The Human Hunter (Alien Overlords 1)

“Did my old self love bubblebaths?”

“Your old self didn’t care about consequences. That was what made you a challenge.”

He gets louder throughout the sentence, almost having forgotten yet again that every word spoken in this place is subject to surveillance. His tone suggests he hopes the return of my memory is real, but he is not sure.

I eat another sweetie. Death may be inevitable, but waiting for it can be tasty.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Lyric. Be ready.”

“Okay, bye now.”

Twelve

Punished

Lyric

“It is time to face your punishment. No clothing will be necessary.”

Tyvian has woken me from my slumber. I don’t want to go. I want to stay in bed and sleep the rest of my life away. I was enjoying the best and deepest sleep I have ever had. I felt perfectly safe the entire time.

“You have the best dungeon in all creation, really excellent work,” I compliment him as he wraps his hands around my forearm and gently but firmly draws me from the bed.

“Thank you. Unfortunately, compliments are not currency in your punishment. Put your legs down and stand up.”

He has me on the floor now because I have not engaged my legs and have instead taken on the qualities of something boneless.

Tyvian releases me and stands over me, waiting for me to stand up. I do so regretfully, rising to my feet. It should be humiliating to walk around nude, but I find myself feeling unconcerned by my nakedness. Tyvian has an air about him that makes him very unthreatening, even as a massive ginger dungeon master. He is kind, but in this context, that kindness cannot help but come across as some form of perversity.

“Time to go,” he says, taking me by the hand and leading me from the room. I do not have time to eat or clean myself. There is not even time to relieve myself before I am escorted to my doom.

One step after the other, I follow the jailer, and I try not to think about what happens at the end of this walk.

There is a handover point at the end of the dungeon passage. Rath is waiting for me. He looks even less happy than I am. I have never seen him so very serious before. Serious and miserable. His expressions are harder to read than many due to the nature of his ocular augmentations, but I feel a heaviness about him which dampens my spirits even further. I am about to face my fate.

“Cheer up,” I say in the futile attempt to break the tension. “It might not happen.”

“This is going to happen,” he says. “I hope you are ready.”

He grasps me by the back of the neck and pushes me forward, through the door, and onto a dais. It takes me a moment to get my bearings because the place I find myself is so brightly lit.

I was warned that I would be taken before the court, but it is immediately obvious that I am not merely before the court. I am before the entire world. I didn’t think about all that would entail or how very small and vulnerable I would be while half-blinded to the city that is now watching me.

“This is the human who led the uprising which resulted in the death of King Krash, hallowed be his name!” Rath makes the declaration and accusation with great solemnity. “I bring her before you, captured yet not broken. Her breaking will take place before you, so you and all Megaris might bear witness to her most deserved punishment.”

All the warm comfort I was feeling has thoroughly slipped away. I wonder, suddenly, if the room I was in and all the treats and pleasures afforded to me were part of a plan to make this transition to punishment all the more stark and harsh and shocking. The korabi are truly devious and cruel. I would not put it past them. This entire scene is designed to make me feel afraid. There is a sense of being pressed on all sides by a malevolent crowd I cannot see but can absolutely feel.

Rath looks at me without any softness. He is like a stranger again. I experience a series of flashes of emotion. Fear. Longing. Hope. I want him to look after me, but how can he now that he has declared he’s intending on breaking me?

There is a table on the dais, and upon it are a great many implements of various kinds. There are whips and canes and other devices that terrify me with their strangeness. There is something pointy all over and something else which is moving. Is it alive? Am I? For how much longer?

“Remember who you are,” Rath growls in my ear.

But I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything before him. He was my beginning, and I think now it seems very likely that he will be my end.