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Oh my god.
“I encourage you to run…Rhen.”
He’s coming closer.
“While I do not have access to my full functionality in my portable module, I can assess that the incoming target is approaching at a rate of seventy-two miles per hour. If you move now at a rate of nine miles per hour, you will just make it to the entrance…Rhen…”
Am I sitting? No. I’m already up. I turn and start to run, but in my panic, I’m running toward the demon and now, he’s taken a flying leap.
“The target has increased his pace and is now approaching at a rate of eighty-eight miles per hour…Rhen. You will need to increase your speed to eighteen miles per hour in order to reach the safety of the Sucere Chamber…”
I turn and bolt. Am I going eighteen miles per hour? What the fuck is that in kilometers? Who built this ship? Who programmed Pam? With a name like Pam—could it be anyone else?
“Fucking Americans!” I scream at the top of my lungs. My vision is hazy against the dimming light, but I can see the entrance of the Sucere Chamber now shooting out of the ground like a sewer pipe, the top propped open like a lazy person forgot to close a manhole cover.
Me. I’m the lazy person. FUCK.
“The incoming target is now too close for you to successfully reach the Sucere Chamber. I recommend searching for a weapon to defend yourself with…Rhen. You will need to fight…”
“Fight a demon? Fuck you, Pam!”
“Apologies, Rhen, but I need to remind you that I am not a sexual being…”
The weight hits me from behind before I’m anywhere near the Sucere Chamber entrance, and I’m out before I have a chance to find a weapon and fight off the demonic horde as Pam suggested.
ChapterSix
Rhen
The fire is bright against the darkness of the night and, if I hadn’t been attacked, bound, and gagged, I might have been tempted to join in on the fun.
It does look like fun.
The humanish females—yes, they do look like people now that they’re all assembled, which makes their sizes look relatively normal and me, the miniscule aberration—aredancing. I don’t see the demons anymore, the ones who killed the jellybean. Instead, these almost-humans are clapping their hands and jumping higher than I could ever hope to, spinning and twisting and moving their shoulders to the beat of the drums.
Drums are the only instruments being played, hard, angry sounds, and the dancing is a little odd—aggressive, almost. It lacks a certain whimsicality and sensuality that I always liked about dancing. Dancing makes you feel free. Though, I suppose I’m not one to talk about freedom.
I currently find myself seated in the center of the party with my ankles bound to my hands, which are then bound behind my back at the wrists and elbows. I can only sit on my knees. The taut, scratchy rope between my ankles and hands is short. Painfully short, but I did a lot of yoga on the Sucere Chamber with nothing else to do, so I should be okay for a little while longer. Maybe an hour. After that, I’ll cycle back through screaming, crying and begging. Even though those tactics didn’t work the first time around, I’m optimistic for round two.
The sand is hard beneath my shins and knees, but my Sucere uniform is thick enough to stop the individual granules from gouging into my skin, mostly. The smell of smoke is thick, but pleasant. Reminds me of home. Not the war and the fires, but the bonfires and the cookouts.
Electricity was so hit-or-miss and, before the end of my time on Earth—before the bunkers, I mean—nonexistent. Natural gas supply and delivery was never stable. So, eating outside, all together as a neighborhood, was how we dined most nights. The fishermen still went out and hauled in fish. Chickens were still raised by avó Maria and avó Paolina in a lovely little coop on the rooftop of my building. They made the best piri-piri.
There’s something about this party that reminds me so exquisitely of home. I inhale deeply and look around. If I die here—when I die here—I suppose it won’t be so bad. It’ll be like…how it was supposed to have been. Like I died all those hundreds and thousands of years ago. My short weeks awake will have been just a blip in nature’s failure to erase us.
Erasure.
A funny word. Humanity was supposed to have been erased, but clearly, we weren’t. We’re thriving, in a sense. I glance around at the dancers. Certain women—females—are doing an extra-special dance. Twisting and stomping their feet, they’re also carrying heavy-looking objects and passing them out to particular people in the crowd. Every time a warrior receives an item, the warrior exalts and the surrounding crowd cheers. All except for one male wearing what looks like scaled armor on his shoulders, seated several fires back from the main ring, who simply waves them off.
The final remaining tokens are dispersed between the two other warriors here who are also wearing glimmering blue-green scales on their shoulders. Unlike the taller, bulkier scale-wearing male, these two release wild screeches up into the sky every time they receive something.
One of them is swarmed by females while the other sits in a group of mostly males. I cannot figure outwhatthey are, where they came from, how they relate to the other beings here. I also can’t figure out if there’s any type of leadership structure here, which makes it hard to know who to appeal to, who to make big sad eyes at. So instead, I look around at them all, watch as they dance—if you can even call it that—until eventually that leads to uh…moreexcitingdebauchery.
Occasionally, a male will rise from where he's seated and tackle a female, kissing her and…doing more. I watch two males fight over one female, beating each other until blood is drawn. The winner then shoves the female onto hands and knees, flips up her skirts and starts rutting into her immediately. And she’s fucking loving it.
An intimate species, they kiss and love on each other often and freely. Well, notkissso much asbite,and notloveso much asrut. Like their dance, it’s an intimacy seen through the lens of aggression. That anger, that rage, that violence seems to coat everything here like the shimmery fabrics of their tents.
I’ve been trying to figure out what it is, what it’s made of, the material that comprises their tents and these other large sheets tied to huge posts that remind me of the sails of pirate ships, fluttering so lightly in the breeze. Their purpose I have yet to make out, but their aesthetic is undeniably beautiful.
