The Vlukkia

As Gerald ran down to the service elevators, Ms. Stubbs and the rest of his class leapt into the evacuation tubes, which sealed themselves behind them.

Gerald had the unnerving sensation of being alone as he walked out of the service elevator and into the outer shield wall. Little noises caught his attention. Skittering and breathing at the edge of his senses. He found himself jerking at noises and jumping at shadows. Not knowing what the creature looked like made it all the worse. His classmates were immensely powerful. Anything that could make them run for cover was not something to screw around with.

A shield wall parted before him, and as it closed behind him, he suddenly realized that he really shouldn't be touching anything in here. Breaking a door was one thing, but breaking a reactor could be cataclysmic. With images of mushroom clouds in his mind, he tucked his hands firmly into his pockets.

The room was dome-shaped, the walls crystalline, with veins of energy running through it. It reminded him of the arteries of aether running through the living planet he had seen in his vision, and he wondered if there was a connection between the two. The energy gathered at the center of the ceiling, where it cascaded down like a great blue and purple waterfall into the silvery distributor machines below. And in that waterfall he made out the clear outline of Trazhi. She had her legs crossed and her arms folded, as if in meditation.

"Wow, Trahzi, when you said you were going to go relax in the reactor, I didn't think you meant it literally."

Trahzi pounced out of the beam like a predator and landed on the floor, her body covered in fire. "Why? What did you think we meant?" she asked as the bulkhead beneath her feet melted at her touch.

The flames covering her body gradually died down. When Gerald realized this he blushed and turned around.

"What is wrong?" she asked.

"Um... well, you don't have any clothes on."

"Of course, the heat from the reactor would have vaporized them."

She stepped closer curiously, nearly touching his back. "Does nudity make you uncomfortable?"

"A little, yes."

She tilted her head. "That is so strange. You are born naked, beneath your clothes you are naked. It is your natural state. Do you fear your own nature?"

"Would you please get dressed? We have to go."

Her school uniform draped over a chair disappeared in a flash of fire then reappeared on her. "Why?"

"There's been an incident. A creature is loose in the school."

She blinked. "And you came to warn us?"

"Yes."

She looked around to emphasize that they were alone. "You are not very intelligent are you?"

"I've been called worse."

"Do you not see that here I could dispose of you? It would be very simple, just blame it on the creature."

Gerald's eyes grew wide. "I... suppose I hadn't considered that a possibility."

A ball of white-hot flame grew in her hand. "Why?"

Sweat rolled down his face. A droplet clung to the tip of his nose. "I suppose because I didn't think you would be so evil as to hurt someone who came to help you."

"Evil?" Trahzi paused for a moment. "Evil," she said again, as if trying to grasp the meaning.

She took a step forward. "You have surgeons on your world, do you not?"

He took a step back. "Yes."

She stepped forward again. "And when they cut out a cancer from a patient, are they being evil?"

He stepped back, bumping against a wall. "No."

"What about from the point of view of the tumor? It is alive after all, would it consider the surgeon evil?"

Gerald's eyes darted around, she had him backed into a corner. "I don't think tumors are capable, but if they were, I suppose so."

"And when a doctor gives his patient medicine to kill off a virus, what would the virus think of that doctor?"

"Is that how you see yourself?"

She nodded, and the fire in her hand grew bigger. "Words like 'evil' mean nothing to us. There is only strength and weakness, health and sickness. Only the strongest survive in this universe, and we make them stronger by removing the tumors."

She raised her hand to strike, and Gerald turned his face, awaiting the blow, but it never came.

Darkness was gathering around them. The air became greasy, and the sounds of the reactor became warped and twisted, like a dark breathing.

Trahzi spun around. "What is this?"

"Oh no, I think it found us," Gerald said. "Come on, we've got to get out of here." He reached out and grabbed her wrist, but his skin sizzled at the touch. White-hot shards of pain shot through his brain, and he instinctively yelped as he coddled his burnt flesh.

Trahzi looked at him in disbelief. "You are so stupid. How do you even survive?"

The room stretched, as if it were growing. The walls sped away into the distance, fading off into darkness.

They were small now, so small that what had been a nearby chair was now a mountain to the east. The air became cold. Their breath misted before them.

They looked at each other, questions on their lips, but the questions never arose.

The darkness was filling.

One eye opened, then another. Huge eyes, brimming with hatred.

More eyes opened, they looked down on the pair judgmentally. Thousands of eyes, then tens of thousands.

And then the screams began.

Gerald and Trahzi covered their ears, but nothing could shut out the screaming. It seemed to well up from within them, rattling their bones and throttling their organs.

"Weak," it said, and their bodies went cold.

"You are weak, small, and tiny."

Trahzi screamed, black blood trickling out of her nose and ears.

"We hate the small and the weak, and so we hate you!"

A great black hand reached down and scooped her up, millions of eyes dotted its surface. She reached down to free herself, but her strength was as nothing before it. Cruelly it squeezed her tiny frame. Her bones cracked, her lungs burned. The pain forced tears from her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks and pattered on the floor. She called out for help, but her voice was completely drowned out by the screams.

"Alone," the voice said, reverberating inside of her skull.

"You will always be alone. No one will ever care for you."

Trahzi screamed until she had no more breath to scream. Her vision was becoming blurry, darkness creeping at the edges of her sight.

"You will be hated by all of creation until the end of time."

"No," she whispered as her vision went black. Her whole body was shaking. "NOOOOOO!"

Then there was a loud metallic bang, and everything dissolved around her. The hand that held her turned to vapor, the endless darkness boiled away, and the eyes vanished one by one until only two remained.

Trahzi looked up and found Gerald standing over her, the stunned creature in his grip. The room was exactly as it had been before. She was lying on the floor before the reactor, which hummed sweetly.

"So, Trahzi can feel fear after all," Gerald observed.

"What... what was that?" she stammered.

Gerald tossed away the now bent chair he had used to stun the Vlukkia. "I think I understand now." He held up the leech-like creature. "Somehow this thing taps into your mind, floods you with images of your worst fears. Keeps you paralyzed while it eats you."

Trahzi shuddered and brought her knees up to her chin. "That sensation was... terrible."

Gerald regarded the slimy thing strangely. "It would appear that you and I are not so different after all. We are afraid of the same things. Being weak, being alone, and being hated. We share the same fears."

Trahzi looked around in shame. "But, how come you were not... crippled by it?"

Gerald looked at her sympathetically, then leaned over and extended his burnt hand. "Because I live it every day."