Page 6 of Reaper

As that thought crossed my mind, Brees stirred against me. She unfolded and looked at me questioningly before turning her dragon head towards the door. Her eyes were dull, almost haggard. Her scales, once shiny and colorful, looked ashen.

I projected to her an image of sparks. She nodded and approached the door with heavy steps. Rising on shaky legs, I had to kneel back down for a moment to fight the dizzy spell that washed over me. Getting back up, I half-walked, half-stumbled to the door. Just as I was reaching for it, a loud bang on the other side scared the living daylights out of me. I pressed myself against the door, as if to keep it shut, my heart pounding into my throat. Straining my ears, I listened for any other sound that might reveal what was happening on the other side while the other Creckels stirred.

Brees bumped her snout on my thigh, telepathically projecting the image of the corridor. A million thoughts exploded in my mind, but I couldn’t latch onto a single one or make sense of anything in my weakened and terrified state. Pushing the door with shaky hands, Brees helping me with her forehead, I opened it onto the long hallway of the base. Normally, I shouldn’t have been able to see anything at the end in the semi-darkness that now permanently reigned below. But light trickled in from the elevator shaft. It was nowhere near enough to fully light the area, but it allowed me to see the outline of a large boulder-like object.

The wall behind it appeared the same as it had been for the past two decades. That meant there was only one place that large rock could have come from.

Could it be?

I felt dizzy and euphoric all at once. Something had made it fall. Someone…? As I made my way down the corridor with drunken steps, an odd buzzing sound reached my sensitive ears. Weak at first, it grew in strength as if a huge fly was approaching. My steps faltered as I wondered what could be making that sound. It was organic, not that of a hovering device. Brees moved ahead, soon followed by the other adult Creckels.

The female froze, and she immediately took on a menacing stance that had my stomach drop to my feet.

“No fucking way!” whispered a male voice filled with awe and disbelief.

A violent shiver ran through me at the sound of another human voice, of words spoken in a language I hadn’t heard in twenty years since the passing of my mother. I rushed forward, almost stumbling on my own feet in my eagerness to see who it belonged to. But then my blood turned to ice. Time appeared to slow as the Creckels all bared their teeth at the stranger who was lowering into view. Black, glistening, blade-like darts protruded from beneath the scales on the tails of the Creckels.

My mind was suddenly bombarded by images of the half-moon shaped Kryptid horn, followed by an image of me inside the great hall, hiding. No! He couldn’t be a Kryptid. They didn’t speak Universal so fluently and without a thick, clicking accent. They didn’t fly. They didn’t have human legs like the ones I could somewhat see descending from the shaft. Kryptids had three-segment legs.

“I come in peace!” the male exclaimed before throwing his arm in front of him. “We’re here to rescue you!”

For a split second, I thought he was brandishing a weapon to shoot us, but then, in a blinding glow of energy, a rectangular shield appeared in front of him. At the same time, the Creckels whipped their tails forward, launching a barrage of poisoned darts at the intruder.

“NOOOOOOO!” I shouted, my voice cracked from disused and dehydration.

However, it was too late. The male dodged in an attempt to avoid the darts, but there were too many in the narrow space. His shield sparked from the numerous impacts before collapsing, the rest of the darts finding their mark. The cracking sound of chitin armor—a sound I recognized well from the Creckels’ uprising against the Kryptid Soldiers—resonated in the hallway before the male plummeted to the ground. His body landed at a bad angle partially on the boulder and partially on the ground.

“No. No. No. No. No,” I whispered as I rushed to his side.

There was no question that he possessed the Deynian horn of the Kryptids. His cheeks and forehead had a few chitin scales, and through his damaged armor, I could see what looked like the broken chitin plates that had protected his vital organs before the Creckels’ assault. But his face was undeniably human. So were his arms and legs, and the soft black hair that fell to his shoulders.

“Wake up,” I said to the male, shaking him even though he was clearly beyond help. “Don’t leave me. Please. Please!”

My throat hurt forming the words, while my eyes pricked with the need to shed more ghost tears. Brees projected an image of the half-moon shaped horn that adorned the male’s forehead, her confusion and guilt at the sight of my distress oozing out of her through our mental connection. I wanted to yell and shout at her and the others. For the first time in my life, I wanted to hurt them.

“You’ve killed us all!” I said.

I then projected side by side images of this male’s legs compared to that of a Kryptid, then the insectoid face of a Soldier before rubbing my fingers over the dead male’s features. I picked up his hand and held it next to mine. He had human hands with five fingers made of soft flesh, like me. Kryptid Soldiers had three fingers covered in chitin plates.

“He was coming to aid us!” I added.

I bombarded my companions with images of the empty larvae tanks, of the rotten vegetables, of the starving membrane stalking us, and of the dying alveoli on the ceiling that provided us with a small sliver of oxygen.

And now, we were once more trapped here.

The Creckels all approached me, projecting images of apology, their guilt and remorse oozing through our psychic connection. They had simply wanted to protect me from what they thought was an enemy. I loved them for it, but right now, I was too heartbroken and too angry.

I picked up the male’s hand again and pressed it to my cheek. It was still warm, calloused from having been well used. My throat tightened again at this reminder of human touch—or whatever species that male had been.

The grumbling sound of hunger startled me. My head snapped to the right. My vision was too blurry to clearly see Grol’s expression, but I knew the male Creckel well enough to recognize his eager anticipation before a meal. I stared at him in horror before looking around at the other Creckels. They, too, were hungrily sniffing the male as if he was a large slab of meat. Rationed, he would be enough to last them a couple of weeks.

When I gave Brees a disbelieving look, she lifted her head defiantly. She then projected an image of the young hibernating followed by that of the membrane. Between the two, the choice was obvious. And yet, for the first time in my life, I became afraid of my lifelong companions. My head understood their logic, but my heart couldn’t agree to this. Worse still, in a few days, when my time came, I realized they would probably eat me, too.

Guessing the thoughts running through my mind, Brees shook her head to say no then leaned forward to bump my arm affectionately. I pulled away from her, from them, and from the beautiful stranger that could have been our salvation.

As I made to head back to the great hall, refusing to see what the Creckels would do to his remains, a powerful tingling at the back of my head startled me. At first, I thought it was the precursor to me fainting from hunger, but then I realized it was the effect of a powerful psychic mind connecting to mine. It was very alien and unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.

“Do not be afraid, Janelle,” the stranger mind-spoke to me. “All is well. We are not angry for Reaper’s death.”

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