Nobody Left Behind 1 (Patreon)

Oh goodness. I thought I had posted this already! I'm restarting the Sarsuk story from the beginning and doing a rewrite so Siki plays more of a part. I'll skip over all the early stuff in Sarsuk's life and then we'll revisit it later when she asks him about it.

...Or at least, that's the plan.

Not much to update you guys with. I know I've been quiet. I'm coming to the end of my project at work and the next one looks like it will be fun. I'm really hoping that will help my mood. It's extremely hard to work a job you don't enjoy and then try to create on your personal time. With luck, it will be easier to write in March. Sadly, the new project won't last long, but I'll take whatever I can get.

What else? Hrm. Ky is getting eye surgery on St. Paddy's day. Did we mention that? They're going to cut open her eyeballs and insert a contact lens behind each of her irises. It's positively freaky, but I know she looks forward to getting rid of her coke-bottle glasses. It's a shame she's not a candidate for Lasik.

Oh yeah, my retirement guy added two months onto my work plans. I'm not thrilled with that, but it's only two months, so we're resetting the clock back to seventeen months. I can't wait to write fulltime, so I can stop doing my day job!

With that, here's the new start to Nobody Left Behind...

Also, I've (re-)written the second scene, so I'll queue that up to post tomorrow.

———

Sarsuk stared up at the judge, terrified. At this point, he was getting quite used to people being angry at him, but of all the angry people he’d encountered, the judge was the one he regretted meeting most.

“Sarsuk of Vestacorneria,” the judge hissed slowly, “I find you guilty … of treason!”

Sarsuk stood, and a pair of claws grabbed his shoulders, restraining him. The bailiff tightened his grip as if worried that the pudgy, middle-aged krakun might launch himself over the judge’s bench and attack the justice with his bare claws. “You didn’t even let me present any evidence!” shouted Sarsuk.

The judge’s red scales flashed so brightly that the former commissioner suspected they’d glow in the dark. He banged his gavel twice to restore order, and the bailiff reeled Sarsuk back into his seat.

Sarsuk shot a look at the court-appointed lawyer seated beside him, but the teal krakun avoided his gaze, and instead, he stared down at his claws with a lowered head and defeated posture.

Sarsuk’s pulse hammered in his head. He felt dizzy, and he barely breathed.

“You are a traitor to the empire,” continued the judge, “and I sentence you to death.”

# # #

Commissioner Sarsuk drew a deep breath and let out a long, sleepy groan before smacking his lips four times in a row. He ran his palm slowly across the couch cushion, enjoying the familiar sensation and the comforting notion of being home.

After an almost imperceptible pause, his hearts started to race, and a tingle of dread ran down his spine. Wait a second! he thought. Something’s not right.

He slowly opened his eyes. The room was dark, but not pitch black. Here and there, he could see some weak LED indicators.

If he’d fallen asleep on his couch—as he often did—then the blue LED in front and slightly to the left of him had to be the standby light on his TV. The bright orange one to the left and above that would have to be the timer on the javea brewing pot. He could have sworn the timer LED was a deep infrared, but the light was clearly orange now.

And the yellow one to his right…? He honestly had no idea what that could be. That would be over by where the doorbell was mounted—but the doorbell had no LED on it! He cautiously sat upright…

And nothing happened. Well, almost nothing happened. He could feel the texture of the cushions beneath his palms, his muscles tensing, and his tremendous weight lifting, but when he sat up, the view should have changed. Those silly stand-by lights on all his electronic appliances should have rotated some ninety degrees, but they didn’t. They remained stubbornly where they’d been since he opened his eyes.

Were they not stand-by lights? Had someone strapped goggles over his face with LEDs affixed inside? Why would someone do that?

Sarsuk put his claws to his face, but he could feel no goggles, just the same face he’d felt a billion times before…

But there was something strange happening! If he held his claws in front of his eyes, they didn’t block out the lights. He could close his eyes and return to blackness, but his claws … were transparent—hidden with a cloaking field, perhaps?

No, that was a ridiculous notion.

“Lights on!” barked Sarsuk, but nothing happened. “I said, ‘Lights on!’ Room? Turn the lights on.”

But still, the darkness remained. Worry nibbled at the corners of his calm as he noticed other things that didn’t seem right. The air smelled wrong, unsatisfying, sort of like when he’d visit a gateship and the geroo would pump in compromise air—a mixture of his native air mix and theirs so that the sulfur compounds he breathed didn’t kill them.

He smelled mammals here too, but not the little marsupials he’s grown accustomed to. They smelled … different, gamier.

And the room sounded wrong. Something was humming, but it wasn’t a hum he’d heard in his apartment. It wasn’t his refrigerator. It wasn’t the air conditioner, nor even whatever-in-blazes was constantly rumbling in the upstairs neighbor’s apartment.

“Hello?” he called. That sounded wrong too. The room was too small and echoey. His voice boomed and some glassware tinkled from the vibration. “Hello? Is anyone there?” he begged.

Sarsuk drew a deep breath … and then deeper … and then deeper still. He could hear and feel the air across his tongue, feel his lungs inflating, but they just didn’t … get full. He blew the air out through his snout and felt the same sort of experience. No matter how long he blew, his lungs never felt empty. He always had more air to breathe out or more capacity to breathe in.

“What the…?” He shook his head. That made those power LEDs move.

He stood and walked to the bedroom, but once more, nothing. Though he could feel himself walk, he couldn’t hear his claws tromp across the carpet. He didn’t seem to actually be moving.

“Where am I? What in blazes is going on here?” he bellowed.

And then, he heard something … something faint … something distant … something he couldn’t quite make out. Footsteps? Idle chit-chat? He wanted to call out, but instead, he waited, listening while the steps grew louder.

Another light blinked on, but not inside the room. The light was outside, and he could see it light up the gap beneath a door and a small window inset in it—a narrow rectangle of light with crisscrossing wires inside the glass to give it extra strength.

He waited longer, holding his breath. The steps padded closer and closer until the door opened slightly and a lab-coated arm reached in. With three flicks, three banks of lights above him came alive.

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L0ICXfmAu8NnZbwa1lkVcf2hdT0c3AtuhOMfLqdmt0c/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?