Part 2: Kaiju In America

Chapter VI: Alien Presence
Aaron opened his eyes to glaring light. Wincing, he immediately shut his eyes. Reflexively, he went to turn his head...
And couldn't!
Panic suddenly took over his senses, and he began to squirm around. Restraints bound his head, legs and arms.
I have a bad feeling about this, he thought to himself with a frown. Why had they suddenly tied him up? Hospitals didn't do that. Was it because of the contact he had had with the monster? But he hadn't been the only one, Jess had been there too. Maybe she's nearby.
"Jess? Jessica?" Aaron called out, his eyes slowly adjusting to the intense light that shined from large fixtures high above him.
An Asian face suddenly came into his view, thankfully blocking the light from Aaron's eyes.
"Konnichi wa, Keller-san. How are you feeling?" The man asked him in a heavily accented voice.
"A bit restrained." He tried to joke, still squirming in his bonds. "What's going on here? This isn't the hospital."
"You are correct." The man nodded with a slight smile. "You are in my facility, and will soon become a part of my greatest project ever."
"What?" Aaron winced instantly, feeling the strange pain returning. "What project? Why me?!"
"Your contact with the alien substance down in the Antarctica crater has change the front lobe of your brain. You've been gifted."
"My WHAT?!" Aaron shouted at him. "Nothing had better've messed with my head!"
"Ah, but trust me, Keller-san. The change couldn't have happened at a better time."
He winced against the pain that suddenly began to flood into his head. "What the hell are you talking about? What change? Lemme' GO, you psycho!"
"Telepathy..."


Aaron knew he had blacked out. He was floating, floating in nothing, the sky. A sky. Below him was a strange, lush, tropical landscape. The trees and plants, they didn't look like anything from Earth. Luminescent blossoms shot up from their treetop perches, bathing in the reddish light of the two nearby moons, so close that they looked like they were crashing to the planets surface. Haunting calls came from the floor of the forest, sending shivers up Aaron's spine. It's just a dream, just a dream, he told himself, gazing at the landscape below.
And just as quickly screamed.
The small, dinosaur-like head shot up through the trees and stared at him.
Aaron screamed again. Tried to swim through the thick, humid air. But he could move, couldn't even fall!
-Mother! Mother!- The creature moaned below.
Mother?! He could hear, sense in his head, what the creature was saying?! Of course, Aaron laughed at himself. This is my dream. If I want there to be talking to monsters, I can!
"Hello there!" Aaron waved, deciding to be jovial about the whole thing.
The creature turned its head towards Aaron, and he could catch the sight of the long, scorpions tail arching slightly out of the foliage.
For a second, it watched him, and then turned back towards the moons. -Mother, I'm calling! Mother!-
Even in dreamscape, Aaron's heart was going out to the little guy. Fear was instantly gone, what real damage could this creature do him here?
"It's all right." He called down to the strange creature. Why is it so smaller in my dreams? Aaron wondered to himself.
-Mother! I'm scared, where is my mother?- the beast continued to moan, so sad, so deep that Aaron could feel tears rising with the lump in his throat.
"Shhhh, relax. It's ok. I'll help you find you're mother, okay? I'm sure she's nearby."
It blinked twice. -Must find mother.-


"Damnit, I'm trying!" One of the doctors shouted at Ikeda, trying to control the restrained man's convulsing body by putting all his weight on it.
"Give him more sedatives!" Ikeda hollered back.
"He's OD'ed as it is! Anymore might kill him!"
"The alien will kill him for sure if you don't! He's my project and I'm paying you, so do it!"
"He's a human!" The doctor shouted back. "You don't own him! You can't control a human being like this!"
Ikeda snarled at the man, pulling out a small hand gun from the inside of his jacket. The doctor stared at him in horror as Ikeda pulled the trigger. The shot rang loudly in the cavernous warehouse, silencing everyone but Keller and his convulsing body. Everyone close enough watched as the doctor held the blood-seeping wound in his chest before slowly collapsing to the floor. No one moved to help, no one dared.
"Give him more sedatives." Ikeda growled to the nearest doctor.
"Yes sir."
"Sir!" Another scientist came running up to Ikeda, pushing wire-rimmed glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. "The baby Tsunagara, we're getting strange brain-wave readings from it and Mr.Keller."
"Sir! I think it's awakening!" Shouted another man from a nearby work station before Ikeda could reply.


She could feel him now, responding to her. But he wasn't alone. Something else was with him, smaller, yet just as powerful. In her mind, she called out to him, -I am here, I am coming, Young One.-
He called back, a bright burst of colors. He wasn't scared anymore, wasn't alone.
There was another ray of colors, from the Other, scared, confused, but helping her young one.
She was in its debt.


Home was gone now, so was the Other above him. He could touch mother's mind, and it was thanks to the Other.
Mewing in happiness, he went to swing his tail...
He suddenly cried out in frustration. Why couldn't he move? Where was he? So many, many strange things below and above him, the suns blinding him....
Panicking, he pushed up with his enormous legs. Things held him in place, pushed him back down. Again he tried, crying out louder. There was a snapping sound, followed by another, and another. With an ear-shattering cry, he shrieked in triumph, climbing to all four feet, swinging over grown arms around.
Loud sounds and small points of pain began to erupt against his hide, and he began to cry out in pain as tiny shots of fire ran through his being. Looking down, he could see many Others running around screaming, some pointing strange things at him. Small licks of fire erupted from these. The source of pain!
Mewing in annoyance, he swung one of his arms acrossed the cold, hard ground that really wasn't ground, scattering many of the Others near him.
Pain was suddenly coming from his other side, and he swung his neck around to target them...
-Other?- he mewed, taking a step forwards.
It was the familiar Other, from Home. It wasn't moving, wasn't floating above him anymore. This time, the Other was in pain.
He slowly closed the lids to his eyes, releasing a long, low moaning from deep inside his throat. The Other began to calm down, the shadows in his mind not so dark anymore.
He needed the Other. It promised to help find mother.

Aaron woke up, a horrible headache still lingering at the edge of his mind. His eyes were still shut, sounds and sensations bombarding his senses. What the hell was going on? What had that quack told him before he blacked out? Telepathy? Wasn't that mind reading or something?
What the hell have you done to me?
Opening his eyes, a doctor stood over him, releasing his restraints. He was saying something, his mouth moving, and yet Aaron couldn't hear a word he was saying. Or, maybe, he couldn't understand?
He felt so strange, like he was looking at himself through someone else's eyes and senses, but still in the inside looking out, and yet again as if he were in another place altogether.
Jess, where are you? Was all he could think about as darkness shrouded his senses once again.