In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater (6 page)

“Another
one!” Arnold shouts. SE6 hovers up to the window. It creeps toward them.

“Wait!”
Cole yells. He wants answers, why is he here and why does he want Thora?

For
some reason, Cole knows its gender, a male. A beam of light erupts from the
ship and Thora and the alien disappears into it.

“
Nooo
! Wait!” Cole yells after it. It hovers back as Erin
runs and grabs baby Neil.

“Thank
god…” She says embracing Neil. She starts to cry as he squeals like nothing
happened, grabbing at her curls. At least she still has him. A sudden influx of
gunshots and screams are heard outside.

Outside,
a grunt leaps up and grabs hold of SE6, hanging off its wing. The ship lurches
backwards impossibly fast and the beast slips and falls. It grabs onto the
window seal of the master bedroom.

It
pulls itself up, look inside and grins.

Shit.

Its
arm rips through the wall like paper as its hand grabs Erin and falls out.

“Erin!!”
Arnold yells. He leaps out of the window after her, but the grunt catches him
in midair. In a boom, a tank round hits the grunt in the chest. He releases
Arnold and Erin slips hold of Neil.

“
Nooo
!” She screams. But Arnold does the impossible. In one
swift motion, he catches Neil and barrel rolls as he hits the ground hard. The
grunt lands on both feet right in front of him.

Cole
looks out the hole in the wall, debris still settling around him. He has to
help them. He runs out the apartment.

Inside
the tank that fired, the crew loads another round.

“Hey!
We’re firing too close to the
civilians
sir!” The
driver says. The captain, the same one who was supposed to lead Cole and the
rest to safety, has finally cracked. Sweat drips down his face.

“It’s
us or them, lieutenant. Fire another round!” he commands. The tank shakes hard.

Outside
it, a grunt lands on top. It rips off the turret and grabs and hurls the crew
over the city.

Across
the street, Arnold manages to stand up, baby Neil starts to cry, his wails
piercing through the battlefield. The grunt carrying Erin stands in front of
him. It starts to laugh.

“Baby…run…AHHH!”
She lets out a hellish scream. The grunt clutches her in both hands, squeezes
hard and pulls.

Its
monstrous hands rips her in half. Her guts splatter on Arnold. The grunt throws
her remains on him, but it doesn’t knock him over. He just stares at her, his
wife, the mother of their child. All that’s left of her. Splattered across the
ground.

He
clutches Neil incredibly hard, staring at her with his blood stained eyes.

His
wife is dead.

The
grunt still stands in front of him but he doesn’t care. Arnold just screams.

The
grunt is hit by a tank round. He shrugs it off as a battalion of tanks roll
around the corner. The rally point is lost. He points at them and his gun wraps
around his arm. Huge energy rounds erupt from it and annihilates the tanks.

Cole
peeks out of the entrance of the apartment. SE6 flies overhead and hovers a
mile away. Arnold just stands on the side of the street. Cole runs toward him
but stops when he notices what Arnold is staring at. And what’s covering him.

No
. Erin’s head and her
splattered remains on the ground.

“
Nooooo
!”

Not
Erin!
He falls to his knees. Not one of the only people he cared for! He was supposed
to protect her, but he failed, he always fucking fails. Tears pour out his
eyes. He looks up at Arnold. His face is frozen, Neil cries in his arms. The
pain on his face is indescribable.

A
grunt lands in front of Cole and punts him, he flies high into the air. He
crashes on a rooftop and skids to a stop.

He
gets up to his knees without any hesitation. He’s fine. That barely hurt, it
should’ve killed him. Flying two hundred feet into the air and crashing down
should kill any living thing. So why is he unkillable? Every time he’s tries to
kill himself he fails. Why can’t he fucking die?

If
he actually succeeded for once, maybe, just maybe, Erin could’ve survived.
Maybe all of the people who have died because of him could’ve lived.

But
no, instead he’s just taking up space. Thora, Erin, Julio, nobody can survive
through this hell, everybody is gone.

He
doesn’t have anything to live for anymore. He wants to end it… but he doesn’t even
have the power to do that.

“I’m
sorry Erin,” he mutters. “I’m fucking useless.”

The
grunt that hit him leaps onto the rooftop, he looks amazed. He smiles and lets
out a roar. It echoes throughout the entire city. Twenty grunts in a two mile
radius jump onto the rooftops, surrounding him. They all lick their
bloodthirsty chops.

 “We
got another one!” A grunt yells.

Another
what?

The
sky is void of any friendly aircraft.

The
ships above swirl ominously overhead like a metallic tornado. The grunts creep
toward him. What is he going to do? He stops himself.
Why do anything? Why
go on?
Why continue to fight when he wants to die?

He
really doesn’t care anymore.

He
gives up.

That
many of them should hopefully be able to kill him.

But—

He
runs and they give chase, every grunt comes for him. He runs not because he
wants to but because of his instinct.

His
body moves for him and leaps between rooftops. He’s tired of this, he doesn’t
care if he lives or dies,
he
just wants to sleep
forever in oblivion.

Without
a care.

Without
an ounce of pain. Before he used to fear not existing but he doesn’t care
anymore.

A
grunt closes in from behind, in front of him the rooftops end. There’s a mega
highway gap before the next rooftop. An ocean of cars and tarmac between him
and the other roof.

The
gap quickly closes in and he goes for it. He jumps hard and soars over the
highway. It looks like he can make it. Time seems to slow as he flies through
the air.

The
sudden endorphins rushing into
him
makes him feel alive
again. Why can’t he feel like this all the time, why does he have to always
feel the doubt and hate of this world? The wind rushes past him.

An
energy round hits him from afar and he falls fast from his arc. He crashes into
a small building.

A
grunt walks up to the hole in the wall. Cole pushes a piece of rubble off him.
The crash only dirtied him up a little.
Not a single goddamn scratch.
His force field wasn’t even up.

“Dammit!”
He pounds his fist to the ground, it cracks.

Maybe
it was like this for a reason, him gaining this power.

“I’m
done.”

He’s
done of this. He grips his fist, the dust around it floats in the air. Cole’s
tired, tired of failing to kill himself. Tired of his loved ones dying around
him, tired of feeling sorry, tired of his depression, and tired of this goddamn
war.

He
stands as his watch dings.  

Sync
complete
.

He
shudders. He can feel it, the sudden influx of power flowing through his veins.
Maybe this will save them, maybe this will save himself. From the pain, from
the loneliness, from the depression. This could be the answer to save
everything.

He
screams.

A
force field encases him and shoots out incredibly fast, it stops suddenly at
twenty feet. Multiple one by one force shields combines to make one.
The grunt it hits flings off it hard and hurls into a
car.

Dead.

The
smiles of the grunts around him disappear. The spawn of ships above swirl
aggressively as Cole’s force field disappears.

Cole
can feel the amount of power that courses through him, it’s sickeningly
orgasmic. All of his senses are heightened, his mind is clear. He can move the
stars with this amount of power.

He’s
tired of lying to people, lying to himself, tired of failing them. SE6 still
hovers ahead, impervious to the conflict around it.

Cole
knows what he has to do. He will, must save Thora, stop this war and with this
power, rip open the heavens and make the gods account for their sins for what
they have done. For if he can’t leave Earth at his will, someone will pay for
those suffering around him.

With
this power he can challenge God himself.

He
shouldn’t have been afraid, afraid to use it. Because of this power he’s
invincible.

The
grunts surround him, to him they are just ants. His body glows a bluish tint.
All the grunts wait for him to make a move. He leaps up incredibly high and
lands on a rooftop, the grunts do the same.

Cole
smiles.

He
races for SE6, the grunts follow, fifty ships break off and launch toward Cole.
Cole runs faster than Usain Bolt on steroid-laced crack.

One
of them fires, Cole swings up and a force field comes up and deflects it back.
It takes out five of their ships.

Two
grunts leap in front of him, he kicks one and it flies back, he swings his arm
to the other and shoots out a projectile.

It
screams as its head is blown off.

Another
grunt leaps in front of him, the ships fire from above. He brings up his force
field and it reflects it and destroys everything in his path.

He
leaps on a rooftop and sees SE6 and leaps for it. But he’s smacked down hard
and flies across the roof.
That actually hurt.
But he shakes it off, he
can’t stop now. The grunt that killed Erin lands on the other side of the roof,
still covered in her blood.

The
confident look on its face is revolting. He stands right in front of SE6, it
stands in his way with that fucking smirk.

Cole
doesn’t have time to think, he has to kill.

They
both stare each other down, the grunt smiles and they charge. Cole is
unwavering, he’s not going to let it happen again, his hesitation.

The
grunt laughs as it runs toward him, it’s just playing around but too bad he met
Cole. They both swing their fist as they collide.

Debris
kicks up as a shock wave rips out as their fist meet, ripping the buttons off
of Cole’s shirt.

The
grunt’s bones crack and split as its fist stops but Cole’s keeps going. Its
smirk is wiped off. Cole’s fist goes up its arm and out the back, splitting it
in half like an ax into a log. 

The
grunt jumps back, arm flailing, blood spurting everywhere. It spurts on Cole
but he doesn’t stop.

They
bleed red just like us.

The
grunt screams as Cole grabs its other arm and rips it off.

The
grunt falls on its back. Cole jumps on top of him and wraps his bloody hands
around its neck.

He
squeezes with all his might, with all his pain and suffering, with all his
anger. With all his fears and problems he squeezes its neck until it snaps.

Dead
.

He
continues to squeeze, his hand submerges in its blood as he breaks the skin.
Cole cries, he’s just so tired of everything.

His
tears drip into the slush that is the grunts exposed neck. He brings up his
hands and looks at them, the grunts spunk drips from them. He suddenly
remembers where he is.

Cole
stands, nothing approaches him.

He
tears off a piece of his shirt and wipes off the gunk. SE6 is only a few yards
in front of him.

Cole
has to do this.

He
runs toward it and leaps but halts half way in mid-air.

“What!?”

Cole’s
frozen, he struggles to move but can’t. A beam of light shoots out from SE6 and
engulfs him.

Its
front turns away and shoots off into the sky. Cole is still engulfed in the
light.

“NOOO!”

Suddenly!
He’s ripped off into the sky. Cities, mountains, valleys, all zoom under him at
incredibly fast speeds. He’s pulled above the clouds and flies toward SE6 which
just hovers off in the distance. He approaches it and slams his eyes shut as
he’s about to hit.

---

Bermea
wakes up under a pile of rubble. He’s on the top floor of the apartment
complex, the roof was torn open by the plane crash. The sun peers in.

“
Hahaa
! Yes! I’m alive! Suck it, motherfuckers!” Bermea
hollers. He did it, he survived.
Him, Bermea!
Even he didn’t think he
would.

But
enough celebrating, he needs to find a way out of town. He looks around for the
stairs and jumps as some rubble moves to the side of him. He sighs in relief as
it turns out it was nothing, just some rubble covering a statue.