Where is she?
Why isn’t she answering?
Amethyst tenses her back muscles underneath the armor, the carapace splits in two and moves out of the way, like the shell of a beetle.
As it opens, the gray skin beneath is exposed to the world.
Inside the compartment, two folded bone wings, dark purple in coloration, sprout from her back.
She stretches her segmented wings out, baring a major resemblance to the wing-like appendages on her head.
However, these wings are just the skeletal structure, they have nothing in between the five bones, nothing to produce lift with.
She channels the purple substance away from her blades, back up her arms, opening the special canals inside her shoulders, pushing the purple into her back.
Her blades fizzle out slowly, as they burn through the rest of the remaining liquid seeping in them, before completely extinguishing.
The purple substance flows inside the wings, splitting up evenly between both wings’ structures, into the top four bones.
A slit is present underneath each bone for its entire length, the liquid blocked from freely flowing out by a sticky film.
Amethyst closes the wing’s access to her back canal and pushes the liquid forward inside them, the pressure increasing as the purple liquid is pressed against the film.
The liquid becomes stiff, gel-like, as it is squeezed through it. The wing bone’s gaps are getting covered by it, unfurling like sails and attaching to the bone below.
This happens symmetrically on both sides and continues down from the next one below after the above one has finished.
The moist gel between the wing bones shines in the sunlight for a moment. Gradually losing its reflectiveness and hardening into a solid substance.
Now ready for flight, she flaps her wings slowly, but powerfully to get some height first, creating a small dust storm below.
A few meters off the ground, she starts flapping them rapidly, the wings become a blur and produce a low buzzing susurration, bearing many similarities to more traditional insects.
With her wings started up, she quickly zooms upwards, rapidly gaining height, along the first stone pile, and above it.
Until she can see the whole quarry, almost flying up to the same level as the valley's edge.
Hovering in place, Amethyst scans the area with her hybrid eyes and spots some sort of huge box of metal with large rigid wings, landed at the far end of the quarry.
Thanks to Amethyst’s unusual eyes she can see it accurately despite the distance.
Her subconscious recognizes the metal structure as some sort of a ship... a spaceship, whatever that is...?
Its back is opened, a metal slope leading up to it.
Right next to the ship, her mother is chained up to a floating metal plate — with all too familiar black restraints.
She is crumpled up in a heap on top of it, motionless, as she is transported towards the ship's opening, humans pushing the platform along.
I'm coming, Mom!
She shoots through the air like a jet towards her.
Relief burns inside of her, for finding her, though she’s unsure why exactly. Even entertaining the opposite thought, of not going to her aid, squeezed her chest and tightened her throat.
She couldn’t figure out which part of her mind it belonged, to the old or the new. But it didn’t matter now, this was the one thing they could agree on.
She flies over a second stone pile, the buzzing of her wings getting louder the faster she flies.
“What’s-?!”
“Look!”
Humans hollered below at the purple lightning streaking across the sky, she heard their voices only for a split second before the audio got lost in the wind.
The humans have just loaded her mother inside of the ship, scattering away from inside of it as the door starts to rise back up, to close.
Will I make it?
She unfurls the sails on her head wings too and turns her head vertically against the wind.
The film covers the gaps, spreading out quickly due to the wind pressure, the semi-liquid gel withstands the force of the wind, remaining in place.
The door is rising, about one-fourth closed, she's over the fourth rocky mountain now, with only two remaining to be flown over.
The film dries fast in the sunlight and the wind, she flaps her head wings, which start buzzing loudly as they pick up speed.
She can no longer hear anything but the sound of her wings as they accelerate her further.
Halfway closed, she’s almost there, just above the last stone pile.
Rapidly approaching, way too fast, but she couldn't slow down if she was to make it.
Right at the door, she quickly closes her wings, the solid substance breaks and shatters like glass, raining down from the sky, sparkling in the sun's rays.
The wings tuck themselves into safety, inside her back’s hollow armor, which then closes back up.
She shoots through the last gap of the door as aerodynamically as a speeding bullet, carried by her momentum.
Holding her long elbow blades in front of her, the blades sink deep into the steel wall awaiting to flatten her.
The blades embed themselves almost up to her arms, lessening the impact force tremendously.
A life-saving maneuver she had learned flying through her home’s forests, performed on instinct.
She hangs limp on her blades for a moment catching a small break, resting momentarily as the door fully closes behind her.
It becomes dark, but through the compound eyes in her iris, she can see in the dark, but only for short distances.
Her pupils instead meant for long ranges, are useless in the dark, so she only sees by the edges of her vision with a large ball of black in the middle.
Both parts of her eye are able to work together in light but also have their own specializations.
Amethyst hangs above an entrance to somewhere, unable to see ahead, for this room has a higher ceiling than the next one.
She channels energy to her elbow blades, and as they ignite, she slides down, leaving behind two clean, red glowing cuts.
They shed a minuscule amount of light in the dark, the molten slag peeling off, giving the wall a messy finish.
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Her four sharp, slender legs hit the ground with a metallic clang.
There’s a corridor right ahead of her, lit by some dim ceiling lights to show the way forward.
She turns around, her mother is lying on the platform before her.
Completely still.
Amethyst approaches her and emits a low and sad buzz, it echoes empty and alone in the steely room.
Her head lies on its side, antennae mushed on top with a green stain in her mane of light violet hair.
Only one head wing remains on her head, being just a short stub of bone.
Strings of dried blood start at her closed eyes, crisscrossing down her facial features. The reek of blood coming off her makes Amethyst's antennae retreat backward.
Suddenly everything starts shaking and she almost falls, being able to regain her balance thanks to her four legs.
A pressure tries to push her towards the floor, she fights against it, then suddenly it pushes her backward too.
The room seems to tilt slightly, accompanied by the roar of an engine and the rattling of the shaking vessel.
She cannot move, it takes all her strength to stay still.
The body of her mother is thrown up and down, back and forth, green liquid oozing from under her.
Green blood spills and splatters around the room, onto the floor, walls, and ceiling.
Onto Amethyst.
The corpse’s head limply bounces against the platform, as do her legs.
Bang.
Bang.
They crash down after each shake of the ship, striking the hard metal beneath her, only her main body has been secured with the restraints.
Bang.
Bang.
Standing there, unable to do anything, Amethyst flinches with each strike of the sickening sound.
A loud crunch plays as one of her mother’s legs comes loose, it’s mangled and broken, but somehow in one piece.
It hops along the floor, leaving a green smear as it travels to the cargo door, settling to shaking and bouncing up against it.
Amethyst’s vision starts fading, something impairs it, happening once again.
She cannot do anything to prevent it, she cannot wipe or touch her face with blades for her hands.
An emotion emerges from inside of her.
A completely new feeling to her.
This feeling…
This emptiness…
This invisible pain…
This despair…
She feels…
Loss.
Loss of something important
Loss of something dear.
The loss of something irreplaceable.
Mother...
The ship’s shaking subsides.
“This is an automated cargo ship, traveling to the planet: ‘Viridan Macula’.
If there are humans left on board by mistake or negligence, please make your way from the cargo hall, down the corridor, and to the left.
There you will find a safety seat to strap yourself in for safe travel to your destination.”
A robotic voice filled the air pausing for a moment before continuing:
“Engaging warp drive in 60 seconds, please be seated prior. This action cannot be canceled.
So if you hear this, enjoy a forced trip to our destination.
Tough luck.
Intergalactic Resources and Wildlife Ventures thanks you for your cooperation and understanding.”
She doesn't fully understand what the ethereal voice is trying to tell her, she recognizes the words but lacks context and their meaning.
“50,” the intangible voice counts down.
However, the voice clearly had urged her to take action, she had to do something, she didn’t want to go to this “Viridian Macula” place.
But what could she do?
“40.”
She's trapped, vulnerable, and injured. She's not safe here, she must get back to her forest and hide.
Something keeps her from cutting down the door, the way she had come from.
It was like another small separate voice, another new instinct she had acquired.
It screamed, in no circumstance, should she damage that door, this new feeling fought hard against her old instincts.
“10.”
The arguing of these mixed messages stirs deep confusion inside.
She looks at her mother for help, for refuge.
And she finds it.
Amethyst's mind calms down, but the noise is replaced by the invisible pain again.
“0.”
She had been unable to make a decision in this short time, wrestling with the turmoil inside of her.
The ship suddenly slides from under her legs and she’s sent hurtling towards the back wall.
She tries to grab hold of the restraints, which keep the corpse of her mother tied down.
Touching the first with her hand-
Snap
It immediately breaks as her hand blade cuts through it.
The next one.
Snap
Sliced through before it could even slow her fall.
Snap Snap Snap Snap Snap
Having torn through all of the black harnesses Amethyst slams on the cargo door.
The solid purple film on her head wings shatters from the impact, the small pieces proceeding to rattle against the steel door with her.
Even though her armor takes the brunt of the blow, it still hurts.
The invisible pressure holds her against the wall, entirely preventing her from moving.
Suddenly, her peripheral vision is filled with something big, something familiar.
She didn’t see her coming at all, due to being unable to utilize the middle of her sight in the low light.
The large carcass of her mother smashes into her at high speed, and her consciousness fades.
...
This story came to me in a dream a bit over a week or so ago, the Royal Road Community Magazine contest really pushed me into writing this out 'properly' in such a short amount of time, as it fit the prompt quite well.
This is the part where the dream ended, though some changes were made in the progress of writing, not like I dreamed this exactly 1:1.
But anyway, fret not, this isn’t the end of Amethyst's story just yet, I do have more planned, but they are just in the planning stage so far, not even drafted yet, so it may take a while before I’ll get another chapter out.
Hopefully, it won’t take more than a week before I do, (I want to have the entire rest of the story planned and mostly drafted out before I publish more), but knowing me, I won’t have the patience or self-control to moderate myself in this regard and I’ll be all over it and likely done much sooner.
The success of the story really surprised me (over 100 total views sounds like success to me!), never thought anyone would really read this, (it’s kinda weird?)
But, at this point, I must thank you all for reading and sticking with it thus far!
I'll catch you on the Viridian Macula!
