Kyle West - Extinction

Soon, the tunnel stopped curving, opening into a wide cavern, glittering pink and silver with alien life. A large lake of pink liquid with an almost metallic sheen on its surface lay before us. Anna’s breath caught at the sight, mostly because two dragons were bathing in the lake. Only their angular heads were visible above the surface. Their eyes opened lazily upon our entrance. I felt a strange energy stir the air, now that the dragons were aware of our presence.

The dragons didn’t move, merely settling back into their doze. Something seemed off about them. There was so little I knew about the Elekai, or even xenolife in general. Maybe this was how they ate — nutrients and calories might enter through the liquid itself, nourishing the dragons.

There was no island in this lake, as with the last Xenolith. And there was no sign of the Wanderer.

“Where is he?” Anna asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We have to find him.”

“How?”

I stepped forward to the liquid. I didn’t even know if I should be calling it that. Liquid sounded too scientific, where this fluid was the very stuff of life.

Ichor — the blood of gods. That was what it should be called.

Anna joined me on the shoreline. The surface of the lake was still as glass, except around the dragons, where tiny ripples raced outward, only to dwindle to stillness long before reaching the shoreline. The ichor looked almost solid.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Step in.”

Anna looked at me, as if to be sure, before placing her right boot in the lake. The ichor wrapped around, as if in embrace.

“It’s warm,” she said.

She stepped the other boot in, wading a bit into the ichor. I followed her in. The ichor was warm, thick, and tingled a bit as it seeped into my boots and soaked through my clothing. We waded out together until the ichor had covered us to our torsos.

There, Anna paused.

“This…feels weird,” she said, after a moment.

“What’s wrong?”

“It feels…tight. In my chest.”

“Anna, are you…”

Suddenly, her eyes closed, and she fell backward. As if the pool had pulled her.

“Anna!”

The ichor claimed her, wrapping itself around the rest of her body until only her head remained above. Her eyes were wide with fear. She managed to scream the first syllable of my name before being completely submerged.

I rushed forward, but the ichor pushed me back, locking me to my spot. I could only watch, helpless, as Anna floated beneath the translucent ichor, eyes opened. Her body suddenly jerked in an unnatural way. I groaned as I pushed against the ichor — but it was useless. Anna’s body jerked twice more, in quick succession. Her eyes were closed, her body still.

I waited, my heart pounding, for at least a full minute. Still, Anna remained under the surface.

I looked toward the dragons. “What are you doing? Can’t you see she needs help?”

They stared back with fathomless white eyes, seemingly unconcerned.

“Anna…” I said.

But then, her body rose out of the liquid. I was no longer restrained, so I waded forward to pull her out. Her head appeared above, and I pulled her into my embrace.

“Anna! Anna, can you…”

She started hacking, and some of the ichor shot against my shoulder. She sucked in a sharp breath, coughing more liquid, before clinging to me tightly. Her body shook, and it was only after a long moment that she calmed.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

She gave a weak nod. “Yeah. I think so.”

“We need to get out of here,” I said. “It’s not safe.”

She felt along her ribs, her eyes widening further. “How…” She touched her rib cage, feeling each bone individually. “My ribs are fine!”

The lake hadn’t tried to kill Anna. It had healed her.

I didn’t see how it was possible, but I had seen a lot of things that should have been impossible in the past few months.

“I was scared to death,” I said. “You’d think they’d give us a heads up.”

“There isn’t time to worry about it,” Anna said. She faced the dragons, who watched serenely. Seeing those dragons there made me wonder where Askal was. I saw, looking into the corners of the cavern, that the lake appeared to branch off into other areas.

“Come on,” I said. “We have to keep looking for him.”

We waded out into the cavern. As the lake deepened, our feet could no longer touch the bottom. I’d had experience swimming in Bunker 108’s pool, but Anna was struggling. Her eyes widened in fear.

“This place won’t let you go under,” I said. “If you want, hold onto me.”

This was something that would have never worked in a normal body of water, but Anna grabbed on. As soon as her weight pressed down, the liquid pushed up from beneath, keeping us afloat. I swam forward, but wasn’t making much progress on my own. A current began to push us between the dozing dragons.

Looking through the clear pink ichor of the lake, I could see deep gashes lining their forms. Wounds from the battle. I understood why they were here; the pool was healing them. The extent of their injuries must have been severe; otherwise they would have healed quickly, like Anna.

“They’ve already fought,” I said. “That’s why they haven’t come to help us. They were the ones who needed help.”

Anna watched the wounds along the back of the largest Elekai dragon I’d ever seen. The pink liquid of the pool was stained purple from the many deep wounds marring its body. Its wings were settled on the surface of the lake, around which wrapped the healing liquid.

The current pushed us toward the back of the lake. As it curved onward, another cavern opened, much larger than the first, where three dragons bathed in the ichorous substance. On the far side of the lake, a shore of silvery sand rose, meeting a line of xenofungus. From the fungus grew twisted, alien trees, the boughs of which glittering silvery with long, wavy fronds. There were so many trees that it was hard to discern the treetops, and it all seemed to be the same organism. Maybe the trees were the same organism. It was an entire underground forest.

“I wonder where this is,” Anna said. “This cavern had to have formed naturally.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not even sure where we’re supposed to be going.”

The current pushed us past a dragon whose right wing was almost ripped in two. His eyes were closed, though his chest rose and fell in short, ragged, breaths. Looking around the cavern, I didn’t see any sign of Askal. Either he was in another part of the lake, or…

I didn’t want to think of the other possibility.

As we neared the shoreline, I made myself stand. My feet found the lakebed, and I pushed myself up and walked onshore. We stood on the sand, the pink liquid rushing from our clothes and skin to rejoin the lake. Anna felt along her ribcage, still unbelieving of what had happened. My own body felt reinvigorated.

I reached for my radio to call everyone else above. But when I pressed the talk button, the line was completely dead. The radio had been so drenched in liquid, and we were so deep underground, that it wasn’t surprising that it didn’t work.

Anna stared into the trees. The land sloped downward into a narrow valley with sheer sides, in which the trees grew more thickly. The forested valley opened about one hundred feet from the shoreline. I looked upward at the sparkling ceiling of the cavern, which cast bioluminescent light. It was hard to believe this place existed; it was more magnificent than even the first Elekai home.

Somehow, I had a feeling that we’d find the Wanderer in the forest ahead. I thought it was strange that he wouldn’t have come out to meet us, and it gave me a bad feeling. My Beretta was still strapped to my belt; hopefully, it still functioned, even though it was soaked. If nothing else, Anna had brought her katana — now healed, she would have no problem in using it.