9. Agatha

Ilay on the floor of my room peering up at the ceiling.

When the wind blew and ran its fingers across the material it produced beautiful waves like the seashore near my home back on Earth.

A seashore I was sure I would never see again.

I'd been given my own tent, perched between two others with a guard outside, his back to the roaring fire.

I peered out twice through the slit in the front, and both times, found him staring at me.

At least, his visor was peering directly at me.

Was he really staring at me or was he fast asleep?

With no way to know, I would take the threat seriously.

These were prison guards and they knew something about guarding prisoners.

And so here I lay, in a room in the middle of the desert beneath the stars.

I might as well be in a prison cell.

I dropped to my knees and felt at the room's floor, searching for a gap to squeeze through.

There were no corners, no edges I could pry up.

I had to stop thinking of this room as a tent.

I was so close to escape, but yet again, had been thwarted.

But what did I think I would do even if I managed to escape?

I only survived as long as I did before thanks to Egara.

Without him, I would have been consumed long ago.

I laid back and tried not to get too comfortable.

If I stayed alert, maybe there would be an opening I could take advantage of.

The deadline would be the moment the sun rose.

Then, I would be trapped with no chance of escape.

A shout issued from one of the other rooms.

Maybe it was one of the guards on duty, I thought. I lowered my head and returned to considering my situation.

Another voice shouted in the dark.

It was loud, frantic.

The translator chip in my arm couldn't understand it.

For once, I understood the sound from the alien's throat better than the device did.

It sent a shiver up my spine and chilled me to the bone.

The scream was one of fear and pain.

I didn't need to know what the word was.

I didn't want to know what it was.

It couldn't be anything good.

Then another shout rang out, louder this time, closer, from a different throat.

Men burst from the neighboring rooms, boots scuffing the soft sand outside.

Should I go out there?

Did I even want to see what was causing the commotion?

I moved to the front to peer through the slit when a helmet slipped inside.

"Ah!" I said, starting back.

"You must leave now," the guard said, voice hissing via his communicator. "You must leave now."

He reached for me and I pulled back.

The guard stretched inside further, and then stopped, unable to come any closer.

He shuddered and paused for a moment.

He glanced over his shoulder and then turned back to look at me.

Although I couldn't see his expression, I knew terror when I saw it.

He shot back, quick as a flash, into the darkness beyond.

The flap waved gently, disturbed by his rapid departure.

He hadn't chosen to leave.

Something had forced him to leave.

I swallowed and gingerly pressed the fabric aside.

My breath rasped loudly in my ears.

I peered around it, at the campsite beyond.

The fire was still lit but it'd been disturbed, knocked aside, forming a speckled line of flickering flames that dwindled as they reached for the darkness.

Another scream.

Lumbering armored prison guards bolted to their feet and peered at their surroundings, shock rifles raised and aimed.

Something seized one of the guards.

He fell, sprawling to the sand.

He spun around and clawed at the ground as the thing pulled him into the black.

Another guard chased after his comrade, peering into the shadows, but unable to make anything out.

He fired a single shot, not for the damage it might do, but for the light it shed on the surrounding area.

And that's when I saw it.

The monster.

Thick tendrils writhed in the orb of light cast by his rifle, there one moment, gone the next.

I blinked, disbelieving what I'd just seen.

It looked much like the Desert Flower vines I had the misfortune of running into before.

Only on a much larger scale.

Its tendrils were as thick as my arms, whereas the ones from earlier had been little thicker than my thumb.

The prison guards unloaded, firing at the flailing arms of the invisible beast.

The guards weren't used to being outside for extended periods.

If they were, they would have known not to place their camp so close to the sand dune mountains.

That was where the beasts lived.

And this monster was the king of monsters.

I ducked my head as streams of yellow-blue lightning zipped overhead, crackling and making my hair stand on end.

I stood, shocked, surprised the prison guards were so ineffective at protecting themselves from the creature.

Only Egara could protect me.

But he was light-years from here.

One of the thick tendrils slithered across the sand in my direction.

It couldn't be aware of me as I hadn't moved an inch.

It slid inside an upturned regulation issue boot before pulling back and knocking the boot aside.

I was frozen, unable to move a muscle.

It was an unexpected benefit of being so terrified you couldn't bring yourself to do much more than breathe.

Otherwise, I would be running for the sand-dashed hills and I knew how that would turn out.

The tendril caressed the sand like a snake crawling on its belly, only it was far stronger, faster, its movements sharp and dangerous.

And it was drawing close.

It swayed side to side, its tip pointed and arched, turning as if it could see—or smell—something there.

My nostrils eased open and shut, the only movement I was capable of, save for my bulging eyes.

The tendril moved toward me and rose to my height.

If it had eyes it would be staring at me.

It must sense me somehow, I realized.

My incessant screaming instincts begged me to run, and its cries were growing louder.

Unable to control myself any longer, I inched backward.

I knew it was a stupid thing to do but I couldn't help it.

If the creature was aware I was there, I had no choice.

I wasn't thinking.

The tendril stiffened, turning to my quivering foot, and shivered with excitement.

It eased back like a python preparing to strike.

"Arghhhh!" a prison guard said, bolting from the darkness.

He ran toward the creature and unloaded multiple shots into it, most finding their mark.

The creature flailed, retreating back, and accidentally ran over the sporadic fires.

It sprung back.

"Run!" the prison guard bellowed.

He wasn't just any prison guard.

It was the leader.

He turned and continued firing at the tendril as it shirked from the light.

And still, I couldn't bring myself to move much more than a couple of inches.

The leader took a break from his Rambo routine, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, and shoved me to one side.

"I said go!" he yelled.

The forced movement created a domino effect.

Once I started, I couldn't stop.

I ran.

Lessons from a distant—andI thought forgotten—gym class suddenly became the most important lesson I had ever learned.

How to run efficiently.

I pulled my arms back, encouraging my legs to stretch as far as they could.

I held my head high, my neck long, and breathed in through the nose and out through the mouth in a circular pattern.

The sand turned blurry beneath my feet as I passed over it.

I never lost my feet, not even once.

A real wonder for me.

Before long, my breaths rasped in my throat and my body ached.

I didn't stop.

I wouldn't stop.

Already I could feel the pleasant effects of making love to Egara wearing off.

Soon, I wouldn't have enough oxygen to power my lungs never mind my muscles.

I wished I could reach the prison and the safety of its impenetrable walls.

Funny how obstruction could suddenly become protection.

I checked over my shoulder, just once, and noticed the roaring fires were now nothing more than tiny islands in a vast and endless ocean of darkness.

I had run so far, so fast, I hadn't taken notice of where I was heading.

Surely the tendrils couldn't reach this far?

I slowed, my lungs already aching.

I placed my hands on my head to expand my lungs the way Egara had taught me.

The breaths rasped loudly, already hoarse.

I had no idea how long I'd been running.

I didn't know if having my hands on my head like this was helping or hindering.

Black spots danced before my eyes, a sure sign of an impending headache, but I would take it over the fate of the prison guards any day.

Right now, they were being dragged across the sand toward a creature that would swallow them whole… and then slowly digested for countless years.

The thought alone made my skin crawl.

Then I heard it.

A shout for help.

It came from my left, invisible in the darkness.

Still, the moons weaved between the charcoal grey clouds like they were traversing a slalom course, illuminating only tiny patches of wind-swept sand dunes.

Had I imagined it?

The silence pressed in, turning the desert silent once more.

I didn't know what was scarier; the shouts of a man fighting for his life or the silence immediately after it.

I decided I must have imagined it and turned to continue walking—I dared not run in case I lost my breath again.

I still hadn't fully recovered from my earlier exertion.

Then that shout came again.

Louder, clearer.

Closer?

I was in two minds about what to do next.

The shout wasn't part of my imagination.

It was real.

And it was happening right now.

To a prison guard intent on dragging me back to the prison.

Should I help them?

Could I help them?

Before I knew what I was doing, I began to walk toward the voice.

It developed into a slow and steady jog.

The cry for help came clearer now but I was heading in the wrong direction.

I turned and kept moving.

Here, I thought.

The voice came from around here.

I peered at the pool of darkness but saw no sign of the guard.

No track in the sand, no footsteps.

A moon swept past a cloud and found a crack in its facade, spilling silver light over the scene.

Over the horrific scene.

"Help me!"

The prison guard struggled against the thick line wrapped in a vice grip about his leg as it pulled him up the gently-sloping incline.

"Don't struggle," I said. "Struggling only makes it squeeze tighter."

The prison guard released his hands from the vine and raised them, ready to attack again if my advice turned out not to be sound.

But it was, and the relief was etched on his face.

The vine squeezed him so tight it'd crushed the armor plate around his leg, snapping his bones like twigs.

His arms didn't fare much better.

One dragged uselessly behind him while the other brandished a bloodied knife.

"Give me that," I said.

I dropped to my knees and placed one hand on the vine.

I set to sawing at with the knife.

The vine bucked, knocking me aside.

I got up, planted my feet in a stronger stance, and continued hacking.

Thick green-tinted water spilled from it, dousing the sand like blood from a gaping wound.

It quivered and retracted into the night.

"Can you stand?" I said.

The guard leaned back, relieved at having been rescued.

"Yes," he said. "I think so. If you help me."

He never reached his feet.

Quick as a flash, another tendril snapped around his shattered leg and continued dragging him up the incline.

"No!" he screamed. "No!"

He reached for me and accidentally knocked me off my feet.

He pummeled at the arm with a fist and it squeezed so tight I heard the guards' bones snap.

An enormous creature emerged from the gaping hole at the top of the mountain.

At least four times larger than the one that'd snagged me.

With four times the number of tendrils, swirling into the night sky.

A second moon drifted from behind the cover of clouds and joined its sister to peer upon the field of war.

Four other victims were clutched in thick tendrils, each dragged up the incline toward the gaping maw.

One of the bodies barely struggled while another didn't move at all.

Before, I had run.

I'd run but didn't realize I'd been heading directly toward the mouth of the beast.

I was as doomed now as I had been back at the camp.

The tendrils slithered like angry snakes from an overturned nest and headed directly for me.

My breaths rasped in my throat.

I had no more fight left in me.