YAHIRO

Yahiro’s fingers sank into the dirt as she was thrown back by the deluge of commotion that quickly descended upon her small group. Fear and instinct coursed through her—brought on by years of working the underground—and she managed to fling herself away from the animalistic, alien beasts that attacked.

The other girls—inmates—Preta and Charlie, vanished out of sight between the trees and the monsters. The alien fruit she’d been picking scattered upon the ground, forgotten while chaos ensued.

A large creature flashed before her eyes, unusual in its entirety. Its long teeth gripped the leg of one of the Concord’s guards and tore it clean off. A warm spray of blood splashed across Yahiro’s face. She ducked and hid behind a nearby tree, her body remembering all the hours of training she’d endured in her pre-prison life, but her fear kept her from running. She was too afraid of drawing attention to herself.

Her ears filled with the guttural wails of a man being torn to pieces.

“Run!” someone screamed. It was enough to spur her forward, cracking her frightened shell. She didn’t need to be told twice.

The waning light fueled her horror and the distant stupor she had succumbed to since waking up post-crash vanished. She reached for her gun with dirty fingers—a gun that was no longer there. The ground shook beneath her feet, and like the lucky beings of her small scouting party, she managed to flee the scene before she caught notice of the clearly carnivorous monsters. The fruit and the need for food were no longer priority.

Her throat closed up. Her tight jumpsuit squelched as she ran through the foreign terrain, toward what she hoped was the direction of the wrecked ship she and her fellow survivors had crawled out of like neon orange maggots, awash in dirt, dust, and blood from their wounds.

Her ears twitched as screams filled the air, distinct but distant, and they were followed by the predatory screeching of the beasts. She tried not to focus on it as she burst through the tree line and into a clearing of wet muck.

A swamp. Adrenaline surging through her veins, she drew in a breath, the air entering her lungs causing a sharp pain in her chest from overexertion. Fear morphed into terror as her eyes landed on the giant sun, so much larger than Earth’s sun, slashed in half, hidden by the horizon. It was as red as blood, as red and gruesome as a bleeding heart.

She ran the back of her hand across her nose and looked around, quickly assessing her surroundings, anxiety mounting with each breath.

I’m lost. I don’t... there’s no swamp near the ship... Her eyes landed back on the setting sun. It’ll be dark soon. Her skin prickled. I don’t want to be out here after dark. The sting of fresh tears formed on her lashes.

Crushing feet and snapping brush set her back into a sprint, straight-on into the brackish bog. If she had a better option, she’d take it, but being eaten alive by the monster on her tail trumped the possibility of alien swamp bugs. It fucking trumped her whole world.

The water was tepid but cool over her burning feet and she surged onward even when it rose up her shins. Mud swirled around her bright pants. She pivoted down into the muck and grabbed a handful to rub over her skin.

Scent, masked.

She hoped.

Her feet continued to sink into the dirt and slime, and she soon lost one of her shoes, but she didn’t stop, would never stop; she’d been running for years, whether from the physical strife or fleeing from the torment in her head.

Something whistled past her ear and she dropped down with a winded shriek, submerging herself into the rank, slimy water. Yahiro squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath, waiting and hoping, until her lungs filled with pain, that whatever wanted to feast on her flesh would lose her.

She didn’t dare emerge, didn’t dare move, even when she felt critters slide across her skin. The pounding in her ears intensified as water bore down on her. Pain shot through her, everywhere, and when she could no longer take it, she managed to hold herself back and slowly rise until her head peeked out of the water.

Her eyes snapped open as she peered around, her long hair swirling about her cheeks.

The foliage was red and deep; a fog of dusk that covered the strange planet. She didn’t see any signs of the beast, but then again, her full attention was on the rapidly darkening landscape.

She shot up the rest of the way, her heart racing, wanting to burst out of her chest. Her body heated despite the cold and her palms slickened with more than sweat.

The dark. It’s dark, getting darker.

Yahiro couldn’t think straight as her eyes found the sun again, almost gone now, completely below the horizon. She hacked and coughed but didn’t move, trapped in her own skin, her own horrors and nightmares flashing before her eyes.

The rank cell, forever dark. The psychological torture. The evil that had lured her in, caught unaware, and captivated her until she forgot who she was and succumbed to its appeal. Once reality had reached her again, it had been too late. Her commanding officer and the city officials had placed all the blame on her shoulders and threw her into another cell, one that was far brighter, but no less awful. One that was outside the laws of Earth but gave the illusion of them.

The Concord. An international prison ship that hovered far above Earth’s surface.

She had gone from one cell to the next, her life beyond her control, betrayed by her job, her country, and then by nature itself as she found herself lost and hurt on this alien planet.

Yahiro wiped the tears that had trickled down her face, smearing the mud on her skin. She wrapped her arms around her body and shivered, trying to comfort herself despite the demons growing closer as the evening deepened.

Where am I? At this point, she had no idea what direction the wrecked ship was in.

She was surrounded by swamp on all sides and soon she was going to lose sight of even that. The howls and screams from before became intermittent until they stopped altogether. Her ears filled with the quiet sounds of the evening as she lamely debated her predicament. The lullaby sung by those creatures was the only answer given.

She’d been on this alien world for less than a day—she hoped, not knowing how long she had been unconscious in her cell—and already she’d become a statistic of the stupid, split-up humans, scattered and awaiting a thousand different deaths from the different ways the unknown ecosystem could kill them.

I wish I had my gun. She shivered, took a step forward, then stopped.

When nothing pounced on her from the shadows, she moved again. Now that she had escaped one enemy, she had to deal with another.

The darkness.

The giant sun fell below and out of sight, and the last rays of light over her surroundings was all that remained. She turned back the way she came, hoping to find dry ground before her entire world was lost and her keenest sense became useless.

She stumbled and fell as she trudged, exhaustion taking over her limbs. The adrenaline cleared from her system. Her heart pounded and sweat continued to bead on her skin despite the decreasing temperatures. Yahiro shivered and sniffled, brought low by her circumstances. She was a shadow of what she once was. A grade-A cop with a record that could one day have landed her the title of sergeant.

Now she was a pathetic, frightened woman who wore one shoe and an inmate’s uniform, dripping brackish water and muddy in all the wrong places.

Yahiro flinched as she stepped on a sharp object, jerked her foot out of the water and fell back on her ass. Her suit refilled with muck and stuck to her body. The material slurped at her skin.

She took a hold of her leg and inspected the wound: a shallow gash ran up the curve of her instep. Her tears fell and she didn’t even try to stop them. Why bother? Why not add dehydration to her building list of problems?

Another problem, another screw you. Life had given her lemons, rotten from the inside-out and she hadn’t realized it until too late. Even with the boosters flowing through her veins, given by her cellblock warden to fight off illness, the likelihood of infection was high.

Her boosters and medication had to be taken daily, sometimes twice, the dosages higher than industry standards. Yahiro stared as her wound bled into the water, knowing if she survived for much longer the chill in her bones would be caused not by the cold, but by withdrawal.

What could Earth products ever do against an unknown, utterly different, alien ecosystem? She wasn’t an academic by a long shot, but she knew the limitations of her people.

The Concord was only a recent development by her species. A new habitat all in itself, regulated by international policies that were loose and vague. A place where the scum of her people could get away with all sorts of advancements and catastrophes without batting an eye.

She was one of the lucky few who hadn’t been experimented on. The scientists deemed her insane and an insane patient had no standard variable, no baseline, to know if the tests had been a success. In the past, she would have been fodder, but the scientists nowadays didn’t like the risk.

Yahiro didn’t think she was crazy, but she played what everyone else thought to her advantage.

A brilliant light caught her eye. Her gaze snapped to the source and away from her bleeding foot. The sharp object she stepped on glowed intensely beneath the murky water.

She scuttled back, keeping her focus on it, waiting for it to attack her and finish the job it had started. But when nothing happened and the pulsing light grew brighter, surrounding her in her own personal sunshine, she took a deep breath and moved forward.

Her jaw slackened and her eyes went wide.

Whatever it was, was brilliant, beautiful and bright. And it didn’t hurt her eyes. Yahiro was mesmerized and comforted as it fought back the encroaching darkness with an invisible forcefield. She could see her surroundings perfectly within its vicinity, including the swamp and the strange vermin that swam around.

She tentatively reached out, her hand moving slowly under the water to touch it, feeling already on borrowed time. If the light stone was venomous, at least she went to her death willingly.

Right as she was about to touch it, a growl sounded right outside her veil of light.

Yahiro stiffened, her fear returning. It was too late to run, to hide, and somehow she knew being near the glowing orb hadn’t helped. She had become a beacon. I’m practically waving a sign screaming: EASY PREY!

She closed her eyes and waited, too afraid to move, almost too tired to try. The growl heightened into a shriek as another wave of tears filled her eyes.

I don’t want to die.

Her hand fell onto the stone. The world fell silent.

She clasped the warm rock in her hand and lifted it to her chest without opening her eyes and as she did so, a flush of warmth careened through her, banishing her negative thoughts. Her senses heightened as she gripped the talisman—that’s what it was to her now—and a sense of severance and loneliness joined its comforting sunlit-warmth. It was better than a fresh rush of her prescription drugs, it was bliss, it was peace.

Yahiro no longer cried in fear for her life, but for the loss of something she’d never had. So much loneliness. It was a deeper pain than she had ever known and it stole her breath away. It hurt her soul.

She opened her eyes and her vision wavered but she caught sight of the monster that had stalked her sprinting away. On unsteady feet with a feeling of lightheadedness, she managed to stand and continue on. The night was kept at bay now that she had her own personal sun.

Ages seemed to pass, minutes morphed into hours as she searched for a sign of the other humans, but when her soles hit dry ground, she slumped in exhaustion, and refused to move.

Her thoughts found her soon after, crashing into her like waves brought on by a storm. The only thing that kept her from giving up and curling into a defeated ball on the ground was the rock in her hands. Light streaked out between her fingers and the calming warmth of it on her palm managed to keep the demons at bay.

She crawled into the nearby plants until she was surrounded on all sides. It wasn’t much protection, but it was enough, and it made her feel safer.

Yahiro closed her eyes and pleaded. Something had to happen—needed to happen—because she didn’t think she could take any more of the fugue that was her stale life.

She pleaded that the other girls had fled and found safety, that they were now behind the metal walls of the wreckage and well away from the forest and the bog.

Preta and Charlie, they had been the only two people who had the same haunted look that matched her own. Granted, the rest were the Concord’s sleazy guards, but if she had learned any lesson, it was strength, and she knew it when she saw it.

Maybe...

Maybe if fate hadn’t spat on her once again, she could’ve made genuine friends. Yahiro held back the laugh of absurdity that rose within her. Friends with criminals. That’s a good one, Hiro. Hero Yahiro or Yah-hear-the-hero? Missy Hero’s in the building.

I’m a godsdamned cop. Memories of her past came to her then and this time, she didn’t have a daily dose of medication to banish them. She reached down and cupped her bleeding foot, swollen and raw from overuse, dirtied by alien wildlife and dreg that could kill her.

Once again, she broke an oath to herself and prayed that the nightmare would finally let her rest. That if she was destined to die, that it would happen soon, and that it would be painless.