A diminutive story
By Travis Brown
Warning: this work contains mild adult content of an odd nature.
If there were ever a reason to cry it would be now. The battle had been lost and all that was left of his race was just a few hundred.
Jarkan looked at his gun protrude from his arm and knew that there were no more rounds left in it.
He was of a race of creatures that were made for war. But now all that didn’t mean anything. His family, his home, his companion and offspring were all destroyed in this horrid holocaust. Bitter fear overwhelmed him as this shadowy enemy drew more rapidly to him. They had no remorse and no feelings. At least that is what he knew of them. They at least seemed that way. One thousand years ago this war probably would never have happened if the creatures had not fired upon them first. They would probably have gotten along. To share technology and ideas about the universe… nevertheless it seems that the only thing they wanted was war to begin with.
“The humans are closing in Jarkan! We are finished now!
What were they to do? The humans had far greater weaponry then they could ever have anticipated. It almost seemed that the Lonescine race was about to go extinct to these horrid beings that had no care for them in their heart.
The battle raged for another hour before Jarkan and all of his friends and fellow war comrades were slain.
Everything came to an end.
* * *
“What…what happened…where…am I?”
He looked around in a big white nonexistence. The entire place was without form or void. He wasn’t even standing on everything that he could see.
Beneath him there was no ground upon which he stood. He felt a bottom but couldn’t put his hand upon it. It just passed on to more space.
He felt his mechanical body. Everything was working appropriately. The gun that put a large hole throughout his mid section was also gone.
“Can anyone hear me?!” He screamed.
Jarkan looked around some more. And out of the corner of his eye he saw a black shape coming toward him.
He turned to see a creature that resembled nothing he had ever seen before.
The creature’s eyes were very blue and his body seemed to be nothing short of a bipedal human.
But…the one difference was he had a red helmet on and horns that came out of the helmet.
He carried himself with a small, slow but steady pace as he approached Jarkan. Clad in that and a green cape that covered the rest of his body, he could not see what lie below the cape as the creature neared.
“Who are you?” Asked Jarkan.
The creature stopped in front of Jarkan and his cape lifted to reveal to green leather gloved hands with the same amount of digits as a human and not the usual Lonescine three were now visible as he folded his arms looking at the disorientated soul.
“It does not matter who I am Jarkan. What matters more is that you know where you are.” The strange creature said.
“Well where am I?” Asked Jarkan.
“You are at the edge of imagination, and also the edge of existence. It is here your dead body placed its soul. You are one in a million to come here. I myself come here at my leisure…I heard your cry.” Said the Creature.
“I assume my race is dead.” Said Jarkan, looking down closing his eyes. “My world is in ruin. I might as well be dead.” He said unemotionally.
“Oh if only you knew what this place that you have fallen into Jarkan. You do not realize what it is that you have become. It is for me to say what you are now…you have become the single. And you are the last. No other will ever take your form again for a very long time. Not after what I have to offer you. My name is Lock and I am here to tell you that you can have a new life. It just so happens that there is a way for you to do that now.
“What do you mean?” asked Jarkan.
Suddenly as he said that a huge planet appeared before him surrounded by endless stars. One white sun shined off in the distance. The world also looked very rich and pleasing to the eye.
“My friend…I wish to show you your new home. In the endless dimensions that are out there is a barren world devoid of any sentient race to live upon it. You are to be given this world. Now tell me that that is not the greatest gift you have ever received.
Jarkan just looked at him and gawked for a moment. Then his mind caught up with him.
“Unquestionably there is a catch.” Said Jarkan.
Lock looked at the Lonescine warrior with all that could possibly be a smile…. or a frown? He couldn’t tell through the odd helmet.
“Indeed there is one Jarkan. This world is yet to be explored. It is filled with many dangers and perils…one might say you probably will not survive down there.” Said Lock.
Jarkan looked down at his exoskeleton body made of its hard polymers and detailed plates.
He also looked at his arm, where his gun was fastened to his arm. The place that weapon had been since he was born.
“I don’t think terrestrial danger will be a problem.” Said Jarkan.
Lock just looked at him.
“My boy…when you go there you will go back to the way things were for your race. And I can also promise you that while you are there you will find others like you. They are primitive compared to you. They still have primitive ideas and frames of mind compare to you. They need a leader. But they need one that looks like you.
And so Jarkan nodded to Lock.
With that Lock brought his head down in a slight bow.
Your technology will be gone. You will start at a young age in your life...after all you are going to need your resilience…but you will not forget much. After all you need your knowledge of survival in order to come to terms with this world.
With saying all of that the entire void vanished. And Jarkan found himself no longer able to breathe.
“W-Water! I am in water!” Jarkan thought.
He arose to the light, which he thought was the surface. Then he hit it and breathed in the oxygen which his body desperately needed more of than usual.
He then moved over to the side of the small stream which he had…fallen into?
How did he get there anyway he thought. And what was this place.
He climbed out of the water and felt a new sensation. A drop in his temperature was what it felt like. He immediately shook himself off causing the water to fly everywhere. He had not even thought about shaking.
He looked down at his body and was startled by what he saw: nothing but a bunch of brown fur. A little wet to the touch but still fur.
This soft rich fur covered his body. He fell back into the water as he was looking at the pink protrusion that came briefly out of a large crevice on his stomach. It went back in as he dried. “That was my…” Said Jarkan as he stood up again now looking around. Foliage surrounded the area. There were rows upon rows of dense, damp towering vegetation. It looked as if he was now in a rainforest.
He smelled things differently as well. It wasn’t a strong as it might have been with his biomechanical body. But it seemed all right for what his needs were. Which at this point seemed to be food. He was also thirsty, so her turned around and faced the rivulet. He saw his reflection in the water.
The machines were gone. His fur strayed from his face making it as bare as it always was. His horns were no longer a gold metal color but more of a dull yellow. He looked back around at his tail, which seemed to also be covered in the rich fur. He also looked at his hands, which had black pads at the places of contact where he would touch things. The black talons that were once silver no longer were; Instead they were a beautiful ebony.
Suddenly Jarkan heard a rustling in the bushes. And out came a native creature of the world.
It looked like a plant eating creature due to it munching oddly on the nearby foliage.
Jarkan knew better than to try approaching it. This creature smelled like something to eat to him. His stomach rumbled intensely as the animal continued grazing.
Jarkan moved to a nearby bunch of reeds and bamboo looking plants and began to sharpen one of the hollow stocks of the bamboo. The animal was definitely slow for it only moved five feet in its grazing pattern
Jarkan; in his years of training knew that one great lesson was to know how to throw objects with great precision.
The muscles in his arm worked differently as he threw the makeshift spear. He however was successful in hitting the beast’s heart. The creature made a peculiar noise and limped to one side and fell erratically. It kicked a couple of times and that was all.
Jarkan then ran to it and ripped at the hole in its belly. The beast began to scream some more as its blood ran to the ground. The beast then silenced after a minute as Jarkan worked his skin of and started chewing on the muscular flesh below.
Jarkan swallowed the nourishment and began to feel some strength come into him.
He then heard another rustle in the trees. Jarkan cocked his head upward and toward the sound.
“Who is there?” Said Jarkan.
Jarkan smelled the creature. This one smelled very unusual and yet very recognizable.
Then it made itself known.
It was a similar person as he. Only…this one was a she! He wiped his mouth off and stood up to look at the female that stood before him.
“Hello.” Said the Lonescine warrior.
“…” Said the female.
“What is your calling? Don’t you talk?” He asked.
“…” She looked at him with big eyes.
“Um. If I am scaring you I will move away.” He said.
“…. You hunt.” She said.
“Yes I do.” He said to her.
“Most males don’t hunt. Hunt is female job.” She said.
Jarkan looked back in his journals during his learning periods back in those days. He remembered that it was indeed the females that did the hunting for the colonies.
“Well I was hungry. And this was easy to catch.”
Jarkan said.
“Horgos easy to catch. They eat too long. It make them easy to track” Said The Female.
“What is your calling?” Jarkan asked again.
“Calling?” asked the female, puzzled.
“You do have a name do you not?” asked Jarkan.
“Mecan.” She said.
“Me take you to colony…I need help bringing back the pray.” She said.
“That’s fine…I ate enough anyway.” He said.
The two gathered the animal and wandered back into the woods. While out there she told him about her.
“I am on big summer hunt. I have been put into coming of age ceremony. Soon I will have a male claim me as mate. This hunt will be the prize for the male that wins me.” She said.
“Hey I helped you get that! No wait…I did get that! And I would have eaten a lot of it until you came to take it from me.” Said Jarkan.
He had already seen that he wanted to mate with her. He could smell her heat a mile away. Of all the drives of that time that he had, he needed that thirst quenched the most.
She stopped right there and started sniffing around. She looked at him and down at his stomach.
“You know what?” she asked.
“What.” Asked Jarkan.
“I have been needing to be mated for a week. My body feels bad without attention of male…what tribe you from?” Asked Mecan.
“You wouldn’t believe me even if I proved It.,” said Jarkan.
“I am Jarkan…I am from well a very long ways away…much farther than you have traveled in your life.
“Well since you from no enemy tribe and you speak same language as me I will give myself to you…but my body might give young if you do.” Said Mecan.
Jarkan put down the animal carcass and looked at her.
With this they mated with eachother. They were connected for a good hour.
Finally they separated and he looked at her now with the eyes of a father to be.
His past was erased…Lock had given him a future. He now saw the meaning of the perils in which he might face. He now had children he needed to take care of finally he had a real reason for living again.
Jarkan and Mecan lived peacefully and together they changed the society forever. All was peaceful once more. And no race ever did interfere with their happiness. Eventually many years after Jarkan walked that world they all became a technological race once more. And their views were changed after they looked back at the hero that changed the way all was seen by them.
The humans eventually came to their planet bearing peace and sharing their views with the Lonescines. All was great in their universe.
“Hey buddy, what World did you change this time?”
“Oh some world called Lonesince.”
“What did you do to change it?”
“Merely I just changed certain circumstances in which their world was supposed to end.”
“How many times have I told you not to do that Lock?”
“Oh come on your always a party pooper! You never let me have my fun anymore.”
“Well next time think of who you might hurt okay?”
“Yes mother, I will.”