giant alien write part three-quarters

A crow drifted overhead, landing on the roof of a house with people trading strikes in the backyard.

Dark stormclouds drew overhead as the sun began to sink past the horizon. The rumbles of thunder echoed far away, an ominous warning of what was to come this day. In the backyard of the humble home, with its large workshop tacked onto the side, a short young woman trembled as she exchanged blows with a teacher much taller and more graceful than she.

“Are you alright, Zora?” The older of the two asked, “You are shaking more than a newborn deer in the cold.”

“Fine.” The answer was short, and curt, but didn’t leave much room for anyone to believe she was lying. She was always terrible at lying.

“Mmm… if you are having a bad mental health day, you should have told me. We will call the lesson here. And then, I perhaps have just the thing for you. How about a mall trip? The two of us can spend the evening enjoying ourselves there, instead.”

Zora felt her heart immediately sink into her stomach, racing there so fast she worried it might give out and making her feel ill. No, anything but there. Not where the pools were. There was no way this wasn’t a trap. Look at the way her teacher was looking at her. Sizing her up. Evaluating her worthiness… no, not her teacher. The slimy beast piloting her while the woman she thought loved her took a back seat and let it happen.

She glanced upward toward the crow on the roof, watching down below in silence. Cawing once, twice, before taking off somewhere unknown again.

This really was the final countdown, wasn’t it. Do or die. Act here, or everything she knew was doomed to slavery, or worse. She couldn’t let herself be a liability. Ever since she had learned what a traitor to the human race her teacher really was, she knew it was only a matter of time before the endgame came for her. But what could she even do? This woman was far too paranoid for weapon or poison, and so was the insect commander within her. And a head-on fight? Laughable, she would die no question. She had been trying to overpower her every week since she learned this, and never once succeeded.

The only way out was for them both to die, wasn’t it.

“That… that sounds nice.” She finally breathed out. If this was how it had to be, may God have mercy on their souls for what Anya would become. If Zora had to die for the others to continue the fight in secret, she would take that gamble. If nothing else, she would be removing a powerful piece from the chess board.

“Good, good. Go, change out of your training clothes and shower. I will wait for you in the car when you’re finished. Take your time, we have quite a bit of time until closing.”

As her teacher walked off out of sight, Zora exhaled the moment the first raindrop hit her dark skin. This was it. Tonight, it would be for she whom the death bell tolled. As she made her way toward the house, her head raced with everything that she would be leaving behind with her act.

Her mother would be distraught. Who knew what she would do with the news that one of her children had died. She wasn’t stable in the slightest, and it was for her who Zora worried the most deeply. Odds were strong that she wouldn’t be the only suicide tonight, and it would only wound Anya more. Drive her madder, make her fight harder. Maybe, in the end, that would be a good thing. Maybe that fury would cause her to drive them away once and for all, but then what? Would she chase them off into the stars to her own death? Would this family eventually be reunited in the grave? No, no. Anya was much too stubborn to die. She would outrun death and unleash furor on everything that even dared look like it took her sister’s life.

Reva would be certain to join her by her side in the cold, deep earth. They had made that agreement, at the beginning of all this. If they became compromised in some way, shape or form, they would die. They knew they needed each other, as friends and effectively sisters in this dirty covert war. If it was Reva in this mess, Zora would be certain to follow her into the dark, too. Neither of them had the emotional spoons to handle this without the other, and they both knew it. All they could really hope for was that fate would keep them together as they took their next turn on the great wheel of reincarnation.

Emil and Jake… Emil had already become something of a berserker, hellbent on bloodshed, insatiable by the idea of peace alone. The loss of a friend and cousin would make him more of a dangerous weapon, probably controlled by Anya and kept, ineffectual as it might be, from bombing the town wholesale by Jake. Hell… Jake might be the only one who would take the news with some sort of decorum, all of the rest were too broken. Too dangerous. Too volatile.

And then… then there were the others. Her study friend, shunned by so many other students, who was so battered by his own self esteem that she watched him be coerced into being a willing puppet by somebody she thought was family. Because he thought it was the only way to stop suffering. That, or suicide. The boy in the library, so calm and demure, whose sister was taken by force and locked away in those cages and he was none the wiser? Surely, he was their next target. They might even be doomed to this same trap on the same night. The brown-haired boy in Anya’s nursing classes, taken too, who sincerely liked her. Maybe even loved her. They had seen him fight back, struggle for freedom. Would he keep up that fight? Could they save him?

These were things she shouldn’t be thinking about, but found herself unable to stop contemplating. Suddenly, faced with her end, there was a lot to think about.

As she passed through the threshhold into the house, the crow swooped down past her and cawed into the open air. Odd little thing, she thought to herself, before stepping inside.

The house’s air was crisp with the bite of strong air conditioning on a summer evening, and as the rain began to tap on the windows, it sent a chill up her spine. The real-wood paneling and olive green carpet that belied the age of the original construction seemed particularly dark tonight, and not even flipping on the lights seemed to ease it. She stared out the dining room windows at that backyard for a moment longer before sighing and heading up to the shower she was allotted every week. Here, her normal clothes hung on a hook on the door, neatly organized for when she needed them.

She locked the door tightly, and stripped out of her exercise clothes, throwing them haphazard over the floor. She wouldn’t be needing them anymore, she supposed. She stepped into the tub and let the hot water sweep over her, taking the moment to savor the warmth and think to herself some more out of eyeshot of anyone who might think to stop this. She dared not speak those thoughts aloud, because who knew what could be listening in enemy territory, but as long as she suspected she was alone, she could be allowed to at least contemplate them.

It was a weird feeling, to be suddenly acutely aware that you were going to die. There was a certain clarity that came with it, as if the fog of depression, anxiety and fear had lifted ahead of the Reaper’s arrival. She did have regrets, of course she had regrets, but for what felt like the first time in her life, she found the inner reserves of strength not to dwell on them and let them stew. Instead, she needed to plan. Make sure, once and for all, that there would be no way either of them could escape.

Unfortunately, Zora herself couldn’t drive. Not well, anyway. For some odd reason or another, she had immense difficulty retaining control of vehicles even in the best conditions. There was no way her teacher or the bug inside her would let her take the wheel in the middle of an oncoming storm, no matter how much she asked, and it would raise their hackles if she tried. No, she would have to try to wrest control on the drive there, and try to steer them off the highway into the woods en route to the mall. It was a risky strategy, and if she failed, it would be game over for her and everyone else. There was no way they wouldn’t realize what she had tried to do, and soon enough she’d have a bug in her head and no more control over her body.

But she had to try. And if she failed, she would have to trust that Reva would take her out like they promised each other.

It really sucked that she didn’t have more time to plan. As she ran over it in her head, trying to think of any way this wasn’t a trap, she came up with no other means of escape. It had been about three days since they had last spied on that pool. Every three days, they saw new faces down in that carved out hellscape. She knew that Emil, Jake and Anya would be en route, and they probably expected Zora to meet her there. She knew that they would know something had happened when Isra never traversed those stairs. She hoped that understanding what she had done would make them retain a grasp on their sanity just a little bit longer.

Certain now that she wouldn’t be seen, since she knew in her newfound clarity that Cherry would never allow cameras or microphones in the bathrooms no matter how paranoid her wife might be, Zora relaxed her grip on her form and began to change shape. Her bones shifted somewhat, shoulders growing broader and hips getting narrower, and she felt her spine stretch about a foot taller than she was naturally. Though its length didn’t change, her hair darkened from cinnabar to chocolate-brown, and her blue-violet eyes did the same. Her skin lightened from copper to faint beige, and her chest flattened.

Transforming into other people was so much easier and more pleasant than the gorey act of taking animal shape. She could stomach being someone else for a while, but swapping species took quite a bit of stomach hardening that oftentimes she wasn’t really capable of in the moment. Let alone looking at it. But at least this let her experience how the other side lived. To know what it was like to be a guy, and not herself.

If it sucked that she didn’t have time to plan, it really, really sucked that this was the easiest way to get herself off before she died. Something still felt weird and dirty about using someone else’s shape for this, but she knew consciously that she wasn’t really doing anything wrong. She stared down at her borrowed body and sighed at it. What a beautiful man this was, and how she wished she could see this from something other than first person perspective. But now she never would. She could only hope that this act would delay them from taking him for just a little bit longer. Maybe long enough for someone to bring him into the fold. Long enough to save his sister.

The release was quick, and the result swiftly flushed down the drain, never to be seen again. Who was going to notice? No one sane took luminol to the shower, and even if they did, it was easy to assume it was past bloodstains rather than… that. She let out a sigh of resigned relief. It wouldn’t do at all to die so pent up. A tension boner, she supposed.

There was a ghost of a chance that she might survive for a few minutes after the crash. Technically, during that time, she could shapeshift and heal herself. Just like she had done right now. She could guarantee her survival and run. But would she? She wasn’t so sure. Everyone knew that right now, she was with Isra in a compromised position. Maybe it would be better to die there, to maintain the illusion. And that was assuming that Isra was already dead. If she stayed alive for any length of time after the crash and Zora tried that, that too was the end of the line. No, they both had to die, or else at least Zora did. If Isra lived and she didn’t, it would at least give the others time to run and hide. Her body wouldn’t be able to deceive them.

Her body faded back to its normal shape, and she turned the water off. No one would mind if she grabbed a snack before the end. Best not to die on an empty stomach, right? She stepped out of the shower and dressed back into her cozy skirt and tank top. A walk around the house would also do her mind good. One last hurrah, calm and quiet. But first, she checked her face in the mirror before her, staring herself right in the eyes.

Everyone she ever knew always said that her eyes were strange. What an odd color they were, such a deep shade of blue-violet. And they always said she looked sort of like a hungry animal. There was a darkness to the edges, around her eyelids and in the corners, and the whites maybe weren’t as visible as they should be. They almost looked like a wolf’s eyes, if not for the color, and people certainly noticed before she had started wearing sunglasses full time. She had never understood why, only that it had been particularly isolating to her growing up. And boy, did she not feel any more powerfully isolated than now.

Sunglasses on, time to go.

The olive drab carpet seemed especially soft now, and the paneling still cast a dim shadow over the house interior despite the brightness of the lights above. Their harshness drilled into her skin, boring into her soul like an early judgment of the sins she was about to commit. She wasn’t even particularly religious, but she could still feel the eyes of something higher than her drilling into her.

Please, God, understand why she had to do this. Please, God, give her mercy.

As she moved into the kitchen, with its granite countertops and tile floors that hadn’t been changed since the 70s, she swore she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and froze. No, no one else was in here with her, it didn’t even look like anyone else had been here in a bit. No, it must be her being paranoid too… but now that she looked, the door to the workshop was ajar. Cherry usually kept that locked, but maybe she was in there right now. The least Zora could do was tell her goodbye before she… murdered her wife….

… no. No, there was no time for guilt now. If Cherry was still clean, it was for her own good, because she was in legitimate danger the way things were. There was no way Cherry would go into those pools willingly even if it were her wife, and she hadn’t seen her caged yet… this had to happen.

The smell of cleaning products and motor oil greeted her as she stepped into the laboratory where her teacher’s wife did all her engineering work. Large, unknown, ominous shapes hidden beneath thick tarps towered over her, and silvery, unknown devices lay strewn about on various benches and scaffolds, half-assembled yet totally unrecognizable. Despite the ordinary sounds of faint classic rock emanating from this workshop, today it was deathly still and silent. Cherry must not actually be in here right now.

As she turned to leave, she noticed something along the wall with the door on it; something she wouldn’t have noticed walking in. On the floor were fresh stains of some liquid that left the scent of burning rubber and ozone, spilled from a small device that might have looked like a bowl at some point before it was smashed. The smell alone was one that Zora recognized all too well. It was the smell of one of those damned pools that the bugs fed in, and here it was in what was supposed to be a sealed off area. But it was utterly destroyed, and the breakage looked almost purposeful.

Did Cherry… know already? If she did, was she firmly on their side? Would she understand what had to happen after all?

In the space where the broken pool once must have been, there rested a box. On the outside, it looked fairly unassuming, a metal tin with a small lock on it, and no other real defining features. But looking at it made Zora’s heart skip a beat or two, because it looked almost exactly like the device the Andal’kin had used to give them their meager powers of transformation. That couldn’t just be a coincidence, right?

Hastily, making sure she wasn’t seen, she picked up the box and examined it more closely. The metal was smooth and seamless, reflecting her curious face and wide wolf-eyes back at her as if it were the mirror that she had just left behind in the bathroom. On the bottom of the box, there was text engraved in English and a language she didn’t particularly recognize, but knew didn’t look like Andal’kin or Yrlyst script.

Transference-Type Genetic Ability Modification Device, Prototype 12-3-15.612.0.0.7b

Zora read it over a few times, running through her brain on what this could mean. Transference was an interesting word for it, given her video games, but she supposed that was, in fact, what Yrlyst were doing to their hosts, wasn’t it? Interesting that they’d choose to leave an English translation on the box, too… unless this was going to be their answer to the transformation cube thing. There was no way they didn’t know about those things, so of course they were going to have an answer to it. But who would they give it to? Maybe the willing. Not the ones who were coerced or broken, but the truly willing, who supported their puppetry through and through.

… If that was the case, no wonder Isra had it.

Interesting, though, that it was left out in the open like this… unless Cherry really did know. Unless Cherry found it first. Like with the smashed pool.

Suddenly, Zora felt like maybe she shouldn’t have wandered in here. But at the same time… maybe her mission had just become a little bit easier. She fiddled with the lock for a moment, which didn’t seem to have a hole for an associated key. She accidentally brushed her finger over the surface for a moment, though, and it gently clicked open.

To open the box was to reveal an odd, translucent display of some odd, twisting energy suspended in a crystalline structure. Where the transformation cube thing was opaque and solid blue, humming ominously, this was a transparent teal color, crackling with raw potential in its container. Not knowing what else to do, she placed her hands on the face of the structure. After a moment of prickling from the constant static, a feeling like fire shot through her heart and into her nerves. It felt like it should be sheer agony, but the pain never came, and soon it was gone as fast as it had set in.

Had it worked? There wasn’t much here to test it on.

A car horn from outside suddenly startled her, and she snapped the box closed and stuffed it into a messenger bag around her hip. Best that a device like this stayed close, even if she did bite it. With luck, it would be destroyed in the ensuing crash. Just before she left the house for the last time, she turned her phone off. She wouldn’t be needing it anymore.

When she finally ventured back out into the backyard, Isra was already waiting in the car for her, smiling gently at the steady rainfall and gentle thunder still in the diistance. Despite the smile, though, Zora could see it. Something expectant behind those eyes. Something anticipating. But she wouldn’t get what she wanted. There was no way now that she or the bug could expect what she had found in there. She climbed into the car, trying hard not to show her hesitation at the whole thing.

As they pulled out of the driveway, she couldn’t help but notice that crow still watching her from beneath the garage roof’s awning. What a strange bird it was. She supposed it must be the Reaper, waiting for her to perform her last act.

She would just have to give him a show he would never forget.

The drive to the mall was quiet. Zora sat in silence, while Isra was content to listen to the car radio. Comfortably Numb, what a sick and ironic song for the plans she had. Zora tried to ignore it, instead staring out the window into the deluge. It was starting to rain harder now, and no cars seemed to really be on this stretch of highway tonight. She supposed that they were either all at the mall getting their heads soaked, or safe at home with no reason to go out.

If this was going to happen, it was an ideal night to do it. No one to save them. No one to find them until it was much too late. Plenty of plausible excuses for what was about to go down.

“You look tense, Zora,” Isra finally broke the silence, giving her that same calm, yet waiting smile. “Is something on your mind?”

“A lot of things, I guess.” Zora answered. It wasn’t technically a lie after all. There was maybe too much on her mind. “Just, you know… family stuff.”

“Are you worried about them, for some reason?”

“Maybe a little… you know, Anya’s got a lot of stress on her shoulders with her med classes, and Mom is… not doing great...”

“Perhaps it would be a good idea to bring your mother to one of our lovely community groups. Yourself, as well. I was hoping to introduce you, tonight. I thought you would be a perfect fit. Especially after one of your friends speaks so glowingly of you.”

There’s the rub, Zora thought. This really was a trap. “Maybe, I guess… I don’t know if she would be into it, though. She seems a little happier on her own, away from big groups.”

“Mmm, I think she would be pleasantly surprised. I believe you would be, too.”

“What makes you say that…?” She winced as she felt the clap of a hand much stronger than her own on her shoulder.

“I believe you are ready for the truth, little heart.” The pet name especially stung a bit, knowing what was about to happen. “I will show you what we are truly doing when we arrive. I believe that with your noble heart, you will fit right into what we aim to do.”

“Heh… will I now.”

“I think so. You are a fighter. You believe in what’s right. I believe our cause could use somebody like that. And you won’t even need to lift a finger to do so. All you need to be is here.”

While she faced away from Isra, she closed her eyes in resignation. This was the pitch. It was time. “And… what if I’m not okay with that?”

“...what?”

“What if I want to take a more active role in helping around town? Helping the world? Maybe I don’t want to lean back and relax and just be another head to be counted. Maybe I’m ready to make a difference somehow, in my own little way. What if that’s what I want? Would that be allowed?”

“I am certain the leadership could find a place for you in such a fashion, if you were willing.”

“Well, then… I am willing.”

“I’m happy to hear it. When you understand the full truth of the situation-”

“-Willing to die to stop you from putting more people in cages.”

“Wh-”

“I’m sorry, sensei!”

Zora twisted around and grabbed her fallen mentor’s arm, pulling as hard as she could to try to knock them off course. The vehicle began to swerve just a little bit, but Isra’s grasp proved too strong for her to break.

“Should have known! Acting so cagey, the betrayers got to you first!”

“I don’t give a shit about them either! I want them both the fuck off my planet!”

“Then these people will never see freedom!”

“But those people you caged up will!”

“We can talk about this! Stop this! You’ll kill us both!”

“That was the plan from the start!”

The two of them fought over the steering wheel, dancing precariously between the two lanes of traffic. Though Zora was not as strong or as adept as her teacher, she succeeded at least somewhat in knocking them off course, though now Isra fought back hard, eventually restraining her student with her free arm and pulling the car back on-course.

Now unable to use her arms, Zora fought against her captor’s grasp to no avail, trying not to panic. No, she should have known a full-on fight wouldn’t work. Even sufficiently distracted, in the rain, she still couldn’t win. And now she had signed her own death warrant…

… or so it looked like from the outside.

“I do not want to hurt you, little heart.” Now Isra’s voice was threatening. “But since you are aware of the scale of this war, and clearly aware of my role in it, I will not hesitate to defend myself against you should you continue this nonsense. I want you to listen carefully, beloved student. I am aware of the caged bodies. But such a price is paltry to the cost of freeing an entire people. Doesn’t that sound wonderful to you? To save an entire race from beyond the stars. I would have hoped that you would see it from my perspective.”

“It’s… a war crime…” She didn’t know if it was, but it had to be. It felt like one.

“If it is, to some intergalactic government, I gracefully accept my trial and execution for an unjust act. But to my knowledge, it is not.”

“And… what about those people. Those people you knew personally...”

“Someday, when this war is won, they will realize the role they played in a grand design, I hope.”

“You’re… coercing people! I watched you! Watched you prey on his self esteem until-”

“He wanted to be a part of something much bigger. I merely granted him that.”

“… What will you… do to me...”

“I will offer you a choice, before we even arrive. You may accept what is to come and be allowed autonomy between feedings, in exchange for your knowledge of where and who the betrayers are. Or, you may resist further, and I will bring you before the Commander. You may never see the outside of a cage again, or you may have worse done to you. I never wanted it to come to this, you know.”

“And… those are my choices…?”

“Yes. I am sorry.”

“… And what if I… decide to take a third option.”

“What-”

With all of the focus and energy her body still contained, Zora threw herself sideways into Isra and focused as hard as she could on gaining control of the body she was touching. Almost instantly, she could feel her physical form melt away and wrap around her beloved teacher, before sinking deep into her skin and taking control of the muscles and perception. In the head of the newly-possessed, there was shocked shouting, and no small amount of resistance as the original owner fought to regain control of the body. As Zora assumed full control, something about the size of a cat came flying out of Isra’s chest and spattered wetly against the windshield.

She didn’t have the time to focus on the dazed Yrlyst though, as she took the opportunity to press the gas pedal all the way to the floor and finally swerve the car off of the road. The vehicle was sent flying over a particularly deep ditch and went screaming through the rain into the woods to the side of the highway, and yet again, Zora closed the eyes that didn’t belong to her as she sped toward a particularly thick oak tree directly ahead of them.

The impact was brutal, and the sound of shredded metal loud and ear-shattering. Zora was jettisoned from the dead body immediately as the steering wheel broke off and the column penetrated Isra’s chest, sending Zora from the fresh corpse up onto the dashboard along with the dazed Yrlyst. Sprays of broken glass cut through her skin and tore through the flesh beneath, leaving her left side totally mangled and her body twisted in and around the wreckage. But with what strength she had left, as the smell of gas began to fill the air, she reached for the Yrlyst and squeezed tight.

“Was it… worth it. Was it worth… the cages… the slavery. Was it worth… fucking with me?”

With enough pressure, the Yrlyst’s fragile true body burst in a spray of bluish-gray goop, and now Zora was left alone, torn apart and slowly fading away in mind and body. Just like she planned.

As the pain began to slowly grow further and further from her mind, she could distantly hear something scraping at the metal and glass. Felt a warm mouth, and sharp teeth around the nape of her neck, pulling her free of the wreck despite that she could barely feel her arm dangling behind her, held on by a thread.

<You need to change shape. Now.> The voice projecting into her head was a very familiar one, clear as day despite her dying haze.

“No… no Reva… I don’t even know how you found me, but… this is it… I’m making my stand here...”

<This is a stupid way to go, and you know it. Change shape. We need to talk.>

“No, just… just let me go...”

<Do you really want your last act to be murder? I don’t think you do. There’s still more you can do. Change. Shape.>

“Heh… and what’s… in it for me...”

<I’ll help you get away. For good.>

It took a moment to get a form into her mind through the dying fog. The one they had been arguing about, before the final crash. Her skin went pale, her hair shortened. Her eyes lightened into a different shade of blue, and her body lengthened just a bit. But most importantly, the wounds faded away, and her loosened arm knit itself back into her body in a way that should have been uncomfortable, but wasn’t. After a pause to breathe and take in the sound of rain in the woods, the mist in her head began to clear, and she stared the grand, powerful tiger that had saved her in the eyes.

“… She’s dead.” She said, almost emotionlessly, in a voice that wasn’t technically her own. “She’s dead, and I killed her. They’ll all know I was supposed to be here with her.”

<If you’re never seen again, they’ll just declare you a missing person. They won’t have a choice, even if they know what you did.>

“I was totally ready to die there, you know.”

<I saw it in your eyes when she said she was taking you to the mall. The resignation. I… I wasn’t going to let you do it. I couldn’t. Not when there’s still so much more to do.>

“Problem is, I don’t know what’s left for me. Once someone finds the wreck, I’m legally dead.”

<Then… then we’ll get you out of town before that happens.>

“They can’t find out, you know. Anya, or Emil, or Jake. They’ll try to find me and bring me back, and I’ll just jeopardize them.”

<I know. Right now, they don’t matter. Come on, they’ll all be at the mall keeping watch. I parked out of sight not too far off. I brought a few changes of clothes. Keep that shape on, for all they know he and I are friends too.>

“Thanks...”

The vehicle was, as promised, parked in the underbrush a small walk off. Here, the leaves were thick enough to provide some relief from the rain. Zora looked away as Reva changed shape from tiger to woman, then turned her head back when she heard the trunk pop open.

“Here, take some of the mens’ clothes. You and I need to plan.”

Swiftly, she dressed into an outfit consisting of some dress pants and a loose button-down shirt. It would be a weird look for the body Zora wore right now, but… perhaps not for someone else.

“Reva… Reva, I have an idea. Look at how I’m dressed. If I have to run away forever… maybe… is Shana at the mall right now? She must be. Her bug will be feeding.”

“… Tell me more in the car. Someone’s going to notice the wreck soon-”

A violent shockwave and the smell of burning gasoline sent the pair scattering into the car, and they pulled from the small parking circle back onto the highway as fast as they could. Coming around the bend, the car was in flames despite the rain, burning away the remains of the sins that had taken place there.

And in Zora’s clutches, pressed tightly to her chest, was the messenger bag. Tattered, bloody, but intact, with the device inside it. She could explain it to Reva once it was all said and done.