~ five

~ part five ~

Zelda and Esmeralda explore followed by the motorcycle on it's own poking the bushes and growth, sending the various fauna to flight, chasing after here and there before returning disappointed.

In exploration it becomes clear the nature environment is the origin of the biosphere of the Profane Beasts, these aliens.  Here their biosphere complete, as the organisms within one's body decompose it, these are to this dead planetiod beast.

Zelda - "Why is it warm ?"

Esmeralda - Seen on the goggles with a click-through, streams of heat rising from the ground, "It seems to be the chemical reaction of decomposition.

 

Esmeralda opens the door to the gunner's shelter, a mess over what was once order, piles of clothes and bone, weapon parts scattered in a circle on the floor, a line where swiped in a rage.  A junk salvaged still or alchemy set ... under piles of decay and machine, a journal.

 

Auto - On comm, "The air is breathable."

 

Esmeralda - "Impossible."

Auto - "Define."

 

Esmeralda - "It means consider the odds."

 

Auto - "Astronomical.  But nonetheless to your personal Websters, this place registers chemically as ... 'Earth like'. You should definitely take off your helmet, right now."

Esmeralda - "Not that stupid."

Auto - "How about brave ?"

Zelda - Walks in no helm, "Auto says this place is breathable !  How impossible is that !?"

Esmeralda - "Do you know what this all means ... ?  About us ?  Earth ?  Them ?  Everything ?"

Zelda - "I do actually yes."

Auto - "Mm-hm.  Not really that surprising when you think about it.  I mean look at you."

 

Esmeralda - Look down to the journal.  "Yeah ..."  Opens to the first page, a diagram of the coordinates of the tears in space triangulating their current location, and then the inversion of it marked 'Abyss'.

Diagrams of the floating carcass they're on, anatomy of species, weaknesses marked, eatable flesh dotted out like livestock.  Toward the end they become more anthropomorphic.

Gunner - Voiced over the writing, "I should have known ... lizard like.  Brains distributed throughout their bodies, their chemistry dangerous, but how could they have been human enough for this disease ?"

The gunner eats flesh at the fire, staring into the skull charring at the flame's center.  Into the eyes of the skull, "But how can it be ?  Any of it ?  Anything ?  How can I even breathe ?  Was our own world once alive, these ... beings ancestral to us ?  But how ?"

Singing short his hair by torch in though and watching the mirror, "I must know how."

The last scrawling dwindling in sense and penmanship ... "Kuru.  In the near final stages my mind ..."  A laugh ... "My mind is losing itself unto itself upon the simple thought that our own world itself, is a beast."

As he passes a torch around his head and face, singing off the excess hair, voiced over from the journal, "So many ... we are the beasts that devoured us this long.  We are the demons.  The mold rotting the world.  The beasts here cannot stand the smell of burning hair ... they know who I am now.  

 

"They run.  They hide ... they know my name in the smell of my own burning hair ... they run."

 

"So I run them down by BOUNTY !  Bountiful table, my pile of skulls what is there else of accomplishment evermore, this place ... that place ... I will return there one day, I do know this.  And once there ... home again home again ... jiggity jiggity jig ... And I will free them too of this disease."

"But the light one ... he will see me.  I do not like that."

~ Becomes illegible, scrawls of violence and crude drawing, base anatomy notes until useless with pages hard scratch out in frustration, many torn out entirely.

...

Esmeralda - "We leave no one behind."

Zelda - Incredulous snicker ~ "Okay ... ?  So what now captain credo ?"

Auto - "Who's turn to plan ?"

Esmeralda smiles ...

________

Zelda - Walking the musk overgrown wrecks of lost tourists and bio-miners, "Sooo ... I'm all alone now !  Tooootally a teen.  Fuck it.  I'm preteen, you don't even know !"  Whispers to comm, "it sometimes comes with eye disorders ... "

...

Zelda - "Forget what Akbar says in your head.  I am not a trap."

Esmeralda - On comm, "You're shockingly bad at this for someone so experienced."

Zelda - Turning and waving, then a little dance, quiet to the comm, "doesn't even matter with these guys."  Loud, "So daddy come home now !?"

...

Esmeralda - Comm, "He's a cannibal, not a pedophile.

Zelda - "Never actually known the difference, here hang on."

She drops her backpack and pulls out hair ties to make tails and pulls out a puffy white teddy bear.  She starts a twirling thrust dance, "Whooo !"

('Cat People' by David Bowie)

His eyes watch from the wreckage ...

~ Music stops.

Zelda - "I'm saying we need like a cute space girl outfit for this."

Esmeralda - "We don't have one."

~ Music continues.

He crawls low along the inside walls of the lost vessel.

~ Music stops.

Zelda - "Why the hell not !?"

Esmeralda - "You actually want one !?"

~ Music continues.

He near serpent like slides through a shattered hull.

~ Music stops.

Zelda - "Maybe !" ... "For science !" ... "And trapping cannibals on giant space carcassese (that's how she pronounces it) while I step in whatever the FUCK that was so yeah !  Space boots too !"

~ Music continues as he lurks nearby, stops.

Esmeralda - "I don't think the boneyard requisitions what you're looking for."

Zelda - Blowing up a pink flamingo inner tube while wearing it, "Auto can s ... ooooh SHIT !!!"

~ Continues at 'With Gasoline !'.

Naked but for bone and inhumanly toned skins layered and hardened for armor, a large shard of a hull worn and sharpened to a dragging heavy blade, he swings it up as she runs with a piercing horror movie scream.

Ears in pain he pauses ... and gives chase through the wreckage.  

Esmeralda takes a sniper shot from hidden atop a wreck, he sidesteps and looks up at her with a grin and a swipe of the hand, she dives to avoid the square of hard iron, small slab, hole in the center and corners filed sharp.

(that's what they used to be like, and why unlike the modern 'ninja star' they were lethal, it was a heavy square of iron.  Didn't even really need to sharpen it if you hit the head and point being, easy for him to make)

Esmeralda takes another shot, he sidesteps with another thrown behind, remarkably aimed without sighting, but swatted aside by her wrist guard.  Into the tracking view through her goggles, she waits for a narrow in their pat and takes a shot after Zelda screams jumping through.

He jumps up and off the side of the narrow then to the other side before another throw.

Zelda - "Bastard."  She catches it and takes a look ... a sigh.  "Auto you were right.  Pickup please."

__

As Esmeralda runs screaming (still wearing the half inflated tube), a star bounces off it with a squeak before deflating.  "Fucker."

The Decibel descends behind his run approaching backward with the bay door opening, numerous long arms reaching out as he looks back.  His eyes go wide and he runs faster, Zelda screams and runs faster before the ship scoops him up and ascends.

...

Zelda - "So Esmer that was a really bad plan."

...

Esmeralda - On comm, "I know that now."

Auto - On comm, "My plans always work."

Zelda - "That's actually why we take turns."

Auto - "That's just ..." 

Esmeralda - "Yep."

~ Held struggling by many arms, the sound of the gunner's clanging roars inside as the Decibel jumps away.