Arrival

9 Years Ago

Sixteen months went by, and there was no more voice, or any figure on the screen to command him. It was his first taste of freedom, and he pledged to keep this taste forever. He was convinced that he had all the knowledge he needed to survive and take over Earth, and he could do anything he wanted with this knowledge now that he was free. There were three days left before he would land on Earth. Of all the subjects he had learned in his courses, there was one that fascinated him the most: Clonology, the lizaard science of cloning. He was eager to realise his first experiment idea, which consisted of extracting his own DNA and mixing it up with some species on Earth. It was the first thing he had planned to try out once he’d be released. More importantly though, he thought, he could catch a couple days’ worth of rest. There was no reason to haste; he was still only a year old. Rosayan turned the screen off, because he was finally allowed to, and then walked to his bed. He did not even have time to sit on it that a sudden steel pillar started to slowly rise from one of the floor tiles beside the bed, and blue light emanated from inside of it. He waited for the little pole to stop growing, and it did when it arrived at the height of his face. He took a closer look at it, and noticed that a chip was inside. He recognized the chip because it was very similar to the one inside the computer that monitored the big screen in the ship. He took the chip out of the pillar, and the pillar then instantly went back down to its original, hidden place. He went to the computer and ejected the older chip, which was the one that contained the video of the commanding figure. He inserted the one he had just retrieved from the floor tile, and as the screen turned on, it read: Kradda - The Ancient Martial Art of Killing, Survival and Conquest.

“Conquest…” he said unconsciously. He clicked on the title with the remote. It read: Level 1 - The Skeesh. The word irritated him, because his own skeesh was very small compared to the other lizaards he saw in his lessons. His tail was considerably short, not even a half-meter long. But then again, he told himself, he was merely a newborn, and it should eventually grow longer as he aged. He skipped to the next chapter. Level 2: Bone Eviction

The young lizaard went to get some food and water, and then lied down on his bed. The bed faced the screen, so as to be the first thing to catch Rosayan’s attention when he’d wake up. He scrolled down the chapter menu to see what lessons awaited him. The chapter was divided into two parts. One part was about the process of bone eviction, and the second part about its implications in survival and war. The first part held five lessons.

 

Lesson 1: Dislocating bones

Lesson 2: Extruding a bone out of the skin

Lesson 3: Merging bones

Lesson 4: Shaping bones

Lesson 5: Technique, practice and exercises

 

Rosayan stood out of bed, and clicked on the first lesson. He would rest later, it seemed.

Three days passed by, and Rosayan had finally arrived in Earth’s orbit. He landed in a world where it seemed that the only thing to exist was darkness and sand. After having cleared every lesson of the chapter before arriving on Earth, the little lizaard was now able to dislocate and outthrust his bones at will. What he lacked though, was accuracy. He didn’t dare extrude bones out of his face or close to his lower back either. Even though his pores were very flexible everywhere on his body, he wasn’t ready to stick a bone out of his eye or out from the dung hole just yet. Other than bone eviction, he had learned a couple of martial lessons from the other chapters in the video. He loved the fighting style, and admired its cruel techniques.

 He posed his scaly green hand on the ID pad beside the door, and recognizing the lizaard DNA, the door split open to reveal a night so dark, that the only thing he could see as he walked out was the sparkling stars above him. They were the first stars he had ever seen. A strong wind blew from the east, and with the gust came a tickling sensation from all the powdery sand blowing on him. It made him notice how absolutely cold it was outside. He tried spotting the closest star, which from what he had learned, would be the planet’s sun. The place being so dark and cold, he concluded at that moment that the sun was probably on the other side of the planet, and presumably, there was also only one sun around this planet. He had been taught that such a period was called night. He smelled the fresh air around him, and was surprised to discover such a fragrance that clearly surpassed the smell of the ship he had been confined in. He decided to call this the scent of freedom. He pledged to smell this every day. He decided he would go back in, get some sleep, and wait until the sun would come back again. He made a quick check-up of all his computers, a routine he did right before going to bed, to make sure he was aware of every bit of the latest info he could receive via satellite. One of the computer screens showed a map of planet Earth and it displayed the landing site, in an area called Taklimakan Desert. He clicked on the area, and got linked on an international network called Internet, where multiple documents about the Taklimakan Desert appeared on various screens of all his computers. All the data he needed was displayed before him. He skimmed through a couple of documents, and from what he could analyze, Taklimakan was a nearly uninhabited place where he would have minimal chances of getting caught for now, but also minimal chances of surviving. He went to bed with that in mind.

The next day, he eagerly woke up and instantly ran outside to see the blazing hot sun and dazzling brightness that sparkled on the endless desert sand. That was his new home. To him, it was wonderful compared to the gloomy, lifeless ship he had been living in. Though there wasn’t much life in the desert either, he found it perfect, because he was the one who would make this place a lively one. Just this last night he had dreamt of having his legions scattered throughout the desert, not only inhabiting the place, but owning the place. It would be the first piece of land to be called Lizaross.

 The first priority that day was to find food and water. Even more important, he then thought, was to know what was edible and what wasn’t. He journeyed through the sand without any equipment, food, or water, trying to find a clue on what might make him survive. After many hours, he found a scorpion, and instantly knew it was a living creature since it moved on its own. He thrust a bone out of his forearm and it skewered right through the insect’s body. He took the scorpion with his hand, and his bone spike then slid back in from where it came from. The opened pore on his forearm, which was stretched out by the extruded bone-spike, closed back to microscopic size, and it left no mark or bruise, not even redness. He ate the scorpion in one big bite and was instantly informed that he should have peeled the creature’s shell off. His first snack had been a little painful to digest, but he tried nonetheless to eat a second one an hour later, but this time he had removed the scorpion’s shell and it actually tasted nice. It gave him enough energy and motivation to find three more, and then he fell asleep in the sand, under the menacingly hot sun. He somehow survived the night, found his way, and made it back in the ship alive, but he cried when he got back. He would never do such a foolish stunt again. He didn’t know how many days he would last with five scorpions as his only food consumption, but he needed to create a faster way of transportation before going in the desert again. He was scared. Everything was too far, and the nights were too frisky for his cold-blooded species to handle. The sunbeams blaring at him during the day were so comforting and relaxing, that he would get lazy and probably fall asleep again, and wake up in a terribly cold night, lost.

It took two days before Rosayan finished creating his first invention: the shabby prototype of a solar-powered jetpack. He unfortunately had to compromise his fully functioning ship and remove parts from all sorts of computers and mechanisms. It was necessary if he wanted something to build a jetpack with. The ship couldn’t take off or move anymore, but it wasn’t important to him. He could probably repair it later in the future anyway, by gathering miscellaneous provisions from Earth with his new jetpack. The young reptile then hurriedly went outside to test out his new toy. It was noisy, it shook violently as it flew, and it was very difficult to navigate, but it worked like a charm. Rosayan then left on the journey to find food or civilization, whichever came first. At that point, both were the same.