Michael stood in the door way, staring at the man, no creature, before him. As he stared, frozen, a bead of sweat slipped from the tip of his nose to fall as if in slow motion to the floor below. It seemed to crash into the ground like a gunshot and the sound jerked Michael from his fevered reverie. He shook his head and stumbled into the room, passed a quietly smiling Gwyn whose eyes followed him as he crashed down onto a small sofa in the corner. Michael sat there, head held in his hands as he tried to calm himself, the reality of where he was and with what now settling in. As Gwyn pulled out a slender metal chair to sit in front of him, he now knew how the fly felt, stuck in the web as the spider slowly moved towards it.
“What do you want?” he asked hoarsely, his throat dry and rough despite the coffee he had drunk earlier. Gwyn ignored him at first, rising smoothly to pour a glass of ice water from a decanter on his wall. He returned and pushed the glass into Michael’s hand. Michael accepted it, his hand brushing against Gwyn’s incredibly pale one and wondered if the cold flesh was the result of the glass or his unique physiology. He had gulped half of the freezing liquid before he realized he had raised it shakily to his lips.
“As I stated before Michael, I do not intend to hurt you,” Gwyn replied eventually, adopting a casual pose in his chair. His hair, still braided, was now captured at the nape of his neck in a loose pony tail. It seemed to emphasise the gauntness in his face, as if the thin skin stretched over his sharp cheekbones would tear at any moment. Michael finished the glass and placed it on the floor, breathing out deeply.
“But you do have plans for me? That’s why you sought me out? At breakfast?”
Gwyn smiled at him and Michael honed in on his teeth, a macabre fascination overtaking to study for any unusual details, anything that set this creature apart from himself. Gwyn, as if understanding his aim, simply grinned even wider, almost baring his teeth at the man opposite. They were yellowed, almost tinted, but Michael’s hopes of seeing fangs studded in below those thin lips were dashed. He stared closer, uncaring now, and blinked, noticing that while they resembled his own, they did seem to be longer, elongated. He pulled his gaze back and looked at Gwyn’s face as a whole, realising that the man himself seemed to be stretched. His thin face was long, just shy of being abnormally so, allowing those lengthened teeth to seem almost mundane. His eyes flicked upwards to meet Gwyn’s and even there, now that he took the time to stare and examine, he saw differences. The irises were a pale green, like slivers of glass, so pale they held only the barest hint of colour. The pupils however were large, as if the man was under the effect of strong narcotics, the large black circles dominating his gaze. Even the eyes themselves seemed larger, a slight increase from human norm, which gave the face an uncanny feel, like listening to a distorted frequency. Michael realised with a quick thump of nervous heart beats that he had been leaning forward and quickly sat himself back on the sofa.
“Maybe I was lonely Michael. Maybe I just wanted a friend.”
That slightly off smile remained on his face and Michael wanted to make a flippant retort, to show some backbone to this man. Instead his mouth hung open and limp as Gwyn slowly turned his head to the side to stare at him quizzically. With an effort, he clicked his teeth together and shook himself, accidentally kicking the empty glass over. It hit the floor with a loud thunk in the silence that surrounded them, a drawn out light rumble as it rolled slowly across the wooden panels.
“Are you doing that thing again?” Michael asked eventually, one hand gripping his head that throbbed softly, like the aftermath of a headache. “What you did before?”
Gwyn frowned at him, his slender eyebrows arching dramatically, each a thin line of hair that seemed natural rather than cosmetically altered. He looked Michael up and down and tutted softly, tapping a long nail to his cheek.
“I am not. There is no need, now that you have sought me out willingly. I believe you may be suffering an echo of the Breud, of the thrall. It will pass soon. I can train you to resist it if you wish. Both mine and others.”
Others
Michael sat up straight, the whispers of pain fading from his temples and a feeling surging up within him he had not felt for weeks, anger.
“Do I need to resist this? Am I going to be attacked again? By you? By others of your… kind?!”
Gwyn looked back at him calmly as he shook with emotion, his knuckles white from their grips on his legs. He loosed his hands as Gwyn stood and began to pace behind his chair, the movement smooth and calculated. Even watching him walk send a shiver of trepidation up Michael’s spine.
“No,” Gwyn said eventually, stopping to stand still, towering over the seated man. “I will not subject you to it lest you wish to learn to overcome it. And my brethren will not dare attempt the breud upon one I have chosen.”
“Chosen for what?” Michael asked, his voice louder than he had intended, the words echoing around the small cabin.
“That depends on you Michael. I have told you why I am here. Why we are here. We are here to protect you. Protect what we claimed millennia ago. We have always lived in the shadows, hiding. But here, in the abject blackness of space, we are all surrounded by the dark. And we will reveal ourselves if necessary to protect against this alien threat.”
Michael absorbed the words, turning them over in his mind even as a part of him rebelled against the insane speech he was hearing.
“Who is we? Other ones like you? Other monsters? How does a werewolf fare in space? Is it all the moons that turn it?”
His speech sped up as he spoke, his voice slightly hysterical at the madness of what he was saying. As he finished he giggled a little at the absurdity, Gwyn smiling on like a doting uncle.
“Do not be ridiculous Michael. There are no werewolves on this ship.”
Michael chuckled a bit more, wiping a hand over his shorn scalp that was beaded with sweat.
“We made them take a different ship.”
Michael froze in place, his eyes wide before Gwyn burst into full laughter, his thin frame bent over.
“Fucker,” Michael said softly, though he was more amazed at the sight of Gwyn in the full throes of mirth.
“Forgive me Michael that was immature of me.” Gwyn said, wiping a tear from his eye. “You would think I have lived long enough to be above such petty japes.”
“So,” Michael said, trying to steer the conversation back on track, his brow furrowed as he thought. “You’re saying you’re here to help us? To fight the Voydich for us?”
“Fight them for you? I fear they vastly outnumber us, and even then, only a small number were convinced to join me on this crusade. Many out of boredom rather than any real motivation. We are an apathetic kind Michael, we often lack drive, ambition beyond sating our own desires.”
Gwyn walked back over and sat in his chair, leaning forward until his face was close enough that Michael could smell that cloying sweetness in the warms puffs of his breath.
“No, we are not going to fight this war for you. I have observed your kind over the years and I would not pretend that we are as well versed in the arts of mass slaughter as you humans.” He laughed at Michael’s expression, clapping his thin hands together. “Oh yes Michael, while we may be the thing that goes bump in the night, humanity are the ones that explode during the day. We are stronger, faster than you. We could wipe out a dozen of you before you fired a single shot. But your penchant for war? Your ever changing machines that unleash horrors even we hide from? That we cannot emulate. So instead we will help as best we can. But it will be the humans who must win this war. And so you must be prepared.”
“You’re going to help us fight a war? Against an alien race everyone believes peaceful? So you want me to be your middle man, convince our generals that they are actually a threat?” He paused and laughed again, bitterly. “And that you aren’t?”
“Exactly Michael. We will make them believe in the threat that faces them. But first we will make them believe in me, the threat that always existed.”
Gwyn smiled, clapping his hands once more and moving to his desk where he passed a hand over its tablet inlaid surface. Michael shook his head, a slight relief seeping into his bones.
“So that’s it? I’m a messenger? I thought you were going to…” He paused then laughed again, ploughing ahead with his thought while Gwyn looked on curiously,” I thought you were going to make us like you! Make me one of you.”
Gwyn smiled back at him, rapping his long nails on the table in a sonorous arc.
“I never said that wasn’t an option Michael.”
Submitted August 29, 2019 at 08:15PM by AntiMoneySquandering https://ift.tt/2NzrM70
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