Corruption

Dehumanizing

      He followed Miranda out of the room and back to the room where all the spaceships were kept. "Nelson," He heard the familiar voice of Frayuz, the human specialist greet him as they walked in the room. "Glad to see you're feeling better. And Miranda, here are the coordinates to Aidugh." Miranda took the metal sheet of 'paper' from Frayuz. "Where's that?" Nelson asked. "In the Pleiades cluster, from Earth, if I'm not mistaken," Frayuz said with some thought, "It's my homeworld. It's also where the first peaceful Urzuhg settled." "That's still hard to believe," Miranda said, shaking her head. "You've only seen the aggressive ones," Frayuz told her, "Aside from me. Everyone talks about how aggressive we are, and for the most part we are. Urzuhg such as myself, and those on that planet have a rare genetic mutation in our species. Referred to as CW2, or sometimes even FD1. It's a mutation that removes our natural aggressive nature, and opens the door for us to advance our species technologically, since we actually have the patience to think and develop new technologies." "I guess that makes sense, and why they live on a separate planet from the rest of us," Miranda commented. "What does CW or FD stand for though?" Nelson asked. "Chronic Weakness, or Failure's Disease," Frayuz said, "In a war based species like ours, things like art and civility are looked down upon, as I'm sure you've noticed. It used to be that any Urzuhg with the CW2 gene was killed off immediately, but some particularly rare circumstances lead to that being changed." "What?" Nelson asked. "I'm afraid that was before my time," Frayuz replied with a bit of thought, "I'm only 15,000 years old, and this happened roughly 150,000 years ago.. from what I do understand." Nelson wanted to ask more but Miranda had shrugged and was already walking towards the spaceship. Before they got in they found Mari waiting next to the ship, apparently deep in thought. "Dad?" Miranda asked curiously. With a sigh, Mari turned and looked at them. "I have orders," He said, "To see if you were on your way to those 'philosophers' yet." "We are," Miranda said, "Aren't they more scientists than philosophers?" Mari shrugged inattentively, sniffing the air, and noticed the bag of chocolate Nelson carried with him. He didn't speak on it though. He clearly didn't think much of these peaceful Urzuhg. "They're more like a bunch of bitches," he said. After a moment, Miranda asked him curiously, "Was there something else you wanted?" "No." Mari said with a yawn. "But I guess the human is feeling better?" Nelson nodded. It's funny he kept calling him human though, when he wasn't sure how exactly human he was anymore. "Have you thought about joining us?" Mari asked him. Nelson frowned. He had not. His mind had been completely overwhelmed with a plethora of other emotional issues, and the only reason he was starting to feel better was because of Miranda. "Dad.." Miranda muttered, "He's only just now started feeling normal again. I'm sure he'll think about it pretty soon." Nelson once again only nodded. She looked she had more to say, but clearly refrained herself. Mari sighed again. "The war is getting close," he told them, "Those Martians keep calling us, like some kinda taunt. We would like as many allies as possible before we attack them. We stalemated with them in the last war. We want to crush them this time." "I understand," Miranda said. "Some reports show they're even closing in on this solar system," Mari continued. "So if you see anything with glowing red eyes, that's how you know it's one of their experiments." "That's pretty useful," Nelson said, "Thanks." Mari just looked at him plainly but offered no reply. "You must be pretty bored to be talking to us this much," Miranda commented, "I mean I'm not complaining.. you can come with us if you want?" Rather than reply to his daughter, Mari simply walked away and ignored her altogether. Miranda frowned disappointedly. "Guess that's his answer," she muttered as they walked in the ship. As she set a course for their destination, Nelson told her, "I mean it isn't all bad. Maybe some part of him still cares a little bit. He is sort of helping us." "You don't know what he used to be like," she replied sadly. "He was such a good dad during my early childhood. Something happened when.." she trailed off. "When what?" He asked. "After my mom died.." She said quietly. Not wanting to upset her any more, he merely said, "I'm sorry.. I.. Let's talk about something else. You had an investigation on Earth you had to go on first?" With a thought, she said, "Yeah, but we're not going there first. Change of plans." "Why not? Isn't it supposed to be like important or something?" He was glad to have changed the subject, but he honestly had many more questions. He had never seen a female Urzuhg before, and he wanted know more about her mom. But he wanted to make sure she didn't get any more upset. "It is," she said. "But I'd rather make sure you're okay first. Those pills really took a toll on you."
It didn't seem to take much more than a day to arrive at the planet Frayuz told them about, Aidugh. This was a rather interesting planet in his opinion. It seemed to have a green atmospheric glow around it, however the forests that were visible from space where blue. The oceans, rivers, etc where a dark shade of green. "Just a heads up," she told him, "The gravity here is much closer to our original planet, before the Martians blew it up, or so I'm told. It's around six times heavier. So you might have some adjusting to do." Nelson nodded. "I bet we'll feel light as feather on Earth," Nelson commented. Miranda nodded as to agree. "It's really hard to move at a normal speed once you get used to this."
When they landed, he was pleasantly surprised to see the sky was a light green, and this planet's sun looked to be a light blue, almost the same color as the plants. It was kind of trippy to see, to him. Directly in front of them, was a neatly paved dirt road, a nice path way through the blue forest. He also almost immediately toppled over from his new weight on this planet. If Miranda was correct in saying it was six times Earth's gravity, he should weight around 1,200 pounds. Miranda helped him up, carrying his arm over her shoulder and placing her other hand on his waist, holding him up. "Shit," he struggled to say, "This is pretty hard." He struggled to even keep his eyelids open. "We'll walk slowly," she said reassuringly, "We just need to walk it off." "Walk it off??" He asked, dumbfounded. He managed to look at Miranda, and saw she had activated her mutation, turning her eyes into a bright green. She must be remarkably strong with it active. He also thought green eyes complimented her red hair almost as nicely as her light brown ones normally did. "You Might want to turn your mutation on too," she said, "That'll help allot. And why are you staring at me at like that?" "Hmm?" He asked, not noticing he'd been staring at her. He felt himself blush. "You just um.. nothing really," he stuttered, activating his mutation and immediately noticing how much more bearable the gravity was. "You um.. just have nice eyes," he told her awkwardly. She smiled cutely at him but only said, "Let's get adjusted to this gravity." They had a bit of a walk ahead of them, and she explained that they could've landed closer, but she wanted to give him a chance to get used to the gravity. The more they walked, the more bearable it became. It still felt like he was wearing a heavy backpack, but eventually he was able to walk upright. He didn't necessarily need her help to walk he felt, but he didn't say anything aloud.
They came across a large open field, the light blue grass fluttering in the wind. It smelled lightly of salt. In the middle of the field was a tall pyramid, made out of some strange venta black metal. It had glowing green lines of light tracing up the sides of it towards the pointed top. Much to his dismay, there was also a long stairway leading up all the way to the top, appearing to be the only entrance. As if reading his mind, she said, "Yeah we gotta go all the way up to the top. I'll help you." "Thank you," he said appreciatively. After an extremely arduous journey to the top, they found themselves at the entrance. Miranda let Nelson go for a moment to press both her hands against the door, which eventually caused it to open, just like in the mothership where they'd came from.
The room inside was spacious, and nearly empty. A dim green light illuminated the room from the ceiling. Only one Urzuhg sat cross legged on the ground there, two of its arms in each lap. It only opened the top two of its four eyes when they walked in, glowing an inquisitive shade of green. "You must be the hybrids I heard about." It spoke Urzuhg, which he of course understood quite well now - although he wasn't sure how - and its voice wasn't rough or brash like most Urzuhg. It was calm, and relaxed. "Yes," Miranda said, "We were concerned about his eyes." "I received the report," the Urzuhg said. "My name is Qunitz. I would Imagine the female is Miranda and the male is Nelson?" They nodded. "According to this you took a close to lethal dosage of the mutation pills they gave you. I can only assume you survived because you already had ingested some, so perhaps your body was just strong enough to survive.. miraculously. Although the result was curious." Qunitz stood up, opening his two bottom eyes. "Your irises have healed," he noted, staring at Nelson's eyes, "So you've avoided blindness. According to our research, you unlocked the next level of mutation, one previously thought only attainable in a Zurtíl. But because you aren't one, the strain is too great for your body to handle for long periods of time. A Zurtíl could use them indefinitely." Miranda crossed her arms, seemingly uneasy about something. "What's a Zurtíl?" He asked. "I'll tell you a bit later," Miranda said, still seeming bothered by something. Quinitz seemed to observe them closely before continuing. "So naturally, I've done some research. I've come to the conclusion that you should most likely be able to reach that second level of mutation at will, perhaps with practice. The one you're at now is just the basic mutation. This second one, based on the math, should be roughly 10 times better than the basic one. Before you go using it carelessly, be weary that you should rest your eyes a while before using it, and a while afterwards. Otherwise, your chance of going blind will increase by 60%. But since you should be able to get around without using your eyes anyway, it's best if you don't use your eyes at all before using the second level." "Looks like I have some work cut out for me." Nelson said thoughtfully. "If he uses it again, will his eyes heal again once he stop using it?" "If you follow my guidelines, I don't see why not." "Uh, thanks," Nelson said, "I don't see why the Urzuhg don't have more scientists around. I bet you could easily be one of the most advanced species in the galaxy." "We have a long, violent, complicated history," Qunitz said calmly, "Unfortunately the dominate trait our species learned was aggression; a desire to kill, destroy, likely a deep seeded defense mechanism we developed, an evolutionary trait, "kill before you're killed" type of mentality. Our species has grown to be one that automatically assumes the worst and acts on it without any further thought most of the time. If you're going to be one of us, it's important you understand your species more than the little you may or may not know. If you feel yourselves falling into that mentality, please try to remember this; just because something appears to be one way, doesn't make it irrevocably so. People judge things based on their perspective of things, based on their own limited knowledge. Someone else's perspective may differ from your own, and may not inherently be wrong, because they have a different set of experiences with that 'something.' For example, a person could be a murderer to one guy somewhere, but only be a father to his kids. It is foolish to believe something as true with out having multiple differing perspectives on it." What the hell is he going on about? Nelson thought. He felt as if he was trying to cryptically hint at something. What it was though, he didn't know. "I'll keep you here no longer," Qunitz said, sitting back down, "Unless there was more information you require?" "That's all," Miranda said, "Thank you." By the time the left the Pyramid, he felt as if he'd fully adjusted to the increased gravity of Aidugh. "I see you've pretty much gotten used to this gravity," Miranda noted. "Yeah," He admitted, "I guess it's not too bad." He was surprised his senses hadn't started messing up any like they had been when he first ingested all those pills. There was something about Miranda that just soothed him. He couldn't put his finger on it. He also preoccupied his mind with what Quinitz had said earlier. It hadn't really had anything to do with the reason they were there, but Nelson felt as if he wouldn't have gone out of his way to say it if there wasn't some meaning to it.
*******
On Earth, he waited patiently at a park while Miranda did whatever it was she had to do for her investigation. He took this time to think. He closed his eyes and began to think as he leaned across a tree, not far from a lake. Qunitz's words were rather indirect, he felt. Was there something or someone he'd had in mind? The first person that came to mind was Anora. While he was on Earth, she'd seemed like the perfect wife. They had shared allot of the same hobbies, got along fairly well. She was also his first love, and his first time having sex. He wondered if that had blinded him. Because clearly, although to him, she had been this amazing woman, there was more to her than he'd seemed to realize. There was more going on there. He had a bad feeling in his gut. He felt his senses getting a bit jumbled up again. He immediately proceeded to stop thinking about her, and the whole situation. Miranda wasn't here to calm him down. He was still very upset about the whole situation. But at least Miranda seemed to be okay. He got the impression that a lot of the things she did wasn't her choice. He wasn't sure to what extent, but perhaps she wasn't as bad as he'd thought she was. He had blamed her for ruining his wedding, but thinking on Qunitz's words, maybe there was more to that. As she opened up to him more, she seemed less and less like the kind of person who did malicious things without reason. At least that's what he wanted to believe about her, because she'd really started growing on him. Maybe it wasn't even her, and she was just a part of something bigger. He also wondered what was up with Mari.
He was interrupted by being suddenly and violently pushed down to the ground. Being caught off guard, and still trying to keep his senses in check, he dropped the bag of chocolate Miranda got for him. It spilled into the lake. He lay there, disoriented. "You're in my way," a rude male voice said, followed by snickers from a few others. Nelson stared at the various chocolates floating into the lake. His mind was blank, but he felt extremely angry. He stood up, looking at whoever it was who had gone out of their way to be mean to him. "I wasn't bothering you," He told the group of four middle aged white men staring at him. He felt hatred coming from them, he felt as if he could even smell it. "You were in our way, dumbass." He put his hand on Nightmare, about to use it to just threaten them, but as he did, something in him clicked. His normal regard for human life seemed to slip away. There was no one here but them. He felt Nightmare's influence on his personality. The blade seemed to feed on his anger, seemed to encourage it. Normally he'd fight it, but he had no such desire right now. He gave completely in to it. He wanted to kill. He also noticed Nightmare seemed to make him forget about his sadness and the emotional hurt he felt from the feeling of his first love having sex with someone else; and replaced it with bloodlust. He smiled and pulled Nightmare out of its sheath. His vision flickered to green.
"W-What the hell?" One of them stuttered. "I'm sick of you humans," Nelson said calmly, his smile turning into a grin as the smell of hatred was replaced with that of fear. "What's the matter? Afraid of death?" He asked them cooly, though he was seconds away from slaughtering them. One of them tried to pull out a pistol but he chopped the man's arm off before he could even put his finger on the trigger. "How typical of you," he said, glaring at the man directly in his eyes. The man fainted. The other two were already running away. By the time Miranda got back, he had already chopped them up and thrown them in the river.
He'd put Nightmare back in its sheath after wiping the blood off on their shirts. He noticing his bloodlust went away, and he began to feel sad and hurt again. He was staring solemnly into the lake when Miranda approached him. "What's wrong?" She asked him. "My chocolate got lost in the lake," he said disappointedly. "How did that happen?" "Some stupid ass humans being mean." "I'm sorry to hear that," Miranda said, looking around. "Where are they?" "I killed them and threw them in the lake." He said. Miranda seemed surprised. He felt himself getting a headache, and his senses started going in and out. Damn side effects, he thought, holding his head. "Still
not adjusted to your senses yet?" She asked softly, eyeing him with concern. He shook his head no. "Hey.." he slowly asked, "Um... could I have a hug?" Miranda was openly surprised at the question. Her cheeks turned bright red. "M-me?" She echoed. He was surprised himself. But whenever he was around her, it calmed his senses down. His sense of smell was soothed by her citrusy aroma; his hearing relaxed by the sound of her voice and breathing, his sight, touch..
"I don't know.." he muttered, confused by how he was feeling. "You just really help me feel better.." "Uhm.. sure, that's okay," she replied, embracing him in a hug. A moment after feeling her gently hug him, he began to feel better, his headache went away, and he focused on her. He was reluctant to let go, but eventually he did. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make this weird," he said awkwardly. "I don't mind," Miranda said, a sort of shy tone to her voice. "I'm happy I can help you. I wish I could get you more chocolate but the stores are out. I don't mind coming to check for you later though." Nelson nodded, and found himself just smiling at her. She smiled warmly back at him. "Do you still want to see Montroughza?" She asked him. Nelson nodded. "Of course."
********
It was interesting going somewhere with Miranda with no mission in mind. He found himself happy to just spend time with her. He guessed it sort of made sense when he thought about it; he had always been attracted to her, he just pushed it back and ignored it because he already had Anora. Without her in the picture, he didn't repress his attraction for Miranda. They talked casually, about nothing in particular on their one day journey towards Montroughza. He found her to be a very interesting person; especially in that he was very interested in what she had to say. It was like she just had a knack for keeping his attention. They arrived in the upper atmosphere of the planet. This was the strangest of all the planets he'd ever seen. The planet had a purple atmospheric glow around it, and pink river beds running down the continents into the vast pink oceans. "These are my favorite colors," She told him. "I hate that we can go down there. It's uninhabitable for us. I have it send robots to get the plant that I extract this citrus perfume from." They took a seat next to each other in the floating chairs, and moved the chairs and bit closer to each other. "I think it's really pretty," she continued, smiling contently, "My parents used to take me here when I was little so I could look at all the pretty colors." "Must've been pretty cool going from planet to planet like that," Nelson commented. "It really was," she said, "I've seen planets with every color. You'd be surprised what you can find if you just look around out here in interstellar space." She once again took out that journal she seemed to keep on her. "What did you say that was?" He asked her curiously, "Its just weird 'cause like, we have all this technology but you're using pen and paper." "It's my diary," she told him, staring distantly out into space. "I use pen and paper because if I were to type it, someone could hack into it, no matter how secure I could encrypt it, but nobody can hack a journal." "Smart," Nelson commented thoughtfully. "It helped me cope with everything.. it took my mind off of things. My mom got it for me, you know because it's purple. And after she died, it's kinda like.. a piece of her I can still have. And.. I try to write things constantly.. especially about my dad.. When I was little it helped allot because I could try to write down every little positive thing he did, you know, since mom died. There isn't allot but I feel like I still kinda hope..." she trailed off. Nelson was surprised to hear her say so much about this part of her past that she'd been so secretive about before. She seemed sad. "Are you okay?" He asked. After a moment, she looked towards him, an upset expression on her face. "No," she admitted. "But thanks for asking." "You think a hug might help?" He asked her. She smiled a small, yet sad smile at him. "It might." He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and let her lay her head on his. He rubbed her shoulder reassuringly. They sat in silence for a while. Not an awkward silence, but rather a comfortable, relaxed silence. As she lay there he felt a warm feeling in his chest, and found himself smiling at nothing.
After a while they headed back. About halfway there, she turned to him and thanked him. As she spoke, he found himself unable to look away. To him, she was quite beautiful to look at. "There you go staring again," she said with a shy smile. "Huh?" He snapped out of it, "Again?" "You do it from time to time," she told him, "I don't really mind it at all, it's kinda funny when you snap out of it." "I can't help it," Nelson said awkwardly, feeling his cheeks getting hot. "You're.. you know.." "I don't know," Miranda said teasingly, "Whatever could it be?" "You're just.. you know, pretty.." he muttered nervously. "Why thank you," She said, smiling a bit more. He also liked seeing her smile but he wasn't about to say that out loud.
They finally landed. Mari and the Urzuhg King were waiting for them when they got back out. "Ugh, smiling," The King said, sounding disgusted as they walked out of the spaceship. Apparently they hadn't stopped smiling yet. "I don't know how you deal with the humans without throwing up." Mari didn't reply to the King, but rather remained expressionless. "I'm
assuming this means you received good news?" Mari asked plainly. "Yes," Miranda said. As she began to explain, he noticed her smile slowly begin to fade. He frowned. He didn't think she was to blame for everything. He believed Mari and the King were mostly responsible, and she just had to follow orders. He didn't see her as a bad person. He couldn't read her father, but if she wanted his help in the war he would certainly help out for her. He wanted things to turn out the way she wanted them to. He trusted her, and he was sure that, especially since she'd been much more open with him, that he would eventually learn then entire truth. It was better than being down there with those pathetic humans, he thought, whom he had completely given up on. He also noticed she left out the part when they traveled to Montroughza. She only told them about what Qunitz said, and that her mission on Earth was a success.
They were about to be dismissed when Nelson interjected, "Hey, before you go, I have some good news for you." "What?" Mari asked, crossing both his arms. "If you still need my help, you've got it." The King replied with a curious tone of voice. "Is that so human? Why is that?" "You've got Miranda to thank for that. She's got a way with words. She's better than you think." Miranda didn't comment, but she did smile a bit. She tried to hide it, but of course she wasn't very good at hiding her smiles. He felt that warm feeling in his chest and stomach as he thought about her, and saw her smile. And something else clicked. He felt his body begin to stabilize for the first time in a while. All his senses lined up, and there was a small popping sound. His vision turned bright green. They seemed extremely surprised at what they saw. He felt like a totally different person, no. Not a person. This was too much energy, too much power. He didn't feel human at all like this. He felt like an Urzuhg. "And besides," he added nonchalantly, "I hear this mutation can come in handy."