Page 21 of Rebirth

I can’t.

“My father,” I say, and as the words tumble from my mouth, I wonder why I’m about to tell him this. Wonder if it’s probably my way of processing the creature before me. The terror just the sight of it creates in my being. “My father was convinced the world would end one day.” I can’t pull my eyes away from the thing. “By disease.” I swallow hard, forcing myself to remain steady. To remain still. “Something that causes human society to collapse. An apocalypse. He built a bunker for that purpose. Stacked it with everything he’d need to last him a few months. A few years if he could go out and forage. Hunt.” A breath shudders through me as the alien behind the glass keeps my gaze, unmoving, and yet so threatening even though it’s locked away. “He used to make me face terrible things so I wouldn’t be afraid.” I swallow hard again. “Like videos of Ebola victims bleeding from their eyes, and photos of smallpox pustules erupting the skin. He’d describe how society would fall apart if disease ran rampant.”

I take a step closer to the cylinder, eyes still on the thing staring back at me. “We’d go hunting together. He had me kill and gut animals when I was only six years old. Said if I could handle that, I could handle any crisis.” I swallow hard again when I come to stand just about a foot away from the towering cylinder, head tilting back as I look up at the thing. “He was a popular doctor, always worried about impending doom. I grew up convinced the world would end before I reached adulthood.” Above me, the thing floats so large, so unmoving, yet, with my trek across the room, I know it followed me the entire way. There are no pupils, but I can feel its focus. It doesn’t move, yet I know it’s alive. “I became an epidemiologist because of him. Because I wanted to understand what made him so afraid.” I step closer, hand against the glass. “He died working in a hastily constructed research lab, trying to contain an Ebola outbreak. Always preparing for disaster. In the end, disaster found him.”

I stare at the thing before me, not sure if my story made sense. If the alien at my back will understand my unspoken words. But movement to my right, a white shadow in my periphery, tells me he comes closer.

“You are attracted to it, even though you fear it. Through your progenitor’s lessons, you have learned to face your fear.”

A glance at the Vullan and I realize those ice-cold eyes are scrutinizing me.

“You did the same before. With me,” he says. “You did not run.”

“I wanted to.”

“Like you want to now.”

I nod.

“Will you?”

I swallow hard, turning my gaze back to the thing before me. “No.”

It’s massive. Like an oversized octopus, except with fewer arms. Thicker arms and no suction cups that I can see. Grey. Fleshy. It’s about three feet long from the top of its head to where its legs begin, but the length of the legs puts it taller than seven or eight feet. An aquatic species. I can’t imagine something like that walking on land and another chill runs down my spine at the thought that it possibly could. I shudder as I remove my hand from the cylinder and realize it’s still watching me.

“What is it?”

“Gryken.”

There’s a slight rumble in his tone, as if mention of the creature before us, as if saying its name is a crime.

I swallow hard, almost afraid to ask the next question.

“They’re the ones…”

“Who destroyed my world…who tried to destroy yours.”

I stare at the thing, now knowing for sure that I am staring at my enemy.

I want to ask him exactly what happened on his planet. I want to know how he caught this thing. I want to know everything. But other more pressing things need to be discussed.

Like the woman floating in the cylinder next to it and the fact the veins underneath her skin look like an exact map of the ones I saw in the forest.

I turn to her now, another shiver I can’t hold back going down my spine. Her body’s turned slightly and more of her back is visible. Bile rises in my throat as I see the network of dark veins there, crisscrossing over and within her skin.

“She’s…”

“Infested.”

“Can she feel anything?”

“Her consciousness remains out of reach.”

I nod slightly, taking a step toward her cylinder. “You’ve been trying to heal her.”

No answer and I assume I’m correct. “They did this to her.”

Again, no answer, and I’m beginning to realize these Vullan are creatures of few words.

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