“Can we touch him now, Sami?” Walter asked. His voice was so tentative.
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Jace?!” Sami cried.
He could see her legs. He frowned. Yep, he was definitely down on the ground. He had to get up. He had to…
Gehenna?
There was no answer. Andhe nearly shrieked as he tried to reach the AI. His mind… God, his whole head throbbed. He reached up and put his hands on his temples but quickly brought them down. It hurt to touch his skin.
“Jace?” Sami asked again, her voice full of tears.
“Khul?” he whispered.
He tasted copper on his tongue. He smelled copper when he breathed through his nose.
Blood… still alive though… damn… so much pain…
There was a ringing in his ears, but it was strangely muted. Everything was muted. The pain was… so bad. He wanted to vomit. He might do that. But not here. He had to get outside. Something… he had to get outside.
“They’re… they’re all dead, I think,” Walter answered for Sami. “Did you do that, Jace? How did you do that?”
Jace put one foot on the ground--he was on his knees now--and tried to lift himself up. He staggered. Walter touched his shoulders and he nearly shrieked as the pain sloshed like acids through him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he was smoking, burned through and through, by what he had done.
Gehenna? He called again.
He thought he heard the faintest reply, but it was drowned out by the agony in his head. He forced himself to his feet. He wobbled, but stayed upright. He really was going to vomit. Maybe then he would feel better. Walter’s house was trashed anyways. He gave out a few burbling chuckles.
“Are the monsters gone?” George asked around three fingers that he’d managed to stuff in his mouth.
“Yes, Georgie, they’re gone,” Sami told him, sniffing. Tears of relief, Jace hoped.
“Here…” A girl said. Jace barely recognized her as the birthday girl as she pushed a wet towel into his hands. “You’re--you’re bleeding a little.”
He had a feeling from the look of pity and horror in her eyes that it wasn’t a little. He brought the wet towel to his face. Touching his head was a mistake. He gasped and dropped the towel.
“Jace, what can we do?” Walter asked. “You need a--a hospital? Can someone call--”
“No,” Jace said.
His voice sounded thick. His tongue was too big for his mouth. He had to go outside. He staggered to the door. He touched it and it simply fell down. He stepped outside and saw the glowing cylinder outside. The defense drone that had rained down death upon the Khul.
There were so many of them. Their acidic blood though was not pooling. Instead, they looked dessicated. That was likely good. That much acid on the ground would have caused a dangerous vapor to rise up and gas them. He picked his ways through the dead towards the cylinder.
It was over a hundred feet above him. It glowed and spun. He heard a whirring from it. An electronic hum. He reached up to it. Would it still respond to him? Were they still connected?
Gehenna? He called again into the void.
He did hear a whisper this time.
...brought… someone… help you… her voice came to him in an almost ghostly tone between bursts of static and pain.
He still had the gun that he had thought connected them. He’d stuffed it in the back of his pants at some point. It was against his skin, but Gehenna still sounded so far away. That was when he’d heard the footsteps. He turned his head.
And a man--a blue man--was running towards him. This man--he was male for sure--was over six feet and had the perfect V-shaped torso that melted into long, powerful legs. The exo-suit he wore hugged his form. He had long white hair with beads in it that clacked as he ran. His ears were pointed and pierced with golden rings. There was a darker blue tattoo over his right eye.
His eyes… they’re like blue too. All blue like the purest of skies…
It was clear that this being was an alien. Blue skin! Blue eyes! And he had weapons that were similar in design to the pistol Jace had taken from the soldier. And beyond him was a spaceship.
