Alert the Maji? My brow creased with confusion. Not alert the watchmen patrol?
I took aim, steadied my breathing, and like a reflex, I released an arrow when I saw the head of a watchman breach the hole in the floor beneath the stairway. Not a second later, the arrow penetrated his exposed eye socket, and he dropped onto the stairway with a thud. It was only as my arrow pierced his skull that I realised he hadn’t worn a helmet, and he had no protection against my weapon. A yelp was heard after the watchman dropped then vile cursing followed.
“She kill’t him!” a deep voice bellowed. “The fuckin’ whore kill’t Kiker!”
The reality that I had just killed a person did not sink in. Instead, stomach-churning fear did. If they weren’t going to kill me before, the watchmen surely would now that I had killed one of their own. I sucked in a breath, and with rapid speed, I released another arrow in warning. I didn’t wait around for the second watchman to call for backup or to come after me. I turned, and without thinking, I jumped from the top floor of the shack. I turned mid-air and landed on my left side, almost instantly falling into a roll as I tumbled down the side of a ditch.
Searing hot pain vibrated through my body, but I couldn’t pause to soothe away the aches because I had to get moving. I pushed myself to my feet with my right arm when I realised my left one was burning with pain and wouldn’t move. I looked down at it and saw the joint was clearly dislocated and the bone was possibly broken at the elbow. White dots splashed across the back of my eyes, and I had to close them to get control.
Don’t think about it.
I opened my eyes, reached for my bow and quiver, but then abandoned them when I saw they were in pieces and scattered around the ditch. I used my right hand to hold my left arm against my body as I scrambled up the mud bank and ran like the devil himself was on my heels. I bit down on my lip when each step caused excruciating aches to tear through my arm. Twice more, my vision was spotted with white dots, but I forced myself to continue running as the area lit up with spotlights, betraying my position. Sheer determination to get away was the only thing that kept me moving, but it wasn’t enough.
Less than a minute after I jumped out of the building and began running, I was tackled to the ground from behind.
A scream of agony tore from my throat as fresh pain surged through my body, mainly from my left arm. I was flipped onto my back, and a quick glance downwards gave me a revolting picture. The bone of my forearm had snapped in two, and a prodding piece stuck out of my skin for all to see. All doubt was wiped from my mind—it was definitely broken. I turned my head to the side and promptly puked up my stomach contents. Not a second later, I was pulled to my feet by my hair and forcefully shoved. I stumbled backwards away from the watchman who tackled me. I looked up at him and saw he was pointing an old-fashioned handgun at me.
“This is for Kiker!”
I closed my eyes and awaited my release from this prison sentence many called life.
I’m coming home, Pa.
A bang rippled through the air, but surprisingly, it was the gurgled male scream that startled me and caused my eyes to open. The watchman who was about to take my life was on his knees before me with a large gaping hole in the centre of his chest. It smelled like his flesh was burning, and from the slight puff of smoke that rose from his wound, I’d say a blaster made the hole. I switched my gaze to his face and felt the blood drain from my own. His dark, panicked eyes were focused on me, but his mouth was agape, and blood was spewing from it like a river.
“Help,” he choked out around the thick liquid before he fell forward.
I jumped backwards as his face smacked off the ground with a sickening crack. His body twitched once, twice, then his movements ceased. I thought he was still breathing but quickly realised the hyperventilating rasps weren’t coming from him; they were coming from me. I lifted a shaking hand to my mouth and covered it as I stared down at the now dead watchman.
I swayed from side to side as my pain and shock became too much for me. I focused my blurring vision dead ahead and made out six dark figures walking toward me. Six huge figures. When they stopped a couple of metres from me, they stared at me, and me at them. They were fully clothed from head to toe in a black armour of some kind, and it only made them look that much more intimidating.
The man in the front said something in a language that didn’t sound of this planet, and without thinking, I stammered, “Wh-what?”
The man grunted and turned to his right and spoke to the person behind him in that same strange language.
“No,” the man behind replied in strained English. “We’ve practiced for weeks; you have not. You need to learn how to speak the human languages to make this mission easier, just until we fit them with translators of their own. Do what I told you to do. Repeat what your translator says through your comm, and the female will understand you like you can understand me right now. I’m not responding to you anymore unless you use this particular human language.”
With a defeated sigh, the large man turned back in my direction.
“I sa-said,” he rumbled in a bizarre accent as he switched to an extremely choppy version of English, pausing every couple of words as if he was trying to form them as he spoke. “We ‘re mah-jai. Wh-What ‘re … you ‘oing … out … ‘ere?”
After he had spoken, he removed the mask that covered his face. The now well-lit area shone brightly on his face and revealed all I needed to know about him to be terrified. He had vibrant grey skin, dazzling violet eyes, and menacing sharper than average teeth with gold-like caps on them. That was the moment I dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes and began tumbling into darkness.
“Why do fe-females … ‘eep ‘oing … dat ‘round me?” the Maji asked with a tired sigh.
Without missing a beat, the other voice said, “I told you that you were ugly. How many human females must faint at your feet before you realise that?”
Chapter Two
If I was safe, I usually woke to silence. If there was a sound, no matter how minimal, it usually had a bad outcome for me. Today, I awoke to soft singing, and beeping. Loud, constant, annoying beeping. I opened my eyes, and when a damaged concrete ceiling didn’t come into view, I began to panic. I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t. I looked down at my body and saw I was in a white gown of some sort with thick black straps covering my arms, chest, and lower legs, pinning me to the spot.
Almighty.
My heart slammed into my chest, and I began to hyperventilate as I struggled against the ties that bound me to the unexpectedly comfortable … bed. I paused in my struggle and looked down once more. I was on a real mattress and not one that was years old, flat, insect infested, and caked with dirt. A clean white linen sheet covered this one, and it had a lot of cushion in it. It felt incredible as if I was lying on a soft cloud.
The comfort astonishingly calmed me down and gave me my bearings to scan my surroundings. My jaw fell open when the room I was confined to registered. It was clean—really clean—and undamaged. It had all its walls, and the floor and ceiling were intact. It disturbed me greatly because I had never seen any place so pure and beautiful; it was somewhere that didn’t look it was dying. I had never seen anything like it.