No Refuge

How many times was it now that she had ignored that insistent noise? How many late nights ruined by some critter skirting across the edge of the perimeter, setting off the alarm? How many times had she regretted taking the advice, now? ‘A woman in your position,’ They had said, ‘should be well protected.’ That was something she could never quite understand, the way they had worded it—a woman in her position.

Not everyone had been welcoming to the ways of colonists, even if they had all migrated here of their own accord, they needed someone to take control and show them there was nothing to fear from change, least of all this change. REFUGE II was a asteroids’ throw away from the neighboring planet, the thriving sector of life, REFUGE I. In the right light, on the right night, you could even see that brilliantly green planet; a speck of the dust in the starry seas.

It had been centuries since Project REFUGE had been launched, sister and brother planets taken by the steel and fire of progress, terraformed into suitable habitats for the overwhelming populations that stirred on each new World, everyone as eager as their predecessors to see and experience a new outlet: a concept once little more than a dream, had now become a vibrant economy.

Jaarnet Paxton was little exception to this. Her life on REFUGE had been one of poverty, a desperate scramble for one voice to overcome thousands. When presented with a chance in a lifetime, to see the next new World, she had left everything… everyone behind, without even a second glance.

The early years were thriving, the advances in modern technology were baffling, and now what had once been purely Science Fiction had begun to rise; brilliant minds, in brilliant worlds. The sky was no longer the limit, the limit was no longer the sky—there was no limit.

Her title had never been official, she hadn’t been labeled Madam Worldly President, Governor, or Mayor. She handled issues, she settled debates and she received nothing in return save for the respect of her fellow colonists and that alone seemed to be enough to sustain a lively life.

She had danced in the light of twin moons, experienced love for the second time and mothered. She watched them grow, watched them struggle and sooner than later, they were off on their own worlds: the son, Ambrose had enlisted as security personnel into a deep space mission and the daughter, the beautiful daughter had set herself towards REFUGE IV, hoping to find her own calling.

Her late Husband had passed away peacefully in his sleep, stricken by a strange illness that at first, was little more than a cough. Even a thousand years of Medical Advancements couldn’t tell the body to stop ripping itself apart, but it had been enough to dull the pain entirely. They had called it something ominous: “The Twisting Flesh”, not something she would have branded on the obituary.

Ever since then, Jaarnet had immersed herself in her work, burdened by her responsibilities by willing to comply. Loss was loss, nothing good would come from mourning over it, not when she had at least another decade ahead of her—

The alarm was still going off.

She moved with a noticeable strain, age truly taking it’s toll and even though she was barely into her sixth decade, she was one woman that refused to admit her own limits.

The lavish bayside home she had been gifted was large enough to raise her family, but now it only served as a crude reminder that she was entirely alone, save for the two security guards the local militia had gifted her out of concern. Two stories, imported wood and glass. They (once again) had said, ‘This will let you watch everything happening.’

It was thoughtful had the time, but had played hell with raising two teenagers in a home where virtually anyone could peer into your life. Still, REFUGE II was a simpler place and far more peaceful.

By the time she had found the panel, punched in the override code and made her way towards the kitchen, she had realized her mistake—what had always woke her wasn’t the alarm, but the guards. They had always made a show of bravado, something she found almost adorable, when they would burst in to scare away the wildlife that had trampled a little too close to home.

They weren’t here now.

Instead, what she saw as she entered the kitchen, something her late Husband had designed to resemble the finest marbling and mock-ivory and even though she had frequently protested that it looked flat out ugly when compared to the beautiful wooding it surrounded, he had been adamant about the application and who could deny the boyish charm of gleefully eyed middle aged man?

It wasn’t her late Husband waiting for her, or the two guards… it was someone else, someone that had brought company.

It was a young man, the age she couldn’t properly discern given the lack of lighting, and a trio of large figures behind him, all of which must’ve dwarfed him by two full heads in height. Whoever he was, he must have sensed this chill that had been given by the dark, and casually flipped a nearby switch—it didn’t do anything. She heard him stifle a laugh and turn to speak to her.

“Think you could lend a hand?”

Jaarnet was taken back by the request… mostly due to something about his voice that offset her, a shrill tremble sent along her spine. She didn’t like the sound.

Still, she complied with the faintest gesture of snapping her figures—brilliant light blazed down from above, giving her full witness to the men that stood before her. The large ones adorned in a faceless armor and proudly held ghastly looking weapons to bear; they reminded her almost of statues, they were massive and imposing… but they didn’t move, didn’t even shift from foot to foot. They were either seasoned veterans, or were not real.

The young man was an entirely different story. He did not look like a professional, he did not look like a statue. He was dressed in what looked like fatigues, though they were littered with burns, cuts and what even looked like bullet holes. His hair was disheveled and a dark brown, pieces stuck to his forehead with what looked like sweat and grim… in fact, the young man appeared to be terribly ill: his features what might have passed for handsome on a good day, were partially sunken in and his eyes circled by bags. He was so very pale. A busted lip had bled and drifted, a myriad of bruises followed one side of his face—he didn’t seem bothered.

Once the light hit him, he exclaimed joy with both arms held wide and he closed their distance with two long strides and wrapped Jaarnet in the tightest hug she’d ever felt.

Stricken with shock, she would only recount after he had broken contact and stepped away how he smelt of ash and oil.

“Jaarnet Paxton, in all my days… I never thought I’d have the chance to finally meet you!” He spoke again, that shrill voice of his may as well have been dripping with venom for all the hate he implied with a simple greeting.

“Th-.. The pleasure is all mine?” She managed, her voice embarrassingly stuttered and she swallowed every ounce of terror that she had; instead, putting on that proud leader voice she had always used. Crossing the flaps of her silken robe and crossing her arms, acting like what she was: a woman whose sleep had been disturbed. “I never did get your name, or what you wanted enough to break into my home in the middle of the night.”

He flashed her a casual smile, teeth a strange shade of neither white, nor yellow.. but perfect. “Who I am isn’t all that important… what I am? Now that, that Jaarnet—“

“—Ms. Paxton, please.” She cut him off right there, this wouldn’t go anywhere if these men thought nothing of her authority.

Taken back by her correction for only a fraction of a second, as though his manners had genuinely slipped away for the moment. “I apologize, Ms. Paxton. My name is Isnoe Incunabula Noctis.” He tipped forward, an overly eccentric bow.

Jaarnet Paxton had seen a lot in her day, had seen supplies raided by starving people and seen men beaten to death for overstepping an imaginary line… but she had never speculated that she would run into a living myth, a legend that kept children up and eager to hear how the story ended.

The Noctis were not real. They were a story travelers brought back with them from distant stars, claiming to have encountered terrifyingly beautiful and strong men and women: men and women that felt no fear, knew no pain and could survive the most grotesque of injuries. However, in these stories… the men and women of the Noctis were Heroes—valiant soldiers that stopped horrors, that safe guarded society and fought for anyone and everyone that needed help.

They certainly were not what this Isnoe presented, a wounded and dying young man. He might have passed for the beauty, maybe even for the hero and soldier… but he looked average, normal; the way he acted was the only thing off.

She had at some point taken a seat at her dining table, she couldn’t tell when, but by the time the haze had faded – a cup sat in front of her, dark and hot.

“Black, right?” Isnoe spoke up, standing at her side, a spotted hand rested on her shoulder as though she might fall over at any moment.

She politely brushed it off as best she could, nodding some but she never touched the drink, instead averted her gaze to him. “Do you take me for a blind old woman?” Her voice was far more harsh than she intended, but she wasn’t going to step back.

He looked puzzled for a moment, before pulling out a chair next to her, sitting in it with a loud thump! that shook the table, the beautiful bouquet of flowers nearly toppled. “What do you mean?” He asked, innocent as a clueless child.

“What I mean…” She reiterated, voice more level now. “…is that the Noctis are a myth, and—“

“Are we?”

He cut her off this time, his uncut nails tapping loudly against the wooden table. “I mean, I kind of like being me… so if I’ve been a myth this whole time?” He whistled, low. “…that would be some kind of mind f***, and I’d have to call you a dumb blind old woman.”

Jaarnet resisted the urge to snatch the grin he wore right off his face and instead, decided to pry. “Alright, then… you are one of these fictional Heroes?” She asked, slowly.

“Heroes? Is that what they call us?”

“There are stories.”

“Tell me them, then. I like stories.”

It took her a few minutes, but she slowly recounted the tales she had been told in rigid details, one in particular he had decided to jot in on: a story of a nearby flyer, a freighter had been found with the entire crew deceased, all killed in gruesome ways and the only person that had laid witness on it had been asked if there were any survivors; his reply, a grim ‘is none’.

“So that’s what he said, huh?” He looked as though he were recalling a fond memory, before an open palm loudly slammed against the wooding. “What a riot!” He was laughing now, a loud and terrible thing to endure upclose, but she waited patiently for him to stop. “Well, in that case… yeah, the Noctis you heard of ain’t real… all…” He gestured with both hands, fingers flailing about. “Imaaagination.”

“Then why are you here, Isnoe?” She growled out and his expression fell, so much so that she might have mistaken him for a corpse at another point in time.

“Recruiting.”

“Recruiting? You will find no soldiers here, Isnoe. We are a colony, we have a local militia… but they are no soldiers, they are farmers.”

He waved her words off with one hand, head shaking lowly. “I’ve already seen what you guys pass as security here, I sure as sh*t ain’t interested in that.”

It took her several seconds to register what he had said, by the time she did she was already half-standing and demanding an answer. “Where are they?!”

He made a face that plainly suggested she was nagging him over something that truly didn’t matter, but he nonetheless nodded towards the furthest hallway—a bloodied hand had barely passed the threshold, still clutched in lifeless fingers the standard issue firearms they gave local militia.

“Why…” She managed, a desperate plea more than anything. Not a soul had died of unnatural causes in years, all strife had been put behind them, they were making progress. Her guards, one barely above eighteen with a bright future and the other a middle aged veteran. They were good men, they volunteered to watch over her and she hadn’t turned them away.

“What were their names?” Isnoe’s voice broke her spiraling depression, she shot him an even more desperate look. He returned her gaze, awaiting an answer that never came. Her own shame was evident, the two men had lost their lives and she hadn’t spent a couple seconds out of her day to ask them their names.

He made a clearly disgusted face. “Now that’s kind of f***ed up.” He jotted a thumb over towards each one of the large, armored men. “That one there is Axe, he don’t talk but I always get an Axe vibe from him. That other guy is Diesel, he doesn’t talk but he usually drives. Last one there is Snap, he doesn’t talk but we used to have two others called Crackle and Pop… though now that he’s alone, the joke just doesn’t carry much weight.” He sighed loudly, looking over his companions once more, before returning to Jaarnet. “Ms. Paxton, there are only lives wasted and lives spent. You wasted their lives and didn’t even have the decency to learn their names.”

She slowly returned to her seat, no longer of the high stature she had once claimed to be; now she was just another heartless woman in control. She didn’t want to talk anymore, she felt nauseous. Isnoe didn’t seem to mind, and decided it was his queue to keep talking.

“When was the last time you heard anything from REFUGE III? Or REFUGE IV? Or REFUGE V?” He began, pushing up and walk over to that deceased hand and pry from it’s clutched fingers the sidearm, racking the slide to ensure it was chambered. “Probably been awhile, right? What is the standard communication protocol between REFUGE Worlds?” He asked her now, once more returning to his place at the dining table.

“Thirteen weeks…” She answered, voice low.

“Thirteen? Seems like it has been quite a bit longer than that… but you know, what?” He gestured towards her with the barrel of the weapon. “When was the last time you spoke to your Daughter?”

Jaarnet looked at him now, eyes unfocused and her vision beginning to cloud. “What..?”

“Your Daughter. REFUGE IV, right? Pretty little thing, and a complete medical marvel let me tell you that—“ She smacked him, hard. No one moved, not even the giants that had invaded her home and killed her unnamed Security.

Isnoe didn’t seem to care either, even as an angered Jaarnet panted harshly at him and screamed. “WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY DAUGHTER?!” It was actually amazing that she could even manage to formulate words with all the rage that blinded her, but Isnoe was as patient as he should have been when dealing with an inconsolable child.

“She is dead.” If words could hit, that may as well have been the flat impact of a dump truck. The way he said it clearly implied he was not the cause, but that did not stop the welling of tears that came with it. They streamed hot and heavy down her face, snot rolling and every manner of poised woman had been rushed away—she believed every word he said, she didn’t know why.

He gave her time to grieve, sitting there patiently while she cried and even offering her a tissue when he deemed her too unsightly, or found a measure of manners. It was a moment before she could cease her crying and cradle deep that memory of her loving, laughing child…

“Funny thing about us Noctis…” Isnoe began to speak, casual and carefree, the death of her Daughter meant nothing to him and he made it show. “Everyone always comes to that conclusion of strong, beautiful and perfect… but really, it couldn’t be that much further from the truth. I’m sure you’ve heard of those… what’re they called, the Cosmetic Medicine?”

She nodded some, she had heard of it. AdvanIX was what it had been marketed as, a reengineering of the face that held promise of allowing anyone to look like whatever they wanted; it was expensive though and later on found to be degenerative, the beauty only lasted for little over a decade in the best cases—it had been banned ever since.

“Well, with us… it is kind of like that, except there are no fancy computers involved to tell you what to look like, you just look like… well, you. What you look like in your head, you know? Which, let me tell you, it did get a little weird… spend your whole life with a guy, grow to call him brother and then boom!” He snapped. “Next day he is your sister and a hot one too. Not the weird, surgical kind either, talking bonified woman. Now you spend your waking hours on mission trying not to ogle the ass of your own brother but he—“ He stopped himself, running a hand through his greasy hair and sighing loudly. “The point… being, our appearances change our whole existence. We will slowly but surely, start to look one way… then the next, look the other way.”

“I don’t understand why you are telling me this, Isnoe…” She managed lowly, still wiping the tears from her wrinkled cheeks.

“All those parts in the stories, the unkillable and invincible warriors…” He snorted a laugh, turning in his seat and raising the sidearm to the armored man that he had called Snap: he took aim and fired once, the round tore through the armor on his right knee cap and the man twisted. No sound, no pain – and even though Snap now made a more visible effort to stand, he was unchanged.

Jaarnet’s heart nearly jumped out of her chest, her voice raised. “What the hell are you doing!”

Isnoe merely pointed with the weapon once more. “See that?” He meant the knee, of course. “Snap here is a bonified Noctis himself, though.. he and they are on more of the mass produced side, not quite like us… but a good example: we can take a helluva hit and keep standing, but…” He raised the weapon again and fired, this time she was more used to the sound in confined space, and even as the round tore through the helmet and obliterated what had once been a face, body falling heavily onto it’s back with a loud thud—the others didn’t move. “Find a soft spot and in the end, no invincibility… no unkillable.”

“He was your soldier, wasn’t he… your friend?” She asked after several seconds had passed, eyes falling onto the young and ruthless Isnoe.

“Crackle and Pop are dead, figured Snap might’ve missed them… besides, they can’t exactly feel anything.” He said with a shrug, before slumping back in his seat to face her. “The thing is, people just get this misconception about us.” He continued as though nothing happened, as though no one had died. “Someone here will see a Noctis spitting fire, or a Noctis controlling metal… but that is all just side effects, side effects from things inside us. Never really been that big of a deal, really.”

“Why are you telling me thi—“

“Ya’ see, everyone thinks we are these super-powered, super-awesome soldiers and sh*t… but it couldn’t be further from the truth, Ms. Paxton. You know what the hardest part about destroying any entire planet?” He leaned close, eyes half-lidded and tired. “All the precious pieces get lost in the explosions, and everyone wants to blame someone else for it—tragedy, rebellion, war and hate… they are all just some stupid little circle people can’t seem to get out of.”

He held up a finger now, smiling. “Take yourself a disease. The best disease, the strongest disease you can think of… shove it inside of someone that can carry that disease. You get a few side-effects here and there, but you got yourself a goddamn carrier. Make that disease ridden person fly off world to this new planet and shoot themselves, shoot themselves square in the f***ing head—all biological life dies, or… it could be targeted biological life? Only humans? Maybe an infestation of a species that is a little too harmful for a settlement? Or maybe, maybe even something that jumpstarts biological life…” He went on, nodding towards her some. “Don’t tell me you actually thought machines and sh*t terraformed planets? Don’t tell me you thought all these tragedies that happened in the outer colonies were just random plagues?”

He proudly flung out both arms, laughing in that terrifying tone again. “The Noctis..!! Glorified goddamn disease carriers!”

“…why are you telling me this, Isnoe?” Jaarnet repeated, she knew that in time the Militia would come and they would surely be able to handle the handful here; Isnoe himself had said it, they were not invincible.

“Because, Ms. Paxton…” He looked to her for a moment, something in his eyes betrayed her – he raised the weapon and shot her square in the chest, a splatter of her own fluid hit the wall behind her and she fell from her chair, thudding hard onto the beautiful marble flooring her late husband had laid out.

She couldn’t breathe, every inhale was labor and when she spared herself enough to glance at the gaping wound, she found the crimson gush was bubbling—a lung puncture, from the sound of it. Every breath was wet.

“Because Ms. Paxton…” He repeated, his boot thumping loudly next to her head as he squatted down over her, curious eyes watching. “…I have never seen, nor heard of a Noctis growing old.”

“..w..ha..t..” She tried to speak and Isnoe clasped a free hand over her mouth, insisting that she cease and forcing her to do so.

“In the initial stages of our conception, we were couriers… sent off to various worlds, waiting for that little piiing that would tell us it was time to end our own lives… all of them, except you. Ms. Paxton.” He was still looking her over, still looking disgusting. “We are sterile, we cannot have kids. We are virtually immortal, we do not age and some of us are impossibly beautiful…”

She raised her hand to try and push his away from her mouth, only to find the frequent wrinkles and paleness of her skin had vanished—a smooth, caramel had etched into place. Her whole body felt different, a complete stranger. Her breasts no longer sagged, they were supple and perky. Her bones no longer ached, her skin no longer dry and her face, in the dull reflection of the ceiling above, was beautiful once again; perfect features, angled beneath a shading of dark, silken hair.

The only thing that hadn’t changed was the gaping wound in her chest and the slow, steady realization that she was dying.

“The thing we carry, sometimes it goes to sleep… and it looks like somewhere in your life, you truly managed to forget what you are… and found happiness.” He remarked, he sounded so incredibly hurt by the thought. “…but, Ms. Paxton… you are about to remember everything you are.”

He stepped back, removing his hand from her mouth and before she could speak, the heel slammed into her face and she fell unconscious; little did Jaarnet Paxton know, this was the last thing she would ever see.

“Sir.” Diesel spoke up, demanding Isnoe’s immediate attention, but at the moment he was far more concerned with the bloodied, dying beauty at his feet.

“Yeah, yeah… what?”

“The Local Militia is on their way, Sir.” The robotic, boring overtone of Diesel’s voice was almost warrant enough to kill him like Snap, but Isnoe shrugged it off.

“It doesn’t matter, not anymore… because like I told you…” He was talking down to ‘Ms. Paxton’ now. “Jaarnet L. Noctis… your world is going to find out the exact purpose of the Noctis.” He lazed the acquired firearm over her forehead, lightly squeezed until the thunderous echo drove metal straight into her pretty skull and she died. Whatever variant of the Toxin she carried was spilling into the air and in a few weeks, the entire planet would be devoid of life—or worse, thriving with it.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A Short Story based off of a Universe I created, REQUIEM. The story follows various person(s) while they try to unfoil the uprising of a new, deadly virus and the people who seem to be capable of controlling it: The Children of the Night, or 'Noctis' as they are dubbed.