Akur (Restitution #3)

Constance

8

Constance

Run.

Faster.

She pushed her feet to do what her mind told them to, but it was hard. Not even adrenaline could counter the complete weariness or the fact her body had been through so much.

And yet she tried. Her feet pounded against the tunnel floor as she ran, each breath burning in her lungs. The darkness pressed in around her like a living thing. Suffocating. Unholy.

Behind her, the screeching sound and Akur’s roar had devolved into sounds of battle that echoed off the stone wall—the clash of metal, inhuman screeches, and Akur’s deep-throated roars that sounded more animal than sentient.

He was fighting the things, whatever they were, even as he chased after her. He was keeping them back so she could find a way to safety.

But the creatures’ chittering grew closer, then farther, then closer again. She couldn’t tell if they were gaining on her or if the tunnel’s acoustics were playing tricks on her mind. Couldn’t tell if she was heading toward more danger or away from it. And when her muscles scream ed for rest, she forced herself to keep moving. Thin leather shoes beating against hard stone.

The command Akur had given her rang in her ears: “ Run, and don’t stop until you can’t hear anything .” Run. All she had to do was run.

A rush of air swept past her face, carrying with it a stench like rotting meat and stagnant water. Something massive moved in the darkness beside her. Before she could react, a form brushed against her arm—smooth and cold and wrong . It felt like touching wet leather stretched over something gelatinous, with ridges and protrusions that caught at her skin. The texture alone made her stomach heave.

She screamed, stumbling sideways as razor-sharp edges—claws or teeth or both—raked across her upper arm. The pain was immediate and intense, but the adrenaline coursing through her system pushed it to the background. All that mattered was running, staying ahead of whatever horrors lurked in the darkness.

Behind her, Akur’s footsteps thundered closer. She could hear his labored breathing, punctuated by grunts of exertion as he fought. The screech of his blades cutting through something solid made her flinch. Whatever had touched her let out a wet, gurgling shriek that echoed off the walls.

“Keep running, human!” his voice boomed through the tunnel even as she heard him grunt in pain, followed by another inhuman screech.

The darkness was now a physical thing. Like a dark force she had to push through. The walls themselves felt like they were closing in, and her heart dropped when she realized that was exactly what was happening. The tunnel was getting narrower. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or—well, just another sign that this was the worst lucid nightmare she’d ever had.

Pushing her legs faster, she didn’t even wince when her shoulder slammed into the wall at her side. Adjusting herself slightly, she kept going, even as something skittered across the ceiling above her. She could hear the click-click-click of what had to be claws on stone. The sound surrounded her now—ahead, behind, above. How many were there?

“Akur?!”

A particularly loud clash of metal on something hard came from behind her, followed by Akur’s pained shout. She wanted to look back, wanted to make sure he was still fighting, still alive. But looking back meant slowing down, and slowing down meant death. Death in the dark when she couldn’t see anything, anyway.

The tunnel floor began sloping upward, making each step harder. Her legs burned with the effort, and her lungs were working overtime. How long had she been running? It felt like hours, but it couldn’t have been more than a minute.

Suddenly, the tunnel opened up into what felt like a larger space. Her footsteps echoed differently, and the air moved in a way that suggested multiple paths. An intersection? She slowed just enough to think. To feel the flow of air blowing from her left to her right. There were multiple paths here. Which way?

Another screech sounded behind her, closer now. Too close. She picked the right tunnel on instinct and pushed herself to run faster.

“Turning right!” Fuck. She hoped he heard her. Hoped he followed.

The scratching sounds were all around her now, loud and a constant background noise that made her skin crawl.

He’d told her to run. Maybe these things would give up. Maybe this was their only choice. He obviously knew what they were and she could only imagine. She could still hear him fighting. His roars. His grunts. Akur hadn’t taken the turn. He was still in the main tunnel. Still fighting. But then she heard it—a grunt of pain that sounded different from his battle cries.

They’d gotten him. She was sure of it.

Constance skidded to a stop, her shoes scraping against the stone floor. Something big brushed against her and, on instinct, she lashed out. The butt of the weapon she was holding hit something fleshy yet hard and a resulting screech nearly burst her eardrums .

Run . His command echoed in her mind: don’t stop running until you no longer hear a sound .

But as something else hit her again, this time from behind and she stumbled forward, she heard the alien’s pained grunt once more. The sound of his blades clashing came through, too. He was still fighting. That was clear. But something was wrong.

If she kept on running, there was no doubt in her mind that she’d be leaving him behind. Injured. Alone with those things…

“Fuck it,” she muttered.

This was madness. Her only combat experience involved mediating arguments over gluten-free muffins. She had no business marching back into a fight with literal monsters. Yet, she was turning around anyway.

“Don’t you fucking die!” Rushing back the way she’d come, she raised the blaster, aimed over her head, and fired. The energy burst lit up the tunnel for a split second, and in that brief flash of light, she saw she’d made it to the intersection again.

And she saw them, too.

The creatures.

Her blood turned to ice in her veins.

They clung to the walls and ceiling like massive insects, but they were nothing like any insect she’d ever seen. Their bodies were thick and fleshy, covered in that same wet, leathery skin she’d felt earlier. Naked mole rats. That’s what they looked like—if those Earth creatures had an extra set of limbs that ended in hooked claws that dug into the stone. Their heads were eyeless, dominated by gaping maws for protruding saw-like teeth. As they moved, their bodies seemed to ripple and flow in a sort of movement that didn’t seem right. Wrong. Just so wrong .

And Akur—she saw him too, down on one knee, twin blades flashing as he fought off three of the creatures at once. The red fin at the back of his neck seemed like a beacon in that blaster flare. Almost as angry as the fresh wounds on his arms and chest, blood oozing from deep gashes.

In the darkness that followed the flash, the creatures’ chittering grew l ouder, more excited. They knew she had stopped running. Knew she had turned back.

Constance raised the blaster again, this time aiming at the nearest monster she’d seen. They wanted to hunt? Fine. Let them hunt someone who could shoot back.

She didn’t know what the hell she was doing. Before this day, she’d never fired a gun in her life. But suddenly, it felt like second nature.

Maybe it was fear. More likely, it was rage. Rage at the fact she didn’t ask for any of this. Rage that her life had been ripped apart by a set of selfish beings that destroyed everything .

She squeezed the trigger, and the tunnel lit up again with the energy blast. This time, she was ready for what she’d see. The creature she’d aimed at screeched as the shot caught it in the side, its flesh sizzling with an acrid stench that made her gag. But it didn’t fall. Instead, it twisted in a way that shouldn’t have been possible, its body contorting as it redirected itself toward her.

“I told you to run!” Akur’s voice carried over the din of battle, strained with effort and what might have been pain.

“Yeah, well, I’m not good at following orders!” She fired again, this time aiming for what she thought was the creature’s head. The blast illuminated its grotesque features for a split second before connecting. The monster’s flesh seemed to absorb the energy for a moment before bubbling and bursting. It fell from the wall with a wet splat.

But there were more. So many more.

In the strobing light of her blaster fire, she could see them flowing down from above like the walls were made of flesh, their movements both fluid and jerky at the same time. Each flash revealed them in different positions, like a horrific stop-motion film. And each time the blaster fire lit up the space, she was greeted with one undeniable sight.

They weren’t paying attention to Akur anymore. She understood now why he’d told her to run. Why he’d been content with her abandoning him. These creatures, whatever they were, focused on the threat first. Because each shot of her blaster revealed one thing: she was the target now.

They were converging on her, no longer focusing on the alien, but on her instead.

Shit.

She stepped back, continuing to press the trigger on a gun that was quickly heating up with the extended fire. There was no use trying to aim, but she kept the muzzle pointed high. Underneath the shower of her retreat, each flash showed the alien getting to his feet. Of his blades being drawn. He looked haggard, badly beaten with little time to recover, but he was swinging still. And as the blaster stalled, the final shot being eaten by the darkness, as those creatures converged, she heard her name on the alien’s lips like a battle cry she didn’t know she needed to hear.

“Constance!”

Run. She needed to run.

Blindly, she spun, but something hit her from below the knee. She stumbled.

It was like falling off a precipice, losing her balance in that darkness. The world tilted, and the ground seemed at once close and far too far away at the same time. There was the sickening sensation of the creature that made her trip. The pain in her shoulder as teeth dug in. And her name.

“Constance!”

He was still fighting. And maybe, maybe, she needed to hear that. To hear him grunt. To hear the creatures screech as he fought to get to her.

Maybe it’s the reason she snapped out of the pain of the fall as her body slammed into flesh and stone. Maybe it’s why she found the strength to pull her arms back. To slam the butt of the weapon into the creature beneath her.

The creature shrieked, another high-pitched sound swallowed by the echoing darkness. Constance thrashed, her limbs flailing, driven by pure, unadulterated terror and a need to get out of this. The blaster, now a uselessly hot weight, slipped from her numb fingers and cl attered against the unseen floor. She couldn’t see, couldn’t think, only feel—the sharp pain in her shoulder, the weight of the creature now pinning her down, the rough texture of the tunnel floor against her cheek.

“Constance!” He was still trying to get to her.

“Forget about me! Just kill them!”

Blindly, she bucked and writhed, her movements frantic and uncoordinated. She kicked out, her shoes connecting with something solid. Another shriek, closer this time, followed by a wet, gurgling sound. She didn’t know if she’d hurt it, or if it was just the sound of its breath, hot and rank against her ear.

But she could feel them. All around her now. Their bodies moving against hers.

Pure instinct took over. She swung her fist, a wild, desperate punch that connected with something soft and yielding. A wet, squelching sound. The creature fell back, disoriented, or at least she thought it did.

It could have been her imagination when the darkness moved, but reflex took over. She was a cornered animal, fighting for its life. She slammed her forehead forward, her head connecting with what must be one of the creatures’ snouts. Bone slammed against bone and hot pain shot through her skull. The creature screeched. Deafening. But the sound was punctuated by another sound, deeper, more guttural. “Human!”

His voice ignited something within her. A spark of defiance. She wasn’t going to die down here. Not like this.

She pulled her arms back, her elbows scraping against the rough stone, and slammed them into the flesh she felt moving at her sides. A grunt. A shift in weight. She used the momentary reprieve to wrench her shoulder free, a searing jolt of pain shooting up her arm. But she was free.

She rolled, blindly searching for a weapon, any weapon. Her fingers brushed against something smooth and hard. The blaster! It was cool again. No time to fire, she gripped it like it was a lifeline and swung it like a club, the hard carbon cracking against something solid.

More screeches filled the tunnel, the sound amplified by the stone walls until it felt like it was coming from inside her skull. When her finger found the trigger and pressed down, she caught glimpses of Akur through the darkness and blaster fire. For a moment, time stood still.

He was magnificent. A reaper. An ender. His blades were a blur of motion, cutting through the creatures with precise, deadly efficiency. But for every one he cut down, two more seemed to take its place.

Something warm ran down her arm as she fired the blaster again, and she grunted, pushing through the pain. The creature must have cut deeper than she thought, but there was no time to check how bad it was.

A particularly loud shriek made her spin toward the intersection she’d just left. More were coming. The scratching sound of their claws on stone grew louder, and in the next flash of blaster fire, she saw them pouring forward like a nightmare made flesh.

“Akur! More. More are coming!!” She could only hope that he wasn’t too wounded for them to make it out of this alive.

She felt rather than saw him shift his stance. He’d reached her side, adjusting himself to fight back-to-back with her. His flesh like burning coal against her spine.

“This position is not defensible,” he growled, voice rough with exertion. “We need to move.”

“Yeah?” she panted. “Got any bright ideas?” She fired at another creature, catching it in what passed for its chest. The thing barely slowed down.

“Keep moving. You lead. I follow.”

“Never thought I’d hear such words from the mouth of a warrior like you,” she panted.

“Survival requires…flexibility. And a certain…trust. I find I trust you, Constance, female of fire.”

Trust. He trusted her.

Well, she trusted him, too. It was only him and her in this hell .

Another creature lunged from the darkness and Akur’s blade took its head off in one clean sweep, but not before its claws caught him across the chest. He grunted, but it sounded almost like an unamused laugh.

“You okay?” She fired three more shots into the darkness, the flashes revealing a whole wave of creatures heading their way.

“Irrelevant.” His voice was tight. “We need to move. Follow them.”

“What? Follow them?”

It was then that she realized the movement of the creatures had changed. Instead of converging on them since they were standing targets, most of the creatures were heading past them like a wave.

They weren’t trying to kill them anymore. They were…they were moving like they were running away from something. What could be worse than—

Just then, echoing down the tunnel, came a new sound. Not the screeching of the creatures, but something else. Something mechanical.

“That’s not…that’s not good news, is it.”

“Negative,” Akur said at her back. “You decide, female. Run, or stand and fight. I, for one, am committed to doing the latter.”

Constance tilted her head to look back at him. Her crown barely reached the center of his back, and she wished there was some light so she could see him. His expression, at least. Because he had to be joking.

“Are you insane ? Do you have a death wish?”

He didn’t answer. All he did was grunt as she heard him slice through one creature that came towards them.

The mechanical sound grew louder—a rhythmic thumping that seemed to shake dust from the tunnel ceiling. In the next flash of blaster fire, Constance saw something reflect the light. Something metallic.

Sounds echoed down the tunnel. Words. Words in voices she wished she’d never hear again.

The gator-guards. They were coming .

“Well,” she managed between breaths, “at least we know which way is out.”

Around them, the creatures’ chittering rose to a fever pitch as the sound of machinery grew closer. They were caught in the middle, running out of options and running out of space.

Constance looked down at the blaster. There was a power bar, and if she was reading it right, there was less than half of the power remaining.

They were in trouble. Deep trouble.

“Ready, rebel?”

“Just say the word.”

He was ready to fight, that was clear. He was brave. A sort of bravery that made her lean against him. Made her respect him.

He was brave…and maybe she was a coward.

“Run today. Live to fight tomorrow.”

Jaw set, she reached back and grabbed the alien’s arm right before she took off in the sea of creatures. She’d be damned if she was going to die in this tunnel, torn apart by monsters or gunned down by their captors. They just needed a plan.

She just hoped they could come up with one before they ran out of tunnel.