The singular thought looping in my head was that I must escape, so I was trying to make a run for it. I tried the door out of my room to find it unlocked, and I crept outside with my heart beating out of my chest. It was terrifying to think of seeing one of those humans in person, with those unnatural black eyes. There wasn’t a chance that I’d touch that “nanobot” syringe that’d do goodness knows what to me. How strange that the aliens hadn’t performed an involuntary injection, if they wanted to puppet my body or turn me into some…mutant.
The hallway seemed to stretch forever, until I ran into some invisible gateway that spit me out in a central area. I screamed and tried to gather my bearings, falling backward. That jolted me back to the corridor from whence I’d come. My eyes narrowed and I waved an arm in front of me, watching it disappear through an invisible sheen. There was some kind of portal here, which was further evidence of how they could manipulate space and time.
I suppose that makes sense in this weird fucking abductee world. That’s how they ripped me away from the battlefield. What are they really doing? Do they need manpower for something, maybe? They said they were “understaffed,” so that might be why they tried to trick me.
“Fuck it,” I grunted, shaking my head like it’d been dunked in cold water. “I guess we’re walking through portals now. Just…gotta get out.”
I leapt through the invisible gateway like I was hopping over a small brook, and found myself back in the lounge area. The walls were shredded and a lot of the upholstery is on fire. This was chaos! The other Arata had already tried to revolt against the aliens and escape? My palms raised in front of me defensively, ready to fight the first extraterrestrial that came my way. A hand grabbed me by my neck frills and dragged me backward; the panic spike was sudden, as I whirled around.
“Shhh!” a Treysyl shushed me, pulling me back behind cover. “We control this portal here, but this station is crawling with Pelsyl. The fucking xenos brought them back too. You a soldier?”
I blinked several times. “Yeah. I just got here. What’s—”
“No time! Here.” The Treysyl shoved a dislocated pipe segment into my hands, and gestured out toward the cafeteria. “We can’t let them take over the alien tech first! They’ll run back and give it to their bastard brothers, and we won’t exist anywhere. Those uncivilized louts aren’t getting control of this place.”
“Where are the aliens?” I shouted.
“Don’t know. We reckon they might be some kind of pacifists that want us to reconcile in the here ever after, but those Pelsyl could never change their rotten ways. They’re unworthy of the air they breathe. It’s time we sent them back to being dead.”
“Back to being dead? Don’t tell me you buy that whole ‘we died’ crap.”
He chuckled. “As a matter of fact, I do. We’ll talk later! Just crack some skulls. We charge them as soon as they make a break for the utensils. Closest thing those humans have to an armory.”
I didn’t have time to litigate whether we’d died or not, but I was glad to have the chance to fight the Pelsyl that I’d been denied. This was all their fault! I wouldn’t be here in this wretched place if their attack and their wickedness hadn’t gotten the xenos’ attention. As long as any of their kind breathed on this station, we couldn’t rest peacefully; if these Pelsyl were supposed to have died, I saw fit to return things to their natural order.
I tapped the pipe against my palm, tensed my muscles, and rushed into the open space as soon as I saw movement. Those crazy savages had removed their shirts and tied them to the end of weapons, lighting them on fire. I hesitated at the open flames, but the aliens seemed to have some kind of fire suppression system that was triggered; it doused the incendiary weapons with targeted precision. The Pelsyl cursed, but had no time to reevaluate before we began bludgeoning each other.
Those lacking improvised weapons brawled with their fists. I clubbed one of the stout fuckers clean on the snout; he had blackened eyes just like the aliens, which somehow made it possible for a Pelsyl to seem like less of a person. His nose cracked and twisted sideways, spurting blood. I did a double take as it straightened and sealed before my eyes. How the heck did that injury magically heal?! How did we kill something like that…was this the aliens’ way of stopping us?!
Damn it! Do those xenos have no limits to their powers? How do I get that? It must be related to the black eyes! Fuck, maybe I have to take those nanobot thingies.
The Pelsyl laughed with newfound arrogance, before taking gleeful swipes at me. I ducked as the enemy swung the stick at my head. Chaos ensued as pairs grappled each other into furniture, and many faces looked bloodied. What I wouldn’t give for a gun. I backed away with hesitancy, though I knew if I gave too much ground, he’d have a clean break for the kitchen knives.
Adrenaline rushed through my veins, before I lunged at him and pushed the blunt instrument back from up close. We wrestled for control, straining until my muscles, which were much weaker and wobbly than I was used to, burned. Water had pooled on the floor, causing the Pelsyl to slip as I pushed him backward enough. I landed on top of him and started whaling him with the pipe, hoping I could deal enough damage that not even the alien technology could fix it.
“ENOUGH!” A thunderous, amplified female voice echoed straight into my eardrums, enough to make me flinch and grab at them. All eyes turned in the direction of the alien floating twenty feet in the air, enough to rise high above our heads. She slowly lowered herself straight in our midsts and glowered in all directions, eyes smoldering. “I tire of this game, on my station no less. You will cease your squabbling at once!”
“Really? Make us! Fuck you!” a Pelsyl shouted, charging her before I could get the same idea myself.
My fear of seeing one in the flesh had made me hesitate, but I was of the same mind to take her out; she’d abducted us, and that made her enemy number one of any Arata on the station. This human was stranger than the one on film, with long, curly dark hair and an enlarged skull. That gave the Pelsyl an easier target to conk her on the back of the head. The alien didn’t budge; instead, the metal pipe he’d swung at her—which had been plenty solid, mind you—shattered and cut his hands. He yelped and doubled over.
The Pelsyl gulped and raised his palms. “S-sorry, um, look…”
“Is that the best you can do?” The Watcher slowly turned toward her assailant with a cold scowl. She materialized a spinning circle of blades in front of her and lit them on fire, perhaps trying to intimidate us. “Disperse! I said I’ll get you separate accommodations as soon as I can, but you’ll just have to wait! Fuck’s sake!”
We can’t live when they still exist right next to us. This alien freak doesn’t get it at all! But what the fuck are her powers even?! She’s nuts! She broke fucking metal!
Some Aratas were frightened into submission, but others had resumed swinging at each other; I was of the same mindset, since there was no way that alien could stop all of us. I reared back to keep swinging at the Pelsyl, before an impossibly strong magnetic force ripped it backward as I clung to it. I dropped it and rolled to the ground painfully. Right, no metal. I roared before leaping back at my prey with flying fists. However, I kept flying and crashed into the wall, before floating there with a groan.
Others were flailing as they swam in midair, trying to stay locked onto each other. I pushed off the wall, trying to grab at my target. The alien remained rooted to the ground, despite having turned off the gravity for the rest of us. Seeing that being pulled from the ground hadn’t snapped us, she simmered and snapped her fingers. It turned back on in a second with immense intensity, enough that I couldn’t move against the pull once I crashed hard into the ground. I felt like I weighed a million pounds.
I groaned and cursed, while she walked over bodies and studied us with judgmental eyes.
“Well, for those of you who are new here, I’m Watcher Sagua-svran Carter. I’m responsible for ensuring your safe transition to the afterlife and maintaining order on this station, which you are making incredibly difficult,” the human growled. “I am not your enemy, but do not trifle with me. We give you the gift of eternal life, and save your lives to go anywhere in the infinite multiverse, and this is what you do with it? What a dull, unflattering, short-sighted hatred that possesses you all!”
The Pelsyl who’d tried to take her out struggled against gravity, and strained to speak. “You don’t know what they’re like! They’re monsters. And now they don’t even stay dead, thanks to you! Our sacrifices were for nothing!”
Sagua gritted her teeth, her patience waning as both sides cried out in assent. “Look around! Would you and all of the people that you’re standing alongside rather have stayed dead? Good grief! We can create universes; we can make two separate ones to put you each in, if you can’t bear the other existing in the same reality. But you’ll not continue your stupid-ass war on this station! Show some patience and goddamn restraint!”
“Let us go home!” I shouted, before losing my voice as her head turned my way.
“You’re not in a position to dictate anything to us. Your home is for the living! We could’ve let you Aratas kill each other off. Don’t test me again. Since I can’t trust you to walk away like sane people who saw the light, I’m going to teleport you all back to your rooms. One by one. I’ll block off the station and keep you separated, as best as I can. If you still get at each other, you can have a hundred years of lockdown and solitary confinement if it strikes my fancy! Knock it the fuck off!”
Sagua’s eyes landed on two Treysyl, and she whisked them away through her will; it was like they were blinked out of existence. Several gasps and fearful murmurs rippled throughout the Aratas, as many of us began to realize she was the most powerful adversary we faced. I watched, immobilized and helpless to do anything about it, as she waltzed across the room and disappeared small groups at a time. It dawned on me that she could send us anywhere.
If Sagua willed it and tired of us, she could teleport us outside of the station, into the vacuum of space. She could turn up the gravity that doesn’t seem to be affecting her at all, until it splattered us all in a second. We need a better plan to escape. She is terrifying. They can make entire new universes?!
I swallowed hard as her footsteps drew nearer, and she stopped to look down at me with deadened eyes. I’d never felt smaller and more trapped in my life, when it was so effortless for Sagua to control me and everyone else. The laws of nature obeyed her whims; with that technological level, her powers were godlike. A pitiful whimper bubbled in my throat, as the human’s finger gave the slightest twitch. The world changed around me, like a new slide had been cast in front of my face.
I stared anew at the same room I’d woken up in, having been sent right back where I came from with a simple wish for me to begone. Gravity had relaxed its grip. My skull felt fractured from crashing into the wall, and blood was oozing from my busted lip; the throbbing pain began to intensify, once the adrenaline eased. I hadn’t had time to ask for a doctor, but I remembered the immediacy of the Pelsyl’s healing. Was it worth it to inject myself with alien machines? Their powers were tempting.
Curiosity was one hell of a motivator, because I was itching to taste their capabilities as my own. It was my only hope of healing anyway, since it’d apparently take an estimated [108 days] to talk to a Watcher and ask for medical help. Having decided if Sagua wanted to impose her will on me, nothing could’ve stopped her, I scrambled for the nanobot syringe and injected myself. An unbearable wave of creepy-crawlies raced out from the injection site and spread like electricity.
I arched my chest upward and screamed, writhing on the ground from the pure overstimulation. It was an itch I couldn’t reach all over; in every organ and orifice, swarming and eating at my skin. The facial pain dulled from a fuzzy warmth, and I could feel a shifting and melding in my cheekbone. Forcing myself to sit upright, I touched a hand to my face. Good as new! Now how to get these things out? I jabbed the syringe into my arm several times, but nothing happened.
Great. I was stuck with an insufferable infestation of the blood while an omnipotent alien was keeping a watchful eye on us, able to send me right back here on a whim if I ever managed to escape. This all looked quite bleak and hopeless, for me to have a normal life and return to my people’s cause…unless I came up with a different strategy. Regardless of how much of a long shot it was, I had to try to get out of here by any means necessary.
A/N - 2! Aratas fighting continues in the afterlife, forcing Sagua and the Watchers to intervene. This display of seeming omnipotence terrifies Lucren, who remains consumed by his hostility toward the Pelsyls. How should the Watchers handle this? Is there any way to reconcile the two sides, or will they attract both sides’ animosity against themselves?
As always, thank you for reading and supporting!