By William Stone
Chapter 1
The Selected
Harriet Borne, a forty year old woman, did not think she was the one to be Picked. Of course, she didn't know about it either, living her life as a botanist. Her family, or what remained of it anyways, loved her to death and Harriet loved them too, getting closer to her mother after her husband died.
She didn't expect it, but knew such a snowy winter night was too cold to be hiking. Harriet had blamed herself for her husband's death because of how she had urged him to come with her on the hike. Waking up to her husband dead had to have been the most tragically horrifying moment of her life.
Only three months prior, Harriet's dad suffered a stroke while driving and crashed into an overpass pillar, his car exploding and baking him within. The year after that her mother was diagnosed with dementia and started to forget how to eat and how to use the bathroom.
Harriet spent long weeks at her mom's house, caring for her and changing her clothes when the common accident in her pants occurred. It became more and more frequent to the point where Harriet had to give her mom to a nursing home to look after her. She couldn't spend those long hours in both the night and the day picking up soiled and wetted clothes, losing money by the hour from not being at work.
Of course, why would a woman like Harriet be Picked; a woman with such a frail life who was now finding happiness in her rising skills as a botanist? Others who had more to live for would be Picked too, like children, expecting mothers, and even babies. Most countries followed through on this process, and the only ones that didn't were Fiji, Australia, Romania, Germany, China, Russia and North and South Korea. Picking was the process in which the mayor of your settlement would select one person to be sent out onto the Atrium, a huge space station floating above Earth where the Larkektodon inhabited after their planet had been destroyed by drought.
People who were Picked did not realise until the last moment. It was arranged by the government that no one should know about the insect-like Larkektodon.
For the old civilizations to stop these random abductions, they set up specific places for Larkektodon to take people. The Aztecs had their altar in the centre of Tenochtitlan, the Mayans had Machu Picchu, the Egyptians would set their sacrifices on top of their pyramids, the Europeans, and later settlers to North America, would throw their Selected into farming fields.
No one would know about it, and no one would ever figure it out. In modern times, the governments of all countries had samples of plants native to Tangmizaria, plants that were like fungi. They would be placed at the Selected ones' homes where a species of Larkektodon specialised in plants would sniff out these mushrooms, leading them to the Selected. It was impossible to escape being Selected. You would be caught, infested, and killed.
The year 2060 is what concerns us. The United States of America and Canada had had an ongoing war during 2032, until in 2041, the countries made peace with the agreement that the United States had to be made part of Canada. Anonymous, a hacker group that had been around since 2008, also had threatened that if Canada and the United States of America did not end their war, Anonymous would leak both the Prime Minister and President's secrets. The agreement went through, and the entire continent of North America became a country by the same name. Government changed and instead of the Prime Minister, it became President. Ottawa was still held as the capital of North America, and Washington D.C became a second place of government. The war that had been going on between the two countries never had a clear reason released. One reason was speculated though, and that was that Canada was feeding its own citizens to an alien civilization with no clear motivation. The United States of America didn't like it and waged war.
A rebellious group of citizens had been formed ever since the war. They called themselves the Spores and they wanted to stop this madness by any means possible. Even murder.
Tuesday, 3:47 AM
Attempting to hike Mount Work to watch the sunrise was a strange experience for six foot tall redhead botany student Harriet Borne. Before she left for Mount Work, she discovered strange red mushrooms in her front yard. They had peculiar purple spots and a white stripe right across the middle. When Harriet ran inside to put on her gloves and mask to pick up the mushroom, the strangest feeling washed over her. She didn't know that alien spores had already made their way into her brain as the Larkektodon hid silently in her neatly pruned rose bushes.
Harriet stumbled and fell over on her side, grabbing at her head. It seemed to be pulsing right in front of her eyes and an annoying itch tickled the top of her jaw. The redhead sat in her garden, streetlights spilling dim light onto her stinging eyes. Harriet coughed harshly and proceeded to retch up vomit all over the perfectly cut green grass. Suddenly, it felt like a hammer struck her in her forehead and Harriet's entire world fell into a twisting universe of confusion. Memories of the death notice when her father died, her husband freezing to death on that fateful camping trip, frostbite nipping at her fingers. The last thing Harriet could remember before her mind had been Taken was waking up to her husband dead and cold in his bed.
Tuesday, 6:03 AM
Instead of sitting in grass next to a puddle of vomit, Harriet found herself standing up straight as a board holding a kitchen knife in one hand and a glass in the other. She dropped the glass and jumped when it shattered all over the linoleum kitchen floor of her Victoria home. Harriet's vision blurred significantly until she fell down again. Looking at her watch, she saw it was six in the morning. She had left for her car at three in the morning. Harriet let out a low groan of horror and rubbed her throbbing forehead.
Reaching for her phone, Harriet dialled the number for Munroe's Books, her place of work and called in sick. There was a faint blur over everything and a faint warbling noise irritating her ears. Things looked off and Harriet had a strange feeling something was watching her.
I think I'm just paranoid because of this strange random headache thing, Harriet thought as she massaged her forehead and temples. Her mind wandered to strange rumours that circulated around the Internet talking about how there was an alien space station using advanced technologies to make it invisible to the human eye, and that the mayor of a settlement selected one person every so often to be fed to the aliens. In her times of boredom sitting behind the cash register in Munroe's Books, Harriet would look at these websites talking about all of it. Her manager, Darren Peters, was always fascinated by the conspiracy theories and even tried to urge Harriet into believing them. Thinking about the multiple theories about how the aliens would come to earth and infest your mind flooded into Harriet's head until she was taken over again.
The woman is figuring out too much. She sees through the lies that Ronald McLoughlin, the North American president, has created. This woman needs to be exterminated quickly.
Thoughts flooded through the Larkektodon's temporary brain as it scanned through this month's Selected information. She would make good food for the Larkektodon's plants. Muscley body, little fat, perfect skin and a good height were what the plants needed. She would be easy to digest.
Looking through the woman's thoughts and feelings let It realise how smart some human beings actually were. Knowledge in botany, human health, writing and a human's daily needs let It know about what it's accomplices and Master would need. Feeling fulfilled, It sent a signal to the Master.
Tuesday, 7:37 AM
Harriet cried out and fell back to the linoleum. Her head pounded in terrible pain and her iPhone buzzed in her pocket. She raised a shaky hand, pressed the "answer" button and then put it on speaker phone.
"Wha'?" Harriet mumbled.
"I just wanted to know if you're okay since you phoned over four hours ago saying you called in sick," Darren's voice resonated throughout Harriet's head and bounced from ear to ear.
"Oh yeahhh, I'mm alllll right." she said in an airy voice.
"Harriet, you don't sound well," Darren said with a hint of concern in his voice, "you should go to the hospital or something."
"N-nooo, I'mm finnne," Harriet abruptly hung up on her manager and debated calling 911 or driving to the Victoria General Hospital. Instead, she broke down into tears and curled up in the foetal position. Trying to stand up led to a wave of vertigo sweeping her off her feet and the pounding within her head to escalate even more.
Harriet wobbled towards her front door and found it open. The Volvo she had loved so much as it was a gift from her husband was now scratched and a window was shattered. Goosebumps arose across her entire body and the sensation of being watched flooded in. She slammed the door and sat at her kitchen table massaging her temples.
"You win Darrrrren, guesss I call hospitallll now," Harriet murmured to herself as she dialled 911.
"911, what is your emergency?" A dull male's voice answered, sounding ridiculously loud but under normal circumstances Harriet would have to turn up the volume on her phone to hear.
"Mmmmmy headd isss fun-fun-funny," she responded as the sensation of being watched increased further. She looked over her shoulder and there was still nothing. But there was. Harriet couldn't see it just like the Larkektodon hiding in the rose bushes, but this time it was standing in the corner of her kitchen hidden within a shadow. It's pincers rubbed against each other quietly and the insect-like hairs on it's back quivered.
"Ma'am, do you need an ambulance?" Concerned now, like he actually cared about some random woman's well-being who phoned in with a headache. The man would rather sit at his house and watch football or hockey drinking a nice, cold bee-
"I t'ink sssoo. Ammm I allllowed to dri-drink alcohollll?" Harriet asked stupidly as she twirled a lock of red hair in her fingers, "Sssso whenz th-thattttt ambulan-lan-lance arriving. I think thissss head-acccche isss messing withhh my speech. I remember picking up a reddddd mushrommm I'vvvvve never seen befffore. Couldddd I be poi-poi-poizoned?"
"As far as I know Ma'am, you could be intoxicated or on drugs," the operator responded, "Do you recall your address correctly, Miss?"
"Ummmm, Ittt's 674 Vi-Vvvvvvv-Victoria Driiiiiive."
"An ambulance should be arriving at your approximate location in about ten minutes," all this man wanted to do was go home. Drink his beer. Watch sports. Redo it tomorrow. And the day after and the day after that too. Taking useless calls from people who are under the influence he could care less for. For all he cared, this woman could just die.
"Exxxcu-cu-cuze me, but whennn is mm-mmm-my help gonna ar-ar-arrive at mmmy house?" Harriet asked, rubbing her head.
"In around five minutes Ma'am," the operator hung up the phone, against protocol, and groaned, rubbing his fat, piggy eyes. His belly rolled over his waistband as he stood up and a foul stench of sweat emanated from his sweating armpits.
Tuesday, 8:00 AM
The ambulance never arrived and Harriet would never receive any medical care. Ronald McLaughlin had determined that if she requested an ambulance to come for her, it wouldn't arrive because she was one of the Selected. Her address wouldn't show up in any system as it was changed in the middle of the night before Larkektodon invaded her mind.
Instead of getting driven to the Victoria General Hospital by an ambulance, Harriet lay on her back as pain coursed through her head. The world she saw was a spinning mass of white ceiling with faint locks of red hair mixed in. She had no idea how long she had been lying on the floor, was only aware of her excruciating headache pulsating all the way down her neck into her back and ribs. Birds chirping felt like needles were being driven into Harriet's eardrums while a dog whistle blared.
The Larkektodon has decided on feeding her early instead of waiting the usual two weeks. She would know too much and the information would leak, resulting in the destruction of the entire operation, maybe even the North American government and many other countries falling into chaos as citizens rebelled against their prime ministers and presidents.
Dentin Burk, the 911 operator, sat on his couch. Its cushions sagged under his tremendous bottom and a crumpled up beer can tickled his back. Dentin didn't feel like reaching for it and instead felt like paying more attention to the hockey game on screen. Blue light flickered in and out while casting shadows on his face under the multiple rolls of fat. He had said he was feeling like he was about to puke, but that was only because he wanted to watch the recording of the Vancouver Canucks against the Edmonton Oilers. Dentin released a repulsive burp, a chunk of something coming up and landing on his stretched and stained white shirt. He picked it up and sniffed it, snorting like an animal, and ate it.
A horn honked outside and it made Dentin jump. He had a slight suspicion that something weird was going on in the government because that one woman who called earlier with the headache didn't have her address listed anywhere. Her device couldn't be tracked and even her voice prints didn't exist. A feeling stirred inside him. The government was hiding something.
Tuesday, 12:37 PM
Harriet was now convinced something or someone was watching her. Twice she heard weird, extraordinarily quiet gurgling noises and even a plate shattered. Wifi stopped working and her doors all seemed to be jammed.
The longer she rested, the more Harriet started to believe those theories about aliens and their victims and how governments worldwide worked to keep it secret. It started to make more and more sense as Harriet had every single symptom of alien Takeover. Maybe she was just overthinking it or her headache was making her go loopy. It was making her go crazy and Harriet knew it. Now it was just a matter of time and waiting to see if she actually would be killed.
I need to go the hospital, this is what I need, my headache is making me think crazy things, it's probably just those mushroom spores and I've been poisoned poisoned poisoned I am poisoned and I can't do anything about it no I can't because I've been poisoned aliens aren't real aliens aren't real I am not Chosen because I can't have been chosen because aliens. Don't. EXIST.
Dentin sat at his computer munching on ketchup chips. His fingers made the computer keyboard dusty and sticky. Every single time a key was clicked, there would be a grinding noise from all the food crumbs within. Dentin uttered another terrible burp as stomach acid burned it's way up his throat.
A light breeze scraped tree branches against Dentin's office window. The sound unsettled him and it made him feel slightly on edge. He was on an online computer group that he had discovered who called themselves the Spores. This chat group could be hidden from even the computer user's ISP and police stations. Dentin found his way to the group by researching possible aliens deep within the darkweb. A link directed him to an organisation sporting a plain blue background as the singular image on its webpage. There was only one user whose name was Darren. He seemed to be the leader of this cult-like group. It was based in Dentin's home city, Victoria, but there were many other groups of Spores gathered in every corner of North America. Apparently, in about one week, there were going to be anti-government protests in Quebec, Edmonton, Victoria, Ottawa, New York, Washington D.C, Seattle, Los Angeles, Tallahasse and Vancouver.. There was even talk of flying a plane into Parliament Building to assassinate Ronald McLaughlin. The date this scheduled attack was to take place was on February 12, where McLaughlin would address the tragedy of hundreds upon thousands of people who had been going missing every single month. It had been designated a day of mourning to appease the rising outcry.
Terrible day for an attack, but it would gain the most publicity. Dentin, a man of over four hundred pounds, whose chip-powdered fingers created grinding noises on his keyboard, was planning to participate in a terrorist attack. His pale, watery blue eyes squinted across the monitor as he sent his next message.
Dentin: What about the passengers on said plane?
Anonymous User: they get off plane or stay. simple
Dentin: How in the name of God would we get those people off? Dump them in some random field?
Anonymous User: exact plan. we ask who wants to stay and who wants to get off. make sure there are no children i dont want kids involved in this
Dentin: We have a plan. What airline should we use
Anonymous User: biggest freaking plane we can find it needs to be big lots of publicity the world needs to know the truth we attract them to the news stations
Dentin: So we just take some random camera on live television and tell the truth?
Anonymous User: time to get my plane tickets you should too, man. lets try for the same plane i like you.
Dentin: This is giving me 9/11 vibes, we need to show how terrible and corrupt the government actually is before carrying out the plan.
Anonymous User: yeah, i dont want people to see us as monsters cuz thats not what we are were trying to spread the truth. The truth. people are afraid of the truth and they must know. we need publicity and we need the president to be dead and all of his little minions or there will be no change in this corrupt country. hell, this corrupt WORLD we live in, man, this world is so corrupt and it needs change. we arent savages like the aztecs, sacrificing our own people even women and children to creatures we dont even know are peaceful or not or could start an all out war. this entire place has been in a downfall since the War of 2034
Dentin: I guess, but I'm scared. I don't want to be seen as some fat loser who kills hundreds of innocent people for nothing.
Anonymous User: we get the city to be evacuated. violent protests, the only members of Spores going would be ones willing to put their life at risk and die like i said we arent an evil group of savages
Dentin: Okay, I guess I'll order the plane tickets now.
He shut down his monitor and put his large hands to his face. Dentin was scared. No, more than scared, he was petrified. Hundreds of lives at risk to save over one million people with a chance the plan won't even work and over five hundred innocent, living, conscious human beings dead for nothing, nothing at all. Dentin started shaking all over and ran to the bathroom to puke. Nothing came up and he dry heaved into the bowl for ten minutes straight before crawling weakly from the bathroom to grab a whiskey.
Dentin downed a glass of whiskey and a shot of vodka. After finishing the last drop of vodka, his head felt woozy and he lay down on a stained couch, falling asleep almost as soon as his head touched the worn cushions.
Tuesday, 1:20 PM
There had been another blackout. Harriet hadn't realised that it happened until she looked down at her feet. They were covered in mud and grass clippings punctuated by a single shard of glass protruding from her flesh. She screamed in surprise and fell sideways onto her left arm. Harriet lay still for a moment on the hardwood floor before letting out a blood curdling shriek.
(broke my arm broke it broke broken arm)
She climbed to her feet and ran outside into her empty driveway, leaving bloody footprints behind. Climbing into her ruined Volvo, Harriet tried to start it. The engine sputtered and steam started to issue from the hood. A popping noise came from within the vehicle, followed by a small ball of fire blasting from the exhaust pipe.
Harriet pounded her fists on the steering wheel and removed the key from her prized car. She limped down the driveway and walked towards her closest neighbour who had their lights on. Many other driveways were empty as most residents were either at work or busy with their daily routine of errands. Harriet screamed for help at the top of her lungs, calling for an ambulance. Her head was throbbing again and it felt worse than ever. She found one house with its lights on and scratched at the door whilst whining for help. An old man of about eighty opened the door. Wispy, white hair hung about his wrinkled forehead and blocked his cloudy blue eyes.
"Harriet Borne? What are you doing here during your work hours?" he said.
Harriet couldn't recognize him through the painful fog clouding her vision, until she finally saw him as Hendrick Lawson.
"I n-nu-nu-need ann amb-bb-ulance," she stuttered.
Hendrick pulled out his ancient flip phone immediately and called 9-1-1. Because his address was actually registered and he was not one of the Selected, an ambulance raced down the street at dangerously high speeds, screeching to a stop in front of Lawson's property. Just then, paramedics hurried from their vehicle and cushioned Harriet as she fell to the concrete below.
Chapter 2
The Plant
Thursday, 4:02 PM, January 19th
It was another boring day as a 911 operator. He was terribly fascinated about this rebellion bubbling all over North America, and the secretive Spores. A meet up was planned with Darren for 7:50 PM on January 22nd. Plane tickets and timings for February 12th would be discussed, along with how many would be willing to participate in the protest and fly a plane into Parliament Building.
Dentin sighed heavily and his eyelids drooped down slowly. The voices of chatter drowned out around him as he fell asleep.
Awake. His head shot up and immediately, Dentin didn't feel tired anymore. His hand darted out towards the phone and he answered.
"9-1-1, what's your emer-?" Dentin was cut off by a horrific noise emanating from the phone's speaker.
"Help," a small voice murmured. There was a screech that sounded like a chicken getting slaughtered. A human shout answered it, and then a wet squelching noise occurred after.
"Hello? What is your location? We can send an ambulance right away." Dentin started to speak hurriedly and nervously.
"I was Selected, PLEASE HELP ME HELP ME!" cries that sounded neither like a man or woman would have made them.
Dentin was trapped in a realm of shock and fear. Another terrible gurgling filled Dentin's ears as the phone speaker's staticky noise drowned all other action happening on the other line. All together, it abruptly stopped. What sounded like a car revving up pounded through Dentin's head. Something like a whip crackled and then the line disconnected.
"Are you okay?" Those were the only words Dentin could muster as he stood up and placed the phone back into its cradle after waiting another five minutes. A lone tear trailed down his face. Dentin stood up and walked slowly through the call centre. Operators spun around on their chairs and turned to Dentin, trying to ask him what happened. He was in a fog of confusion and terror.
Wobbling on his feet, Dentin tried to make his way towards the call centre supervisor to report the incident of a possible death. He swayed heavily and proceeded to fall to the ground, bawling his eyes out. The operators turned their heads to stare at the scene Dentin was making. He didn't even bother to visit the supervisor and just stood up and rushed out of the building into his car. He tried to cool off, taking in deep breaths and closing his eyes.
Dentin started the car and drove slowly home.
* * *
Still unconscious in the Victoria General Hospital, Harriet twitched. Her heart rate suddenly sped up to 300 beats per minute and went back down. Her chest pulsed outwards and her scalp twitched. No nurses or doctors were in the room with Harriet as they were all tending to patients who seemed to be in worse condition. A large gust of air issued from Harriet's nose as the Larkektodon spores left with all the information they needed.
* * *
The chat group was active like an anthill, conversations starting up everywhere. Threads could be created and private conversations were able to be hosted with permission. Dentin had a hidden fear boiling deep within him about the Spores, an existential dread pushing down on his shoulders the moment he found the group and started talking with Darren and the other anonymous users. He felt as if the group was hiding something sinister, something more than what they seemed. Darren was the most suspicious and Dentin didn't even think that was his real name. Dentin became sidetracked talking with another member about an estimated death toll instead of calling in for a medical leave at work. He didn't think he could stand another day sending officers out to addresses that did not exist and trying to track unlisted phone numbers.
Calling into the office, Dentin tried to put on his best sick voice which wasn't too difficult because he had just been crying and was terribly nervous.
"You know the scene I had earlier? I've been having a really terrible time and came home to vomit in my toilet. I've had two really rough calls. Can I please have a sick leave for three weeks?" Dentin asked, rubbing his eyes and burping yet again.
The supervisor answered, "Yes, I have seen you feeling off, Dentin. You've been having a really rough time, especially with your grandmother dying only one week ago."
Dentin had made that lie to go home and watch sports and drink a flat of beer, but now he thought that he would never touch another can, glass or bottle of alcohol again.
"Thank you so much, if I was still on the job I would've pu-p-" Dentin then went to have a fit of shaking, hung up the phone, and dropped it onto the cold floor. It was another panic attack, worse than the one at work. He took slow, deep breaths and covered his eyes with his flabby forearm. Dentin stumbled towards his bed and fell into it like a sandbag, falling asleep instantly.
Sunday, 7:34 AM
Harriet's pale eyelids fluttered open. Hiding under her hospital bed lay a Larkektodon. It listened intently and relayed information to its acquaintances via telepathy. Around 700 of them floating listlessly in the Atrium up above.
Without her knowledge, the Larkektodon crawled out from under her gurney and ran at the speed of sound from the hospital. No prints were left on the floor and no doctor or nurse could see the creature running; it would've only felt like a small puff of wind if it happened to run past someone.
Smacking her lips, Harriet threw the paper thin blankets off of her now healthy body. Her eyelids which were pale before opening were now more lively, Harriet's hair less stringy and greasy, and her once debilitating headache completely vanished.
"Hello?" Harriet called. No nurse or doctor came to her summons immediately, but there was a faint patter of steps coming down the hallway. She turned over on her side and tried to set her feet down on the ground, but the I.V. inserted into her wrist prevented her from doing so.
A male doctor in white scrubs entered the room with a clipboard in his left hand and a pen in his right. He took a look at Harriet, wrote something illegible upon the board, and asked Harriet, "Are you in need of assistance?"
She shook her head and replied, "No, I'm just wondering when I can be released. I feel perfectly fine, like electricity is zooming through me!"
Harriet waggled her fingers and threw them around, imitating childishly hypothetic lightning. She giggled slightly and lay back down with a huff of air.
"You can be discharged after I assess you," the doctor muttered, staring at other papers on his clipboard that seemed more important than a seemingly well woman in front of him, "it may take long, but you will be out at the latest on Monday tomorrow by noon."
Harriet was bubbling with excitement by the time her health had been completely evaluated. All of her vital signs were normal and her body showed no signs of injury. This was in stark contrast to the patient who arrived a mere three days before. The symptoms that presented as a suspected brain tumour had miraculously resolved without medical intervention.. She was finally released after a blood sample was tested and nothing was found. Harriet's phone had been in possession of the doctors and nurses at the hospital in her time unconscious, as well as her purse and other belongings that had been on her at her time of collapsing onto Lawson's front steps.
Once outside, she tried to phone in an Uber. Her phone glitched out and then died even though moments ago its battery percentage had been at over forty percent. Harriet drifted listlessly around the parking lot until she found a telephone booth, an ancient relic after over fifty years of cellular technology.
Harriet called her mother and tried to fill her in on everything that happened. The phone rang once, twice, three times and then continued on. Her mother wouldn't pick up the phone. Not the least bit concerned, she called Hendrick Lawson, her neighbour who assisted her after the incident in his lawn. The ring could hardly be heard before he picked up.
"Hello?" Hendrick's voice crackled through the phone, full of static because of the speaker's poor quality.
"It's me, your neighbour, Harriet," she exclaimed with a hint of joy in her voice, "I need some assistance getting home from the hospital as my car is completely ruined and my phone stopped working."
There was a brief pause before Lawson answered, "Why, yes, I can pick you up. Just let me get sorted and I'll be there in about twenty minutes."
"Yup, bye!" Harriet hung up and stood waiting on the curb without the slightest memory of what brought her to the hospital. There was a sudden burst of wind and Harriet wobbled on her feet. She stepped out of the phone booth and her mouth opened to say something before closing at the sight in front of her.
Five insect-like creatures stood still on the sidewalk. Her ears filled with the horrific noise of forks scraping against plates, so deafening she was blinded briefly. In that moment of being blind after the Larkektodon sent a sonic wave of sound into her brain telepathically, their pincers reached out and grabbed her. She felt a wave of weakness wash over her, so strong Harriet was unable to even move.
The creatures sent more booms of sound into her ears as they made her levitate from the pavement into the air. She turned her head away from Them and started to cry, trying with all her willpower to escape. Their eyes bore into hers and she could feel them examining her. Harriet's shirt was ripped off as she was transported into the air. Her arms tried to cover her chest, but it was no use. The pincers, surprisingly soft, brushed her stomach and examined the surface of her body. Words from Them formed in her brain, unclear and with no apparent vowels.
"Hrrt sty clm w r mvng y t r stshn." Harriet could not understand it, but vaguely understood her name and the word "calm".
The strange appendages reached for her shoes and removed them, as well as her socks. She was nearly 400 metres above the ground, from her little moment of happiness, her mother, and her life as she knew it.
The sky above darkened, clouds parting out of the way. Aliens which seemed to appear out of nowhere drifted down to their fellow species. They communicated strangely, rubbing their pincers and making odd barking noises. Harriet wished she was dead, that she had never woken up from her coma. A small bit of strength came back to her and she shrieked like a banshee. She levitated further and further up, wind blowing all around her with an unrelenting force. The noise of the Atrium's engine made it seem as if there was no other sound in the world.
Harriet closed her eyes and continued to scream.
* * *
She found that all of her clothes had been removed and replaced with a rough, white. The walls looked like they were made from some sort of wood but nothing she had ever seen on earth. Everything was bright but there didn't seem to be any light source. She tried to get up but was unable to move and saw that there were peculiar nearly invisible cords binding her to a soft platform. Speakers suddenly boomed out above her.
"Welcome to the Atrium, I am the English translator of the announcement system for today. You must be confused about why you are here, so very confused. So here is the story that I am going to tell you. The Atrium is the space station of an alien species called the Larkektodon. Once you exit this room, you will find there are many plants everywhere. They smell bad, putrid some might say '
'Just like on their home planet, Larkektodon were supplied with a special chemical from these horribly beautiful plants that would keep them alive and fresh. Creatures in their original home of Tangmizaria would be attracted to the carnivorous organisms and eaten or absorbed into them.
'That was all before the drought decimated everything, drying up oceans and rivers, reducing Larkektodon civilizations to burning rubble and whole forests filled with these beauties into a charred wasteland. The Larkektodon fled Tangmizaria on a space station around the size of three hundred American football fields.'
'Without food and water for themselves or the plants, both started to die off. The bodies would be fed into the starving and dying plants. Now, we want to keep peace with these fascinating creatures which is exactly why you have been sent here. Do not resist the plants. They are impossible to escape and there is no getting out of this ship. Remember that.'
'Soldier Clark Gerard, signing out."
Harriet's stomach felt like it dropped down to her knees whilst going up into her throat at the same time. She coughed harshly and tears started to spill down her face. All of her life, her entire world of work, her career as a botanist all for nothing. Her mom was back down on earth, delusional in her spiralling dementia.
Harriet breathed in deep and released the breath shakily, crying. She had to figure out what to do. Rubbing her fingers against each other, Harriet felt that they were much softer and seemed weaker. She dug her nail into one of her fingers and could feel blood spilling out. Her skin was . . . thinner. There was a faint pattering noise and then the walls started to sink into the ground. The ceiling glided upwards into what seemed an infinite distance above.
Everything felt heavy as a fog enclosed around Harriet. She started to panic and then stopped when the cords pulled back into the floor. The ground was covered with vines. Huge spikes emerged from them, Harriet being careful to not get a spike up her foot into her leg and out her knee.
What sounded like birds chirruped far up above into the fog. Water trickled somewhere in the distance. Harriet ambled on in horror, silently trying to find a way out for fear of being found. She came across a river, beautiful lily pads and other aquatic plants emerging from the water. Something that looked like a half frog, half snake, slithered out of the river into the foliage. Looking down at the riverbed, Harriet figured it was not natural or even earthly. . . it was not recognizable at all. The riverbed seemed to be lined not with sediment or other expected natural materials but with something resembling metal. With a horrifying realisation, she figured that she was not on another planet, she was inside a space station bigger than a city. The snake-frog hybrid hissed when it saw Harriet and slithered back into the water. Suddenly, the roots of one of the lily pads extended outwards and strangled the thing. Its blood wasn't red, but black and Harriet watched as the river slowly turned the inky colour.
Trying not to scream, Harriet continued searching for a way out. The ground was boggy, and she fumbled through the fog in a vain attempt to escape. Her foot sunk deep into the mysterious surface. Harriet screamed when a vine wrapped itself around her ankle. The entire ground was suddenly moving and she saw that she had just walked into a plant's trap. Vines parted and moved to reveal something like a pitcher plant.
Harriet tried as hard as she could to rip her way out and nearly did. The vines were as sticky as superglue and when she finally got her leg free, it tore skin from her limb. Tendrils of sticky vines hung Harriet over the underground plant as the rest of the killing ropes moved back in place to reform the false ground.
Harriet's nostrils were pierced by the horrific smell. Faint lights emitted from the corrosive liquid. She screamed in vain until her throat bled. Painfully slow, the vines lowered her down into the liquid. As Harriet's head touched the liquid, she suffered an excruciating burning sensation. More vines dripped down, turning Harriet over. She tried to hold up her arms so they would not fall into the liquid, but a Larkektodon sent a sonic boom into her brain. Her eardrums ruptured and everything went blurry. The arm that Harriet had been holding up fell into the corrosive substance. She couldn't even scream from the pain coursing through her entire body.
The vines proceeded to drop Harriet down into the plant. Her body thrashed around, a dance of suffering and dismay. Blood gushed from her mouth and her skin melted off into the liquid, tortoise slow. The glow got stronger until it burned through what remained of Harriet's eyes, her eyelids turned to hanging curtains of bloody flesh.
She tried hard to tread the plant's liquid until her left arm fell off into the glowing white, now red substance. Harriet silently fell under the acid. It filled her mouth, dissolving her teeth, tongue and throat. Her bones cracked and snapped as the liquid ate through Harriet's skin to her organs. Consumed by pain, her legs then vaporised into the corrosive acid. Harriet became numbed as her nerves dissolved away to be turned into nutrients.
The air that Larkektodons breathe gusted from the plant while it's acid burned through Harriet. Her chest opened up and the liquid rushed inside, dissolving anything and everything in its path. Harriet gave a heave when it reached her heart and sank deeper into the plant, dying a horrific death. It could have been prevented.
Chapter 3
The Disaster of February 12th, 2060
February 12th, 3:43 AM
The plans with Darren had been finalised. Everything was now going according to plan. Dentin, earlier in the week, read a newspaper article about some woman, Harriet Borne, who went missing after being in a coma for three days. A man, Hendrick Lawson, claimed to have been called by her to pick her up from the Victoria General Hospital because she had no one else to get her. Dentin and the rest of the Spores knew that it was the alien species that took her, not a kidnapping as the police claimed. He bought more tickets to go on the ferry towards Vancouver.
Darren bought tickets for the same plane Dentin was going on, as well as the anonymous user who was talking with him that one fateful night he discovered the Spores. The plane was the biggest one in service and available in Vancouver or Victoria. Protests were arising already all over North America, even Europe and Asia. News stories covered it and they kept trying to cover up the false lies, acting like it was something like microchips in vaccines when in reality it was much more serious and plausible. Dentin mulled over these thoughts while he watched the time change on his watch.
God, they should be here by now, Dentin thought, Darren, anonymous dude, hurry up there are millions of lives on the line.
Ironically, as he was thinking that, a hand brushed his shoulder. Dentin whipped around and saw Darren, or the disguised Darren. Of course it wouldn't matter because he would be dead soon anyways but he didn't want to be seen in the news looking like he did to his family. A woman trailed behind him, along with seven more women and a gaggle of men. No one said anything, they all just looked at each other and moved to their respective places.
It was a Boeing 999 these Spores had decided to fly on, with a capacity of around 60 000 gallons of fuel. The plane was a new passenger plane and thought to be the largest in the world. Every Spore boarding the plane knew that the explosion produced from it would be absolutely massive and devastating. Dentin used to go through firefighter training when he was in his early twenties and learned just one gallon of fuel exploding is equivalent to fourteen sticks of dynamite exploding. 60 000 gallons of fuel would be more than quadruple that. It would be equivalent to nearly 840 000 sticks of dynamite exploding. The explosion from Dentin's hijacked plane would most definitely blow up all of Parliament Hill, contaminate the river behind, and blast the core of Ottawa with fire and debris.
"Dentin." Darren's voice whispered into his ear.
"What?" he responded.
"We don't have to worry about the passenger problem anymore. Every single Spore member on Vancouver Island, Vancouver, and Seattle and any other surrounding city close to here ordered plane tickets for the Boeing." Darren said firmly. "No family on vacation will have to die. Every single person you see here waiting is a Spore."
Dentin couldn't even respond. There was a teenage girl of about seventeen standing by the gates. Another group stood off to the side close to her and all of their faces were spotted with pimples or scars from popping them. A doughy boy who looked like he was only thirteen stared out one of the wide airport windows watching the planes coast by upon the tarmac. His greasy hair hung just under his pierced earlobes.
"Darren, there are teenagers here." Dentin stated worriedly.
"Their choice, I didn't force them to be here." Darren walked away into the crowd of Spores.
Dentin was in shock, in pure horror. He felt an urge that he didn't want to participate in this terrible event anymore but remembered all the lives he would be saving. Children, pregnant women, future mothers, grandparents. The governments of all countries would be taking that joy from people. All of the Spores partaking in the bombing knew what they were doing and were doing it all to save maybe even one billion lives.
"All ready to board Gate 7, proceed forward." A calm female's voice announced over the speakers. She didn't know who she was announcing to get onto the plane. The security did not know they were leading 189 Spores towards their doom.
Without any struggle, Dentin was let into the boarding gate to his metal coffin. He settled into a seat and with embarrassment saw he took up two seats. Dentin let it wander out of his mind and drifted into a sleep, filled with dreams of fire and blood. His time had come at last.
February 12th, 12:00 PM
"Get up." A woman woke Dentin. "I was the woman talking to you on your first day with us. 'Tis time for the flames, McLaughlin (that little demon) has already started the memorial service."
Dentin said nothing for if he spoke, he believed he would expel vomit upon the floor. He only stood up and saw every other Spore was standing as well. There was a shout and everyone surged forward. Dentin watched and then joined the crowd, stampeding over people towards the cockpit. The plane was close to landing in Ottawa and Dentin could see the city down below. A Boeing 999 with every single passenger standing up and surging towards the cockpit, or any plane really, would cause a significant amount of turbulence, which is exactly what it did. Trays flew up and down, smacking the backs of chairs. Some of them broke off and skidded across the ground. Spores who had realised they did not want to partake in the Event anymore still sat in their seats, holding their hands to their heads and crying. After less than a minute of pounding on the door, the pilot tried to unbalance everyone by swaying from side to side.
The Spores held their ground until they pounded down the door, Dentin being part of the group who succeeded. The pilot was thrown out of his seat, along with all of the other plane personnel.
"DENTIN! NOW!" Darren screamed. Dentin didn't know what he was speaking about until he realised what he was supposed to do. He shoved his way through to the pilot's seat and changed the course of the flight. Darren came up next to him and took the co-pilot's seat.
"I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FLY A PLANE, DARREN, WHY ME?!" Dentin yelled nervously.
"JUST BANK LEFT AND MOVE DOWN, PARLIAMENT HILL IS RIGHT THERE!" Darren replied.
Dentin steered the lever and watched the ground get ever closer. People on the streets would now be worried and looking at the sky in questionable terror. Mothers pushing their toddlers in strollers. . . He realised how much he didn't want to die, but knew that millions upon millions would be saved. Dentin didn't want to die in flames and explosion and in pain, instead he wanted to die fast and nearly painless; he got up, opened the emergency exit and jumped. Other Spores were sucked out with him into the air, falling hundreds of feet to their deaths.
A six year old boy looked up into the sky and yelled to his mommy, "Mommy, come look! Plane!"
He shrieked with joy and stumbled over his toys. Maybe he would play with them later, but not right now, he had to look at the plane. He heard a faint scream and ignored it. Mommy would be coming soon and then he would come inside for macaroni and cheese. The plane hurt the boy's ears and he stared in wonder as shapes careened onto the road. Some of them made weird sounds and they splashed red paint.
The boy told his mommy red water balloons were falling. She made the realisation before he did and then it was too late. The plane exploded on Parliament Hill. The boy was too engaged in looking at the popped balloon, stumbling over his own feet, he just barely reached it when everything got bright. He looked at the ballon and saw-
The rest of the afternoon of February 12th in the year 2060 would remain the most eventful in Canadian history. As Dentin and 34 others plummeted to the ground, the Boeing 999 moved in the same direction those who had been sucked out of the plane were falling. Down. Protestors below screamed and Ronald McLaughlin took refuge at the sight of the plane. He ran to Parliament Building with his armed guards and they tried to get to the lowest level. The belly of the plane brushed multiple buildings and ripped roofs from them.
Flames blew from the plane's wings and ignited other things, blowing cars up as it descended. Around this time, Dentin slammed into an Infiniti car and the sheer force of his body caused the car to explode. He was completely unrecognisable and the body would stay a mystery to the end of time. The others who came out with him dropped onto the roofs of houses, breaking through, or slapping onto the ground. Survivors of the explosion would recall later to news services on live television of hearing the thumping and smacking of the bodies on concrete and metal. Some would say how they saw people falling right in front of them, hitting the ground like rag dolls.
An older woman by the name of Tory Jerwalt said later on TV, "It was the most horrifying experience of my life. I have never seen a plane that large flying so low over my head, and then seeing those people falling out of the sky like bu-buh bowling balls!" (sobbing hysterically) "And them hitting th-the ground, buh-bruh-breaking open like wuh-wuh-water b-b-balloons and s-sssome of thei-their screams." (camera cuts to another witness, Harold Watts)
Harold: "I saw the plane coming down and I immediately ducked for shelter in a restaurant. I was watching the protest outside Parliament Building and when I heard the people screaming about a plane, I ran. There were so many other people with me, their faces were stricken with terror. I heard the sound of metal scraping and later learned the restaurant I was hiding in was scraped by the plane.'
'When it crashed, all of us in the restaurant cried out for whoever our god might have been to save us, to keep us safe. I guess the gods listened just barely. When the explosion actually happened, all of us were facing away from the glass storefront. I remember vividly the sound of the explosion and the feeling of the blast and debris on my back, glass cutting my neck, bits of metal flying through the store and hitting people. The warm push of the explosion was something that felt so terribly pleasant, like an extraordinarily hot summer wind, but much much stronger.'
'I flew into a young lady and I remember her face when I hit her. She was dumbstruck and could do nothing but watch like the rest of us. I later figured out that the only people that survived in that building were me and the woman after the cloud of poisonous fumes choked out the remaining survivors.' (Harold continues talking, but is muted, presumably because it is too gruesome for live television. Program on the explosion ends.)
Multiple Selecteds were being killed as this explosion happened, dying a much more horrific and gruesome death than anyone in this explosion. Even a child had been Selected, a child of only fourteen and his screams for his mother in Arabic overpowered his pain.
The nose of the plane slammed into Parliament Building. Ronald just barely was able to get into the basement before the explosion happened. Windows exploded and McLaughlin's body violently shook as the historic political site ruptured. He was engulfed in a ball of fire, along with all of Parliament Hill, part of the Ottawa River, and the streets of the city. McLaughlin had less than four seconds to live and his last thought was, How hot it has become. Half of his body was instantly burned and the other half partially vapourized. When his body was found later, a terrible grin was seen on what remained of his face. Shining white teeth poked out of a half open head and his tongue lolled out of his torn mouth, dry and crackly.
Cars flew through the road and were reduced to melted sheets of metal while 6000 gallons of fuel exploded. Anyone standing within sixty metres of the epicentre of the blast became nothing but vapour, as insignificant to the world as a grain of sand. Ottawa shook with the force of a magnitude 6 earthquake with its citizens. The Ottawa River rippled with thirty foot high waves which almost immediately evaporated from the heat. Some of the water crashed down on the banks, flooding into Gatineau and raging down the burning streets of Ottawa. Down stream, the waves washed into neighbourhoods and covered them with debris.
Some protestors unlucky enough to survive had severe burns and even limbs ripped from their bodies. Everyone who had been protesting was a Spore and was willing to die, knowing the situation they put themselves into. Smoke enveloped the survivors and choked them out, killing a few and sparing others. The dust cloud mingled with smoke stirred into a suffocating wave spreading through Ottawa and poisoned many civilians going about their days. The radius of the explosion was an uncanny range of over three and a half kilometres, destroying well over 13 000 buildings. Debris flew well over 500 feet into the air, coming back down with such force that many stragglers in the streets were crushed by the falling wreckage.
You think the city would be ringing with sirens, full of screams after the impact. It was dead silent. People were glued to their feet staring at the chaos outside their homes, others who had taken refuge from the poisonous cloud of gasoline fumes, dust and smoke inside stores standing with their heads bowed in a moment of silence. The black smoke darkened everything in a seven kilometre radius, making 12:00 PM feel like midnight. Flames crackled along sidewalks and bodies lay dust covered in the streets. Signs for Ronald McLaughlin to stop the massacre of his own people of North America fluttered through the air, blackened or still on fire. Ottawa looked like an entirely different planet. Cracks stretched across entire blocks and even in the outskirts of the city, houses had shattered or cracked windows. Over 3500 people were killed instantly, another 10 000 injured. After a course of a month, the death toll was roughly 11 000, still counting for another two years. This explosion was the largest non-nuclear explosion since the Halifax explosion over a century earlier in the early 1900's, and the most lethal.
Members of Spores who waited for the impact messaged every single social media outlet to explain. Survivors of the protest spilled all of McLaughlin's secrets and other country leader's secrets. The Spores had been broadcasting the event on every single streaming service possible, dropping secrets and showing what was happening. The hacker group, Anonymous, finally able to say things with another group similar to them, confirmed everything Spores had been saying online.
Four thousand lives had been lost, nothing compared to the overwhelming number of 80 million people sacrificed to the Larkektodon every single year. 2060 was the year everyone on Earth woke up. Country leaders stepped down and let others take over. No more sacrifices would happen. No more needless deaths.
NASA admitted to their knowledge of the Larkektodon and were immediately tasked with bombing the Atrium. On February 17th, several missiles struck the ship. Larkektodon didn't even bother with war and fled the solar system, injured. The Atrium eventually crashed on Jupiter killing all Larkektodon inside. It had been so weak to Earth's missiles because it had been built to withstand missiles from its own region.
The Spores had won, but at the cost of thousands of lives, not the original estimated count of five hundred. They told the truth about everything, how they wanted people to have evacuated the city but that part of the plan didn't work out, and how the people who died outside of Parliament protesting were willing to die and knew the dangers. With Spores now having their freedom, it became open about who people really were. Even some school teachers, doctors, nurses, midwives, veterinarians, business CEO's dropped their secrets about being a Spore. Some parents didn't like the idea and were against the Spores and children were pulled from schools worldwide.
Despite the seemingly large negative impact, the world started to improve.