by Elin Wyn
As the body fell from my back, I kicked out at one that was reaching out for Maki while she kicked another one twice in the knee and once in the head without her foot ever touching the ground.
“Impressive,” I grunted out as I picked her up and started running.
My longer legs helped us put distance between ourselves and the possessed before I put her down and we started running again, my own pace slowing to match hers.
Maki
“Go! We’ve got to move,” Tyehn barked.
“Can you walk?” I asked.
We’d made it out of the first fight unscathed.
Not the second. A lucky strike by one of the mob had cut into his side, leaving a nasty gash.
A hybrid lunged at him. I grabbed a stick and jabbed it into the hybrid’s arm with all of my strength. It let out a shriek and whirled on me.
Tyehn kicked it square in the back and stomped on its neck when it fell.
“If I can do that, I can do more than walk.” He grinned at me. I could tell he was trying to keep the mood light but I saw the pain behind his eyes, clear as day.
We needed to stop and get him patched up. Between us, we had the supplies.
But we didn’t have the time.
“If you say so. Let’s go.” I took off at an easy jog, letting him set the pace. He grunted with each step, clearly favoring one side.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked again.
“Stop worrying. Just get ahead.” He waved me forward with his free hand. Even that motion seemed to cause him pain. I slowed down and allowed him to catch up.
“I’m not leaving you behind if that’s what you’re getting at.” I placed my hands firmly on my hips. “We’re in this together now. You’re going to have to deal with that.”
“You’re going to have to deal with me. I’m too much of a burden. I can handle myself but I can’t look after you, as well, like this.”
“Look after me?” I chuckled. “That won’t be a problem. Have you been paying attention for the last few hours?”
Howls rose from the forest. The hybrid horde was going to find us sooner rather than later if we didn’t move now.
“Come on.” I lined myself up next to him and offered my arm. He linked his free arm through mine.
“You can’t support me,” he laughed.
“After everything you’ve seen me do since we met, how can you still doubt me?”
“It’s not a reflection of your abilities. Dense bones, remember?”
“Right. We’ll let’s give it a go. If we stumble and fall it’s-”
“No longer our problem?”
“That’s the spirit.” My laugh came out more like a cough. Tyehn shifted some of his weight onto me. My legs immediately buckled.
“Fucking hell.” I grabbed a low hanging branch for support.
“What did I tell you?”
“I know, I know.” I waved my hand dismissively. “We’ve got to come up with something. The horde will be on top of us any moment now.”
Tyehn looked around. His gaze settled on the tree I clung to. He ran his fingers over the trunk.
“This one isn’t as slippery as the last. What’s the phrase you humans like? The one about broken things?”
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” I guessed.
“That’s the one. The trees kept us safe the first time so why not a second?”
“How are you going to climb if you can barely run?” I asked.
“We’ll figure that out when we get to it,” he shrugged.
“That phrase doesn’t work if we’re already at the thing we need to deal with.”
“I’m trying to make this fun.”
“It’s a near death experience. It’s already fun,” I grinned. Tyehn gave me a strange look.
“You’re nothing like any of the other humans I’ve interacted with.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment,” I decided. “Can you fight if the possessed show up?”
“I have a personal blaster left, so yes,” he nodded.
“Good. Stay here. I’m going to climb up and get some vines. I think that’s the only way to get you up there.”
Tyehn was right. There wasn’t as much frost on this tree as there was on the last one. I was able to climb up high enough to reach some sturdy looking vines. They were all in a tangled mess. With a sigh, I started to detangle them.
This was going to take far too long. But I wasn’t leaving him behind.
Not a chance.
Tyehn’s blaster went off, startling me.
“What was that?” I called down to him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Tyehn called back with a proud grin on his face. “He’s not.”
He gestured to the body of one of the horde laying in the snow about one hundred yards away.
Nothing looked amiss, except for the part where it was missing a head. Chunks of it were strewn across the snow.
“Nice shot.” I nodded with approval.
“Thank you. How’s it going over there? Are you having a go at making a rope?”
“I’ve got this.” I whipped the single length of untangled vine in his direction.
He grabbed it and looked back up at me with a smirk.
“Don’t think this is going to work.”
“I worked that one out for myself, thanks,” I called back. “For someone who’s losing an alarming amount of blood, you’re very quippy.”
“It helps me deal with the pain. Have you tried this?” Tyehn gave the vine a sharp tug hard enough to dislodge the tangle of vines.
They unfurled gracefully into a waterfall of lush greenery.
“No, I haven’t tried that.”
Tyehn took a fist full of vines and started hauling himself up.
“Can you manage?” I bit my lip as I watched him climb.
“I have to, don’t I?” He grunted back.
“How can I help?”
“Keep watch while I concentrate. I’m too heavy for you to pull up.”
“Maybe not.” I looked at the vines and at the surrounding branches. “Hold on tight. I have an idea.”
I wiggled down to a lower branch and looped some vines over the thickest one I could find.
“Grab these.” I shook the looped vines. Tyehn gave me a skeptical look but did it anyway. I grabbed the other ends of the vines, took hold and slowly started to lean back.
“In order for that to work, you need to weigh more than me,” Tyehn called.
I leaned so far back that I was parallel to the ground. Tyehn hadn’t budged an inch.
“Damn you and your dense bones.”
“I appreciate the effort.” His laughter was cut short by the clicks and howls of approaching possessed.
They were on the hunt, and they were getting closer.
“Can you see them?” Tyehn asked quietly once I’d climbed back into an upright position. He resumed his slow placed climb with renewed vigor.
“Yes. They’ve found their headless friend.”
Tyehn threw his arm over a branch and used the trunk for leverage.
“I can’t climb any higher,” he whisper-shouted. “I’ll lose too much blood and waste too much energy.”
I swung down to the lower branches to be on his level.
“Any ideas?” I asked.
“Look,” he jerked his chin toward the cluster of possessed. They sniffed and kicked at their headless horde member nervously. “They know something killed their troop mate. With a little luck, their need to survive will outweigh their need to hunt.”
I didn’t say anything, but I knew that it wasn’t likely.
The need to fulfill the hunt was all consuming.
They were daunted by the body of the other hybrid now, but they would get over it.
The question was how much time did we have until then?
“We need to come up with a plan. Now.”
“This is the plan.”
“We need a better o
ne. Can’t you call for an extraction or something?”
“The other units are on their own missions. However, I might be able to do something.”
I watched the possessed as they continued to investigate the body.
I hated watching them. Just looking at them sent chills down my spine and made me feel sick to my stomach.
I closed my eyes to block out the painful memories that started to surface.
I could still feel it, that need to hunt and obey.
“Are you ill?” Tyehn asked softly.
“No,” I said too quickly. “Just tired. And starving. How’s that plan coming?”
“Signal’s still weak out here.” He lifted his arm to show me his complex alien watch-thing. “I’ve been trying to get through to the command center back in Nyheim but the comm was damaged earlier.”
“Hurry up.” I didn’t mean to sound so harsh.
I just needed to get out of here. Tyehn looked at me, his eyes filled with concern.
Funny, since he was the one with a gash in his gut.
Thankfully, he said nothing and continued trying to get in touch with Nyheim.
One of the possessed lifted his head, searching. He sniffed the air then bent down to sniff the snow and earth.
He could smell us.
He clicked to the others letting them know of his discovery.
This tree wasn’t covered in as much frost as the last one.
The possessed might be able to climb up if we didn’t move fast enough.
“This is Strike Team Three member Tyehn requesting to be put through the Aurora member Fen,” Tyehn whispered into this comm unit.
“Speak up soldier. We’re unable to hear your request.” Whoever’s voice was on the other end came through loud and clear. Every hybrid looked in our direction. They started shrieking.
“Damn it!” I groaned. “Climb if you can. They’ve found us.”
Tyehn repeated his request at a shout.
“You’re unauthorized to make that request,” the command center replied.
“Just do it! A civilian’s life is at risk. I’m injured. We need a rift extraction.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
The possessed circled the trunk of our tree. They clicked and chittered to each other as if discussing which one of them would try to climb it first.
“Speak.” A woman’s voice came through Tyehn’s comm unit.
“Fen, I’ve sent you my location. Please open a rift. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“Don’t blame me if you get in trouble,” she replied.
“This is going to be cold,” Tyehn warned me.
“What are you talking about?” I hadn’t taken my eyes off the possessed.
“This.” Tyehn grabbed my arm. I looked up to find a shimmering portal of blue light suspended in the air in front of us.
“What the hell is that?” I exclaimed.
“Our escape plan.”
“That looks like a death sentence,” I argued.
“No, that looks like a death sentence.” Tyehn looked beneath me.
I followed his gaze. One of the possessed had clawed its way up the tree without me noticing. It was only one branch beneath us.
“Shit!”
Tyehn wrapped his arm around my waist and launched us toward the portal just as the hybrid lunged for us.
Tyehn
We hit the ground, hard.
That wasn’t surprising considering how for up we were when we entered the rift.
Maki was on top of me, shivering uncontrollably. I had warned her, but then I didn’t even give her a chance to prepare for the rift before pulling her through it.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded, but I wasn’t sure if she did so because she was okay or because she was just making sure she could still move.
“Hey, look at me,” I ordered.
She stopped shivering to stare into my eyes.
“You’ve just gone through a rift. It’s a way of traversing from one place to another very quickly. I’m sorry that had to be your first way through one.”
“Where are we?”
I looked at her with squinted eyes, then took a second to assess the situation.
I didn’t see sky above her, I saw earth. This wasn’t grass and snow under me, it was dirt. “Where in the hell are we?”
“I just asked you that,” she sighed as she rolled off of me. She wasn’t shivering as much anymore.
I sat up to look around. “We’re in a tunnel.”
All around us was dirt, more dirt, and even more dirt. A few roots peaked through the ceiling and walls, but it was unquestionable, we were surrounded by millions of tons of dirt packed and moved until they formed tunnels. We were in the Puppet Master’s tunnel system.
“Really? What was your first clue, Sherlock?”
“Who’s Sherlock?” I asked as I looked at her.
She shook her head and waved me off.
Then, her eyes went wide and she pointed behind me. I turned to look and there was a hybrid, sitting up, staring at the two of us.
It tilted its head to the side, then opened its mouth. He tried to speak to us, but all that escaped his mouth was chittering and guttural noises that seemed to originate from deep in his throat.
He looked confused, just as much as we were.
I slowly reached down towards my waist where my knife was and he looked down at my hand.
His eyes narrowed, but the noises continued to sound more confused than anything else. As my hand touched the hilt of my knife, he snarled and shook his head.
I took my hand off the knife, barely, and he stopped snarling, returning to the chittering noises he was making.
“This is normal?” I heard Maki ask from behind me.
“I have no idea,” I answered. “I’ve never seen a hybrid act this way, ever. Something’s different.”
Maki nodded. As he continued to sniff the air, I quietly unhooked my knife. Suddenly, it stood up and went to a wall and started scratching at it.
I knew I should have killed this thing immediately, but I was transfixed by what it was doing and how it was acting.
After a few moments of digging at the wall, a pair of vines were exposed and the hybrid’s demeanor changed even more.
He was no longer acting confused or like it was lost, it was now entranced. He reached out and hesitated a bit before touching the vines.
His touch seemed loving. He was caressing the vines.
Maki and I looked at one another, both of us shrugging at the other at our unspoken question.
What was this thing doing? I looked back at it to see it still caressing the vines, and the vines seemed to be moving with the caressing, as if it enjoyed the attention.
I knew the vines belonged to the Puppet Master, so was the Puppet Master enjoying this? Was he responsible for the new possessed beings that acted so much like the Xathi hybrids?
A slight throbbing from my abdomen drew my attention away. I was still bleeding.
I could hear Maki scooting herself close to me.
She looked up at me, and I could see genuine concern in her eyes.
She was worried.
So was I.
While I kept an eye on the hybrid and this awkward love-fest happening with a vine, she took the opportunity to stitch me up.
A small grunt of pain from me brought the hybrid around, the look of rapture on its face changing as it recognized that I was still there.
However, he, it, whatever, did not look at us with anger or malice, but with a sense of pity.
I never wanted my knife in my hand more in my life.
It turned back to look at the vines, then back at us.
Then, he looked down to see Maki finishing off the stitches and the blood covering my clothes. He tilted his head and stared, as if trying to figure out what was going on. As Maki moved away from me, the hybrid looked at her and smiled.
Then, without warning, it let out
an ear splitting screech which forced Maki and I to both cover our ears and close our eyes momentarily in pain.
I opened mine back up quickly to see the hybrid take a hesitant step towards us, then he turned and started running down the tunnel.
I shot to my feet and began the chase, Maki yelling at me from behind. “What are you doing?”
I couldn’t let the hybrid escape or reach the Puppet Master. I had to stop it before it could cause any harm that we were unable to deal with. He was fast for a short little human, I was barely able to keep up with him.
The only reason I didn’t get lost was because I was able to keep him just in sight around every corner. Finally, I rounded another corner and there it was, staring at a creature that engulfed every centimeter of my vision.
A giant plant grew into a humanoid form the size of a very large and tall mountain, with a lush garden in the background. The hybrid stood there, staring at it.
There was a gasp behind me.
It was Maki finally catching up and seeing the Puppet Master for the first time just as I had. He was an imposing being.
To think, he controlled and made the planet live, and here he was, engaged in a staring contest with what used to be a human male.
The hybrid began making guttural noises that seemed to be mixed with speech, but it wasn’t a language that I understood, or had ever heard of. I looked back at Maki and she shared the same look on her face that I must have.
She didn’t know either.
I was at a loss. What was happening here? Were they communicating? Plotting?
Was the Puppet Master an enemy after all?
I had to stop this. I reached down and drew my knife, then began a slow, quiet approach behind the hybrid.
If the Puppet Master was an enemy, he would let the hybrid know, possibly even defend him.
If the Puppet Master was our friend as he said, then he would let me kill the creature.
I crept as quietly as I could, and just when I was only a couple of paces away, something happened.
The Puppet Master moved.
Not his vines, but his enormous body. He moved closer to the hybrid, staring at it with a measure of curiosity usually levelled at a science experiment.
Then, without warning, the Puppet Master opened his mouth and let out an animalistic, primal, almost painful roar that shook the earth around us.