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Dark Earth: Siren Chime
Posted By: Mark25<mark_price@hotmail.co.uk>
Date: 5 November 2008, 2:15 pm
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Submitted for the HBOff: "You're doing it Write" Child's Play charity drive by Phaedrus: Child's Play is important.
Five houses, three farms and fourteen young girls: it seems we're breeding a new generation of pets for these creatures to rear as domesticated animals.
Maybe our appearance and mannerisms are as peculiar and endearing as that of the animals we once called pets. Perhaps at their gatherings our young are paraded around like bell-adorned cattle.
Man, the new best friend.
'A small sacrifice for the benefit of all', Dean would surely square. I can only imagine what shapes these poor young things would slot into such a box.
I am more than a touch surprised however, at how well these adolescents have taken to their pet roles. At the last house, a small brunette no older than twelve went about her chores as if she had not a care in the world.
Lost in the raking of her master's land, completely oblivious to the woes of her fellow man.
It feels like the abandonment of all hope but I guess this is what they had in mind for us all along.
The look of contentment, the mind wandering distant shores, the heart being emptied of purpose just as the hourglass is emptied of sand, blissfully gazing at the ruse year on year while the passion drains from their spirit. Divided and lost to the realms of fantasy is surely a race truly conquered.
The fingerfall of despair may be light on the body but it is certainly there, massaging and easing a drop into my shoulders.
Five houses, three farms and fourteen young girls: still no Alyssa.
The late afternoon sun clearly feels he has outstayed his welcome and bids me a slow wave goodbye, stealthily making his exit by sliding behind a fat roll of grey cloud beginning to dominate the horizon.
The cold makes itself known with every breathe, a drifting plume of rapidly-vanquishing smoke. Only a periodic sigh pushed free from the lungs exerts a short linger in the air.
The ground littered with frost shine.
I know that I should have slept this morning but with the hive of so much activity buzzing around the inside and outside of my mind, sleep would not have been restful.
What puzzles me most is the violent incident I witnessed this morning between the creatures and a fellow traveller, especially as to the rarity of such an explosive altercation by the Sangheili these days.
I had passed the man not some five miles back, donning a pair of shoes that clearly were not his own. His scruffy appearance standing in stark relief to the pristine glow of the girl's pink sneakers he had dubiously acquired.
Hardly a crime by any real standard for someone dispossessed of their own planet, but the retribution was swift and without doubt, merciless.
A little over an hour and with us travelling across parallel fields -his being the nearer to the road, meant he was the first to be seen and I was the only witness to see it.
Had things gone the other way, would I have ran the way he did?
It doesn't matter, the glint of light made a mess of his head before he could even consider the notion of surrender. Poor sod never stood a chance.
When I had finished crawling to the hedgerow, curiosity had me risk my own head to see if they had simply left the body to scavengers; as they were at one time, wont of doing.
They didn't.
They stood around the remains for a good twenty minutes arguing -mainly the beast with the stumpy white metal crown berating his cohort, the one with the large rifle. If they'd needed a facial identification, it was clearly out of the question. But if he were a nomad such as I, it would be unlikely he would come up on their scanners and who would recognise him anyway? Something about the whole torrid affair just doesn't ring true.
Wild paranoia would have me snatching at flies if I gave it half the chance but the occurrence still plays on my mind regardless.
As I clear the final field bearing down towards a large farm, I tell myself that this shall be the last one for the day and try to sound like I mean it.
I know deep down that it won't be, but gathering up the momentum for a second wind needs the nudge of a self-perpetuating lie every now and then.
The farm consists of four buildings: one for the farm's machinery, one for the stables and favoured animals, the main farmhouse and a building adjacent that appears out of sorts with the rest of the lodgings. Its centre-pointed roof hints at a church spire while the horizontal slats at the base give it the appearance of a satellite receptacle.
A communication device to the homeworld perhaps? With four small windows equally spaced and high up -indicating the possibility of multiple rooms, it could just be fancy housing for some special creature with particularly fussy needs.
The house is the nearest building for inspection, with the alien interpretation just a short sprint away.
I glance into the kitchen window to see one of the slaves dive into a cupboard of towels, her frantic search making it difficult for identification.
A scream from the alien building halts us both in our search. A primordial scream that pulses a shudder up my spine- a scream of deep and agonising pain.
The siren song touches a harmonious chord that proves impossible to ignore. I find myself compelled into the prevailing winds.
Alyssa.
The building takes on the most evil connotations imaginable as the ground and its frost shine blur amidst the rush beneath my feet. The darkening world inviting shadow to take hold of the spire.
I know that I cannot keep this pace for long but the will to continue drives me onwards.
A place of sacrifice, a place of untold horror.
A chamber of torture, of alien sadistic pleasures.
A laboratory for experimentation.
Again the unholy scream.
My lungs burn from their dogwork as I slam open the outer doors. The room resembling that of an average barn complete with farm tools hanging from the walls and supporting pillars. Perfect stabbing weapons.
The creature in the room half-turns towards me, flummoxed as to my appearance.
"A male: here, now. State the reason for your presence, human?!"
A further roar from the room beyond gives me reason enough. I take a pitchfork from a wooden pillar and charge it down.
With a left step back and a fighting posture, it gives me a chance to throw the fork.
The missile rips through the air aimed at the creature's left side, and as the beast steps backwards to dodge the fork's prongs, the step leaves my foe side on.
Without twisting round and revealing its back, it must surely right itself to fight.
A step being a step too far.
Even as the beast re-asserts its position, my blade goes plunging down into its chest with me thrown into the strike. We hit the floor with the victor clear.
I raise the knife to finish the fight but the scream once more permeates my bones.
Alyssa.
I claw out from our scuffle and leave the creature to die from its wound, sprinting towards the room bleeding out the hair-raising cry...
Adrenaline has fuelled my senses, giving urgency inroads to affect everything, a panic frenzy to even the silliest of ideas. Now, with the madness revealed, I'm feeling a little stupid, not to mention beguiled.
No human scream could have breached these walls.
The room is dark but at its centre...
"Aleese!"
I had expected many images to confront me in this room. Skin torn free of the body, mind and nerve-fraying operations, amateur dissections without anaesthetic. Had the need arose; I would have ended any pain with the swiftness of my knife but this...
"Aleese!"
It roars to the heavens for salvation from its labours, and this feels like comedy bordering tragedy.
The birthing pool breathes a vapour that ventures through the light and dissipates in the darkness. The creature on all fours bathing amidst the pool's centre has a tendency to loll its head back and forth, as if embroiled in a drunken stupor.
I risked life and limb, defied gravity and flew across the ground to get here and for what? To help a creature suffering labour pains.
I tap out a slow death knell with the knife's blade across the pool's skirting edge.
'Aleese won't save you now.'
Even as the words leave my lips, thoughts accumulate into a whisper in my ear.
Aleese?
Could she be screaming for one and I be searching out the same thing?
A second burst through the doors gives us our answer. I fall back into the shadows.
The girl drops the towels and sprays around her with a large syringe before drawing air into the cylinder she holds between her fingers, pointing it menacingly towards the all-pervading darkness.
"I'll stick you, you bastards, I swear I will."
She trembles in the limelight.
"We have food and money in the house, take what you want and just fucking go!"
The soft blonde hair tied back, her slight frame and the powerful glint to her eye. I recognise her immediately and step free of the darkness.
'Is that any way to talk to an old friend?'
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