we should all be allowed to vote slay or no slay on met gala looks and if the majority vote is no slay , a trap door opens underneath the person and they fall into a willy wonka-esque spiral hole that leads directly into hell
Cet calmly cut down the fleeing inhabitants with a steady beam of burning light as Uahl and Seld intercepted the single ship that had managed to make it off the ground. Cet slew perhaps more species in those few hours than he had in his entire military career, and the unarmed people of BN-225 were hapless before him. An orchestra of death howls surrounded him as the settlers burned, and he could hear screaming from one of the nearer huts as Sab helped himself to some poor individual; gender and species mattered not, so long as Sab could find a hole he liked. Cet chose to ignore him and his barbarism. Finally content with his work, he smiled as he lowered his beam focuser. The tubular lens radiated heat from the prolonged exposure, and he allowed it to cool before he began polishing it carefully with a fine cloth and a little mineral oil. Sab had left his empty plasma thrower lying in a puddle outside of the hut. The soft, damp ground beneath his feet felt spongy as he made his way between smoking corpses to the administrative building he had cleared out earlier. The computers would hold a plethora of information on the inhabitants as well as allow him access to the existing scanners to amplify their own.
The sky was a cool grey, and the local star’s light was dampened severely before it could reach the watery surface of the boggy world. BN-225 was a small planet, but an incredibly old one. One of the officials on Cet’s homeworld had suggested that life had existed on BN-225 before anywhere else in the galaxy, though at a glance it did not appear to have evolved much. Most of the life on the planet was plant or plant-like and thick groves of trees and vines spanned the globe. Cet wouldn’t have been surprised if the planet had been covered by a single ocean at one point, or if the plants were simply covering the water, accumulating enough dead organic matter to rot above the hidden seas to form soil and mud. He shuddered as he imagined what horrors the untold depths might hold, though he told himself that it was due to the chill in the air.
Cet slung the pristine beam focuser over one shoulder as he walked up several metal steps to the main entrance of the administrative building. Corpses littered the ground, and he was grateful that a sophisticated weapon like his cauterised instantly rather than allowing his victims to bleed everywhere. They were, after all, going to have to clean up and live here for the untold future. Cet waved a six-fingered hand before the computer tower as a scanner detected his species and the keyboard warped and reformed to suit his own needs. He had been a little worried; most computers had millions of keyboards and billions of languages to suit the broad array of species that may use them, but he had held no delusions that a forgotten settlement this far out would have the information on file for an ourou, his own race.
A greyscale holo-screen projected before him, and he activated the little gear widget to change a few settings. He expertly adjusted the projector to display a colour spectrum accessible by him and his comrades before he went delving into the records. A few deft activations and several keystrokes later he had the information he wanted. The planet had been home to a total of seventy-two settlers. Three families of kikn from SK-356, one family of eutphon from RT-579, three individual skur from SK-998, two humans from XT-110 (though the record said one had died several cycles ago), and one gurg from PT-293, all of whom had lived there for quite some time, with little contact other than with occasional supply ships and infrequent research vessels. Cet made a face. He didn’t remember killing a gurg, and the thought of one running loose on the planet filled him with apprehension for their mission. Cet closed the projector as he pulled his communicator from his pocket.
“All clear on this end. The computer says there are seventy-two individuals, but one of them is a gurg. I’ll have Sab help do a body count,” Cet spoke clearly and concisely into the black rectangular device, though his voice was likely to be garbled due to the cloud cover.
“Copy that, Cet,” Uahl called back, his voice crackling through the small device. “We just sent their transport down in flames, we’ll be right there.” Almost as if on queue, a massive explosion rattled the entire building, threatening to topple Cet. He remained upright, despite its efforts. Cet waited for a moment for an aftershock, then checked that his beam focuser wasn’t damaged before proceeding out of the administrative building. When he finally found Sab he was still busy with the corpse of the poor thing he had taken into the hut earlier.
“Put that thing down, Sab. We’ve got work to do.” Sab grunted in reply. “I need you to do a body count. There were seventy-two sentients on this planet before we came, and among them was a gurg.” Sab grunted again, too concentrated on the task at hand to dignify Cet with a proper response. “A gurg, which, I may not have dealt with. So if you want to sleep soundly tonight, you had best help me find out if it’s dead or not.” Rolling his eyes, Sab dropped the cadaver on the ground before collecting the nearby bodies and lining them alongside the first one. The hulking brute was bigger and stronger than an ourou had any right to be, and as dumb as he was stubborn, but he got the job done and that was all that mattered.
Cet sat on a rusted old pipe attached to a nearby water purifier and took a small orange triangle from his pocket and squeezed it slightly. The holo-screen opened up on the same page he had left off on, and a tiny triangle guided him to the exact spot he had ended on previously before it blinked out of existence to let him read unabated. He had always enjoyed reading mythology, especially those from other species. It was interesting to see how different myths and legends could be but even more so how similar. Certain trends appeared and reappeared despite vast differences in origins, and Cet found immense pleasure in connecting them together. The story before him was that of a valiant young Arrhun named Oedilek, who had gone into a mythological monsters den. The monster in question was a Turrurru, or in an old tongue of the Arrhun, “Many-Eyed.” The legends said that it took the eyes of any who looked upon it for itself, killing its victim instantly. Cet had read of several monsters now that killed those that viewed them; they turned their victims inside out or forced them to age rapidly, or even changed their flesh into stone. Cet’s concentration was broken as the gravity engines of their ship, the Forerunner, thrummed loudly in the atmosphere, slowing its descent to the muddy ground.
Seld waited until the ship’s stairs deployed before descending, followed by Uahl. The Forerunner was under Seld’s command, Sab’s older brother by a cycle and a half. Despite their relation, Cet couldn’t think of two ourous more different; Sab was a lumbering brute, the perfect soldier in His majesty Emperor Whel’s army. He frightened the other recruits into line, and was a literal monster on the battlefield, wreaking havoc with a plasma thrower and his huge hands; Seld was a relatively reserved and soft-spoken individual, and he maintained a cool head in the heat of battle. Seld’s aim with a beam focuser rivalled Cet’s, and he was a better pilot than not, as well as an exceptional gunman on the forward charged particle cannons. Sab had been Seld’s first pick when he was granted their mission.
“Cet, I’m transferring you the coordinates of the transport. Uahl and I have to set up the connection with their deep space scanners, and I need to report to homeworld,” Seld’s voice was barely audible over the sound of the cooling engines as he tapped his communicator screen several times. A thin mist had gathered at ankle height, weaving between the huts which made up the settlement, and dancing around the landing gear of the Forerunner.
Cet hadn’t forgotten the mission; BN-225 was the closest settlement to an all but forgotten hyperspace tunnel, and it was their job to monitor it and notify their homeworld in case a fleet happened to make the jump. The tunnel itself had begun to decay due to a lack of maintenance, and it meant nearly certain death to attempt a jump through it, but the Emperor’s generals were taking no chances. They would not risk His majesty’s royal army to some unforeseen flanking. Seld’s team were either to monitor jump activity from a cramped ship for an indeterminate time or take the closest settlement by force and set up their own scanners there to do their monitoring. They chose the latter.
Cet lightly brushed a delicate finger over his spot in the text as he shut off the holo-screen, placing the small orange triangle into a pocket and nodding in compliance. He carefully removed the beam focuser from its sheath on his back, chrome plating shining despite the dreary lighting. Sab dumped the last body in the line (fifty-three in total, none of which being the dreaded gurg) before sitting down on the front step of a wooden hut. Cet called upon Sab to join him, and he grunted in annoyance before standing up once more. Uahl had already begun unloading the delicate dishes from the Forerunner to prepare their satellite array.
“We’re going to go here,” Cet indicated the tiny map on his communicator screen, “and count the bodies on the ship.” Sab looked at Cet with dull eyes, mild annoyance briefly interrupting his glazed over expression. Upon happenstance, Cet spotted a pile of wood on the edge of the dense bog, with a large machete of sorts lodged into a tree stump. “Go grab that, Sab,” Cet said. Sab smiled as he saw the big blade, and he quickly collected it before he and Cet delved into the marsh. He swung it a few times, hacking off a couple tree limbs and slicing some vines. Looking pleased with himself, Sab followed Cet contentedly. The ancient trees were spaced out evenly, but Cet quickly lost sight of the Forerunner as the mist enshrouded their companions.
The ground in the settlement had been soft and damp, but beyond its boundaries, the mud sucked noisily at the two ourou’s feet. Vines beneath the mud threatened to trip Cet as he gingerly picked his way through the muck, and Sab had fallen once, nearly losing his new found toy in the ancient bog and ending up soaked from head to toe in the vile decay. Cet almost tripped over his own feet when he found a solid bit of ground. Looking down he could see a pattern of old stones laid out beneath the cloudy water but above the mud. To his left the hidden path appeared to lead back to the main settlement, but to his right it looked as though it snaked in the general direction of the fallen transport. Cet showed Sab the hidden stones, and together they splashed onward towards the crashed ship and, hopefully, their missing gurg.
It wasn’t long before they came upon the ship. It hadn’t landed very far from the old stone steps, and the water, mud and vines had absorbed the impact, preventing it from gouging out a path due to its speed and trajectory, dissipating that energy throughout much of the surrounding area. Cet saw that most of the plants within the immediate vicinity of the crashed ship had been blackened or burned, but there were no fires to be seen. Steam still rose from the hull of the ruined ship in the cool air. The plants were too damp, and the air too humid, to facilitate so much fire and flame, and he was not shocked to find the ship extinguished and inert. Part of the hull had been torn away, allowing them a view of its burnt tenants. Cet and Sab stepped back into the muck to move around the ship and perform a body count, Cet holding his beam focuser close to his chest and away from the filth around his legs, Sab skewering bodies upon his machete and flinging them out of the ship and into the mud. Cet counted the bodies as Sab threw them out… fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. He counted seventeen bodies. That left two unaccounted for, and Cet still hadn’t seen the gurg anywhere.
Just then, Sab gave a massive grunt and Cet heard chitin cracking and tendons tearing as Sab wrenched the blackened corpse of the gurg from twisted metal pipes. One of the pipes broke, sending a short torrent of bright blue coolant pouring into the marsh. Sab threw the large body down, sending up a tremendous splash, nearly getting some on Cet and his weapon. That made eighteen bodies, Cet counted, which left one unaccounted for, but as long as the gurg was dead he could sleep easily. The first bodies had already begun to disappear beneath the shallow water as the bog swallowed them whole, and the coolant had all but disappeared as though the plants themselves had soaked it into their roots. The ship, as well, was partially sunken and would be fully submerged come the following night. Cet wondered; it was almost as though the planet was resisting change. The ancient bog hadn’t changed for millennia, and these mild disturbances gave it no reason to change now. Cet shuddered as he and Sab walked back onto the path.
The mist draped the bog in mystery, terminating the visible path as it snaked between the ancient trees, but Cet remembered that the ship had been to their left when they came upon it. Or had it been right? He tried to check his communicator for directions, but the digital compass only swung wildly, and when he tried to call up Seld or Uahl he only received static. Confused and a little anxious, Cet stood, pondering his conundrum as Sab stared unknowingly, waiting for Cet to make a choice for the both of them. Finally giving up, Cet decided that the path had to lead somewhere, and there was nowhere on the planet besides the settlement of recluses for it to lead back to if his initial decision didn’t bring them back to the ship. He turned to his left and began walking and Sab followed him unquestioningly.
The old growth surrounded them on both sides, ancient gnarled trees with too many branches and too few leaves threatening to grab them and pull them under like giant twisted hands. The primordial trees were peculiarly short and stunted, but their venerable trunks stretched further around than any tree ought to. Cet gripped his weapon tightly, listening closely to Sab’s heavy breathing. He often treated the big lout with disdain, but it was times like these he was glad to have the wall of muscle close by. As the two soldiers splashed through the watery marsh the mist gave way before them to reveal the twisted path they followed. Cet couldn’t say how long they had been walking, and just as he was considering turning back a dark shape materialised and loomed over them.
The structure was not much bigger than the simple huts within the main settlement, though it looked as though it had come from a completely different place. White paint peeled off of the derelict wooden walls, and upon the black tiles of the roof moss grew heavily and lichen dangled from the edges. Squares had been cut out of the walls and glass had been inserted almost artfully, although the glass was too obscured to see through. The humidity had condensed against the window panes, allowing a thin mucous like growth to conceal the contents of the neglected structure. Wooden steps that had once been white were blackened with mould, leading up to a heavy wooden door. Cet would have thought the forsaken structure deserted had it not been for that hideous noise; creeeek….. creeeeeek…. Over and over again, like wind swinging a door open and shut on time-worn hinges, though there was no wind that Cet could feel. Strange music bled through the old building, filling Cet’s ears and mind as though to hypnotise him. Immediately filled with apprehension, Cet turned on his heel to leave, only to bump into Sab.
Sab stood as still as a statue with what Cet thought was curiosity on his face, though he had never seen Sab express interest in anything other than his debased joys. Before he could say a word of warning, Sab wandered up to the ancient building. The soggy old wood should have cracked under his weight, but instead, it simply bent and squeaked when he made his way up the steps. He reached out for the latch on the heavy wooden door, rattling it back and forth before simply twisting it and breaking the locking mechanism. The music and the creaking stopped suddenly and Cet held his breath as Sab pushed the door inward, revealing a dark interior. There was a sudden BOOM like an explosion, and Sab’s corpse slowly teetered before falling backwards, writhing as it fell down the rotten steps.
Cet couldn’t stop staring in horror at the giant ourou. He could see rippling muscles spasm under scarred skin as he gazed in fear. Where his head once sat upon his short neck there was nothing more than shattered bone and torn flesh. It was as though his head had exploded right off of his shoulders… that would explain the loud noise Cet had heard. He jumped back in terror, nearly dropping his beam focuser in the mud as the big wooden door slammed shut. He sat there for a stunned moment. Then ….creeeeek… creeeeeek….. as the strange music seeped through the chilly air once more, trying to draw him closer.
Cet had never run so fast in his life. He ran and ran, his weapon dangling uselessly in his hand as he tried to escape the unknown horror lurking in that evil structure. Ancient sentinels flew by him as he tried to avoid slipping and falling, and he couldn’t say how long he had run before the path finally ended at the settlement. When he finally arrived back at the settlement he was dizzy with fear and exhaustion. He collapsed on the soft ground, finding small solace in the cool earth against his burning skin. His beam focuser lay in the dirt beside him, forgotten. Cet heard shouting, and then felt a pair of strong hands grip him and pull him to his feet, but he didn’t have the strength to resist as they pulled him forwards. Exhausted, he shut his eyes. He dreamt of the terrible unnamed thing beyond that dark doorway.
When Cet came to he was lying on a soft mattress in a dim room, his nightmare faintly etched on his mind, though already partially forgotten. Sterilised white walls and glaring white lights in the hall outside the door, as well as a biometric scanner aimed from the ceiling at Cet told him he was in a med bay, and from the lingering scent of burnt flesh and hair, he knew he was in the administrative building. Cet sat up, and saw at the foot of his bed Seld sitting down in deep thought, and Uahl moving coloured pieces to make patterns in a little game that involved a flat board and different shapes with different colours. Seld looked up at the noise and held out a hand as if to calm Cet down.
“Easy, easy. We’ve got your hydration levels back up and your temperature is returned to normal, but your heart rate still hasn’t slowed much. Can you tell us what happened? Where’s Sab?” Seld asked, his steady voice calming and reassuring. A sudden torrent of memories came flooding back to Cet, and he tried to stutter out a coherent answer.
“I-I-I d-don’t know! H-he j-j-just looked at it, a-and his h-h-h-head….” Cet trailed off, his jaw shaking wildly as he tried to choke out an answer. He avoided eye contact with Seld as though he, too, might spontaneously die before his very eyes.
“Hey, Cet, calm down! You’re safe now. You’re safe. Was it the gurg?” Uahl stood up from the game to hand Cet a couple pills and a glass of purified water. Cet gulped the pills down without question and without water. An artificial peace washed over him as they took effect almost immediately, and he stopped shaking.
“N-no. The gurg was dead, burned up in the crash. But… but we also found an old stone path beneath the water and we followed it. We found a building, a wooden building, out there in the swamp. There were strange sounds coming from it, and I… I wanted to leave. Sab walked up to the door and opened it, but as soon as he saw whatever was inside, h-his… his head exploded,” Cet finished the story, and looked up to see their incredulous faces.
“Exploded? What do you mean exploded?” Uahl asked.
“I mean, he just looked through that old doorway and his head exploded. There was a loud boom, and the next thing I knew his head had blown up and he was dead,” Cet left out the details of Sab’s writhing corpse.
“Did you see what was inside?” Uahl pressured him as Seld stood silently, thinking.
“No! If I did, I wouldn’t be here! I t-t-told you guys, he looked in the building and his head exploded. Th-that’s all I know, that’s all I know…” Cet could feel the fleeting effects of the pills begin to wear off, and he stared intently at the end of his bed rather than at his two companions.
“Listen, Cet. I know you’re scared right now, but I need you to get a hold of yourself. I believe you. I believe you, but we need to go and find out what that thing in the swamp was. Okay? Do you have the coordinates?” Seld asked him gently, seemingly unperturbed by his brother’s death. Cet shook his head. He should have taken the coordinates, but he had been too scared of the unseen horror. “Then I’m sorry Cet, but I have to ask that you bring us there.” Cet looked up at Seld, his eyes wide in fright.
“N-no! I can’t go back! We should just burn the whole swamp down, we should just burn it down. We shouldn’t go back. There’s something evil out there,” Cet reached instinctively to his beam focuser on his shoulder but it wasn’t there.
“Cet, we’ve got to go. The three of us can’t stay here if there’s something out there with ill intent for us. You have to bring us there,” Seld’s tone was firm. Against his better judgement, Cet nodded his head.
“Okay.”
An hour later they had suited up, wearing light body armour and wielding beam focusers. Cet had found his beam focuser lying in the dirt where he had left it and had furiously tried to wipe away the dirt and smears, grimacing as he imagined the filth it had lain in. The path hadn’t been hard to find once they knew what to look for, and Cet led the way through the dreary swamp with his newly polished weapon pointed straight ahead. A half an hour in they found the half-sunken ship, and Cet noticed the bodies Sab had thrown upon the watery ground had disappeared beneath the mud and the vines. It was another hour of walking before they came upon the decaying structure. It loomed overhead as though it were about to swallow him up, and Cet could hear the dreaded creeeek…. creeeeeeek… creeeek… and unholy music emanating from within. Sab’s body had vanished, swallowed up by the swamp… or swallowed up by the unknowable horror inside the wooden building. Cet shivered, and this time, he knew it wasn’t due to the chill.
Uahl placed a hand on Cet’s shaking shoulder as she and Seld stepped by him, weapons in hand. Cet followed closely, standing directly behind Uahl and concentrating on staring at his weapon. Uahl reached out to the door, but he hardly touched it when the old wooden rectangle began to swing inwards with a creeeeeeek of its own. The music and the creaking noise ceased at the sound of the door swinging open, and Cet could see the distorted reflection of the horror in the house in the gleaming chrome plating of his weapon. There was a successive BOOM BOOM and Cet felt warm blood splatter the back of his head and neck as he turned to flee once more. He didn’t need to turn around to know that his two companions were now headless corpses.
He ran as far as his legs would take him, nearly collapsing from exhaustion. Finally, he had made his way back to the half-sunken transport, ducking inside and sitting down in a partially burnt seat as he tried to catch his breath. What was that thing? He had never seen anything like it, though admittedly he had only seen its reflection. Its reflection. Cet would have laughed if it weren’t for the terror which gripped his mind so completely. He hadn’t looked directly at the thing. Seld, Sab, and Uahl had, and now they were dead. Could it be? he wondered. Both encounters with the unseeable terror had resulted in the deaths of his companions but not himself, and it was they who had looked directly upon the thing. Cet let out a nervous laugh. It was just like one of the monsters in myth, which killed with a glance. Perhaps those mythological monsters were based on some primordial mode of life that could actually kill with a glance. It made sense that those creatures would die out as heroes hunted them down, and be reduced to legends, but on an old world like this one, they may still exist.
Gripping tightly to his theory, Cet quickly began working on removing a piece of chrome plating from the inner wall of the slowly sinking transport. The smoke had blackened it, and it had been warped by heat, but it was all he had. He tore at the fabric of one of the seats in the ship and scrubbed at the chrome shard beneath the water. Satisfied with his work, he dried it off and began polishing it with his fine cloth and the mineral oil he had kept in his pocket. He lost track of time as he prepared the makeshift mirror for his upcoming fight, and the ship had all but sunken by the time he was satisfied. Holding it up he could see his reflection quite clearly, and when he held it at an angle he could see behind him quite easily. Cet risked a smile before he began the long walk back to the ancient evil in the heart of the swamp.
When Cet arrived the bodies of his friends had disappeared and he considered turning around and leaving that God forsaken planet altogether. Creeeek… creeeeek… creeeek…. The dreaded sound seeped between chords of the mysterious music and Cet slowly climbed the steps. Holding the polished chrome mirror up to look behind him and awkwardly holding his beam focuser to point behind him, he pushed the door open and the noises stopped.
Within the dim room sat the horror, perched upon a peculiar wooden chair. Upon its lap was a blanket with a floral pattern draped over its bottom half. From its scalp grew tendrils, snaking their way down its wrinkled and sagging flesh. Its face looked as though it were melting and as it turned to face him Cet could see the drooping flesh wobble and shake. Upon its head, or what Cet thought was a head, were several orifices. Two held eyes that glared right through him as though to tear his very soul from his body, and one on the bottom held teeth yellowed with age. Cet’s eyes widened in dismay as all hope fled his body and he felt his bowels empty. His beam focuser clattered to the ground, forgotten in his intense fear.
“W-w-what are you?” he managed to stutter.
“I’m retired, and you ourou bastards are tresspassing!” the ancient horror rasped through its age-old mouth. Cet’s head exploded into a cloud of viscera as Old Lady Kowalski pulled the trigger, her late husband’s 12 gauge spitting hot lead into the invader across the room.
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