and confusion and perplexity.
Through the scorched dirt I find what seems to be a dead ghost. Plain and white, with the orange decorations on the bevelled out borders. Nothing fancy. No light from its eye. It's probably dead. I'm repeating myself.
I pick it up, turn it over. The mask takes a moment to focus. I find it peculiar that it feels much lighter than the other one from nearly two weeks ago. I attempt to find a way to carry it around. My lower arms are still too weak to hold it, but I think they can manage if I use both of them.
It wakes up and tires to fly away and then the upper arm catches it. Did it play dead on hope of being left alone?
I don't want it to stay, but I need to tell it where to go. I do so
<<South-Southwest. Find another there.>>
It stares at my face with a look I cannot read.
I tell him the instructions in a way he can understand and point at the cliff-side with one of my fingers.
It focuses its eye and I think it understands and then it flies away after mumbling something I'm unable to read. I hope he believes me to know where he's going.
I stare for a moment to the location where it vanishes. I remember to notify the thing on the ship of the arrival of the probe. I don't want it getting zapped just because poor communication. Could it even get zapped? What do you call something that dies by Void energy? Atomised? Disintegrated? Decomposed? I had no clue, but my mind should focus, I remind myself, and looking back at the tablet, not minding to look at the prior messages, I write up something as fast as these clumsy fingers can help me do so.
Guest_001>-
Emergency_074> -
Guest_001>-
Emergency_074> -
Guest_001> Authorised LightbearerProbe incoming. |
I stare at the dirt path for a moment before moving again.
I head for the barn house after another moment. I think I need some form of storage that I could hide behind the cloak. I feel regret over not bringing the backpack I acquired before.
I wander around the remains of the burning house looking for anything that might have fallen out or might be valuable but I find nothing and the air smells burnt. The fire licks at me, but it does not burn. Not really. I'd know if it was burning. I remember the time I burnt my fingers with hot glue.
I just feel adverse to touching the fire here. I'd know if I was burning. Really, I would. Fire feels like a sharp, persistent stinging, and then your fingers swell with a clear liquid for a month or two. Just the idea keeps me away from it. There's still the morbid thought of walking straight into the burning home.
It's like… sometimes you want to jump down a cliff, or swim down to the bottom of a lake. It's not that anything calls you.
You just want to know how it feels. As unhealthy and life threatening as that may be. The water of the creek is drying; I can see it from here. The tunnel under the home has collapsed, so the water is flowing straight into the fire anyway. Kind of a futile fire-fighting attempt by nature, considering the small flame sparking up the large barn house. I find myself chucking at my own expense.
I back off. And then I leave for the remains of a blue tent on the side of the burning building. It's been ransacked, but maybe there's something of worth in it's tangled, torn remains? I can't help but think that there might be something left, as insignificant as it may be. I'm repeating myself. Stop.
Stop.
Stop it already.
Shut up.
Deep breaths.
In. Out. Just like all the times you had to calm down before. Ignore the possibility of getting spotted out in the open.
One step at a time. Right? You've gone through three first aid courses, you should be able to do this. Especially since they even had those fake drills and everything.
You should be able to.
Keep it together, you learnt about this.
You
should.
Should.
…
The word dances around in the back of my head, almost like a taunt. I don't know with what purpose if it has any. I've grown used to it before, but it stings harsher now. Did I not process anything? What did I do wrong? I never asked for this. I never even had a true goal. I'm the least-forward thinking, least prepared person to end up in this situation. I wasn't even on a body I knew. I had to learn to walk. I managed to do it fast enough, but I still tripped or struggled sometimes.
I slump against one of the several walls. Why did I even try disguising myself? There's no one around. And even if they were, would they have cared who they were shooting? Would they, really?
I realize it would have only helped on the Fallen themselves, and I feel nauseous. But would it have, really?
I'd doubt anyone cared if I had taken the backpack I once had. I was stupid for leaving it behind.
The ether flow stops slowly. It barely hisses once I connected it to the helmet itself. I twist the valve shut. It takes a moment for the aftertaste to go away.
The distant gunfire still continues. In bursts. Mostly.
I never expected there to be much action. I'm thankful that there's been close to none so far.
While breathing oxygen isn't detrimental or helpful to my situation, I still like doing so. My lungs may not feel the same, similar to everything else, but I still like breathing "air".
It helps me stay calm. It helps me think.
The thing is, the air here smells like ash. I don't like the smell of ash, and I certainly remember these lungs did not like it either. Even before ending up here, I did not enjoy ash.
Maybe that way of thinking is what led me here in the first place, after all, why would I come here, if other than the lack of forethought? Maybe it was the readily available battlefield.
Should I be ashamed that I only feel repulsed by the human bodies? There's only been one for the four I had found inside of…
Deep breaths.
Think… walking helps me think as well. I think I might do that instead. Walk around in a circle until I find something to do? No, that idea sucks. It's terrible. Why did you think it up?
I begin limping back to the water fountain, in front of the burning shack.
I almost forgot there were terminals here. There still might have been, given the bent grass. Did the Fallen take it, or was it the humans?
I manage to get inside of the kitchen of the house I once left.
Holes riddle the walls. I stand in the centre of the room for a second, processing if those holes were there before. When this was all a game behind a screen and I still only had two arms with five fingers each and five toes on my feet without the obvious claws that merited forfeiting any sort of reasonable footwear.
I miss having skin that was more sensible beyond "there's pressure here." I miss my old brown eyes.
I miss having my only experience with death be a roadside accident I saw passing by while traveling in a bus when I was an infant, instead of a partially skinned man on the side of a building.
I pick up a screen from the ground. Take a long look at it. It's locked main screen shows what seems to be a family picture. They look like they're enjoying the moment. Both of the parents appear to be wearing some sort of uniform, and the children smile like fools. It's a nice picture.
This screen is the most recognizable piece of equipment I have found to date, other than the PDA. I consider myself lucky, but I hesitate to take the thing. What if it's owners came back?.
It's going to be taken by some other individual if I don't take it with me. I tie it next to the PDA, shutting off its screen as I do so. I pick up a broken screen, belonging to another apparatus as well. I look around, before taking a moment to switch the Ether flow. I know it's a poor move. Even if I have three tanks, someone with better mental restraint would better ration this.
But I don't like being without it. It's like a warm embrace. Welcoming, and unlike helplessly pacing in circles, this helped me to think. It kept me calm. It helped that it tasted pretty nice too. Soft and cold. Like drinking homebrew soda, but having it taste almost like antifreeze and something else.
I remember how dry my mouth feels, even if it still produces saliva. It tastes like air.
It takes me a moment to focus back on examining whatever technology was left untouched. I'm on a time limit here. The search begins up on the shelves, inside the drawers, inside the chimney, behind the counter…
Ah…
I think...
I contain a scream.
It's just a body. Why are you panicking? It won't stand, it won't move. It won't even talk. Nothing is forcing you to look at it. Why are you looking at it?
I manage to look away.
Why am I so pathetic? Why do I freeze up? I can feel my heart…
I feel relieved, but I feel like shit. I still have a heart, and that's good, right? It's a familiar, at least, finally managing to recognize something of this body. But I'm making things about
me again.
But that – I'm not getting close to her.
I…
losing battle of,
I don't know when I arrived at the barn house. I don't like the periods of time when nothing makes sense and everything feels drowsy. I thought that might come to an end when I found myself in a new body but… I guess not. It's been a constant backdrop, always. There's a thick smell of smoke
The barn house has Multiple charred, blackened holes peppers the inside structure. I realize that the ships might have seen me anyway. I stand up after hiding from the ships. There's no fallen around so I spend the time picking at anything that is remotely useful in one way or another. Ropes, cloth, mechanical components from what I think were frames and what I assumed was once a ship and there's this circular plate that I think would make a passable mirror if polished.
I approach a small fire consuming a pillar of the building and I think I should leave but I and think need to check the basement because there might be something there I have yet to see. Then I remember the pillar is metal, and It'll probably take a while before it melts if it melts at all. The wooden parts of the structure aren't so lucky and I think to go back to my original plan to hurry up before the structure collapsed.
I wonder what started the fire and then I realize it's probably the fuel tanks that must have caught on fire and think that explains why the ship's font appears to have burnt or melted off, the slag piling up on the floor. It's not the first time I see slag, but it's the first time I see a spaceship be molten and crushed like a car on a roadside accident. Those were things that happened, back home.
A poor turn.
A mistake in sight.
A poor decision.
I think it would be fair to assume still the same here. It's just less of an accident and more of deliberate malice. I remember watching the news and finding of things like these and I thought back then that, with some luck, I would never come to see something like that first hand. It certainly seems like that will be close to the opposite now. I wonder if this will become the "normal" and the resting about and studying and enjoying activities for the sake of enjoying them will become the things I long for at the end of each single day...
The building creaks and groans again. Embers and fire slowly rising up thought the structure. The cloudy sky greets me once more. I look for the basement door. I find it in its usual location and sure enough, it's unlocked.
I pull open the door and look down on the basement. The flames seem distant from here by their sound. Hesitation fills my mind. Do I really want to carry possible survivors, if there are any? I know it's one of the reasons I came here, in the first place, but do I really? Would they accede? The only non-Eliksni, somewhat humanoid life-form I had interacted with was the Hunter Vanguard, and that was at gunpoint over potentially getting too close to one of his stashes, or what seemed like a mass graveyard. I decide this is a good as a time as any to search the basement. I think that if I'm going to regret this either way I might as well go down to see if there's anything at all and that if there's something then it must be worth something.
I struggle to remember if there was anything on the shelves. I've existed for longer than two weeks and I doubt that I've considered the specifics of the knowledge I possess.
I had plenty of time when I was slacking off in Venus. What good are a few more seconds going to do me now? Didn't I think about that while I was on the Ishtar sink? Or the shattered coast?
The air is musty, and I think that I would be amazed if I was not so…
How was I even able to tell the air is musty? The answer comes to me almost instantly: The gaps in the skin plates. I feel like an idiot. I just don't know.-
I don't know.
I don't know anything.
There's little familiarity. The most enjoyable thing I've done is talk to a floating ball and converse with a broken artificial intelligence and I felt relieved when I recognized that I still had a heart and veins, of all things.
There's nothing quite like a mental breakdown while staring down the hatch of a basement door, while out in the open, in the middle of a war zone.
I'm lucky no-one has spotted me. I make an attempt to swallow my dread, which I believe I failed at, and slowly go down.
One step at a time. Into the monochrome darkness.
The first four stairs are not too bad.
The fifth step hits me with a sweet and pungent smell. Clean, like chlorine. Bitter, like ash. It smells faintly familiar.
Come to the first flight down the stairs. Two more to go. I face the left, and come face to face with a scene not too dissimilar from the one I had experienced in the room with the bunk beds, even if it's so in a larger scale.
I pull out the pistol I had carried from the base on Europa. It had served me well so far. It feels lighter than from when I first found it, I realize as I test its weight on my hand.
I do my best not to trip as I walk down the staircase littered occasionally with bodies.
I think one grabs my leg.
I don't think I've turned around faster in my life.
I think it's still breathing.
It's still breathing.
I don't know if I can help them. Human first aid… it's not suited to other life forms, I think.
I pull his companion off him, body limp and deflated. I…
I the tank still latched on to my mask. It tries to grab it, but it can't muster the strength. It's just a drek-
I shy away from this thought. Does it really deserve to live? Then again- it didn't have much of a choice. Obey or starve.
I take a look over its body…
<<
You're not going to make it.>>
It looks at me, eyes wide in incomprehension. They don't realize they're already dead. They can barely move. I can see through parts of his chest, and his neck is crooked and at an angle. I'm surprised it's even alive at all.
It's eye then descend to the ground. Around him. To himself. His head can't move, but his sight can. It looks back at me.
I can't read his expression, but it clicks a response, light in tone for an Eliksni.
<<
eend.>>
I don't understand at first.
But then I do.
It tries to give the tank back. They really didn't consume much.
I pick up the white gun from where I left it on the floor.
It closes its eyes.
My hand trembles.
I hold…
I…
trace
The barrel doesn't feel warm.
The tanks from the dead share this characteristic, dangling from my makeshift belt.
The cryptach lady didn't make it. I sit by and stare. She died defending something near the back, it seems. Laid out, drekh with a knife on the back of his head. She must have thrown it, by her position. Close to the light where the shadows made clear who was hiding. There is no light now, and no shadows. Only the empty bookshelves, and the musty ground that makes a funny noise when I step on it. I take her black and white rifle that looks odd. It has no trigger guard, but I tie it to the belt anyway. A probe shining in the dim light, seemingly lifeless. It goes on the belt as well.
A scream, young and childish, feminine, fills the room. It's huddled behind another bundle of rags and flesh, and they are huddled behind a large sack of flesh and wet rags, still moving with respiration. Hit in the leg and the arm and the abdomen.
"
Yyouu will follow."
A soft bobbing motion from two. The large one remains unresponsive. Terror fills them, the smell fills the air. It can almost be tasted.
Two limbs go over my shoulder, the weight of the larger one is considerable, and stings on the left leg follow. Little tapings behind from somewhere beyond sight, and soft pulling of the large one.
An acknowledgement of the blue lady. Another for the fallen.
The small corridor and stairs move closer. A soft sobbing fills the room.
"
ssilence."
The cessation of sound. The ruffling of a cloak and shell. The air grows less musty. The smell of smoke. The echo finds itself reduced.
The agonizingly slow wait for time to pass. Ships flying overhead. The pulling returns, and a hiss later, the sobbing does. There is no rest. The dusk sky is orange. The last moments of a wicked day.
The taping resumes, the smoke grows away. The light of the fire vanishes slowly. The pond feels wet, and splashing follows behind me. The small fleshlings are still there. The mountain descends, and the pull on the small ones grows.
Underdeveloped pain.
The squealing returns.
"
ssilence."
It doesn't work.
The shock quiets him as the mountain descends once more. There is no time.
The trees are a welcome sight.
I pull the small ones with my lower arms. The fire and warmth grow distant.
My sense of self returns.
being
Distant gunfire. The passing of overhead ships. Two children, and an injured man. A chance to do some good. There won't be another one like this one. The soft muffled sobbing of the smaller one is more manageable. It's louder screaming gave us away.
Dead branches and leaves crunch behind. The medium one, who isn't much taller than the smallest one, has proven capable of keeping up. It's the smaller one that seems to have trouble. Hesitation fills my body.
Uncertainty fills the two children. The older I assume, with his brown hair and pale skin, seems more frightened. The younger just seems to be more encumbered by foot pain, and her swelling cheek that blends in with her more brown skin. Carrying her shouldn't be too hard with the lower arms. They even curl up on reflex. They were meant for this.
She is swooped from the ground, but she knows better than squealing in terror.
Click.
I've never disarmed a child before with one arm. I have now. A strong swipe of the barrel was all it took. I find myself thanking the safety mechanism for saving my life. The thought of the pistol that had accompanied me so far suddenly causing my end was not something I enjoyed picturing. Gun and child on the floor, his face seems to be frozen on a silent scream.
"
Luccky…"
I swipe the firearm from the floor, besides the kid clutching his hand. I check for cuts. His eyes are swelling with tears, but it's not serious. Just a bruise. I didn't think he had it in him. I help him to his feet from a single shoulder. He refuses my help, backing off.
"
NNearly there. Don'tt sttop."
Picturing the ship was easier than actually getting to it. I hear the whirling of the Ghost.
I think I know why the kid attempted to do what he did. I shift around the unconscious man, switching arms. A tap with a lower arm to the makeshift bag where the ghost was. It ceases movement after that.
I see the kid, and he sees me. The stares are broken by the overpass of ships.
Human ships. I'm unsure if I should feel relieved or panicked.
Panicked, because they would probably kill me. Relieved, because that probably meant the humans won in the long term.
A slight limp to get back there before anyone found the ship was the ideal situation. I confide in the walking of the child for keeping up was something that kept me comfortable. The kid seems calmer now. Seems seeing a ship has calmed his nerves to at least follow me at a distance through the late afternoon forest. I wonder how he will react to the dead Guardian I kept. Would he try to shoot me again? What about his Ghost? I'm unsure if the other ghost went to my ship or went off.
Letting it go was a poor move.
Trees pass by, in the near dark. My vision doesn't fail me, but I'm unsure about the child.
"
Don'tt sstay behindd. Otther's eat hhuman hatcchlings."
I flex my mandibles for the first time in days to Illustrate this point and regret it immediately. I don't like remembering that there's plural now. Speaking English was somewhat familiar, even if it hurt my throat and lungs. Other movements are not so familiar, and I dislike them immensely. I could get used to fewer fingers and four arms. A set of organs I did not recognize, whoever, was beyond my comfort zone.
Luck was on my side one more, but it had cost whoever fought worse off because of it. I didn't even know the name to-
The blonde child trips. I turn around and offer a helping hand. His younger friend seems to have scared herself to sleep, so he's the only concern other than the responsible adult at the moment. Once again, he refuses it. Scraped knees and hands and he refuses a hand to help him up. I think I'm more amazed that he doesn't realize that Eliksni doesn't help each other out this way, at least not anymore. He swipes off the dirt and stones from his legs before going back to walking.
The ship is nearby. I know this because I landed it with some help, but I remember passing by this dead tree.
Eventually, I see it. Relief fills my mind.
