Chapter one of book two of the Xyphus saga. I was planning to wait until I had more of the book written, but I've read this part several times now, and I'm happy with it. I'm hoping that posting this early will help to drum up some interest in this story....[[|:-)
Brandon felt his consciousness return, but at first, he couldn't sense
anything. No sights or smells, and he couldn't even feel if he was breathing
or not. It was a bit frightening, then suddenly he felt himself breathe in, eyes
popping open, head raising up. It was a strange sensation, as though he was
going through a cold boot like a computer, slowly re-initializing and
becoming aware of input.
He shook his head and blinked his eyes several times as his vision took the
longest to get back to normal. He quickly assessed that he was in an escape
pod and his memories soon reminded him as to why. As he unbuckled
himself, he noticed sparks floating in midair, originating from a broken and
exposed overhead light. He furrowed his brow in confusion as he finished
removing the harness.
He stepped forward to investigate the light and could see a small, but still,
flame inside the fixture; no doubt the start of an electrical fire. This caused
him to hold his breath for a moment, and that is when he noticed that there
were no ambient sounds. With his spacesuit on, he only noticed the sounds
of his breathing at first. This added to his confusion. If he was in a
temporal anomaly, he should be affected too.
Brandon focused on one of the sparks and used two fingers to grab it and
pull it closer. It wasn't as bright as he expected, and had less spindles as well.
He realized that the brilliance of a spark is partially an illusion as the eye
would have trouble keeping up with its action. Even though it seemed to be
frozen in time, the heat of it soon permeated the spacesuit, and he was
forced to let go, yelling out an expletive in the process.
He then heard a young girl giggle, and as he whipped his head in the
direction of the sound, he only saw the trail of her long skirt as she had
turned to run off toward the front of the craft. Again, he was very confused
by this. He couldn’t remember if Dega III had a breathable atmosphere or
not, let alone contain humanoid life. He was further struck by the fact that
the pod hatch was open, and that he didn't notice that right away. Thinking
back, he couldn't recall its state when he had first assessed his surroundings.
Despite this, he had to find the girl and hopefully get some answers.
Brandon then had a horrifying thought. He theorized that he could be dead,
and that this is the afterlife. He shook off the thought before leaving the pod.
He took on a fast-paced walk, but soon slowed as he took in his environment.
He was in some kind of dense rainforest, only the flora was gigantic. The
trees were at least the size of the biggest redwood he's ever seen. The fern
that was partially crushed by the pod had terran-sized fronds; the pinnules being about the size of his hand. Next to that, was what looked like a giant
pitcher plant with a rich purple hue and vibrant, red specks. It was big
enough that he would be able to fit through its opening, even with the
spacesuit.
It was quite eerie that there was no sound or other signs of life beyond the
young girl. He forced himself to break his wonderment, and turned his focus
down the very wide trail that the girl must have followed. He could see that it
turned or ended further ahead. As he looked to the ground he saw that it was
mostly overgrown roots with splotches of partially dried mud. He would
have to be careful not to get stuck.
He walked about thirty feet before coming to a much larger root that came
up nearly three feet. He sat on the root as he whipped his legs over. When his
feet hit the ground, he noticed a dead tree that looked to have been killed by
the thick maroon ivy that covered a large portion of it. This caused him not
to notice the large depression in the ground, and when he stepped into it, he
tripped and fell, but managed to catch his fall.
Brandon let out a short grunt upon impact, but then heard the girl giggle
once more. This time he caught more than a glimpse as she ran away from
him. She had long and straight blonde hair and very white skin, but nothing
about her seemed familiar. She was no longer following the trail.
As he stood back up, he looked at what caused him to trip and a gasp cut his
inhalation short. There was no doubt in his mind that it was the footprint of
a very large bipedal creature with a slightly long heel and more than five
toes. It reminded him of the footprint of a Gigantopithecus. This caused him
not only concern, but more confusion as to how a young girl could survive in
such a place. Her clothing was not in tatters, and the skin on her arms was
clean.
He was thankful that the direction of the footprint pointed the opposite way.
He turned back to look to where the girl had gone, but gave the footprint a
sidelong glance before making his way. Still, there were no sounds other
than his breathing and footfalls. He thought about removing his helmet and
looked at the tablet on his forearm, but quickly remembered that it wouldn't
be working. It even told him that his heart rate was zero. This made him
chuckle a bit, and as he looked back to where he was going, he saw a
mountain-sized rock coming up on the right side, rising up almost vertically
like a cliff. It looked like rough rose quartz, and the sunrays bouncing off
near the top blinded him for a moment.
He had to shield his eyes and this allowed him to see the girl peeking from
around the back end of the giant gemstone. She giggled and then
disappeared behind the rock. Brandon let out a bit of a sigh before following
her again. He found it strange that there were no signs of life—other than
the footprint—in a megaflora rainforest. He wasn't sure what to expect to
hear or see on an inhabited alien world, but he had not even seen an insect.
As he rounded the rock, he could see that the forest was ending, leading into
a very tall grassland with ten foot blades of a teal-green hue. The hairs
looked soft, but made it resemble a cactus at the same time. He wasn't sure
how he would be able to follow the girl through this, however, this didn't stop
him from continuing. He felt like he was starting to piece the clues together,
when his left foot suddenly found no ground. Brandon instinctively grabbed
onto one of the large blades of grass, catching himself just in time before he
would've fallen down a canyon. An incredibly steep, but very narrow canyon.
He pulled himself back to safety and looked down only to see fog covering
the true depth of the canyon, and it couldn't have been more than twelve feet
across. He looked to his left, and that was when he could see another escape
pod that had crashed into the canyon, but was now stuck about 10,000 feet
below the crest, and it had a thin wisp of smoke rising from it.
Brandon had fit the pieces together. The puzzle's picture was now clear. He
figured out that this was Dreamland and that Sibley was showing him her
location.
"You got that right. Now come find me!"
Brandon barely had time to see the young girl on the other side of the
canyon before she disappeared from view, and he was then shoved from
behind. He let out a slight cry as he felt himself fall over the edge. He then
suddenly awoke back in his escape pod, only this time, it was on its front
end, and his arms and head dangled while the harness still held him in place
where what was now the ceiling.
He let out a grimacing moan. His head was pounding and his injured knee
was throbbing. His muscles ached from tensing up so hard during the heavy
G's. He felt like he had run two marathons with how much his lungs and
trachea burned. It was hard for him to be thankful to be alive. As much as he
was motivated to get moving to find and rescue Sibley, he had never felt so
miserable.
Brandon squinted his eyes before opening them to see the smoke-filled
chaos. He could hear an alarm, but the speaker was damaged, distorting the
sound. He let out a longer groan as moving his head to look around caused it
to throb even stronger. He wanted to put his hand to his head, but knew that
he couldn't. He looked at the tablet and pressed, "Scan Environment". He let
out a long sigh, squinting his eyes and grimacing at the pain once more
before the scan completed.
He was relieved to see that, upon closer inspection, Dega III did indeed have
a breathable atmosphere, but was frustrated that the cabin of the pod was
being filled with toxic gasses from several internal fires. He let his arms
dangle as he began to think of an easy way to get down. His plans were
interrupted by a violent noise erupting outside of the pod. He had nothing to
compare the noise to, but something told him that it was a roaring dinosaur.
His theory was proven when he heard claws dragging along the pod's hull.
Brandon held his breath, hoping that silence would deter the creature. He
winced in pain as the pod suddenly shifted, almost turning to land onto its
bottom, but fell back into place instead. Once it settled, he heard another
shorter and less intense roar before it hit the pod again. This time, there was
enough force to push it onto its bottom, and Brandon winced in pain once
again as his weight came down on his bad knee and his head throbbed even
harder with the new orientation. It was everything he could do not to make
any noise.
It was then that he heard another roar, only this one sounded like a cry of
pain. He could hear it crying out as it ran away, each footfall causing slight
tremors. He could only assume that the dinosaur had touched the red hot
nose of the craft. He let out a sigh of relief, knowing that the danger had
passed. As he went to close his eyes to relax for a moment, he saw a shower
of sparks that he recognized. The alarm changed to signal fire, just as he saw
the broken light produce flame. It was as he had seen while in Dreamland,
only now, he was in real danger.
Electrical fires can spread very fast, and if it were to reach the fuel control
system, it would be game over. Brandon hurriedly unfastened the harness as
he debated over trying to extinguish the fire, or just grabbing what he can
and fleeing. It was apparent that the internal fire suppression system was
not working. On that note, Brandon decided that the latter would be the
better plan.
After having undone the last buckle on the harness, he took in a deep breath
and let it out slowly. Like when boarding the Laigon, he was filled with
trepidation. He was nervous about going out into the alien world. A world
that he figured would no doubt be full of life-threatening dangers at every
turn. A Terran rainforest is dangerous enough. He wished he had had more
time to gather up his courage, but he forced himself to limp over to the bed
and lift the mattress to access the emergency equipment.
He really wanted to take it all, but in this environment, less is more. He
grabbed the backpack full of essentials and attached the full size medkit to
its front face. He then opened the kit and sighed as he looked at the needle,
knowing that he would need something powerful to overcome all this pain.
He's never liked taking strong medications, but was happy enough that it
wasn’t a pill like in the first aid kit.
Brandon sighed again as he pushed the “I.V.” button on the tablet which
initializes the nanites in the uniform to create a painless intravenous link to
the spacesuit's injector port, allowing you to administer medication in any
environment. He did let out a relieving sigh however, as the pain quickly
washed away, finally allowing him to relax his expression. He then closed up
the medkit and put on the backpack, grabbed the laser rifle, and then lifted
the end of the bed frame to be able to open the hatch that opens inwardly.
Before opening it, he looked out of its small window. He had to make sure
that the coast was clear. The scenery was the same, except it wasn't frozen in
time, and he could immediately see what looked like a giant ladybug about
the size of an armadillo, only it was lavender in color, and its spots each had
a hole in the middle. He watched it crawl along the trunk of a tree before
opening its shell and exposing its wings and taking off after getting the wings
to full speed. It was about twenty feet away, but he could hear the hum of its
wings from inside the pod. The aphids they eat must be ladybug-sized or
bigger, he thought.
Dinosaurs are intimidating and scary enough, but the idea of being speared
by a bee-like insect made Brandon even more nervous. It was now or never,
though. He has honestly never been this afraid to open a door, but with the
sounds of the fire reaching more and more electrical components, he had no
choice but to pull the lever and open the hatch.
5-star Review on Amazon: "A terrific read about a very disturbing subject!! The book is exciting and interesting and chilling and alarming! A literary ride that is well worth the time and money."
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Aggressive AI invades young boy. Can he sav
MONSTROSITY n. 1. That which deviates greatly from the norm in appearance or structure. 2. The quality or character of being abnormal; hideous; frightful; shocking.
