Page 2 of Chained

I shudder at the thought of the place. Sartak is like hell’s boiler. Factory after factory churning out weaponry. Admittedly the small forge where the swords and daggers were made was marginally more pleasant. The ancient old Lepke, his downy wings shriveled almost to nothing and with only half an antenna left, who sold us the blades had a calmness about him which soothed my soul.

And a knowing look in his eye which made me terrified he might say something out loud to Retah.

My boss is kind in his own way, but I don’t dare tell him the complete truth. I don’t want to lose this job, and until I can make myself indispensable, he can’t know what I’m hiding.

Maybe then he’ll be prepared to accept what he’s taken on.

I make my way as quickly as I can to the sanitary facility in the back part of his dwelling nearest the armory and plonk myself down, leaning my forehead on the cool wall next to me, attempting to get a grip on the nausea which rises and rises.

My hand involuntarily goes to my stomach. Not that there’s much to show, but it doesn’t have to. I was abducted from Earth shortly after I watched two blue lines appear on a pregnancy test. Going out for a walk at six o’ clock on a windy winter’s night over Dartmoor from my rented cottage to “clear my head” was not the best idea, but then neither was the terrible drunken one-night stand which put me in this situation.

I’m pregnant, and the father is a million light years away.

MAXYM

The cold water hits me full in the chest. I open my wings.

“You’re going to have to try harder than that,” I snarl at the three clerks who want me to drop my weapons.

I eat up all the violence I can get, and the dome provides all the sustenance I need.

The water increases, and I don’t relinquish my weapons. I did well today. I vanquished everything in the dome. I deserve praise, not punishment.

“Stand down,” the captain, a Xnosson bull who claims to have been a gladiator once, stands to one side, watching the efforts of the clerks.

The water is shut off.

“Do you want me to use the net again?” he asks gruffly. “Because I will if you don’t drop your weapons.”

My head pounds. I want to lie down somewhere cool and quiet, but the ever-present violence bubbles up again from within.

On the other side of the ante chamber, Klynn roars out his anger as he glares over at me.

I know where he’s going. It’s where I want to be too. I open my wings, staring the captain straight in the eye.

“Don’t do this, Maxym,” he growls. “Don’t make me follow you. I’ve better things to do than chase you down.”

I beat down once, the draft knocking two of the clerks off their feet.

“Do you really want to live off pikrats for the next three nova-days?” the captain says, exasperated.

What I consume is not uppermost in my mind as I fling the sword and dagger at him and get airborne. It takes less than a nova-second to be out of the ante-chamber and, with Klynn hot on my feathers, it takes no time at all to descend into the undercroft, swooping through the struts which hold up the dome and going deeper into the foundations until all is silent.

Silence helps the feral rage I can’t control anymore. The darkness, the chill, the damp—it tests my body and makes me forget what I am.

If I even know.

Somewhere above me, there is a snarl, quickly cut off. Klynn follows me to make the dome guards work for their credits, he has no desire to be in the undercroft or consume pikrats. He only exists to make life difficult for others.

I don’t know if I exist at all.

My life was bad enough when I was accused of murder and sent to the dome. Now with the volcano of rage I feel after the head injury which saw me in the medi-bay for more time than I care to remember, it’s even worse. The rage I have is uncontrollable.

It left me feral, needing the violence of the dome to keep me from ripping every living thing I encounter limb from limb.

I slump in the dark. It’s filled with the dripping of water and the occasional scurry of a wary pikrat. They’ll become curious soon, too curious, and I’ll have a disgusting meal.

It’s all the turmoil deserves. It’s all I deserve.

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