Page 60 of Scorching the Alien Empire
Stop!
What’s Mother doing right now? Does she even miss me? Or is she too busy, as always?
Seriously, Lexie? You’re supposed to be clearing your mind, not spiraling into an existential crisis.
I sigh, cracking one eye open. Todd’s chubby body rises and falls in a steady rhythm, his mandibles clicking softly in sleep. How does he do it? How does he just... let go?
For a moment, I consider giving up.
But Dracoth never gave up. Not when he stomped across Earth with his big Bobo the Clown feet. Not when the space hobos attacked our ship. Not when I gave him the cold shoulder. Not when he fought Jazreal and got battered like a forgotten banana in the bottom of a purse. Now he faces—Gods know what—meeting with the murder-bots in their Crucible. And still, Mr. Frowny Face keeps on frowning.
And here I sit, unable to even relax properly!
Well, that’s not good enough. I’m his wife—his Mortakin-Kis. We share an unbreakable bond that roars through my soul, something I never thought possible, something that shouldn’t exist. But it’s real. So fucking real, it makes my heart want to burst.
I will uncover Arawnoth’s secrets. I will stand before his molten greatness.
I close my eyes again, forcing myself to breathe deeply.
One step at a time, Lexie. Just focus on the heat. Focus on Arawnoth’s flames.
I sink deeper, the warmth of the brazier wrapping around me, threading through my limbs, coiling in my core like molten gold. The ship’s hum fades, the scent of bloodroot dulls. My thoughts drift like embers, carried by an unseen current.
A glimmer of something ignites in my chest—faint, fragile, but unmistakable. A heat beyond mere fire. It stretches, reaching for me, or maybe... waiting for me to reach back.
This is it. This is—
Then, like a trap snapping shut, the warmth vanishes.
All of it recedes as I drift into an abyss of blackest night. My hands flutter before me, hazy and slow, moving as if through water. I’m weightless, suspended in some strange dreamworld, yet my mind remains sharp and lucid.
It’s hard to tell in this place of darkness, but I think something pulls me forward. The force gathers speed.
Then—wind. A light breeze threads through my hair, cool and gentle. It should be soothing. But it isn’t.
The breeze grows into a gust. The gust turns into a gale.
The temperature plummets.
Freezing air slashes through me like ice-cold knives, turning my blood to liquid frost.
“No!” I cry into the void. My voice echoes back at me—warped, distorted, mocking. “Take me to Arawnoth’s flames! Not this! Anything but this!”
My heart hammers against my chest as my trembling blue fingers struggle to wrap my cloak tighter around me. The material is useless against this bone-deep cold. The howling wind becomes a deafening roar, like some colossal beast furious at my intrusion.
Then—I see it.
A snow globe of madness appears in the distance, swelling larger with every panicked breath. A blizzard rages inside it, the purest white snow blanketing jagged peaks. The wind howls louder. Frozen pellets of ice lash against the mountains, tearing across the land like an unstoppable force of wrath.
Frantically, I twist and claw my way upward, desperate to escape the frozen hellscape dragging me closer. But it’s useless. It pulls me inexorably into the cradle of this increasingly bitter cold and blistering gales.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing myself to wake up. But my teeth still chatter. My hands still tremble.
This place—this void of warmth—feels too much like the torment I endured when Kazumi died. The emptiness. The cold. Where only her ghost haunts me, those dead, frozen eyes still burning in my mind. Is that what awaits me below? Kazumi’s ghost, and all the others who seek to punish me?
“Arawnoth! I beg you!” My voice rips from my throat, raw and desperate. “Take me away from this place!”
Nothing.
