Episode 35
If the font is purple, Erin
Keller is telling the story.
If the font is yellow, Alan Christopher is telling the tale.
Prologue
As
I opened my weary eyes to the sight before me, the thick, corrosive air
immediately forced them shut.
The burning sensation was almost unbearable; tears welled up and seeped
through my closed eyelids, streaming down my cheeks like tiny waterfalls. Quickly, so not to look silly, I brushed
them away and forced myself to look somewhat composed.
But I could
not.
I was trapped
in a sea of dead bodies. Most were
naked; all were in some state of gruesome decay. Patches of skin had blackened and crumpled away. Bones protruded through the skin, leaking
blood and other bodily fluids onto the filthy brown floor. The bodies were carelessly thrown into
massive piles, most of which were two or three times taller than me. The looks frozen onto their faces—or what
was left of their faces—ranged from pure, utter terror, to relief, to some
strange medium in between, and as I walked amidst the mountains of dead, some
part of me, deep down inside, would have gladly welcomed death to escape the
horrific scene.
The mounds of
dead bodies had already weakened me.
The sight of dead children, who were clearly violated and killed in the
most gruesome means imaginable, was never a pleasant one; I recoiled at the
very thought. But the closer I came to
the bodies, the more reality started to strike. With each subsequent step, my nostrils were attacked with the nauseating,
putrid stench of death. My stomach
twisted and turned; I could feel the vomit climbing my esophagus into the back
of my throat. I tried to force it down,
and succeeded—to an extent, but the pungent stench of decay was so powerful
that it seemed to be suffocating me with its brutally potent breath.
My throat and
nostrils burned, and my eyes watered yet again. I could feel a thick layer of grime covering my body like a
blanket, smothering me in its vile, insipid grasps. I very much wanted to escape, but amidst the mountains of bodies,
I didn’t know where to go. The dead were
everywhere.
My boots
sloshed through the reddish-brown muck on the floor, collecting the stench and
bringing it with me. Now, there would
be no escape from it. I stopped,
feeling my stomach beginning to rebel once more. Slowly, I lowered my head, closed my eyes and cupped my mouth,
hoping I could keep down whatever digestive juices were fighting to come up.
I sighed, and
slowly opened my eyes to the shallow pool of dirt and blood below me, and
almost started to move on—when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a
small, blood-covered hand coil up into a fist.
Quickly, my
eyes followed the little hand to a little arm and a little body. It was broken, blood-covered, and naked,
aside from a few well-placed loincloths.
He was severely beaten, ailing from jaundice, and violently
trembling. Almost dead—but not quite.
I wanted to
help him so very much, but as I frisked the front of my uniform, I discovered I
had nothing to offer him in the way of help, not even a phaser to put him out
of his misery. So I decided the least I
could do was comfort him in his final moments.
Slowly, I
reached out for the boy’s small, bony shoulder and turned him to face me. His head effortlessly rolled over to my
direction, popping his toothless mouth open—toothless no doubt, because the
Lycorians had extracted his teeth for reprocessing. I shuddered at the very thought, and reached to close the child’s
mouth, when his eyes darted open.
I had been
expecting a pair of bloodshot, yellow eyes.
Instead, two vibrant green spheres greeted me, glowing satanically in
the poor lighting of the internment facility.
Acting on pure instinct, I jumped back—but not soon enough. The boy’s arm was extended, and reaching for
my shoulder.
He reached out
for me with a stern force I had not expected, firmly planting his cold, clammy
hand on my left shoulder and squeezing.
I could feel his fingernails digging into my back, deeper and deeper
until yelped out in pain. Quickly, I
tried to dislodge his hand, but as I did so, I noticed that I was no longer
dealing with the boy.
“You. Killed.
Me.”
It was a Velora
guard, and I recognized him well—his pale green skin, his demonic green eyes,
the tiny bumps running along the side of his head… the malevolent smirk on his
face… Yes I knew him. And he spoke the truth—I had thrown him into
a baryon induction field without an ounce of hesitation.
The guard’s
eyes narrowed to slits. “Murderer!”
he rasped with a conviction in his voice that sent a chill down my spine. “Murderer!” he repeated, allowing his
accusation to hang in the air for several moments as his malevolent smirk took
hold of his face.
Within a few
seconds, I could hear a haunting chorus in the background, chanting the guard’s
accusation over and over again.
“Murderer!”
“Murderer!”
“Murderer!”
And then,
one-by-one, the dead bodies came to their feet, continuing their satanic
chant. The majority of them were naked,
beaten and missing limbs, yet they somehow managed to walk, taking a step
toward me with each subsequent repetition of their chorus. I was surrounded, and at the center of my
troubles, the guard with his hand firmly entrenched on my shoulder—and he was
grinning. “Murderer,” he whispered
under his breath.
The chorus drew
closer. I could begin to pick out faces
I recognized—they were all Velora; they were all dead; and they were all killed
by me.
I blinked, and the guard was suddenly
standing erect at my side. He flashed
me a curious smile, and then stepped behind me, whispering, “Your turn…”
The chorus was
suddenly armed, and taking aim on me…
“Fire!” called
out the guard.
And I bolted up
in my bed.