Page 37 of Torn from the Alien Commander

My arm is now almost down to just the shoulder. Numerous slivers of my flesh and bone litter the floor, covered in my sweat and blood. The stench of cooked flesh and singed blood fills the air. My body grows hot, but my skin is sickly pale, my life leaking out of me.

Yet the questions always come. “What were your orders? Who were your targets?” The soulless one repeats, the count lost to me. His tone grows impatient.

My only answer is manic laughter. I’m beyond words now. They’re useless things against the pain that never stops. Instead, my eyes meet his, wisps of gold spilling out, yearning to break free and crush their voiding faces, them and all the cursed Nebians.

The soulless one sighs, while the other chimes in with an eager tone. “I’ve often wondered if the beast’s fury originates from their optic nerve. May I proceed?”

“Very well, Decimux,” the leader replies, waving a dismissive hand.

I laugh, marveling at how such simple gestures and words could carry such heavy weight, each modest syllable a plethora of pain and torment to be endured.

The gleaming white arm of the robot shoots out, clutching my head in an unbreakable grip, locking me in place. Its other arm draws closer, poised with a thin, sharp device with fanned clamps resembling a deadly metal flower resting at the edge of my vision. My breath hitches, and I squirm, desperate to move, to close my eyes, but I can’t. The edges of the device have clamped my eyelids open.

The pointed needle appears a blur sitting before my eyeball. I tremor, awaiting the soul-crushing suffering. I don’t have to wait long as the needle shoots into my eye in an explosion of gut-wrenching agony. A powerless roar escapes my lips, feeling the device in my skull fanning out to sever my optic nerve. The sensation of my vision spinning before going dark is nauseating, and if not for the collar, I’d be puking onto the floor.

I weep tears of blood as the robotic arm retracts, taking my eye with it, leaving me a breathless heap of torment as the empty socket registers its loss with cascading torrents of agony. My skin burns with a pitiless effort to move, to clutch my wound, but even that is denied to me. I’m left with a hollow space where my sanity once resided.

“Hmm,” the fragile one muses, as the robot steps back a few paces. Through a dangling head and one blurry eye, I watch in stupefaction as the machine makes small incisions into my stolen eyeball. “How disappointing,” he declares as green lights emit from the robot’s chest, bathing my dissected organ. “Just a normal eye, sadly. Seems the beast’s secrets still elude us.”

The soulless one sighs as the robot deposits the remnants of my eye into a nearby bin. “What does it matter? Their flesh is weak compared to our robotics,” he interjects, sounding increasingly frustrated. As blood drips down my left cheek, I cansense his focus turning to me. “What were your orders? Who were your targets?”

“Alliance...” I rasp out, enjoying the quiet drip, drip of my blood onto the floor and the fleeting relief from having no parts currently being sawed off.

“Still, he clings to this delusion!” The soulless one says in frustration. “Decimux, give him a triple dosage of truth serum.”

“With all due respect, Praetorian Prefect, that amount may kill him.” The hazy response comes, the words like the sweetest elixir—a hint of the end.

“No, this one’s strong. He should survive the process,” the soulless one retorts.

Not if the Gods are kind.

I’m vaguely aware of the robot approaching, overcome by the deep throbbing agony of burning aches and torn body parts. It’s difficult to be certain. I feel a needle being jammed into my neck as a hissing sound of compressed air reaches my aching senses.

It prompts me to jolt awake as if from a nightmare, drawing in a deep breath through lungs that were too sore moments ago for such actions. My heart thunders in my chest like a stampeding herd of aurodons as the room warps and bends. The once sterile white now melds with deep shades of purples, blues, and reds.

The door to the medical lab turned torture chamber opens in slow motion, revealing the void of space behind it, churning in an endless mass of stars. But from the void steps the soulless one, transformed into a ten-feet-tall figure with the face of a venefex and the horns of an aurodon. He approaches in a swirling throng of colors with such slowness I wonder If I may die before he reaches me.

“I’ve disabled communication. It’s just you and me,” the netherworld spawn says, his words undulating, some syllables hastened while others slow, creating a confusing mass of noise. “Decimux isn’t a soldier like us. You think I want to do this toyou, an honorable adversary? Tell me what I wish to know and I promise you a quick, clean death, Decimux’s experiments be damned.”

His strange words wash over me as my mind and vision swim, lost in a sea of colors. Then shapes form, conjuring from countless specks merging. They form a myriad of purple flames, positioned in a semi-circle as if observing me. I gasp, watching them flicker, drawing strength from their presence that fills me with a sense of soothing warmth.

Some flames shimmer, becoming more distinct, more real. Actual tears fall from my remaining eye as I recognize their faces. Astraxius looks on with a warm smile, his blue eyes glowing. Alongside him, my mother with her long crimson hair and father, who smiles, looking like a wiser version of me. Behind them stand my grandparents on either side, and their parents behind them, stretching on for eternity until they appear like twinkling stars among the cosmos.

“I can’t go on, I can’t endure this,” I lament, feeling the tears and blood spilling down my cheeks, my shoulders shaking, struggling to contain my overwhelming emotion.

It’s Astraxius who speaks, the one who practically raised me. “Just a little longer now, Xandor,” he promises with a look of sympathy, while my heart soars hearing his wise old voice again, wishing I could join him and leave this place.

The netherworld spawn awaits below, now appearing tiny at my feet. “You can go on, just speak the words and it’ll all be over.” His muddled voice seems so distant and pointless.

“Astraxius, take me with you! I can’t take this living nightmare,” I plead, my gaze boring into his and the others, a sign of my desperation.

It’s my mother who responds, her voice entering my mind, “In due course, my noble son. But first you must complete the cycle.”She beams, her red eyes full of love—a love I hardly knew. The bastard Scythians stole her so young.

“Yes, you can join Astraxius as soon as you tell me what your mission was,” the netherworld spawn chirps in the background.

“Haven’t I suffered enough!” I demand, my voice laced with righteous anger. “Who else has endured so much for so little? Noble son, you say? I am cursed.”

“And what of Rebecca? Would you leave her behind, lost and alone?” My father speaks his proud voice so strong and noble. How I wish I could’ve known him better.

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