“Human...there is something further in.” Jay was tense, I could feel it in his voice. Up until now, every time this man was nervous, something bad happened.
I took small and uncertain steps forward. Up until now, we got attacked by wolves, spiders and even felines. Everything extinct in Yaerus thrived here. But, what appeared where the light got weaker, was the thing I least expected to find.
“Is that...another human?” I muttered, thinking that my eyes deceived me. But as we got closer, a figure of a man standing still appeared all the more real. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
A scrubby thing of a man — that was the best I could describe him — appeared to listen to my words. It turned, half naked from the waist up, bony and totally hairless. No brows, no chest hair, no actual hair on the head. He was a pack of skin and bones.
Zan behind me hissed, but I didn’t expect to see a human. Humans could communicate, that worked with Zan. “Excuse me, can you hear me? Do you understand me?”
I moved closer, and closer, now an arm’s width away. If he stretched, he could touch me. He just barely breathed. He breathed in and out twice for a whole minute. Even if he was asleep, he would have to breath faster.
“Human, you’re too close.”
Hearing Jay’s voice made me desperate for communication. “If you can understand me please nod, hiss, do anything.”
Suddenly, the man opened his mouth to reveal two sets of teeth inside, screeching at the same time. Every hair on my body raised hearing his cry. I tried taking a step back, but his hand snaked its way around my shoulders and caught me.
I could hear his hoarse breath next to my ear, every cell of my body shook like a leaf.
Jay, Zan, and Silver tried moving closer to me, but it didn’t let them. It snarled at everyone of them, and for the first time since I touched the soil of this damned planet, I opened my mouth and cried for help.
As the creature, the former human, dragged me deeper into the tunnels, away from my friends and the only source of light, I kept crying. Maybe it was in my mind—fear could do many things to your mind—but I thought I saw Jay’s eyes flash in the dark.
Anger surged out of his body, and he was getting ready to attack.
He cares. He cares about what happens to me.
Or maybe, it was all in my mind.
Soon, the only thing that remained was the snarl of the beast and total and utter darkness.
“Help...someone, help me,” I whispered.
But no one answered my pleas.
Chapter Twelve
Jay
Zan and I started running towards the way the bald human took Eladia. I didn’t know what had gotten into me, but my legs moved with a mind of their own. I was not sure why I even cared. She got herself into this mess again. Sometimes I believed that humans died young because of their recklessness. I warned her, twice, and she didn’t hear me.
Zan was sniffing the air around us, but when he snorted I quickly had a bad feeling about it. The Android had morphed to a small box that flew in the air, casting light in front of us while scanning the tunnels for more exits. Weirdly, the thing that caught Eladia moved straight to the energy signal we were following before.
The annoying robot didn’t talk anymore, and the only sound we could hear was our steps echoing in the long tunnels. Zan suddenly stopped. I stomped my feet on the ground a moment later, sliding while trying to stop. I never realized that I yelled: “What happened? Why did you stop?”
Zan got scared and Silver morphed back to her android form. “He found the trail leading to her. It’s this way. You don’t have to get impatient,” the robot said to me.
“I’m the one who tries to save your friend, and you tell me not to be impatient? Are you sure you’re saying the right thing, robot?”
Now she got scared. Yes, she should be. Back in my glory days, there was no Esuh that could go against my wills, not even my superiors. I was the one that insisted on visiting Earth to find the relic.
I stopped. What is this memory? The adrenaline jogged another sequence of past memories. I remembered myself leaving with the mothership, heading to Earth, and then...crashing, but nothing else. I had to get inside the cryo pod to survive. But, one hundred years? What in the seven systems had happened?
“Jay? Are you alright? We should keep going,” Silver said, uncertain of my mood. I nodded and ran ahead of them down the way Zan led us to.
The young man was right. Soon, a flashing light at the end of the tunnel appeared, and in the middle of it the same slim figure of the bony man. My blood pumped in my ears, and I couldn’t wait for the other two to come. I charged with all my strength towards him.
He managed to dodge my first hit, a kick on the head. I used my fists and feet in quick succession, but it managed to avoid my every hit just in the right moment to lower my reaction speed. In that way, he hit me twice, one in the chest and one behind my knee. The second injury made it impossible for me to move.
I was in pain, but this was nothing comparing to the suffering I had endured in the past. On the other hand, the creature —this thing didn’t deserve to be called human anymore — snarled at me and got ready to attack when Zan hurtled his pointy stick at him. The creature dodged it at the last minute, only to continue its assault at me.
Zan was now throwing any kind of fists and kicks at him, trying to copy some of my moves, but the only thing that he managed to was to get seriously hurt. In one of his sloppy kicks, that thing dodged and quickly bit the tender part of his inner thigh. The young boy screamed in agony, but the monster didn’t let him go.
I wanted to help, I wanted to get up, but my feet were in pain. Helpless and unable to do anything but sulk, anger boiled in my chest. I screamed: “Hey! Over here! It’s me you want!”
It didn’t work. That thing didn’t understand words. Zan was still screaming, and I…
...I felt a cold feeling running up from my toes.
When it finally covered my whole body, again I didn’t know where the fuck I was. I yawned and got up on my feet. My knee was numb but otherwise usable. The cries of that feral human came from down the tunnel; the robot woman had vanished, and only a flying box remained here, casting light at the gruesome scene.
Just like the last time I fought those sick puppies. The naked human turned and looked at me. He knew I was dangerous, he seemed to recognize I was his enemy. At the same time, I also knew he was dangerous too. He? A man? I was not sure, but his rough characteristics certainly resembled one.
“Who are you?” It didn’t answer. Instead, it growled at me. I laughed a mirthless laugh. This planet was full of strange creatures. “This little man has a girlfriend, a woman around your height? With black hair? Where is she?”
It let the boy free, but the poor thing was unable to move. It turned to face me, but I was not sure whether it would attack me or not. At the same time, I felt tired, like I hadn’t slept in days even though I had just woken up. I scratched the top of my head, searching for that woman. “Hey! Female. What was your name? Eladia! Where are you?”
As soon as my voice echoed down the tunnel, I heard someone coughing two strides towards my left. That one was certainly a woman. “Here you are. What’s going on-”
My sentence got interrupted by the charging attempt of the creature. I dodged with ease and grabbed it from the back of its neck. I clenched my fingers around it and squished until it started to squirm and fight for air. I used my other hand to rub my eyes. Really, they couldn’t kill this thing all by themselves?
Soon it stopped moving, and I released my grip. The woman was now standing still, her mouth capped by her hand. “Oh! Here you are! I missed you Eladia.”
“You...you are a monster.”
A laugh left my throat, a deep, thunderous laugh that filled the whole tunnel. I said I missed her, and she called me a monster. “You’re amusing, little one. I told you before, and I’ll say it to you again; I’m the Prime Officer of Esuh, and one of the First Kinds. Do
you really believe I managed to get so high up the ladder by being soft?”
She ran to her friends and tended to the boy’s wounds.
Stupid human. Fuck you. I don’t need you.
I saw some light down the tunnel.
This must be the way out.
Chapter Thirteen
Eladia
I couldn’t believe my eyes. The Dark Jay was back, and he just choked the hairless human to death.
Who does that?
He was stronger than the Regular Jay — he couldn’t help me by himself so he called that monster back. But, even though he had saved me once again, I felt awful. Seeing him strangle the life out of that creature...no one deserved getting killed like that, not even that bald human.
Jay had left for some time now, he moved towards the flashing light, the thing that it was possibly the Nusae relic. After everything that had happened, I didn’t know if I still wanted to keep going on. Maybe the flashing light was another animal that would actually kill us, or something that could make Jay go even crazier.
Dark Jay was mad. He couldn’t control his strength, and at this moment I didn’t know if he actually wanted to. The pleasure he got from killing the pack of wolves before, and the disinterest of removing a life now. That man was dangerous.
Silver morphed back to her humanoid form. She continued shedding light to the tunnels, which were a much-welcomed difference. I checked myself for any wounds, but I found none. I was lucky. Zan not so much. He had a deep biting mark on his thigh.
“What happened Silver? Is Zan okay?”
She looked at me with concern. “He will be fine, but we need to take him to a clinic immediately. If his wound gets infected, then things can get dreadful, fast.”
“Okay. I’ll go and get Jay.”
Silver stood up and stopped me in my tracks. “Are you okay? What happened to you?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. I passed out after that thing dragged me in here. The last thing I remember was its disgusting breath next to my ear. Seriously, what was that?”
“If I had to guess, seeing how Zan evolved on the surface, this man must have belonged to another evolution path of the human species, one that got accustomed to living underground. From what I managed to gather, he was blind and probably relied on hearing to navigate his surroundings.”
I looked at him lying on the floor, a lifeless husk.
Damn, something is wrong. How can humans evolve so differently in such a short distance from each other? And so fast, between other things.
Significant changes to human genome took millenniums to develop, and they just changed so much from one century to the other.
Zan interrupted us with his pained grunts. “Eladia, do you really have to go and get him? He’s dangerous. You saw what he did to...it.”
Silver was right. I should have known better. But the thing was that I had promised that I’d help him. So that, I would do. “I’m sorry, Silver. I have a promise to keep. No matter how violent he is, he saved us all more than once already. We can’t leave him behind.”
She lowered her head and tended to Zan’s wounds. “Do what you have to. Just be careful.”
I followed the flashing light down the tunnel. The trails were big chunks of metal lying on the ground, useless after years lacking maintenance. Nowadays, on Yaerus, everyone used magnet buses and hover trains. Trails were a thing of the past, as oil was. Even so, it was interesting seeing how early humans used to move around.
The longer I walked, the more I wanted to return back to Silver. Dark Jay or Jay’s mad counterpart was a jerk, someone who could kill with the same ease he would use to spread butter on a slice of bread.
I mean, he didn’t even flinch. But, he also saved me. He searched for me, and he remembered my name, unlike Regular Jay. He only calls me human female.
What are you going on about Eladia? What does this have to do with the Nusae relic or your situation?
I felt like I needed a good, long week of vacations. Maybe I should ask the Professor to give me some time off.
The light was getting stronger by the minute. I wondered how much longer it would be until I got to the end of the tunnel. My question was immediately answered after I finally reached at the end of the tunnel. In the middle, Dark Jay was standing in front of the light source.
“Hey! Hey, you. Jay. We’re leaving. Are you coming with us?” He didn’t reply, even though I heard him mumble.
I’m sure he’s saying something offensive about not wanting the help of puny humans and all those nonsense he sputters since he woke up. “Last chance big one. I’m going.”
Again, He didn’t reply.
What is wrong with him? Who does he think he is?
I got closer to him, only to hear him talking nonstop in an intelligible language. Silver was back in the tunnel, so I couldn’t translate what he was saying, but as I was standing on his side, I saw the flashing instrument ahead of him.
“Jay? Jay, what’s going on? What happened?” I used my hands to shake him a bit, but he didn’t seem to snap out of it. He was in some kind of trance and a pretty thick one as well. “Jay, please. Tell me. What is going on?”
The light source suddenly exploded, tossing us both down on the ground. I opened my eyes to see a large cube floating above Jay’s head. It was a pitch black thing, symmetrical and perfect in every aspect. I got a sudden urge to stand up and touch it, but the thing started pulsating randomly, getting big and then small, and then big again. It was like it couldn’t decide on its shape.
“Jay! Wake up! We have to go. This thing...it’s gonna explode!” But he didn’t hear anything. Instead, he just kept rumbling in different languages. I could recognize some words here and there, but nothing that actually made sense. He repeated the words Esuh and Nusae a lot.
The cube descended down on his chest slowly, and while the ash gray-skinned man was now lying on the floor, he quickly stretched his hands to reach it. The moment he touched it, the cube suddenly became tiny, a thing fitting in the palm of his hand, and the flashing disappeared.
Silver and Zan appeared from the tunnel. She saw us lying on the ground, so she placed Zan carefully down against a wall, and ran to my side. “Eladia! What’s wrong? What happened?”
I didn’t know how to explain it to her.
Damn, I don’t know how to explain it to myself. “I think...we found the relic. Or rather, Jay found it.”
We both turned our heads and looked at him. He was awake, and luckily, not ash gray anymore. The platinum-skinned man had returned to his regular form. I urged Silver to help me so that we could get closer to him and examine the cube.
“Human? Are you...okay?” I had never seen him mumble before. I didn’t know if I wanted to see him do that again in the future.
“I’m fine. How about you?”
“Except my hand feeling like burning, and my knee that I think is broken, I’m fine. Esuh can handle a lot more than that.”
Sure you are. If you knew about your symbiotic parasite, then I’m sure you would brag even more.
Even so, I prompted him to open his palm. He heard me for a change, and he did open it.
“Silver, run it on the archives, although I think you won’t find anything like that in there. This is an intact Nusae relic Silver. We finally found it!”
The pitch black cube had turned into a red light-emitting mini cube, with five inscriptions in almost every side of it. Those runic symbols seemed very familiar, but we had to wait for Silver’s scan to complete to be sure.
In the meantime, I took a good look around me, seeing Zan, the feral human that shook down the evolution theory, my unique android assistant, and a silver-skinned alien that didn’t remember a thing about his past.
The mission was successful, but I couldn’t feel excitement anymore. Being a Chronicler was a dangerous job, that much I knew, but usually, it was your fame and integrity that got on the way, not the lives of your friends. I wanted to apologize to Jay, but as
soon as I saw the look on his face, the one saying that I would have failed if he wasn’t here, I decide not to.
“Jay, can you carry Zan to the camp? I’ll show you the way,” I said, waiting for him to disagree. Instead, he followed my orders and grabbed the young boy by the hands, tossing him on his shoulders. They moved ahead of us, straight into the dark tunnel.
I looked at Silver, and I knew that this adventure was far from over. But most of them all, I was thinking about Jay.
Damn, why am I thinking about Jay?
Quickly, I opened my pace and followed them. It was already getting dark outside.
Chapter Fourteen
Eladia
You couldn’t consider yourself lucky until you had passed through the Ozleo Siblings star system without being assaulted by pirates. Part of the Uncharted Region, a place in the galaxy that the Five Ranked Species still hadn’t discovered, illegal aliens and lawless factions had made the three star systems their home.
We certainly knew the chances of getting attacked by the black spaceships before we even decided to follow that route, but it was the quickest way to Yaerus, humanity's home planet since we abandoned Earth. Yaerus was also home to the great Institute.
I was sitting in my room, ready to have a shower at the end of a particularly long shift in the bridge. I removed my clothes and adjusted the temperature of the steam shower of my room. I looked myself in the mirror and tried to untangle my messed up hair after hours being caught in a ponytail. My hair curtained my shoulders, a black waterfall that I never got used to, I couldn’t help but think about Jay.
I shook my head, clearing my thoughts before I took my first step in the shower pod. Piloting the spaceship through this system was exhausting since the autopilot feature didn’t work in the Uncharted region. So, at least one member of the crew had to stay up at all times to adjust the course if needed.
Jasih: Paranormal Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Àlien Mates Book 2) Page 6