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Kale
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Quadrant: Darna Quadrant
Government: Republic of Hekat
System: D-447
Planet: Ora
Location: Agora city, Facility beneath the Colosseum, 15th floor
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***
Two hours ago
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Moving towards the location that Akaria sent me, on the fifteenth floor, I push through the winding white hallways of the facility beneath the Colosseum. On the holopad, I see a patrol of two soldiers roaming the halls near the back entrance of a massive room, the largest on this floor. Warden Akaria must have given me some kind of admin access to see their movements. Perhaps she does mean to help, my people may be able to escape from here somehow. Hope is rising in my chest, budding against the burn that has returned from thinking on Lunara’s lips pressed against mine.
I push the thought from my mind, they will cross my path soon, focus is required. Taking to the corner now in their blind spot, waiting for them to move past. I wish to test out the new plasma blades Kotina gave me.
“Why are we stuck doing patrol duty when the Hunt’s about to start.” One of them says, drawing closer.
“Lt said there was a breach in the lower floors. Dunno, slagging crap either way.” The other says with an audible sigh through their metal helmet.
As they turn the corner, the first lets out a surprised shriek. Fumbling for their rifle’s safety. I am upon them swiftly, about to stab one in the chest and the other in the throat. My hands betray me as they change directions to wound and not kill. Thoughts of Lunara weighing on my heart rising to the surface now. Sekat, she has dulled my blades.
Frustration rises in me as I cut the tendons in their legs. Destroying their rifles with the edge of the blade. They howl inside their suits in pain as the molten metal burns their flesh, the only salve to the despair of my dulled blades. Clenching my jaw, I slash the holopads on their wrist and leave them to crawl upon the ground.
Moving towards the large room’s back entrance now. As I pass through the doors which open from Akaria’s command, I assume, I take in the room. There is a pile of boxes filled with nutritional rations, the wrappings look fresh like the ones they feed hunters. There are only our flavorless rations here, a shame I could not try another flavor… before my end. Depositing some into my cloak, in case my body requires it. An Ulima must always be prepared, though I do not think I will need it, I feel the darkness creeping in the edges of my sanity.
Shaking my head at the whispers of darkness, regaining my focus again, curiosity bids me to keep moving forward, as does the map Kotina put on the holopad. It is the fastest way to the location Warden Akaria sent me. Why does she want me to come here? There is a strange feeling rising in me as I begin to smell an odor on the air. I move further into the expansive room, towards large plastic sheets that hang from the ceiling. It is a smell I know too well. Death. I hear the pounding of machines on the other side.
As I cut the plastic, moving into the next section behind it, I find the start of a snaking line of machines that take up hundreds of meters in every direction. Horror fills my eyes as I see around me the bodies of my people in various stages of decomposition, hung by hooks on a slowly moving track towards a large machine. Their bodies ooze foul liquids onto the ground, causing my stomach to churn.
Loud smashing noises exude from the largest of the machines as it crushes the bodies into mush at the end of the conveyer of hooks. I follow along the trail of it and see a large vat of bubbling acid where the mush is taken. Massive pipes slowly drip a foul liquid that smells of feces into the mush before it goes into the vat. My eyes do not want to follow further, but I must know, why do they defile the dead, what purpose is there in this. Is it to humiliate my people one last time, not even allowing them peace in death.
There is sickness in my veins as I see the slurry of slop that the acid leaves being fed to a conveyer belt, and separated out into large tins, put under heated panels that arc light into the mush, pressing it until the liquid is gone and it is solid, sending it through another series of machines. My stomach begins to churn into a storm as my mind catches up to the depravity that my eyes behold.
Near the end of the line, a bladed machine cuts the larger blocks of grey abomination into smaller ones. Ones that I recognize, ones that I have known my entire life. It is the tasteless nutrition blocks, my eyes grow wide, buzzing in my ears, beads of sweat down my brow as I begin to vomit uncontrollably on the ground.
I yell and scream, overcome with raw emotions, knocking over the smaller machines, throwing metal into gears of the larger ones, spit flying from my mouth. My eyes glow brightly as the bioluminescence swirls. There is a heat rising in me, fire bleeding from the pain of my soul as I see the wickedness inflicted upon my people. Darkness fills me.
“I curse you false gods.” I growl to the heavens.
Slamming my fists into the controls of the machines until it breaks under them.
“I curse your children and their children’s children.”
Cutting with the plasma blades the conveyer’s tracks until it stops.
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“May you all walk upon fields of broken glass until my blade finds you.”
These people and their gods are sick, beyond sick. They feed us our own people… mixed with the excrement of theirs. I will kill them all. Every last one. All of them. My blade begins to sing a tune I have never heard before, striking the first chord. It takes me a moment, but I realize it is not just my blade singing, but the blade of my people’s will. My mind spins, the darkness whispers louder.
The blade that sings in me now will not dull even after my death. It will only become sharper, and I will hunt these false gods in the afterlife becoming the thing of their nightmares. The thing they think of when they peer into the darkness and fear grips their cold hearts. They will not know peace until my people do, this I swear upon my soul… upon my very existence. I feel the darkness swelling inside of me, pressing into my soul, filling it with the strength to rise up and slash at the false light of the masters and their gods.
My legs buckle under the weight of everything my eyes have seen, slamming me to my knees. My eyes hollow as I parse this cruel reality. My heart hardens and grows dark as I realize that Lunara knew the truth and did not tell me, did nothing to stop this treachery. The embers that burned for her snuffed out in an instant as the world I thought I knew comes crashing down upon me. They made us kill each other to get these rations. I have seen scores die trying to quiet their bellies, only to be turned into something grotesque.
It is an affront to my people, a desecration so perverse, words cannot bring it justice. I feel the demon in my perception, coming to my shoulder, placing a hand on it. There is no pain from it, for the first time it is simply warm, as though it is sheltering me from the pain I feel in my soul. The confusion inside of me gives way to the sadness I feel for my people. The depravity the masters have shown is stirring something primordial in me. There will be no mercy for the masters, I do not care what I told Kotina, there are no innocents here. All of them will feel the blades kiss upon their necks.
My eyes look upwards to the heavens, towards the false gods who allowed this to come to be. I feel a second demon beginning to take shape near me.
You begin to see the truth
The false gods do not deserve worship
They deserve only ruination
The first says, I feel its claws upon my shoulder.
“I did not call you, demons.” The words fall from my lips, speckled with venom.
Juk ta Jaka
The second demon says. It speaks the words of my people, in a familiar tone that only a Kuwathi can have. Its meaning is simple in the old tongue – Your blade calls.
As I turn to look upon this demon, I see that its eyes are more open than the others. They burn a deep crimson, fire licking the edges of them. It does not peer at me, it looks out among the dead that have been turned into abomination. It does not smile like the other demon. I can feel the wrath in it rising, calling to the budding flame inside of me. As this wrath rises, I see the darkness around the being beginning to take shape, red light from its chest starting to shine outwards. It fills me with strength. The other demon’s smile grows wider as it does.
My legs begin to stand as the darkness fills me. Where my heart once beat with hope, I feel only the smoldering of wrath beginning to burn brightly. It is the comfort against the pain my heart feels, the salve to my despair that the False Gods cannot replace.
My holopad chimes with a new location from Warden Akaria. The blade calls her name. I move now towards the door, the resolve of my people cementing itself firmly in my soul, burning itself into me, becoming my ethos.
“I am the blade of my people’s will.” I say aloud, hollowing myself so the darkness and resolve can fill me further.
Streaks of blood on the floor guide me to where the two soldiers crawl from the wounds I left on them. I hear the strumming of the second and third chord from the blade of my people’s will. The tempo increases as I stab my blades into the flesh as they beg for their lives, mercy leaving my body, being replaced with a singular purpose. Let all the masters hear the song…
More come from the elevator, their rifles raised, I strafe sideways dodging the first one’s shots. Rolling forward, I stab through their thick metal armor with the plasma blades hot edge, burning a hole through their heart, steam from blood vaporizing rushes out as the rest boils into a froth, spraying me. The next backs away fumbling with his weapon as he sees the blaze of my Kuwathi eyes fully alit.
“Wait…” they plead.
I do not.
My body shifts as they find the will to fire, hitting nothing but my shadow. My blade stabs at the belly of the armor, ripping upwards, splaying the armor as it falls backwards, the soldier with it. His body twitching and bubbling from the heat.
“I am the blade forged from the cries of my people.”
The third’s shots roll off the energy shield that Kotina gave me. I slash where the tendons are in their body, careful not to cut too deep. They fall to the floor and I drag them back into the elevator. Placing their metal hand on the screen and pressing the floor where all of the soldiers reside, where they have their armors maintenance done. I do not follow the path Akaria gives, I will carve my own. The elevator whirs.
“Please, I have…” the third begins.
I slice the vocal chords, a sputtering coming from their helmets audio as they choke on molten metal. I only needed them alive to use the controls, now they have no use, no right to the life they cling to. As their people have taken mines right to live, I do the same now to them.
The doors open and as I walk outwards, I see that I am surrounded by more than twenty soldiers, they point their weapons at me. They were ready for me to come here… but it is not just me that walk these soon to be blood soaked floors. I carry with me the souls of the dead that have cried into the void hopelessly for Gods who do not listen, Gods who do not care.
“Put the weapons down, we have you surrounded!” One yells.
As the darkness fills me further, I listen to their cries now, they are deafening, among the cries of the dead I hear a word beginning to rise slowly above the others.
“I am the blade tempered in the tears of the mothers of my people.”
The soldiers look amongst each other, not understanding my words. It does not matter, they are not for them, I say them for the dead. They deserve to know I hear them, they deserve to come with me and find peace in my death. My eyes glow brighter now, filled with strength from the calls of the dead I hear illuminating the darkness that creeps into my body and soul.
“Light him up!”
Molten plasma rips through the air. I rush forward, the shield Kotina gave me rippling red and resounding with an alarm as it begins to fail. It does not matter, I am already upon the first of them. Using their shadow to shield me from the onslaught of light that flies past. My only regret that it is their guns that kill the first three and not my blade.
“I am the blade honed in the darkness of my people’s lost hope and shattered dreams.”
My blades slash deep as I move like a shadow between them, using their numbers against them. A loud pop as my shield ruptures from a shot that was meant for my chest. I cannot make any more mistakes… neither can they.
As I stab the next through the face, using their arm to fire their weapon into two others. I feel the darkness crawling deeper into me. The offering of souls drawing more of the demons now into my perception. Their shapes less stable than the ones I know. They follow close to me, pouring into me their strength. The blackened lines on my body swirl with red light.
The soldiers try to group up now in a line to avoid killing each other. It will not help them. Their fates were sealed the moment I saw the flesh of my people rend into the acid. The moment I realized the sickness that must be cleansed from this place. I am not permitted to die until they do, the dead will it so. Filling me with their resolve as they shout louder in the old tongue, their voices becoming even more unified, their numbers expanding.
“I am the blade directed by the souls of my people that still scream for justice.”