Drip

drip drip

drip drip drip

drip drip drip drip

drip drip drip drip drip

Xant waited in the back as the Ranger soldier opened the long-sealed door, to the abandoned facility. He and his research team would be the first people to step into the complex in nearly a thousand years. The planet had been abandoned in anticipation of the oncoming Rajavan invasion, wiped off the records and sealed away in hoped that the original residents would be able to return. The rajavan swarm passed over the planet it had been completely untouched, save for the eternal hands of time. The surface had mostly eroded away, but the underground complexes were preserved.

“Heave!” Sir Klyren, the Knight in charge of security shouted as one of the soldiers under his command tore open the steel sliding door with his claws.

The dark, cool air from inside rushed past him.

For everyone, standing in that cramped hallway, the expected, stale, rotting air they were so used to feeling was no longer there.

It was fresh, vibrant, alive.

“There’s vegetation!”

Dr Aalsutia Roveen shouted as she turned off her bioluminescent light, her grey skin glowing from the light in the room.

The excitement was contagious, Xant especially remembered how desperately he wanted to see the plants inside, what new discoveries they would be able to bring back to the inner worlds.

The reclamation was normally documentation of dead worlds, to find such life was a reaffirming of their life's purpose, the work they were grown to do.

The scientists tried to scramble in first but Sir Klyren stopped them in their tracks.

“Let me clear the room first!” he shouted, growling under his breath “Ravenous maggots…”

The large red caped knight stepped into the room, his escort of three rangers following after.

They scanned the room for rajavan bio signs,

“Clear commander,”

“Clear commander!”

“All clear commander.”

“Right, all clear, citizens file in-” the research team didn’t need to be told twice.

The entire room was giant, completely overgrown by unknown vegetation, the UV lamps in the room had not been turned off, and its power supply uninterrupted in all this time, they had grown into the water reservoir. Lush red grass, blue climbing vines, green bushes with white flowers all manner of varieties unknown and known.

New strains of medicinal plants, and mutations of those strains, this room alone was a treasure trove for the galactic council.

Xant approached a small section of the room, where new shoots of the red grass were growing, he could hear the excited chatter of his companions, the bored sighs of the soldiers.

He recalled Sir Kylren taking his men deeper unto the undiscovered facility, leaving their team to sample and record their findings.

How engrossed he was examining the veins and inner workings of its structure, lost in his own world, it wasn’t until he heard the sickening crunch of teeth on flesh that was he snapped out of his trance.

The Scout Vassal had peeled itself from the overgrown wall, its skin covered in growing vegetation, stirred to life from hibernation by the stir of movement and the scent of the living.

With one bite the Vassal had eaten Dr Roveen, swallowing her whole, before lunging toward his coworkers, jaw unhinged scooping up plant matter, dirt and a screaming scientist.

Xant backed up against the wall, a monster between him and the exit while another friend lost their life. Bitten in half, their voice silenced with the crunching of their skull and the wet, oozing noise of blood and drool dripping from the vassal’s mouth.

Soon it was just him, and his looming death.

Fear had frozen him, but desperation forced him to try something crazy.

Freq pulses were little more than electric waves flowing throw his nerves, controlling the nerves of another was military-grade, he’d only accomplished it once before in training, he was never supposed to enact it outside of defence.

He threw himself into the pulse, stopping the vassal as best he could, slowing its movements.

Stomp,

Stomp

Stomp.

The beast drew closer, salivating with an open mouth, the stench of fresh blood on its breath, an eternal hunger for flesh. Xant was forced to stare into the abomination, his own muscles and nerves burning under the strain. He didn’t want to be eaten, he didn’t want to die here, with the rangers so close.

He didn’t want to die here!

He didn’t want to die!

The light shifted.

Xants arms held the looming figure of the Vassal in place, vicious words poured out of its mouth, mimicking his name.

“Doc, Doc, Calm down-”

Xant squeezed the muscles in his arm, locking his opponent’s nerves from receiving any other input. A vassal in branch? Had they been invaded so suddenly?!

He needed to warn Jasmine, he needed to get Rynard!

Xant broke away from the vassal, throwing his body and the vassal to one side so the flesh monster toppled over and into the empty pool reservoir. His whole body ached, he had been tense for so long, a citizen wasnt supposed to last as long as he did, nerve holds tended to strain ones own nervous system.

Xant scrambled off the deck to the halls below searching for Jasmine,He stormed into the master bedroom startling the sleeping human and her dogs.

“Jasmine!” Xant panicked, “there's a vassal! We need to run!”

The dogs started barking incoherently, Jasmine was yanked from deep sleep and charged towards Xant, faultering when her subconscious recognised who she was rushing.

“Jasmine we need to leave!” Xant shouted more forcefully, taking the humans arm and pulling her down the hall.

“Xant?” the human shook herself awake as her friend was dragging her towards the surface. Spades and Kimiko were growling aggressively, Sieglinde almost tripped jasmine over to get under her legs, all three followed their companions, Spades rushing to get out in front.

“A vassal in the underground facility!” Xant shouted back “They’ve eaten Dr Roveen and the Sir Kylen is too far to-”

“Wait wait, whose Dr Roveen? Are they one of Viitoic’s men?” Jasmine questioned, panic rising with her awareness.

“No she's the lead of the Jothram operation! We need to leave, hurry,” Xant explained, pulling her up the stairs while jasmine tried to get her footing.

“Jothram? I thought this place was called branch?”

“Branch?…” Xant reached to top deck of the yacht and the open air of the engineering hangar.

Rynard emerged from the pool’s cavity rolling his shoulder and flexing every muscle in his body.

Suddenly Xant’s memories didn't line up, they had been on Branch the day before, how could he be on Jothram moments ago but Branch now?...

“Didn't know you had it in ya doc,” the soldier chuckled, shrugging off the pulse as he climbed out of the pool “Who knew you could hold someone like me…”

“What is going on?” Xant asked bewildered.

“Xant? Are you okay?” Jasmine spoke softly with her friend.

Xant stood there trying to figure out what was going on, while Jasmine calmed the dogs down.

“I was on Jothram, I was with my old research team… I, I relived the Vassal attack… the memory was as clear as the day it happened,” it was just clear, he could feel the damp, he could smell the foliage…“But how? It wasn’t a memory I recalled willingly, and yet I felt as if I was there…”

“Sounds like you had a *********,” Jasmine yawned involuntarily, sitting on the sunbed and holding her head in her hands, shed managed to get maybe 3 hours of sleep tops.

“A what?”

“Its, like a dream, only bad, a ‘night’ mare”

“Night scare! Nightscare! friend Xant was having a nightscare!” Sieglinde said proudly, looking to Xant and Jasmine for affirmation. Xant petted the golden retriever’s ears as he tried to piece together what happened.

“A nightscare?” he had heard Sieglinde speak of them before, in regards to humans not being able to wake up.

“Dreams can be bad?” Xant asked, Jasmine nodded sadly.

“Yeah, and they suck too,” she tapped the side of her skull “When we sleep, human brain’s sometimes filter in our worries from our subconscious, I mean, the industrial freq, it gets mixed in with our memories and, our greatest fears and stresses take over for a bit.” She yawned, breaking up the explanation, “It may seem real, and I’ve woken up with a racing heart more than once, but they aren’t.”

“Do these dreams, make you violent in anyway?” Rynard spoke up, “say, attack an ally with a Nerve-hold?”

Jasmine shrugged.

“I mean, its possible, especially if they’re sleepwalkers, whats a nerve hold?”

“Nerve isolating pulse,” Rynard explained, rolling his shoulders and rubbing his throat “Locks up the connection between the brain and your limbs, a Zenthi speciality,” Rynard smirked, “You're a little too good at that Doc,”

“You mean that creepy controlling my body thing you put me through? Ugh!” Jasmine shivered, “wait Xant did that in his sleep?” the human stared at Xant worried, Rynard looked on more impressed than anything else.

“Is there anything we can do to prevent nightscares?”

Jasmine shook her head.

“No, not really, make sure your room is warm and avoiding stress help, but, mostly you just have to learn to shake off the aftermath…” Jasmine explained as she ruffled Spade’s fur.

Xant sat down on the end of the sunbed, staring through the floor below him.

“Learn to shake it off?… how many times have you experienced this jasmine?”

“More than I can keep count of,” She replied to her absolutely crestfallen friend, “You just, learn to live with them.”

Xant had suppressed those memories for years, he had burnt himself numb from that traumatic event, was he just supposed to relive that again and again? Without warning when it would happen? Would it ever disappear?

‘Sieglindes job was to wake her namegiver from nightscares, maybe she could help us too?’

Sieglindes job.

The night scares were prevalent in humans lives so much that they had trained a user intelligence to be of assistance. Another phenomenon that was simply a ‘normal’ in the experience of a human, between dreams, nightscares and a second voice inside your mind, it was a wonder a human could keep a grasp on reality itself.

He stroked his ears, folding his hands infront of him.

All that emotional wieght and willpower in exchange for a warped sense of reality.

Great power came at a great cost.

And the universe was making sure humans paid.