Tanaak's Terror

Posted on Sat May 9th, 2020 @ 10:38pm by Ensign Tanaak Sado
Edited on on Tue May 19th, 2020 @ 12:37pm

Mission: Return to the Core
Location: Ensign Tanaak Sado's quarters
Timeline: 2397
Tags: nightmare

Tanaak and five others had been chosen for an expedition to the other side of Itthakor, the Oriasi home world. The journey there had been somewhat of a blur. They’d had to cross the equator in a ship built to withstand the deadly heat and had emerged on the other side in full masks and armor. Desert succulents had given way to grass and shrubbery, to woodland trees, to jungle ferns as tall as clock towers, and finally to the vaasi’tenger or forest-sea; the arboreal ocean.

Tanaak didn’t know his traveling companions well, and with their masks on, they were only distinguishable by their body and horn types. There were two women and, including Tanaak, four men. One of the men and one of the women were hornless, but the rest of their features were hidden. The masks even disguised their voices.

“Ready for adventure?” asked one of the women; the one with horns. They were elegant, with an elongated corkscrew pattern.

“Right behind you,” replied the hornless male.

Another Oriasi whose horns swept back around his head like the brim of a sunhat stood close to Tanaak as they took in the scenery. The trees grew so close to each other that they could only venture on foot from here, and they were tall enough to dim the sun’s light. The trees were so old that the bark had petrified and turned to pearly white scabs that cracked and decorated the trunks in spiral patterns. The filtered light from overhead turned into a dreamy emerald haze around them, turning to a murky blue in the distance. “Things are about to get dark,” warned the man with the sunhat horns. “There’s a dead zone between us and the deepest part of the forest where light will no longer reach us. The atmosphere will be stifled by the heavy canopy, but the plant life won’t be dense enough to sustain anything with lungs.” He tapped the mask he was wearing. “Make sure you breathe through this until we pass through the dead zone. After that, they say the plants create their own atmosphere.”

The confidant woman with curled horns stepped forward, followed by the eager hornless male. Sunhat put a hand on Tanaak’s shoulder briefly and stepped in front of him, heading into the heart of the forest. Tanaak followed, looking over his shoulder to see their other two companions bringing up the rear, speaking to each other in hushed tones. He couldn’t see the ship they came in, and he couldn’t remember exactly how far back they had abandoned it. Time seemed to stretch and bend in this place. He faced front again and picked up his pace to catch up to Sunhat.

They walked for what felt like hours, but they never tired. They didn’t hunger or thirst. They barely spoke. The flowers began to lose their vibrant colors as they grew to be the size of people, but the fungus only became more creative. Plush purple shelves sprouted through cracks in the tree bark, and occasionally, Tanaak would step on a low fungal platform that would rupture under his weight and appear to bleed.

The sounds also changed with the darkening scenery. Nearly all avian noises above them had ceased, replaced by the groaning of the massive trees and scraping of insect wings as schools of bugs the size of children made way for the band of intruders.

“Lights” said Sunhat, and Tanaak and their companions turned on the headlamp features of their masks.

“Is mine on?” asked the curly-horned leader, turning around.

Tanaak’s light shone on her, but her mask remained dark. “It isn’t,” he said, holding out his hand. “I can check—”

“No,” Sunhat interrupted. “We’re in the dead zone; leave her mask alone. She can rely on the light from everyone else’s.”

Tanaak began to lower his arm, but Curly reached for his hand. “I’ll walk with you,” she said. Her tone was authoritative and decisive. She wasn’t afraid, and she certainly wasn’t showing weakness. Tanaak was impressed by the strength of her will and nodded.

The group pressed on through the dead zone. Tanaak became more and more disoriented. Sound flowed sluggishly through his ears, but the volume of everything was amplified. His companions resorted to speaking in whispers, but even these scratched uncomfortably at the corners of his mind. He caught glimpses of movement with his headlamp; movement of big things… ocean things.

Curly coughed next to him and squeezed his hand. “It smells like blood,” she murmured, “My mask…” She struggled to draw breath, and the wheezing sound she made pierced Tanaak’s soul and grated against his heart. He hadn’t ever wanted to hear those sounds again.

Tanaak pointed his light at her and saw her lift her hand to her face. “Don’t,” he said, but she reached behind her head and unfastened her mask. Tanaak’s heart hammered as the mask fell to the ground. “Maagus?” he whispered, recognizing his sister immediately in the harsh spotlight from his headlamp. “How are you here?” His knees felt weak. “Where have you been?! We thought you were dead!” His nose stung as tears welled under his eyes.

Maagus drew a long ragged breath and let go of her brother to wretch into the bushes, waving a hand behind her to keep him from hovering. When she was done, she spit a couple of times, stood up straight, shook her dark hair back and smiled at her brother. “I’m alright now.”

Tanaak felt his heart twist. That’s not good enough! How are you here? How can you breathe without your mask?!

“We’re past the dead zone,” Sunhat said from a few meters away, but his filtered voice sounded so much closer. “Leave your masks on if you can. You’ll still need your lights.”

Tanaak took his sister’s hand again and held it tightly. He felt a tear slip down his cheek. He couldn’t stop the expedition to ask for an explanation; he’d have to get one later.

Although she relied on his light and held his hand, Maagus walked a little ahead of Tanaak. She’d always been like that: fearless. Even when her body failed her and the sickness took hold.

It was a claustrophobic feeling, traveling through the undergrowth. Tanaak couldn’t see the stars, and he hated that, but little by little, unfamiliar pinpricks of light appeared. He thought they were hallucinations at first, wishful thinking on the part of his optic nerve, but they grew in number as the group traveled, illuminating the leaves and branches around them in a ghostly glow.

“Bioluminescence,” Sunhat murmured, the voice seeming to come from inside Tanaak’s ear. He paused, and the rest of the group came to a stop behind him. He pulled his mask down and let it hang around his neck. Tanaak followed suit and was suddenly hit with a dark, wet smell. He nearly gagged. It wasn’t particularly foul, but it was incredibly thick, making it hard to breathe. As he recovered, he turned to see how the rest of the group was faring.

“Spirits…” breathed Tanaak as a cold shock ran through his system. Every single person in their group was a member of his family. The hornless male was his brother, Harkos. The hornless female, their mother, stood next to their father. Tanaak took two big steps toward his father that he’d also believed to be dead. He was overwhelmed with emotion. He was ready to cling to the elder Sado and weep, but… something was very wrong.

Their father’s face was warped just slightly. It wasn’t enough to make him unrecognizable, but the skin seemed to pull at the edges. His mouth was too wide. His eyes bulged uncomfortably… and his features wouldn’t sit still. His whole face was like the surface of a lake, disrupted by gentle ripples that constantly obscured something just beneath the surface.

“Father…?” murmured Tanaak.

Their father opened his mouth, and Tanaak strained to hear his voice, longed to hear his voice. The man had been gone so long that Tanaak barely remembered the sound of it, but… all he could hear was the hollow raspy sound of an old man’s dying breaths.

Tanaak took another step closer. “Speak to me,” he pleaded.

The elder Sado’s face twisted in response, but he made no more sound.

“Please, speak to me!” Tanaak begged. He couldn’t remember his father’s voice. He needed to hear it one more time. He took another step, but this time, his father seemed to recede into the shadows. “Don’t go! Speak to me!” Tanaak shouted, running forward.

Their father’s face contorted in the dim light, then seemed to pull and burst. Shadows enveloped him, and then he was gone.

Tanaak turned to face his family. His mother had fallen to her knees, her other two children crouching next to her and whispering words of comfort that sounded to Tanaak like insects clawing at his skull. Then he noticed the man standing behind them. The man with the sunhat horns had revealed his face at last. Vandor! Tanaak’s heart leapt as he set his sore eyes on the face he loved most. There were so many questions on the tip of his tongue. Why are you all here? What did we just see? Does anyone remember why we came here and what we have to do? All these questions and more were lost before Tanaak could speak them. Something about this place where treacherous bioluminescent stars shifted their positions suppressed Tanaak’s capacity for logic. He took a few steps towards Vandor, whose gilded horns swept back around his head like a halo.

Vandor raised a hand to stop Tanaak. He slowly pointed above their heads. “Do you hear that?” he asked in a whisper. Even Vandor’s elegant voice gnawed at Tanaak’s brain.

Tanaak listened. He heard the creaking of the trees and far off rustling, the sounds of life. He closed his eyes and concentrated. There. He could hear something like gentle, rolling waves overhead. “What is that?”

“It’s a swarm,” Vandor replied. “It’s the biggest thing down here, made up of billions of tiny organisms. They move together in the dark like liquid shadow, and this swarm is most certainly what took your father.”

Tanaak began to sweat. “What can we do?”

Vandor shook his head. “We shouldn’t move now. Listen for the waves to crash. As long as you don’t hear that sound, we’ll be alright.”

“Crash?” Tanaak repeated.

“That will be when they break formation to strike. If you hear that—run. Put your mask on and run back to shore.”

“Won’t we be safe if we make it to the dead zone?” Maagus asked.

“The swarm doesn’t need to breathe the way we do. Just get as far away from it as you can,” Vandor replied with authority. “Take your scanners out and let’s get what we came for while we can. When the swarm moves on, we should head back.”

Tanaak activated the scanner on his gauntlet. It was of Oriasi design, and emitted a golden glow as it analyzed the forest around him, but he couldn’t concentrate on the readouts from his mineral samples as the sound of the waves lapped at the corners of his mind. Now that he’d heard the sound, he couldn’t stop hearing it. That gentle rolling sound meant that they weren’t safe. They would never be safe as long as they could hear that sound.

Crash.

It sounded so far away. Surely—

“RUN,” Vandor instructed. He put his mask back over his face and shone his light onto the return path. He gestured frantically for Tanaak’s family to follow, and soon all five were sprinting through the forest.

Tanaak could hear something buzzing behind his head. He could hear his own breathing in the mask, terrified panting. Then he heard his sister start to wheeze. She’d left her mask on the ground. She stumbled. Fell.

“Maagus!” cried their mother, stopping and turning back for her daughter.

Tanaak bent and lifted his sister over his shoulder. The buzzing grew louder. He tried to keep pressing forward as the sound concentrated next to his head. It was coming from his sister. He glanced at her and saw that her skin was pulling the way his father’s had. With a trembling heart, he set her body down among the leaves and backed away as his sister was consumed by shadow.

“What have you done?!” howled Tanaak’s mother. Her voice had deepened and cracked with despair. She ran for the place where Maagus had been devoured, but Tanaak caught her arm. Although the buzzing had stopped as soon as he released his sister, the gentle sound of waves was still close overhead.

“Come on, Mother,” Tanaak said gently but firmly.

Harkos came to comfort their mother and spoke up. “We can’t wait for it to go away. We have to put distance between us while it’s getting ready for another attack.”

Although Harkos had addressed Tanaak, Vandor answered him. “You’re right. We should keep moving.”

Tanaak’s mother walked with Harkos, unwilling to look at Tanaak or speak to him. Tanaak walked as close to Vandor as he could, hoping Vandor’s presence could comfort him, but Vandor didn’t speak to him either.

They walked until the bioluminescent lights faded behind them.

Still they heard the waves.

They walked until they could see light that didn’t come from their masks.

Still they heard the waves.

The amplified sounds of the forest and Tanaak’s own breathing had faded, but the waves sounded louder than ever. Tanaak ran a hand through his short hair and made a fist, pulling at his scalp. “What if it follows us all the way to shore?” he groaned.

Harkos stopped walking. “Is that possible?”

Vandor’s calm demeanor shifted to one of troubled thought. “It shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be possible.”

Tanaak’s mother sat down. “I’m not losing any more of my children,” she said. “I’m staying right here.

Harkos bent next to their mother. “No you’re not, get up.”

“Hurry,” she pleaded, pushing him away. “You have to live.”

Crash.

“Grab her!” Tanaak yelled at his brother as he and Vandor started to run. Harkos was fast. Harkos was capable. Tanaak didn’t look back.

They ran until they couldn’t hear the waves anymore.

Tanaak took off his mask and took a deep breath. The forest was still dim, but enough natural light filtered through the trees that Tanaak could see. He could hear birds again. He grinned at Vandor. “We did it,” he said. “We escaped.”

Vandor was quiet.

Tanaak looked for Harkos and their mother, but they were long gone. Did I sacrifice them? Did I purposefully leave them behind so that I could escape? he wondered. His heart was heavy and his mind was foggy. “Vandor…” he called weakly, holding out a hand, but Vandor turned and walked away. “Vandor!”

“You can see the stars, right?” Vandor called over his shoulder. “You don’t need me anymore.” He wandered farther from Tanaak until he disappeared into the dreamy emerald haze. “And I don’t need you.”

Tanaak found himself alone.

He made his way towards the shore, but guilt and loneliness tore away at his spirit. He heard a deep awkward choking noise and turned to see if anyone was with him, but there was no one. The sound came again and this time he realized that it had come from him. Sleep reluctantly withdrew her fingers from Tanaak’s mind as he scrambled for a foothold in reality where sat up, opened his eyes, and wiped the tears from his face.

~~~end