Chapter One
YAHIRO
Yahiro’s fingers sank into the dirt as she was thrown back by the deluge of commotion that quickly descended upon her small group. Fear and instinct coursed through her—brought on by years of working the underground—and she managed to fling herself away from the animalistic, alien beasts that attacked.
The other girls—inmates—Preta and Charlie, vanished out of sight between the trees and the monsters. The alien fruit she’d been picking scattered upon the ground, forgotten while chaos ensued.
A large creature flashed before her eyes, unusual in its entirety. Its long teeth gripped the leg of one of theConcord’sguards and tore it clean off. A warm spray of blood splashed across Yahiro’s face. She ducked and hid behind a nearby tree, her body remembering all the hours of training she’d endured in her pre-prison life, but her fear kept her from running. She was too afraid of drawing attention to herself.
Her ears filled with the guttural wails of a man being torn to pieces.
“Run!” someone screamed. It was enough to spur her forward, cracking her frightened shell. She didn’t need to be told twice.
The waning light fueled her horror and the distant stupor she had succumbed to since waking up post-crash vanished. She reached for her gun with dirty fingers—a gun that was no longer there. The ground shook beneath her feet, and like the lucky beings of her small scouting party, she managed to flee the scene before she caught notice of the clearly carnivorous monsters. The fruit and the need for food were no longer priority.
Her throat closed up. Her tight jumpsuit squelched as she ran through the foreign terrain, toward what she hoped was the direction of the wrecked ship she and her fellow survivors had crawled out of like neon orange maggots, awash in dirt, dust, and blood from their wounds.
Her ears twitched as screams filled the air, distinct but distant, and they were followed by the predatory screeching of the beasts. She tried not to focus on it as she burst through the tree line and into a clearing of wet muck.
A swamp.Adrenaline surging through her veins, she drew in a breath, the air entering her lungs causing a sharp pain in her chest from overexertion. Fear morphed into terror as her eyes landed on the giant sun, so much larger than Earth’s sun, slashed in half, hidden by the horizon. It was as red as blood, as red and gruesome as a bleeding heart.
She ran the back of her hand across her nose and looked around, quickly assessing her surroundings, anxiety mounting with each breath.
I’m lost. I don’t... there’s no swamp near the ship...Her eyes landed back on the setting sun.It’ll be dark soon.Her skin prickled.I don’t want to be out here after dark.The sting of fresh tears formed on her lashes.
Crushing feet and snapping brush set her back into a sprint, straight-on into the brackish bog. If she had a better option, she’d take it, but being eaten alive by the monster on her tail trumped the possibility of alien swamp bugs. It fucking trumped her whole world.
The water was tepid but cool over her burning feet and she surged onward even when it rose up her shins. Mud swirled around her bright pants. She pivoted down into the muck and grabbed a handful to rub over her skin.
Scent, masked.
She hoped.
Her feet continued to sink into the dirt and slime, and she soon lost one of her shoes, but she didn’t stop, would never stop; she’d been running for years, whether from the physical strife or fleeing from the torment in her head.
Something whistled past her ear and she dropped down with a winded shriek, submerging herself into the rank, slimy water. Yahiro squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath, waiting and hoping, until her lungs filled with pain, that whatever wanted to feast on her flesh would lose her.
She didn’t dare emerge, didn’t dare move, even when she felt critters slide across her skin. The pounding in her ears intensified as water bore down on her. Pain shot through her, everywhere, and when she could no longer take it, she managed to hold herself back and slowly rise until her head peeked out of the water.
Her eyes snapped open as she peered around, her long hair swirling about her cheeks.
The foliage was red and deep; a fog of dusk that covered the strange planet. She didn’t see any signs of the beast, but then again, her full attention was on the rapidly darkening landscape.
She shot up the rest of the way, her heart racing, wanting to burst out of her chest. Her body heated despite the cold and her palms slickened with more than sweat.
The dark. It’s dark, getting darker.
Yahiro couldn’t think straight as her eyes found the sun again, almost gone now, completely below the horizon. She hacked and coughed but didn’t move, trapped in her own skin, her own horrors and nightmares flashing before her eyes.
The rank cell, forever dark. The psychological torture. The evil that had lured her in, caught unaware, and captivated her until she forgot who she was and succumbed to its appeal. Once reality had reached her again, it had been too late. Her commanding officer and the city officials had placed all the blame on her shoulders and threw her into another cell, one that was far brighter, but no less awful. One that was outside the laws of Earth but gave the illusion of them.
TheConcord. An international prison ship that hovered far above Earth’s surface.
She had gone from one cell to the next, her life beyond her control, betrayed by her job, her country, and then by nature itself as she found herself lost and hurt on this alien planet.
Yahiro wiped the tears that had trickled down her face, smearing the mud on her skin. She wrapped her arms around her body and shivered, trying to comfort herself despite the demons growing closer as the evening deepened.
Where am I?At this point, she had no idea what direction the wrecked ship was in.
