Ruby red eyes shot open and words erupted from his lipless mouth in a stifled scream, “हेल्प मे गोद!” The pitiful scream was lost in the low thrum of constant sound that permeated the gloom all around him. Shimming bands of silver energy wrapped around the strange...man--if he could even be called such. Strange shadows flitted in the cavernous darkness around him. His breath surged from his slit-like nostrils in narrow vents. His thin, purple robes did little to dampen the chills that ran rampant all over his narrow, muscled frame. The cold slab of metal beneath him wrenched from him what little warmth still remained. “होव कोल्ड मुस्ट इत बे?” he mumbled to himself, teeth chattering.
A pleasant feminine voice filled the void. “The interior temperature remains constant at seven point two degrees Celsius, or forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Outside the complex, the temperature is currently negative seventeen degrees Celsius, or negative one point four degrees Fahrenheit.”
The ruby-eyed man arched a hairless brow. “English? I had not expected an answ-”
The disembodied voice seemed only too happy to converse. “Yes, Khmult. English is my default language. I can communicate in over six million for-”
“-Khmult?!?” the imprisoned man interrupted. “Is this my name?”
The question seemed to give the female voice pause. Finally, it replied, “It is your designation.”
“Where am I? What is this place?” Khmult queried.
“You are currently located within Holding Cell A113, Sub-Level 6. The purposes of this facility are classified.”
The silver light in his constraint bands erupted into scarlet and the low-level hum that buzzed in his ears blared into a screeching klaxon. Khmult jerked his head around, his ruby eyes straining to make out any new details in the bloody illumination. All he could discern were worked stone walls, some odd machinery with organic shapes--some of which was hooked into him via tubes and wires, and a slab of metal.
A door!
Khmult’s heart began to race. Maybe he could escape. His palms began to sweat. Almost immediately, they began to tingle. “Woman! Voice! What’s happening?” He cried into the empty air, seeking his formless companion. The panic cracked his voice. For some reason, he hated the sound of it. His palms were hurting now. It felt like angry scorpions were inside his flesh and were stinging and clawing, trying to get out.
Then, they did.
Without warning, Khmult collapsed, cracking his head on the frigid stone floor. Instinctively, he reached for the back of his skull, rubbing vigorously as if to brush away the flaring pain. It was then that he realized that he was no longer bound. His hands, feet, and torso were free! The metal slab that had held him was utterly gone. There was nothing more than wisps of dust left in in its place. A spike of anger surged up Khmult’s spine. “What is happening here?!” His scream was beaten down under the incessant klaxon’s auditory hammer.
The metallic slab slid into the ceiling--it was the portal’s snake-like hiss that saved him from the first blast. Sizzling energy ripped across Khmult’s ribs and shredded the connecting tubes and wires. Two men in winterized polar gear, hoods, masks and goggles stepped into the room as the second man fired his weapon. The shot went wide, punching a hole in the stone behind Khmult. The baton-weapons waited impatiently, sizzling and popping like cooking meat on a spit.
The metallic fizz of radio communication slipped in between the blaring klaxons, along with some trailing words, “Subject…free….possible…escape…”
“Not possible, probable”, Khmult growled through gritted teeth. The scorpions were stinging again and he had an idea of what to do with them this time. Almost on instinct, he flung his hands across his chest in diagonal arcs, trying his level best to release whatever stinging things lay inside towards the men’s chests.
Strange symbols of amber light erupted from Khmult’s hands, writhing like newly birthed snakes. The emblems morphed and moved like things alive as they leapt across the room and slammed into the men’s mid-sections--
#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #Khmult, #DivineNine
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