Chapter 19: The World Keeps Turning
Paulie’s mind wandered through an endless field of golden, shimmering grain. The stalks of wheat were as long as his waist and he spread his arms out to either side as he walked, letting the fat ears with their whisker-like beards trail through his fingers.
He leaned his head back and smiled at the sky above. It was a deep azure, an endless blue plane that seemed to stretch forever across that great golden expanse that surrounded him like an ocean, hills in rolling waves slowly rising and falling into the distance akin to gentle sea swells. The sun was high overhead, its glow as golden as the stalks underfoot and not at all harsh or blinding. It was a soft glow, a warmth that healed not a light that scalded.
He continued walking for another minute before he stopped in his tracks suddenly, the subtle joy that had been fizzing in his middle fading as abruptly as a light being switched off. There was something wrong up ahead, a blot on this otherwise perfect scene that filled his mind with a guttering fear. A subtle trepidation that grew as did the sense of malaise that was now filling the hole in his core once so bright and happy. The blot seemed to slowly spread, the stalks of golden grain that it touched withered grey and died like grass in the dead of winter. Turned to dust as the darkness seemed to search blindly. He felt a sense of ancient malice and ravenous hunger.. but above all that, he felt its rage.
Rage of such potency that he knew to let it catch him would be to suffer a fate far worse than death. He turned tail and ran. He ran like he was being chased by the darkest monster from foul memory, he knew not what manner of thing pursued him. Only that he must escape, he must not let it catch him or he and all he loved would certainly be lost. He knew it, some deeper sense than sight or sound or memory.
Paulie ran.
He kept running for a while, his lungs heaving in the perfect air, his crushing footfalls smashing the beautiful golden stalks of the wheat in his mad dash for safety. For some tingling hope of escape. After a while, he knew not how long precisely, he stumbled to a halt and threw a cautious glance over his shoulder even as he heaved in deep breaths from his mad scramble. The path he had smashed through the endless swaying fields was already healing. But more importantly he saw no more sign of that great stain, the blot of evil in this otherwise tranquil place.
He breathed in, great shuddering breaths as the fear that had so gripped him slowly faded away. Moments later he stood, not sure why he had been so scared in the first place. He shook his head and suddenly chuckled almost wryly. What, a man of his age scared of a little darkness? What was he, a whimpering child afraid of his own shadow?
Paulie turned and then screamed as the darkness was there. Pulsating with hatred and malice it seemed to take terrible form. A great winged beast, the likes of which he had no translation to describe, only knowing that its form was terrible in the extreme. His mind quaked at the sight, his body wilted and he tried to withdraw from this new horror.
The thing seemed to rumble in his mind. A voice too steeped in madness for words alone, but he still heard the voice. He screamed in pain as the words stabbed into his mind like a spear made of hate.
-Found You-
Paulie awoke still screaming.
Hands pressed down on his chest and a voice yelled in his ear but he was blind to them all in his panic. He swung an arm frantically to dislodge his assailant and it connected with something solid, the cry of pain it elicited, too familiar. With a snap of realisation he was shocked from his wild thrashings to see Jakiikii rubbing her middle shoulder, a dark bruise already forming on the skin of it. The blot of darker skin spreading like the blight he had seen in his terrible vision, making him freeze and stare.
She seemed to hesitate at his sudden change but as soon as she saw he had started to calm down she leapt to his side and wrapped him in a six-armed hug again.
“Oh, Paulie are you alright?” She exclaimed even as he reached out and touched the bruise on her arm lightly, gently. As if touching it might make some more terrible phantom appear.
“Yes.. Jakiikii I am so sorry.” he muttered after another moment of silence, the pain and fear of his latest nightmare fading like the dark when one flicks the lights on. But the horror still lingered. Something of it stuck to the skin of his awareness like a film of oil on water, a thin barrier over his own self perception. Barely noticeable but all encompassing.
She waved a hand even as she winced slightly. “It’s nothing. I will be fine, but what about you?” She asked, “What was that?”
Paulie scooted back until his shoulders were pressed against the wall behind him, he leaned his head back a little before blinking slowly several times. He swallowed heavily as he tried to think of what to tell her. Finally he came to a decision, he looked at her, her face a mask of worry and deep confusion. Reaching out toward her he asked, “You remember when I told you about the issues I was having with my jargon worm? Right?”
She nodded, mouth open slightly even as she maintained her silence.
He continued after a moment. “Well, it is getting worse. Much worse. My mind, well.. I feel sometimes like I am losing myself. Like this parasite is taking me over piece by piece.” The words flooded out of him as a torrent of dark admissions suddenly, he could no more keep himself from telling her than he would have been able to stop the sun from setting.
“I am worried, Jakiikii, I am worried that there is something wrong with me. With the worm, with this whole entire god-damned galaxy. I keep.. I keep thinking about those people we found in Ooounoo’s place. Their endless sleep, they are like the dead. But still living. I am worried that I might become like that, maybe human biology just isn’t compatible with it?” He said loudly, a hand slamming down into the pillow next to him in his frustration. He felt a stirring in his mind at the outburst, but ignored it.
Jakiikii’s eyes widened, suddenly she scampered off the bed and before he had the chance to ask her what she was doing she had already reached the door. Paulie stood and moved to follow, but before he had even extricated himself from his blankets the door was swinging closed.
He frowned and walked towards it, what had that been about? He had rarely seen the termaxxi woman in such a rush, something must have given her cause to scamper off in such a manner. He stepped to the doorway and opened it just as Jakiikii exited her own apartment again. She rushed across the hall and pushed into his room again.
“Here, take two of these!” She said quickly, pressing a large, rattling container of something into his hand. Paulie looked down. She had handed him a bottle, the label was in yuuvian and all he could make out from the strange alien text were several serial numbers that ran along the bottom of it.
He held it up, “What’s this?” She shook her head.
“It is the medicine that Dross’kellio gave me to hold onto. He said it would help you with your condition, I wasn’t sure I knew what he meant at first. Now I think I do.”
Paulie scrunched his face up in confusion. ‘His condition?’ he muttered to himself inaudibly. What had that duigong known about his condition? Was that really the answer? Maybe he really was just sick.
He shrugged mentally, whatever it was he certainly could not be hurting himself worse to try. He remembered the sense of blissful calm that had overtaken him after he had left the doctor’s careful ministrations. A suspicion formed in his head, but he pushed it down. It was just the parasite trying to influence him again, he nodded mainly to himself and walked from the front entrance to the kitchen where he grabbed a cup of water from the sink and then tried to open the mysterious bottle.
It took him a few tries but he eventually figured out the combination of twists and pulls that loosened the cap. He tilted it onto his palm after a moment revealing it was full of small blue gel-capsules, they were obviously some manner of medicine and he looked at Jakiikii in curiosity.
“What is this?” He said slowly.
She shifted from foot-to-foot nervously as her normally tan mottled skin shifted a pale white. Without her stealth suit the effect was magnified as the fiberoptic-like fur that covered her chest also flashed subtly more white than it already was in response to the change in her chromatophores.
She shook her head. “I don’t know, she just called it medicine. She didn’t say what type.” Jakiikii stepped closer, one of her hands moving towards him and the pills even as he scrutinised them closer.
He didn’t like doctors very much, they always acted so self-assured. Like they could do no wrong because they knew better than everyone else. He looked at Jakiikii again and the hard core of stubborn pride he wore softened as he saw the concern writ plain across her features.
She pleaded. “Oh Paulie, please take them. She said one in the morning and one before bed. They will act to help you, dampen the pain and allow your body to heal.”
She reached for him now and her hands gripped his own a second later. The last vestiges of his mental armour were eroded away like snow on a warm summer’s day at her words and gentle touch.
He nodded and spoke, “Ok. For you, I will.”
He walked across the room with her in tow, the kitchen was empty but he quickly located a glass and filled it with water from the sink. He shook one of the pills from the still open bottle and lifted it to his lips before his hand stopped seemingly all on its own.
Paulie frowned and his brows furrowed, that was odd.
He lowered his hand and grabbed the glass in the other before trying again. There was a stinging pain behind his left eye and his hand stopped again of its own accord. Almost as if there were an invisible string tying it down to the countertop and preventing his movement.
“W-what?” He stammered as he looked at his own disobedient hand. The pressure in his head increased, a low bass screech seeming to echo from somewhere deep in the bowels of his mind. He snarled internally. Of course, the parasite!
‘You will not stop me, pathetic creature.’ A voice seemed to slither to his consciousness unbidden. The voice was darkly familiar, though he was not used to hearing it so weak sounding. The voice sounded pained, out of wind and tired like a man that had just finished running a great distance.
Paulie yelled back internally, his voice a harsh scream inside his own head. ‘You have no power to stop me, I reject you!’ And he strained against the control that had gripped his exterior limb. Slowly, centimeter by centimeter the hand with the pill moved closer to him as the voice in his head screeched in anger, then in fear.
He put the pill in his mouth and swallowed it with a huge gulp of water. Some of the liquid went down the wrong tube and he doubled over in a sudden coughing fit. The glass fell from his fingers to clatter upon the floor, but it did not shatter. The strange materials of this place were far too durable to be undone by a simple fall.
Jakiikii was on him immediately. Six hands patted his back, others rubbing his arms as he coughed and retched. He stood shakily and then spat into the sink, his chest heaving and a bright spot of pain in the center of his chest that made him see spinning stars in his eyes.
“Are you okay? What was that?” He heard Jakiikii ask him as he stopped coughing his lungs out onto the cold floor.
Paulie shook his head and waved a hand. “Just.. the wrong.. t-tube.” He coughed again, thumping a free hand on his chest in effort to relieve the pain that seemed to squeeze him from the inside out.
She seemed to relax a bit as she realised he had just accidently inhaled the water. She grinned at him, her mouth flicking open slightly as she did so. “You know, I don’t think humans can breathe underwater like termaxxi can.” He glanced at her suddenly, mouth agape even as he tried to suppress further outbursts of coughing.
“You can do what?”
She didn’t get the chance to respond as both of their communicators went off almost simultaneously in the other room. He looked at her and cleared his throat again before they moved out of the small kitchen. He stuck the bottle of pills on the table before grabbing his commie from the bedside desk and putting it on.
He shook his head as there was another wave of internal pressure, the feeling slowly receding until it seemed nothing more than a dull ache in the very corner of his mind. Even that seemed to fade away as he took a deep breath.
Shaking his head to clear it of the odd transmission, he pressed the button to answer the ongoing call and was unsurprised to see Junior Detective Sasfren’s scaly face on the picture feed. She started talking immediately before he even had the chance to say hello.
“Oh thank the makers of the ancient.. you are okay!” She said loudly. Paulie once more opened his mouth to speak but the alien’s expression petals flared wide in the small picture as she continued right on. “You and Jakiikii gave us the slip and a zalcing big scare. Aril is going to be fine, I know you are worried about her. She sends her thanks for trying to check up on her last night, as do I.” She finished, her bright expression petals flaring a bright lavender and yellow.
He nodded. “Yes. And yes I did. Jakiikii was worried too..” He glanced at her, but she seemed deep in conversation with another and he turned back to Sasfren. “So, what about you? What is going on, what is the plan? Do we need to move? What about…”
He was cut off. Sasfren hissing sharply as she shook her scaly head again. Her pupilless eyes fixed on him through the screen as she mouthed silently to herself and then spoke. “Yes, well. That is the thing, you need to stay put for the time being.”
“Stay put?!” He exclaimed loud enough that Jakiikii looked his way curiously. He gave her a short nod and a smile before turning his attention back toward the maggastium woman. She was fidgeting a little now, he could see her arm moving as the camera view bounced around a little. “Why the hell should we stay put now? Especially after what happened, now is the time to move!” He was a bit taken aback, but he calmed himself down with a few deep breaths.
Sasfeen took his silence to gather her thoughts as she slowly responded, “Well. Things have changed, Paulie. There is more going on here than you know.” The statement was cryptic and he wanted to protest. She shook her head sharply and waved her free hand as he opened his mouth to speak. “No no, all in time. And now is not it. Mack is the one behind this decision if that makes you feel any better.” It did a little, he admitted to himself.
He sighed. “Ok. Fine, we'll stay put. But it had better not be for that long.” She nodded.
“I understand. We will get back to you as soon as we can. In the meantime, sit tight. Mursk and the PDF forces there will keep you protected until it is time to move.” She seemed to hesitate, and then looked him directly in the eyes. Or as much as she could be said to do so over the tiny screen of his wrist-worn communication device.
“Oh, and Paulie?”
He nodded to her, “Yes?”
Sasfren smiled a little more warmly, her snake-like face wrinkling as she bared just the hint of her long teeth. “I know why you did what you did. Thank you, you probably saved our lives. Your action took the pressure off me and Aril long enough for us to regroup with the others. I think I owe you my life, hers as well.”
Paulie felt his eyes grow a touch misty and his face tightened with emotion. “No problem.”
Sasfren gave him some sort of salute or farewell gesture before the link cut. He sniffed and then turned to see Jakiikii already finished and looking at him. He gave her a smile and asked, “Well, that was Sasfren. Who called you?”
She shook her head. “Somebody I used to know from the precinct, they had a message from Mack, he wants us to stay put and NOT go outside anymore.” She chuckled wryly as she said it.
Paulie folded his arms and grumbled something noncommittal under his breath as she stepped to his side and wrapped two arms around his waist.
“Oh come on, stop complaining. I mean, you are locked in here with me after all.” She blinked at him and he chuckled. “Now come on, help me make breakfast. You probably want more of that weird stuff you like to chew on.”
“You mean actual food?” He joked.
She shook her head. “Whatever you call it.” And they stepped from the main room into the kitchen together, laughing as they did so.