CHAPTER 2: HIS NAME IS BLADE
Somere found herself walking down a long corridor. Her footsteps echoed throughout the corridor and she could hardly make out the walls that surrounded her. It seemed blurred and pretty vague but she could tell that they were all made out of hard core metal. She thought she heard a deep rumble down the corridor behind her, but when she turned around to see, there was nothing there. When she turned back around to continue her mysterious journey down the corridor, she suddenly felt a hard stab on her back. It somehow pierced through her spine, through her gut, through her ribs and through her chest. It happened real fast, she wasn't able to feel any pain. She felt only a hard numbing feeling as she was raised higher and higher into the mid-air. She looked down to see a large spiked object pierced through her and was bleeding terribly. Slowly she was brought closer and closer to the culprit that stabbed her. It was a shiny black and very smooth and had a menacing mouth that drooled like someone in intense hunger.
Its deep rumble that escaped from its mouth was the last thing she heard...
Somere opened her eyes abruptly. She was shocked awake by her nightmare. She couldn't figure out what it was. First thing that crossed her mind was what that was all about. Shiny black face, drooling mouth, rumbling in the throat, being stabbed, that definitely didn't make sense. And it scared her.
Just when she was about to figure what was going on, she was greeted by a pair of jagged blades. It gleamed under the sunrays that stream into her room in the morning. She looked up slowly and saw in horror that the weird creature was up, and was pointing the blades at her throat threateningly. His eyes were of anger and pride, looking like he was going to slash her for making him look like a fool, like his warrior image was ruined by her kindness. A clicking sound came from his weird insect-looking mouth but Somere couldn't understand him. She tried to strike a normal conversation with him.
"Uh...Hi...I see you're up. Feeling better now?"
Her sweet talk was met with a loud roar, the peculiar hinged jaws opened to reveal another set of teeth inside.
"Shush! You'll wake up my housemates! Um...You wanna have some chocolate? I don't know what you eat, so, uh, I thought maybe you might like this..."
The creator stared at her for a while before lowering the blades. He continued staring as he shifted his gaze from Somere to the chocolate to her again. He finally relaxed and clenched his fist to keep in the blades, then slapped the chocolate away from Somere's hand. Somere took the hint. Either he didn't like chocolate or he just doesn't eat earth food.
"Well, OK. You stay here and rest. I'm gonna go make myself some breakfast. I'll figure out what you'd like to eat later. And we're changing those bandages, whether you like it or not."
With that, she took out her first-aid kit and started removing the old bandages and putting on new ones. The creature winced whenever she peeled off the old bandages that were slightly caked with his dried-off blood, and once in a while, he would growl when it hurt him, but Somere was getting used to threats and growls by then. After finishing the bandages, she walked out of her room, making sure that she was alone. Lucky for her, her housemates had morning classes and weren't home. There was still enough time to fry some eggs and make some toast before her 11.30 class, so she did just that. While she was frying her eggs, she suddenly heard a sucking sound, like someone was sucking an almost finished carton drink. When she turned around, she watched in morbid fascination as the creature she told to stay in her room was out and was using something to suck the brain of one of her housemates' fish. When he was done with it, he reached for a raw chicken and started sucking its brains out. The creature realized that he was being watched and turned around to look at Somere, his eyes seemed to say 'You got a problem with my eating habits?'
"You're lucky my housemates are not here, man," Somere wrinkled her nose in disgust as he went back into his sucking frenzy. Somere tried to ignore him and continued with her cooking. Needless to say, as she tried to have her breakfast, the creature's breakfast-sucking made her lose most of her appetite.
Days passed. Weeks passed. Thanks to Somere's dedicated care, the creature soon was all cured and wound-free. It wasn't easy though. Somere had to rush home everyday after class to reach her room in time to keep the creature from getting out of it. She had to handle his growls and threats almost everyday until she got rather tired of it. Sometimes she had to yell or snap at him just to stop him from giving her all the weird growls and threatening clicks just to prove that she was sick of it. Not that it worked for long. She reminded him every time she leaves for campus to stay indoors and not go anywhere. She sometimes had to hide the creature away especially when her certain particular housemate of hers had the habit of barging into people's room without knocking first. She even had to spend most of her money to buy raw fish and whole chicken just to feed his insatiable appetite for animal brains so as not to let her housemates get suspicious about their fish and chicken with holes on their heads. But all in all, the creature was finally free to move around without having those troublesome bandages all over his body.
"Hey, do you mind?" Somere asked, like any other day, for the creature to turn his back as she changed her clothes. The creature, used to this 'ritual', growled and turned his back. As Somere changed into her baby-T and mini skirt, she chit-chatted with the creature.
"Hey, I wonder where you come from, eh? Could you be from Mars? That's where majority of aliens come from. Or maybe you might come from Pluto. That's the planet people least want to travel. Maybe most aliens originated from there instead of Mars. Hey, I bet you have a name, do you? But if I were to ask you that, I wouldn't understand you coz you'll be answering me in those weird clicking sounds. So, how about I give you a name, hmm? How does that sound? So, how do I look?"
The creature turned around to look at Somere who was all dressed up in her baby-T and mini skirt. His eyes trailed up and down as he continued to stare at her. The baby-T was a soft pink with faded white roses for patterns and the mini skirt was a sky-blue. She matched it with a pair of knee-long socks the colour of pale yellow and was putting on her pinkish-blue platform shoes. He snorted and looked away without a clicking comment. Somere pouted.
"Fine, I wouldn't understand you anywho. So, want me to give you an Earth name?"
The creature rumbled in reply, his eyes slightly curious.
"OK, I can't call you E.T., coz it'll be so cliché. And I can't call you Rover or Butch or Bingo or Chad, coz you're not a dog. But then I can't call you Steven or Randy or Fred or George coz you're nowhere near human...What should I call you...?"
The creature was getting rather impatient. He stomped off towards the bed and started polishing the blades that often emerge from the gadget in his wrist. Somere immediately struck the idea light bulb at this sight.
"I know! I'll call you Blade! That suits you perfectly, especially when you're so obsessed with those double blades of yours. From now on, I'm calling you Blade. How's that sound?"
The creature turned to her and clicked in reply. Somere wasn't sure if he agreed to it, but she had no time to consider that. The honking of Eric's car signaled her to leave.
"OK, gotta go to school now. Promise me you'll stay inside this room and don't leave, OK? I'll bring home some fish and chicken when I get back. Stay, OK, Blade? Promise?"
The slam of her door and the sound of the lock clicked finally convinced Somere that the creature—now called Blade—would keep his word, whether he liked it or not. Somere nodded in satisfaction and bounded out of the house towards Eric who was waiting for her in the car.
"The equation for the formula to create a HTML file would be..."
Somere, Eric and the rest of the students the same course as theirs were sitting quietly in the lecture theatre listening to another 3 hour long lecture about the Information System. But unfortunately, studies was not in her mind right now. All she could think of was Blade who was at home in her room doing goodness knows whatever it was his species does. She worried that he might even get so bored that he'll attempt to break out of the room and go on a rampage or something. As the lecturer continued to ramble on the subject, Somere scribbled absentmindedly on her notebook. Eric brought her back to reality.
"Hey, Somere. Nice drawing," he commented. "What's that? Your new project or something?"
It was then Somere realized that she was actually scribbling a portrait of Blade on her notebook. It was all complete down to the last detail: the shape of his head, the dreadlocks, the shape and structure of his mask, those glaring eyes...they were all exactly the same as the real thing. Somehow she felt a slight fascination for this weird alien who came for her help and into her life in the dead of the night. Morbid fascination, maybe, but a fascination nonetheless.
"So? Who's this mysterious character you're drawing?" Eric asked again.
"Just something that went bump in the night into my world," Somere grinned, not realizing that her face looked slightly flushed.
"Looks like he gave you quite a nice touch on your cheeks. You up for dinner tonight after class?"
"Sorry, I got something planned."
"You've been saying that almost everyday now. You always leave early after class and never stay back anymore. It's always other plans for the day," Eric eyed at her suspiciously. "Is there something you're not telling me, Somere?"
"No. There's nothing to tell. I just have other plans in hand, that's all," Somere tried to reply as casual as she could.
"Can't it wait till after dinner?"
"Nope, can't do. Sorry."
Eric pouted a little before letting the subject drop. Somere felt slightly sorry for him because she knew he had a heart for her (girls can sometimes tell these things) and they have been friends since the first day on campus. They've never a missed a meal together, and even during free weeks, they would at least hang out for a drink and she would always be at his place watching DVD or playing PS2 till late at night. Ever since Blade appeared, she spent more and more time at home with him than with Eric. It's rather unorthodox for her usual daily life with Eric but nothing can be done, unfortunately. Besides, she only treated Eric like a best friend. Nothing more than that. And there's no say that she can't have her own time for herself.
But still, Eric's her best friend and she need to do or at least say something to make up for her bad. When she was about to turn to him to apologize, a deep rumbling suddenly shook the whole lecture theatre slightly. It lasted for about 3 minutes before everyone started looking at each other questioningly and a long line of mutters followed.
"What was that about?" Somere asked, surprised. "I didn't know KL has earthquakes."
"It doesn't! This is so weird..." Eric rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
No sooner he mentioned it than the rumble started again, and this time it was stronger than before. The tables, chairs, lecturer's desk and the PC on the desk shook like there was no tomorrow. Everyone began to panic and take cover under the lecture tables they're sitting at. Somere and Eric did the same. Somehow Somere couldn't shake off the feeling that this kind of rumble sounded familiar. The rumbling stopped abruptly after 15 minutes of rumbling, shaking, falling of chairs, papers and stationeries, and just when everyone thought it was safe to come out of their safety spots, a very, very loud crack was heard somewhere on the floor above the lecture theatre, followed by a series of bloodcurdling screams. Somere looked up and was horrified to see a huge black creature coming out of the massacre hole it created. She realized that the creature attacking and killing the students, tearing them from limb to limb, looked exactly like the creature in her dream. It was about 10 feet tall and had the same shiny black, smooth head and the same drooling menacing mouth. It was made of mostly tight skin and bones and had no eyes (A/N: OK, everyone knows how an Alien looks like, so spare the description). More crunches and crashes followed as more of those spooky, malicious creatures pop out of the open hole, totaling to about three of them. They snarled and howled as they lashed out at any student they can sink their teeth into. Everyone tried to make their way out of the lecture theatre exit and entrance but there was only so much. The unlucky ones were barred from the doors immediately as soon as those horrible creatures pounced in front of them. Eric tried to bring Somere out through the exit but due to the pushing and pulling of the panicking students, their grip broke and Somere was hurled down to the ground, and by the time she got back on her feet, she was too late.
She tried to escape from the snapping jaws of those hungry creatures and tried to block out the screams and wails of pain of the dying students, but she couldn't stop the blood from pouring all over her as one by one bloody bodies were sent flying across and above her, staining her whole body with fresh, metallic-smell blood. Hiding did her no good either, because the creature seemed to track people by smell. She was soon found by one of them when she was hiding in one of the lecture desks.
It was dejavu all over as the creature drooled in front of her face with that shiny, smooth head without eyes rumbling at her in immense hunger. Somere trembled as she saw the jagged long tail rose up like a scorpion's, ready to aim at her chest, ready for the kill. Maybe it was a premonition. Maybe her dream was true. Maybe she was going to die in the hands—or tail—of this massive creature that came out of the blue.
The only question that lingered in her mind before she faced her final minutes of living: What the heck are these creatures?
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