Chapter 40
TEMPORAL JUMP – YEAR 2017 - EARTH
Leon’s point of view
I hated night shift.
Yet, working as a security guard at a military
base was bound to have its bad points. At least I got paid for it, which was
what mattered most to a regular guy like me. I lazily pawed at my uncomfortable
collar. Night shift was boring – at least during the day vehicles moved into
and out of the military base every now and then. Nothing ever happened at
night.
I pulled my eyes away from the road to quickly
grab my radio and state, as usual, that there were no signs of activity along
my patrol route. Yet, when I looked back, half across a deserted bridge, I saw
a flash of icy blue light, and a black shadow dived right into the path of my
truck.
I cried out, quickly twisting the wheel hard
to the left to swerve. Yet, it was to no avail. A sickening thud echoed in my
ears, and I screeched to a halt. I quickly snapped my radio into its holder on
my belt and grabbed a torch.
I practically jumped out of the truck and
darted to the slumped heap cloaked in black lying sprawled on the road over the
bridge.
“Oh God…” I muttered. “Hey, can you hear me?
Are you OK?”
I shook the lifeless body roughly, yet no
reaction came. I began to panic – I’d probably just killed someone out of my
own carelessness.
“This isn’t funny, man!” I cried, my voice
becoming shrill. “Give me some sign that you’re alive!”
Silence again was my response. Sighing, I
turned the form over onto its back.
I shone my torch on the face. It was clearly
male, late-twenties, with long, dark hair… but for some reason he wore some
kind of bandanna over his lower jaw and nose, as if hiding his identity. I
pulled it away, and saw he had short facial hair too. Then one of his arms fell
lifelessly out of his black cloak. I gasped in horror.
His hand was far from human – it was green,
scaly, only three fingers…
Trembling, thinking this was a victim of some
radiation experiment in the base (I’d heard rumours of government-funded,
military experiments going on), I picked up my radio.
“HQ, this is patrol Delta. Send a security
team to the South Bank Bridge, and bring a medic. Over.”
“Roger that, Delta. What is your situation?
Over.” The static reply came.
“Casualty – young male, and he has…
interesting injuries. Over.”
“Security team on their way. Hold your
position. Over and out.”
I checked for pulse, holding two fingers to
his neck. My mood sunk – there was none. There was a blanket in my truck, and I
felt the only decent thing to do was cover the body. I sadly skulked back to
the truck and opened the rear door to fetch the woven blanket. Yet, I was in
for a surprise.
A low, growling moan issued from the corpse,
causing me to jerk my head towards it. He was moving. I dropped the blanket
onto the road dumbly. The figure slowly pulled itself up, and he must have been
at least 7 feet tall. His other hand, now visible, was equally green and
mutated. I took a fearful step back. The figure opened his eyes and I cried out
in terror.
His eyes were glowing an icy cold blue!!
I stood rooted to the spot, unable to tear my
bulging eyes away from this terrifying thing. What horribly mutated creature
was this? Where was it from?
This ‘man’ seemed fairly bewildered and
frowned at me through the forbidding darkness. He took a tentative step
forwards, and that was enough for me. Breaking free of the hold terror had on
me, I wildly looked for a way to escape. Glancing at the water, I madly climbed
over the railing and threw myself into the freezing waters. Yet, the impact on
the water’s surface alone was enough to knock me out cold, and darkness slowly
surrounded me.
When I came to, I once again saw those two
glowing eyes through a hazy blur. I tried to raise my weak limbs in defence,
but they were heavy with cold and dampness.
“Please…” I managed to croak. “Don’t kill me.”
My vision began to clear, and this figure had
replaced his bandanna disguise. He looked at me with concern.
“Are you OK?” I heard him ask, his voice full
of worry. He sounded distant and hazy. My senses had not yet recovered.
Strangely, I recognised the southern drawl of his American accent.
Silently, I put my hand to my throbbing head,
gently shaking it to signal ‘no’. He pulled off his cloak and wrapped it around
my shoulders.
“That water’s freezing. You shouldn’t have
done that.” He stated nonchalantly.
Through my blurry vision, I saw what the cloak
had hidden from view previously. He had two green, massive wings on his back,
scaly and reptilian. My eyes widened, and he noticed my reaction.
“Don’t worry.” He stated. “I may be scary but
-”
Suddenly, he drew up sharply, standing and
frantically looking around.
“Someone is coming…” he breathed cautiously.
“Security…” I managed in a hoarse whisper.
He knelt back down and stared at me.
“Security? From where?”
“…base… military…” I croaked, shivering from
the cold.
Distant voices could be heard shouting in our
direction. Authoritative commands were yelled, and this stranger only glanced
sideways at them, seemingly unafraid.
“…called them… chasing you…” I mumbled.
He was about to speak again, but whatever he
was going to say was cut off as his eyes widened in surprise and he clutched
his neck. Wincing, he pulled a thin dart out, throwing it aside. Still stunned,
his legs collapsed from under him, and he fell back into unconsciousness.
A guard came charging up to him, weapon
raised. He tapped the strange creature with his foot a few times, then called
to his squad leader:
“It’s out cold. We got it tranquillised!”
Kevin’s point of view
“Uuughhhhh…… my head…”
My eyes burned with pain as I opened them to
an intense light shining into them from above. I was used to the prevailing
darkness of night and the void of space.
Where the hell am I?
I pulled my aching body up into a seated
position, finding myself on a hard, cold bed. It wasn’t the height of luxury,
but then again I noticed, as I glanced around, I was inside some kind of
holding cell. With bitterness, I realised:
I’m a prisoner again…
Snarling, I stood up, flexing my limbs and
twisting the stiff muscles in my neck. I wasn’t about to accept imprisonment a
second time. I was a Soul Creature, the Ka Mesha. I was a spirit warrior far
beyond any mortal defences. There was no way they could hold me.
I was distracted as a sneeze issued from
outside the cell. I cautiously walked to the reinforced glass window set in the
door.
“Damn cold…” I heard a male voice mutter.
My eyes widened. The person beyond this door
was human.
Everything came back to me – I had made the
temporal jump to 2017 and flew down to Earth. Some unsuspecting guy in a truck
had ploughed right into me and stunned me. After I composed myself, he took one
glance at me then hurled himself over the side of the bridge. I managed to
pickup his shocked, bewildered form and flew his soaking body up to the bridge.
After waking up and mumbling incoherently, I had been ambushed by human guards
and hit by some kind of dart.
My gecko paw went up to my neck, feeling the
small puncture where the dart had hit. It must have contained some knockout
drug or sedative, yet it seemed to have an intoxicating effect on me – I felt
like I had a hangover.
I looked back to the guard outside. He was
very familiar – this was the security guard that had hit me with his truck.
Luckily for him, I wasn’t very fragile. I tapped on the glass window without
any prior thought.
“Hey, buddy!” I alerted. “Over here!”
He gulped, seeing my icy eyes peering out at
him. Sniffing involuntarily, he shifted nervously and edged a little closer to
the door.
“Where am I?” I questioned, frowning in
confusion.
“You speak English?” he breathed with
uncertainty. “How?”
“I’ve always spoken English! Now, where the
hell am I?”
“You’re… you’re in Illinois.” He stuttered.
“Hmm… too far north…” I muttered.
Hopefully, Brian still lived in Georgia, and I
could find him there. Yet, I would either have to travel in the higher
atmosphere to avoid human detection, or travel by foot during the night.
Satellites and radar might detect me if I flew too high, so resigned to take
the more lengthy option. From my perspective, I’d already been gone from Earth
for over three centuries – what difference would a few more weeks make?
“You work here?” I quizzed with interest. “Who
are you?”
“Uh…” he seemed a little perplexed. “Yeah, the
name’s Leon.”
“I’m …” I was about to say my real name, but
feared it may jog some memory of my human self. Who could guess if he had heard
of me or not from being a Backstreet Boy? Much of my facial appearance was
exactly as it was when I had originally died.
“I’m Zakkar,” I stated, after a moment’s
thought. “I’d shake your hand, but … erm…”
I gestured to the door separating us. He just
nodded fearfully.
“What happened to you, man?” he questioned in
curious awe and fear. “Were you mutated or something?”
My mood plummeted. I glanced at my demonic
appearance sadly. I knew he was referring to mutation from radiation of some
sort, but his guess was not far from the truth: in Oblivion, as my mind was
tormented, my physical form was twisted into this vile phantasm.
“You could say that.”
He looked as if he was about to say more, but
several other guards barged into the room and bustled Leon out of the way.
Opening the cell wordlessly, they all simultaneously pounced on me and held me
down. I snarled and lashed out, while vainly trying to fade into spectral form
to escape my assailants. It didn’t work – my strength must have been below a
quarter, and I was stuck in physical form.
A flock of people in white lab coats followed
the guards, and there was a sharp pricking on my neck as I felt something being
injected into my body.
Groggily, it dawned on me that if I wasn’t
allowed to rest soon, my energy would completely drain, and I would die.
***
