Mantle

Imagine that in our universe, life is common and varied. The story you are about to read below may be happening right now, somehow. --Allowed to reality through the laws of space and time. This world is harsh, like Earth. There are chances to love. To live. To die.

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“Hehaha! Hahahaehehah!”

“Shut it, Veligh!”

For Genesis, the end of the gulag was upon her. She had been paraded by her captors and tortured for months inside one of the Veligh concentration camps. Her shoulder, once broken, had mended itself into an abnormal shape. --Just like how they reshaped her mind.

Before Genesis could become a woman, she became crazy. The gulag named Horatio broke her. Used her. When she was sane, she had been chosen as an offering to the ones who sent her to Horatio. -The Nyrts. The ones who gave her the laughing curse.

Genesis cackled to herself inside her cage. A Nyrtian guard must’ve taken off her cowl. She found herself blinded by the Star of Mantle. --It shined bright upon the arid world that hurt her. After adjusting, she frantically looked around. Stifling a fit of laughter at what is around her and wincing at the pain in her shoulder.

Other tortured people that belonged to her veligh kind were caged too. The pale people wept. Their red hair, which was usually vibrant, had faded. Their albino eyes indicated just how malnourished they were. Some of them had their long noses cut off. Genesis looked down. She was naked, only wrapped in a gray peasant’s blanket. --Just like them. She burst into laughter.

“Shut it!” The guard said from behind. The nyrt must have struck his weapon against the cage. Genesis felt the loud resonance of metal upon metal. The way she was entrapped, there was no room to get out or turn to look. She didn’t dare try, for fear of more torture.

No, she thought. Why escape when there’s a show to be performed? She laughed to herself for now.

What she did see were train tracks. Sitting atop the rails was a single train of larger cages. In them were young nyrts. Genesis could still tell her kind apart. They didn’t have red hair. The albino eyes and the noses were smaller than that of a Veligh’s. Genesis forcefully took a breath in with her teeth. It was all she could do to stifle herself. She let out the smallest of giggles.

These young nyrts were no prisoners, not at all. Genesis knew the boys were going through their coming of age ceremony. --The Killing. A ritual murder sacrifice. The hushed stories of her kind told of young nyrtians having to endure the pain of being like a Veligh for 5 days. This, before killing many of them and emerging from their cages to celebrate as Nyrtian men.

Genesis found it funny that her cage and their cages would be so close. Like we’re about to do the forbidden kiss! She mused. The younglings far to the left of her looked angry and anxious. The closest one she could see had a small knife in his bony hands. He was still clothed. --In the purple garbs of the rich, no less. Tick, check that one off living like me! She sneered at the boy. He only blinked back.

Suddenly, off to her right, she heard the voice of a Nyrt man, which drew her gaze. The man sounded like a priest. He was wearing a full complement of armor, with the edge of his maroon metal lined with glistening gold. A chieftain for the boys to latch onto, perhaps?

“Listen up, slags!” He yelled. Genesis laughed uncontrollably when the Nyrt teens perked up, like pets. Her cage rattled again, and she quieted down.

The man continued: “You are here as Velighs! You’ve been tortured to live like these scum at the Horatio gulag.” He spits with some force, probably onto a Veligh next to him.

“Now that you know the pain of the lesser, it’s time...to become more!” He continued.

“Ready your knives, young ones. Choose carefully where you strike to end the lives of these poor wretches. For you are not Veligh. You are Nyrts!”

Really, he was the executioner.

The train blew a whistle, and the large cages atop the tracks went into motion.

At long last, it was time to die. Genesis started to giggle at the thought, which erupted in laughter. She closed her eyes and hollered praises for Mantle, and damned the rest. Other veligh were weeping around her. To her left, she heard how the knives would slice into the throats of her peers. So, she laughed harder to counter the noise.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a blue blur. It was just past the large cages and on the desert horizon.

Cackling now, she knew what was approaching. She was hysterical: “How do you not see with your perfect features, Nyrts? The Vhee is coming, the Vhee is coming!” She sang her song and repeated the phrase at least twice.

The blue blur was growing larger. Genesis’ cage rattled again: “Quiet, Veligh! You’ll die soon.” She heard a gasp next to her as she watched a child slit the throat of her nearest companion. He had reached through his cage to grab the Veligh firmly and do the deed properly. The blue blur grew ever larger. It juxtaposed against the red blood on the passing child’s hands as he was wheeled away on the tracks.

“The Vhee is coming! Look behind you, child, it’s the God of Mantle!” Genesis said to the next caged teen. This one was wearing simpler clothing. Tan coloring, meant for Nyrtian soldiers. There was a small cut on his cheek, just below his left eye.

Just as the Nyrt child grabbed her and stabbed her throat, she heard another forced gasp.

--From behind her this time.

“A Vhee!” The soldier called from behind her. Just as the child removed the knife from Genesis’ throat, did the train of cages topple from a high-speed impact. --And Genesis with them. For a few moments, she saw a blur of red from the blood, the orange of the dirt, and blue from the Vhee.

Genesis couldn’t stop laughing, even as the hot star blinded her sight. Her cage had been pushed over so that she was on her back.

She heard the shouting of the nyrtian guards. She heard what must have been 6 submachine guns trained on the Vhee. Genesis made fun of the screaming soldiers. She swore she witnessed an arm flying away from the noise, landing just next to her.

After a full minute of silence, all she could hear was her own laughing. Genesis’ cage was being kicked forcefully. Her blanket was full of dirt and grain, and she clung to it for dear life. She felt something grazing her side. It punched her, and she heard a growl of frustration. Somehow, she found herself free from the cage and on her stomach.

She stopped laughing and groaned in pain. Now free, she frantically looked up to find the Vhee kicking at was originally her cage.

It was mangled.

The blue thing was facing away from her. It’s several bowed legs with several bony joints kicked and prodded at other cages. Occasionally, she witnessed several tentacles unsheathing themselves from somewhere on the Vhee’s torso to feed on the dead. The looming beast must feast daily, usually on wildlife. However, it seems the Nyrts unknowingly placed a buffet to support the nearly 10,000-pound creature today.

Genesis laughed at the thought. The creature turned around. There were bullet holes riddled into the fat thing. Three eye stalks gazed at her from its gelatinous head. Curious. She tried waving to it with her bad arm, smiling gleefully. --Playing with death’s door. The Vhee turned back around and feasted on more corpses.

Genesis was no danger to it. She looked at her surroundings. Other Veligh survivors were still in their cages. Not one dared to scream. Genesis snickered and skipped towards them. She let them go freely. While officially done with the torture, she was disappointed that she was not going to die today.

A child crying inside of one of the large cages drew her attention. The only Nyrt survivor was the very boy that had stabbed her in the throat.

Which reminded her. She checked the damage he had done. It didn’t sever an artery. She only cackled at the thought of being so close. She knelt down at the boy’s cage. His arm was broken. His knife was gone.

She opened his would-be tomb and grabbed him. The boy attempted to fight back.

“Where are you taking me, Veligh!” The boy yelled.

The Vhee turned around and eyed Genesis again. She playfully pranced the boy around, as he yelped in pain and shock. It stared. A tentacle slurped inside of its bulbous torso. The Vhee must have made a decision as it turned back around to feast. Genesis sat him down. She remembered her shoulder again.

“Looks like it’s your lucky day, Nyrt! Hehaha, Mantle doesn’t want you dead, just like me,” Genesis said.

After a moment, the boy cried out: “Just kill me!” Genesis looked into his eyes. Was the boy scared, or shamed? The Vhee didn’t care, so she didn’t care.

The other surviving Velighs witnessed the scene. Some picked up some of the weaponry and armor that had been given to them by the Vhee. Thinking of an answer, Genesis finally laughed, and retorted directly to the boy’s face:

“That’s not what Velighs do, weakling.”

With that, she walked away from the tracks. She made her own way, but other Veligh followed. She was barefoot and naked in the desert, but she knew she’d make it. One of the velighs offered her his blanket, and she took it.

Genesis laughed uncontrollably when she noticed the boy following close behind.