CHAPTER FINALE: FEELINGS UNVEILED IN THE END
The door of the missile-like craft finally opened. Somere had never felt so cramped before in her life. She found it hard to believe that Blade's clan had to both carry their weapons and ride this craft down to Earth. When the craft landed with a violent thud and shaking, Somere almost thought that she under attack or something. Painfully, she climbed out of the craft and heaved a sigh of relief.
"Next time, I'm taking the airplane."
Somere walked around to see where she was. She had landed somewhere in the middle of town. Everything was rather quiet and was trashed terribly, like someone had a crash party and forgot to clean up. There were bodies all over the floor too, badly mutilated and maimed into horrific proportions. Their body parts were everywhere—heads at the corner, torsos in drains, arms dangling on lamp posts and such. She was lucky that she had a strong stomach, or she would've puked at first sight. She was surprised as to why, in all those slaughter, hadn't the higher authorities did something to at least hold off this massacre, but she was answer by more bodies of police, firemen and medical people and the upturned bloody police cars and fire trucks. She realized that news doesn't travel to the military that fast in this country like hers in L.A. and even if it did get there, it would take a while for the government to send in some troops.
Soon the atmosphere became hectic as one creature after another flew out to get her. With the spear in one hand and the shield in another, she tried to kill off as much as possible without getting their acidic blood on her. At least the spear and shield were made out of durable material strong enough to endure the creatures' blood from being eaten away. She took advantage of her small built to duck and leap away to safety from becoming their dinner, and tried to aim their jugular just like Blade did when he rescued her. She had a few close calls, but she was lucky to sustain only cuts and bruises from the creatures' claws and sharp scorpion-like tail. She was frustrated before that she was not even taller than her juniors, but now she was rather grateful of her current height.
After much running and slashing, she finally took refuge in the town's indoor stadium. She tried to catch her breath and almost half-wished that she was in the ship and that Blade was beside her. But she knew it was too late to think of such things now. She had to get out there and look for Blade so that she could fight alongside with him and also prove to his clan that she'd make a worthy member of the group. Since she was already marked as Blade's wife and as one of them, she might as well make the best of it. She was about to go towards the perils outside there when all of a sudden she heard a long moaning sound. The moaning increased to a loud scream. More screams followed and Somere was rather caught off guard. She fumbled for the switch to light the stadium a little and soon realized that it was a dumb thing to do.
There, around the stadium was covered with icky slime and black goo all over. And it wasn't only some parts; it was everywhere, from the ceiling down to the floor. Then she saw almost a thousand or more caked black slime shaped like ant-hills holding something which seemed like eggs. Most of them were open and she could see the floor not only covered with disgusting slime and goo, but dead bodies of a creature which looked like both a huge tarantula and a scorpion the size of a chiwawa. But the worse thing was that in that puddle-like slime caked on the walls and ceilings were humans—dozens of them—screaming in agony and in pain, like there was something that was hurting them. And it did, because by the next second, something burst out of their chests one by one and were letting out a long screech that echoed throughout the whole stadium. It was the exact screech she heard when she was fighting those creatures.
They were taken by the creatures themselves to use as human incubators.
As the creatures fell onto the floor one by one, she quickly killed as many as she possibly can before they could get out into the open road. In the midst of her 'killing spree', she saw her unconscious best friend Eric, all dirty and gooey, trapped in the slime and was face to face with an opening egg. Somere was horrified. If those things get to him and lay whatever it was inside his body, she'll lose him forever. She ran towards the egg and planted her spear deep into it before it had a chance to pop out. She then quickly pry Eric out of his disgusting prison and dragged him quickly out of the stadium. She barred the door before the rest of the creatures could get out but she could only do so much to hold them. The rest were clever enough to crash through the window and escape into the darkness. She felt sorry for the rest of the people inside there but there's nothing more she could do to help them. She could only bring out one person at a time.
"Uhh...Somere...?" Eric began to stir.
"Eric? Eric, thank goodness you're alright!" Somere was so glad to see her best friend alright and well.
"What happened...? I remembered being attacked...and then..."
"Shh...You had a bad day. I'll get you somewhere safe."
With that she propped Eric on her shoulders and took him to the mall that was a few miles away from the stadium. She noticed that the mall was also equally trashed and filled with bodies like the town. She found a boutique shop that was reasonably untouched and shoved him into one of the dressing room. She then ran over to a locksmith shop and took out some chains and dozens of padlocks, ran back to the boutique shop and sealed the shop in whatever way she can so as not to let those creatures find him. She was rather enjoying it too, because she didn't have to pay for that.
"Stay there, Eric. Help will be on the way, and don't make a sound. I hope."
Keeping her fingers crossed, she quickly made a dash towards the open road and continued her search for Blade, killing off some of the creatures in process. She soon lost track of where she was going. The only thing that was going through her mind right now was to find Blade, and fast.
When she thought she could walk no more and needed to take a breather, she realized that she was right in front of a radio-television broadcast center. Her course had taught her something about handling machinery like these, and thought that it would be a good chance for her to try and get help from other places, if not from the country she in. She tried to walk past all the dead bodies of reporters and newscasters as she ran towards the broadcast room. A few switches here and there and she finally got herself online and live. She stood in front of the camera and told them about their predicament right now. She then carried the camera and took everything she could show to tell whoever was watching that her people needed help.
"As you can see," she reported as she focused on the bodies of the people and the creatures, "we have a situation at hand. We don't know where these creatures come from and where were their origins, but we know one thing, they are built to breed as fast as rats and will kill everything in its path. They will not hesitate to take anyone of you to incubate their offspring. Trust me, I've seen them. I am now walking around trying to look for my comrades, who aren't really human anyway, but they're nice creatures once you get to know them. They actually..."
Somere traveled on and on with the camera in hand as she talked to the camera about her experience with Blade here on Earth and inside his spaceship and also their history she'd seen in the 'powder case' gadget. She focused the camera at her palm to show how their custom of tagging mates was. Deep down inside, she did feel a little bliss about this. As she brought the camera out in the streets, she showed them the massacre, including the ones inside the stadium.
"Look, people. Every inch of this town has been crashed and trashed. No one survived their blow and I bet there will be more dead people if they're not stopped. Please, I beg you, whoever's out there, you have to send us some help. We have to get rid of these creatures before they multiply and conquer the whole world. Send us some help, any kind of help, because if you don't, there's no telling what would Earth become. This is Somere Hemmington, reporting live from Kuala Lumpur."
Just as soon as she finished speaking, a deep rumble followed. She didn't have to look. She knew what was behind her. She dropped the camera she was holding and braced herself. She could feel the aura as the creature raised its tail ready to strike her. She had the upper hand. She quickly did a backward flip before the tail could stab through her and grabbed onto the tail that was attacking her and let it bring her to a position on top of its head. She then let go and jammed the spear onto the creature's thick skull. This time she was taken by surprise because she found herself standing on top of an uber-huge creature that was twice the size of the normal creatures she fought and had a weird skull that was long and filled with blunt spikes, forming like some sort of a crown around its head. It had a loud screech that almost deafened her and a height that can be compare with half the size of Godzilla. It flung its head and threw Somere off, making her hit the ground with a loud thud. From there, she discovered that her height was equivalent to the height of its knee.
"Oh boy, Big Mama's here," Somere muttered as she tried to get up.
The battle began. She tried to run as fast as she could to get away from her snapping jaws and razor-sharp claws as the Creature Queen gave chase, and at the same time, she tried inflict her some pain. She wound her way around town to try and give her the slip. She dashed in corners and places where she would have to bang onto them in order to get her and might slow her down, but the Queen was still hot on her heels. A step to her meant about a couple hundred or more steps for Somere.
'Blade,' Somere thought desperately. 'Where are you? I can't hang on much longer...'
Speak of the devil. As soon as that thought came into mind, she was grabbed on the waist by the ever familiar Blade. More of his comrades came running towards the Queen and tried to attack her with whatever weapon they had. Some were shooting white laser-like balls at her, some threw sharp discs at her, some jabbed her with spears and some used what seemed like a hunting knife to stab her. Loud screeches echoed throughout the whole town as they try to overthrow the Queen. Blade took her aside and went off to join his comrades when Somere stopped him.
"You're not going anywhere without me, Blade! Let me fight!"
Blade turned to her and gave a loud threatening growl. He grabbed her hand that had the mark and showed it to her, then he put the hand close to his chest, all the while his angry growl continued. Somere knew what he meant.
"I understand, Blade. I know what you're trying to say to me. I know you're saying that I'm yours and I should be in the ship with the other girls, but I can't do that, Blade. I can't let you go out there and fight without someone important by your side. I can't bear the thought that you might fail just like the one at my campus and come out much worse than I first saw you. I don't want to see you dead, Blade. I care about you, really, I do. I...might even have certain feelings for you...Maybe more than that..."
Blade let down her hand and looked at her with an expression which can only be seen behind the mask. Somere blushed and see what she could do with the sheild she had on her wrist, as the spear was still jabbed on the Queen's head. She hovered her hand over the shield and it shone brightly for a minute or two before a huge change happened. It expanded twice, no, three times its size and the side became as sharp as a blade of a sword. It was like a huge, very huge version of the disc Blade's clan used as their weapon. Seeing this, Blade had an idea. He rushed towards his comrades and let out a long roar. Everyone got off the Queen and activated something on their wrist gadget. They all aimed at the Queen and shot out big nets that covered her from head to toe, pinning her down to where she stood. They were rather weird-looking nets because they not only hold on tight to the Queen, but tightened themselves around her as well, squeezing her and trying to snuff the life out of her.
Somere got that as a cue. She ran towards the Queen and raised the sharp shield. Blade gave her a hand by letting her jump onto his hand and throwing her up towards the struggling Queen. She was glad that her cheerleading skills were put to good use for this. She aimed her shield at the Queen and could soon hear a deafening slash and a loud screech as she brought the sharp shield across her neck.
Blade caught her just in time as she landed towards the ground. There was a long silence as everyone watched warily at the unmoving Queen. Slowly, the Queen's severed head began to slip off her neck and everyone began to take cover, with Blade hugging Somere close to his chest. Soon the head was seen plummeting towards the ground with a loud crash, followed by the rest of the body. The Queen was dead. Finally she was dead. Somere opened her eyes and lifted her face away from Blade's chest to see the lifeless body of the Queen on the ground, with her acidic blood flowing out onto the streets, eating through the concrete. She stared in awe.
"Did...Did I just do that...?"
Blade nodded. The rest of Blade's clan who took cover came out of their hiding and stared at the Queen's head in disbelief. They turned towards Blade and Somere in his embrace and began looking and chattering at each other, rather surprised at how a tiny human like her would be able to slash such a huge creature's head just like that. Somere guessed that it was just what they're talking about and replied with a flushed face and an awkward grin, "Well, I guess it's just luck."
One of Blade's comrades then turned around, broke off one of the spikes on the Queen's head and handed it to Blade. Blade nodded and took the spike dripping with the Queen's acidic blood. First he took off his mask, revealing his hideous face, which to Somere, was not as hideous as she thought it seemed, and drew a mark on the mask. He then drew the same mark onto his forehead, letting out a roar in the process. The rest of his comrade roared in reply, holding up their weapons in the air. Somere could only guess what was happening.
"Blade...Are you...a warrior now? Have you finally reached manhood?"
Blade didn't reply, but he held out the dripping spike to her. Somere widened her eyes in comprehension. She realized that not only she was marked as Blade's mate, but also as a warrior as well! She turned to look at all the comrades that revered her as a warrior and a warrior's wife, and she could feel the slight admiration in them. She smiled and turned to Blade, nodding her head. She pulled up her left sleeve and showed him her bare shoulder. He cautiously drew the mark on it, afraid that he would hurt her, but pain to her by then had become something she had gone accustomed to. She wanted the mark to be at the same body part where her mark as Blade's mate was.
After the mark was drawn, Blade and Somere looked at each other deeply. Words need not to be said in this moment as they both came to an understanding about how they felt about each other. There was no mistaking of a gradual chemistry between them and they were not going to deny it. Somere smiled, blushed and threw herself into Blade's arms, whispering the word she had longed to say since the day of their union.
"I love you, Blade."
Blade purred in reply, holding her close to his chest and caressing her long dark hair. After that few moments of intimacy, Blade turned to face his comrades. He raised his spear and let out a roar, followed by Somere's holler as she raised her shield that had shrunken back to size. The rest of the troop followed, roaring long and loud. It lasted about a few long minutes before they got ready to leave. They activated their gadgets and were ready to throw it as far as they could. Somere realized that they were going to bomb the whole town to rid of any remaining creatures that lingered. Blade was about to do the same when Somere laid her hand on his.
"Spare my people. You can blast any of those damn bastards, but spare my people."
Blade nodded and let out another roar to his comrades. They nodded and clicked in new configurations into the gadgets. They then took it off and threw it as far as they possibly can before running quickly towards the direction where they landed their missile-like crafts. Some of them picked up the Queen's head, probably to keep as a trophy, and carried it along with them as they ran. Blade, knowing that her speed wasn't as fast as theirs, picked Somere up in his arms and made a dash for it. One of them sort of 'radio' in for the mother ship to come and get them and it appeared almost immediately.
As they ran quickly into the ship and took off, Somere took one last look at the town before a distant explosion began to occur.
"Goodbye, Earth."
Eric was sitting in his room looking far out into the starry sky, as if trying to search for something. The scars on his body were slowly disappearing, but it couldn't erase the memories he had during that fateful night.
Somere never came back after that incident with the exploding campus and the weird-looking masked man that attacked him for no reason. Those who survived the creatures' attack and the explosion told excitedly and elaborately about what happened, prompting an investigation. But when the police came to investigate this matter, they were said to mysteriously disappear and so did other people who had approached the campus. Soon more curious people tried to figure out what was going on in the campus but they, too, disappeared without a trace. The disappearance only stopped when the government sent some experts to check on the red-tagged area. They couldn't find anything because it was blown down to the last brick. Everything was reduced to dust and the government was surprised that such weaponry could cause such mass destruction. Of course, they couldn't find anything that could support the survivors' story and concluded that the incident was caused by mass hysteria.
Eric was in town trying to see if Somere was there at her favourite haunts when another attack happened. He remembered being knocked out cold by one of those creatures, only to wake up and find himself inside the stadium. By then he had finally saw his crush Somere rushing towards him while trying to get rid of something on the floor. Everything was fuzzy as he tried to adjust his eyes to the light and he thought he saw gooey stuff all over the place and people in them, with those ugly creatures crawling all over the floor. He thought he was dreaming, so he fell back to unconsciousness again, but when he stir, he finally saw Somere staring back at him with those magnificent jade-green eyes he loved so much. He remembered being propped and taken to somewhere cold (that'll be the air-conditioning inside the mall) and thrown into a small room. He heard Somere said something but it was too distant for him to catch. He knew he was going to lose Somere again, but his weak body that hadn't touched food and water since, like, ever, stopped him from moving. He went in and out of unconsciousness for a few times and could've sworn the same explosion was happening all over again.
He thought he was going to die.
When he finally opened his eyes, he found himself in a hospital ward in Johor Bahru. He heard from his father who worked with the government in that state saying that a huge explosion just like the one in the campus occurred, blasting throughout the whole Selangor state. The weird thing was that although the explosion was massive, the people were left untouched. The buildings collapse and everything had disappeared, suddenly making Selangor as bare as a baby's bottom, but the citizens were alive. It was like experiencing a huge tornado that tore everything in its path except the people. The only thing that survived the explosion was a video camera that a girl had used to show them what had happened before the explosion and the government is doing a thorough research on the tape inside right now.
"How did the camera survived the explosion anyway?" Eric tried to sit up. His father helped him.
"Turned out that some kid grabbed hold of the camera and hugged it real tight before it could fly away, because he recognized it as one of the cameras his brother used in the radio-TV broadcast center. That girl was brave enough to go around carrying the camera to show what had happened," his father said. "She was even smart enough to broadcast it throughout the whole world online. We've discovered all the dead bodies she had shown on tape and scientists from NASA are examining them as we speak."
"Really? How did she look like?" Eric asked, curious.
"Oh, she had really dark black hair, and she had those rather striking green eyes. I think she's Eurasian."
"That's her! That's Somere Hemmington I've been telling you about! The one that I have a crush on!" Eric exclaimed in shock at that description.
"You mean that's the girl you got the hicks on? Why, I simply must meet her! Have you any idea she has discovered something really astonishing?"
"Don't tell me you never found her! KL was as bare as a baby's butt and you never found her?"
"Unfortunately, no," Eric's father replied apologetically. "We have been trying to locate her. We even called her parents back in L.A. but they said they've never heard of her since your campus exploded. We've searched everywhere, but there's no sign of her. Seems like she's disappeared without trace."
"She couldn't be..." Eric feared the worse.
"No, no, no, of course not! Like I said, every single human in KL survived the explosion. Maybe some did get hurt in the process, but none of them died. They all said that it was like being blown by an uber-strong wind and their houses and buildings peeled off like a banana, but that's all."
"Then...Then where could she be...?"
"I don't know, sonny. We're still looking for her. The government would do anything to get their hands on her, now that she has had close contacts with those creatures and the alien warriors she claimed to be with, proving that there is, after all, life in the galaxy. There were bits and pieces of her fighting this really massive alien caught on tape and..."
Eric didn't hear the rest of his father's excited babble. He had an idea where Somere had gone, and it was nowhere near Earth, that's for sure. The weird masked man who attacked him told him enough that she had gone to his place with him. And now Eric was sitting there in his Johor home—his father's condominium—staring at the sky and wondering which part of the galaxy she had went into.
"Somere, where could you be...?"
As if in cue, he heard a distant rustling. He turned towards the sound and saw something, or someone, sitting on the thick branch of a tree near his window. He could only make out what the light from his room could muster. It was a girl with one leg propped up, wearing something scaly and leather with machineries on both her arms. On her chest was something bulky, almost like a child, clinging to her like a koala bear. She had long dreadlocks down to her waist, fastened with ornaments that looked foreign to him. But there was no mistaking the colour of her eyes.
They were jade-green.
"So...Somere...?" Eric almost breathed the words in shock, unable to believe what he saw. After all this time, she had finally come back to see him. A warm feeling came to him, and he felt like he wanted to break in tears of joy. His crush was there, right there watching him from her spot. There was so much he wanted to ask, so much he wanted to say to her.
Before he could utter a word, the girl in the tree called out to him. But it wasn't human words. It was a mixture of clicking and rumbling, something he couldn't understand. The child who was clinging onto her turned to face Eric, and Eric could see that it was also having dreadlocks like her, with different coloured eyes: one was jade-green and the other was dark yellow. It looked at Eric and seemed uninterested as it buried its face back in its mother's bosoms. The girl got up from where she was sitting with ease and was getting ready to leave. Eric was taken by surprise.
"Wait! Wait, Somere! It's you, isn't it? Somere, why are you running away from me? I have so much to tell you!"
The girl didn't seem to bother about him. She clicked on a few buttons from the gadget that was on her wrist, talked to him in her clicking-rumbling language again before letting out a smile.
"I don't understand you, Somere! What are you saying? Just tell me where you've been all this..."
Eric never got to finish his question. She had disappeared out of view, making herself invisible. The only thing Eric could see was her silhouette going down the tree and disappearing into the street and into the night. By the time Eric ran down the stairs and dashed out of the condominium's front door, she was gone. Gone without a trace.
"Why! Why are you doing this, Somere!" Eric yelled out at the sky, ignoring the curious faces of passers-by. "You used to be very close to me! You used to tell me everything! You used to hang out with me everyday and never keep a single secret from me! Now you're avoiding me all the time! You promised you'll get back to me! You promised! And now you're avoiding me, just like you've avoided me back in campus ever since that alien came to you! Why, Somere! WHY!"
There was no reply. He knew that she would never hear him, but he had to let it all out. He fell onto his knees and let his tears fall freely down his cheeks.
"You never gave me a chance to say 'I love you'..."
Unknown to him, as he buried his face in his hands and cried, the silhouette of the girl was watching him from the top of a lamp post quietly. She then giggled playfully and jumped off the lamp post stealthily as a cat, and, holding her son close to her, bounded happily towards another taller silhouette that was waiting for her at the horizon...
No comments:
Post a Comment