Timeline: Past

Point of View: Claudia & Lisa

Location: Red Planet

“Lisa what the fuck are you doing?” Claudia asked after the adrenaline rush from battle wore off.

Lisa was still sitting, her hands still mending after she’d saved Claudia’s life. The sinews and veins rebuilt more quickly than they had back in the buzzsaw village, the pylon feeding her essence. Lisa didn’t answer the question.

“Lisa, come on. Why didn’t you fight?” Claudia asked again, this time with a more firm tone in her voice. Beside them, the pylon hummed as the essence flowed up and around them. Claudia felt as if the sound was giving her vertigo, like a perpetual ringing in her ears. As convenient as it was for maintaining her essence, she found that she was eager to leave the pylon. Her throat was still parched. She thought about the river, feeling an eagerness to go. There would be more of the creatures soon, she knew. They’d either come to retrieve them, or kill them both. Did she want to be there when they came? She honestly didn’t know.

Lisa’s face tilted in her direction, those skinned-over eyes peering through her. “Claudia, I’m sorry.”

“Cut the bullshit, what is this about?”

“Claudia…” Lisa started, but didn’t finish. “Never mind.” She waved her hand in the air dismissively.

“No, dammit, catch me up. What the hell is going on with you.”

“I’m just done, okay? I’m done. I don’t care, and I’m done. Fuck this place. Fuck it all.”

“What do you mean you’re done? What does that mean? You want to die? You just want to lie down and let the creatures do whatever they want to you? Have some self-respect. Get up.”

Claudia felt she was being harsh, but in the moment she didn’t care. She’d never been one to empathize with pity. To Claudia, it was a waste of time. Pity didn’t change a situation, only made it harder to overcome. She’d known people that struggled with depression and boredom, and she’d often tried to understand. But the reality of it was that she didn’t understand. People live, then people die. It was the cycle of things. No point in being sad about anything.

She looked at Lisa, into Lisa, where her eyes should have been, and wondered if the woman was crying. What would that be like, to know you were crying, but not be able to physically shed tears?

“Claudia, I really just don’t care anymore. I don’t care to return to Earth. I don’t care about this stupid mission thrust upon us. Okay? Here’s the thing. I'm going to get real. When we met in the prison, I thought maybe we could get back home. If I could get home, I thought, you know, maybe I’d get another chance at life. Instead, I’ve lost my goddamn sight. I get that there's some kind of greater purpose here, but why should I care Claudia? I don’t have a home. There is no back home for me. Planet Earth isn’t any different than here. Not really. There’s nobody that cares about me back there. I never had a dad, and my mother blamed me for her loneliness all the way up to the day that I gave up trying and left at sixteen. She didn’t try to find me. She’s probably still to this day thankful that her headache is out of the house. You know how hard it is to find a job when you don’t live anywhere? I did things just to get by, things a child shouldn't have to do. I left thinking I could do something better for myself, but instead found that there was nothing better. I found a guy to move in with, and things were fine for awhile. I got a job, a low paying one, and I thought, you know, maybe there’s a chance here. That is, until he tried to hurt me. I thought I was going to die that night. I was sitting there on the couch, and he comes through the door all drunk or high or whatever, and I ask if he wants to watch something because he’s someone I think might be a friend someday. Instead he lumbers toward me and he’s on top of me, pushing me to the ground. I manage to kick him off, and I run. I just run, leave everything behind. I run until I end up here. My whole life, Claudia, I’ve been running. Hoping for something better that might be just around the corner. Instead, life seems to find new ways to punish me. Am I being hard on myself? Am I pouting? Am I just being a whiny little bitch? I don’t know, but I’m tired, Claudia. I don’t know if losing my sight was the final straw, but it really feels like it. I feel done. I’m so done with everything. I’m done trying. Fuck Ctaolthost and his mission. Fuck... Just fuck this."

Claudia didn’t have anything to say, and whatever she considered at first didn't seem right. Lisa was a defeated woman, and she needed her to get her head into the fight. What could she say? But she had to say something. She could sense that this was a critical moment. She'd either win Lisa back, or Lisa would be lost for good, or at least as good as gone.

She sat beside Lisa, wrapped her arms around her, and said the first things that came to mind, hoping it would be enough.

“Lisa,” she said, “I’m sorry. I don’t think there’s anything I can say to make what you feel go away, but I will say that you’ve saved my life twice already, and I need you here. No, I want you here. If no one in your life has wanted you, know that I want and need you here, okay? Just help me here, don’t give up on me. Don’t give up on me and I won’t give up on you. We’ll find a way to get your sight back. Okay? Just stay with me here."

Claudia finished, unable to find another thing to say. She let the silence hang in the air for a time. She thought about how hard it was to read Lisa’s thoughts when she didn’t have eyes, thought about how critical eyes were to human connection. People read each other through their eyes. She’d read that it was more, that it was all of the features of the face moving in a way that gave indication of what someone else was feeling. That was probably true, but she knew now how critical eyes were to the equation.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Lisa sat up, and Claudia was certain that she was crying. She could see it by the shape of the woman’s mouth, curved down and quivering slightly. Lisa returned the embrace that Claudia was already giving her, but then there was more to it. Lisa’s dry cheek was rubbing up against her cheek, her hands pulling her closer to Lisa's body. Then their lips were touching.

Lisa’s intentions were clear, and Claudia knew her words had at least had some partial effect. The woman was at least with her now, wouldn’t try to kill herself the next opportunity that she had. Was she interested in Lisa in this way? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t really sure that she cared about any gender in that way. She’d slept with several men over the years, but it was mostly out of necessity as part of maintaining her social obligation. It always felt good, but she didn’t have the drive for it that other people seemed to, where people were driven by urges periodically building in their genitals.

But this wasn’t that kind of need for Lisa. This was a need for human connection, for someone to care about her and want her to exist not because of some external need, but because they wanted Lisa to exist. Claudia’s words seemed to have convinced Lisa that Claudia was that person for her, maybe the first person in her life to actually care about her in a semi-marginal way.

They fell back in the red dirt, the pylon shaking the particles of air around them, and Claudia participated in Lisa’s need.

Did she feel a bit guilty, manipulating the woman in the way that she had? Not really. In fact it felt good. It felt good to get another person to bend to her will, and to get her to do what she wanted by simply speaking to them with suggestions. It made her feel powerful.

Mental manipulation, your strength. You're meant to control the masses. Still think I’m heartless, or do you see now what you are? Her essence asked.

Claudia knew that her essence wasn’t any more heartless than she already was, because she’d done this of her own free will. She needed Lisa to locate the other pylons. She needed the other pylons to gather more power, because she was learning that she really liked power. Power over all creatures, human and buzzsaw alike.

Besides, even if she hadn’t been completely honest with what she’d said, did that really matter? Lisa was, for the moment at least, happier, and Claudia felt assured that Lisa would now be there when she needed her. This was nothing more than another act, another character that Claudia would have to play. Her entire life had been pretending to be someone that someone else wanted her to be. So she’d play this part for Lisa.

Claudia surrendered herself to who she knew herself to be.

She made her way between Lisa’s legs, and the woman gasped pleasurably in the night.

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“They’re here,” Lisa said from beside her in the dirt. They'd been lying there in the silence for some time, Claudia admiring the sky, waiting until it was an opportune time to ask that they continue their mission. “I can see them beyond the trees.”

“How many?” Claudia asked without looking up. She wasn’t worried anymore, not like she'd been those first few fights. As Lisa had said, the buzzsaws were the weakest creatures on the planet, and Lisa would be engaged in the fight this time.

“I can’t see, but there’s many. Some of the essence is strong, some of it weak.”

“Here’s what I want you to do,” Claudia said, speaking calmly, “I’ll fight, and I want you to watch my back and cover for me. Don’t get engaged unless you think it completely necessary. Don’t expend all of your potential, all of your… ammunition at once. I’ll kill them primarily. Can you do that?”

“Yes, love. Whatever you need. I am at your command.”

Love. Claudia wasn't sure about that, but she let it fly. “Good,” Claudia said, and meant it.

She stood from the dirt and dressed. She could see the buzzsaws exiting the trees as she did, but she didn’t feel rushed. For some reason she felt she’d turned a page in her life, fully leaving behind the weak woman she was for the powerful one she was now. Could she kill all of them on her own, with Lisa’s support? She didn’t know for sure, but she trusted she could. Because she had to. It was her role to play.

The first few buzzsaws ran at her as she got her shirt on. She hadn’t had time to get her shoes on, but she didn’t mind. Without the shoes she felt more agile. The first buzzsaw was upon her and she didn’t waste a second. She severed its head with a single thrust upward, its teeth still spinning as as the head separated. The next buzzsaw swung a sharp weapon down at her, but she stepped aside with ease. The creatures seemed so slow to her now, able to move as quickly as she could. As she side-stepped the attack, she spun a kick around and connected her foot with its side just above it’s front legs. The leg crumpled as the energy flowed through it, sending the creature through the air and into a tree.

She didn’t wait for the pylon to refill her essence. She demanded that it refuel her at once. The essence in the air listened, and she felt it enter her and she felt stronger. Just in time for the next buzzsaw, which then, too, was missing a few limbs. They continued to attack, all of them with either axes or blunt weapons, and she crushed them with ease. She took a blow to her side in one occasion, but pushed through the pain unconcerned. Lisa had to step in a couple times, but Claudia took notice that she was conserving her limbs, using them as they were: ammunition. She was leaving her right arm whole, but her left arm was being scrapped bone by bone. She’d used up all of her fingers, as well as half of her arm (a bone still stuck out of the head of a buzzsaw lying on the ground behind her), but her elbow and half of her upper arm remained, hanging from her shoulder and dangling sickly, still attached to skin.

They’d killed roughly ten of them, Lisa having moved on to her second limb, when the children came.

They both knew they were children because of their size. There were three of them, and they had no weapons. They approached slowly, as if fearfully. Claudia was cautious as they came, skeptical of an attack.

“Do you see any others?” She asked Lisa.

“Yes, but they are far back inside the trees.”

“Do you think this is a trap?”

“I’m not sure.”

What about you?

I sense a surrender. This is their form of a white flag.

Why would they surrender?

Perhaps they are see that their losses would be too great to continue fighting. They may want to communicate.

How would they communicate? She asked, but she didn’t wait for an answer. Another plan was forming in her mind. She could use this to her advantage.

“Lisa,” she said, “I think they want us to come with them.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. But I think we should.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Maybe. What do you say? Give it a shot?”

Lisa was silent for a time, and Claudia turned back to look at her. The woman stood there, her arms slowly regrowing, and Claudia knew that the woman would do whatever Claudia wanted her to. A smile crept across Claudia’s face as Lisa approached and took her hand.

They followed the children into the trees.