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The Beginning of a New Race

Chapter Three

The entire time I had been on this planet I had had some kind headache. Whether the pain was barely there or if I could hardly think because of the agony differed every hour.

Right now it was defiantly closer to the later.

I was completely lost. I didn’t know what had happened with my former friends, much less what had happened to me after they had decided to hand me over to whatever was attached to those gleaming yellow eyes back on the cargo bay. There were a lot of possibilities for what could happen after all that, but I chose not to think of them. Most of them weren’t really nice, and most of them involved some really messed up concepts. I couldn’t see anything either, and if it was from a blindfold, or maybe my eyes being removed, I couldn’t tell.

I hoped that the cause wasn’t anything close to the later.

I had no idea how long I had been unconscious from whatever was in that needle, but it had to have been long enough to be moved, since whatever I was lying on was not the same cold metal that had been under me earlier. My body felt like it was on top of a gigantic pillow. This seemed odd to me, being that those things, for I refused to call Jesse and the others people anymore, had stabbed me in the neck to get me here.

If someone wants to give another person a nice place to sleep, they should probably refrain from knocking out the other person first. Just a tip for anyone who needs it.

I couldn’t feel my hands or feet, but I knew that I had been strapped down to the bed like thing I was on top of, ruining any kind of idea of escape. Not that there was any possibility of escape. My captors were all faster than I was, and there was no doubt in my mind that they were stronger too. Not only were my hands and feet numb, but so was my nose, along with the top of my head, and my very lower back. Thank God I could still feel my butt though, that’s where I draw the line at losing feeling.

Besides the comfortableness of whatever I was lying on, I couldn’t tell much through my sense of touch, besides the realization that I was completely naked, which was odd to say the least, but it’s not like I could tell much from touch under regular circumstances. Unless knowing the

texture of something can save your life, touch never comes in handy.

Time to move on to my sense of smell.

At this point, I started sniffing like a wild dog does when presented food. It actually sounded like I was a dog, but I brushed it off, simply thinking that it must have been my sense of hearing picking up the slack of my eyes going out. Plus, after the crash, my hearing had been gradually getting better, yet I had no idea why it had started to progressively pick up quieter sounds. I wasn’t complaining though, because it was pretty nice to hear something before others do, for personal reasons.

The first scent that I could actually register gave me a couple mixed feelings. Smoke. This could mean that my captors were skilled enough to make tools like humans, giving them same amount of strength and skill that I had. Bad feeling. This could also mean that I was about to be cooked, and being that I wasn’t dead yet, it would probably take place while I was still able to feel everything. Very bad feeling. The fire could also mean that they were trying to keep me warm, without killing me or tossing me in it, which was a pretty good feeling, even if everything in my mind told me that that wasn’t the case.

I could still try to think positive, right?

The second scent that my nose picked up destroyed any kind of positive thinking like a house in the middle of a tornado. My brain winced when I realized what it was, and how close it had been the entire time.

Blood.

The scent was overpowering, and had not the smoke been smothering me for a while, I would have smelled it as soon as I woke. It smelled like rusting iron, which we had a surprisingly large amount of back on the ship. There had to be something beside me, something that made me grateful for the lack of sight. I was barely able to stop the tremors that wanted to course through my mostly numb body, and that was without seeing whatever, or whoever, had died at the hands of my captors. I could only hope the rest of my group had escaped, but I had practically pointed the monsters in the direction of them.

I decided to shut off my nose, not wanting to continue finding displeasing smells. I was fine with the amount I had already found, content not to search any longer.

I switched to my hearing, being one of my strongest senses, and chose to stay on this course. I could hear a small crackling fire, located close to my right side. It was just close enough for me to feel the waves of heat that were rolling of the flames, but it wasn’t enough to stop me from trembling. The trembling was mostly from fear, however, so heat wouldn’t be a big part in making me stop.

Milk and cookies while watching Tom and Jerry, on the other hand, would help more than anyone could imagine.

I could hear wind, which told me that at least some time had passed since I was last conscious. Last time I had actually stopped to listen, there was no wind around at all, making the environment almost creepily still. Now, to my liking, there was a background noise, which helped me concentrate on the task at hand.

Besides the wind and fire, there wasn’t much to listen to. There wasn’t much to do either, besides thinking of how screwed I was at the moment. I had, at this point, figured out that there wasn’t any kind of escape, after writhing in whatever was clasped to my wrists and ankles for almost all the time I had been conscious. For all I knew at that point was that I didn’t even have hands or feet anymore, being that I couldn’t, even in the slightest, move or feel them. This didn’t help put my mind at ease.

But that’s easy to figure out, isn’t it?

The only thing that had been keeping me sane until now had been the very slight pinch of hope that had lodged itself into my brain. I hadn’t been killed, so they, my old friends and whatever had been chasing us, had to have some reason for keeping me alive. Unless they were sick minded enough to wait until I was conscious to have a torture session, or complete some kind of ritual that required a human body.

It’s great to feel needed.

As long as I lasted a little bit longer, or at least knew what was going on around here, I was fine with being needed.

My ears suddenly picked up a very quiet noise approaching from the fires direction, almost being snubbed out by its crackling and popping. I was quick to recognize what the sound was.

Footsteps. Two sets, and some very hushed mumbling.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t try to fight anything, not with my arms and legs securely strapped down to whatever I was lying on. Hell, I didn’t even know if I still had hands and feet! The first thought that came to my mind, after several seconds of silent panic and quivering, was to act like I was still unconscious.

I was never an actor, for there was no reason to have them on the ship. The only reason I knew what they were was from seeing the credits on Tom and Jerry. If this was an audition, I hoped that I would nail it, because if I didn’t I probably wouldn’t last too long on the show.

The show of life. I really liked all the previous episodes, but this one really sucked.

I quickly relaxed all my joints, letting all feeling escape my body. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, and with the help of all the numbness already in my body, the job was done in only two seconds. I let my mouth open, with my tongue lulling out the side. I must have looked ridiculous, but as long as I was slightly convincing it didn’t matter.

The footsteps got closer, but seemed to take their time making their way over to me. One was noticeable heavier than the other, but they both sounded rather large, not the same size as humans. Their mumbling was now very easy to hear, and I couldn’t keep myself from listening to my captors.

“How long will we keep em’?” This voice came from the direction of the heavier footsteps. The tone was of an easy going male, but at a very low pitch, closer to a vibration than an actual sound. There was also a kind of deep growl that came forth with every word, yet seemed like the man, or thing really, couldn’t help it. The person sounded harmless, but his footsteps told me otherwise.

“It’s up to the leader, you know that Kato. It could be forever for all we know, but it doesn’t matter. The guy won’t want to leave after he wakes up anyway.” This voice was definitely a female, almost soothing when I first heard the words come from the direction of the lighter footsteps. It was somewhat high-pitched, but not enough to really notice. Unless, of course, you were like me, without any other good sense other than hearing.

Kato seemed displeased with this answer, as if he had been told the same thing too many times before. “I don’t care what the leader has to say right now. I want to know what you think about the matter. I, for one, don’t think that it would be a good idea to let any of the subjects leave at all. Keep them contained. No reason to let them run off after using a great deal of our drugs on them.”

Subjects? As in the plural of subject? At this my heart rose and sank almost at the same time. This must have meant that my group had been captured, no doubt about it in my mind. I was greatly relieved at first to know that Amita, along with the two dim bulbs, had lived. But the thought of them, especially the one I was in love with, going through the same shit as I was didn’t settle to well with me. I still couldn’t do anything about the whole thing, so I simply concentrated on looking unconscious.

“You should be careful what you say Kato, you know that. Remember what happened to Clio? If not, let me recap the grand event for you. She complained to the leader, and was instantly eaten alive by the Honor Guard. You know what the complaint was about? Eating rights! The most stupid, ill-advised thing in the world, and she died for it Kato! If the leader or on of his goons hears you talking like that, you won’t last more than a minute!” The girl almost failed to keep her voice down, and at this point I was able to guess that she would have paid dearly for the slip.

Kato had stepped back; I had heard very heavy footsteps going towards the fire unevenly, as if backing up in fear or panic.

“Anyway, as far as my thoughts, I couldn’t care less about these things. It’s not our tribe’s fault that the Sephirans have decided to turn these humans, as they call themselves, and it certainly shouldn’t be our jobs to take care of them. They were asking for it. Why else would they land their ship on one of the Sephiran villages? As for this one, he won’t last long among us anyway, so it doesn’t matter how we treat him now.”

From all their talk, or mostly the female’s whose name I still did not know, I was guessing that they weren’t going to kill me, or at least not intentionally. Maybe they’d just study me, or perhaps keep me as a prisoner and use me later against my own kind. Maybe they’d put me in a zoo. That wouldn’t be too bad.

What I also got from this talk was that I wasn’t going to be friends with this girl. Not that I was going to be friends with any of them, really.

Kato seemed to regain his balance, yet he still acted like he was on edge. What a wonder my ears could do when given the opportunity.

“I don’t understand why you’re so mad Zen. They didn’t know what they did; much less even know that we existed. And do you think that this one personally did all this anyway? Look at em’, still unconscious from the Mutare Leaf juice. He probably doesn’t have the slightest clue what’s going on. You can’t hate em’ for that.” I really liked this Kato guy, seemed like a nice person, or thing. Whatever he was, he must not of known what unconscious and conscious looked like.

“You asked for my opinion Kato, and now you have it. If you want to criticize me, don’t ask for my thoughts ever again.” With that, the light footsteps departed from the small space that was in between me and the fire. Kato must have been thinking deeply, for he hadn’t moved in the slightest when Zen left.

“I hope the leader or his inner circle didn’t hear any of that.” There was a long sigh, then silence. More thought must have been whisking through his head. “Fuck this. I really hate all this shit that we do to anything we don’t know, even if there’s no real threat. If only these heads would keep an open mind, instead of shutting out any unknown thoughts or ideas.”

It sounded like cloth being stretched for a moment, and then another sigh came from Kato. He must have sat down on something, because there were also creaking noises coming from near the fire, as if wood was being put under tremendous stress.

“At least we know fire. We don’t have to go around and beat up every flame we see. It would probably be a losing battle too. Fur doesn’t stand up too well to flames.”

More questions got answered, but from this last statement, I got more of a satisfying feeling of knowing that I hadn’t gone crazy. These things, whatever they called themselves, were like dogs. It wasn’t just my mind breaking down.

Yay!

“Kato!” A voice yelled from a short distance away. It wasn’t in anger, but closer to inquisitive, as if the person speaking had never seen this situation before. It was a male voice, this time not as low. No growl this time, however.

I could hear a large amount of creaking, followed by the sound of flailing and cursing. “What do you want Jagger? Can’t you see I’ve just gotten comfortable?” Kato didn’t sound happy to be shaken from his thoughts.

“Just wanted to see how that thing is doin’.” I felt hurt. I was the one supposed to call them the things, not the other way around.

“You’re just a pup, boy. You can’t be getting’ yourself into these kinda’ things lad. Too much for your young mind. Go back to your house, and stay there until I tell you otherwise.” Kato sounded like a father figure, and a really good one at that. Too bad I still didn’t trust anyone around me, or I might have started liking this guy.

“But Kato, I’m almost twenty years old now. I’m getting close to my First Hunt Ceremony, making me part of the real pack. That means that I should be able to talk about all this crap.” This brought a lot of questions to mind.

First of all, why hasn’t this thing already been out of the house to hunt? He’s almost twenty, which is practically the same age as me! The hunting ceremony was pretty straight forward, but the part about “all this crap” made it sound as if this had happened before.

But we were the first humans sent here. How could this have happened multiple times?

“I don’t care what you are, or what ceremony you are closest too! You are to listen to your elders, and right now that’s me! Go to your house!”

That finished that.

There was a large amount of stomping, which could only mean that the twenty year old still acted like a ten year old.

With a good ten minutes of silence regularly broken with sighing from Kato, I pondered all the things that were happening. The possibility of human-like animals still didn’t settle too nicely in my head, but I was trying to accept it. The possibility of more humans having landed here was also in the mix, but that one just stumped me. My headache was picking up however, making my thought train derail several times. No more pondering for me right now.

“Time to go get the medic to take over. I’m done with this shitty job. Whatever the fuck this creature is, it needs to get up and start doing things for itself.”

This was some bad news. Pretty fucking bad. If there was a medical kind of one of these things, it would be able to tell if I was conscious or not. End of the line as far as hiding in plain sight.

Fuck.

As I heard Kato walk away, I contemplated trying to knock myself out to avoid having the doctor guy do anything to me. My head wasn’t

secured, so I could just start banging it against anything around. Problem with that plan was that the only thing around was this comfy-ass pillow thing, so that probably wasn’t going to happen too soon.

Second option time; I could hold my breath and try to suffocate myself, hopefully good enough to not be able to be resuscitated.

That idea got shot down faster than most of my jokes.

Third option time; accept fate. That’s all I could come up with, so I guess I would role with that. Not much else for me to do, unless I could suddenly break free of all my bindings and find my way back to the crash site, and do all this before the dog creatures catch up to me, them being the faster species.

Unlikely.

Through all the thoughts swirling through my head, my ears managed to tell my brain that there were incoming footsteps. They were light, but with enough weight to them to make muffled thud noises on the ground. My hearing was, at this point, honed to pick up any kind of noise I wanted to. I could hear the body which was responsible for the footsteps breathing as calmly as could be, contrary to the heart beats that were faster and almost louder than the thuds on the ground. I cloud also hear the little pieces of ash from the fire gently impacting with the ground, which had to be barren from the lack of grass rustling. All of this noise that was coming to me could be selectively listened to, and I could simply tune it out if I didn’t want to listen. It was pretty nice.

Again, while I was still blind and lacking almost all other senses, I had simply guessed, for I was not a scientist, and therefore not able to use scientific theory or law to help me, that my hearing had gotten significantly better to account for the lack of sight. My guess also included the notion that it would go back to its normal state once my sight was restored, which may or may not happen.

I’m fine and all with having this great hearing, but I’d rather see stuff, thank you.

The light footsteps were gradually getting closer to the fire and me, yet they sounded distracted. They would start coming towards me, then slow down and turn left or right, seeming to check on something that was more important to them. The only reason I could tell that the final destination was beside me was the jingle of medical supplies bouncing together in a box, slightly moving after each step the thing took.

How did they get medical supplies here? Unless they’ve been raiding the cargo bay, which could be why I didn’t find anything for Amita’s leg. But they would still need to know how to use the items.

God, I hope she’s okay.

Besides all the questions that were whizzing about inside my head, I was pretty focused on the situation at my numb hands. There wasn’t anything for me to do at the moment other than work with my captors, ensuring that they had no further reasons to punish me than they already did.

I better have my hands and feet. I ain’t gonna be nice to these dog shits if they took my extremities. That’s just cold.

The medical dog person finally crossed the fire pit, which had to be only ten feet away. There was no excuse now, he had to come up to me, do whatever he was ordered to do. He could have been sent to kill me, and I didn’t have the slightest clue what he would do next.

But he just stood there. His determined yet distracted march faltered only a few feet away from me. Then it hit me, like a punch right to the gut.

He was as scared as I was.

There was no way that he had seen something like me before. I was as foreign to him as he was to me. I knew his exact feeling.

“So it’s…” His voice, one of a person who wanted to sound like they knew it all but was secretly very curious, gave out, but he was quick to recover. “So it’s finally finished, and now you’re awake. Go ahead, say something. It’s not like I’m going to kill you right after you’ve woken up. That would be plain rude of me”

Yes it would, but I still didn’t care for the idea of talking to any of these things. I would cooperate, sure, but I didn’t want to become friends with them.

“Come on mate, say somethin’. I want to know what the thing I’ve been working on sounds like.”

I really didn’t like the thought of one of these dogs “working” on me. Nor did I appreciate the fact that something had finally been finished on me.

“You know, you are the one bound to a bed right now, not me. And keeping that knowledge in mind, I could accidently put a needle in you. Want to know what’s in it? Just more of the stuff that has just finished coursing through your veins.”

I didn’t believe him. Not for one second. From the earlier conversation between Kato and Zen, I got the feeling their leader wouldn’t respond to nicely to his prisoner dyeing mysteriously. This medical dog would probably be eaten I alive pretty quick.

“Great Lupis mate! Could have just asked to get stabbed with a needle again!” While saying all this, he dug through his bag containing all the medical supplies, letting out a little huff when he hadn’t found what he was looking for after a while. Then I heard a quiet “aha!” and the sound of something being removed from the bag.

Fuck

He leaned over me, letting my nose smell a great deal of wet dog, which I finally understood the universal hatred for. He really stank.

“You really don’t want to say anything? This shit hurts, you know that I wager. You could easily avoid this by saying anything at all.” I started to feel a slight sharpness on the right side of my neck, just a little bit under my ear. There wasn’t enough force for anything to puncture the skin, but there was enough to make me want to piss for the third time since arrival on this planet.

After a long sigh, he quietly said, “Well, here we go then.”

Hecklenuts

“One”

Shit, why won’t I say something! It’s like my body doesn’t want to!

“Two”

Fucking hell Ozzy! Say something!

“Thr…”

“Stop! Fucking hell stop! Please! I’ll talk for the rest of my life, just stop!” No way I was going through all the shit again. Not in a million years.

“That’s more like it! Except for the piss, that could have been left out.” The dog sounded pretty happy about himself, getting me to talk. “So now, being that you have started to comply, I’m going to unchain you, and we are going to do a simple checkup to see how you’re doing.”

“Not to fucking great, that’s how.” I didn’t like him. Not at all. But if he was going to keep me healthy, even if he did threaten me, I was going to have to work with him.

He walked around the bed, taking his time removing each one of the chains. At each one there was a slight clicking noise, something I was pretty sure was a key turning into place, and the sound of the chains falling off the bed. I couldn’t fell any of this process however, being that a lot of my arms and legs were numb, but I could still keep track of his progress with my ears, even if I couldn’t feel them either.

After he finished, he slowly walked over so that he was in between me and the fire, and just sat there once again.

“You are pretty fascinating, to be honest with you. A little bit weird though, knowing that you’re human.”

“I don’t care. When do I get my sight back?” I remained still on the bed, not wanting to swing around my legs or arms without knowing where they were.

“Once I remove the blindfold, of course.” Thank God. I still had eyes.

“How about the feeling in my hands and feet?” I liked being the one asking questions. Made me feel like I was in charge, even if I knew that the guy could probably break me in half.

“It takes a while for the feeling to come back. Maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks. We don’t know for sure.” Thank God again. Still had my feet and hands. This wasn’t turning out so bad after all.

“So, before I take off the blindfold, I’ll have to check your blood pressure and see how fast that ticker in there is going, can’t have you dying of heart failure this quick.” He sounded so calm when mentioning death. Maybe that happened a lot around here, but I still didn’t like it. I’d rather remain death free, thank you.

Again, he turned to his medical bag, and after a short amount of time pulled out two items. The first was strapped to my right upper arm, which began to tighten until almost all my arm couldn’t feel. The device stayed at this level of tightness for a small while, and after a sigh from the dog, it released its hold on my arm.

He then held something up to the side of my throat, directly on top of the place where he had held a needle a little earlier. A few seconds and a beep later, he let out a groan and took away the device.

Can’t be good.

“What is it?” I was anxious to find out what was troubling this dog thing that had just earlier attempted to knock me out.

“Well, everything is way too high on you. You should almost be exploding from the inside right about now.” Again, he didn’t sound too troubled about this, which troubled me.

He continued after a short pause, “It’s a good thing I’ve got this.”

A wave of pain erupted from my left arm, right in the bend. It felt a lot like I had just been stabbed again. Needless, to say, I didn’t react to well.

“What the fucking hell!” I wasn’t very pleased with being stabbed this much.

“Well, it was either that or you die from your heart exploding, what did you want?”

“A warning, that’s what!”

A small amount of silence followed, which I could only guess was filled by the dog in front of me thinking about the possibility of giving a warning. Maybe it did have a nice heart in there somewhere, but I had yet to see it.

“Too bad. Now that your levels are down, we can get rid of that blindfold without you blowing a vital organ from all the excitement.” He walked up to me, reaching around behind my head and grabbed at a knot in the piece of cloth that acted as my blindfold. He wasn’t gentle, shaking my head to and fro as he worked. He must have really made sure that I wasn’t going to slip this thing off when I had arrived.

“Take your time. It’s not like I’ve been waiting since I woke to see where I’m at or anything.” After saying this my head was shook a little bit harder, showing his nonappreciation towards my words.

He finally untied it, but kept the blindfold on my eyes. I didn’t try to move, he had to have some type of reason for holding it there.

“When I remove this thing, you are to stay calm okay? No freaking out or trying to kill me. Remember, I’ve got some nasty drugs on me, and I won’t hesitate to use them on an attacker.” I don’t see why I’d freak out. I had already seen these animal things before, and then they had been trying to kill me. This time it wouldn’t be as bad, I hoped.

“Okay?” He repeated, obviously wanting verbal confirmation that I had heard him and agreed.

“Yes, fucking take the thing off me already.” I had been waiting too long for this.

“Okay, here we go.” He started pulling the thing away, and my eyes instantly went fuzzing from the light that followed. It was night time, yet my eyes probably hadn’t seen any light for days. I flinched backwards on the bed, squeezing my eyes closed, but with no avail, for the light was still too much.

“Open your eyes. They’ll adjust quickly. I promise.”

Trusting this medical dog, I opened them. After a few moments of intense brightness, making my eyes water, everything came into view. Granted, my vision was a little blurry, but I could still make out what was in front of me. I was horrified by the sight.

It wasn’t the fact that there was a seven foot tall human-like dog creature standing over me, its lips parted to make a freakish smile, showing off the sharpest teeth I’d ever seen. It wasn’t the fact that there were several others right behind the first, staring at me in wonder, all of them different colors and sizes. It was the gigantic carcass that was sitting to my left, soaked and sitting in a pile of blood.

It was the fact that I was covered in white fur.