MY MOTHER'S SON (Revised on 3/11/24)

Dahl and Eve stopped at the edge of the gentle surf, peering out at the distant island jutting up over the horizon. Dahl waded into the cool water, holding her boots and letting the cool surf wash over her aching heart while Eve stood behind her, watching clouds circle drift across the horizon.

Lilith had vanished in a gust of flapping wings. Moss had fallen to his death, and Dahl- more than anything- wanted this long nightmare to be over. But it would not end soon; she knew that much and that none of them might ever get home again. So much for my first mission, she thought.

After Moss fell from the cliff ledge, the journey back up to the entrance took a whole day. The trip down the alternate path- a much longer, more winding and gentler path took another two days. Neither woman talked about what had happened up top and by the time the jungle parted, both of them were physically and emotionally spent. After a brief respite on the edge of the jungle, they made their way to the cliff base, searching for Moss and Lilith's bodies. They found no signs of either. 

The rhythmic waves messaging Dahl's ankles drew out a long, breathy sigh, and she stretched her arms wide, welcoming the cool breeze and absorbing the light. Guilt trickled from the corners of her eyes. "What are we doing?" she asked, no one in particular. "We shouldn't even be here."

"This is exactly where we should be," Eve said, sinking her bare feet into the sand as the smell of briny water mixed with decaying seaweed. "

Dahl looked from Eve's bare feet to her empty hands and shook her head. "I still don't get how all the transformations work. First you're one thing, then you're something else."

"That makes two of us," Eve replied, looking down as her bare feet transformed into booted feet. "I was never good at science, or any other subject, for that matter. It's not like I was stupid. More like spoiled. I come from a rich family and thought the idea of needing an education did not apply to me."

Dahl laughed and said, "My parents raised my sister and I to think a great education meant the difference between a shit life at the bottom and a glorious life at the top."

"So, you're some kind of genius?"

"Not exactly," Dahl admitted and laughed. "I was a spoiled kid, too. The difference is, we didn't have enough money for a great education. So, I excelled in other areas."

"Like what?"

"Fighting and trash talking," she said with a smile. "I suppose that's a side effect of growing up in a family of mercs." Dahl pointed to Eve's feet. "So, what gives?"

"It's just one perk of being… whatever they made me."

"You don't seem happy about it."

"Wasn't my choice."

The thick scent wafting on the breeze reminded Dahl of the far-off sandy beaches on Sol Lucia. She stared up through hundreds of kilometers of solid bedrock, across a million empty light years of space, and saw her friends sitting on a beach back home. She couldn't tell if it was a memory or a hallucination. Gliding birds in the distance called out, and Dahl wished she were home now. "We should have never gone down that trail," she said, eyes glistening. "He'd still be alive if I hadn't insisted on taking that trail." Dahl turned in the direction they had emerged from the dense jungle. The high cliff loomed above it. "It's my fault he's dead. If I hadn't yanked that damn hatch open, maybe the raptors wouldn't have known we were here? Maybe we could have gone in through the front of the ship, taken what we came for and just gone home? Why didn't we just go home?"

"It's not your fault, Dahl. None of it. And going home without completing your mission would never be an option." Eve touched her shoulder. "And that's why Lilith sent you. She knew you'd follow through no matter what the cost. She used her knowledge of you to coerce you. It's her fault they're gone. Not ours. If you need to blame someone. Blame Lilith. Moss blamed himself for what happened to Lilith. And you see what that guilt did to him." Eve said, jabbing an angry finger towards the jungle. "He wasn't paying attention. The idea he killed Lilith consumed his mind. But I guess you know what that feels like." Eve said, turning to Dahl. "Moss could have refused to go that way. He could have gone another way. He was the one pushing to get down." Eve kicked sand into the surf. "Lilith could have prevented all of this by telling us what's going on. By telling us where we were going. What we were doing. Why we're fucking here? But no. She couldn't do that. She sent us into the middle of this shit-storm blind. So, stop blaming yourself, because we're almost out of time and on our own now. And if we're going to survive this shit-show, we can't focus on shoulda/coulda. We need to stay focused on having each other's backs."

"It's all gone to hell, hasn't it?"

"Fraid so," Eve agreed, staring at the Island. "I thought I knew the plan. But now. After everything that's happened. I think Lilith may not have trusted me. Trusted any of us. And now she's gone, and no one knows what's coming next."

"Should we try looking again?" Dahl asked, turning back to the dense jungle.

"Waist of time." Eve replied, turning to Dahl with a look of empathy. "The undergrowth is too thick. We could stand on their corpses and not even know they were beneath us."

"Corpses," Dahl blurted. "What corpses? It's like they vanished. We should have found some signs of them. Somewhere. There's nothing in there." 

Eve watched Dahl stare up at the cliff, and her heart was heavy. She could have said no. Why hadn't she? She didn't think the steep trail was safe to use. But she remained silent. 

"Maybe they're not dead." Dahl said to herself.

"Don't think that way. Don't do that to yourself." Eve said, sounding doubtful. "We won't find them and even if we could, we have to get going. There's no telling what's down here. This place doesn't want us here."

"Where do we go? Back to the surface?"

Eve turned to the cliff, stared up in deep thought, and fell silent. Time passed as each woman listened to their own thoughts. "No." Eve answered, gesturing to the horizon. "We have to get out there. Lilith isn't the only one who knows what's going on. Someone over there knows what's happening here. I'm sure of it."

"Who?"

"If what Lilith told me is true, my father will be over there."

"Your father," Dahl blurted. "Why didn't you tell me we were going to meet your father?"

Eve rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Dahl scowled and said, "Because Lilith told you not to. Can you trust anything she told you?"

Eve said nothing.

White sands spread along endless beaches, trailing over the Eastern and Western horizons. Dahl stared at the shrinking beaches, mesmerized by the massive thousand foot tall palm trees holding back a billion year old jungle. They lined the edge of the beach for as far as the eye could see. An ancient row of gigantic timbers with thirty-foot diameter trunks held down by countless thick roots, each the size of a compact car. The palm fronds sagging at their tops hung down 75 feet. They were tropical redwoods in a world never glimpsed by human eyes.

Dahl closed her eyes, breathed in the salty sea air, and thought about hot summers spent sitting beside a faraway ocean. The sound of endless waves licking gritty sand filled her ears, and she longed for those earlier days. Days spent with high school friends. Days without a care in the world. A smile crossed her face as those easier times wafted through her mind's eye like ghosts dancing across a silver screen. God, how she wanted to be home, listening to Moss and Lockspur tease each other and her.

The picturesque view in front of Dahl drew out a longing for the rickety old beach chair she had found washed up on a Sol Lucia beach. She'd knocked off the encrusted sand, taped up its broken leg and kept it in her closet, waiting for further adventure. The beach back home was a refuge where she felt safe. But there was no safety here. That far-off beach had been the only place where Dahl could go to forget what had happened to her. What they had tried to do to her sister and what she had done in return. She thought about how the tiny chair was there, in her closet, waiting for her to take it to the beach. How her friends had always laughed and teased her when she sat in it around the late night bonfires. It leaned to one side. One sad leg forever shorter. Never to sit upright again. But Dahl didn't care. She wished her friends were laughing at her now.

Eve sighed and said, "What I wouldn't give for one of those ice-cold drinks? The one's some ridiculously tanned cabana boy delivers on a tiny tray." She turned to Dahl with a smile and added, "You know, the kind that has a silly name and comes with a little paper umbrella. Your basic overpriced neon liquid crafted by the Gods."

Dahl's smile was short-lived as an eerie thunder clap rose just beyond the horizon. The ear-splitting report chased away peaceful memories of absent friends and funny little drinks. She looked to the horizon and saw the sky turn from pale blue to an ominous, murky gray. "Storm's coming," she said.

The vibrant green jungle living on the Island's miles wide base climbed the gentle slopes until being cut off by the sheer granite cliffs overhead. From Eve and Dahl's vantage points, the island appeared small, but the long dormant volcano at its center was massive, and so too was the dangerous jungle concealing whatever secrets lay buried within. Even at a distance, Dahl could sense the whispering threat: keep out. She didn't want to go there, but she knew they had to. The answers to what was happening were over there. And the only way to survive was to keep moving.

The two women walked back along the wide beach, sat at the edge of the sand- jungle at their backs. They peered up at wispy clouds hanging motionless in the windless sky directly overhead. Dahl leaned forward and rubbed her ankle. The ache had come back.

"Wait," Eve warned. "Did it swell again? Can you get your boot on?"

"I'm fine. Minor swelling." Dahl replied, loosening the laces, but leaving the boot on.

"I don't like that dark patch on the horizon." Eve said, lounging back, arms above her head, clasped her hands behind her head and studied the motionless clouds above. The once puffy white clouds in front of the island had grayed and begun twisting around as if the island had become the eye of a huge cyclone. "Do those clouds look different to you?" she asked.

Dahl watched as the clouds darkened and said, "They're circling the island. Do you think there are hurricanes down here?"

"If there is," Eve replied, squinting to see the darkening island. "It won't do us any good if we get caught in it and your ankle is out of commission. So, before we head out. You should try soaking it again."

Twenty minutes earlier, the relentless breeze had vanished as if someone had flicked off an overhead ceiling fan. A short while after, a half million rustling trees with their creaking talking timbers fell still, and an entire jungle full of squawking birds and hooting monkey-like creatures vanished into the foreboding silence. It was as if the whole jungle held its breath, expecting what came next.

"Is it getting hot?" Dahl asked, looking at the dimming horizon. "It feels like the temperature has gone up 20 degrees in the last 5 minutes."

"More like 40," Eve replied. "And it's getting harder to breathe." She looked from the darkening skyline to the disappearing area above the island's jungle canopy and sat up.

Seeing her alarm, Dahl said, "Maybe we should take shelter until this blows over?"

"If it's going to get any darker, we're not going into the jungle." Eve replied, shaking her head. "There's no telling what might come out when it gets dark."

"It's not like you can't defend yourself."

"I can't defend myself and you, too."

"You did last time."

"We got lucky last time," Eve replied. "And don't forget. Lilith did most of the fighting before I got there."

"Maybe it will pass us by."

Eve's eyebrow went up, and she shook her head. She pointed up at a black line pouring out of a single black spot about a mile above the island. The eerie line seemed to come out of nowhere, twisted down through the air like a plummeting column of black smoke, and veered off before striking the water. It wrapped around itself as it rose back up like a coiling snake. It hung a half mile off the eastern shore of the island, like a growing ball, hanging in the sky. "I've never seen storm clouds do that before." Eve blurted and leapt to her feet.

"It almost looks alive." Dahl said, as the storm spread outward. The blaring squall coming out of it reverberated through the dense, hot air and Dahl covered her ears, trying to blot out the painful sound. "What kind of storm-front sounds like that?" she shouted over the approaching din. Dahl jumped up, squinting at the roiling black mass on the horizon, and watched a large section break away. The eerie storm front changed course and headed straight towards them. Whatever it was, it knew they were there, and it was coming on fast.

Eve yanked Dahl to her feet, mouth falling agape and face turning a ghostly white. She gestured to the largest palm tree in the near distance. "We need to get up there. It's not safe out in the open anymore."

"What is it?" Dahl cried out, as the sound of shock in Eve's voice made her heart skip a beat. If Eve saw only terror in the coming storm, it must be bad.

"Raptors," Eve bellowed over the building noise. "Thousands of them." She turned towards the gigantic palm tree and vaulted into the air. When Eve's feet hit the ground again, she was running at a flat out sprint. A 400 hundred pound apex predator rampaging away at 75 miles an hour. Dahl followed as fast as her tiny human legs could propel her. But Eve took gigantic bounding strides over 5 times the distance Dahl could muster, leaving her far behind.

"Wait, dammit!" Dahl blared as Eve shrank away in a cloud of kicked up sand.

Eve slid to a halt, slammed against the base of a gigantic palm, and felt her way around the wide base. The smooth bark offered a few handholds. When she found one, Eve drove an enormous taloned fist into the deep crack and beckoned Dahl towards her.

Dahl darted up, panting hard, and managed a winded, "Thanks for waiting."

 Eve snatched Dahl up by the waistband and threw Dahl over her shoulder in a firefighter's carry. Dahl shrieked in Eve's ear as she squatted low and kicked off the ground hard. The ground fell away, threatening to take the contents of Dahl's stomach with it. Eve clawed her way up the bark as the screeching storm drew closer. Once in the safety of the thick canopy, Eve flopped Dahl on the nearest branch, collapsing on another and transforming into a much smaller, much more winded human.

Dahl teetered on a thick branch, grabbed a nearby palm frond, knotted the long coarse leaf around her forearm, and shoved her back against the tree trunk. In the nearing distance, the coming storm raged louder and flapped towards them. Dahl covered her ears and shouted, "They're here!"

The screeching darkness descended around them, brought an unnatural wind that bent the giant tree back and forth. It felt as though it were about to snap off its base, sending them crashing to their deaths.

 Eve dug a set of shiny new talons into the thick bark and held fast while Dahl clung to her improvised tether, struggling in the unnatural gale. Several loose palm fronds tore away in a violent blast, leaving the duo exposed to the gnashing chaos. Teeth and rending claws tore at Dahl's clothing as thousands of screeching raptors circled the tree. Each of them lunging and biting as dozens of giant palm fronds swatted them away.

The branch beneath Dahl cracked, and her eyes bulged as gravity reached up and pulled her feet out. She slid towards the tip of the branch and the palm frond tied around her wrist wrenched her arm upward at a painful angle. She cried out in pain, swung out into the chaos, as tiny sharp claws tore at her clothes. A gale force wind caught her, yanked her out like a flapping flag. And as fast the wind came on, it vanished and Dahl fell, bouncing off the tree trunk with a dull thwack. Air exploded from her lungs as darkness drew her into its embrace. She struggled to right herself, but before Dahl could pull herself to safety, the dried palm leaf cutting the blood flow off to her prickling wrist let out a loud crack.

"Dahl." Eve shouted.

Time slowed to a crawl as realization flooded Dahl's already pounding heart. Her mouth fell open in shock as her unfocused eyes met Eve's. Eve lunged forward, throwing out a clawed hand. Dahl spotted the blurry hand, stretched outward as far as her free arm could reach, and the weight of the heavy palm frond pulled her down. Their eyes met; fingertips skimmed, but Dahl felt nothing but the downward pull of her own imminent demise.

Eve watched helplessly as Dahl dropped away.

Something roared on the other side of the tree and a gigantic humanoid creature smashed through the exploding vegetation. Palm fronds spread in every direction. Eve twisted around in utter dismay, shielding her face as the creature erupted through a storm of splintered branches and shredded leaves. The violent commotion startled the circling creatures, most of whom screamed in anger and flew away toward the island.

The massive creature leaned out, grabbed Dahl by the wrist, and drew her back into the safety of the palm fronds. It pressed her limp, unconscious body against the tree trunk and used its mass to shield her from the rending claws on the other side of the fronds. The rest of the small raptors gave up and flew away. The creature stood up, deposited Dahl on a large limb, and backed away to a safe distance.

Eve transformed and coiled up like a snake, ready to strike. The massive creature standing over Dahl dwarfed Eve in size and ferocity. It was a 9 foot tall, pale-skinned goliath, half man/half reptilian with a jutting triangular face with a strong chiseled jawline and twice her weight. Its large black shark eyes peered straight through her. It wore thick leather trousers, heavy boots and carried an enormous broadsword hanging from a wide belt around its waist. Its massive, unprotected chest bore a thick layer of scaly hide tanned to a bronzed perfection.

Dahl's eyelids flicked apart. She looked around, drew a shaking knife, and pointed it in the creature's direction. It looked at the blade with a mixture of mild indifference and scoffed at it as if it were more an insult than a threat. Its right eyebrow raised up, pulling its lip into an infuriating sneer. 

"Who are you?" Eve demanded, poised to leap on the strange creature. She couldn't be certain if it understood her or if it was even looking at her. Its blacked out eyes seemed to look in every direction at once.

"Really?" Dahl said, turning to Eve. "You're talking to the lizard man?" Dahl turned to the massive figure, eyeing it up and down, and added, "You don't think it can speak, do you?"

The man-beast peered down at Dahl, as a faint shadow of irritation slipped across its face. "It," the creature began, "has a name." Dahl and Eve's mouths fell open. "I am Prince Belial." The power of his thundering voice passed through Dahl's chest as if his words carried the force of an oncoming avalanche. Whatever or whoever he was, he had an unnatural power. "The first-born son of the royal court of Mannom. And rightful heir to the Dark Athena."

"Dark Athena," Dahl said to herself. "She exists?"

"Yes," Belial replied. "She exists here. There. Everywhere."

Dahl looked at the way Belial carried himself and felt swallowed by an instant sense of distrust. He seemed to have an ego only equaled by the length of its long broadsword. "Is this place, Mannom?" 

"Hardly," Belial said and scowled. "This insignificant world is of little consequence. But it is where Mannom was born."

"Oh," Dahl cut in before he could continue. "You're not from here?" Dahl asked, turning to Eve with a covert look of suspicion.

"No," he replied. "They tore my mother from her home long ago. My siblings and I were born in Mannom."

"Well," Dahl began, trying to sound as cordial as possible. "I guess I should thank you. If not for you, I would surely be dead."

Belial lowered his chin in an haute gesture and Dahl felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck bristle in anger. Oh look. He thinks he's something special. The dark voice on Dahl's left shoulder whispered in her ear. Nice, the voice on her right shoulder chimed in. He saves your ass and the first thing you do is get pissed. And for god's sake, smile before he thinks you're an ass. Dahl closed her eyes, took a deep calming breath, opened them, and began, "It's lucky you found us in this tree at the very moment we needed you most." Dahl turned to Eve, feigning shock, and asked, "What are the odds of that happening?" Eve returned a covert look that said, be careful. Unabated by the warning, Dahl continued, "Or for that matter, what are the odds of him finding us in this system, on this planet, hundreds of kilometers beneath the surface of a seldom visited moon, in a hidden world no one has seen in… forever?" Dahl turned back to Belial and added, "I know… you called the raptor hotline and asked, Hey, do any monsters have two women trapped in a tree?"

Ignoring her intent, Belial said, "These creatures did not ask to be monsters." He placed his hand on the hilt of his sword and added, "It was your kind that did this to them."

"My kind." Dahl replied in disbelief. "My kind have done nothing to these poor, dumb creatures."

"Oh…" he said, leaning close enough to make her shift position. "But they did. It was humans who created this place, engineered these…" he paused and looked around. "What was it you called them? Poor. Dumb. Creatures. The irony of those words coming out of the mouth of the persons responsible for all of this is not wasted on me."

"Are you nuts?" she asked, standing up and jabbing a finger at him. "This place was like this when we arrived." Dahl said, gesturing a round. "I didn't cause any of this bullshit. None of us did."

"Wrong," he shouted. "You and your companions did this to me. To my siblings and my mother. You made us into these things," he said, gesturing at himself. "And when those who sent you here realized what they have created, they will take us from our homeworld and exile us to a hellish existence."

"What are you talking about?" Dahl shouted and stood up. "This moon has been here for millions… probably billions of years. It predates humans. It predates Earth. We just want to get the fuck out of here alive and forget this place even exists."

"And what about those who can never forget this place exists? Those who will never be free of what you've done here? Where can we go to hide from the things staring back at us in the mirror?" Belial jammed his arm outward. The motion happened in an instant, and the tip of his enormous finger was an inch from Eve's nose. Eve fell backward in shock. "Ask your tiny friend here how she feels when she looks in a mirror. Ask her if she knows it's your fault they did this to her."

Dahl looked at Eve in horror, shaking her head, and said, "I did not do this to you. I do not know what he's talking about."

"It wasn't you," Eve said, agreeing with her. Eve looked at Belial and said, "It wasn't her. It wasn't anyone that came with her."

"Then who was it? Who turned me into this halfbreed thing?" Belial demanded.

"And what of my friend? Is she a half-breed?"

Belial gave Eve a courteous nod and said, "Someone has gifted my lady with the blood of Mannom. Although, I cannot imagine why anyone would create such a horrible thing like this."

"Fuck you, asshole." Eve blurted, looking at Dahl with an expression that said get ready to run or fight.

"Forgiveness, my lady." Belial said. "I meant no offense. I, too, understand what it feels like to have been created to serve others."

"You know nothing about me," Eve replied.

"I meant no harm."

"Harm taken."

Dahl gestured around as if asking Eve where she thought they could go. When Eve said nothing, Dahl sat down on a limb, letting her feet swing out over the side. She watched Belial wipe beads of sweat off his pallid face. "So, all of this is our fault?"

"If it's not your fault, then whose fault is it?" he asked, peering out in the direction the raptors had flown. Neither woman could pinpoint where his solid black eyes were looking as he searched for something in particular. "The blame for this nightmare lies not only at your feet. It belongs to my people. Both of them."

"What did you mean by the blood of Mannom?" Dahl asked.

"You mock me?" Belial said, staring at Dahl. "You came to create the blood of Mannom. My mother. And yet you feign ignorance. Your companion delivered the device that did this to us. To my brothers. My sisters. To my mother. And you claim no knowledge of what you did." He rolled his jet-black eyes, and they flashed from solid black to milky bloodshot whites and then back to bottomless black pools. The quick change sent an icy shiver up Dahl's spine, although she refused to show it. 

"Stop saying I did this to you," she screamed at him and he stepped back. "You're wrong. I don't care what you think or what you've heard. You're wrong. Get over it." 

He locked Dahl in his eerie gaze for an uncomfortably long time. When Dahl looked away, he said, 

'"I sense the shadow of truth in your mind."

"Fuck," she said to herself. "Of course you can read minds. Because why not? You're a half raptor/Half human, mind reader from an alternate Universe." she said, shaking her head at him. "Is there anything else you can do? Like juggling or flying."

"I can't juggle," he replied. "And I am not from an alternate universe. There are no such things as multiverses. What you are referring to is the time stream. And there is but one. A single cosmic thread connecting everyone, everywhere, all the time."

"What's the difference?"

"There are a trillion universes outside this one. And you can reach them all. If you can just figure out how to get to them. Now, imagine the infinite amount of life outside this universe and here you all come along and trying to fuck it all up."

"How did we do this?"

"Simple," he explained. "One of you figured out how to reach them and now, one bad decision later, there are an infinite number of outcomes in each. A nightmare paradox of degrading time streams from which there is no escape." 

"You didn't come here to save us, did you?" Dahl asked.

Belial looked away from her, staring at his feet, and shook his head. "I escaped my homeworld where they imprisoned me." he turned to Dahl and a single tear trickled down his face. "I hate the people who made me do this."

"Why are you here?" Eve asked.

"I came to end this madness. The only way I know how," he replied, looking at the island. "I came to kill my mother before she becomes a monster. Before she teaches her children to be monsters. It's the only way."

"But that means you'll die too." Eve said.

"It means this world goes away, everything bad that ever happened here goes away and the time stream returns to normal. And more importantly for you, you go back to normal," he said, turning back to Eve. You want to know why I saved you? Simple. I need you to help me kill my mother and anyone else who gets in our way."

"You want us to murder your mom and unborn siblings? And, I might add, you."

"It is the only way to be sure."

"Lady Hemmingford sent us here." Dahl said. "You wanted to know who sent us here. It was my boss. Lilith Hemmingford."

Belial went rigid and his face became an unspoken threat. "That is not possible."

"Big shocker," Eve said, glaring at Belial.

"What is?" Dahl asked.

"How a being born in another universe knows Lilith Hemmingford? Or anything she would or would not do?"

"I know Lady Hemmingford as well as I know my mother."

"Before I came to this godforsaken hellhole, I would have said the same thing. I would have never believed Lilith would do the things she's done." Dahl replied. "But recent events have opened my eyes."

Belial stepped forward with mutiny in his eyes, and Eve leapt in front of Dahl with her arm outstretched. "Back off, big man," she warned. "She's not lying. Lilith sent us both here."

"I do not believe you."

"You say you know Lilith," Dahl replied, offering him an infuriating pout. "So, I'll use her words. Your belief is not required." Dahl stepped around Eve and walked straight to Belial. "I hate when people think they need to defend me, don't you?" she said, looking at Eve over her shoulder.

He leaned forward, nose to nose with Dahl, and said, "You are indeed foolish to approach me."

"Here's the thing, pumpkin." Dahl said, smiling up at Belial without a care in the world. "Guys like you think you're…" she looked him over like a piece of meat. "Untouchable. That's why you were dumb enough to let me get this close."

"And what are you going to do?"

"Didn't you just ask me to kill your mommy because you weren't up to the task?" Eve replied, watching his face flush.

"Another man with mommy issues," "Dahl said, flicking the tip of his enormous nose. Belial stepped back. His eyes bulged and then became slits of rage. Dahl stepped forward and said, "As for what I'm going to do. I'm going to braid your testicles." 

"If he has testicles?" Eve added, provoking him with a smirk.

Belial grabbed the hilt of his sword and said, "You dare." 

"Oh, darling," Dahl said, smiling at Belial. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." 

Belial felt something hard pressed against the crotch of his trousers and looked down to find Dahl's combat knife pressed into his groin. He glared as if daring her to do it and the grin made his face flush with fury. He pulled his sword part way out of the scabbard and waited for her next move.

"Oh," Dahl said. "Did you think I was just going to tremble before the might of the first-born son of Mannom? Sorry, but that's not gonna happen. Maybe you should think before you ask someone what they are going to do to you. And before you ask, I don't think I can win. This is about being clear I'm not taking shit from you or anyone else again. But- even though I can't win. I can make sure you'll never forget me. So, don't you ever accuse me of shit I didn't do again. And don't call me a liar. Ever. Understood?" She glared up at him and added, "Do the words coming out of my mouth translate into Mannom? Are you having any difficulties reading my emotional state?"

Belial broke into laughter and said, "You live up to everything I have heard about you."

Eve laughed and said, "You know, Dahl. when people from another Universe are aware of your temper. That should tell you something."

"Just doing part to keep men all over on their guard."

"This was my homeworld long ago." he said, peering out at the lush jungle.

 He turned back to them and said, "I never guessed it would be this beautiful."

"If you were born here. You would have never seen this place. Your world… these creatures' world… is a tortured feeding frenzy where only the strongest survive."

"I blame your kind for that."

"Blame whoever you want." Eve cut in. "As long as it isn't us. Whatever was done here, happened long before we arrived."

"That's where you're wrong." Belial replied, shaking his head. "Your present is Mannom's past.' 'Belial pointed at the island. "She is over there- right now. Transforming. And if you help me, we can prevent everything. We can set the time stream right."

"You're asking us to murder an innocent woman and her unborn babies."

"When did this poor, dumb creature become a woman?"

"Now who's mocking who?" Dahl asked.

"When?"

"The day I met her son." Dahl answered, "And realized there are no poor dumb creatures. That we're all just trying to survive in whatever shithole we're plunked down in."

"Fair enough," Belial said, nodding. "But you should be aware, of all my siblings, I am the only one who embraces the light. Long have my family embraced the darkness in their hearts. A darkness that was born on this day and many will suffer because of it. So, if you refuse my plea then realize, you are condemning our people to eternal suffering."

"Why should I believe you? Believe any of this? It could all be a dream. I could still be in stasis. Maybe all this results from long-term stasis."

Belial leaned forward, pinched her forearm and when she let out a shrill cry of pain, he said, "Seems pretty real to me."

"Ouch, goddammit."

Eve let out a stifled laugh.

"Fine," Dahl shouted. "But none of what you've told us explains how you knew we'd be in this tree." Dahl replied.

"Simple. You can attribute my presence here to your teammate. Carlos Lockspur is the reason I am here."

"That's not possible."

"When my mother's ascension took place, they used his mind as a framework or road map to uplift her mind. They did it to control her engineered tendencies for violence. In the beginning, it worked well enough. But as the transition took hold of her body, it also unlocked the violent tendencies in all humans." He laughed and added, "Who knew humans were the real threat? You see, in the end. Her true evil didn't come from her reptilian side, it came from humans."

Eve shot him a dark look and said, "I take it you have read a few history books?"

"No need. The Creator wove your animalistic natures into your DNA. Evil is not just what you do, it is who you are. Who we are." he said, gesturing at himself. "You are the actual monsters here. Not these poor, dumb creatures. You think everything and everyone is beneath you. You see yourselves as having more worth than others and therefore, value no others. Because of the overlaying of Lockspur's mind, each of my mother's offspring have random bits of his memories. Some were happy; some were not. Either way, we all received his technical abilities. His understanding of electronics, math, science, space travel and the likes allowed my mother to seize an entire universe. And the next; and the next. When they spirited her away to Mannom, she went back in time 3.6 trillion years. But what your people did not realize was that she took a part of all of you with her." He turned to Dahl with a sad expression and said, "Imagine what your people will become after that amount of time? How far could you reach? What will you develop into?"

"Your people are that old?"

"Our people," he corrected. "Let's not forget. I am half human."

"Half human." she repeated to herself.

"Are you beginning to understand?" he asked. "When you said this moon predates humans. You were wrong. The truth is- thanks to what happens here. Humans predate Earth. And this is the paradox you and your comrades helped create when you came under false pretenses. You created the paradox of who came first, humans or half breeds? If my people predate you by trillions of years, how did you create us? Or perhaps, if you could see the wheel of time, you would realize it was us who created you."

Dahl laughed at him, and said, "Now who's bullshitting?"

"For billions of years my people have had automated machines traveling throughout space, seeding primordial oceans with our DNA. That is how we travel through space. We use the DNA you gave us. Who can say whether one of those ships seeded your home world. Who can say? But is it so hard to believe that an infinite number of poor, dumb creatures crawled out of your oceans only to grow into you? And then you developed into the species that created us?"

"That's not possible."

"Perhaps," Belial admitted. "It is a pure speculation on my part. But there is one way to test the theory. Help me kill my mother. Help me set things straight. And we shall see the outcome for ourselves."

"But if what you say is true. If you seeded Earth. If you created us…" Eve said, sitting forward with furrowed brows. "That would kill us all."

"I admit. It is a gamble." Belial said, finishing her unspoken thought. "One could extrapolate that my mother's untimely demise may lead to destroying all of humanity and its half-breed children. But doing nothing could-"

"What's that?" Dahl asked, reeling towards the horizon. In the distance, the faint sounds of frantic gunfire erupted from the island. The sky above had gone a sickly greenish/gray and the once silvery waves in the distance were murky and dangerous.

"That is the sound of inevitability," Belial said, looking toward the gunfire. "Your people crave power above all things and there is a hidden power source on that island unlike anything you can imagine. It calls to those who seek power. And now, because of what you have done, they are here seeking it out."

"What power is worth going to all this trouble to hide it here?" Dahl, ashed gesturing around at the enormous man made cavern.

"The power to create a living God."

"How did you get here?" Dahl demanded, reeling on him. "Who has the power to bring you that far and back again?"

"A better question may be," Eve said, "Why would someone with that kind of power not see this coming? Unless this was supposed to happen."

"I thought Lilith caused this."

"Did she?" Belial asked.

"You lying bastard," Eve snapped. 

"I came here with many plans. Killing my mother is but one of them."

"Is killing yourself one of them?" Dahl asked. 

Belial answered her question with a shrug. "I came with an unexpected plan. However, trying to surprise someone who may see the future seems foolish on my part."

"You knew someone reached the power source and you're here to prevent that from happening. You came to protect the obelisk."

"Some are here to steal it; some are here to protect it. I came for neither. Let them have it. Iy is the source of all our trouble. I came to eliminate the one who placed it here. I came to end this nightmare no matter what the cost."

"Who placed it here?" Dahl asked.

"The Creator."

"The creator," Dahl repeated, staring at Eve as if she didn't understand. "You mean God? The creator of humankind."

Belial laughed, and Dahl felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She didn't appreciate being laughed at by anyone, including an 850 pound lizard prince exchange student. "How human-centric of you." he said with a frown. "Our creator is not the one true God. But that being created him. And therefore, he is both godly in appearance and abilities. It was he who brought us to Mannom. He comes for us even now. And when he gets here, I intend to be ready for him."

"Our Creator," Dahl replied, raising a doubtful brow. She gestured between herself and Belial and said, "Cause we look so much alike."

"The Creator used us to create humans and used humans to create us." When he saw the look of doubt on their faces, he added, "My people say: A circle has no beginning or end. It simply is- and has always been a circle. Our two peoples are the same people at different points on the same cosmic circle."

"So," Eve said, "the circle is a paradox and if you remove one point from the circle. The paradox goes away."

"One can hope it's that simple. But the paradox has proven resilient in the past."

"And what about us?" Dahl shouted. "You're just like the rest of them, aren't you? You'd kill us to see your crazy plan succeed."

"I wish harm to no one." Belial replied. "I just want this endless madness to end." 

She glared at him in disbelief and said, "What about our lives? You may not give a shit about dying, But we don't want to." 

"I did not ask to be trapped in this loop. One of your kind did this to my family. You are the actual monsters here."

"You call us monsters?" she said, sneering at him red faced. "You came here to kill. We came to learn what's going on?"

Belial leaned in close, baring a mouthful of long, jagged teeth Dahl had seen in countless recent nightmares and said, "Before this is over, I will introduce you to the monster inside you." She drew her knife with lightning speed and slashed out involuntarily. Belial did not back away from her strike. As the blade skimmed his face, he did not bat an eye or flinch away as the razor sharp steel split the soft tissue of his right cheek. He stared at her, mouth filled with an enormous set of razor sharp raptor teeth, and watched as a donning sense of realization crossed her face. Belial wasn't just half human. He was half raptor, as well. "That took far less time than I expected."

An angry straight line formed where Dahl's blade slashed his face and large blue beads of blood welled up along the line. Individual droplets trickled down his cheek and then, as the deep cut opened revealing bloody teeth below, the blood poured over his triangular chin and dripped off, coating Belail's muscular chest in a sticky blue shirt. To Dahl and Eve's astonishment, the blood slowed to a stop, then reversed direction and began running back towards the now healing wound. Dahl looked from Belail's self-knitting facial injury to Eve's calf and marveled as his injury sealed itself, leaving no trace of injury behind. The duo understood what he had meant by the blood of Mannom and where Eve had received her gifts.

"Shit…" Dahl stammered, still holding out a knife that held little hope of protecting her from a creature capable of regeneration.

"Who created the blood of Mannom, my kind or yours?" Belial asked, turning to Eve. "A raptor conceived me, but a human gave birth to me. Neither raptor nor human, but both," he explained, gesturing at himself. "Long before humans walked on your homeworld, the old ones genetically engineered my people using the genes of thousands of different species taken throughout this galaxy. Our creators needed monsters to protect this world, and its hidden treasure. So they imprisoned us here as mindless eating machines incapable of growing into higher life forms. In that way, they could ensure we would never escape our confines. So here my people are billions of years later, an imprisoned race created so long ago, no one remembers who made us." He laughed sarcastically and Eve thought he had sarcasm down. "But the old ones never considered the possibility of outside forces. Because everything changed the day humans altered our DNA a second time. That day was the day Carlos Lockspur brought Lilith's gift."

"Are you saying we did this to you?"

"In part."

"Which part?"

"The human parts." He answered, gesturing from his hand to Eve's hand. Dahl saw that other than the color and size, they looked interchangeable. He studied her hand for a quick moment and said, "I see the old ones have visited your world, my lady."

"That timeline doesn't work." Dahl said, realizing humans were new to M6-117. "How could we do any of this? When could we?" she asked.

"It is your fault. Their ascensions occurred 11 days ago."

"Wait," Dahl said, "What do you mean… their ascensions? You mean your ascension?"

"I have never been like them. I have always been an outsider. It was only recently that I learned, I am not one of them. My mother is not my mother. She is my jailor. My keeper. The Creator exiled me to Mannom. Not them."

"Why would anyone exile you to Mannom?"

"That is why I came," he admitted. "To learn the truth from the creator?"

 An enormous blast, like the trumpets of heaven, exploded over the island and a surge of wind raced outward, almost knocking them out of the tree. "What was that?" Eve shouted, pulling herself back up onto her branch as Belial deposited a dazed Dahl back on the branch she had just fallen off.

"That…" Belial said, stepping back to cloak himself behind a giant palm frond, "was the Queen Mother. And she cannot know I'm here."

Dahl and Eve looked at one another with raised brows and Eve said, "Is there something you want to tell us?"

"Yeah. Like, why don't you want her to see you?" Dahl asked.

"She cannot see me because I have not been born yet."

"Not born yet?"

"She is still in transition. She does not know who or what she will become. And neither do you. That woman will become a monster unlike anything you can imagine… and her children will be even worse. If we act now. There is still time to prevent the coming cataclysm. You must end her before they become monsters."

The air around Dahl shook. Eve fell backwards as a blurry bubble encircled Dahl and Belial. Dahl felt weak. Her heart thudded in his chest and the world outside exploded into a dizzying array of infinite possibilities. It was as if Dahl were untethered from time and space. Past, present and future tenses collided in her mind. Intense sensations of loss and love and longing overwhelmed her. Tears poured down her face like rivers. She looked down, saw two creatures in the same place, at the same time. One human; one half-breed. Both are one man. Dahl leaned down, wrapped her arms around them both, hoping if she just held on, it would all go away. But not wanting him to go away.

He reached up with a giant, trembling hand and caressed her hair. In a soft, familiar voice she knew and loved with all her heart, he said, "I need you to do something for me."

"What?" Dahl said, laying against his chest listening to the heartbeat deep inside.

He placed his mouth by her ear and whispered, "What happened to Tahlia was not your fault. Do not blame yourself."

"How can you know that?" she said, looking up at him to find he was a man.

"It's this place. Our minds have connected. He's here."

"Who is here?"

"The Creator."

"What can I do? How can I stop this?"

"When you find me in the future. Promise me you'll tear it out before it takes control. Before I became like them. Before I'm a monster, too." "What's happening?"

"He's sending me back." Belial said and vanished into the winds of time.

"I will," she whispered to herself, wiping tears from her face.