A Better Understanding [closed, contains Nightmare Plot oddness]
Aeneas the blue-striped alien was looking decidedly confident as he marched towards the bright pink bus parked in the City. Well, for somebody who should be suffering from the afflictions of recent dreams, of social reclusion, of mild depression…
But that was just the thing, wasn’t it? Aeneas didn’t suffer from any of those things-rather, he ( Read more... )
Thessaly was in as much of (if not more) a panic than Aeneas was, staggering across the bridge with wide eyes and flared feathers. “This is all going according to plan. Everything is working out perfectly. Get us deeper into the atmosphere, act like we’re trying to avoid them-“
Two more ships came, closely followed by two more rounds. Aeneas evaded one but the other hit cleanly, shearing off the cargo hold behind the ship. The power went out. Hesiod was kicking the doors, claws scratching against metal.
“So this was your plan?” Aeneas screeched, jumping out of his chair, “This was it, all along? Some half-baked suicide mission? Why did this have to involve us? You could have obtained a private cruiser, snuck past the borders-“
“If I can’t have one of you then I can’t have either!” Thessaly roared, and threw herself at Aeneas.
Her powerful mandibles closed around his throat faster than he could react, cutting cleanly through his layers of fur and into muscle, paralyzing his shoulders. Her tail swept underneath his legs; she dragged his limp body effortlessly into the air, using only her jaws, and flung him across the bridge. Various obstacles found their way into his path before he came to a crashing stop against the opposite wall, collapsing in a heap on the floor.
More shots hit. The program, unfinished, soon failed, and Hesiod regained control of navigation. The ship plummeted through the clouds, others hot on their tail.
“Get in the escape pod.”
Thessaly was standing over him, blood dripping from her massive jaws. When Aeneas didn’t comply, she pulled him up by the waist. He screeched, pain shooting through his abdomen as he lost feeling of the floor, and she threw him again. Aeneas’s form was like a bloody ragdoll while he sailed through the ship’s blinking emergency lights.
“If you’re so desperate to live, then get in the escape pod!” Thessaly demanded, eyes darting towards the cracked panoramic window. Land shrouded in the darkness of night unfolded below them like a model landscape.
Aeneas almost complied. Almost. But despite her betrayal, despite her scathing words and powerful violence, he couldn’t leave her…just…
“…No, you.”
“This is none of your concern!” Thessaly charged forward in blind rage and panic, standing over him once again, “This isn’t for the betterment of everyone, this is for me! So stay out of it! Get in the escape pod!”
“…No. I…I love you. Please. Let me s…stay.”
She grabbed him by the scruff and shook. One of his back legs flopped lifelessly behind him, but he didn’t care. Pain was obsolete at this point.
“Forget-EVERYTHING!” she tossed him into the pressure hatch door, “Forget me! Forget the project! Forget the plan, forget the program, forget those long rituals and the grooming we stole-it never happened! None of this did! I never happened! You never happened! JUST FORGET IT!”
The fifth or sixth slam into the broken door yielded the metal plating just enough for Thessaly to shove Aeneas inside. As he slowly uncurled, head swimming and muscles writhing, the pod abruptly detached. The diplomatic cruiser disappeared in a flash of compressed steam and burning fuel.
Weakly he called out over the overwhelming noise of reentry, “But I-I love-I-Wai-“
The pod was blindsided by a rogue piece of shrapnel. The cockpit collapsed violently, everything went dark, then suddenly bright, then very dark and quiet again…
The creature lay writhing on the ground, bleeding out slowly from unknown wounds and gasping for air. His eyes were open, but rolled in the back of his head, lids fluttering spasmodically as he seized at the bottom of the bed.
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With a startled jerk, he rolled over, gasping for air as he looked over at his bleeding friend. "Slag," growled Matt, unable to formulate a response.
"Hang on bud," said Matt as he got out of bed and knelt down next to his friend. Clasping his hands, Matt searched his memory for some kind of focus through the bleary haze of sleep and the stabbing of Aeneas' pain and frustration driving through his shields at such a close range. A magic circle appeared under him and Aeneas and he muttered, "O brilliant angels, grant us your favor! Nurse!"
Magic poured from Matt's frame, twisting around in a green-yellow energy as he started to feed the healing spell into his friend. "You okay Ani?" he inquired, light floating upwards as he continued to maintain the spell.
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Matt’s spell worked well enough to wake him from his dream-induced coma and heal most of the wounds that were starting to appear from the crash itself-gaping lacerations, shattered ribs all along his torso and abdomen, multiple internal injuries-but a good majority remained along with the clear memory and mental scarring. Aeneas could still see the scene play out in front of his eyes, could still feel the spit dribbling down his neck. And, worst of all, he could smell his own blood pooling on the floor of the bus.
He wasn’t bleeding out too terribly, which should’ve come as a surprise to any creature with a cardiovascular system even remotely resembling a human’s. His blood was also something of an oddity; it was red, sure, but it was more on the florescent side, and extremely gooey, like paste. Clotting was quick to set in, helped by Matt’s healing spell and Aeneas’s matted fur.
Matt.
The fact that the previous traumatizing vision was an uncovered memory did not immediately register to him at first. The alien had a secondary panic attack as his mind temporarily meshed the two realities together; he frantically staggered to his feet, eyes wide with terror and confusion once they located their human target. One of his back legs was obviously broken, making this task exponentially more difficult.
“Are you okay?” Aeneas rasped, apparently oblivious to both Matt's question and his own misgivings.
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Reaching out, he grabbed his comm ring from the bedside stand. "That okay with you?"
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“I-I do not underst-“ Aeneas’s eyes swam and his other hind leg buckled, tail coming with it. His mandibles parted, corrosive spit dribbling through his teeth, and he let loose an agonized screech. It was like a sound that a horror movie creature might make, complete with gurgling, an ear-piercing upper pitch, some oddly human-like groans, and an underlying layer of white noise. Considering that his esophagus did not contain any sort of recognizable vocal chords, the strangeness of it was understandable.
As was his pain, of course. Escalating conscious recognition of the situation at hand was not helping.
“-Matt, I can-“ the alien dragged himself forward, front legs also giving out after a few shaky steps, “-I remember-“
Aeneas squinted his eyes tightly closed, slowly curling up on the floor.
The implied answer to Matt's question was, in fact, a yes.
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Stretching out his hands, he added, "I'll sink another healing spell into you but that's all I can do. You'll feel less pain from it but that's as much as I can muster. I don't think you'll be in any condition to get up and walk till the people arrive here on stretchers."
Closing his eyes, he tapped deep into his magical reserves and sought the Light, what little he had of it. "O light which shines in the heavens, cast thy undefiled purity upon the land. RESURRECTION!"
Pinpricks of golden light burst free from the floor beneath the injured alien and started to mend for about ten seconds before the spell faded, leaving Matt to slump to the floor panting. "That should ease the pain a little," groaned Matt. Resurrection was one part powerful healing spell, one part painkiller.
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His eyes relaxed, gaze becoming hazy. “-I remember the crash…Matt, the crash…She-she caused it, and I should have known-“
Aeneas paused, slack mandibles twitching on the floor. His abdomen rose and fell heavily, gills sucking nitrogen from the air to compensate for his hyperventilation-induced lack of oxygen, emitting a strong, syrupy odor upon respiring. Something about it was disturbingly reminiscent of apples.
“…How could I have been so ignorant…”
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