Page 10 of Taken to Voraxia
The harness. Among the dark red blood and bright blue seed, we found Kiki wrapped in ropes he’d used to restrain her.Sick bastard. She never explained how they work, and I didn’t ask. I don’t want to know. I gather only that they’re painful.
Kiki’s jaw ticks and she leans forward towards me. She underlines the wordsdead body,twice.
I hesitate, then nod. “I don’t want to go into the harness…but you’re not risking your life for mine. I’d rather take the harness knowing you and Svera are alright.”
Kiki’s brilliant gaze flames, even in the little light there is between us. She grunts and stabs her charcoal stick onto the page again.Dead body.The words, in my mind, ring.
Dead body. Hmm, hmm. Plonk, plonk, plonk. Dum dum, dum dum, dum dum. Ssssack.My head cocks. I look right.
Sssack.The sound is strange, coming from far away. Away from the rock-sealed entrance, down the cave’s dark throat.
Kiki and I share a glance.Dum dum, dum dum, dum dum.She stops breathing.Plonk, plonk, plonk, plonk.I stop breathing.Ssack…ssssack.
“This cave is empty, right Kiki?” I say. Kiki doesn’t answer. Her charcoal and pad lie limp in her fingers even if her arms are one magnificent knot of muscle.
My palms are sweaty. I inhale the foul scent of my skin. Human feces. Piss. Trash. Dirt. Sand. Sweat.Fear. Ssssssack. The sound is louder now. Much louder.
We’re both staringhardin the direction of the sound, but the solar lamplight only reaches a few feet before fading into blackness. We need light.Ssssssssssack.
I lurch into motion and quickly grab the backpack, dumping its contents unceremoniously on the hard stone between my legs. Rifling through supplies, I grab my solar torch, shake it until it beams a brilliant orange and aim the light into the tunnel’s depths.
Dum dum dum dumdumdumdumdum. For the first instance, I see only cave and more cave and droplets of running water and scattered rocks and then…a flash of opal.
Kiki sucks in a breath, then covers her mouth. I don’t move a muscle. I try not to sweat, not to think, will my heart not to beat.Dumdumdumdumdumdum.Ssssssssssack.
Thud.In the circular orange glow of my torch, a foot touches down. Or a hand. A paw. A limb of some kind belonging to no creature I’ve ever seen before — no creature I’ve ever even heard of.
Whatever body part that is, is lined in knives with serrated edges. In the artificial light, they glimmer like water.Claws,they’re called claws.
The beast takes another slow, languid step towards us, leaving my torchlight to pan across the entirety of its enormous, abominable body where I can now seeseventhick, muscular arms, two razor-lined mouths pointing in opposite directions, and a short forehead full of beady green eyes watching me back.
“Kiki…” I whisper shakily, voice pitched as a question.
As if in response, thethingat the far end of the tunnel unleashes anothersssssssackkand all at once, its seven claw-tipped arms begin working in unison to drag itself forward. Closing the distance between us.
Kiki’s hand is suddenly on my arm, jerking me into motion. She throws me towards the rock-covered entrance and even though she’s just shy of my height, she’s stronger.
I trip and fall, scree and larger rocks scattering around me. The cuts on my hands from shoveling rocks to get into this cave reopen, but I don’t care. We need to get out of here.
I start flinging rocks aside desperately, undoing all the work of the past quarter solar. I’m surprised when Kiki doesn’t join me immediately and when I glance over my shoulder, it’s to see the unthinkable — Kiki facing off against the creature.
“Kiki, don’t you dare think about trying the Grabar on that thing!” But I know her too well to be surprised when she pulls three pieces of metal out of the wrap on her thigh and fixes them together to form the weapon I made for her a rotation ago out of foraged Gra’en fibers and the steel trunk of Svera’s parents outdoor umbrella.
Even though the Gra’en will allow her to shock and cut at the same time, I’d never have gifted it to her if I thought she might try to use it against a creature like this — a monster with a wingspan the length of two aliens and two mouths each the size of Kiki’s own head, pointed in opposite directions, a smattering of beady, slick eyes between them.
“Kiki, use the amp!” I shout to her, but there’s no time for her to respond. The thing is on us now and Kiki is running forward to meet it. I need to get us out.
Sunlight pours into the cave as I unseat two heavy stones. I’m pushing now, kicking and tossing. I grab one of the smaller stones and heft it as hard as I can in the direction of the thing but it bats the stone easily out of the air without once breaking focus on Kiki.
Kiki lunges for it like a mad woman and the point of her Grabar connects with one of its eyes. Thin rivers of liquid grey pour down the valley between its two mouths.
“Ssssssack!” It screeches, the sound loud enough to make a few more rocks fall. I push a huge rock through, breathing hard and with relief. Now there’s just about enough space for a body to wriggle through. A human body.
“Kiki,” I shout over my shoulder, “Come on!”
I turn and watch in horror as the beast swipes for her chest. It’s fast. Too fast. I almost black out when it comes at her again, but she bends backwards in a move I don’t anticipate and in the next motion, stabs her Grabar up and strikes the thing directly in the center of its face.
It roars again as it recoils and then lashes out — this time with two arms. Kiki jumps over the first paw, but the second manages to clip her thigh.
