the foot of a rocky cave. “Home sweet home,” she told me fondly, staring at it. I glanced from the hill down to the little Shellian village below, realizing she had a pretty mint piece of real estate compared to the others.

  “Nice view,” I muttered, following her into the cave.

  “It comes with being the daughter of a king,” she said snobbishly. She cast a spell, and all the water rushed out of the underwater cave, forming a wall of water at the foot of the cave, kind of like a window that I could see through into the ocean. “What’s your name?” she asked, sitting me down on a rock by what appeared to be a stone table.

  “Lance.”

  “I’m Fiona, daughter of Lord Olaf, commander in this region of the Atlantic Ocean.” She extended her webbed hand for me to shake.

  I shook her hand, debating with myself whether this shellian was my enemy or a very valuable ally. I stared into her bright green eyes for a second. She smiled, so I decided to give her a light smile back.

  “Well, since you’re my guest, I’ll let you decide what we eat tonight—fish and seaweed or shark and seaweed?”