Inheritance of Stars E-Book

Marc Baumgartner

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 509

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

An evil organisation called "the keepers of the light" violently oppresses one third of the galaxy and prepares future wars in order to establish their dominance. Florian, inhabitant of a Class-3-Planet called "Earth" doesn't know anything about the wars of the keepers. This changes drastically when he gets abducted by them ... An adventurous journey to the stars begins when Florian tries to make his escape. Luckily he is not alone and has the ragtag crew of the spaceship Nobility on his side.

Leseprobe

INHERITANCE OF STARS

NEW WORLDS

Marc Baumgartner

© 2017Marc Baumgartner

Publisher: tredition GmbH, Hamburg

Translation: Barbara Stanzl, Spiralcat Translations

ISBN Paperback: 978-3-7439-0896-3

ISBN Hardcover: 978-3-7439-0897-0

ISBN e-Book: 978-3-7439-0898-7

This work, including all parts, is protected by copyright. All Exploitation without permission of the publisher and the author is prohibited. This especially applies to electronical or other proliferation, translation and public spread.

For Mum. Thanks for always being there for me...

… and for the schnitzel every Sunday...

Without home, life is torture.

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

INHERITANCE OF STARS

TRANSFORMATION

ABDUCTED

BAD AWAKENING

ESCAPE

LOST

THE CONTRACT

THE RESEARCH BASE

NEW GUESTS

NEW FRIENDS, OLD ENEMIES

THE ROBBERY

MONEY AND KEEPERS

INJURED

TRADE WORLD

CRASH LANDING

STRANDED

BREAKOUT

BREAK IN

NUCLEAR WAR

A LONG FLIGHT

HOMECOMING

CHAPTER 1

TRANSFORMATION

Mike opened his eyes and was forced to immediately close them again, a bright light directly above him was blindingly intense.He tried to raise his hand but it was bound to the table beside him. He desperately strained against his restraints a few times, but he couldn't break free. He was lying on his back on the cold metal table, unable to move an inch, and even his head was held in place by some kind of clamp.

He felt tears well up in his eyes and he struggled to remember how he had ended up here. He could only remember that he was going home from school but he had been caught in a bad thunderstorm that soaked him to the skin.

He remembered Bob and his gang. They had been bullying Mike since he had started school and they had stolen his umbrella lots of times, whenever a storm threatened. Mike was a nobody at school and the other kids mostly shunned him or made fun of him. Even Mike's teachers did the same. Some of them enjoyed harassing him, especially the sports teacher.

Mike's skull was pounding and it felt like there was a lump on the back of his head. His memory was slowly returning, but this just seemed to make his headache worse. He remembered the narrow path that led to his parents' home in the middle of the woods, and he also remembered his fear. Something seemed to be following him, something sinister in a long black robe, with glowing red eyes. He couldn't protect himself. Whatever it was, it just beat him to the ground, and he couldn't remember what happened after that. He thought he had seen a horribly disfigured face, with metal plates and cables sprouting from the back of its head.

Get these restraints off me, Mike's thoughts pleaded, and again he was overcome by a terrible wave of fear when he thought about the creature. He shook his restraints once more, a river of tears running down his face.

“Please, let me go,” Mike said meekly, in the hope somebody would hear him.

Hours went by and the light above Mike didn't dim at all. He lay there, bound to the table and crying quietly, his limbs starting to hurt from the tightness of the restraints and the pounding in his head seeming to get worse with every passing second.

He thought he could hear the dull hum of huge machines, seemingly in the midst of some endless production run. Sometimes he thought he could hear low stamping noises and, now and again, voices, somewhere off in the distance.

Suddenly Mike heard a quiet hissing noise and shambling footsteps somewhere nearby, and they sounded like they were coming directly towards him. He heard a rattling breath near his ear. Mike whimpered, as he suddenly caught the smell of something foul.

“Please, don't hurt me. I just want to go back to my mum and dad,” he begged, his voice almost silent.

A dark shadow interposed itself between Mike and the light above him. “Hurt you?” a voice like a death rattle asked, and Mike began to shiver uncontrollably. He tried to blink the tears from his eyes.

“I'm not going to hurt you,” the voice continued, “I'm your doctor. I just want to help you.”

A wave of relief flooded through Mike's body and he blinked away the last of his tears. “Are my parents here, as well?”

“No, my ugly little friend. Unfortunately, your parents couldn't be here to marvel at my work. But you have me. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Bloodmind,” the doctor said.

The name gave Mike the shivers, and he almost started crying again. “Why am I restrained on this table? I want to go.”

“It's for your protection as much as mine, while I get on with my work. I hope you understand. But we can take that restraint off your head and we don't need all this light. If I can do anything to make this process any more comfortable for you, all you have to do is say,” the doctor told him, then giggled softly to himself, which gave Mike goosebumps.

He heard a low metallic squeak as the clamp was taken from his head. As soon as it was loose enough he turned his head to the side, away from the blinding light, and wiped a couple of tears on his shoulders. A switch was flicked and the light above him immediately became dimmer.

Mike almost screamed out loud when he saw the small table at the side of the one he was fastened to. It held a large selection of dangerous looking surgical instruments, including a drill, several knives that looked more like handsaws than scalpels, a large syringe and a few containers holding a thick, black liquid.

Panicking now, Mike turned his gaze away from the instruments and instead looked in the other direction. This time he did scream. He was looking directly at a blood spattered surgeon's apron.

“Hey, don't worry, it's all going to be okay,” the voice said, in a tone that was anything but calming. “I've introduced myself, so it's a little rude not to follow suit.”

“M-M-Mike,” Mike stammered and directed his eyes slowly upwards.

The apron belonged to a gaunt man, wearing an equally blood spattered mask and glasses with lenses so thick and dark that there was no hint of his eyes behind them. “Please don't hurt me. I just want to go home,” Mike whimpered.

Bloodmind laid his bony hand on Mike's head and gave him an encouraging pat. “I'm not going to hurt you, quite the contrary, I'm going to improve you.”

“Improve me?” Mike stammered, panic in his voice, and snatched his head from Bloodmind's grip. He turned his head to look around the room, and tried his best not to start crying. He had never been particularly strong or fast or clever, and his parents spent a lot of their time arguing about which of them should look after him. They usually dumped him with a nanny because he didn't have any friends he could go to.

Mike was desperately looking for an escape route, but the only exit looked like it was barred shut. There were two men standing by it, wearing what looked a little like suits of armour. They were armed with long-barrelled guns, fed from drums of ammo. There was a huge mirror on the other side of the room, taking up the entire wall. Mike saw a couple of ventilation shafts above him in the ceiling and he thought he might be able to squeeze through one of them. The remaining walls looked like they were riveted together from metal plates.

Mike felt a shiver go down his spine when he saw that the black metal men were staring at him, each of them almost two metres tall with cold, red eyes. Mike didn't think for a second that he would be able to get by them.

They've got guns.

“This is a little experiment that I designed myself,” the doctor said, and giggled maniacally as he stroked the tools on the table.

“Please, my parents have a lot of money,” Mike begged between sobs.

“The pitiful wealth amassed by your parents is of no interest to me,” the doctor replied, his voice cold, and he picked up the syringe. “You should consider it an honour to be in my presence, not many are lucky enough to meet me in person.”

“They'll look for me, and when they find me, they'll put you in prison.”

Bloodmind exploded into loud laughter. “They'll never find you here, my ugly little friend, we're much too far away for your pitiful human technology to have a hope of reaching us here. As for prison, we are already within one, and I am the governor,” Bloodmind said, laughing maniacally and spreading his arms wide. “Nobody is going to find you here, you're all mine.”

“Please … I am … am … a very … erm … important person.”

“Don't you lie to me! You're a nobody, useless, a fat little idiot, which is precisely why the catcher selected you. I'm afraid that nobody is going to miss you, and nobody is going to care what happens to you.” Bloodmind giggled. “But don't worry, you'll do just fine for what I have in mind.”

“I'm not a nobody...” Mike said, his voice quiet.

“Oh yes you are, otherwise I wouldn't be having the pleasure of making your acquaintance.”

“Is that thing that was following me a catcher?” Mike asked, his voice still low.

Bloodmind inserted the needle of the syringe into one of the containers of black liquid, and filled it. The red eyes of the metal men watched, neither of them moving at all.

“Another one of my inventions. I hope you realise how significant it is for a great doctor, such as myself, to stoop to working with the likes of you. It was difficult to make the catchers so pliable, requiring a considerable amount of alteration. Did you like my catcher?”

Mike couldn't speak for sheer terror at the sight of Bloodmind extracting the syringe from the bottle. The viscous liquid moved languidly within.

“Please...”

“Oh, please, please, please, what use is it to keep begging like this. It's starting to get boring, hearing the same word over and over. Why can't anyone ever come up with anything more original to say. Ah yes, before I forget, I have to ask you to excuse my appearance. Before you, I had a little bit of a tussle with a Tarkan, a damned obstinate species. But they all come round in the end, just as you will.”

Bloodmind stepped towards Mike, the syringe in his hand, accompanied by a terrible smell of decay. Bloodmind slowly raised the syringe while Mike tried to wriggle free of the restraints. The restraints seemed to tighten around his limbs with every attempt to break free. He felt his hands and feet go numb.

“Why are you doing this?” Mike asked between sobs, still hoping he could persuade Bloodmind not to inject him.

“Why?” Bloodmind repeated, the syringe lowering. “On his orders,” Bloodmind said, tapping the side of his head with a finger. “I receive his orders right here. He told me to make sure new test subjects are gathered and that they are then modified, so we can use them in battle.”

“B-B-But that's just a voice in your head.”

Bloodmind giggled like a lunatic. “No, that's what everybody says when they are on the table. He's real, just as real as you and me, and he gives me orders. You can't disobey his orders. Anyone who does is severely punished.” Bloodmind raised the syringe again and placed it against Mike's neck.

Mike pulled away from it as far as he could, turning his head away so he didn't have to look at it. He desperately tried to break free, thrashing backward and forward as best he could.

“Hold still!” Bloodmind hissed at Mike. “No-good human! The Drazal are so much easier to handle, they know when they are beaten. You're just postponing the inevitable, your fate is sealed.”

“Please ...” Mike begged again and began to weep, his sobs filling the room. His eyes closed tight and he stopped struggling.

“Ah, look at this, now the human's crying,” Bloodmind quietly giggled. “Don't worry, it will only hurt a hell of a lot.” Bloodmind burst into peals of maniacal laughter.

Then Mike felt the prick of the needle in his neck and screamed. He could feel the contents of the syringe flowing into him. A moment or two later, Bloodmind withdrew the needle. Mike didn't feel any different. He cautiously opened his eyes again, still quietly sobbing. He was flooded by sheer terror at the thought of what was inside the syringe.

“There you go,” Bloodmind said. “You see, that wasn't so bad now, was it? It will take a moment or two before the mutagen takes effect. It's another of my inventions.” Again Bloodmind laughed hideously.

“You're crazy, completely nuts,” Mike stammered, his voice hoarse from crying while an uncomfortable warm feeling spread from the area where he had been injected.

“I prefer the term, visionary. Can you feel how the serum is already taking effect?It took decades to develop, and there was a lot of sacrifice, but now it has been perfected. Thanks to you humans. You can be used in so many different ways. But, I'm afraid we still need to do more trials.”

Mike felt a horrible tingling sensation spreading through his entire body. The feeling wasn't confined to his skin, but was also deep within him, even in his bones. Then he felt some pain from his fingertips, and they started to turn dark brown, his fingernails growing at lightning speed and curling into claws.

His veins also started to turn brown and this colour kept on spreading. Mike's whole body suddenly clenched up in agony as the tingling sensation transformed into burning pain. Mike had never in his life felt this much pain. It felt like every cell in his body was on fire.

Mike let out an ear-splitting scream as he jackknifed against his restraints. He could feel how his body was changing. His legs seemed to be getting thinner but more muscular and both his toenails and his feet became elongated, until they had become the same claws as his fingernails.

His skin pulled painfully tighter around his body and his ribs started to stick out. He felt the teeth in his mouth becoming longer and sharper, and something was growing just above his backside. There was more pain as his body became enlarged and his muscles grew. His clothes ripped and fell to the table he was still fastened to.

Mike screamed louder and louder, the screams changing in tone until they sounded more like the roaring of a beast than the screams of a person.

The pain became unbelievable as Mike's head elongated and a tail sprouted from his behind. At the end of it, a dagger-like protrusion of bone formed. His fingers and his feet reached the end of their transformation and were now considerably longer and terminated in claws. He felt his new, stronger muscles flexing beneath his leathery hide. But the pain didn't subside, instead Mike felt like his insides were burning.

He screamed again, loud and long. Bloodmind, meanwhile, stood silently at his side, his arms folded behind his back, contentedly watching Mike's transformation. The metal forms showed no sign of emotion. Bloodmind seemed to be smiling coldly to himself behind his surgeon’s mask.

After what seemed to Mike to be an eternity, the pain at last started to subside and he relaxed in his metal restraints, which were now tighter than ever.

Numbed by the pain, Mike looked up into the dim light above him and it seemed brighter than before. He quickly looked away to the side. His gaze caught a hand that didn't seem to belong to him. He tried moving one of his fingers, and the finger he was looking at moved too. So it was his hand, but now it was a muddy brown and equipped with long claws.

Mike felt panic threatening to overwhelm him again, and he tried to look at the rest of his body, but it took an effort to turn his head. The body he was looking at couldn't possibly be his, he thought, it was the twisted body of a monster. The brown leathery hide, the powerful muscles beneath, the thick veins and protruding bones looked horrific.

His senses seemed to have gone through their own transformation because everything was pin sharp with a red hue. Smells were more intense. Mike screamed in terror, but the noise he heard from his own throat was even more frightening. His voice was barely human any more, just like the rest of his body.

Mike could feel a new limb, a kind of tail that he could hardly control.

“It works,” Bloodmind said quietly, his voice bursting with joy. “After all these years, and so many attempts, it finally works. It still isn't perfect, but it works.”

“What have you done to me?” Mike screamed in panic, but all that emerged from his throat were almost unintelligible sounds.

“I told you I was going to improve you. You look wonderful. I don't normally like to sing my own praises, but you've turned out so well,” Bloodmind said laughing. “Now it's time to bring you under control, my little experiment.”

Bloodmind picked up the drill in one hand and one of the cleavers in the other. Mike screamed in fear and struggled as hard as he could against his restraints. Bloodmind stepped behind Mike's head. He could smell the terrible odour that Bloodmind gave off even more distinctly now. Mike suddenly felt one of the restraints give in a little, and he pulled at it with all his strength. It suddenly came away all together and Mike's claws struck at the air. Bloodmind immediately sprang back a couple of steps. Mike launched a powerful strike at him.

“Grab him,” Bloodmind yelled to his metal servants.

At their master's command they lunged towards Mike, putting their guns on their backs as they ran. Mike swung at one of the metal forms before it could reach him. His claws penetrated the chest armour of one, exposing the wires and hydraulics beneath.

The metal creature didn't seem to notice, and it grabbed Mike's wrist in a vice-like grip. Mike tried to escape, but he couldn't get his second hand free. He lashed out in the direction of the other metal creature with his new tail, but he didn't have good control over the tail and didn't hit as cleanly as he wanted.

The dagger-like point did hit the second metal creature, but it got stuck in its hip. The metal man didn't allow this to distract it, and it grappled Mike before he could pull out his tail.

“Very good,” Bloodmind said appreciatively. “Much stronger than expected, strong enough even to penetrate a knight's armour. I'm impressed, you're a very nice specimen. It's fascinating that you can use your tail at such an early stage.”

The metal forms had a firm grip on Mike, and he couldn't shake free no matter how hard he tried. Then he heard Bloodmind switch on the drill, a horribly high-pitched noise filling the room.

“Struggle all you want. Your pitiful attempts to escape just make this all the more entertaining,” Bloodmind said, laughing like he had completely lost his mind, and placed the drill against Mike's head.

“Nooooo!” Mike shrieked with his distorted voice and tried again to escape.Once again his efforts were in vain. There was nothing he could do to free himself from the grip of the metal figures. The next moment he felt the drill penetrate the back of his head and touch bone. Mike suddenly stopped moving and lay still. The drill broke through the bone and plunged into Mike's brain.

“Now you belong to me,” Mike heard Bloodmind say, before he fell unconscious.

CHAPTER 2

ABDUCTED

Florian sat up, bathed in sweat. His pulse was racing and his breathing was fast and irregular. Dog tired and angry at the annoying noise, he reached for the alarm clock before slapping it off the bedside table. There was only darkness to be seen in the gap between his curtains and the alarm clock was showing 6:20 from where it lay on the floor.

Florian took a couple of deep breaths and waited for his heart to stop pounding. His system was full of adrenaline and his nose was running. As his heart was approaching something like a normal rate, he lay back down on the bed and rubbed his eyes. He could still see the images from his nightmare.He had dreamed of a boy, perhaps a couple of years younger than him. The boy had been running through a dark forest, followed by a figure that Florian couldn't quite make out. There was panic in the boy's eyes and Florian couldn't do anything to help him, almost as if somebody was holding him back. Florian wanted to scream, but no sound escaped his lips. The shape neared the boy, closer and closer, and eventually reached him. It grabbed the young boy, took him away and, as Florian was about to follow, the shape turned to look at him. It's gaze bored into him, deeper than anything ever before. He couldn't move and could only watch as the shape came closer to him. The shape was stretching its hand out towards him as, that same moment, it disappeared in a blue flash. A booming voice could be heard, “Run, or you'll be next.” Then he was woken by the sound of his alarm clock.

There was no point trying to get back to sleep, so Florian got up and opened his window to get rid of the stink of sweat. It was still dark outside but Florian knew his way around his room, skilfully avoiding all the trash and piles of washing that were strewn everywhere across the floor. He felt the cool morning air on his skin and took another couple of deep breaths. He wondered what the dream could mean, if it meant anything, and put his hand to his forehead.

It was red hot.Great, a fever dream, Florian thought and he closed the bedroom window. Then he heard his mother's voice from downstairs, “Breakfast is ready!”

“I'll be there in a minute!” Florian yelled back and wiped the snot from his running nose.He quickly turned on the light and started searching the mountains of dirty clothes for something he could wear. After a few minutes he thought he had found clothes to wear that didn't stink as bad as the rest, and he put them on.

It took an effort to open the door to his room, and it wasn't easy to find either because it was covered in posters for movies that he had once thought were cool. Florian was one of the biggest sci-fi fans in school and was always adding new posters to the collection on his walls. The door opposite opened almost at the same time he forced open his,and his sister Elia joined him in the corridor. Her brown hair was a mess at this time in the morning. Her blue eyes were looking daggers at him.

“You stink of sweat,” she said the moment she saw him.

“You don't exactly smell like a rose garden either,” Florian replied in a bad mood. He wasn’t about to take any nonsense from his sister, who didn't even come up to his chest. They had been fighting more and more lately and she really got on his nerves. Unfortunately, his parents usually took her side when they were fighting.

“And you look ill, get away from me with your germs!”

She slammed the door in his face without waiting for an answer. Florian really didn't feel great and was thinking about staying home.

“Are you coming down for breakfast or not?” his mother yelled up from the kitchen again. Florian sighed and shuffled downstairs into the kitchen, past his father's framed medals from his time in the military. At the bottom of the stairs, next to the medals, there was an old family photo from their last trip to Brazil with the whole family on the beach.

“Did you sleep well?” his mother asked as she cooked breakfast for his father. She tossed back her long brown hair and gave him an encouraging smile. Florian just mumbled something indecipherable as an answer. That usually stopped his mother asking any more questions. His mother was always so annoyingly talkative in the morning and was always ready to explain the latest advances in environmental technology to the family. Florian sat down at the kitchen table and ate the muesli his mother had made for him. Florian took a tired sip at his coffee but didn't feel much more awake. His father was sitting opposite him, hidden behind a newspaper that he was casually leafing through. You couldn't really talk to him so early in the morning and Florian preferred the silence at the breakfast table anyway. There was a big bunch of sunflowers on the table between them, his mother's favourite flowers.They were from a big bed in front of the house that his mother had grown.

A loud thumping bass started coming from his sister's room and Florian guessed she was listening to all her Britney Spears CDs at the same time again. Florian's father carried on flicking angrily through his newspaper but he didn't say anything. Considering he used to be a soldier, he found it surprisingly difficult to instil some discipline in his children. Florian's mother had always been the dominant one in the relationship. She had forced him to quit the military years ago.

Florian got angrily up from the table and put his bowl and almost full coffee cup in the dish washer. He was about to go back upstairs but his mother stopped him.

“You don't look too well,” she said, concern in her voice, and put a hand to his forehead. Florian let himself be “examined” because there was no point trying to stop her. She would just keep on at him until he let her have her way.

“You have a slight fever, you'd better get back to bed,” she said, giving him the results of her examination.

“He doesn't look all that bad, and his marks haven't been great lately,” Florian's father muttered and rustled his newspaper.

“No, he's staying home today. He hardly touched his coffee and you know how much he loves his coffee. If he goes to school, he'll just give it to all the other students. Besides, he can use the time to revise for his maths test, next week,” his mother replied in a stern tone that brooked no argument.

Florian's father just muttered something from behind his newspaper, his way of throwing in the towel.

Even if the house was burning down I would probably have to do some revision before they let me escape,Florian thought, but he was smart enough not to say it out loud. Instead he disappeared upstairs as soon as his parents stopped talking, went into his room and fought through the knee-deep trash to his bed. Florian lay down and piled pillows over his head to block out the noise of the pounding music his sister was playing.

As if there wasn't enough noise, his mother started doing the hoovering and the neighbour's dog seemed to have decided it was time to bark like mad.

“Can't anyone get a couple of minutes peace around here?” Florian yelled into his pillow.

He was tired of it, tired of all of it, including his parents who only paid attention to him if it was about his marks. He was tired of his sister talking down to him as if he was some kind of house pet. And, above all, he was tired of dragging himself off to school and sitting for seven hours while his teachers lectured him. “Sometimes, I just want to get away from here!” he quietly mumbled under his pillows.

It took a half hour for silence to descend on the house. Florian's parents both went off to work and his sister went to school. Florian heard her slam the door as she went. Even the neighbour's dog quieted down for a change and Florian thanked God for that because his headache had been getting steadily worse.After everything had been silent for a while, Florian pulled his head out from under his pillows and listened. All he could hear was the feint sound of cars that now and again went by outside, apart from that there was silence.He took a few deep breaths and then let his head sink back onto his pillow. His head was pounding but, at last, he had some peace. His tired eyes fluttered closed and he instantly fell asleep.

∞

Two hours later, he woke up bathed in sweat. It was the same nightmare, but this time it was him who was being followed. He had tried to flee but he stumbled in the darkness, waking up as the form bent over him. The same voice, once again, had told him that he had to run away.

Just a dream, it was all a dream,Florian said to himself. He could still see the lifelike images before his eyes.

Florian was trying to get back to sleep when he heard a loud rumbling in the distance. Only dim light was coming into the room through the gap in the curtains. Despite still having a slight headache, Florian got up and went to the window. He flung the curtains wide open and looked outside.

Everything was shades of grey outside and the sky was steadily darkening. A storm was fast approaching. His eyes flicked around the small garden in front of the house. Everything looked just the same as always but also somehow different. A single car went by, its headlights illuminating everything in golden light for a moment. Florian reached to close the curtains again but instead he noticed movement between the two tall office buildings on the other side of the street.

The side street between the two buildings, where he had seen the movement, was quite narrow and most of it lay in darkness. Florian stared at the side street for a while. He was sure something was moving among the rubbish bins and he kept his eyes fixed on the darkness. There seemed to be two small red points moving around and it seemed to Florian that they were looking right at him.

Probably just the lights of a bike, Florian thought and closed the curtains. Then he suddenly remembered his nightmare. He remembered the shape with the red eyes, that had chased him and wanted to capture him. He immediately ripped the curtains back open and looked where he had last seen the two red points. They weren't there any more. Florian's eyes searched the street but he couldn't see very much except dirt and rubbish.

There was a flash of lightning and Florian squeezed his eyes shut, blinded by the sudden light. He opened them a moment later as the thunder clap came, and a shudder went down his spine without him being able to say why.Then he saw it. The shape was big, gaunt and dressed in such a dark shade of black that no light seemed to escape it. It wore a large hood, like a monk. Within the dark of the hood, two red points could be seen.

There was another flash of lightning, forcing Florian to blink. His eyes were closed for little more than a fraction of a second but the figure was gone when they opened again. It was all so quick that Florian wasn't quite sure if he had actually seen anything at all. Shivers ran up and down his spine. In the distance he could hear muffled thunder.

Florian closed the curtains again and switched the light on. It began to gently rain outside. He hastily put on his pullover and looked for a raincoat among the mountains of clothes. The light drizzle turned into a downpour that lashed the windows of the house. Florian thought about the voice he had heard in his dream.

Just a fever dream, made worse by my headache, no reason to worry.

There was suddenly a bolt of lightning right above the house and all the lights went out. There hadn't been a power cut in his area for a long time and the fact that it had happened right now was more unsettling than he wanted to admit.

Stay calm, it was just a coincidence, that's all.

Florian put on his raincoat and stood there a moment in indecision. He wasn't going to get anywhere just standing around there like an idiot. The door to his room squeaked gently as he opened it, the sound echoing through the house.He could hardly see his hand in front of his face in the corridor outside his room.

Lightning arced across the sky and it was bright as daylight for a few moments. As the thunder followed, the darkness seemed even darker to Florian. He couldn't hear anything except the patter of rain. The house was silent and empty. He cautiously went down to the kitchen, wishing his coat wouldn't rustle so loudly with every step.

The kitchen was in darkness too, inside and out. Florian tried the light switch a couple of times, with no result. He opened a drawer and patted around for his father’s torch. He found it and grabbed it triumphantly. It felt good to have something heavy in his hand that he could use to defend himself if need be. He quickly switched it on and flashed it round all the dark corners. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

There was the sudden sound of breaking glass from below and Florian pointed the torch beam at the door to the cellar. Florian stared at the door and heard the shards of glass scraping across the concrete floor, then the cracking and shattering of the shards. The cellar steps squeaked as somebody came up them. The doorknob started to slowly turn. Florian couldn't tear his eyes off it.

The lock clicked and the door opened almost like in slow motion. Florian could hardly breathe. He was so scared he couldn't say a word or move a muscle. A figure dressed in black stepped into the torch's beam. It flinched almost imperceptibly from the light, then a hand, hidden in a wide sleeve, reached towards him.

Florian recognised it from his dreams and from the side street. As the figure reached towards him, Florian swung the torch back and flung it at the shape with all his might. It hit the figure in the head and there was a loud screech, so shrill Florian thought his eardrums were going to burst. The screech shocked him from his petrified immobility and he suddenly started to run. He yanked the front door open and slammed it behind him as soon as he was through. He sprinted through the rain into the darkness as fast as he could.

The driving rain hit Florian in the face and he was soaked to the skin in moments despite his coat. He ran through the maze of little streets as fast as he could, throwing continuous glances over his shoulder as he ran. The shape didn't seem to be following him. He was sure it couldn't be that simple to shake the figure so he searched every dark corner of every side street with his eyes.

A bolt of lightning illuminated everything for a moment. He saw the shape in a street to his right. Darkness returned after the sudden flash of light and the shape was gone again. Florian started to panic and his body started to pump huge amounts of adrenaline into his system. He forced himself to run faster and desperately tried to keep a cool head.

One thing was obvious, the figure wanted him and Florian didn't think it was going to give up until it had achieved its goal. He desperately tried to think of some way to get away, he had to come up with a plan. But Florian had never been very good at coming up with plans. He'd always been better at improvising.

His shoes were filling with water and his wet clothes were clinging to his body. His lungs started to burn and he began to wish he hadn't gotten out of doing sport so often to play video games.

He slowed down a little and looked around, but there was no sign of the figure. It looked like he had managed to shake it among all the small side streets. Exhausted and out of breath, he opened the lid of a dumpster and tumbled in. The lid shut behind him and Florian had to hold his nose because of the smell.

He lay among the rubbish in the dark, not daring to move, and listened to the rain hammering against the dumpster. He was still breathing heavily and he fought the urge to vomit. He could hardly believe his luck, he actually seemed to have gotten away from the figure.

He stayed in the dumpster for a while, exhausted, and cursed himself for not having jumped in a dumpster for paper. His thoughts were a whir. He flinched at a sudden clap of thunder.

Who is that? What does he want with me? Is he a kidnapper?

Sure he couldn't hear anything outside except the rain, he carefully opened the lid a crack and looked out into the street. The only movement he could see was the rain drops. The street was empty. Florian brushed a banana peel off his shoulder and opened the lid all the way. He silently slipped from his hiding place and closed the lid again after him.

He went a few steps in the direction of the end of the street and looked at a sign with the street name, up on the wall. He whistled softly, impressed by how far he had run. Without realising it, he had made it across half the town. He was also surprised he hadn't almost immediately collapsed with the effort.

It looked like video games weren't quite as bad as everyone said they were.

Florian recoiled at the sight of something moving behind one of the dumpsters and was about to start running again before he noticed it was just a single stray dog. The dog looked up at him with its big eyes, wagged its tail a couple of times and then went on its way. Florian took a deep breath of relief, tried to calm his racing heart and wiped the rain from his eyes.Tired and completely filthy, he turned towards home and he hoped he would never have to tell his parents about the strange figure. They would probably send him straight off to a psychiatrist.

Still anxious, Florian came out of the side street and went along the main street back to his house, with people constantly turning their heads to stare at him. Despite the rain, a few strangers stopped and gave him hostile glances, but he didn't care. Even if the figure was still after him, it probably wouldn't dare to touch him on the main street, in front of so many people.

He really didn't care about all the stares he was attracting. They were probably just wondering what a drenched teenager, completely covered in dirt, was doing out on the street, and whether he should be in school or not. Only one old man, who was wearing a kind of poncho, gave Florian an encouraging smile.

Probably homeless, Florian thought and hurried his steps, shoulders hunched.

The further he went, the more unlikely his encounter with the figure started to seem, and if he hadn't been so terrified he might even have thought it had all just been a bad dream.The rain relented a little and Florian tried to shake some of the water from his hair, which was now clinging to his head. He heard the dog he had seen before barking behind him.

Florian turned to look at the dog and noticed that he was now alone on the main street. There were only the headlights of a single car, driving by in the distance. The dog was still barking but then the sound suddenly stopped, replaced by a low whining that also soon stopped. Florian sped up a little, still heading towards his house. He felt shudders again run up and down his back and, without looking back, he started to sprint.

He ran down the street and, as he turned the last corner before his house, he thought he saw something from the corner of his eye. Florian smelled something strangely metallic, but he ignored it and kept running. He could see his house now, the front door wide open. He cleared the low garden fence in one mighty leap and ran across the front lawn, almost trampling his mother's sunflowers.

Florian's heart was beating fast as he went through the open door and came to a skidding halt in the hallway. He was just about to slam the door behind him when he noticed the door wasn't open, it wasn't there at all. All that remained of the hinges were a few shards of metal. There was no sign at all of the door itself except a few splinters of wood lying in the mud outside the house.

What the …?

Florian stared at the door frame, as if he could will the door back into being with the pure force of his mind. Again Florian noticed the strange, metallic smell and, as he was about to turn around, he received a violent blow to the head.

As he fell he heard a voice, “Test subject AA13-2015 collected successfully.”

Then he crumpled to the floor and everything went black.

CHAPTER 3

BAD AWAKENING

Florian's eyes went wide open with shock, but he couldn't see anything. He blinked a couple of times, squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again. He couldn't see anything except total darkness. His head was pounding and, when he touched the back of his head, he found a huge bump. The floor he was lying on felt cold, metallic and strangely damp. Florian felt his way round the room on his knees until he eventually came to a wall. He used the wall to get to his feet and started moving along it. The wall seemed to be made of metal as well.

After just a few steps, he reached the corner.He kept moving and stumbled over a raised area in the floor. Florian fell on his face, bashing his knee badly as he went down. He curled up on the floor and tears started to flow down his cheeks as he quietly sobbed.

“Why me?” he said, over and over. Being abducted had always been one of his greatest fears and not being able to see anything certainly didn't help. He was starting to panic and he was having trouble breathing.

Every “Why me?” was louder until he was eventually screaming at the top of his voice. But nobody seemed to be able to hear him and he certainly didn't get any answers. He started punching the wall and the floor, but it didn't do anything except give him bruises. The metal floor and walls didn't give an inch. The cold was starting to seep into his bones.

“Where is this? What do you want from me?” he yelled, but nobody answered.

After a while, Florian's screams started to become quieter, until only fragile sobs were left to echo in the darkness. Florian stopped bashing at the walls and floor with his fists. He had to pull himself together. He had to find out who had kidnapped him and most of all he had to find out why. He slowly wiped his tears away and took a couple of deep breaths.

Got to keep cool, there must be some reason I'm still alive. They probably want a ransom, and that's why they need me alive. Okay, so first I have to find out where I am.

Florian thought for a minute and strained his ears, because his eyes weren't much use in this darkness. He forced his breathing to become calmer and tried his best not to make a noise. He could just hear water dripping on metal but there was something else as well. Florian slowly turned round to face in the direction the other noise seemed to be coming from. There was a feint rumbling in the distance, or at least that was what it sounded like. It was like the heavy machinery of a factory.

He kept straining his ears but, except from the water dripping and the rumbling of machinery, he couldn't hear anything else except something that sounded like the occasional snuffling of an animal. Florian cursed softly and leaned his head against the wall. Rocking slightly forward and backward, he wrapped his arms round his legs and started praying that whoever his kidnappers were, they weren't terrorists.

“Who would have any reason to kidnap me and hide me here?” he yelled into the darkness. The only answer he received was silence.

Florian couldn't say for sure how long he had been sitting in the darkness, but he was slowly starting to shiver from the cold. It seemed to him that he had been locked up for hours. He felt around on the wall, higher and higher, until he was standing up. He shook his arms and legs a few times until they started to feel a little warmer. In order to banish the cold, he walked along the wall from corner to corner, continually feeling around for the thing he had fallen over with his foot. He couldn't find it.

Please don't let it be some animal!

Florian's head was still throbbing painfully and his feverishly trying to work out how to get out of there wasn't helping. His head felt like someone had been pounding on it.Florian's heart started beating faster as he remembered the form in the dark cloak.

Please don't be in here!

His stomach started to growl with hunger and walking round in circles wasn't helping to keep the cold at bay for ever.

“Hello! Am I going to get anything to eat?” he yelled into the darkness. Again there was no answer. “Can I get something to eat? At least tell me what you want from me!”

“Great,” Florian muttered. “Of all the people in the town, it would be me that gets abducted by some kind of kidnappers or terrorists.”

He gave the wall a frustrated kick. This time it felt different. Florian couldn't say for sure what the difference was, and so he examined the wall with his hands.

He couldn't see anything but he was sure he could feel a small bump in the wall.Florian felt around a bit more and with every centimetre he became more sure that it was a door frame and, within it, a door. He punched it experimentally and then listened. It didn't sound as massive as the rest of the cell and it seemed like there was an empty space behind the door.

“Hey!” Florian screamed and hammered against the door. “Let me out of here! My family can't pay the ransom.”

Sad but true, his family wasn't the richest in town. They could afford a nice little house and a decent life but they would never be able to come up with a ransom to free Florian from kidnappers. His mother was a saleswoman and his father was just a senior admin assistant, despite his quite successful past in the military.

“Let me out of here! There's no point keeping me locked up in here!” Florian yelled and hammered on the door with both fists.

Florian started screaming like a wounded animal in a trap and kicked the door. Nothing he said or did seemed to attract the attention of whoever had kidnapped him. He didn't stop hammering against the door until he noticed his fists were bleeding. He could hardly stay on his feet for exhaustion. His head was still hurting terribly and, as he couldn't do anything about it, he sank down to the floor in front of the door.

More hours passed and Florian just sat there, sinking deeper and deeper into self-pity. It took forever to find a comfortable position to sit in. Only when he had finally gotten a little bit comfortable did he close his eyes. Although, in the darkness, that didn't make any difference at all.He listed to the water dripping, the distant rumbling in machines, the occasional low sniffling and at some point he fell asleep.

∞

Florian woke up. The omnipresent darkness surrounded him, just as before, and he couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. He didn't know how long he had been sleeping and, at that moment, he didn't care. It didn't make any difference anyway. Florian felt his way along the floor and tried to find the door again. A while later, his hand found the door frame and Florian knew where the door was. He pressed his ear up against it.

Florian strained to hear, his ear pressed against the cold metal. He could still hear the drone of the machinery and the dripping of the water, but then he heard something else. He pushed his ear harder against the door and held his breath. He could just hear a pounding noise in the distance which sounded like metal slamming against metal.

Footsteps,Florian suddenly realised.Those are footsteps.

Hard to hear and far away but there was no doubt, they were footsteps. Without making a sound, Florian kept straining his ears. At first the footsteps seemed to come closer, but then they retreated again and eventually they faded completely. In frustration, he gave the door a powerful punch.

“Let me out of here!” he screamed in fury. “People will be looking for me, and when they find me you are all going to end up rotting in a hole like this one!”

The darkness was slowly starting to get to Florian and again he slammed the door with his fist. It started bleeding once again.He was being eaten up inside by fear and rage. He just wanted to get home, ASAP.

“Open, damn you, door. I want out of here!”

While Florian was cursing the door every different way he could think of and begging for somebody to open it already, a voice suddenly interrupted him.

“Can you please shut your mouth and stop making all that noise? Some of us are trying to rot in the dark in peace and quiet.”

Florian froze and stared into the darkness.Did I really hear that?

After a few seconds, he hesitantly asked, “Hello? Is somebody there?”

“Yes, of course there's somebody here. Or do you think the walls have suddenly learned how to speak?” the voice answered harshly.

Florian couldn't believe it. He wasn't alone in his cell. He took a few deep breaths and forced himself to conquer his fear. It seemed much better to him that there was another person here, rather than being alone.

“Erm, have you been here the whole time?” Florian asked into the darkness.

“I was here long before you and I'll most likely be here long after you have gone. I would be very grateful if you could stop that screaming and hammering on the door now. My ears have become quite sensitive, you see,” the voice answered, just as harshly as before.

Florian turned on his cellmate, “The whole time? Why didn't you say anything until now? I've been yelling for hours!”

“I noticed, thanks. You were so sorry for yourself the whole time, I didn't want to disturb you. And besides, it was quite entertaining the way you were hammering on the door. But your language is a little complicated,” the voice replied in a tone that wasn't quite so impolite anymore, and it seemed to Florian that whoever the voice belonged to seemed to enjoy his predicament.

“Do you think this is funny?” Florian yelled angrily into the darkness in the direction the voice was coming from. “I've got no business being here and I want to go back home!”

The voice didn't answer. There was silence in the cell for a few minutes.

“Hello?” Florian asked.

“What?” the voice responded.

“I asked you something.”

“I'm sorry, I must have missed that, what did you ask?”

“I asked you if you thought this was funny.”

“Yes, of course it's funny. There isn't much entertainment in this hole so any distraction is welcome. Even if it looks like you,” the voice answered and this was followed by a hoarse laugh.

“How do you know what I look like, it's pitch dark in here,” Florian asked angrily in the direction of the voice.

“Yes, that's what's so funny,” the voice said and snorted out more laughter.

Florian felt an urge to punch whoever the voice belonged to, but he decided to try and keep a cool head for the moment. After all, he didn't know who he was dealing with. It could easily been a murderer who was in the cell with him.

“Where the hell are we anyway?” Florian asked into the darkness. The laughter suddenly stopped and silence descended on the cell again. Florian could just hear a sniffing.

“You smell funny,” the voice said softly. “I've never smelled anyone like you.”

“Hey, I asked you something: Where are we?”

After a brief hesitation, the voice answered, “Are you telling me that you don't even know where the Keepers brought you?”

“No, How would I? And what Keepers?” Florian asked.

“Oh, I thought you knew. Most people imprisoned in this sector are left to rot in a cell like this or work themselves to death.”

“What are you talking about? Where am I? Who brought me here and what I really want to know is, why? I want to get out of here!” Florian answered angrily.

“I can tell you where you are and who brought you here, but we can only guess about why.”

“All right, I'm all ears.”

“Well, you're in the Gamma 8 prison, in the maximum-security wing to be exact. The Keepers of the Light brought you here, but why? Well, it's possible that you did something that broke their laws, resisted somehow, or they need you for one of their sick experiments. Or their research of the chosen is also a possibility.”

Florian could hardly believe it. He had actually been made a captive.

“Hang on a minute, I haven't broken any laws and I've never heard of the Keepers of the Light or the chosen.So what country is our camp located in? Do I get a lawyer?”

There was a burst of laughter, “What country? Lawyer? What else do you want, a trial maybe?” There was more hoarse laughing from the darkness. “You are funny. We aren't in any country, not even on a planet. This whole slammer is built on an asteroid at the extreme edge of the area of space controlled by the Keepers. It used to be a mining facility.”

“You're shitting me! A prison, on an asteroid? So the Keepers are aliens then, and they abducted me?”

“Basically, yes. The Keepers have more than one race among their ranks and, if you aren't one of them, then they are aliens to you. But don't let the name fool you. The Keepers of the Light are an ancient and evil organisation that has ruled the accessible area of the galaxy for centuries. They destroy anyone who gets in their way. Either you submit or you die. Those are the only two possibilities. I've seen whole worlds burn, just because a few resisted,” came the reply, with a mournful tone in the voice.

Florian needed a moment to take it all in. He didn't know what to make of what his cellmate had just said.

“But what do they want from me?” he asked, hesitantly, afraid of what the answer was going to be.

“If you haven't broken any of their laws, they either need you for their sick experiments or research on the chosen. I tend to think it'll be the experiments. We can make a bet, if you want.”

“No, thanks. Can you tell me what the chosen are about?” Florian asked with an increasingly uneasy feeling in his belly.

“Many years ago there was one of those prophecies, that two chosen ones from a far away part of the galaxy will destroy the Keepers and bring in a new era of peace and advancement. Sometimes they say there is just one chosen one, the different translations and interpretations vary quite a bit. If you ask me, pretty much the whole legend is complete crap. It's just a story to tell children at bed time. It could be that the Keepers think you have something to do with all that. Or, maybe they just want to do their experiments on you. I bet 50 Keeper drachmas on the experiments.”

Florian let his head fall against the door and took a deep breath. He felt like he was about to start hyperventilating. His head was pounding and the lump felt like it was going to burst at any moment.

Stay calm, don't lose it. It's all going to be okay, it's all got to be just one of Elia's jokes.

“So, I guess, to stop the Keepers, you have to rescue a rebel princess and blow up the Death Star,” Florian said sarcastically, as he started to think he was in one of those TV shows where they play tricks on people.

“Not exactly, no. To be honest, you sound a little like the Keepers knocked you on the head a little too hard,” Florian's cellmate replied and giggled softly.

“Okay, it's been fun in here, very funny. But you can let me out now!” Florian yelled up at the ceiling. “Elia, I know you are behind all this! Very funny, really, but that's enough.”

“If you start to go nuts and start talking to people who aren't there, sorry but I have to tell you, that's not the way to get out of here. Believe me, I've tried it.” The voice paused for a moment. “You really are there, aren't you? It's difficult to know what's real and what isn't in here. Especially if you have a brain that you can't entirely rely on anymore.”

“I'm really here.”

“That's what one of the voices in my head would say.”

“Do you want me to pinch you, so you believe me?”

“No, I can do that myself … ouch … all right, you're real.”

Florian sank disconsolately to the floor with his back against the door. He took another couple of deep breaths and rubbed at his eyes.

“Okay, let's assume for a minute that everything you're telling me is true, and not just one of my sister's or my friends' bad jokes. Who are you? And why are you here?”

“Nice of you to ask at last, after such a lovely talk. My name is Kronos, probably one of the last of the Xorans. I was an active member of the resistance and was stupid enough to get captured. Ever since, I've been in this wonderful cell, as you can see, or maybe not.” Kronos broke into hoarse giggling again.

Once he had calmed down a little again, he asked Florian, “And who do I have the honour of speaking to?” A strange sniffling came from Kronos' direction.

“I'm a human… Florian… I come from the Earth,” Florian answered, still a little confused, and sat back up.