The Sun's Radiance

Chapter Four

"What are you?" Riddick sniffs my neck.

A shiver runs down my spine. My heart beat picks up. "Did you just smell me?" I've met plenty of odd folk in my travels. This is a whole new level.

"Difficult to avoid. Answer the question."

"What am I? In what way do you mean? Race? Gender? Other assorted things?"

He growls, "Yes."

I speak in a rush, "Vaentha Auri. Non-binary. An Uthoren from the Zagreus system, partially at the very least. I have slight magical abilities and a cosmic connection, some of which you've experienced. Surprising really, your own ability to answer in that form so easily, your own demeanor was unsurprised. Are you planning on letting me go?"

Riddick sniffs me again. "You're scared. And angry."

"Not of you. Not at you."

"Your scent begs to differ."

"Not scared of you, Richard. Just the circumstance in which I'm in."

Riddick releases me. I turn to face him, backing against one of the ribs. My shoulders relax and I take multiple deep breaths. I can't read his expression but Riddick's emotions are rolling.

"You are more than they claim, Riddick. I would hate to see you lose that." I hear a call of my name. "I should go before they leave me behind."

I leave Riddick standing under the bones of the fallen. A quarter of a liquor bottle soon to be replaced by sand.

~~

We get to the edges of the bones when the kids pull a solar powered robot out of the sand. They dust it off and its arms and legs start moving. The other adults in the group stare at each other and look between themselves, the rest of the pathway, and the toy. I kneel down to look at the robot with the children. It's old. At least two decades.

I can hear the creatures echoing in the nearby pillars. If I can hear them already, others might as well. They know we're here. Something is going to happen soon. They're so hungry. I have to force myself to focus on the humans of my group.

The smallest child, Ali, is looking at me with concern. I smile at him and poke his nose, making a boop as I do. He giggles and goes to do the same to his brothers.

Fry, Johns, and Imam have stopped silently debating on what to do and are now looking at me.

"What?" I stand, staring coldly at them.

Johns is the one who answers, "nothing, c'mon. Let's go see where this came from." His hands have a slight tremor to them. He isn't nervous. Heat stroke? Drugs? Both seem likely, he has an odd scent. One, I find, that usually hangs around addicts.

~~

Imam and his children get to work on the water. Johns and Fry do a quick search of the nearby buildings.

I hunt down Johns, "This stuff is old. Too old. Whoever was here before... Whatever happened to them, I don't think we should find out. I'm gonna head back to the others. Not much I can do here at the moment. I'm not an engineer."

"You sure? It's dangerous. Wouldn't want you to get hurt."

I snap, allowing the darker aspect of the physical manifestation of my power to begin swirling, absorbing the light around it. "I'm sure. I can handle myself just fine. I used to deal with dangerous animals. I'm sure I can handle one stray humanoid."

Johns follows my hand with his eyes and takes the time to oogle everything else. I move suddenly. A black knife finds its way under his chin before he has time to reach for his gun. "I believe my eyes are located in my head." I press the knife into his neck, almost hard enough to draw blood, "and like I said, I'll be fine." I sniff him before shoving away.

Opioids. He's definitely an addict. Marvelous.

I walk back to the crash site, spinning the knife in between my hands and retrieving my gun from my bag. The gun takes its usual place, holstered on my thigh.

~~

I probably get most of the way back up the canyon when I hear gunshots.

Shit . I glance behind me before pressing my back to the nearest ribcage. If I want to get there in time, I'll have to jump. Why do I care so much? "Whatever."

I focus on gathering the power, giving verbal instructions "300 feet. Max out the distance." A lurch and I am a little closer than I would like to be. I'm standing next to Riddick. Who is looking at a bloodied hole with a tarp hanging above it. He sharply looks in my direction as I appear.

I hold my hands up, "I heard gunfire. This isn't where I intended to end up, exactly. Now that I'm here, you hear them as well?"

He grunts at me and squats down partially under the grey tarp staked into the soil.

I roll my eyes and squat beside him, "something's going to happen soon. I didn't look around much at the settlement, but no one has been there for a long time. The tech was old, about as old as that ship we crashed in. I don't even know if the more recent hyperspace technology had made it this far by then. Not that it would have made a difference. The researchers. They didn't leave, they were eaten. I don't want to find out what did it, three suns are bad enough, but at the same time... I am highly intrigued." I mumble to myself, "fucking Galactic Park, giving me interests I shouldn't have."

Riddick goes to respond right before one of the passengers, a woman, Shazza, rips the tarp over the hole away, exposing us both, before screaming that we'd killed someone. Gods damn it. Really fucked myself there.

He starts running.

Shazza chases him before I wrap my arms around her torso, "he didn't do it, Shazza! Neither did I. We can't fight each other. Enough of the passengers have died already!"

She looks at me and Riddick fighting Johns in the distance before stopping. And bonks my head with my gun.

Notes:

Galactic Park: yes it is most definitely a space version of Jurassic Park. My cousin was going to use it for a campaign idea, actually

And yes, i did quote Hannibal. Don't judge