The Fila Epiphany

Chapter Two-2

IT WAS NIGHTTIME AND Ethan was barefoot on soft, mossy ground. Darkness surrounded him except for a row of lights that shone from behind, their glow quickly fading into black night. He was heading away from the lights, looking for something though he didn’t know what exactly. Something had disturbed his sleep and he wanted to know what it was. The air was strangely thick and he was having to force himself through it.

A shape moved in the darkness ahead. Darker than the surrounding black, it was long and low down to the ground. The creature seemed to glide rather than walk and it was moving across his view. Was this what had made the sound he’d heard? He wasn’t sure if he wanted to get close to the thing. For some reason, it scared him.

Yet Ethan followed the creature, moving deeper into the night until he couldn’t see it any longer. It didn’t matter. He had something else to head toward. Lauren had appeared ahead. She was wearing a little girl’s playsuit, though she was grown up. She saw him too and waved.

Relief overwhelmed him. He felt he’d lost her for a long time but now he’d finally found her again. He began to run toward her. He wanted to reach her before she went away again. He would tell her he wanted her to stay with him forever, and that she mustn’t ever leave.

Then he saw the creature had returned. It was ahead of him, moving toward Lauren. He shouted out a warning but she didn’t seem to hear. He yelled again and again, and all the while the creature was getting closer to her. Why wouldn’t she move? She only smiled and waved and waited for him.

He was running as fast as he could but he was getting nowhere. He couldn’t catch up to the creature. It glided along swiftly, bearing down on unsuspecting Lauren. It would reach her before he could. It would—

Ethan started awake, his hands reaching for Lauren. He almost cried out to warn her, to tell her a predator was about to kill her, but then the realization that he’d been dreaming hit him. His arms slumped down and the words died before they left his mouth. Where was he? He saw the starlit sky through the flitter windows and heard the waves. His memory of the last few months returned.

Lauren was dead, and so was Dr. Crowley.

Ethan sighed, turned over, and tried to go back to sleep. The same dream about Lauren had visited him many times. His subconscious mind couldn’t seem to accept that she was gone. It wanted to give him the chance to save her over and over again. Recurring nightmares were one reason that he’d wanted to go on his expedition, hoping that the journey might give him time to process his girlfriend’s death and that of his close friend, Dr. Crowley.

Dr. Crowley had always been full of good advice. Ethan liked to think back over his conversations with her, but he couldn’t remember her saying anything about how to cope with the death of someone you loved. He guessed that if she’d been comfortable with death or wise about how to accept it, she might not have joined the Nova Fortuna Project. The doctor had outlived her natural lifespan by at least one hundred and eighty-four years. It was a shame she’d only spent one night on the planet she’d worked so hard to reach.

Sleep was refusing to return to Ethan. He moved onto his back and stared at the roof, wondering if he should give up and read for a while. Cariad had uploaded all the Wokens’ data covering what they’d discovered about Concordia. Maybe he might read something useful.

Suddenly, the flitter tipped, rolling him over. He sat up, trying to maintain his balance as the flitter leaned farther to one side. Something was pulling at the vehicle or trying to climb onto it in the darkness. He felt for his weapon. His fingers touched cool, smooth metal.

Where was the thing? It was too dark for a clear view outside. Then he saw it. Tens of scrabbling legs appeared at the window. Ethan knew those legs. It was one of the sluglimpet creatures. He had to get it off the flitter fast. The creatures exuded a powerful acid and if the thing disabled his vehicle he would be at its mercy.

Ethan lowered the window and fired into the organism’s underside. The flitter immediately filled with choking, acrid smoke. He couldn’t breathe. He opened the other windows. The flitter was tipping precariously on its side, borne over by the creature’s weight. Though he’d hit it squarely, the sluglimpet continued to cling on. He fired at it again and another burst of suffocating smoke erupted.

He couldn’t touch it to try to push it off or his skin would be eaten by the corrosive, digestive acid. Ethan pulled a boot onto a foot and kicked at the thing. He’d managed to break it free a little, so he kicked harder and fired at it again. At last, the creature released its grip. A thud resounded from below as it hit the ground.

Ethan raised the flitter higher and took off his boot, taking care not to touch the sticky gloop. He quickly wiped the sole clean and dropped the rag from the open window. Peering out he saw the predator hobbling slowly away into the undergrowth by the shore, black against the shadowy gray sand. It wasn’t the only one, however. As it retreated, more were emerging. Ethan quickly raised the flitter higher still, doubling its previous elevation. He’d thought that setting the vehicle at roughly his own height above the beach would provide sufficient protection from the local wildlife. He’d clearly been wrong. These sluglimpets were larger than any he’d ever seen before.

Had they followed him all the way from the area around the settlement? It seemed unlikely. The creatures appeared to be widespread on the continent, living in low undergrowth as well as among trees. Ethan watched the animals as they milled around and lifted the front halves of their bodies every so often, reaching up toward the flitter with groping legs. They knew he was there. What were they sensing? His body heat?

He turned on the recorder and pointed it downward to capture a vid of the organisms. Then when he thought he’d recorded enough, he flew the flitter down the beach away from them. Although the predators wouldn’t have been able reach him at the flitter’s elevation, he didn’t think he would be able to sleep knowing they were roaming underneath, hungry and waiting.

Was nowhere on the continent safe from the sluglimpets? Wherever he went, would the horrible creatures always be there waiting to attack as soon as the sun went down? Ethan flew on, wondering what the coming weeks or months might hold.