Dark Nine ❈ Dark Nine Universe Bk1 ❈

Chapter Four

I gaze up at the evernight sky and I pray for a miracle. I had a planet covered in ruins, beautiful forests and inhabited by 9 walking predatory alien subspecies to humans.

My Enhanced Instincts push my gaze toward the stars however, not toward the Kors' prison.

If the Jace herb was poisonous, and had been supposedly killing me since I ingested it 9 years ago, I certainly felt no ill-effect, only strength. I do wonder if that is speeding up my aging process for that maternal transformation the Kors needed to breed.

I had effectively traded monitored life on Earth, for this darkly lit path.

To be targeted by an alien subspecies for breeding...?

...well, that wasn't something I had exactly prepped for.

I knew life outside the system would be dangerous and unforgiving, I just didn't think I could be sucked into another set of rules so quickly.

Above me, where the stars glow blue, I can see through a light layer of mist. That's where I spot a red blinking light.

Someone was above me...? I watch as the small spacecraft lowers into the atmosphere and then zips off into the ruins ahead of me.

I know intuitively this has nothing to do with the Kors – someone else must have been monitoring me.

Perhaps it was the infamous Freed. They were subspecies of all kinds who lived like nomads, little was known about them and I did expect to run into them at some point. It makes sense they would be following any departures from my solar system. They would have tracked my voyage here through the teleportation stream left behind, which always left an imprint of where you were from and where you were going.

I don't look back to the prison that Mars has stalked back into, giving me space to contemplate his story, their need of me, and the venom he let me taste on my lips.

Mars was utterly delicious and deadly. Jupiter was terrifying, short tempered... although somewhat mannered.

And once again... that was only two of them. Imagine being a mate to nine carnivorous aliens. Heh – I was still a little in shock about that, but shock forevermore was not going to help me.

I start to trek into the forests of Dark Ninth, deeper into the ruins. I notice my pale skin now glows a pale luminescent green, reflecting the soft neon lights around me. There were no exceptionally tall trees anywhere, the tallest being at around half my height, looking like bonsais. Dark Ninth mostly had low lying shrubs and vines that climbed up the ruins, giving the landscape more shape. While flowers bloomed everywhere, I notice the bugs that pollinate them are almost invisible due to their transparent wings and bodies... so I guess almost-invisible butterflies or moth like critters had been spared by the Kors. The ruins themselves were pretty much raized down to their foundations, with only random walls still standing, while everything else remained ground down below ankle level.

I step through turquoise grass, which feels as soft as butter under my soles. I had good visibility up to the horizon, and also where the ship had landed, camouflaged perfectly into the deep blues, purples and greens of this planet. It's landed on a flower bed maybe half a mile forward from my location. It was going to take a short few minutes to walk there.

I look behind me, as I feel multiple eyes on me from the prison.

Of course they're watching –

– but then I see movement toward me.

A... an almost completely transparent shape, as tall as the other Kors – but literally invisible.

So this was an invisible Kor now?!