A Mission, A Legacy

A Story by Tazz S.H.

This was influenced by this game I played on the N64. Game was called "Perfect Dark".

Three A.M. Heart racing. Head pounding. Flashes of faces. Snippets of conversation. And this ache, this dull, agonizing ache that starts up from the pit of my stomach, throughout my chest, rises into my throat. Sobs escape. What is this? What’s going on? What’s happening? The air conditioner was blasting cold air but the bed sheets are damp from my sweat. Why does my mind hurt? I don’t want to remember. But I do, anyway.

“Joanna,” he sighed my name. Flash of an orange cap, hair covering his forehead.

I remember him, taking my hand, leading me to the balcony.

Outside, we could hear faintly the blare of the party music and the sweet laughter of the guests inside.

I remember his suit, neat and black against his firm chest. My arms had slid around his neck like a charm, and his, around my waist.

I remember seeing this twinkle in his eye, a hunger I had never seen before.

On my bed, the memory began to haze, as my eyes stung with tears. The room was hot. The room was cold. Sweaty. Cramped. Wrong. No, no. I squeezed my eyes shut, and sat up straight. I slowly opened my eyes and blinked through the darkness. Breathing slowed. I focused on the quiet hum of the air conditioner and the sound of my heartbeat. Fluffed my pillow and dropped back down with a heavy sigh. Let my eyelids droop.

The orange cap reappeared behind my eyelids.

Jason’s lips parted, and he leaned down to kiss me.

Our lips met, and all I felt was warm. I felt a rush of love. His hand rubbed my shoulder and he leaned me against the low rail of the balcony, tipping my head over, partially. He grazed my neck every so often, then came back to my lips.

Jason’s hand went to my thigh, where he hoisted me a bit farther back. The small of my back was now touching the cold metal of the rail, my hair blowing fiercely in the wind. Our lips broke as I realized we were thirty stories up with half my body off the balcony.

I can only imagine what my facial expression looked like to him. Alarmed, vulnerable even, my silver cross-shaped earrings dangling.

I waited for him to pull me back to safety, but he didn’t. My face paled.

“Jason…” I stammered, trying hard not to gulp.

The smug look on his face gave me chills. What was he doing? He was staring down at me silently, each second passing, coming closer to me flailing helplessly. His arms left my back, and I could feel the support disappearing.

He pressed his abdomen into mine to keep me from falling.

I grabbed firmly the collar of his blazer, my eyes beginning to tear.

Jason’s eyes stared into mine; a look of mercilessness.

“Please,” I whimpered.

“Help me up. Or I’m going to fall.”

The wind blew lightly his hair, and a slow smile spread across his face.

He licked his lips. But as he did, his entire being transformed. A flicker of electrical light ran down his figure in lines of static and there, holding me off the edge of the balcony, was a monster.

A small electronic device clattered onto the ground, falling away from the monster’s being as its transformation was complete. But I didn’t dare avert my eyes to look at the disguising-machinery. The Skedar’s yellow reptilian eyes glowed venomously at me, its teeth dripping pools of saliva.

I quickly remembered what my sector’s commander had taught us about the natural enemies of the human race.

“The Skedar,” Commander Stephen had once said.

“Are an ancient alien race of intergalactic aliens. For the most part, where Earth’s reptiles are derived from.”

I hardened my gaze at the Skedar, a look of impenetrable fury planted within my countenance.

This monster had used its alien technology, which was much more advanced than ours, and disguised itself as Jason. The one man, the one person who I’d ever come close to.

“I’ve been waiting to kill you, Joanna Dark,” The Skedar rasped in its high, gravelly voice. Commander Stephen had told all of us combatants that the years of living on their rocky, crumbly planet had left particles of dust and rocks in the air, which the Skedar had breathed. The rocks and dust, of course, scorched and seethed, damaged the skin on the walls of their throats, resulting in their screeching voices.

I could feel the Skedar’s rough claws digging into my dress, threatening to tear the fabric.

“What have you done with Jason?” I demanded.

The demon’s eyes flickered delightfully.

“The one whom you call Jason is dead,” it spat, and my heart sank as I weighed in the words.

The Skedar tutted then, a strange pigeon-cooing sound emanating from its vocal cords.

“His last words were ‘Tell her I’ll always love her.’”

The Skedar’s tail whipped from side to side and I glared up at the creature with a renewed hatred.

“And then, of course, the pitiful human shrieked foul curses towards my presence, making me quite angry and irritated, so I put the bloody monkey to death,”

Jason had gone down fighting, that much I knew. He was never one to back down, run away, tail between his legs. Jason was warm, and dependable, sweet, strong, tough…and all the things you’d ever want in a man. He understood me, and I understood him. We were like two sides of the same coin, always in sync, always valuing each other.

The only one I’d ever give my life for.

“You really, truly are torn up over this, aren’t you, Joanna Dark?” The monster purred. True, my breathing had become shallow. Weary, almost.

“And that is one of your biggest flaws; emotion! Love. You let it in, and your guard goes down. You humans…are disgusting, pitiful weak, writhing animals,”

The Skedar suddenly became quiet, and I realized it was observing me.

“How does it feel, Joanna Dark? To have something taken away from you? To lose something that matters to you the most? To have the one thing you always stood for, to be just gone, just…GONE.” The Skedar exclaimed then, and I realized it was referring to its own past, perhaps a year ago, when my sector’s combatants moved in on the kill of the Skedar leader. I remembered it clearly, comets of fire and debris shooting into the air, sailing into the ground, making craters on the Skedar planet. Hundreds, no, thousands, of Skedar fleeing, attacking, shrieking, screaming, piercing the air with their murderous octaves as their race began to decline under heavy fire from our ship.

The warmongers had just lost their leader then, as we escaped, shooting off any of the Skedar critters that hung onto our ship’s landing legs.

“But no matter to that, Joanna Dark,” the monster’s eyes were cold and calculating and there was a sudden deadness to the air, a foreshadowing of my near demise. In the cold, night air, the Skedar held me over the balcony in silence, under the bright, festive party lanterns, music playing in the distance, champagne glasses clinking and people clapping.

“I think we understand each other very well,” And I agreed. There was a finality to the Skedar’s tone. A tone that was punishing me in revenge. A tone that was bidding me farewell. A tone that voiced authority over a child; and in this scenario, I was the child.

“Goodbye, Joanna Dark…” The Skedar released me.

And I was falling.

Falling and falling and falling through, tumbling through time and space, the wind rushing past me at a remarkable speed. The Skedar’s face was getting farther and farther, smaller, as I was getting closer to the ground.

And the whole way down, I thought of him. Jason. Jason smiling, laughing, Jason holding me, telling me he loved me. Jason. Dear, sweet Jason. But he was gone. But I loved him.

He shouldn’t have died. He shouldn’t have died. He left me. He died. He’s gone. They killed him.

How long was it going to take before I fell all thirty stories? How much time did I already have left? When would I die? Why couldn’t I just die already? Jason, oh lord, Jason. Jason. Jason. I love, Jason. I love you.

But then something broke my fall. It happened so fast, so forcibly, for a moment I thought I was dead. It has stopped my breath, and I gasped in shock.

Someone had caught me,

When I looked up, I met the Skedar’s eyes once again. But it wasn’t the same Skedar that had disguised itself as Jason. This one looked older. Stronger. Darker reptilian scales. Longer claws. Powerful tail.

“Joanna Dark,” the Skedar gruffed. “As much as my assistant Kiriel would love to watch you die, you shall not die…yet.”

They strapped on a pair of heavy, electronic steel shackles around my wrists and ankles, and took out another one of their alien technological devices. They punched in a series of numbers and keys into a square padlock on their chest armor and we all became invisible.

Stealth, I thought. But that was all I could think then.

The orange cap, Jason’s cap, has haunted me to this day, where I am in the Skedar’s custody, being brainwashed day by day, night after night, being forced to feed them information about Commander Stephen’s whereabouts. I feed them useless information and have survived this long in doing so.

It should remain so that way, for as long as I am able to, or until I die, because Jason has not died in vain. His death will never have been in vain, but in honor.

So here I am, almost four A.M. on the Skedar’s ship, locked in my cell, prisoner here for about three months. The Skedar have gone dormant at this time, and they should rise in a couple of hours. But that is all I need.

I creep out of the bed, peer under my bunk and pull out what I’ve been working on in secret.

Commander Stephen had assigned me to a stealth class once, in which I learned to pickpocket. I applied my skills here, stealing tools and small machinery from Skedar guards while they let me out to use the bathroom or when the wardens brought me food. I have a perfect map of the ship in my mind.

And in three months, I have built several weapons, enough to take out most of the ship. Commander Stephen has taught me well. Jason has taught me well.

And tonight, when the Skedar believe me to be sleeping, I shall make my debut, and bust out of this place, once and for all.

Because I am Joanna Dark. And I will go down fighting.