Timeline: Present

Point of View: Ralph & Claudia

Location: Red Planet

Ralph had been wandering for roughly ten minutes. He didn’t know where he was going, and didn’t have a plan. He simply wandered the Red Planet. Some people weren't meant to be leaders, weren't meant to control, organize, and strategize. Some people aimlessly wandered life, participating in whatever the world puts in front of them each day. Ralph was certain that most of the people on Earth could fall into that bucket, and Ralph was a man of the people.

When Claudia found him, he was staring at his feet as he walked, thinking about how much he hated heat. His arm pits were already becoming sweaty, and he hated the feeling of general moistness inside of his clothing. There were lots of things making him unhappy in that moment.

“Ralph, look up,” Claudia said.

Ralph did. “Claudia!” He said. “I found you!”

“Yeah...” Claudia said, letting it go.

“I thought you’d be stuck here forever. Hey, I learned how to physically teleport. We can go back to Earth now. Wait, how did you find me? Oh right, Astral Vision. What does minor Astral Vision mean by the way?”

“Slow down, will you.” Claudia said.

As she approached, Ralph felt an odd eagerness to hug her. It seemed he’d accepted her and was beginning to think of her as a friend. He remembered his earlier mistrust, when she'd first collided with him back in his apartment, and he considered that he should be more careful. Claudia and he had been through quite a bit together in a short time, but she was still dangerous.

Instead of a hug, he opted for a handshake by sticking out his hand. “Good to see you again,” he said.

“Yeah,” Claudia said, looking at his hovering hand confusedly.

Ralph dropped the hand to his side. Damn, I'm a socially awkward mother fucker, he thought sadly. Then, suddenly remembering, he said, “The buzzsaw. I took it to Earth with me. I killed it, but not with my powers. I got lucky. I nearly died.”

I was certain you would, Claudia thought coldly, but she was happy he survived. “Yes. We need to make you stronger. What you have now, this teleportation, is a useful tool, but...” Tool, she thought, I should consider my words more carefully. She didn’t want the man to think she was using him. Yet, was she? She wasn’t sure. She liked Ralph well enough, but they were both nothing more than cogs in the wheel of something much bigger than themselves. There was no room for emotions or feelings. She thought about Lisa. Yes, there was no more room for any of that anymore. Only the mission. “But that ability seems pretty useless for battle,” she said, “For the most part. If we go to the first pylon, I have hope that you’ll find something better to protect yourself with.”

“Yes, is it close to here?”

“I wouldn’t say close, but it’s in the forest. Beyond the buzzsaw village.”

“Is that dangerous?” Ralph asked.

Claudia thought about the decimated buzzsaw village, the remnants of her… loss of control. “No,” she said, “Most of them are dead. We may find a few pools of them here and there, like the ones that just attacked us, but they should be rare. The creatures are weak, comparatively to me, and if we're smarter, we should be able to dispatch them quickly.”

“Understood," Ralph said, feeling a little uncertain. "Lead the way, I guess.”

Claudia did.

----------------------------------------

As they walked through the forest of trees, they found the trip relatively quiet. There were few creatures, as Claudia had expected. The ones they did see were small, and skittered away when they’d seen the humans walking through. How times had changed. The first time she’d walked amongst these trees, she was at the bottom of the food chain. Now she was at the top of it. But I’m still not the strongest thing here, and I’m still not strong enough to traverse to the other pylons.

With more people, we can survive the trek to the others.

Yes. Ralph’s ability will be useful, but it’s still not enough. We need more people that can fight. We need more people like Lisa.

After we get him to this first pylon, we’ll get a feel for what his type of abilities are. Then we’ll go back to Earth and find the others.

Yes, that’s the plan.

Will you defeat the creatures on Earth first? Or will you come back, seek the other pylons, and grow your power?

Defeat the giants first, of course. They’ll decimate the planet if we don’t stop them. We have to close the portal they’ve opened before they open more.

Yes, but I sense that you’re tempted.

I am. If I don’t become the strongest human on Earth, then someone else will beat me to it. Possibly someone with nefarious intent. We’ve found something that can change the world, for better or worse. I intend to at least control it.

“Why are you so quiet?” Ralph asked.

They side stepped the tall trees that endlessly disappeared into the sky. Once already Ralph had touched the bark of one had begun being pulled into its core. Claudia had to cut the tree down with some of her essence to break him free. The man had squirmed so intensely that the tree had absorbed him up to his chest in seconds. Ralph was not a particularly smart man. Now, however, they deftly kept their distance as they weaved between the tall red trees.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Only thinking,” Claudia said. “Thinking about Earth. Worried about what’s happening back there. How far do you think the giants have spread?” It was mindless conversation. Claudia despised it, but it was necessary to be social at times to maintain relationships. It would be better once her group increased. They would keep themselves entertained at least.

“Yeah,” Ralph said sadly, thinking about the people. “The man who saved me from the buzzsaw was preparing himself for a much different world already. He was carrying his shotgun, waiting for the creatures."

“Once we get you stronger, we’ll go back and find the others and put an end to what's happening there.”

“I wonder sometimes about how many are over there already," Ralph said, "If they’ve made more portals. Maybe their spreading gateways across the states even now. Increasing their numbers.”

“I’m almost certain that’s exactly what they’re doing,” Claudia said. “We have to prepare ourselves for what might be over there when we get back. Or what might be left.”

They came upon the blood river, the sound of the slow moving current echoing off the nearby trees. It was an ominous sound. Ralph stepped up close to the water, knelt beside it to examine it. “You weren’t lying,” he said, “It does look like blood.”

“We’ll have to cross it,” Claudia said.

Ralph looked out across the river. In the section that they'd come to, the river wasn’t overly wide, but it wouldn’t be a quick pass. It could possibly be quite deep near the middle though it was impossible to see. Ralph really hated wearing wet clothes, and they'd be stuck in them once they reached the other side. Even more than that, he hated getting into unknown waters. He’d heard of people swimming in lakes and being bitten by large fish, little girls having to have stitches on their feet. Sure, it was rare, but talk numbers to those that get attacked. And that was Earth, a generally sage place. Now they were on an alien planet.

“Have you crossed it before?” Ralph asked.

“Not consciously. I believe the buzzsaw that initially took me captive somehow brought me across, but I don’t remember it. I was out cold.”

“How did you get back across, then? In order for us to meet that first time, you had to have been on this side.”

“I’ve been to where the river begins. There’s a great lake on the far end of this river, and near it another pylon.”

“Should we go that route, then? Follow the river up and go around?”

“No. I… I don’t want to go back there. Not yet.”

Ralph could sense a kind of fear, or at least anxiety, when Claudia mentioned this other place. It sent shivers down his spine at the thought, that there were places on the red planet that Claudia was scared of, despite her power. The buzzsaws were a mere annoyance to her, but they weren’t the only creatures on this planet.

“Were there other creatures there?" He asked. "Creatures other than the buzzsaws and the giants?”

“No. We’ve talked about this. I told you about the creatures that I’m aware of on this planet. That place up there, though… It’s a graveyard. I don’t want to talk about it right now. Our focus right now is to get you to the closest pylon, get you stronger, and then get back to Earth to find others like us.”

Ralph wanted to push the topic further, but sensed that Claudia was shutting down on the issue and would speak on it no further. He stared out at the slow moving water again.

“I really don’t want to cross this,” he said.

"I’ll go first. You can follow when I get to the other side.”

Ralph considered this, but still he didn’t like the idea of crossing alone, even if she crossed to the other side unscathed. “I’d rather go together. Are you sure there’s nothing in there? There could be like… evil gators.”

“We don’t have a choice. Let’s go.” Claudia stepped into the water, the cool red liquid flowing over her shoes. Ralph followed quickly behind.

Shortly after, the water level came up to their hips, then there chests, and then movement across grew into a slow slog. Ralph was certain he could feel things swimming around his body, but the water was too thick with the red sediment it was carrying to see below the surface. He thought about piranhas. He thought about snakes. He then imagined variations of those creatures in the template of the red planet: sharp, spinning teeth and multiple appendages. The water came up to their necks, but before going any further, they began to climb back up the slope. Soon they were on the other side.

“Oh thank God,” Ralph said, leaning over his knees.

“Yes, we were lucky. They didn’t get us,” Claudia said.

“What?” Ralph looked up at her sharply, “What didn’t get us?”

Claudia only smiled, then kept walking into the forest.

“Oh, fuck you,” Ralph said, and continued behind her, his shoes and socks sloshing grossly as they walked, his shirt sticking to his skin. Boy, he hated being wet.

----------------------------------------

As they walked, the trees seemed to grow thicker, and they had to be more careful about avoiding the bark. Even so, as they walked, they didn’t interact with any other life. The forest, aside from the carnivorous red trees, was dead quiet.

“Where are they all?”

“I killed most of them," Claudia said without remorse. "We’ll be coming upon their village soon. We’ll walk around it. We may see some creatures as we pass it, but probably not. Those that remain are likely scattered.”

Claudia’s statement ended up true. The trees seemed to clear at a certain point after walking, and as Ralph looked to his right, he saw a passageway that led to red-dirt mounds that resembled primitive homes. They were small in the distance, barely visible. He could only see a sliver of those homes behind the trees.

Between the mounds were bodies. He had to squint to see them off in the distance, but once he saw them, he could make them out clearly. There were numerous dead buzzsaw bodies, cut up into pieces, surrounding the mounds.

“Holy shit,” he said.

Claudia only held her head low and kept walking. Ralph wanting to approach the village, to see more of what had happened there, to look inside the homes of an alien race, but he’d lose Claudia if he did. Hesitatingly, he took several long steps to catch up with her, and they disappeared into the trees again, moving away from the village.

----------------------------------------

Ralph could feel it before they saw it. It was a vibration in the air, a humming in his ears. It was a low quake from the planet that moved upward into the air in a cycle, then rained down from up in the atmosphere for miles around them. Ralph closed his eyes, feeling the rush of that power. It felt as though it would rip his body apart if he came too near to it.

“Claudia, do you feel that?”

“Yes, we’re almost there,” she said. With her sight, she could see the essence pouring out from the planet like a great geyser. There were streams of it going up into the air and wrapping around the planet, reaching outward to the other pylons many miles away. It was like a great magnetic field of power that surrounded the planet, invisible to those without the sight.

When the last tree disappeared behind them, Ralph fell to his knees and cried out, looking out at the great pylon while Claudia stared on passively at the great structure. The ground was a swirling mass before them, a great hole that disappeared into the core of the planet. Ralph couldn’t see anything but the blackness, a red singularity at it’s center, but he could feel what Claudia was seeing. The essence of the great planet entered and exited his body, leaving his fingers and senses numb, yet electrified.

“Oh Claudia. Oh wow. Do you see all of them?” He asked, because the planet was giving him glimpses now. Claudia knew, but she showed no interest. This may have been incredible to her at one point, but now it was only a means to an end.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” she said. She grabbed Ralph’s shoulder and thrust him into the hole.

Ralph looked up at Claudia as he fell, knowing certainly now that he shouldn't have trusted her. He screamed as he fell to the center of the first pylon.