Chapter 6: Skulking In The Dark

The moment they could see smokestacks, they abandoned the car and went the rest of the way on foot. They crested a dune and before them lay a seemingly dormant factory. They lay there for ten minutes, trying to ascertain if anyone was in there. There was movement. They were unmistakably Athenai by the look, but wear armour that could have been made by the Tor. Black and slick and carrying fearsome-looking rifles.

“Uhm…I take it we weren’t supposed to know about this place?” Death whispered softly.

“The Athenai have a lot of explaining to do.” Bracus murmured.

“So what do we do?” Jason asked, matching Death’s whispering tone.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” A familiar voice sounded behind them.

They all turned around. They were surrounded by Legionnaires!

“Welcome home, Jackass.” Death spat.

“Ah Death. Missed me have you?” The councilman asked.

“Yeah, take these guns off us and I’ll show you just how much.” He replied grinning.

“Drop your weapons.” Bracus ordered.

“But…” Death started, but Bracus cut him off with a look.

“That means you too Jason, power down.” Jason was about to unleash hell until the order was barked at him. He reluctantly obeyed. They all dropped their guns.

“Now that we are all nicely reacquainted, please let us escort you to our base of operations.” The councilman gleefully chirped as they were all led away.

---

He lay on the floor of his bathroom, naked and sobbing. The pistol lay next to him with unspent ammunition lying about the floor. Once again he tried to end this misery called his existence and once again the Voice took away that choice. Every time he put the barrel into his mouth, trying to squeeze the trigger it made him take the pistol out of his mouth and release all the ammo inside the cartridge.

The Voice thought it was amusing and treated it like a game. Today he tried to walk into the path of a transport truck, but it stopped him as soon as he thought of it. He started laughing, every so softly and then louder and louder until tears rolled down his cheek.

“Something amuses you?” It asked David.

“No, but it’s a nice change seeing you confused.” David said sobering up. It sinisterly giggled.

“I cannot be confused. I am merely curious my pet. Your life is misery, and yet you now find it amusing?” It asked. David got up from the cold floor and ran his shower. Before he got in the Voice stopped him again.

“Listen here. If I don’t shower the smell is going to get worse and you will find it harder to move around freely if my body starts to smell like a corpse!” David yelled at it. The Voice thought about it for a moment and agreed. He still had plans that needed to come to fruition, and it will be a lot harder if David is caught now.

“Fine, I will leave you to your ablutions. After you are finished, you and I are going to get better acquainted.” It said and vanished from his thoughts. He didn’t really care what it meant by that. All it meant to him was a few minutes of peace. He couldn’t remember when last he felt so good. Washing his long, greasy hair, and having a clean-shaven face. The taste of dead rat washed from his mouth. He felt human again. He stepped out of the shower and moved to take a towel, he blinked, and found himself clothed and seated at his dinner table facing a mirror.

“You were taking too long.” The Voice from the mirror spoke. David started trembling again. What would it be this time? More dead rats? A hideous vision?

“No, not this time David.” The first time he referred to him by his name.

He sensed that this ‘relationship’ has shifted.

“I go by many names in this universe. My kin call me Ilo.” He said.

“Oh now I know I am schizophrenic. Multiple personalities with names. Yeah I am done.” David replied sadly.

“Oh rest assured that this is no delusion, nor a mental illness. I am as real as the star your little mud ball orbits. I, and the rest of my kin, are the overseers of this verse. We direct the fates of trillions.” Ilo said smugly.

“You consider yourselves gods?” David asked, trembling at the thought of there being more than one of him out there.

“No, but we have a god…and so do you. Although he prefers not being deified, he serves that function. At this very moment he is listening to our conversation.” Ilo replied.

David swallowed hard. He always knew there was a governing force to the universe, whether you gave it a name or not.

“Then you must have the answers to everything!” David yelled out mockingly, throwing his arms up in the air.

“In fact we do. We were given this knowledge to keep the universe in balance.” Ilo said, his tone becoming more serious.

“Then why do you bother with such an insignificant creature like me?” David asked softly.

“You, like countless others before, also serve a function. You are an agent of change, my chosen of this galaxy. You are one of my prophets.” Ilo told him. David rubbed the bridge of his nose, confused.

“You invading my mind and my body suggest that you are afraid of physical confrontation. If you are so all powerful, why not assert your dominance in person?” David challenged Ilo. All he got in response was a bone-chilling chuckle.

“My pet, I am so glad I chose you. I am far away, yet I am close by. I am now passing the planetoid you call Pluto. I draw nearer to your home.” He replied.

“Impossible. Our scanners would have picked you up by now.” David gasped.

“Who’s scanners? Yours? Or the Athenai’s? Ilo replied, his eerie grin left in the mirror.

---

They were whisked away on a transport, blindfolded and bound. Every so often they could hear one or two of the legionnaires murmur something of no consequence, but nothing else. Even the Councilman was uncharacteristically silent. The light blinded them as the blindfolds came off.

“Where are we?” Death demanded as he rubbed his eyes, trying to adjust to the sudden brightness.

“Welcome to the Bermuda triangle gentlemen! The one place we can hide where no radar or scanner can detect us!” The councilman gleefully wheezed.

“All I see is ocean dumbass.” Hanson replied, irritated. The man’s voice grated on all the wrong nerves.

“Ah, but my young and impatient friend here has somewhere else to be? Lo and behold! It comes with ABS brakes, teacup holders and…” He let the sentence hang in the air as he waved his hand towards the empty ocean.

A ship dematerialized right in front of them.

“It comes with its very own cloaking device!” The councilman yelled in elation, jumping up and down and clapping his hands in delight.

The ship was massive. By Bracus’s estimation, it could have been just under a mile long and almost just as high. Clearly not of human or Athenai origin. The design was completely alien.

“Where in the hell did you find this?” Jason asked.

“All will be revealed shortly gentlemen. In the meantime, welcome to the Dark Star!” He announced grandiosely as they entered the ship through a causeway protruding from the ship.

---

Two nights have passed since she learned that Bracus and the rest were trying to get her out. And Pericles was true to his word and visited her two nights in a row. Albeit the word visit meant to him two nights of unrelenting wooing. He found her resistance amusing and the arrogance of the man, so sure of himself that he would succeed, irritated her to no end. And then the moment he sensed her irritation he would soften, and transport their minds to places she could not even describe. Planets with endless gardens.

Skies with more than one moon. Even worlds that orbit so close to one another you could see mountain ranges on the other planet from where they stood. She ate fruits with tastes and smells she could not name, and in those moments, she was happy. With him. Last night they were standing on a hilltop overlooking a valley covered in crimson foliage, accented by its binary star, the flowers in that field bloomed a bright orange. It made it seem the entire valley was ablaze. He held her by the shoulders and turned her towards him.

“See Sikah? All this, and every other wonder of the universe is ours to experience. All this I will give to you as well as myself.” He said to her in soft rumbling tones. Then without warning, he kissed her. After losing herself to this force of nature, she broke free and touched her lips. Strawberries? Her mouth tasted of strawberries. As it dawned on her he smiled.

“There was a reason I asked for strawberries that day. I can make you taste anything you want.” He grinned, very proud of himself.

“You have to stop this.” She said shakily.

Although deep down she felt conflicting feelings for this alien, she still did not count Remus out yet. He could still remember the past they shared. But every moment with Pericles felt like the idea of her and Remus together was slipping further and further away.

“Pericles I…” her sentence was cut short by a sharp pain across her face, snapping her back to reality. She rubbed her cheek and found D’Nak standing in front of her.

“Now now, we can’t have you go traipsing around the galaxy my dear.” He said with a smug look on his face. If she didn’t know he could read minds, she did now.

“You think that your Tor companion will save you. Let me assure you that this hope is like reaching for the sun.” He told her matter-of-factly.

“Stars.” She tiredly corrected him.

“Pardon me?” D’Nak enquired, confused.

“Reaching for the sta…never mind.” She replied, her mind too exhausted to explain to the alien.

These outer body trips with Pericles take a lot out of her. All she wanted to do was sleep and this alien asshole is keeping her from it.

“What do you want?” She asked him.

“Your friends have been missing now for the last two days. Where are they?” D’Nak asked, rolling up his sleeves. She did not like where this was going and shifted on the bed uncomfortably.

“How the hell should I know? I have been in here for days.” She replied irritably. She did not even see the blow coming as D’Nak’s fist crashed into her left cheek. The blow launched her off the bed. He went after her again.

“I ask again, where are they.” He asked again, his face and voice did not show any emotion at all.

“I told you I don’t know.” She wheezed, punch drunk. He struck her again, shattering her nose. She was groping for anything to stabilize herself. She found his arm, her eyes tearing up so badly she could not see. He meant to kill her. D’Nak grabbed her by the throat and slowly started to squeeze.

“It matters not if you know. Your subconscious on some level will try and survive and some tiny detail will slip off that lying human tongue of yours.” He droned on while squeezing harder and harder.

She felt like passing out and before complete and utter darkness took her, she felt her spine snap.

---

Like a caged lion, he paced the length of his cell. What could have happened? One moment he held her in his arms and the next she just vanished. He knew some external force took her out as he was the only one that could release her. He felt his stomach hollow out when D’Nak stepped through the door and saw blood on his hands.

“This is a prison Pericles, not some holiday resort you can just whisk my prisoners away on romantic little jaunts.” D’Nak said wiping his blood-stained hands on the towel that hung on his cell’s rack.

“What have you done D’Nak.” Pericles asked, murder in his voice. He advanced on D’Nak, but his escorts trained their guns on him. He stopped.

“Humans are such fragile little things. Skin so soft. They bleed so easily. Their bones break like twigs. Like soft playthings.” He said, a hint of merriment in his voice. Pericles crossed his arms over his massively barreled chest, his brow furrowed in anger.

“I will lay your entire race to waste if you harm her!” Pericles hissed and took another step forward. The guns of the guards lit up.

“Let us just say I have ensured our little secret, stays that way. You know us. You made us. I needed insurance that you will stay silent on the matter of our…creation.” D’Nak replied.

“So torturing her ensures my silence? I suggest you reapply that brilliant logic of yours.” Pericles replied.

“Oh no, she is quite dead.” D’Nak replied nonchalantly, trying to pick dried blood from underneath his fingernails. Pericles felt both his hearts stop.

“Then revive her.” He demanded between grit teeth.

“I will. Your silence is currency Tor. She will live again by the end of today.” D’Nak replied, obviously pleased with himself as he left the cell, the guards covering his exit.