Planet Chimera (11 page)

“Now, Cleiver,” Salynanna shouted, holding a
portable radio transmitter in her hand. “Fire all cannons.”

“Roger,” he replied her, with a tone of fear
and regret. “I bid you all farewell, and may we meet again, when
this is all over.”

The first cannon, on the
left wall, fired first, falling three trees, below the hill, to the
ground. The second and third cannon were fired as well, which
caused the lurking mutant chimeras to scurry away in every
direction. We opened fire, shooting down all of the chimeras within
range, making our way down the snowy slope. Jutcer lost his balance
and spun down a few yards, hitting against a tree with his back. He
screamed in pain, his voice drawing a few mutant chimeras, who had
been following us from the distance. Salyanna and Siron hastened
their pace, guns blazing hot, trying to get to the injured Jutcer,
before the monsters got to him. I swung my gun around, shooting
down three mutant chimeras, in the head, which were prowling on the
unsuspecting Salyanna and Siron. Abruptly, at the second, the
cannon shell hit the tree, a few meters from Jutcer, causing it to
tilt in a dangerous way to the left side. And this was the same
location where Jutcer was lying. The cannon shell had destroyed the
tree’s thick bark, which in turn caused a massive amount of piled
up snow to fall to the ground.
What is
that Cleiver doing?
I thought.

“Jutcer,” Salyanna cried, plodding through
the snow with great difficulty. “Get up, right now, and run for it.
That tree is falling towards you.”

Disoriented, he looked up, his gun lying
next to him, and struggled to stand up. His teeth were red with
blood, his lower lip busted, and a small cut above his head. I
would be surprised if he could actually stand up and make a run for
it, considering his wounds and current state of mind. And if I
wanted to, I could have saved him from this predicament, but I
didn’t feel the urge to do anything, except to watch him out of
curiosity.

“I won’t let you die,” Salyanna screamed,
her red hair swerving wildly, and her fingernails turning into
claws.

She leapt into the air with ease, dropping
her gun into the snow, making a quick dash for Jutcer. Just as the
tree began to plunge down, she landed beneath it, grabbing him with
one hand, and making an unnatural death defying leap for the other
side. Squinting my eyes, I blinked, questioning myself on whether
what I saw really happened, or it was a some sort of snow mirage.
Chimeras were strong and fast, I knew, but that was when they were
fully transformed into the beast forms. And she had also mentioned
that the madman had done something to them, to stop them from
transforming—a response I was beginning to doubt very much. How
many lies had they told me? For all I knew, this could be a trap, a
ruse to get me to follow them into the madman’s hands. Crap!

“I can kill all of them, at any time I
want,” I whispered to myself, loading a new magazine into the
rifle, exhaling slightly. “After all, they have no idea of who I
am, and what my true abilities are.”

“Come on, Rave, come help us,” Siron yelled,
waving at me, leaning next to Salyanna and Jutcer.

Looking left and right, I made a slow
descent, hopping over the fallen tree, while listening to the sound
of cannon fire. The cloaked chimeras rushed past us, making no
effort at all to hide from us, headed for some other refuge.
Several more trees were felled to the ground by a single cannon
shell, a result, most likely, caused by having too much snow piled
on them.

“Can he move?” I asked, bending down to my
left knee, the muzzle of my gun facing the ground. “We cannot stay
here, it is not safe for any of us at all. Cleiver has no idea
where we are, and if he stops firing, the beasts will return to
attack us.”

“I know,” Salyanna added, swallowing a lump
down her throat, her lips dry and cracked. “We can rest here, give
him more time to recover, I suppose.”

“Enough with this crap,” I answered back,
angry, standing back up to feet. “You all know we can’t do that,
and I will not stop you if that is what you truly desire. And if
you do decide to stay here, I will leave you and continue on my
own.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she argued,
standing up, making hand gestures at me. “I know what is at stake—I
was just throwing out an idea, just in case everyone agrees with
me.”

“Go, Rave, if you want,” Jutcer intervened,
a mean look on his bloody face. “Why are you even here with us, in
the first place? You only care for yourself, your ship, and your
stupid mission.”

“Please, boys, stop fighting,” Salyanna
said, standing between us, her index finger pressed against the
trigger of her rifle. “This is not the time for any of us to be
fighting amongst ourselves.”

“Everyone, shut up for a second,” Siron
roared, looking down to focus, “I think I heard screams, like
someone was in trouble.”

“From where?” Salyanna asked, her gun
following every direction her head turned. “Is it from the outpost?
Is it Cleiver?”

“No, that’s the weird part,” he replied,
blinking. “It is actually coming from the direction we are
headed—about two miles from here.”

9

Lifting up Jutcer, Siron and I carried the
injured man by placed his arms around our necks. At first, I was
reluctant to the stupid idea, but Salyanna, against my protest,
somehow talked me down into aiding him. I had no idea how she did
it; usually, I was not one to be easily influenced by the pleas and
ideas of others. I suppose, it was the reason I had only five
friends in five hundred years I had roamed the earth. Moving
slowly, the wind brushing behind us, we climbed down the slope of
the hill, trudging carefully through the dangerous blizzard.

“I have been meaning to ask you a few
questions, Salyanna,” I began, grabbing Jutcer’s hand a little
tighter, facing her. “When is the sun going to come out?”

“Oh, yeah, you are new to this planet,” she
replied, walking in front of us, not looking back at me. “There is
a possibility that it might not even come at all, and another
possibility that this blizzard will not stop for the next few
months.”

“Explain your answers, please. Your words
seem to defy any understanding I try to muster.”

“A feeling we are all too familiar with,
Rave. You see, fifteen years ago, when the madman first appeared
before us, all sorts of strange things began to happen. It wasn’t
just people disappearing, but the weather climate was changing,
too. I was young, about your age, when it happened, and I didn’t
understand what was going on. My brother went missing a year after
this, and I never saw him again.”

“I am older than you, just so you know,” I
muttered, chuckling to myself.

“Did you say something?” she asked, turning
her head around. “I am sorry—I didn’t catch it.”

“Nothing it all,” I replied, inhaling
slowly.

“Lies, he said he is older than you,” Jutcer
added, looking at me. “I heard him say it with my own two
ears.”

“I am tempted to throw you down, just for
saying that, Jutcer,” I spat, giving him a good nudge to the
back.

“Hey, he hit me,” he cried, pretending to be
deeply hurt, falling face first into the snow. “Why did you do
that?”

“You are joking, right?” I asked, looking at
Siron and Salyanna, before turning my gaze to the fallen Jutcer. “I
just gave you a soft nudge to the back.”

“No, you hit me in the back knowing that I
was injured there,” he screamed, his acting rather convincing. “Why
did you do it?”

“Are you okay?” Salyanna turned around,
walking to him, and bending down to her right knee, her arm pressed
against his chest. “I know you didn’t mean it, Rave, so please
apologize to him for hurting him.”

“What,” I rattled, tramping closer to him,
both of my hands on my rifle. “I shall not apologize for something
I didn’t do. He is lying—ask Siron; he would know if I did anything
to Siron, since we were both holding him at the same time.”

“I am not getting myself caught in this,”
Siron murmured, flexing his arms around, his gaze drawn somewhere
else. “I didn’t see anything, and I don’t want to be involved in
this.”

“For you to say that, means that Rave is
telling the truth,” Salyanna concluded, standing up. “Are you even
hurt at all, Jutcer?”

“What are you saying?” he cried, his voice
tense and grim. “What kind of question is that to ask me?”

“Sorry for asking this, but we all saw you
fall, but your wounds were not that bad,” she responded, wiping
snow from her face. “I just want to know.”

“I am hurt; I mean, look at me,” he shrugged
back at her, pointing at his back. “How can I be faking this, and
how can you even ask me that?”

“There is only one way to know,” I added,
turning my head around, and pointing my gun at him. “This will tell
if you are lying or not.”

His eyes widened, his lips spacing apart,
when he saw the muzzle of my gun pointing at his legs. Pulling the
trigger, I fired two rounds, aiming for his thighs, and at that
moment, his survival instincts took over, forcing him to his feet.
Jutcer dodged the bullets, rolling out of the way, as he spun
around and pointed his gun at me. His legs, his back, and his
chest, looked and functioned perfectly for someone who demanded to
be carried. Jutcer stared at me, exhaling heavily, his eyes glowing
with a red color.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Siron asked,
glancing at Jutcer with an expression of anger. “Were you faking it
this whole time?”

“Hey, hey, people,” Jutcer spat, releasing
the pressure in his gun. “This man tried to kill me—I believe that
is a more pressing matter at hand.”

“Yes, we will come to that,” Siron
continued, examining Jutcer from head to toe, with his eyes. “Were
you even hurt at all?”

“Sort of,” he replied back, closing one eye,
his other eye focused on the gun’s scope he was pointing at me.
“Rave is a monster, far worse than the mutant chimeras, and I think
we should not take him so lightly.”

“This coming from the man who was faking an
injury,” Salyanna added, a look of disgust on her face. “How could
you do that to us, Jutcer? Do you know how much time and energy we
wasted carrying you?”

Up above us, a rogue cannon shell exploded
into the tree in front of us, the snow on its branches falling to
the ground, causing it to sway to the right side. We finally broke
into silence, finally realizing how dangerous the situation around
us was. Turning, I scrutinized the area, looking for the best
passage below. The tree, in front of us, would fall to the ground,
and an avalanche was possible as a result of this.

“Let’s go, now,” I ordered, moving five
yards to the left, before descending down the hill. “You don’t want
to be here if an avalanche starts.”

They looked each other, alarmed, and did as
I instructed, following behind me in a careless manner. The tree
caught fire just as it began to fall towards the bottom.
Fortunately for us, we didn’t experience an avalanche; otherwise,
this situation would have been most unpleasant.

We finally made it to the edge of the hill,
a place with a few trees, a small canyon of granite rocks, and a
large lake filled with ice, frozen water. Basically, it was a thick
layer of solid ice on top, and cold water on the bottom. And to get
to the other side, we had to cross over this ice lake, a difficult
task for some.

“Are you sure about this?” Jutcer asked, the
moment we came to the shore of the frozen lake. “This doesn’t look
safe; for all we know, there might be mutant chimeras lurking below
the frozen ice, waiting for anyone to make a bold mistake of
crossing over it.”

“You might be right,” Salyanna said, bending
down, and picking up a pebble from the ground, before chucking
across the frozen lake. “Monsters or not, we must cross the lake,
and get to the other side.”

“I smell blood,” Siron yelled, sniffing the
air, turning his head around. “Look over there—I see
something.”

In the direction he was pointing at, I saw
what looked like shadowy figures, standing stiffly on the frozen
water. Their dark cloaks flapped in the wind, and their feet
appeared to be hovering from the air. Siron made the first move,
testing the frozen lake with his left foot, before walking on it.
We all followed behind him, our guns loaded and raised, fighting
our way against the strong blizzard. I looked down at the frozen
ice, the feeling in my legs gone, and I felt uncomfortable to go
on. I mean, walking on ice water without falling was downright
madness.

“What the heck is this?” Jutcer exclaimed,
lowering his weapon, looking up. “Who did this?”

“I don’t know, but whoever it is, I don’t
think we want to stay here and find out,” Siron muttered, removing
his hat, exhaling slowly.

In front of us, a dozen or so mutant
chimeras lay dead, hung on metal spears—a ancient form of execution
called impalement. The spears had been impaled through their lower
abdomen, and came out through their right shoulder. And based on
the blood that was still dripping on the long spears, it looked
they had been killed ten or twenty minutes ago.

But who could have done this and why? To
describe this horrific scene in full detail would surely mortify
anyone of a faint heart, so I will not illustrate it any further.
Removing her hood, Salyanna strolled forward, her gun on her back,
and she looked up, placing her goggles on.