(A/N: here's the latest chapter, written and uploaded faster than I thought it would be (I got a lot of time on my hands, huh?). This chapter takes us back to present: we're not dealing with flashbacks for the moment. Prepare to meet a new/familiar face – and remember what they say about first impressions… I'll have some more to say at the end of the chapter – until then, please enjoy)


Elisir
by The Great Red Dragon

Chapter 11


Hover-cars of all sizes moved through the multi-level traffic lines, spanning up hundreds of feet amongst the skyscrapers, underneath a sky that had surpassed its daily youth, but had yet to approach mid-day. Horns of all pitches honked irritably, and creatures from all levels of height yelled, shrieked, roared, and cawed at eachother from the cockpits of their ships.
Though vehicles divided their driving populations between the numerous levels of lanes, the lane at the very bottom, "ground zero", was often considered the most dangerous: mid-air accidents were rare (though often catastrophic on occurrence), and even though ground-level collisions weren't a usual occurrence either, they generally gained the most fatalities, as the collisions directly involved pedestrians. This, however, didn't keep the sidewalks bare, as their pavement usually fared a reasonable amount of miscellaneous aliens who either didn't own a car or had taken to the recent wave of healthful/environment-friendly advertisements: "save both your body and the artificially-regulated atmosphere by walking, not driving".
The vehicle-lanes and pedestrian-ways were always moving on and on, spitting smog and hot air in a continuous effort to get wherever the excretor wanted.

Once again, there was but a single soul who deviated from the majority.
Sitting on the edge of the sidewalk (the most hazardous place to be), his unclothed feet dangling over the six-foot drop-off, was Niki. He sat hunched over, his elbows resting on his knees, staring dully into the gravelly darkness of the shallow abyss, his ears loose and blowing gently with the wind of each passing car. Passer-byes glanced at him, but didn't as much as advise him against his dangerous perch, out of whatever cause that they deemed the small, peach-colored something un-needy of their attention.
Niki's eyes were damp, but he didn't think he could cry anymore. He didn't know where he was – he had walked aimlessly throughout the entire night and morning, feeling as though it had been a thousand kilometers, but not caring in the slightest. Only when the sun had risen beyond the skyscrapers did he realize that he was once more surrounded by them (skyscrapers), and that he was in a part of the never-ending city that he had never before entered. Only when the sun was directly overhead, and the sidewalks had become too crowded to allow aimless trudging, had the Experiment set down his urn by the edge of the car-way and sat down next to it, open to the possibility that a car would quickly take his head off.
He sat without waiting, thinking about nothing in particular – only brooding in his thick fog of misery. Though he felt as though he had emotionally burned just the night before, the fire that had hurt him had now burned down into smoking, clay-like embers; never ceasing in their creation of the smoky fog that held him in place, taking away his will to move, to go on, or to live, and even allowing him to forget that he had ever laughed in his life.
He thought about the lab, and how one simple, honest confession had ruined any hope he had of friendship or companionship. He remembered where he had landed only a short while after the raid, and how his own naivety had taken two years of his life and made them miserable. He thought of Mel, sniffed dryly, and hated himself for not being a smart enough hooker when the Perentil had wanted a blowjob – if he had just given it like the sick motherfucker had wanted, Mel would still be alive now.
Niki put his face into his hands and peered through his fingers at the passing cars. They weren't moving fast enough at the moment to kill him on impact, but if he waited until they sped up…
He looked down into the drop-off where the sidewalk ended and pondered it as well: the simple fall wouldn't be enough to kill him, but he figured that if he had the courage to jump head-first, he may be able to break his own neck…
Then he glanced over at the urn sitting beside him: a taunting, ashy remnant of the only person he longed for. He asked himself if Mel would find killing himself acceptable, if it were for the noble cause of reuniting them – would it be a worthy death, for somebody whom nobody in the universe cared about?

"What the Hell am I thinking?", Niki mumbled to himself under his breath.
"Mel's dead…he can't decide anything for me anymore."

Niki raised his head and peered up at the sky, wondering if a Heaven could even exist in those artificial clouds. A single tear, more salty than wet, slid down his face and he looked back down, lying to himself that the sun's glare had caused it.

"Oh, Mel…", he whispered silently to his knees.
"I miss you so much…"

He tried to cry, but the tears wouldn't come; they just wouldn't come. Feeling that now even the ability to weep had been taken from him, Niki closed his eyes and decided that the next fast car that passed would be the last thing he ever saw.
The sound of the cars continued steadily, and Niki didn't raise his head; he waited for the rush brought by cars picking up speed, asking himself if he would be brave enough to face the end with open eyes, or if he would rather keep them closed, so that he may only feel the final, momentary pain.
The cars didn't pick up, so Niki continued to sit with his head down, not listening or even paying attention to anything around him. It was due to this separation that Niki didn't hear the approaching sounds: low and distant at first, but growing louder steadily – so loud, in fact, that it began to drown out the ceaseless commotion of the lines of cars, and filling the air with its own hellish racket.
Eventually, Niki began to notice it, too; it began as a distant irritation in his ear, like a mosquito or an annoying fly. If he hadn't been so preoccupied, he would've flicked his ear. But it grew louder, unwainingly, closer and closer, like some sort of ferocious machine or animal. Niki had never heard anything like this before, but still, he didn't look up ("Maybe it's a crashing spaceliner…maybe it'll do the job for me…").
Louder and louder, shriller and shriller it became, until finally Niki couldn't help but open his ears to it, though continuing to keep his head down.
A violent cacophony of sounds – resembling a wooden table being pounded by hammers, and the repeated ignitions of some chainsaw-like instrument – rampaged behind a roaring, gushing, biting grunge-of-a-voice, incoherently spitting words and phrases, like some monstrous temple beast. This very sound seemed to puncture the air with bleeding holes, goaded on by the most sickening of vomit-like voice that a throat could produce, be it animal or individual.

And it was coming from right in front of Nikita.

It hurt his ears, but even though it sent chills and cramps down his body, Niki didn't flinch. He opened his eyes slowly, raising his head, and was met by the sight of an unmoving metal hull of a hover-car in front of him. The driver seemed to be leaning out of the window, looking at him.
Niki raised his head further, up to the window, and met the eyes of what had to be another Experiment.

"…slathered in blood; ripped to the bone and torn apart!"

There was no other creature of any sort in the car with the Experiment, so the audio-induced perversity had to be coming from some kind of stereo. This didn't concern Niki at the moment, however – his mouth had fallen slightly open as he gazed up at one of his kin, the first of them that he had seen in over two years.
The Experiment in the car, of all things, was grinning. Niki saw his head disappear back into the car, and after a second, the blasphemic grunge subsided a bit. The Experiment's face returned, and he was still grinning.

"Hey there", he said, talking in an even-voiced, moderate tone (the commotion of the other cars seemed to have died down for way of the 'music').
"Whatcha' doin', sittin' there?"

Niki wasn't sure whether it was shock, or whether his ears were still ringing – he had hardly heard the Experiment's words. He didn't at all notice that pedestrians passing behind him were staring at the scene.
The crimson-furred Experiment obviously noted Niki's open mouth and brushed a hand over a dark, grainy-haired Mohawk that ran between his large ears (one of which was pierced near the top with a gold ring).

"Come on; I'm not that good-looking, man."

Niki caught himself and closed his mouth quickly. Still, he couldn't yet blink or take his eyes off of the Experiment, who sat with one of his (very muscular) arms hanging out of the window, grinning at him as though his presence was a pleasant surprise.

"…Who…?", was all Niki managed to say, now sitting up straight on the curb.

"My name's Gomora", the Experiment replied, having understood the one-worded question.
"Like the band, y'know? My number's 398. What's your title?"

"…My name's Nikita…621…"

"…stabbed in the stomach and gored in the neck; vertebrae bashed until it breaks!", the music roared.

The Experiment named Gomora raised a playful eyebrow and cocked his head.

"You don't look like a later model…", he observed.
"Then again, you don't look like a liar, either – I'm sorry; I'm just messing with you."

He reached out his hand to Niki for a shake. With some subdued apprehensiveness, under-ridden by his awe, Niki slowly accepted the gesture, and had his hand wrung by Gomora's warm, clawed hand.

"So, again – what're you doing out here?", Gomora asked, after literally pulling Niki to his feet.
"You waiting for a ride or something?"

Not really noticing that he had just been single-handedly lifted onto his feet, Niki finally managed to blink, and he swallowed once.

"Uh…something like that…"

"You going anywhere in particular?"

"…Not really…"

"…veins cut and tendons ripped; skulls crushed in an iron grip!"

"You wanna ride with me?"

This immediately turned off the overriding aweness that still reverberated in Niki's head, and brought him back to reality quite suddenly. He actually took a single step back, and his eyes widened to their full extent for a moment - go with a stranger, in his car? – flashbacks of the repercussions of such an action feated in the past appeared in his mind, and almost immediately, his impression of Gomora became suspicious.

"Where to?", he asked warily, lowering his head a bit in suspicion.

Gomora turned down his music to a low rumble, but he didn't seem too bothered by Niki's obvious doubt of him. As a matter of fact, he looked quite hopeful.

"Wherever you wanna go", he replied.
"Have you got a place to stay? You could stay at my place if you wanted to. Or we could get something to eat; you're looking awfully thin."

Niki stood there, faced with returning drone of traffic and a Mohawked Experiment in his car, bidding him inside of his car with a grin. Niki clenched his fists and bit his tongue, pressed between something he felt very suspicious about, and a long road of nothing behind him. With the entrance of this new Experiment, the over-simplified notion of ending his life had been violently intruded on by the Mohawked one. Niki could've cried in frustration.

"Come on…I promise I won't bite."

Niki remained tense for a moment…and then sighed, and allowed the density inside of his chest to be ignored, and eventually pulled away as though by a passing car, leaving him feeling empty, but not necessarily better.
He told himself, for better or for worse, that meeting this new Experiment was a once-in-a-million coincidence that he was sure he'd never relive, no matter how long his life lasted.
Figuring that he'd be able to ponder death at a later date, he shrugged his shoulders in a defeated fashion, picked up the urn, and stepped towards the mid-aired car.

"Great!", Gomora exclaimed delightedly, sliding open the door and moving back over into the driver's seat; the music subsided.

Niki stepped from the edge of the sidewalk over the drop and into the car, feeling a short-lived rush of nausea as he felt nothing but air beneath him for a moment, made worse by being one-handed, as he held the vase under his left arm. Once he had both of his feet in the car, he sat back into leather seat, watching as the vertically-inclined door slid back into place, trapping him inside.
He looked over at Gomora, who was smiling at him wit great enthusiasm.

"Sorry about my messy car", he apologized, without losing his grin.
"I tell you, I get myself a nice big ride like this, and I don't even bother to keep it clean; you'd think I'd've been programmed better, huh?"

Niki sat nothing, but noted the crumb-laden corners of the foot-rests, and the ashtrays dirty with what appeared to be chewing-seeds (he also noted that the car didn't smell like qualm – Gomora didn't seem to be a smoker).

"You ready?", Gomora asked him ("As if he needs my permission", Niki thought to himself"), putting his hands to the controls.
"Okay – let's go!"

He smoothly turned his aircraft back into the flow of traffic, and quickly rose up to one of the higher lanes of express. Moving steadily, he steered the two of them around a cornerstone-skyscraper and into a seemingly straight lane, relaxing in his controls as he leveled the vehicle in manual-pilot.
Niki stared out of the window at the passing cars, wondering in which direction his gloomy life was now headed, and what the actual plans of his newfound 'acquaintance' were, and if they included anything reminiscent of his last car-related encounter. He sighed again.

"Tired?", he heard Gomora ask him.

"…You could say that", Niki replied, the irony of it apparent even to him.

"Well, if you want to, we could go to my place", the unknowing Gomora suggested, as he kept glancing from the traffic to Nikita.
"I only live a few minutes from here – by car, of course. I got a couch that you could camp on, if you feel like it. Granted, it's more of a daytime-couch, but it's no worse than the bunks we slept in back at the lab. You hungry?"

Niki felt sick at the mention of the lab.

"No; I'm fine."

"Well, that okay – not like I don't have food at my place, although I hope you don't mind microwaveable stuff. I'm not much of a housekeeper, either, so don't be shocked when you see my place, 'kay? But besides that, I got intergalactic-channel television and a soundbox that'll knock your pants off – you like music?"

Niki, without turning his head, gave a glance at the car's stereo system, and felt his ears still violated from the distinct brand of 'music' that he had been exposed to just a short while ago.

"I guess so…music, yeah…"

"Cool. Though, you'll be out of luck if you're looking for anything below heavy at my place. You're not a death metal fan by any chance, are you?"

"…Sorry."

"Well, what the heck; we can't all be headbangers, can we?"

"Hmmm…"

"You familiar with what I was listening to before?"

"No."

"'Mutilation' by Manotaur Skull. You like it, by chance?"

"…I don't know; I couldn't really understand much of it…"

"Want me to put it back on?"

"…Well, it's your car…"

"Oh, we can do that later. Anyway, what were you doing, just sitting back there?"

Niki looked down and didn't answer, and after a few moments, Gomora seemed to correctly interpret his silence ("I-don't-want-to-talk-about-it") and moved on, unfortunately, with an equally-difficult question;
"…So what're you doing here, on this planet?"

"…Just got stuck here, for a while, I guess", Niki answered dully.

"Yeah, I know what you mean", Gomora said.
"I don't think anybody ever means to come here on purpose – still, it's not that bad of a place once you get used to it."

"I must've never gotten used to it, then", Niki thought to himself, semi-sarcastically, but asked Gomora aloud;
"If it's not your favorite place to be, then why don't you get out of here, off of the planet? I mean…you look like you could…"

"Oh, stop flattering me", the crimson Experiment replied with a grin.
"But yeah, I could think of better places to be, but I guess you could say I've got my reasons for staying here for close to year, so far…it's one of the few places a guy like me – y'know, an Experiment – can get a job, y'know?"

Niki nodded, unsure of whether this statement had been infuriatingly ironic or coldly sadistic.

"Yeah, I suppose I'm lucky, though", Gomora went on.
"The pay's good, so I can keep a good place a bit up in the higher district – I got a pretty nice apartment, though I can't really keep it clean. Y'know how it is, living single…"

He said some more, but Niki had turned his head towards the window, watching as the buildings became taller and taller. Their sheer sizes made him feel uneasy, and he cradled the cold urn against his stomach.

"…yeah, we'll be right there in a minute", Gomora said, before glancing back over to Niki.
"By the way, what's that?"

He indicated the vase, and for a moment, Niki tried not to answer. Gomora's eyes stayed on him this time, though, and thinking that he'd rather answer than die in a careless crash because Gomora wasn't watching the road, he mumbled in reply;
"…Just a vase…I'm…a bit attached to it…"

"Yeah, I know what you mean", Gomora replied with a silly grin.
"I got a powder-box at home that I just can't do without, myself."

Niki didn't reply, and for a while, Gomora busied himself with the traffic.
He steered the car around another corner of a building, and steered straight until easing up against the street-limit. Niki looked up, and through Gomora's window, saw a pearl-white, magnificently-tall skyscraper, which he immediately recognized as a sort of hotel or resort. It stood a bit alone by itself, allowing for cars to circle it. As Gomora did so, Niki peered out of the driver's side-window and caught the large-titled name near the level-entrance: 'Adamantium Stay'.
Gomora didn't head down, but circled the building in a bit of upwards-spiral, until he was beckoned inside by a high-level garage-door with blinking red lights. He expertly steered the cruiser inside of the dim entrance, shadow covering the lighted inside of the car. Once inside, an extensive line of parked cruisers greeted them, looking like expensive stallions in their stalls. Gomora hovered down along the line for a while before eyeing an empty space on the left, outlined in white paint and reading '91 Flr. 8b'. Turning into it headfirst, he leveled the car into an agreeable position and eased off the motor. The cruiser's hum died slowly, as the vehicle settled down onto the ground with a graceful thump.

"Got my own parking-space", Gomora said to Niki with yet another grin.
"Sure, it's standard procedure for a place like this – it's my room number – but what the heck, huh?"

He pressed a button and both of their doors slid upwards and open, allowing for them both to get out. Niki, tightly gripping his urn, sidled onto the cool ground as the door closed and walked over to the end of the car. Gomora met him, holding a grey, paper folder that Niki hadn't noticed before in the car.

"This way", the red Experiment directed, and led Niki down the line of cars and towards a door - Niki was exasperated to find it an elevator.

The two of them stepped inside and Gomora looked up at the control-pad, situated some two feet above him. Without hesitation, he climbed single-handedly up the slick, metal wall of the booth and pressed a button, which lit up. He dropped back to the floor, and turned towards Niki, who had been watching him.

"Damn tall things, huh?", he said playfully.
"Our little cross to bear, huh?"

Niki nodded, though not at all heartily.
The elevator dinged and closed its doors on the pair, and, after a moment, released them into a pleasant, carpeted hallway, ornate with doorless commodes and plants.

"My apartment's right down there", Gomora directed, starting down the hallway.
"There's another elevator about halfway-through that can reach the lobby. I try not to show my face down there too much; you know how it is.

Niki, not quite knowing 'how it was', followed him twenty-five feet from the elevator's exit to a light-grey door on the right. Gomora opened his folder and pulled out a plastic card, quickly crawled up half of the door's length, and slid it through a reader next to the handle (Niki was surprised at this; usually doors simply slid open, and door-handles were a thing of the distant past. He dismissed it as a 'class-thing' of the hotel; what a silly place). There was a beep as the reader recognized the card, and Gomora jumped back down, pull down the handle as he did; the door opened with a click.

"Sorry about that", he said, looking over his shoulder at Niki.
"By the way, I told you that it's messy, right?..."

He pushed the door open, and stepped aside so Niki could enter.
Upon stepping over the threshold, Niki realized that Gomora hadn't lied about it being a sizably-nice place…even if, true to his word, it was a bit messy: what seemed to be the main living room easily carried a 30x20 dimension, with a pre-bedded rug-floor, and a row of circular windows spanning the far wall of the room.
A dark-blue couch, about seven feet long, sat close to the far wall, facing a massive television to the right of the faced entrance. Before the couch stood a low-standing glass table, littered with magazines, soft-drink and alcohol cans, plastic bags of chips, and a single box of tissues. To the right of the couch, standing on a large commode, was a massive stereo system, complete with speakers as large as Gomora.
Niki stepped in further, clutching the urn as he looked around. Behind him, Gomora closed the door and stepped up next to him.

"Yeah…I know: it's a trogsty. Sorry. I could clean it up if it's uncomfortable for you to…"

He said so with what seemed to be embarrassment, and Niki figured that the only reason he did so was because he was faced with another Experiment; Gomora looked like somebody who otherwise really wouldn't care what others thought of him or his apartment.

"You thirsty?", Gomora asked, as though wanting to draw attention away from his messy residence.

Niki hadn't noticed before just how dry his mouth was; his lips were chapped, and his tongue, stationary for quite some time, seemed quite arid.

"Um…sure", he accepted, secretly glad at the offer.

"Great!", the Experiment replied, obviously excited to serve his new comrade.
"I got water, fruit juice, coke, iced tea, milk, lite beer, Betarian wine, ice spritzer…what'll it be?"

"…Iced tea, please."

"Okay – one iced tea, coming up!", Gomora replied, turning and hurrying to a right-sided room.
"Oh God, don't follow – the kitchen's even worse! Just a minute!"

Gomora pushed the door to this room open and disappeared behind it, and Niki heard him gathering glasses. An abrupt crash signaled that, in his excitement, Gomora had broken one of them, and he cursed loudly.
Niki didn't worry himself, but continued to look around the room. An insignificant door by the television might've been a bathroom or a closet, and a more-noteworthy door on the left end of the living room probably led to the bedroom, Niki supposed - wondering what, besides a bed, would be in there.
The television didn't interest him too much, despite its size, but he eyed the stereo system with some interest; he had never seen one quite so big before. He took a few steps towards it, and noticed an open drawer of the commode the stereo rested on. He stepped up to it, and, as the monstrous soundmaster towered above him, he peered inside at what appeared to be Gomora's un-arranged CD collection. Curious at the colors of the messily-stacked cases, he pulled one out by random and looked at it.
The front cover displayed a group of wild-haired Uavilins riding atop a monstrous Dragon-like creature, in front of a fiery backdrop.

"'The Come of Hell'…by 'Killer Trog'", Niki read to himself.

He set this one back and pulled out another, this one of a darker cover.

"'Endless Nightmare'", Niki read, and eyed the illustration of a shadowed, skeletal figure with dripping fangs.
"…By 'Nox Draconus'."

Not sure whether or not any of this was supposed to be serious or not, Niki replaced the CD pulled out another. He was repulsed by a cover depicting some sort of monster gripping a bloodied skull with the meaty vertebrae still attached. The title read 'No Hope for the Weak'. The group was Gomora' afore-mentioned Manotaur Skull, and Niki's ears seemed to reignite their ringing as he read this. He turned the case over, and gazed at the track lists that made his stomach turn over in disgust;
"One – 'Pounded with Knives'; two – 'Devoured by Giant Spiders'; three – 'Landslide of Disembodied Virgins'; four – 'I Ate You Alive and Made You Watch'…"

"And you say you're not a fan of metal?"

Niki, unstartled, turned to see Gomora approaching him, holding two pink-tinted glasses. He quickly put the CD back.

"I'm sorry", he apologized appropriately.
"I didn't mean to…disorganize your shelf…"

"Oh, forget it; I've been meaning to sort out that mess", Gomora replied, and extended one of the glasses.
"Here's your iced tea."

After carefully setting his urn on the floor, Niki accepted the cool glass. He peered inside, and found a dark-colored, watery liquid with a faint peach-like aroma. Two ice-cubes floated atop the drink, fused together, originally attracted by their consecutive coldness.
Niki noted to himself that he had never really looked at ice cubes this closely before…

"Ya wanna toast?", Gomora offered, taking back Niki's attention.
"I mean, it's not every day that luck finds the two of us in the same eye, huh?"

"…Sure", Niki agreed, and slowly extended his glass.

Gomora moved his own against Niki's with a hearty cling, and leaned his head back as he drank a swig. Niki lightly raised the edge of the glass to his lips and sipped – the tea was a bit too sweet for his liking.


Mid-morning had turned to afternoon. The sun, the only thing greater than the city's massive skyscrapers, began its slow descent towards the horizon. The faintest hints of shadows began to appear, and Niki started feeling tired.
Not only that, but he felt odd. He was sitting at one end of the "daytime couch", half-listening to Gomora talk, which he had been doing for what seemed like hours. He had been preoccupied nearly the entire time that he spent inside the new Experiment's apartment, but only now did he realize that, at the start of the day, he was sure that he would be gone by now; positive that he would've worked up the fortitude before now to have left the world.
Yet here he sat, after having accepted yet a few more glasses of sweet iced tea, listening to Gomora ramble on and on about his life, the planet, how he got there, how his life back at the lab was, and if Niki wanted something more to drink.
The peach-colored Experiment's eyes shifted to look at his new comrade, who seemed tireless as he chatted away animatedly about something or the other. As he sat there, watching him, Niki wondered to himself: was this Experiment really the only reason that he was still alive? If so, was it worth it? Niki painfully admitted to himself that Gomora certainly had a nice body that he liked, and his Mohawk was a sexy (if odd) touch, and even though he for some reason listened to vomit-inducing music, he didn't at all seem like an aggressive individual.
Niki thought back to his first encounter with another Experiment of his liking – the one who had punched him in the chest, and initiated his ostracism, and perhaps even the downward spiral of his life. He noted that Gomora looked a lot like him, sans the color of his fur and the placement of the piercing. He remembered that it was his openness that had originally gained him so much pain…but Gomora was obviously being very open as well, without a hint of hesitation; did this mean something?
It just didn't seem to fit: Niki had long since suspected and expected himself to be the only male Experiment who liked other guys…other guy-Experiment just weren't open with eachother like this, like Gomora was being. They only got together to eat, or play at the arcades, or fight or wrestle…not to sit on a sofa and talk and drink tea. What did Gomora want from him?

"Oh, goddamn…", Niki thought and sighed.
"Oh, please don't let him be another pervert…let me just die with some dignity…"

He felt very suspicious about the entire situation, but didn't feel up to acting on it – he was in a stranger's house, surrounded by a stranger's furniture, and had drank a stranger's iced tea: what chance did he have? Luck had certainly never been on his side.

"And what about this place?", he thought to himself.
"And his supposed job? How the Hell can one of us get an actual job? – it's impossible. We're wanted throughout the universe…how the Hell can he hold an apartment like this?"

For a moment, Niki speculated about a theory involving Gomora holding the hotel managers at gun/knife/clawpoint, demanding to stay in an upper-class apartment…but then, he let his mind slip out of focus; he didn't want to care anymore.
Feeling a bit weary, Niki's half-open eyes returned to Gomora, who seemed unaware of Niki's wandering.
Crimson Gomora, who claimed to have left the raid-shelter shortly after the escape, and have flown solo for an entire year: traveling between planets and systems as a blind passenger or companion to some smuggler, sleeping in warehouses and in docks, making enough money for himself and a fare to the next place of adventure. He claimed to have sand-surfed on the Gobi moon, ran from border-police on the space-wires between Nega Urea and Nega Minor, and swore to have seduced pop diva Yentirb Areliuga after infiltrating her penthouse on Yerin 5.
Niki believed most of this as much as he did in ghosts, and given the fantasticality of these stories, he doubted very much that they even could have happened; no Experiment was great as Gomora was pretending to be.
Gomora's dramatic enunciation seemed to drop off considerably once his story reached the point of him arriving on this planet, which was supposedly due some linguistical misunderstanding whilst riding with a Pondorian frigate-driver (Niki believed this part, readily enough). Supposedly, he had lived off the street for a short while before 'earning' himself a "special position" at a local diamondsteel plant, though he denied being an actual 'worker'. He claimed that his job ("Whatever it is", Niki thought to himself) was easy enough, and that his salary was generous enough to allow him to reside at this apartment, and even to go out as often as he pleased.
Niki had never heard of a bigger cloak-up, but he was too tired and too out of care to worry about it. So what if Gomora was the biggest liar he had ever heard? – it really didn't matter to him.
…A nagging voice in his mind questioned why he was still alive, then.
In an attempt to shut it out, Niki decided to open his ears to his companion again, and try to figure out what had been going on during the time that he hadn't been listening.

"…the best nakku I've ever had", Gomora was saying, seemingly only now looking back at Niki to check for a reaction.
"I'm telling, the two of us should - …hey, are you getting tired?"

"Yeah, a bit", Niki replied, shamelessly.

"…Well, not really a night-creature, are ya?", the red Experiment said, with a small, bemused smile.
"I mean, not to say anything against ya, but it's only…whoa, look at the time!"

He jumped up off of the couch with such haste that Niki opened his eyes fully once more.

"Oh man, I didn't realize how late it was", Gomora said, seemingly surprised, irked, and even nervous at the same time.
"No, not your fault, but…shit; I was supposed to be on my way to an appointment fifteen minutes ago."

"Appointment?", Niki repeated, sitting up.

"Yeah, stuff to do with my job", Gomora explained, grabbing his grey folder and cruiser keys from the table.
"Nothing too serious, but I shouldn't be late; I should be halfway there, by now."

Searching around for something he may have missed, his eyes returned to Nikita, with a look of anxiety returned to his (Gomora's) face.

"Umm…uh, I won't be long; I promise", he said quickly, treading his feet anxiously on the floor.
"I mean…you're gonna stay here, right? I mean, you don't have too; you can go if you want to, but if you'd like, you'd be more than welcome to stay here…I can make the couch more comfortable; I got some sheets and stuff in the bedroom, and…you're gonna stay, right?...for now?..."

Nikita eyed the fidgetous Gomora, realizing his anxiety: he wanted him, Niki, to stay, badly enough for whatever reason, but his appointment must've been one heck of an urgent one, if he was to be torn away from the Experiment he was entertaining.
What if now was his chance, thought Niki – free from all restrictions, he could go, dismiss himself from Gomora's sight, and do what he had been intending to do throughout the morning – end his life.
The nagging voice in Niki's head returned abruptly, piping up like a loose spark in his brain, speaking, for whatever reason, against the notion of leaving; something just didn't feel right about it, now. It had nothing to do with courtesy towards Gomora or anything of the sort – he felt no real attachment to Gomora – but, according to the voice, leaving a warm residence to go out into the dim evening to kill yourself was stupid.

"So do I kill myself in here by finding a knife or something?", Niki asked himself irritably.
"No, you fool! – stay here and wait!", the voice replied urgently.
"Wait? Wait for what?", Niki asked.
"I don't know; it'd just be a good idea", the voice answered.
"It's a stupid idea."
"No more stupid than going out and jumping in front of a car."
"Will you just leave me the fuck alone!"
"Well, all you have to do is tell me to leave."
"No, then I'll do something stupid and kill myself!"

Niki felt dumbfounded; by way of the conversation inside his head, he realized something that seemed as peculiar at the moment as having a conversation with a voice inside your head: he didn't feel like killing himself anymore…at least not for the moment.
He felt tired, sad, miserable, and lonely…but not exactly suicidal. He deemed this odd, since it had only recently been imminent in his mind…but now, it felt as anomalous as reversing the laws of nature (then again, Niki admitted to himself that he didn't know these, either; he hadn't always paid attention in lab-class).
Looking back at Gomora's near-pleading expression, he sighed softly, and hoped for the best while expecting the worst.

"…Yeah, I'll stay."

"Great!", Gomora exclaimed, clapping his hands together with glee.
"Yeah, well, you can get to bed anytime you want to – sheets are in the bedroom, and the bathroom's right by the television. You can watch TV if you want to, and help yourself to anything in the refrigerator – the microwave's easy enough to use…"

He skimmed through his folder quickly before looking up, speaking to Niki while he backed towards the door;
"I'll try and be back soon…might be a while, though…just…if you need anything…"

He reached the door and jumped into the air, gripping the handle and pulling it down behind his back.

"Okay…I'll see you later, then, okay?"

"See you later", Niki replied weakly.

For a moment, Gomora only smiled at him, making Niki feel both uncomfortable and…not, at the same time.

"…I promise I'll hurry up", Gomora said, inching out the door.
"…Bye…"

A few seconds later, he slowly closed the door with a click, and for a moment, Niki could hear his footsteps as he ran down the corridor, towards the elevator.
For a while, Niki sat quietly on the couch, contemplating, as everyone does, the after-effects of such a significant decision. With only his eyes moving, he surveyed the messy lodging that Gomora had invited and left him in, and wondered if this, and if Gomora, were really worth it.
It hurt his head to do so, moving him to occupy himself with other matters. He eyed the disarrayed pile of magazines resting on Gomora's glass table. He leaned forward and began to sift through them.
It was what he had expected to find in a place that Gomora occupied– 'Metal Underground', 'Cage-Fighting Monthly', 'Death Guitars 101' (he wondered if Gomora played the guitar). Some of these were a bit sticky – Niki figured something must've carelessly been spilled over them, like the soft drink Gomora had been sipping before.
He looked a bit further through the messy stack of subscriptions…and, after a moment, uncovered something that seemed a bit out of place. Holding it by his claw tips, he unearthed a rather worn copy of what appeared to be a copy of an inter-species gay porn magazine.
'Queer Porn Pics' was the simple title, with a cover featuring a pair of nude Luiks in a Jacuzzi.
Niki held the article in front of him as though it were a scarlet letter. It was odd enough to find this magazine in the same stack that contained death metal and combat-sport articles…but that it belonged to Gomora? Gomora, who had claimed to have knocked the boots off of a pop diva? Gomora, who listened to death metal? Niki, consciously enough, didn't want to stereotype, but he wondered if somebody who occupied himself with music that sounded like a slaughter could really like other guys? A guy who had a body like that could be into other guys? Secretly, Niki had always considered gay guys to be…smaller…and more passive, perhaps. After all, he and Mel had never listened to death metal…
Niki considered that it could simply be a perversion: in the past, Mel assured him that any guy that came into the pouf looking for an experience with another guy most likely wasn't truly gay; "Freaks tend to their fantasies only when it's dark and they're sure no one will find out about it; they're in for nothing but the experience".
Niki felt a strong hunch ushering him in a second direction – he picked up the remote control to the television and switched it on. He was greeted by a gay porn channel, currently depicting oral sex between a group of Mondavians.
Niki felt sure about one thing – no heterosexual guy kept gay pornography and watched it on TV without reason.
Switching off the television and putting down the magazine (neither interested him beyond his speculations), he slid off of the couch and picked up the urn, which had been standing, as though patiently, against the side of the table to be held again. Holding it against his chest gave him a certain serenity: Mel was the only person in the universe who had given him any type of positive feeling…and even though he was gone, Niki took minimal reassurance in the fact that they – the urn and him – couldn't be separated any further.

Straying away from the table, stereo, and television, he stepped towards the kitchen that Gomora had entered before, wondering if it really was in as bad of a state as he had claimed.
Upon entering, he saw that Gomora hadn't been lying: if the junkyards of Flagon Maxtel weren't located on an asteroid in the outer rim, they would've probably been found in Gomora's kitchen. Dirty plates, pots, and pans filled the sink. Silverware occupied the entire silverboard. The stove had stains on it.
Niki took for granted that the housekeeping was nonexistent in Gomora's apartment.
Oddly enough, he found the refrigerator full, despite the fact that nearly everything was nonperishable: easy-open cans, plastic-sealed containers, and air-zipped snack-packs. Every type of juice and drink (sans the alcohol) was kept in a plastic container that wasn't its own. Fruit pieces were kept in an airtight plastic baggie. There was enough food to feed someone several times Gomora's size.
Leaving the kitchen, and on his way to inspect the bedroom, Niki stopped for a moment to check out the small room located next to the television's stand. It was indeed a bathroom, though an untidy one: towels nearly carpeted the floor, and Niki noticed, from afar, that the tube of toothpaste lying on the sink was capless.
Niki left the bathroom, and moved on to the bedroom, not knowing what to expect, except for a place to find bedware. Still, he pushed the door open unhesitantly and looked inside, prepared for the worst.

Surprisingly, the bedroom seemed to be the tidiest place in the entire apartment. True, it seemed evident that no maid had been admitted here, either, but at least the bed (to Niki, it was gigantic: enough to accept about ten or twelve Experiments, if both ends were used) was made, and there were no dirty dishes lying around.
The sheets of the bed were blue and silky, and had a near-luxurious feel to them. Niki envied Gomora for a moment, thinking of the old mattresses and unwashed blankets of the pouf. Taking advantage of Gomora's permission, he searched under the bed and through the closet, eventually finding some extra sheets - white and fluffy. To justify his snooping, he picked the bundle up in arms, it being about as large as he was, and turned towards the door.
As he held it, it pushed into his face, and he turned his head against it to grant himself some air. As he did so, he noticed a magnificent sword hanging over Gomora's bed - long-handled and tassled it was, and ornate in a ruby-red sheathe; it must've been four feet long.
For another reason that Niki couldn't put his finger on, it seemed out-of-place, much like the porno magazine on the table. Niki speculated for a moment on why Gomora would need a sword of all things in his apartment. It surely wasn't for protection – if Gomora had wanted that, a firearm would surely have been more practical (he remembered Jumba giving every Experiment instruction and practice on using a standard pistol, in the case of necessary self-defense).
A moment later, though, he decided to forget about it, and dismissed it as simply another odd possession that Gomora had in his life – after all, somebody who collected death metal CDs and gay pornography surely wouldn't mind having a sword or two in the house.


It was dark. Niki, lying on his back on the couch and under a pair of sheets – one of them half-kicked away – stared into the darkness of the ceiling, thinking about mortality and the decision he had made earlier. He had stopped worrying about the fact that Gomora had been gone for over three hours, deciding that he didn't care about what he was doing, or what was keeping him. Instead, in the darkness, he wondered about death, and where Mel was right now. He felt very sad as pondered so, but he didn't cry, even though he easily could've – he wasn't going to cry openly in a stranger's house, even though it was that of another Experiment (especially since it was that of another Experiment).
Instead, he stared up at the ceiling and thought of Mel…Mel, who would surely want him to be strong. Crying, he thought, wouldn't be strong, but he didn't know what else to do: crying had never gotten him anything in life, but he didn't know what else could be done in a situation as helpless as his existence.
Niki lay somewhere between frustration and sorrow, feeling disoriented and directionless, unsure and insecure. No matter how hard he tried to be strong, he felt scared and lonely to be alone in the universe, with no one to turn to for comfort, and no hand to hold and no ears to listen to his worries.
There had only been Mel…and he would never see Mel again.

"…Mel?"

Niki's voice was a near-whisper in the darkness of the night, speaking from beneath the obligatory sheets to someone whom he was unsure could hear him.

"Mel…are you there?"

There was no answer, and Niki, though hoping, hadn't expected one. It didn't matter, though: even if Mel wasn't able to talk, he surely would still listen to him; he always had.

"Mel…it's me…", the tiny Experiment said quietly.
"…Are you there?...can you hear me?"

It was so dark in the room that Niki couldn't even see the ceiling – he wouldn't have known if he had speaking to another entity or not, even if a face were hanging inches above his own.

"…I miss you, Mel…I miss you like you don't know", he continued, hoping with all his might that he might somehow be heard, across the Great Divide.
"I did like you would've wanted me to…I stayed alive for this long…but…but I don't know what to do now, Mel, or where to go…everything's so scary, all of the sudden…"

He blinked, and realized that in this darkness, he couldn't tell whether his eyes were covered or not: it was all the same.

"I don't know what to do…I need you, Mel…but you're not with me, anymore…"

Tears managed their way to his eyes, but in the blackness, they didn't irritate him.

"I need help, Mel…I don't like living without you, and I don't like it here…I don't like Gomora; I want you…I need help, Mel; please, please, help me…just some way…"

He squeezed the sheets beneath him as his voice broke, and he sniffed.

"Please, please, please, Mel…", he begged, alone in the room.
"Just…give me some sign…anything; just let me know that you're there…that I'm not alone…please…"

On the other end of the room, the front door clicked as it was unlocked.
For no reason other than not wanting to be found crying, Niki quickly rolled over onto his side, away from the door and squeezed his eyes shut.
The door opened quietly, and for a few seconds, light from the hallway streamed into the dark room, illuminating Niki – curled up on the couch and feigning sleep. He heard the door close again, and slow footsteps coming towards him. Breathing – it sounded like Gomora…and smelled a bit like alcohol.

"Oh no, please don't let him be drunk", Niki pleaded inside of his head, hoping he wasn't shaking.
"Please don't let this porno-watching pervert be drunk and in the same room with me..."

Gomora' footsteps and breathing came closer, until he seemed to be right in front of the couch that Niki lay on. Niki, whilst still acting his hardest to be asleep, definitely detected a delicate waft of alcohol on Gomora, who seemed to be eyeing him with the night-vision that Niki didn't share. Momentarily, Niki wondered what his curled-up form would look like through a light-green tint, through the eyes of somebody who had recently consumed some kind of whiskey. Niki wondered what he was thinking – what purpose he was trying to realize by keeping Niki in his apartment, by allowing him to sleep on his couch. Surely he had, as every other Experiment in the lab, come to know and ostracize him – why be so nice to him, now?
Niki asked himself these questions to keep himself from fidgeting, as Gomora continued to stand over him.

"God, what does he want?", Niki asked himself, almost being gripped by anxiety.

He sensed Gomora move forward, towards him. He tensed himself, ready explode if Gomora touched him - …but he didn't.
He felt Gomora take hold of the second blanket that Niki had kicked away, and felt him lift it up to place back over his curled-up body, seemingly interpreting his coiled form as a sign of being cold.
Gomora then stood there for a minute more before moving away – Niki heard him walk over to the bathroom, where he heard water running and Gomora brushing his teeth. A short while later, he clicked off the light and headed into his bedroom, where Niki heard him jump onto his bed and settle into it with a groan;
"Oh, merciful maker…"

Niki didn't move until he was sure that Gomora was asleep: until he heard Gomora's snoring. He then rolled onto his back and opened his eyes again, staring into absolute darkness, and regarding the seemingly-benevolent gesture that Gomora had exhibited. True, it wasn't much, and it seemed as though Gomora was slightly drunk, but to cover Niki from the cold was…well, nice of him.
Perhaps…Gomora didn't harbor any dark intentions about inviting Niki to stay with him. Though Niki didn't want to jump his chances too early, he considered the idea that Gomora truly was only trying to be…nice.
He rolled onto his side and hung an arm over the edge of the couch to stroke the smooth surface of the urn, and sighed heavily.

"I love you, Mel", he whispered sadly, lying back down onto his back.
"…Sleep tight…"


"I'll be the nightmare waking you up, from the dream of a dream of love"
'Vampire Heart', HIM
(A/N: just so that y'all know, I think the lyric above goes along fine with the chapter, and what may be to come…
Gomora's entrance into the story turned out a bit differently than I had expected – the scenario was the same, but note that Gomora tends to show off and even lose his cool around Niki…he's not as smooth as he appeared in the first chapter, is he? Oh well; I've got time to develop…
I'm a bit worried about this chapter, though - some of it seemed rushed to me, and, after writing it, I thought the conversation that Niki had inside of his mind was a bit silly to put into words...let me know if I did okay, alright?
I take some delight in making Gomora's music-of-choice death metal (you'll learn about his liking to it later), for the simple fact that most people seem to know very little about it. Though none of the bands nor the lyrics consciously that I created in this chapter pertain or belong to any non-fictional group, you get a basic idea of what death metal is all about – noise, violence, and trying to make you sick to your stomach. The fictional band Manotaur Skull is most likely an extraterrestrial rendition of the real-life band Cannibal Corpse. I urge anybody with a liking or interest in death metal to check out Corpse, Six Feet Under, or Morbid Angel (the fictional groups Killer Trog and Nox Draconus may pertain to the heavy and black metal genres; I recommend Children of Bodom and Cradle of Filth). Other music-wise-related subjects include the fictional "pop diva" 'Yentirb Areliuga' – forgive me for having done so, but she was created by spelling 'Britney' and 'Aguilera' (yes, I know they're two different people) backwards – sorry to fans of their music.
Thank-you to all who took the time to R&R my last chapter – I'll work hard again to try and get the next one up ASAP.
See y'all again soon!)

(PS: I do not own Cannibal Corpse, Six Feet Under, Morbid Angel, Children of Bodom, Cradle of Filth, a band named Gomora, Britney Spears, or Christina Aguilera – that might be considered slavery, or at least unjust indenturement)