Page 60 of Holiday with the Aliens

Silence.

The beast sucked in a deep breath, his chest meeting the cold steel of the band across his chest. His arms had been strung up, held apart, and weakened, cold from lack of blood flow. His head ached and his feet were chained like his arms. Now it was only the band that held him in place, strapped as he was to the buckling wall behind him, his chains fallen away.

Buckling?

The beast grunted and jerked at his chains. With a great heave, he sagged forward and let out a roar as the wall behind him collapsed, making blinding bright light spill into his cell.

He had no memory of how he came here. He did not know his name or his race. He knew only the pain and anger of captivity, only the driving need to escape and reap his vengeance. Though he didn’t know who deserved his hate and who was innocent.

He didn’t care.

With the wall went the chains, and he stepped out into the light, on top of a crumbled mess of black metal that burned under his feet. Those feet were tinged with purple, but that was wrong. He knew that he shouldn’t look like that, that he’d looked different long ago.

But the thought dissolved as soon as he tried to latch onto it and pull it close to the island of his mind.

The light fell on his arm and illuminated letters written in jagged script.

A R E S T

Had he done that to himself? Marked the letters to remember who he was? Or was it another thing that had been done to him? The beast didn’t know. But he tasted the letters, let them roll across his tongue. “Arest.” His voice was rusty, nails and glass shards gliding across his vocal chords. But the beast tried again. “Arest.” This time, he said it with more force and ignored the pain.

Yes, Arest. He liked this word, it was his. It washim.

Arest looked around, whether for an escape path or survivors, he wasn’t sure. Acrid smoke tickled his nose and he raised a hand to ward it off, almost carving his eye out with the huge claws coming out of his first and second knuckles.

No, that was wrong, too, just as wrong as his skin. But as he scuffled over the hard metal of his prison, the thought drifted away and joined the others on a faraway shore.

Arest made it to the ground and padded away from the building on naked feet. The only thing covering him was a torn pair of dark pants that were covered in filth from the shipand stained with blood. His? He didn’t know. The chill in the air sank into his bones and he couldn’t feel his toes. Instinct prodded him to move, to find warmth, but an insistent strain of the person he’d been before this madness urged caution. Urged preparedness.

He needed food and clothes and shelter. A look out at the vista, the trees and the hills behind him, told him shelter in the forest would be no trouble. But this building—ship—could contain the food and clothing that he needed to survive the coming night.

He found another entrance and forced his way in, pushing aside a fallen passenger who no longer breathed. His mind did not rebel at the sight of the victim. He knew this was not the first body he’d seen, and he knew that he had not caused this death.

Not like all the others.

The memory danced around him like a butterfly and fluttered away, the tantalizing hint strong enough to make him falter for a moment. He’d killed people? Because he was a beast? The dancers turned into fighters, stabbing at him until he cried out and retreated from the thought.

Arest breathed deep. He found a light bag with clothes inside of it and a small pouch filled with what he vaguely recalled were energy bars. He’d been fed these before, he was certain, but not often. Only on long trips.

Where had he gone?

The fighters bounced light on their feet, ready to pounce if he pursued the memory. He let it lie. There would be time for recollection later.

He slung the bag over his shoulder and took a step further into the ship, but the ground underneath gave way and his leg sank down to the knee in a crack in the floor. Arest gasped as pain shot up and sprang back, pulling his leg with him. A wide gash was torn in his pants from knee to ankle and dark red bloodspread across the already stained fabric. He stumbled back, heading blindly for the door and jumping down to the snow below.

An arena flashed in his mind, chains and whips and cheering crowds. But it all dissolved before he could focus.

Before he could get to his feet, a shot rang out and a small arrow embedded itself in his chest. On instinct, Arest grabbed it and tore it out, flinging it to the ground as the person on the other side of the stunner sent the electric current. It tickled his fingers and fizzled on the ground at his feet.

His eyes snapped up and he caught sight of a man in a torn black uniform, hat askew and stun shooter in his hand. Hate surged through Arest and he saw red, the dancers and fighters and violent storms in his thoughts whirling and zooming until there was only the fight, only violence.

He sprang at the man, higher and farther than a normal person should have been able to jump, which was briefly puzzling. But he didn’t care. Not now. He rolled out of the jump and came up behind the man in a blink, hands clamping on his head, claws digging in as he jerked his neck to the side and heard the crack, felt the man go limp.

In the scuffle, he hadn’t even jostled his bag. Arest let the man fall to the ground and gave one last look at the ship. Fire sprouted from somewhere towards the top, smoke billowing out of a crack in the wall. His ears tickled as he strained to hear any other threats. But all he heard was the creaking groans of the ship settling into the ground.

He wasted no more time and ran for the hills behind him. It wasn’t safe, not if there were more men with weapons.

Chapter Two

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