Chapter 1: The Lurking One

As soon as Etzli burst awake, she knew something was wrong.

Last night, she'd been so wildly nervous about today she couldn't sleep, restlessly flopping back and forth in her bed. Every so often, she checked the clock, got hot with anger at how few minutes had passed, then flipped her pillow over to the cool side and resumed staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

Etzli had tried to ignore the thing in the room.

A comforting image: the slithery creature curled up in a corner, like some kind of pet.

But the thing wasn't sleazing around a corner of the room. It was resting comfortably under her skin. Watching with her eyes. Breathing with her lungs.

Etzli's lone childhood friend, a kind and courageous boy named Benja, once told her she looked "haunted." Ever since, she'd never quite shaken the idea she was a rotting old house infested with an angry ghost.

The thing had lived inside her for as long as she could remember. She spent years hunting for ways to burn it out of her. So far, nothing. No matter what she did, what she tried, it remained with her.

Until she woke up.

The thing inside had disappeared. For the first time in her life, Etzli felt utterly alone. It terrified her.

Etzli was too smart to think the slimy thing had just magically gone away. No, it was still there. Still watching, still breathing.

It had somehow slithered deeper, where she couldn't quite feel its presence anymore. But, just beyond the void it left behind, Etzli sensed a serpentine coiling. A tightening of muscles. Ready to strike.

Etzli climbed out of bed, carefully, so as not to startle the thing back to the surface. She hoped against hope it was sleeping. Perhaps even hibernating. But she knew better.

Staring into the bathroom mirror, Etzli applied dark makeup to her face, accentuating her skull's contours beneath the skin. She added copious amounts of eyeshadow. She left her chin alone, not wanting to cover up her markings.

Etzli had two lines tattooed halfway up her chin. Between them, a third line consisting of half-diamonds ran all the way up to her bottom lip.

Pampaa Topilli called the markings her "sacred ink," and often commented on how beautiful they were, which sometimes led to a long lecture on the importance of facial tattoos among the ancient Meshika culture.

Unfortunately, most people didn't consider her tattoos as nearly so lovely. People usually just stared, often wearing a vaguely disgusted expression.

But, other than her first name, her tribal markings were all she'd inherited from her parents, whoever or wherever they were. Truth was, she'd been abandoned with only two clues about her origin: her name and her tattoos.

Wait, that wasn't true. There was a third inheritance, the one she'd tried to get rid of so many times: the shadowy presence lurking inside.

Etzli dressed in simple, athletic clothing. There'd be plenty of running, jumping, and who knows what else during the Criterion trials. She wrapped a formal robe around herself, slung it over her shoulder, and tied it off. All black. Everything she wore was either black or gray.

As she strapped a ceremonial hatchet to her waist, Etzli glanced out her window. She had a second-floor view of the verdant wood, untamed and untrammeled. Pake was covered in forests, but this one was her home. She'd wandered it for most of her life.

Etzli thumped down to breakfast in her combat boots. She mumbled, "Mornin'."

Pampaa Topilli placed the platter of over-cooked eggs and under-cooked steak in front of her. "Good morning, my Sunshine!"

With a grunt, she dug in.

Pampaa had raised her from the day he found her as a lost infant, nearly 20 years ago. He found her out by the temple gate, weeping and singing to herself at the same time. Or so that's how he told the story of how she came into his care. He often remarked how haunting (that word again) her song had been. But she couldn't remember the song.

Then again, Pampaa Topilli had a habit of exaggerating his stories. He wasn't the most conventional holy man, perhaps a bit too eccentric for most people's taste. But she saw him today as she did when he took her in: he was a warm light in a dark and uncaring universe.

Pampaa towered over her at six-and-a-half feet tall. In his youth, he'd been an imposing figure, but now he had a belly that stuck out to an almost rude degree. He walked a bit gingerly, due to his overtaxed knees.

Once a week, Pampaa ran an old comb through his voluminous beard, but today was not a combing day. He looked scraggly, poor, and ecstatic.

"Today is the day," he said, pleased as punch.

"Mm-hm." When she felt this chaotic inside, normal conversation became... difficult.

He tapped his fingers on his large belly. "Years of training."

"Yes."

"Intense training," he said, hitting that first word with an extra oomph of pride. "You may be one of the best students I have ever had the pleasure of teaching. No, it's true! And now you have the opportunity to become an Outranger."

"Don't jinx it," she said with her mouth full.

"Bah." He waved the idea away like a bug. "Nothing I or anyone else say will change the fact that you, my dear, are bound for great things!"

Etzli didn't answer. She just kept shoveling food in, trying to finish her breakfast and get out as soon as possible. She was exhausted, scared. Also, excited, which only worried her. She made a point not to get too excited about things--a hard-won attitude built upon a life of crushing disappointments.

Pampaa started wiping down the counter. "It'll be nice seeing him again."

Etzli stopped. Something inside did a loop-de-loop. Not the evil presence, no, this felt more fluttery and giggly. "Who?"

"Benja, of course! He'll be facing his trials this season as well, I imagine. You both started your training the same year, didn't you?"

"Maybe," she said as flatly as she could manage.

"You two were so inseparable when you were young."

"Long time ago," Etzli muttered, struggling to keep her voice even.

"So true, my..." Pampaa fell into a whimsical silence. He stared out the back door, propped open with an old wooden bucket, as it was every morning so he could listen to the thrushes and warblers.

Etzli paused to watch him. She wondered which memory he'd fallen into.

Perhaps he was remembering one of the many times Etzli and Benja ran around pretending they were heroic Outrangers, fighting interstellar pirates and rescuing innocent townsfolk from space invaders.

Or, knowing Pampaa, he was probably off on an entirely unrelated train of thought, maybe contemplating Wolfram's Ternary Continuum Hypothesis to the highest multiple.

Etzli took her plate to the sink. "I've gotta go, gotta catch the rock-hopper."

"Yes, yes!" Pampaa blinked, startled out of his thoughts. "By all means, don't be late. The trials will demand everything you have to give, so give it your all. Don't overthink it. Just be yourself. And be bold!"

He opened his arms for a hug.

As she hugged him, she felt the shadowy thing inside begin to move, to open its dripping jaws toward her father's throat.

Etzli pushed away from Pampaa.

He frowned, confused.

She covered up with a nervous chuckle. "Feeling a little urpy. Think it's just my nerves."

"Well, it certainly isn't my cooking," Pampaa assured her in a proud tone.

He had no clue about the thing lurking inside Etzli's skin. She had worked very hard to keep it that way.

"No, I just, I gotta go." And, with a brief smile, Etzli fled her home.

***

The modest temple where Etzli grew up could be found at the edge of a quiet forest on Pake, a rather insignificant moon orbiting the sacred world of Ithilia.

Etzli boarded a "rock-hopper," one of the old but reliable automated shuttles trekking back and forth among several dozen inhabited moons.

Straining against her seatbelt, she stared out the window as Pake's atmosphere fell away and darkness enveloped the shuttle.

Ithilia filled most of the view. The red raging gas giant loomed in the skies of its moons like an angry god.

Etzli felt Ithilia reaching out toward her.

The thing inside her shifted, started to reach back.

She jerked away from the window. She slammed the shade down. White-knuckled her arm rests. That had never happened before. Something was very wrong.

An hour later, the rock-hopper set down on the nearby moon of Olo.

Disembarking, Etzli hesitated. Then she glanced up at the clear blue sky. No sign of Ithilia. So she'd landed on the moon's far side. Good.

"Etzli?" a familiar voice said.

Flooded with a thrilling electricity, she spun.

The tall, striking man approaching her looked just enough like the boy she'd grown up with to cause her heart to do a dizzy summersault.

His sandy hair had grown darker, his face longer and more angular. A shade of stubble scored his jawline. He carried himself with self-confidence and good-natured humor.

She studied his boldly handsome complexion as he smiled. "Benja?"

Laughing, he enveloped her in a warm embrace. "Etzli! I'd recognize that ink anywhere!"

"You've gotten so big!" Etzli said to Benja, sounding more impressed than she'd meant to admit.

"And you've gotten so..." He backed up to take in her grim appearance in shadowy clothes and makeup. "Dark?"

Etzli nodded, agreeing. "No argument here."

Benja said, "So. You really do intend to become an Outranger?"

"All trained up and ready to face my trials," she replied.

Looking oddly troubled, Benja asked, "Then we're going to be rivals?"

She shook her head. "Of course not. Never."

Benja's expression hardened. He looked deep into her eyes, searching for something with an intensity she didn't like.

As Etzli fought to keep her expression flat, she felt another part of herself, that awful and uncoiling thing, fighting to hurl itself forward and rip out Benja's guts.

“But Etzli,” Benja whispered, “What about your monster?”