ℂ𝕠𝕝𝕕

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

February 24, 4035

Impassive amber eyes smoothed over the pitiful creature weeping nosily on the dirty, fluid soaked ground. Slowly, Sesshomaru pressed down, feeling the soft bones lining the alien's head bend beneath his boot. Six arms strained against the bloody chains that held the abused limbs tightly to its spine. Ear melting vibrations crooned from its segmented body, deafening in volume and ringing with the intensity of an animal trapped in the throes of agony. Trilling expressions of torment that flooded the room in a torrent of soul shearing echoes Sesshomaru found both satisfying and painful to his sensitive ears.

"Names." Sesshomaru prompted, grinding his foot into its dented temple.

The Gartuan's wail joined the screech of its chest, its quaking body rattling the chains. It sucked in a sobbing breath before launching into a plea to the deities it believed had the power to intervene.

"Pyta sa rinte, varkariou mit tanakue!" it sobbed, "Vata rayal! Zyiliyanio, brt-"

Disgusted, Sesshomaru repositioned his boot to the vulnerable length of its throat. His foot sank and the fervent prayer ended abruptly. The Gartuan struggled, its lungs hitching in a desperate bid for air.

"Lyth, Rai'yt, Ozry, Sarkzen," Sesshomaru dispassionately recited the names to the oxygen deprived Gartuan, "Your deity has no more power than any of the other fictitious caricatures contrived by the pathetic mind of the weak. Faith, prayers, Gods; they are naught but fodder for those that fear death. Their divine powers a product of childish imagination."

It mattered not which planet he visited, the fairy-tale saviors were nearly identical, their names the only variant from one civilization to another.

And each one sickened him.

"You pray in vain."

Unable to breathe, the multi-armed alien's struggles grew sluggish and its battered flesh began a gradual fade to pasty yellow. Its thin lips parted and the trembling, wheezing benediction his boot had initially halted reached his ears once more.

"Py..ta.......sa......rin....te-"

Golden orbs narrowed and his boot sank deeper.

Soft bone gave way.

The Gartuan jerked beneath his foot, and a rush of lavender fluid left its mouth. Its yellowed skin erupted into a kaleidoscope of color, the vivid hues swirling in a silent, physiological telegraph of soul rending horror. Six arms pulled frantically at the bloody chains, lacerating its skin in a last bid for freedom.

An exercise in futility.

The pressure increased, collapsing bones that could bend no more. Resistance was fleeting, and for the last time, the sagging cartliage caved beneath the greater force. A distinctive crack reverberated, the disturbing sound shocking within the silence of the room. The pliant shelled body under his foot convulsed for several agonizing moments before lapsing into irrevocable stillness. The clash of color leeched from the Gartuan's cadaver and a pasty pallor of death took its place. It spread rapidly along its arms, legs, torso and head before finally consuming the once glimmering onyx of its eyes.

Sesshomaru drew back his shinny boot.

His shrewd gaze moved on, dismissing the albino corpse in favor of new prey. Leisurely, he stepped over the cooling remains then lowered his bulk before the remaining captive. He squat down, lids half mast over frosty golden orbs. Sesshomaru smoothed silver locks from his face with a clawed hand, curling the strand behind his ear and baring his magenta stripped cheek.