Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
By the time the storm spits me out, I am so many light years from where I started I may as well never have been there at all. I’m in a new region of uncharted space, using the sensors to try to locate some kind of outpost. I need to find some kind of social situation to restock food and just to see some aliens who aren’t actively trying to fuck or kill me.
I’ve had several days to search the shuttle from top to bottom. I find a human suit, which is the kind of suit the scythkin really seem to prefer. One of these days, I’ll learn what their fascination with humans is.
I decide to put the suit on. It’s a male suit, and I keep my foil on underneath it, which means I am basically wearing a sweaty insulated second skin. I look like an accountant, a lot like Atlas. Giggling to myself at the idea of running into him in this state, I can only imagine what he’d think. Would he find it funny? Did he have a discernible sense of humor?
SENTIENT LOCATION DISCOVERED
The ship’s computer gives me an update.
“Set coordinates!” I shout out. I don’t really care what the location is. I just have to get off this cramped shuttle. I need to stretch my legs, eat some local food, and generally experience life in the way it is meant to be experienced.
We are in orbit over a cracked gray and red planet. It looks like it has plenty of volcanic activity. Probably has plenty of stone skin inhabitants, life forms capable of resisting great amounts of heat. Good. That’s what I need now, some very resilient companionship.
I take the human suit off. It doesn’t really fit, and the last thing I need to do is make an appearance on a new planet as a droopy-eyed human monster. I want to look cute, or as close to cute as I can look these days.
I am really running out of decent clothing options. Tinfoil and frills are a weird combination. Once I get down to this sentient planet, I’ll see about getting myself something to wear. Something nice. Something that hugs my figure and accentuates my assets.
The ship handles the descent and landing, which is good because I am not trained in that sort of thing. I can man a weapons bank from time to time, and I can steer if there’s the vastness of space around me, but doing something like landing somewhere with precision? That’s not a skill I have spent much time developing.
There’s a heaviness as the ship lands, and a satisfying CLUNK as it settles into place. There’s not much to see from inside the ship. So much red dust has blown up over the sensors the place looks like a big desert haze. I have to hope it has a little more to it than that.
I prepare to disembark, feeling a certain sense of excitement even though nothing has worked out well for me in a long time. I guess I’m due a win. That has to be how the universe works. You throw one betrayer-lover out an airlock, and it opens a window, or something like that.
“Oh fuck me…” I groan to myself.
There’s a lot of death here. I smell it the second I step off the ship.
I have landed in a field of carcasses and rubble. I get the impression that there was a city here, once. Something beautiful I would imagine, judging by the ornate scraps left amid the destruction. This is not the scene of a war. This is the scene of a complete erasure of a civilization, the attempt to entirely eradicate a form of life.
This is the act of something dark, demonic, and hungry with an appetite that will never be sated. I feel slow horror creeping over me. It is the kind of fear that makes action seem almost impossible. All I have to do is back my way up the steps again and set sail for literally anywhere else. But it feels as though I am moving through quicksand. My muscles are heavy. My thoughts are also slowed.
“Pretty little human thing.”
I have been seen. More than seen. I have been observed.
I turn my head far more slowly than I would like. I need to whip around to face and eliminate the threat, but that will not happen.
I feel a cold, large hand on the back of my neck. I feel myself being turned to face an alien who makes the very marrow in my bones freeze. The porcelain gray skin is beautiful and pore-less. The red eyes hunger so ravenously I feel my own stomach growl as my body does its very best to identify in all ways with this most terrible of aggressors. He is tall, and his hair is long and glossy black with a silver stripe running back from the left side of his temple. He has a certain air of authority about him, though not the same brutal dominance as Emrys. This is a predator who knows where the paperwork is.