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Character
The mother is dead. Her broken mind finally took her. Everyone else is dead or dying too, and I will be shortly as well. The boy seems unharmed, at the very least, I don't think they would ever hurt him. I have done my best to comfort him, but I can hear the bolts of the doors cracking now. They'll be upon me soon enough. Soon I will be one with the Ashla, I think, but the boy must be retrieved. She instructed me not to tell the master of his existence, begged it of me, and I did as she asked. I think some part of me pitied her being locked away in this prison. Perhaps I shouldn't have.
The bolts have broken. I can hear them screaming. I've sedated the boy now, please hurry; we don't have--
The message ended abruptly, having been transmitted to the highest powers on Ession automatically thirty seconds after the typing ceased per instructions. Any attempts at further contact with 'Xenobiology Station Three' would be met with nothing but static. The forgotten station, situated at the farthest eastern corner of the galaxy, hung in silence over a dying star, its lights flickering randomly as its limited power supply surged of its own accord.
Within, only a single organic life form drew breathe. He hung suspended among vines and brambles in the station center, cradled gently in the vegetation not unlike a baby in its cradle. His small chest rose and fell slowly, eyes squeezed tight in a peaceful slumber: a stark contrast to the scenes of carnage that surrounded his emerald cocoon. The bodies of his caretakers lay in mangled pieces scattered randomly throughout the circular atrium, bits of flesh, bone, and organs decorating the once tranquil garden that he had called home since his birth. The sentient vines that had bidden such destruction squirmed through the corpses, drawing forth whatever nutrients they could from their former protectors.
Above the boy hung his mother, or what remained of her. Silver hair covered the expression of anguish splayed across her pale features; her fingers curled against her scalp as she'd tried to claw the hair out of her head in her death throes. The vines had responded to those throes in turn, slaughtering anyone unlucky enough to be nearby at the time of her demise in hopes of relieving some of her pain by inflicting it unto others. Only her offspring had been spared. Only he had been able to break through the mire of her insanity at the end.
The priestess that had sent the message looked on at the boy as the last of her blood drained from the vicious wounds that marred her aging body. She could not bring herself to speak, and her thoughts came as sluggish suggestions rather than anything interpretable. All meaning was lost to her, save for the dull hope that this terror inflicted by and upon his mother was not genetic. If it was, she wondered with abject terror, then perhaps it would have been better to let the boy starve alone in this chamber.
Better to spare the galaxy what terrors he might wrought upon it in his own insanity. The thought barely scraped her mind before she expired entirely, the relief of the Ashla washing over her spirit as it was lifted from the prison of her flesh.
Pietro Demici
The bolts have broken. I can hear them screaming. I've sedated the boy now, please hurry; we don't have--
The message ended abruptly, having been transmitted to the highest powers on Ession automatically thirty seconds after the typing ceased per instructions. Any attempts at further contact with 'Xenobiology Station Three' would be met with nothing but static. The forgotten station, situated at the farthest eastern corner of the galaxy, hung in silence over a dying star, its lights flickering randomly as its limited power supply surged of its own accord.
Within, only a single organic life form drew breathe. He hung suspended among vines and brambles in the station center, cradled gently in the vegetation not unlike a baby in its cradle. His small chest rose and fell slowly, eyes squeezed tight in a peaceful slumber: a stark contrast to the scenes of carnage that surrounded his emerald cocoon. The bodies of his caretakers lay in mangled pieces scattered randomly throughout the circular atrium, bits of flesh, bone, and organs decorating the once tranquil garden that he had called home since his birth. The sentient vines that had bidden such destruction squirmed through the corpses, drawing forth whatever nutrients they could from their former protectors.
Above the boy hung his mother, or what remained of her. Silver hair covered the expression of anguish splayed across her pale features; her fingers curled against her scalp as she'd tried to claw the hair out of her head in her death throes. The vines had responded to those throes in turn, slaughtering anyone unlucky enough to be nearby at the time of her demise in hopes of relieving some of her pain by inflicting it unto others. Only her offspring had been spared. Only he had been able to break through the mire of her insanity at the end.
The priestess that had sent the message looked on at the boy as the last of her blood drained from the vicious wounds that marred her aging body. She could not bring herself to speak, and her thoughts came as sluggish suggestions rather than anything interpretable. All meaning was lost to her, save for the dull hope that this terror inflicted by and upon his mother was not genetic. If it was, she wondered with abject terror, then perhaps it would have been better to let the boy starve alone in this chamber.
Better to spare the galaxy what terrors he might wrought upon it in his own insanity. The thought barely scraped her mind before she expired entirely, the relief of the Ashla washing over her spirit as it was lifted from the prison of her flesh.
Pietro Demici
