Before I could do anything about my near-death experience, I was dragged to my feet by both my best friend and my best boyfriend. I tripped on my way up and was momentarily wiping the floor with my torso. After a moment of struggle, I finally managed to run on my two feet.
The thundering tremors got closer and closer. There was no point in using my magic to find out the dragon, I knew it was coming and I knew it was now fully aware of our existence rather than just a curiosity.
Flashes of the demon Ssadassar came to mind. I remember the ground trembling on every step as it splashed through deep bodies of water and broke through several trees. I pictured a similar monster trotting towards us, only much bigger. I imagine a dragon demon stepping on rivers like puddles, crushing thick trees like they were toothpicks. I even imagine weapons damaging its scaly hide like mosquitos would hard leather — nothing at all.
What are we supposed to do against such a foe?
Nothing, really. All that’s left is to run. But run where?
“Where are we going?” I asked as we ran.
An explosive sound shook the spaceship like it was made of jello. The screeching sound of metal ripping itself apart was more like a booming crack. It’s impossible to imagine the forces that would take to destroy structures at this scale. We think we can, a simple pin of metal being bent would be equivalent to a beam of metal, and yet that’s not true. The material acts slightly differently at larger scales. The forces can be felt on the body, the air carries the sound like it would carry a storm.
And your body? It responds the only way it has for tens of thousands of millennia, it locks up. It begs to run and hide, or it simply freezes. The hindbrain, that prehistoric part of your brain makes you think that if you just don’t move, nothing bad will happen, but your rational part screams to keep moving. And so, after a few moments of petrification, your feet move by themselves, you don’t even think of moving, all you want is to be far away from where you stand.
If I could concentrate, I would probably be able to hear my voice heaving and moaning in fear, as I would hear Martin and Padrict as well. As for Tedet, I would be able to hear a chirping and whistling, as his voice box convulses with fear and adrenaline. But I didn’t, I couldn’t hear any of that, I simply ran straight ahead, locking away all sounds except the one that dominated our senses.
Then, disaster.
Martin trips and pulls on my shirt, taking me with him on a fall. Almost by miracle, everyone becomes aware of it. I hold on to Martin’s arm by sheer reflex, with a reaction speed I thought was inhuman, maybe even inmortal — not mortal, supernatural.
I did not speak his name, all I could muster was a wail and a moan. Martin, in response, screamed and wheezed. But I held his hand and pulled him like I was trying to drag a sack of potatoes.
“Ed!” Tedet called me out. “Come on!”
“No! No! No! Martin! He’s—! Help me!”
Without wasting a beat, Tedet pulled on Martin’s other arm and brought him to his feet.
“No time to lose,” he commanded. “Hide! We can’t outrun it anymore!”
We followed Tedet on a side corridor and after a few twists and turns we managed to find a small room, like the one before that could hide us a little from the pursuing dragon. The sound was so loud now that there was no way we could hear each other. We simply covered our ears and braced for the pain; the noise so was powerful it even hurt our ears through our hands. I bared my teeth, while I was clenching my jaw and eyelids. I probably made some noise because I could feel my throat tearing itself apart, but I simply couldn’t hear the sound of my own voice. And, by the time we thought the dragon was next to us, the trembling was so bad it made us drop to our butts and hurt our backs from the shaking, the sound had disappeared and, in its stead, a ringing sound appeared.
Then, suddenly, everything stopped.
A surprise rumble and then nothing. Then once again. Then back to calm.
The ringing in my ear was still painful and I could not hear anything else. I tried opening my eyes but even my vision was blurry. My head pounding really badly. I thought someone was standing on top of it, or maybe even multiple people jumping all over it — above, below, from the side, and even inside. I couldn’t believe the pain.
Some rumble here and there, until I realized some of that rumbling was someone trying to shake me awake from my living nightmare. The green face centimeters from mine was none other than my best of friend’s — Tedet. I jumped to hold him. I felt so secure when I saw it and then felt myself cry.
I was pushed away, and he put a hand on my mouth. Then two arms wrapped around my face. When I tried pulling them off, I finally heard a whisper from Martin that demanded I stop. It took me more time than I cared to admit until I realized I wasn’t being attacked but being asked to settle down.
When I finally calmed down, the two walked away from me, looking me in the face expecting me to go off. But that was not the end of the struggle, as the air rumbled once again with deep vibrations. The dragon must have growled softly, and this simple act made us freeze instantly and completely.
I could only sit still while I watched Tedet’s wide-eyed face flash intermittently from green and yellow. I could even distinctly tell a pattern of green and yellow bars scanning his face from his bottom-right to top-left.
Another growl and, to this, I saw Tedet close his eyes.
The floor rumbled. Metal began to be torn apart, ever so closely.
I couldn’t believe it. This was not happening. It couldn’t end like this.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Then everything stopped.
After a few seconds, I opened my eyes and as I watched Tedet’s now opened eyes scan his surroundings without moving another part of his body, I took the courage to turn to my side where I could see the opening to the room.
One final rumble and metal tearing revealed beyond the opening of the door a silt-black coating that blurred out to reveal one massive, amber-colored eye. It was looking straight at us.
My heart sank. I could no longer feel my body heat or my heartbeat. My vision began to swirl and became pale at the edges. I was spinning. I was losing my sense of reality.
One more time, a hand pulled my suit and that was the instant my instincts kicked in. I pushed myself up and scurried away through the same hole, like a cockroach running from danger, and tried sneaking from one of the twisty corridors only to find myself on open ground.
The floor rumbled and I felt the piercing amber eyes stabbing my neck, so I turned, and, like an animal feeling cornered, I prepared myself to fight. Fleeing was not going to save me, so the last resort was fighting.
I looked squarely at Death in its beautiful fiery eyes and gathered my will. Whatever I could muster before my death.
Except, the only thing I could feel mustering was the soul gaze. And, before I knew it, I was looking at the dragon’s face all around me, swallowing me whole, like a distorted painting, closing in on me. There was no chance to close my eyes, I did not think of avoiding eye contact either. The adrenaline made me hyper-focused on its eyes and my eyelids ceased functioning to avoid losing contact with the danger. This was an impossible soul gaze to avoid.
Just as the dragon could see into me, I could see into him.
And there it was, before me, home. A pile of rocks that were warm to the touch. I sat on the rocks to feel their warmth and once those pesky little things crawled their way into my bed, I’d crush them before they would steal rocks from me. It took such a long time to complete my collection.
I felt cold and I warmed myself up. I felt hungry and I munched on warm rocks. I took flight, when I wanted, by simply lifting myself into the air — the same I had created — without using my wings for lift. These were useless appendages that I still flapped, for whatever reason, while I took flight.
Whenever I had to fly or make air, I felt weak, so I would come back to sleep on my rocks, eat a few, and I would quickly regain my strength.
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This was my simple life, for a long time, until a new thing appeared before me. It was a vertical thing with an odd shape I had never seen before, and then I saw images of things I had never seen before and knowledge I had never known. What was this thing?
The thing ran away, and I knew what it was, and what I was to it. I knew it feared me and for some reason that made me excited. I tried capturing it, but it ran away. When I had finally calmed down, I felt a thing and I knew it was magic, the human must have used it. Then once again, but stronger. I looked for him, but I couldn’t find it until I heard a sound and I finally knew where to go. The rocks were also in that direction, he must have been stealing my rocks. My anger grew but when I searched, I found more humans.
And now that the humans are here, I now know where they come from and why that place is important. On there, more of these rocks and even prettier ones exist. More humans and radera exist there too, and I will conquer land for my precious minerals. Especially, Uranium.
In a violent gasp, I was back to being me.
I saw the dragon’s face clearly, now, looking down on us and it opened its maw, revealing its sharp teeth and a blue glow appearing from its glottal cavity.
Thanks to ancient and traditional knowledge, I knew that dragons spat fire and it was pure coincidence that those visions made me react instinctively to the fire-breath it was about to unleash on us. I simply wasn’t sure I would survive it.
Pulling Martin, I dragged him behind anything solid to reduce the damage from the heat and the plasma.
It was a blur. One moment I was looking at the dragon, the next, I was looking at the opening, reaching for a column, beam, or any kind of rubble to hide behind.
Then, the glow appeared around me.
“EVACUATE! EVACUATE! EVACUATE! EVACUATE!”
I jumped and placed a beam behind my back, as well as dragged my boyfriend to it. Tedet and Padrict followed suit. But just as we hid, the glow disappeared.
“Cherenkov glow,” said Martin, monotone. “We’ve just been irradiated.”
In my mind, fire would’ve been preferable. I would’ve rather been turned to crisp than be showered on by relativistically-fast-moving subatomic particles. Both meant death, but fire would’ve meant a faster death; with radiation, I thought I was counting my days. Death rubbing my back like a masseuse, seducing me to dance with him one final waltz.
I hit my forehead and I contained a cry that almost barely escaped my throat as a choking sound. Was this it? Was this now where it all ends?
“Sovail,” a deep, all-encompassing, and echoing voice recited the name of our home planet with delight.
The rumbling shook the ship and before we knew it, the dragon was strolling away from us.
The dragon left us standing behind a column, our pants figuratively soiled, thankfully. We were at the mercy of whatever it would’ve wanted to do, and it simply walked away. The rumbling, although still loud, was quieter.
Martin dropped onto his behind, and I followed suit after I realized how much my legs were shaking. I felt the strain on my muscles beginning to cramp. My chest, hollow from breath, also began aching. My heart racing at the speed of light didn’t calm for a single moment; for all it knew, the danger had not passed — it didn’t get the memo. Finally, my hands had turned ischemicly white from my grip; I could see the indentations where my nails had bit into my palms.
Beside us, Padrict was sobbing in a fetal position. How many times has he gone through this experience of feeling that he was about to die? A few or maybe too many to care to count. He didn’t cry aloud, he simply hid his face and left his body to the rest of the theatrics.
Tedet, on the other hand, had fallen on all four, his body did not wheeze with every breath, but his voice box chirped due to his convulsions. Fear in radera, as an alien life form, manifests differently than in humans, however, some similarities exist between us. The bodies of all creatures, in the face of danger, enter a new state that brings stress to the body; all your body prepares for whatever may come. This eventually results in becoming tired once it all passes and the stress in your body manifests as fatigue, loss of breath, tremors, and psychological effects. It is not unusual for radera to cry either, but Tedet was a strong person.
After a few seconds, I began laughing. My coping mechanism was rearing its ugly head, again, and turned to laughing it all off. Not one of us found it funny or relaxing to see someone who just faced death act like it was the funniest thing in the world, but I could not stop myself from doing it. In a way, it made me feel better, so I gave in to my psychological needs and let it all out.
“Well, aren’t we lucky,” I said.
Opening my big mouth is something I will never learn to stop doing.
“Oh no,” responded Tedet. “You did not just say that.”
On cue — almost as if it was waiting for Tedet to finish — the ground began to recede from us. First, the feeling of being lifted, then the sense of falling, and soon after we knew to notice we were now weightless. Usually, this only happens after the most violent Gs you’ve experienced, only to suddenly feel like you weigh nothing at all. But now, it was gradual, like using an elevator going down ever faster until there was no contact between you and the floor.
Everything around us, including each other, started floating. We had lost gravity in its entirety. And we were now floating in midair. Everyone started tussling with the air around them, reaching out for whatever they could hold. Some of us grabbed the column, others grabbed another person. In the end, it was a mess.
“What’s going on? Why is it gone?” I asked.
I assumed the reason we had gravity was due to the source of magic. The only reason this would happen was if the source of magic stopped working, or if it had been moved far enough from us that we were no longer within its sphere of influence. At the back of my head, I knew that the source of magic must have been the dragon — a rather scary thought, to think that one single creature could hold such immense power. But why would the source of magic stop working, now? Did the dragon figure it out?
Searching for the source, I noticed the residue of magic was trailing back to a source further away. It was barely noticeable, so I tried poking it with my magic, just like before, and just like a sonar or radio waves, I probed the surroundings. Magical energy propagates at the speed of light, or at least close to the speed of light, as we’ve learned to understand. The moment my probing came back, I noticed the dragon being far away… very far away.
Is it gone? Isn’t that too far? Did it leave the ship?
Like an epiphany, the words of the dragon came to my mind.
“Sovail,” I said, while holding to Martin. “It’s going to Sovail.”
“The dragon?” asked Martin.
Before I could answer, in my mind it suddenly made sense. The dragon left the ship, and with it, its influence on magic. Without its magic, the ship no longer has artificial gravity. I was about to explain everything when the final piece of the puzzle came to my mind. I knew there was something else I was missing.
“Sweet Mary,” I said, and I felt my head growing pale. “The air!”
Information, through a physical medium, transfers at the speed of sound. While gravity seems to be affected by the speed of light, the air around us would not know that the air right next to a hole in the ship was suddenly escaping. The pressure from the air around our air was still keeping it on hold, but the moment the wave of escaping molecules reaches us, we’ll feel an instant drop in pressure as the space between molecules increases. Air would not be sucked out like with a household vacuum, that’s not how it works. It will take a long time for every particle to escape, but the air will begin occupying the space left behind by the other air, and the pressure will move particles to a place of lower pressure as fast as molecules can move in their chaotic movement.
We were lucky physics allowed us some time to prepare before the air in our lungs was also pulled off by the sheer change in pressure. We were at the mercy of physics once again. The universe was both merciful and savage. We were given a chance and we had to take advantage of it — we had no second chances.
“The helmets, put them on!” I ordered. “The dragon is gone. It is no longer controlling gravity. That means the air has also lost its source of magic.”
With that, Tedet and Martin fumbled with their helmets. Everyone began taking steps to survive, except for Padrict. He looked lost, holding the air in his open hands and looking around.
“Padrict!”
“I can— I don— My helmet, I don’t have it!”
My eyes peeled.
“Where?! Where is it?!”
“I don’t know! I must have dropped it!”
“Ed!” Tedet called me out. “We can’t stay here! We need to go!”
Think. Think. Think. Oh, Sweet Mary, please give me something. Think of something! I can’t do this on the fly. I’m not an innovative person, I don’t like improvising. All my magic is pre-planned. I don’t know what to do.
“I don’t know what to do!” screamed Padrict, as if he was reading my mind. “Oh, Lord, help me!”
I placed my hands on his shoulders and the words to calm him down got stuck in my throat, choking me. I didn’t know what to do or say. There was nothing in me.
“Use magic or something!” said Martin.
“What magic?!” retorted Padrict.
“I don’t know! Make a helmet, or something, with it!”
“How is that possible?!”
“Can’t you just hold the air around your head? I don’t know, I don’t know magic. Isn’t there something you can—”
Our arms began beeping. They showed the air pressure lowering fast. It was now or never. I contemplated switching helmets between us. It would be stupid to do it, even if there may be a way for us to hold our breath in a vacuum. It would definitely hurt us badly, but there is a way to do it. People don’t instantly die because they’re in contact with a vacuum, but it would still be very painful and extremely dangerous.
“A helmet… okay… ah…” Padrict panicked while placing his hand on his head. He closed his eyes for just a moment and began mumbling. “C’mon. C’mon. An air bubble to hold air. A helmet of air. A helmet… give me a helmet. Helmet… helmet… helmet.”
It took the man only a second or two before he managed to coalesce magic into a form I felt was an intricate spell. I was watching someone embroider linen with a golden thread. With the ease of a toddler who had just learned to tie their shoes, Padrict fumbled with complicated magic. A task that is impossible for me, and even extremely hard for most wizards, Padrict had done it in a few attempts.
“Helmet,” he cast.
The low-pressure air continued escaping, but his arm showed a stable pressure, albeit low, for what he had to work with. Padrict managed to fool the computer in its arm into thinking it was holding a pressure inside his magical suit, and the controls began pumping air to equalize it to a normal state. Soon, his helmet was holding out his life like any other physical helmet would. The only issue was that this was temporary, as it continuously drained his magic.
“Let’s move on, quickly. I don’t know how long I can hold this.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Let’s get the hell out of this place.”
We clicked our boots, and the electro-magnetic plates on the soles of our boots turned on. Reaching the floor with our feet, the boots snapped into the steel violently.
The clock was ticking for Padrict and who knows how bad the way out of this ship would be. We needed to hurry but be careful as we do too.
Who knew escape sequences from spaceships happened in real life just like they do in video games? I heard the tense music and saw my imaginary timer counting down to zero.
Estimated time? I gave us ten minutes. No time to lose.