Destiny Arrives, Short Story.20:24 May 18 2008
Times Read: 618
It was nighttime.
The mortals of the planet couldn’t tell, of course. The Black Mist was far too thick for humans to breathe, let alone see through.
But the Clans could.
Slim, pale fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of a blood-stained blade. Eyes of swirling shades of sea pierced from beneath silver silk of hair, through the haze, watching a small, human child. Perhaps, Ull thought, I will have a meal tonight.
He didn’t have any sympathy towards the thing. It was that child’s ancestors who had caused Ull’s Clan such pain in the first place.
Humans had created the Clans, many years before the end of the nations. Initially, they were created to be slaves, to fight for earth in its many battles, and to replace lives that were lost. With the habitants of earth spreading across the galaxy, they weren’t multiplying like they should have been… they were actually diminishing. So, human scientists began growing human-like creatures, with minor differences. Some had extra limbs, some had no pulse or body temperature, some were made of metal, some were covered in fur. Some were built with no arms and legs, some were faceless, some looked completely human, with the addition of the soulless eyes and the trademark tattoos. Some had enhanced reflexes and muscle control, some had access to more than 75% of their brain power, and some were completely and shockingly beautiful, while others were horribly and hideously deformed. They began to think and evolve on their own, this slow-growing mass of misfits.
The humans did not like that.
The experiments were sent away, far, far away, to Gershom, the planet of exile. One does not threaten the reign of humans… even if one had no choice to do so.
This was how the Clans were formed. Clans that separated, organized, and yet, brought together the experiments.
Ull, son of Himesh, was of the Aquilo Clan. Their Clan had been used in the Dauof Wars, against the creatures of the Ice planet. Although the Clan had won the war for the humans, it had been created in them a need to fight and win. When the Aquilo rebelled against the humans, the Clan was captured and very carefully, carried immediately to Gershom and dropped there, among their fellow experiments and humans in exile.
Ull was not born on the battlefield, as his father had often told him he had dreamt for. Ull was born on the ship on the way to the planet. His mother had fought with him in her womb, and she had died with the honor of fighting beside her king, and bearing him a live child, the only prince of the Aquilo Clan.
Aquilo soon came to have an underground ruling of Gershom. If anyone got in one of the Clan members' ways, the interference was easily erased. The Clan, although usually rather distant and emotionless, had close ties to each other. So close, that sometimes the women of the Clan, when separated from their mates due to death, would also pass away. This made them very protective of their kind, because they were limited, and women could only produce offspring once in their life.
And then, a single experiment was released onto the planet. A creature that surpassed the strength of any of the Clans.
The Destiny arrived on Gershom.
The Destiny had an insatiable hunger. It had eaten nearly all of the Aquilo Clan--- Ull was the only one left in this part of Gershom. His friends and tribe mothers were gone. His father had traveled to be with the remainder of their peoples. But Ull preferred to avoid more pain, in case the creature would attack his new friends as well.
It was said that Destiny was created to smite the Obi race of the Fouad planet, whose people were filled with love and fear and a need to protect everything they had. It was said that all of its occupants could be found, their bones still scattered upon the deserted earth of Foaud. It was said that Destiny kept going, destroying and feeding and hunting…
Humans are stupid. Ull thought. Always creating things that are too much for them to control.
But still, he couldn’t keep his cold heart from pounding painfully. He feared the Destiny, just like everything else feared it.
Ull could taste the creature in the air around him, could smell its hunger. He could feel its presence, inching closer and closer… he knew it was coming, savoring the scent of fear coming from this area.
Ull glanced at the child, pathetic as it was, curled in a ball on the ground, by a particularly large twisted purple tree. Of course it was afraid. It was surrounded in pitch black, alone, its parents probably clueless to its existence.
Out of the corner of his eye, the prince saw a shadow in the darkness, swimming towards the child. Ull could only watch. Interference with the Destiny was… suicide. He understood that. He hated himself for fearing the beast as much as he did, deep within him.
Carefully, he crept backwards, icy heart beating painfully fast, eyes on the looming figure, ears on the ground behind him. When the horrible creature’s mouth cracked open and the child let loose a horrible scream, he twisted around and sprinted silently towards the Ephah Plains, where he would find his safety…
There’s got to be some here… there’s got to be… Ull stomped around, looking for a hollow area beneath the black soil. Just as he was about to make a new plan, his bare feet clunked onto dirt with a soft, open sound. He reached into one of the pouches on his side and pulled out a seed, carefully placing it directly over the hollow spot. He ripped open a water pocket and dripped it onto the seed, careful not to touch it.
And then, he waited.
It didn’t take long for the seed to melt into the dirt, yet for even a member of the Aquilo Clan, it was almost impossible to break through the soil.
As the seed smoked and melted through the earth, a spindly little thing twitched through, uncoiling black, trembling petals from leaves and thorny stem as it rose towards the two moons. The Nuru plant.
This foot-tall little silent one would be both his death and his rebirth.
Ull dashed to the Evar Forest, carefully holding the flower with a piece of cloth wrapped twice around it. He could smell the child’s blood, the intense, never-ending hunger, could breathe in the scent of the Destiny as it tracked him.
He found a good Polg tree, pressing his fingers into its soft, goopy exterior. He tucked the Nuru into an almost-empty pouch and gracefully scaled the tree, sitting in the Y-shape at the top. He sunk into the bark a little, but the solid meat of the tree kept him from falling through. He pulled the flower back out, and, not touching its acidic petals, handled the thorny stem in one hand and his knife in the other. Using the knife, he scraped off the petals and plucked the leaves, feeling his fingertips tingle with its medicine.
He organized himself so he was stretched out and lying down in the small nest. Transferring the petals with shaky, burning, bubbling fingers, he chewed and swallowed about four. He tried to not let it touch the inside of his cheeks or his tongue, but he knew he was going to get burns anyways, no matter how hard he tried. At least mouth wounds healed easily.
The Nuru petals would temporarily stop his heart, leaving him… “dead.”
He left the Nuru leaves scattered across his chest. They would melt when his body temperature became about twenty below his normal body temperature, which was 18.3°C (65°F).
The Nuru leaves would start blood circulation again, and his heart would revive.
The Destiny was right beneath him, sniffing the trees. He looked down at it, its bristled midnight fur, its small front arms and wrinkled, long snout, its head as big as the prince himself, teeth about two feet long. Its four eyes were blacker than any abyss that existed… filled with the hunger and need for fear, for hatred, for prey…
Its head jolted upward, its eyes tearing into him, into his soul, feeding on his paralyzing terror, multiplying it. It was coming! He didn’t want to die!
And suddenly, he felt giddy all over, his heart fluttering in his chest like a wounded butterfly. He began to feel heavy and warm, his eyelids drooping, eyelashes brushing his tattooed cheeks in defeat. His heart rate slowed, sputtered, and finally died out, an old ship finally giving way to the sea of nothingness…
“Chrystal? Chrys, are you okay?” The nurse checked the silent woman’s pulse and blood pressure. She had been awfully quiet for quite some time. No babbling of her Ull or of Himesh, no talk of Gershom whatsoever today.
Chrystal was so beautiful, for a woman getting ready to go through menopause. The nurse gazed affectionately at her favorite patient, into her empty, sea-green eyes and at her silver-ish hair. She knew that in their world, there was no such thing as an exile planet. She didn’t know everything about the worlds, but she knew that Chrystal was human, just like her or any of the other people on their world. Chrystal had never been to any other planets to even know if there was a place called Gershom.
“Nurse?” Her thoughts were interrupted by the doctor’s soft voice. “Please keep an eye on our patient. Something doesn’t… seem right today.” She nodded in agreement.
She gazed at Chrystal’s face, her fluttering eyes. “C’mon, Chrys, let’s put you down for a nap.”
Ull tried to shake the image of the human, Chrystal, from his dreams. But she was always there, every night, and he hated her. He hated her eyes and how they were just like his, only flatter. He hated her hair and the chemicals in it to conceal its real color. He hated her beautiful face, and her soft shape…
And how she seemed to look through the dream and directly at him, into him, through him.
She was sick. He could feel that, in this dream, something was very, very wrong with her. Her face was paler than usual, and now there were more humans coming into the room, with machines and electricity. Her heart? He watched as they pumped electric shock into her chest, her empty eyes gazing up through the ceiling at him, her trembling, pale hand reaching to him. He found himself shocked to see a tattooed arm reach back towards her…
He woke, his chest wet with the gloss of the black leaves, swimming towards the surface of consciousness, fear enveloping his entire being. Tears flung off of his face and hit something… something big with a smack. His eyes opened wide, wide, as he saw his reflection in the chasm of black, the eyes of the Destiny. The last thing he would ever before his end was the glint of blood-stained teeth, reflecting his open, screaming mouth…
“She’s gone,” the doctor said with a sigh. “There’s nothing else we can do for her.” He paused and looked at the nurse, whose eyes were soaked with tears. “Clean her up and send her down to the basement for autopsy.” The nurse sniffled and nodded in reply.
She redressed Chrystal’s body, gently wiping the jelly from her chest where the lubricant was for the electricity. As the nurse gently sponged water onto her, she noticed a smudge on her face. She tried to wipe it off, but it only grew. She washed the rest of her face and gasped. There were tattoos all over her face. She scrubbed her arms and looked in awe at the markings all over her body.
“We had to see how she’d deal with living as a human,” the doctor said from behind her, causing her to jump.
She looked at him, and then gazed down at the dead Aquilo, the soul mate to the prince, Ull…
“What… what is she?”
“It was an experiment. It was one of many experiments,” the doctor looked down at the dead soul mate, pity lighting his eyes.
“You caged her up! You kept her from her own kind!”
“They aren’t a kind. They’re simply a thing. A thing that couldn’t be helped or controlled or protected from themselves.”
The nurse kept her head down. She breathed in, out, in, out, to keep herself from shouting. “So everything she ever said was true? Everything I always told her wasn’t real, was real?” She looked up at him, accusing him with her eyes. “Everything she ever believed in was taken from her. We killed her.” Gently, she combed her fingers through the chemically- destroyed hair. “We killed her…”
The doctor didn’t reply. He looked down at her, and at the small experiment, and at the walls. “Just finish cleaning her up. This is completely confidential. We will discuss this later.”
A member of the search party for Ull approached Himesh carefully. The child bent to one knee, and whispered softly of the discovery, of the bones in the Polg tree, of the tools which had been only used by the prince, and no one else. The king fell to his knees, letting out a wail of pain and anguish like none that any of them had ever heard. He wrapped his arms around himself and wept, and the Tribe left for their hunting, to give him his space.
Too many children he had lost, too much family. Too many loved ones dying, too many, too many, too many…
His eyes were wide, his swirling, sloshing blue iris small and full of fear and hatred and love and insanity.
“My son, my poor, poor son,” he whispered. “You will be avenged. Someday, your death will be retaliated…”
Some day, the Destiny would be defeated. Someday, the Tribes would know how to get rid of the horrid beast. There would be a day when they would avenge the loss of the only prince of the Aquilo and all of their late loved ones, a day when all that was done wrong to them would be repaid to those who served them the wrongdoings. There would be a day when the creators would cease to be, when every Tribe would be free to roam wherever they wanted, when Destiny wouldn’t control them. Someday, Aquilo would rule once again…
COMMENTS
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DeadAir
04:17 May 21 2008
Great story, you should write more!
Take Care My Friend,
The Daywalker