Empyrean Iris

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The human nose is capable of distinguishing 1 trillion separate odors based on the arrangement of an estimated 400 types of scent receptors. Only a handful of species, including the Drev, are known to have this sense, though only humans demonstrate it's use to such a high degree.

"Stop it! Don't let it get away!"

Feet rattled on stone behind Chalan as three docking guards held hard pursuit. She could hear them yelling orders to each other as she ran, her feet impacting the hard stone, sending shocks up into her joints of her knees.

She skidded around a corner, the voices falling behind her.

Good, she had lost them.

At least, that's what she thought until the Rundi pulled up beside her. Its long two-toed feet beating against the ground as it ran, its long neck holding up a surprisingly small bug-like head.

"Stop immediately, you are in violation of docking code four five-"

Chalan ignored it and cut sideways shouldering the Rundi violently in the side and sending it careening into a nearby pile of crates. There was a cry of pain and an explosion of shards and splinters as the creature came to a violent halt. She had forgotten how fast those strange creatures could run, though she wasn't going to have to worry about it for the foreseeable future.

It did not get back up.

She skidded around another corner barely having time to examine her surroundings as she tried to weave an impossible path for her pursuers to follow.

By the time she stopped, it had been a while since she had heard the last voice yelling for her capture. She slowed to a stop, and that finally gave her time to get a good look at her surroundings.

Things that hadn't clicked before began to click now. First of all, it was unbearably hot: Chalan knew hot, the hot of a harsh volcanic wind as it rushes up from rivers of lava but this, this was a bit different. The heat never seemed to end, it didn't come in waves, but laid over her like the weight of an oppressive corpse.

She didn't like it.

Next came the sky, and lifting her head Chalan was surprised to find that the light above her, rather than being blue was an almost yellowish green, tinted and sickly like a festering wound.

Looking down at the ground, she watched as the wind blew ripples into small hillocks of bright blue sand which piled against the sides of buildings: domelike and constructed of white marble. The only plants she could see peered over the domes; yellow in color and peculiar in the way they stuck up into the air like fingers.

Chalan turned in a circle.

What kind of planet was this: the sky being green and the ground being blue?

In the distance, she could see great hillocks of blue sand piled up into mounds as large as hills stretching off into the expanse.

She continued to spin in a circle overwhelmed suddenly by the alien nature of it all. It hadn't occurred to her till now, not fully sunk in that she was not on Anin anymore. She was alone, in an expansive galaxy, on an alien planet of which she knew nothing.

There was no one to help her and nowhere to go.

A hungry growling arose deep inside her, and she steadied herself against the side of one of the dome structures, while another hand rested on her stomach.