Alkalians Read online

  Alkalians

  Caleb Bugai

  Copyright Caleb Bugai 2014

  Published by Black Rose Writing, Publishing at Smashwords

  www.blackrosewriting.com

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  © 2014 by Caleb Bugai

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.

  First digital version

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61296-329-7

  PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING

  www.blackrosewriting.com

  Print edition produced in the United States of America

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  A heartfelt thank you to my family and friends for their constant support of my writing. This would not have been possible without you.

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  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Prologue

  An Alkalian is Born

  ***

  It is high noon on an autumn day, with the sky a clear blue and the golden sun as its centerpiece. A constant breeze rolls across the mountainous slopes and hills, passing through narrow strips of forest, and rattling the brittle, brightly colored leaves loosely clinging to the trees. Somewhere within the woods flows a river, its current running quick and smooth, a peaceful gurgling sound complementing the calming whoosh of the wind. Above the forest line, the mountains harden into stone peaks, their rocky faces towering over the surrounding landscapes like proud monuments.

  Observing the magnificent display of nature from a hill top, a man dressed in hiking gear, complete with a heavy brown jacket, matching backpack, and hiking boots, takes a deep breath of the fresh mountain air, releasing a sigh of satisfaction with a smile alighting his face. The wind sweeping across the range flows over him, petting the spiny, short-cropped red hair on his head and sliding past his smoothly shaved face. A tall figure among the towering features around him, he stands alone in the desolate place, marveling in the great expanse of beauty for miles around him known as the wilderness.

  Standing at the top of the hill for a moment, the serenity of the area around him is partially disrupted when a static hiss protrudes from a pocket of his vest, and a voice follows, “Captain, do you copy, over?”

  Sighing again before pulling a small, radio speaker from the pocket, the man holds down a button to reply, “I copy, Dan, over. What’s up?”

  “Oh, just checking in on you, Captain. How’s the patrol in your area going?”

  Gazing at the scenery around him again, he says, “Peaceful, Dan, just the way I like it. And you know you don’t have to call me ‘Captain’. Romulus will be fine.”

  “Haha, of course. I was just following rank, Cap, er, Romulus! So you’re supposed to be near the Minari-Tirez border, right?”

  “Aye, that’s right. Why do you ask?”

  “Did you happen to pass by the excavation group that’s supposed to be working in that area?”

  “Hmm, yeah, I suppose I did. I could spot their camp from the top of a cliff, but I didn’t bother to go down and say hello. I wouldn’t want to bother whatever important business they have with investigating some apparent ruins.”

  “Hah, more like you didn’t want them to try giving you a tour of the place!”

  “Haha, eh, yeah, you could say I’m not in the mood for excited chatter over hunks of stone that are thousands of years old. That stuff’s all boring to me.”

  “Yeah, don’t blame ya. Any idea what kind of ruins they were uncovering?”

  “I didn’t see anything from outside. I think they were working inside the mountain, as their camp was right at the entrance of some recently discovered cave.”

  “Ah, they’re probably just looking at cave paintings or stone tools or something. I mean, what else could you find in a cave?”

  “Hah, right!” Pausing a moment, Romulus changes the subject by admitting, “Man, I wish Anna were here to see this. The view out here is amazing. She would love this.”

  “Hmm, I bet. Didn’t you two just get married?”

  “Yep, Dan, we sure did.”

  “And I wasn’t invited to the reception?”

  “Oh come now, you were still off on patrol! You can’t blame me for not being able to reach you. And besides, it was all so sudden, I really wasn’t prepared for it.”

  “What do you mean? Didn’t you propose to her?”

  “Well, um, actually, she proposed to me, if you could believe it!”

  “Say what!? Hah, that’s funny. So, how was the honeymoon?”

  “…What honeymoon?”

  “C’mon, you didn’t get to have a honeymoon with her!? That’s just sad, Romulus, really sad!”

  “Hey, like I said, it was all unexpected! I had to come back out here for my monthly patrol right after the wedding. However, we do plan to go somewhere nice once I get back. We were thinking some fancy resort down in Saratu, or something like that.”

  “Hmm, yeah, they got nice places down in Saratu. You should check out the Volvaron Resort, if you could afford it!”

  “Haha, we’ll look into it! But anyway, it would be great if she were here with me right now, admiring the beauty.”

  “And what ‘beauty’ would you be admiring, eh?”

  “Oh, haha, that’s real ma…”

  Before Romulus finishes his statement, the deafening sound of a great explosion hits him from behind, echoing across the mountain reaches, and he whirls around to see what looks like a volcanic eruption off in the distance, fire and smoke filling the sky above the horizon. With his finger still on the radio’s button, Dan had heard it as well. “Hey, what was that noise? Romulus?”

  Shaking his head to remove the shocked expression on his face, Romulus’ professional mentality kicks in. “I’ll go check it out,” he says before putting the radio away and taking off in a sprint across the hills toward the looming eruption.

  ***

  A few minutes later, Romulus’ haste comes to a halt at the edge of a cliff as he looks around, gasping for air, at the sight before him. The whole side of the mountain was blasted open, as if a giant meteor crashed into it. The forest between him and the eruption is annihilated, fallen trees scattered and burning from a shockwave blowing them over. As ashes drift through the sky over the scene, black snow floating on the breeze, he hurriedly gets out his radio while looking down near the base of the mountain, and calls, “Dan, you there?”

  “I’m here, Romulus, what’s going on?”

  “I can’t believe what I’m seeing here, but, it looks like a mountain violently erupted out here.”

  “Really? But there aren’t supposed to be volcanoes in that region.”

  “I don’t know, but that’s not what concerns me, because…” Upon spotting what he was looking for, he curses off to the side before continuing, “Dan, you better get some people out here.”

  “Huh? Why? Is there a wildfire?”

  “No.” He grimly s
tares down at the crushed remains of a large camp beneath a recent landslide. “This mountain that blew up was the same one that excavation group was under.”

  “Oh. How bad does it look?”

  “Very bad, Dan. Raise the closest station to my location, and get them out here with medical support. I’m going down there to see if there are any survivors.”

  “Whoa, wait, you’re gonna go in there, alone? What if the thing blows again?”

  “Well, I’ll just have to be careful. Now get some people out here, Dan, that’s an order!”

  “Er, yes, Captain! Over and out!”

  After clicking out, Romulus pockets his radio and resumes his run, leaving the cliff and heading down a smoother slope in the direction of the devastation below.

  ***

  Moments later, his sprint slowing down to a walk, Romulus surveys the area before and around him as he nears what once was the excavation camp, the smoldering forest left behind him. Boulders have rolled over and flattened the three large tents that once stood near the base of the mountain, as well as expensive looking machinery that had been set up nearby. The cave can’t be seen from the landslide piled up over it, and ashes have fallen all over the area, covering stone and equipment in sheets of pale gray and black. Above the decimated site, smoke is clearing from the lower lip of the crater, as he hopes to himself that there will not be another eruption. He continues searching through the destroyed camp, and oddly enough he doesn’t find any bodies. He grimaces, figuring the researchers must have been in the cave, inside the mountain, when it blew, and he would have to go in looking for them.

  Approaching the bottom of the landslide, Romulus judges the sizes and sloppy piling of the boulders, and knows that he would not be able to climb it normally. Aware he may have to, he focuses upon an inert ability to enter his battle morph. A brief flash of brown light consumes him, and coming out of the light all of his hiking apparel was replaced by a full suit of tan, leather-like armor, and with inhuman speed and agility he jumps up from one boulder to another until he is at the top of the landslide, near the edge of the crater. Becoming ever more cautious, he slowly moves toward the edge, takes a deep breath to calm himself, and peeks over into the crater. He can only gasp in terror at what he sees.

  In the crater below him, rather than seeing a red-hot pool of magma, Romulus looks down upon the aftermath of a massacre. Miscellaneous pieces of rock are scattered about the cave floor, along with jagged streaks of burned and fractured ground. Alongside the rock shards are the scorched and mutilated bodies of the researchers. Disturbed by what he has found, he gulps nervously, and forces himself into the crater. Leaping down to the cave floor far below, landing softly, he continues his investigation, anxiously searching for survivors.

  As he slowly walks around the scene, observing both obvious and subtle details, Romulus begins piecing together facts. The burn streaks across the ground, along with the wounds upon the researchers, tell him they had been made by lightning bolt strikes. The smoking, and faintly glowing red rim around the crater, informs him that, somehow, the whole ceiling and outer part of the mountain had exploded. Despite the unorganized appearance of the destruction, the bodies are all set in a circle around a large, cocoon-shaped structure at the center of the scene. Whatever had been the cause of all that just happened, the researchers must not have been ready for it. Still in their human forms, they had not entered their battle morphs in time to endure whatever had attacked them.

  Wondering what could have possibly been the cause of this disaster, Romulus realizes whatever it was must have come from the stone structure. And, with dread, realizes it could still be nearby. He cautiously approaches the structure, against his better judgment, as sand appears and swirls around his right hand, morphing itself into a short blade in his grip. As he comes closer to it, he notices across the side of the structure rune-like inscriptions, possibly hieroglyphs of some kind. Could this have been what the researchers were studying? Hoping he is ready for the answer, or anything at this point, he comes up to the structure, floats into the air a few feet above it, and discovers what the structure is.

  Rather than a mere cocoon, the thing appears to be a sarcophagus, a giant coffin made of stone, engraved with runes. Romulus makes out the shape of a body that could have been placed within the sarcophagus, but, to his eerie surprise, there is no trace of a body in it, it is completely empty. However, he also notices that there was no lid for it. Whatever had been in it seems to have broken its way out, due to the small cracks along the gaping hole into it.

  Then, as he put all the pieces together, fear comes across his face as he realizes what must have happened: The researchers were studying the sarcophagus, probably trying to decrypt the runes upon it; they accidentally activated something, and awoke whatever had been laying dormant inside the sarcophagus; the thing then annihilated them, blew the mountain open, and wiped out the forest around it. What is most unsettling to him, however, is not what this thing has already done, but that it might still be nearby.

  A sudden noise in the deathly silence grabs his attention, Romulus whirls around, doing a quick, side-ways maneuver through the air, rolls across the ground, and holds his blade of sand before him. Expecting to see some horrifying form of a monster or entity before him, he sees nothing different about the decimated cave around him. He stays on high alert, wary that it may still be lurking nearby. After a long, nerve-racking moment of silence passes, he just begins to calm himself when he hears the noise again. Switching back into full alert, his mounting fear becomes mangled by confusion when he recognizes the noise as it continues. It was the sound of crying. Something nearby was crying.

  Looking around him, Romulus picks out something he didn’t notice before in his scan of the hollowed cave. There is a small ledge, obscuring a deeper part of the cave, where the part of the ceiling that remains slopes down to form a small space beneath it. The crying is coming from that direction. Ever cautious, ever alert, he slowly makes his way towards the ledge, peeks over the top, and comes upon another startling sight. With yet another slain researcher near it, her chest having been blasted open by what must have been a lightning bolt, there is another sarcophagus, covered by runes like the first one but much smaller. As he tip-toes closer to it, raising his blade to bring it down on whatever is still in there, the crying noise becomes much louder, and distressing. In fact, the crying sounds are oddly familiar. But he doesn’t let his guard down, as there could be no way it was…

  When he looks down into the sarcophagus, Romulus can’t believe his eyes, confounded so much he nearly drops his weapon as he lowers it. There, lying within the coffin, the same kind of coffin some terrible thing had just erupted from earlier, is a baby, a newborn infant. Naked and helpless, the child continues to wail and cry, groping at the air with its little hands and feet, until it looks back up at Romulus. The big, purple eyes upon the adorable face stupefies him. Unsure of what to do, he reaches down into the coffin and gently lifts the infant out of it, all the while staring back into its eyes with his own brown eyes. As he holds the baby amidst the chaos and disastrous tragedy, with a possibly unspeakable terror yet undiscovered and now running loose, all he can think of is what in the name of the Earth Spirit had, was, and is yet to happen.

  Chapter 1

  Welcome to School

  ***

  21 years later…

  ***

  Taking a breath of the cool autumn air, a young man looks out across the grassy field toward large buildings in the distance. He wears a green fall jacket, black shirt and black jeans, black tennis shoes, and a short-trimmed, crisp style of black hair. His eyes are a deep shade of purple, and his face is cleanly shaved for a soft look. After glancing around to take in the fine day, he walks out to join a growing crowd of people his age. They are all heading toward the building complex.

  The young adults flood into one of the interlinked buildings, flow down a large hall, and pool into a massive auditorium. The people file into the
columns of seats in a civilized manner, greeting and chatting with either friend or stranger. The green vest man finds himself a seat, and looks about the auditorium. Marble white walls with sparkles of jeweled dots surround him, and above is a ceiling with strong support from a web of metal braces. Shortly after seating, he hears the doors slamming shut behind him, indicating all the intended people have arrived and are seated.

  The lights dim, the people hush themselves, and the stage set before the assembly is lit up to reveal a small podium with a microphone. A middle-age man with graying hair, wearing a brown tuxedo suit, walks out to the podium, and most of the audience claps to greet him.

  The man speaks into the crowd, his voice projected through the microphone. “Good evening, students, and welcome to the most major education complex within our world, the Alkalian National College! For some of you, this will be your first year here, and the rest of you have already been here, but whatever your age group, I’m sure you will enjoy the experiences that await you here! For the new students with us today, plus any who have forgotten me, I am the school principal, Professor Ronald Kaystone. The rest of the staff you will meet when you arrive at the class they teach. And now, I believe the new students this year, our freshmen, should be properly introduced with a warm welcome!”

  Rustling up a paper from the podium and clearing his throat, he continues, “As I read off this list before me, I would like the freshmen to stand up so everyone can see them, and remain standing until all have been announced. Please forgive any mispronunciations of any names I call out. Let’s see, uh, Matthew Calamos!”