Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) (6 page)

The purge had begun.

The worst moment of my life began with my mother screaming my name
telling me I had to run. She was trapped lying on the ground a large piece of
the Tritan’s hull covering her broken legs. I was ten yards away from her
crying on my knees. I couldn’t believe one moment we were right next to one
another I could feel her gripping my hand and now it seemed we were miles
apart. I had bruised (if not broken) one of my ribs from where some Eek hit
my side to hard. I didn’t want to run. I didn’t want to leave my mother’s side.
I was the only person moving against the crowd towards the chaos. If I could
just stand up, if I could just get over to where she was. I imagined her holding
me in her arms, she was my angel, always there for me and this was my
moment to be there for her. Any moment now I imagined she would lift the
metal and push it away from her and stand. She wouldn’t die like this. She
shouldn’t die like this. She was my mom and she wouldn’t leave me like this.
She was my mom and she was screaming for me to run.

“We have to go now!” it was Aira; she found me and grabbed my
shoulder. I felt the entire world fall back into place and through the roar of
the crowd I heard the beast again. Crawling out from the ruins of the Tritan
came an animal, not far off from the kinds of kaiju you would imagine seeing
in a horror film. It had skin that was completely black aside from several
massive red tumors that seemed to cover its sides. It had spider like limbs
protruding from what I assumed were its shoulders and hips. Its face looked
like a mix between a crocidile and shark except that its jaw was broken into
three different parts; its teeth where solid white, the smallest the size of two
or three people standing upright. It had a tail that stretched several hundreds
yards and swayed against the sides of buildings knocking them down as if
they were nothing. Where I assumed its eyes would be there was only
darkness. Thirty maybe forty black circles stood on the side of its face. It was
bleeding from some parts of its body a phosphorescent blue liquid. The blue
blood filled the air with the smell of decay. It must have been at least two
hundred and fifty to three hundred feet tall. Staring at the creature I felt as if
reality itself was being sucked away and destroyed. Then I saw it. Its claws
were tearing apart survivors on the ground. It barely noticed them. It was
like crushing ants. Its teeth were stained red with the blood of Errikans, the
blood of Eeks, Poks, Droks, Myra, humans, and other species I couldn’t
recognize.

We were nothing to the beast; as far as it was concerned we didn’t even
exist. The sounds of bone bending and breaking filled my ears. I was more
terrified now then I had ever been. Aira shook me and yelled at me pulling
my paralyzed body away. I was in shock. I couldn’t even feel the pain in my
side anymore. Finally I came to and took her hand and ran joining the
stampede around us leaving my screaming mother behind. I knew that it was
what she would have wanted me to do but I can’t stop wondering if there had
been another way. The last thing I remember of her was seeing her broken
body, her eyes staring at me and her lips screaming at me to run. I was all she
cared about. All the kids she had watched, fostered taught it was I alone that
she truly loved. I was hers. I was her son and she was begging me to survive.

I seriously thought I would see her again. I thought I would run and
then around the next corner she would be there arms spread ready to
embrace me. I thought I would have at least had a chance to say goodbye.

I wanted to die. I wanted to give up. I wanted to stop running. Surely if
there was an afterlife Dom and my mother would be there so why couldn’t I
join them. “Where are we going?” I yelled towards Aira. “Anywhere but
here,” she said just as scared as I was. She was strong though she hadn’t
looked at the creature like I had. If she saw what I saw we both would still be
sitting caught in its shadow. I don’t even think she saw my mom the way she
moved through the crowd so quickly. If she had she wasn’t saying anything.
Aira was so much stronger then I was.

The beast continued to stomp and screech tearing and ripping away at
the Tritan and the buildings that surrounded it. The entire dock was nothing
more than a mess of metal, bio-organic walls and body parts. It was the end of
the world - the end of Errikus. We made it to a shelther less than a mile away
from ground zero. Everyone was still screaming and crying. Some Errikans
were running around with holo projectors looking for loved ones. Some of the
Erika guards were aiming and shooting at the creature from rooftops; their
bullets had no effect. Other guards were aiming at the citizens. Everyone was
in such a panic they were killing each other. Shots fired wildly into crowds
that were breaking barriers and seals trying to get into the bunkers and
fallout shelters that led underground; all of which had already become
overrun.

“Take aim and don’t let anyone else in,” the COM of a guardsman
shouted. Aira and I were at the door. The guard, a tall and slender Eek in full
battle armor was aiming his rifle at us and shouting at us to turn back. It was
an M44, a special pulse rifle that fed of kinetic energy, designed by humans
and traded with Eek. Normally it would have been used on expeditions
beyond the wall. It was designed to send out a blast of radiation. How strong
the blast would depend on how long you held down the trigger. An enraged
Pok dived in front of us trying to use its small size to make it past the
distracted guard. When it failed he turned his teeth on the guard and the rifle
moved away from us and the Eek shot the little enraged man dead. The guard
never let go of the trigger for ten seconds and the Pok had become a corpse of
melting flesh with small pieces being carried away by the wind.

“How could you!” Aira shouted, “we are all just trying to survive, don’t
you see what is happening?” The guard quickly turned his gun back on us.
Then we heard the creature scream again. It was moving closer. We were too
afraid to turn and face it but it was getting louder and louder. The guard had
turned his COM to silent and slowly he began to speak to us, “two blocks
down there is an alley, a closed bar full on munitions and rations, tell them
Gerad sent you…” he paused, “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want to kill him.”
He stopped looking at us and looked towards the Pok who stood as a statue
of dust. We could see the shadow of the beast reflecting in the corner of the
Eek’s eye. “Run and tell them you are taking my place, you are now soldiers
of Errikus.”

We ran down the alley just like he told us. “Sev, there it is!” Aira said
pointing towards a rundown bar. It had metal boards bolted over its
windows. There was no else around as we walked insde. Empty chairs and
tables lined both sides. There was archaic artwork hung on the walls, colors
running together with cracked textures. “This place looks abandoned, I
thought there would be other guards here, do you think he was lying?” I said
taking Aira’s hand and moving back towards the bar’s kitchen. We continued
past the bulkhead door and through some kind of holographic wall and found
ourselves surrounded by fifty guards. The fifty guards were a mix of Eek,
Pok, and some humans I hadn’t recognized. The humans were deserters, a
group skipping out on the exodus to stay on Errikus, augmented with alien
implants that made them blend with the Eek from far away but this close we
could see their faces. They were human and they were very afraid.

“Gerad sent us sir, he said we were soldiers now, he said we are to take
his place,” I said trembling as I spoke. I felt like the silence in the room was
poison that any minute now we would all keel over and die. I felt like I was
suffocating as one of the Eek took charge and spoke, “Give each of them a
rifle and put them in the monitor room.” We were then handed two black Eek
rifles. The rifles were long and organic; they felt like they were made out of
leather and seemed to attach to the arm like a tick. The rifles were created
long ago by the Eek on their home world, spliced from a now extinct species
of parasite; a blend of war and biology. They were just as deadly and accurate
as any Skrav or human weapon though and that was all that mattered. We
walked down the long metal corridor down a staircase into the monitors
room. The room was dark and ice cold. It felt like we had walked into an
icebox. From the corner we heard several voices, each low and nasally. “Sev
and Aira, children of humanity, death follows you like a disease.”

I lifted my gun ready to
fire. We had never said our names to anyone.
“Lower your gun boy, you should not fear me, It is your own cursed kind and
that wretched race that murders you you should worry about,” the voice
spoke. The lights began to come on. Slowly one after another the room lit up.
They were dim at first but we could easily make out the giant mass of flesh
before us. It filled the entire corner, back wall of the room. It had limbs both
human and tentacle that touched and ran along the sides of keys and screens.
Each limb had an eye that watched the death and chaos outside. Soon it was
light enough we could see its entire body. Blobs of fat and faces with no
beginning and no end. I wanted to run away in fear but I lowered my weapon
and watched as the mouths on each of the faces began to speak
simultaneously. “I am the monitor, I watch with weary eyes as sentient beings
come and go from Errikus, I have watched humans settle upon our soil and
though it may be only a short time,” he paused thinking of what to say next, “
I saw your mother die praying for your safety, I have watched each of you
just as I have watched each and every citizen of this world.” The monitor
stopped again to gasp for air. It wasn’t use to talking in a human voice. It was
almost like every word caused it to suffer a great deal of pain.

I now knew my mother was gone. Had Aira not forced me to leave her
side then I too would have died. Did it really matter? Wouldn’t the beast be
upon us soon, wouldn’t it destroy all of Errikus?

“I fear you more then I do the leviathan,” the monitor said… I had heard
that name before but I couldn’t place it. “Yes, your people see their past, their
future, you have been told of monsters that dwell in the darkness, in the
unreal, the monsters even the Skrav fear. Surely your kind has seen them
floating in what you call the immer. Course you dare not move too close less
you wish for death,” “It’s form the immer?” I asked. The monitor did not
answer instead he turned away and starred at his screens. The beast was
moving away from our direction now. What a stupid question I had asked, it
was obvious now the creature, the leviathan was from the immer. I watched
alongside Aira starring at the cameras that showed the leviathan rampage
through the city, a trail of destruction in its wake. It was moving towards a
wall. I remember I heard stories from when I was young. Very few ever saw
the future in the nexus but some that had said that there would be a day of
ruins, chaos, and monsters, even monsters the size of planets that would swim
in and out of stars. They described monsters that didn’t exist in our reality,
that couldn’t exist in our reality but could exist inside the immer.

The leviathan that we saw now was
fighting the very laws of nature.
“This can’t be real,” I said aloud waiting for answers. The monitor did not
speak again. It had only been thirty minutes since we found shelter, we stood
for another ten before finally Aira asked, “Do you think Hayden is alright?”
“His family was at hoe, they were practicing a ritual today, and thank god
they are miles away from this mess.”

The monitor began speaking again. This time its voice in some other
language then our own. It sounded like it was talking in tongues. I hadn't
realized until now that Errikus though a world of many different races must
be a colony of theirs. Everyone else was just visiting or setting up an embassy.
Even humans. Different species would come and go but the Eek were about
to lose one of their worlds. We had entered someone’s home and now there
was a murderer inside. Is it more important for them to defend their
houseguest or defeat their intruder? Errikus was a world that like Earth must
have had a long and vast history. Humans abandoned the Earth during a time
of devastation. Unlike Earth though Errikus was still around though given
the chance we would probably abandon this world as well.

An augmented guardsman came into our room. "We are moving out, the
Leviathan is changing course and heading our way. It will be here in twenty
minutes." I thought he was talking to the monitor the way he didn’t look at us
but then the monitor pushed us with its tentacles. "Hayden is searching for
you," it said. Aira and I panicked. "Why the hell would he leave his home?" I
yelled. "He has sworn a blood oath to protect you and Aira, in memory of
your fallen friend, he searches for you now... you must go to him or there will
be much more death this day." The monitor then handed us two small chips
and motioned with a face and tentacle that we should put them on our ear.
We did as we were told and the monitor spoke, “I will guide you.”

The earpiece made it sound as if the monitor only had one voice rather
then the mass that it used to speak to us before. The other voices must be
doing other things, giving orders, clearing commands. The monitor was
leading guards around Errikus and civilians to safety. That was its purpse. It
was an alien that could multi-task hundreds of things at any given time.. Our
purpose, however meaningful or meaningless to the monitor as it could have
been was to rescue our friend. All that mattered to us now was the one voice
guiding Aira and myself through the ruins. I no longer felt terrified. I could
feel my instinct to survive kick in. All I could think about was my friends.
They were my family now. Aira, Hayden were all that mattered. Mother,
Dom, the other human adults that were slain, all of them were memories now.
Memories that would live on in my dreams. It was up to me to live for them.