Their party sprinted through unyielding underbrush, stumbling and falling in any desperate attempt to flee from quakes coming closer. Each quake accompanied by the song of the tripod engine.
"Buildings ahead! Stay close!" Webb shouted through forestry. The warped woods were a jungle, separating the twelve relentlessly. Their only goal to escape. Lilja slowed her pace as the rest ran ahead. She was still nestled in the woods canopy shrouding her above. Yet, she could still catch the tripod head peer over the treetops. It was not equipped with the infamous laser beams they had grown to fear. It bore the same cages on the back of its head like the one she destroyed near Whistler Valley. However, not the weapons. It was smaller in size to that one. Out of the many different tripods she had seen, this one was a collector not built for warfare. A gatherer. With that in mind, she acted on an impulse.
Shiva ran ahead with the others, but her sights kept swiping back to make sure everyone was accounted for. Everyone.
"Lilja?!"
She stopped and panicked, "Lilja?! Lil! Shit!"
"Where is she?!" Riley stopped with her, letting the refugees and soldiers run ahead. No words exchanged after that, Riley and Shiva shared a kindred glare and sped back into the forest. As they ran closer to the sound of danger, that sound whirred and screeched. Large crashes of earth following swiftly with every strain of tripod engine. The horn tried to wail a distress call, but immediately shorted out and faded, like it was being crushed from the inside. They came into an opening of trees. The red vines being torn and thrown under the three colossal feet of the machine. It towered overhead, its' search light fixed on Lilja. Yet, it strained and jolted, trying to move forward but an invisible force keeping it back.
Lilja held her arms up to the behemoth, a stressed cry threw from her. A wrestle between herself and the machine. Riley saw a repeat of the night prior, as if Lilja's acts of recklessness was intent on fulfilling her sacrifice. He wouldn't have it.
"Do something," he croaked, pulling himself and Shiva into the tree line, "Shiva!"
"Wait!" Shiva wasn't as pessimistic. She stayed hopeful Lilja could bring it down.
Suddenly it stalled its advances. Taking a moment to assess, then plowing its might against Lilja's resistance. Unlike the night prior. The night at Whistler. Even the times in New York and D.C, Lilja's rage didn't retaliate. No fear, sadness, or desperation. A nothingness that made her surrender. The pain walloped through her veins, and she fell back.
"No!" Shiva yelped as its tentacle wove along Lilja's waist. It pulled her off the blooded ground like a plaything. "Lilja!"
Riley cried, "Shiva! Do something, now!"
In a desperate attempt to stall it, Shiva conjured one mirage. Not a fleeing crowd, not an obstacle. Just as it felt to watch Lilja taken by the tripod, the ground would fall out from the machine's feet. An utter collapse of reality that she and her kin had only felt since their brutal arrival, but quite literally. As the tripod throttled back, nearly falling, it dropped Lilja in a panic on forest floor. Her body slapped to ground with no care, like a rag doll tossed in the gutter. The red vines painted her skin and clothes, but it did not wake her. Riley ran against the throws of ground from the tripod – which was far too preoccupied in the illusion Shiva had created to notice. His only mission was to snatch Lilja before the tripod ignorantly stepped on her.
As he did, it nearly stepped on them together. He maneuvered and dodged the feet, equal in size to a two story building, themselves. The quake tossed himself and Lilja on the ground, before fighting to stand and sprinting towards Shiva.
"Go! Go! Go!" He barked past her, throwing Lilja over his shoulder. Shiva released the mirage to ache at her forehead from the intensity of the illusion, and darted behind Riley. It wasn't long before the quakes of the tripod started to speed in chase. An anger in its pursuit where each step a far more ferocious throw of earth. Trees were heard ripping from ground like weeds. An ungodly thrash only gaining closer behind them. They made it out the tree line to a farmland. Barns and a house. The three fled inside it, praying the machine didn't see them retreat.
The engine whir came closer as the front door slapped closed. Another home abandoned. No power or owners. However, they did see a few of their party hiding inside it. It was to be assumed Webb led them there. Riley rallied in the guilt he may have led the tripod to their hiding place unintentionally. Then the search light started to peer through the living room windows. Shiva ran and hid in a cupboard under the stairs. Riley carried Lilja to a hiding behind a bedroom door. He saw Darla inside the room and silently but sternly pointed for her to hide under the bed. Then the tripod started to power down, sending waves of a crying engine through the home before shuddering silence. Silence that carried the fragility of their safety for too long. Leaving all in a harrowed weight of nothing but the worst possible thoughts.
Then a crash through glass from the living room. At first, Webb judged it to be a tentacle, but it was something far different. A probe with the likeness of an eye, yet behaving like a camera. It extended and warped through the home with the body of a snake, looking behind furniture, appliances and corners. Trying to find any form of life. Veins of gilded light along the body would loom and fade, glowing brighter the more the probe advanced through the home. It carried a hovering, monotonous hum, loud enough it could be heard as it gained closer. It neared the corner of O'Malley and Stamos by the kitchen. The two shifted through the living room as it reared its gaze just behind. Like a game of hide and seek that was life or death, soldiers snuck and changed spots to keep out of eye view of the probe. Each step in precision. Each take of breath cautious. No sound or room for error. Scarlet and Robbie, under the stairs of the basement, tirelessly tried to keep Jack silent. Even pressing their hands into his mouth to muffle weeps. Shiva cracked the door under the stairs, seeing the probe and its fishing. She realized now, the only thing stopping the tripod from crushing the home into rubble was the hope Lilja was inside. Just as she said, these creatures needed her alive.
You're not taking her, she burned to think it.
Riley could hear the hum come closer to their bedroom, and he needed an out. He shifted with Lilja to the closet, closing the door behind them. It made an audible click, quickening the probes arrival into the room. He could hear the breath of Darla start to carry weight under the bed. He clenched his teeth. No way to tell her to stop and no way to save her now, the probe started its journey under the bed frame. Just as it had, he saw Darla slide out from under the bed. Her high heels left there as she tiptoed over the serpent body and scurried out to the hallway. He tried not to exhale in relief, but the probe was not done surveying the room yet. The eye came to focus in on the closet door, zooming in through the shutter door spaces. He pressed himself against the wall – holding Lilja against his chest. Her face pressed and held into his shoulder as much as he could, like he could take her into himself. He stopped his breath. The eye studied longer, gaining closer to their side of the wall. His breath held to its near threshold when a thunk echoed from the kitchen. The eye twirled out the room and went to investigate, finally allowing Riley to take in air.
Lilja cracked her eyes open then, barely awake and too weak to move, "Riley…?"
"Shh." He hissed, "Don't move. Don't speak. Be quiet."
The headache and fatigue was far too much to recognize what was happening, and Lilja swiftly fell in an out of consciousness.
The sound in the kitchen a distraction from Stamos to leer the eye from Riley and Lilja, but now the soldiers were vulnerable. They continued to swap places, keeping their fronts to the back of the eye at all times. Webb was an older man, but he still maintained a level of stealth. Even sneaking clear under the body of the probe to retreat into the living room.
As soon as the eye exercised that its query was not inside the home, it started to extract out the building. Just as it neared the point of entry from the living room window, David had accidentally backed into the walkway closet a bit too much, causing a broom to fall handle to floor. The thunk of plastic hitting wood alerted the probe, sending David into a howling wail as he sprinted from the closet and to the back door. Just as he had, a tentacle thrusted through another plane of glass in pursuit. It gripped his ankle and thrown him face first into the floor. It pulled the screaming man mercilessly, where many inside the home were doomed to listen and watch. However, O'Malley and Stamos leapt from their spots to grab his arms and pull him back. Exposing themselves, they'd sacrifice their own lives for the life of a civilian. Soon, Brantley followed suit, then Webb grabbed a cleaver from the kitchen to sever the limb, itself. The pull and strain of the tripod limb was immense, nearly stronger than all three of the men's persistence. Webb's hacking at the weave of the tentacle finally released it – spurting an orange, foreign liquid from the opening of the mechanism. Not at all organic, but almost in likeness.
Webb hollered as he dropped the cleaver to the floor, "Everyone! Back door, now! Run! All of you!!"
Riley pushed through the closet door with Lilja back over his shoulder, Shiva jumped from the wardrobe under the stairs. Scarlet carried Jack up the flight of steps from the basement with Robbie in hot pursuit. All twelve pushed through the back door in a panicking, sprinting convoy. Webb waited at the door for every face he knew to pass by. His voice a thunderous crack that rivalled the tripod starting to power up in front of the home. As soon as Scarlet, Jack, and Robbie ran last, Webb sprinted behind his people into a tree line.
The tripod was back in drive, the quake of its chase rumbling the red, veinous earth once more. Back into thick forests, their twelve scattered into splinters. The sun hiding behind thick, scarlet clouds made the forests almost as dark as night. It was a confusing, disorienting, and perilous escape. The sharp edges of branches ripping their clothes and coursing blood down their cheeks. The red weed fixing to pull their feet into a trap. Trees started to uproot and bend as the tripod reached their hiding ground. The search light peering through gaps of forest so bright it was blinding. Robbie fought with Scarlet to keep up, but the screams of Jack brought the blinding search light over them swift.
Shiva ran with Riley and Lilja a yard ahead of Scarlet and Robbie. She horrified to see the tripod's attention on them, stalling her sprint to scream, "No!"
Scarlet was blinded by the light, tripping into the muck of bogs. Jack still wailing against her shoulder. Robbie pulled her up, "Come on! Run! Scarlet!"
"Robbie, take him! Take him!"
He couldn't. He saw the limb of the tripod soon to grab Scarlet and Jack, and he froze. Taking Jack would leave Scarlet to her fate. Not doing anything would leave them both. In the internal fight for Scarlet's life or his own, he made his choice. The faces of his father and sister flashed one last time. One last farewell. Robbie pushed the two with strength unkind and unwavering – sending both Scarlet and Jack out of the light and hard into the forest floor from the limb's snare. In that push, he took Scarlet and Jack's place. The limb wove around his torso, taking him up into the air. Into the wail of the tripod engine and the ruthless light.
Scarlet cried, "Robbie!"
In a moment, Riley turned himself around to see Robbie's scream fade into the treetops, his scream not greater than the blaring of the engine. His promise to protect him crumbling away as tears burned in his eyes. Shiva wailed a horrified cry, watching the tripod turn back from the forest with him still carried in the limb. His body the size of an ant in comparison. Shiva ran to Scarlet and Jack, tears coursing down her cheeks. Riley remained still, his will to continue only for the teenage girl over his shoulder. He still stared to the skies as the tripod continued its' oppressive march with the other teen of their pack. The shuddering reality it had happened was still registering, breaking him more and more. The weight of his loss the absolute failure.
She was weak, but Lilja could still hear, could still think. She knew what happened and tried to convince herself it was not a bad dream. This was no manifesting of her mind. That Robbie was taken and she could have stopped it. That she wasted her energy on stalling the adversary instead of seeking their protection. His protection.
A single tear dipped down her closed eye. What followed after was weak, slurred ramblings as she tried to recollect her consciousness. She fought through the paralysis of her body to do something. Anything.
"No…" She groaned, "Give him back…" Lilja pushed off Riley, shaking him from his shock as she slid off his shoulder.
"Lil!"
She slapped on the ground, thrusting her legs forward before her body was ready. She fell again. Riley tried to grab her, but she moaned and cried in a fight from him. Her tears falling as her vision slowly returned to the red forests. Shiva, Scarlet, and Jack ahead. The machine in the sky with her boy. The boy that gave her all the flutters and smiles. That made her feel human. Her light. It was taking him away like a jealous, brattish child. Not even comprehending the incomprehensible value of the one it stole. The desperation it was invoking in her. Lilja mewled again, "Give… him… back."
Not him. Please do not take him. How dare you. How dare all of you. He does not belong to you!
Lilja was filled in a panic that flurried her sluggish gait through the vines in a panting weep. Riley tried to catch up, his voice yelling her name fading into the monotonous background.
None of us belong to you! You treat us like animals! Livestock! You! You're the animals!
Lilja started to slowly jog in a chase as the tripod made its way from the trees. Stomping through the barn and home indifferently with Robbie still screaming in its limb. She passed Scarlet and Shiva, with Shiva animating from the two and racing for Lilja.
"Lilja, stop!"
"No!" She cried, her voice falling into chokes. "Give… him back!" Lilja's unsteady race started to speed the more the panic festered. The farther the tripod went with Robbie, she would not relent. The wallop in her head from the fatigue was now burning in white hot rage. In shattering sadness. In the strongest feeling she had ever felt, all resonated from the boy it stole. The feeling that would embody every compass of her being and crumble the world behind her – with her indifferently moving onward. As long as that boy harboured an island among the perilous dark. As long as he was woven in the safety she would sacrifice everything to give him. That safety was now threatened, and like a primal urge, she would not relent.
Just as the tripod went to throw Robbie back into the cage he had hoped to escape and never see again, a pull thrusted the limb from the basket. It pulled at the start of the limb from the body of the machine. Robbie throttled against the momentum, his stomach reached his chest. He screamed again, kicking and wrestling with the constriction along his waist. He would rather die by a hundred foot fall than whatever was in store for him inside the ship. He wrestled so desperately he did not see that the tripod was starting to grow stiff in movement. He'd jostle and shake in its hold as the tripod stiffened, each movement a restriction pushing its colossal frame backwards. Even so, it stubbornly held onto Robbie.
Lilja stood at the foot of the forest. Her nose dripping blood, her skin pale and cold as ice, and all her veins dark and bruised. Her black and bloodshot eyes seared into the sight of the tripod, both hands held high and commanding its compliance. A tug of war for the boy. For Robbie.
Lilja unleashed all her rage into power. The pain enough it would have quelled all her strength hours ago, but not now. Now that power had fuel fit to burst. Desperate and screaming. She roared as it threw from her like a punch, "Give him back!!"
The tripod's feet tilled yards of earth as it was pulled back. It tried to cycle the three legs to escape Lilja's snare, but her pull was unforgiving. It was beyond recoil. Like prey, it panicked and tried to worm away, but each attempt futile against her calamity. Robbie, beyond confused and terrified, clung to the limb now against the throw of her pull – whipping him around like a toy. Then the limb finally released him against far greater fish to fry.
Robbie screamed in his free fall to ground, but just before his body impacted, it jolted and hovered him in an invisible force. His fall was cushioned by Lilja's abilities, and just a few feet from the ground, he was dropped into the red vines. He greeted it with a pained grunt and immediately scrambled to his feet – seeing for himself the loud, screeching mechanic whir of the tripod struggle was Lilja reeling it back.
Robbie's life spared, it was still not given the luxury to retreat. It turned its three lights to glare down at Lilja. What would be such an insignificant life before it, in size and species, Lilja knew it was shivering in fear. No lasers to defend itself, it tried its' distress call again. Lilja clenched her fist into the air like she was squeezing down its' windpipe. The horn had a moment to wail before sullying into a hum. Then it went to swat her away with a limb, only for her to throw her two arms up in a roar, sending a wave of energy like a thunderous punch into the upside of its head. It threw back, its weight shaking the earth. It managed to catch balance before toppling backwards. Lilja could hear the wails of the people inside of the cages. She used that time to dislodge one cage as the tripod was hunched over. The fall landing into the remains of the home. Before the tripod could stand up straight, she pulled it down to the ground again in another blood-pulsing scream – dislodging the other cage that fell to safety. With no other reserves keeping her from exacting revenge, all that harnessed rage became such a valuable asset. It screamed through her lungs, her power, her being, grappling onto the colossal's head and tearing it off the body into the air. Its three legs flaccidly folded over land as the head soared with a thrust of wind before crashing to the tree line. All the rage from the red vines, the refugees lost in Chester, the lab – coming back like a beast she could finally tame and use for her own gain. Any power like that exalted would have dropped her unconscious days ago. Now she hunched over in a fight with fatigue and a throbbing headache, still taming that rage that hadn't had it's fill.
The rouse of panicking people escaping the cages fled into the background. The fire catching by the mutilated tripod remains. Not even the calling of her name as Shiva and Riley came from the tree line. Slowly, but surely, they were joined by the other eight survivors. The only thing that brought her back from the blur were hands on her shoulder.
"Lilja?!"
She jolted to Robbie's touch, and he flinched away. His voice and presence wasn't nearly as alarming as the flinch of fear, bringing tears to Lilja's eyes. She was beyond relieved he was okay. Yet, her heart shattered to know he was still afraid of her. And it's my fault.
Then words mewled from her in a soft weep, "I'm sorry… I never should have shown you that. What happened in the lab… I know I'm a monster. I'm so sorry."
"I'm not scared of you." He assured, letting his fold of his hands on her upper arms course down to her own. His light eyes swelling in tears. "You're not a monster. You're my hero."
Suddenly, Lilja was pulled into an embrace that froze her stiff. Robbie's shredded jacket fabric in her cheek. Instead of shying or fighting from it, she let it indulge for a moment longer. Soon melting into his embrace in a silent cry. The first hug in years, a hug that truly meant something. Breaking down all the barriers she had built before herself and others. Him, especially. She had to accept her distance from him was not the saving of his life, but her feelings that had grown quite uncontrollably in the small time she had known him. Only growing stronger with everyday passing, radically in his arms. Her fight came from feeling.
"Lilja!" Shiva ran to her then, weaving her into her arms just as Robbie released. Much to Shiva's surprise, Lilja returned it. "Oh my God… you're fucking incredible, look what you did!" She gestured excitedly to the decapitated remains of the Goliath that people were fleeing from. Far exceeding the amount of what she saved in Whistler. Another ode of payment for a debt that could never be repaid, but she'd be damned not to try.
Webb watched the survivors flee into the forests, creating their own units of survival. Perhaps units that had already been created inside the oppression of the cages. Those who chose to join their own were welcome, yet Lilja's show of strength had far overwhelmed them. The collection of the original twelve did not leave to join the others, they knew their safety was instilled in the protection of the girl among the wreckage. They wouldn't dare abandon that blessing.
Riley ran up to Robbie, "Hey! Kid! You alright?! Jesus, you get hurt?"
"I'm fine," sighed Robbie. "I think I got… pretty bad whiplash and obvious PTSD, but I'm fine."
Riley made a gruff chuckle, slapping his shoulder. "You're supposed to run from the tripod, not leap towards it."
Then Scarlet broke out as she held Jack in her arms, "He saved me, he saved Jack. Wasn't for him, I'd shudder to think where we'd be. At least you have your guardian angel looking out for you." She winked, referring to Lilja, who had her stern sights to the head of the tripod a yard away. It was starting to catch fire, but a mechanical shift was happening at the underbelly. A release of steam, then burst of orange liquid jolted the survivors in shock.
"What the hell?" Stamos irked, grabbing the strap for his gun. Their collective walked up to the head cautiously, watching in disturbance as the orange film continued to cake the soil. An opening pulsed with a form of something foreign. It went with the thrust of liquid over the ground, causing the soldiers to draw their weapons on instinct. Lilja lightly pulled Robbie back. She and Riley went ahead, trying to get a look at what it was. Internally, they knew what it was but horrified to have it confirmed.
A gangly, ill-favoured creature started to curdle from the muck. Its form beyond their world. A resemblance to the very machines they coveted. For the first time in nightmarish days with only guesses and worst predictions, they were finally face to face with the mind behind the intent. The reason behind the insurmountable death, suffering, and theft of their world. The creator of the red vines. The monster.
Even Lilja was not prepared for the reveal. She could see into their minds. Into their apathy and coolness. But their appearance far outweighed whatever she could imagine. They were amphibian with large bulging black eyes. Their skin an ash grey, slick in otherworldly mucous. Three limbs, two in front, and one long and central to push forward and back, to their tail end. As well as small limbs to their chest – much like the tendrils their machines used to ensnare humans. Their head a large, profound arc, much like their machines, as well. As far as they could recall it was likeness to a squid, but even that was a stretch. It was a bit larger than they were, but on all three limbs like the size of an elk or moose. As it started to straighten and stand, it hunched lower in a threatened stance as humans surrounded it. It was definitely intelligent enough to know the guns they possessed and aimed were lethal.
As it inched closer, Riley barked a thunderous alert, "Hey!" He nudged the gun closer, making it heel and gutturally growl. Riley's way of telling it not to move. Despite the unnerving reveal of the creature, it was empowering to finally be face to face. A battleground that should have been in the first place. That the hiding in their death machines was no longer a salvation.
O'Malley cursed, "Shoot the goddamn thing, Kenneth."
"The least it deserves, it executed our own. That and so much worse," growled Shiva, squeezing down on Lilja's shoulder in worry.
Despite the apathy, Lilja could register its fear. Knowing not so long ago she too was once an apathetic and unfeeling thing. It strained her to think it, but she took pity. She pulled on Riley's arm, then. "Wait!"
He hissed, "Lilja!"
"Please," she insisted sadly, "Just wait."
As Lilja stepped forward, the creature raised its head. Out of curiosity or something more it followed Lilja and her only. Her face sunk into the pale, vacant pallor that would conform only when her abilities would stir. Her eyes nearly taking the black of the creature, in turn. As she had, it's eyes got even darker. The ashy skin turned pearl white, nearly transparent. A connection formed in silence before their very eyes. Lilja gingerly sought into it's mind, looking for some kind of intention. A peaceful surrender. A reason. As she had, an open communication was deliberate in their end. The creature wanted to speak. In the only way it knew how. Encountering the first human who understood their language. Telepathy.
Lilja took this want in encouragement, even kneeling down a little to show she was no longer a threat if it wasn't. In that encouragement, she let it in. Slowly, Lilja's pale face started to wince. Her heart rate thumped. Her knelt position stood back up in a shiver. The response she received curdling, that the creature knew what she was. That they all knew what she was. The killer of their kind. An infamous monster. A prized bounty. Something to be taken and torn apart. Treated with little regard as her mind was the only value. And in that mind, they would dissect all her secrets – taking her for themselves. Stripping her abilities and sharing them among each other like common wealth. Only to conquer and subjugate the human race further. They wanted her power. When Lilja fought against it, it was like a flood of thousands upon thousands joined in. Thousands of these creatures all tuned in to the same communication all direly wanting the same thing. Power.
She tried to fight from the link but it held her captive. Much like her telepathy would take knowledge against the host's will, she was now subjected to their swimming in her mind. Lilja fought away, but they pulled her back. She wailed a horrified cry, causing Shiva and Robbie to dart to her in concern. Then the creature leapt to her in a roar, sending the refugees and Lilja screaming. She rammed into Shiva in horror before gunshots ripped through the air. Riley's rifle flew it back into the orange substance like a fish on land. He kept shooting until the load was spent, then rammed another in spite and kept shooting it's flaccid, lifeless corpse till he had his fill. The screams of the refugees died, and the panic of the soldiers settled into disturbance. All their eyes glanced in unease to Lilja. Her hold of Shiva trembling as she sobbed into her chest. Robbie on her other side consoling his hand down her arm, but his eyes wide in shock to the dead monster.
As moments of unnerved silence went, Riley asked in a grit of his voice to Lilja, "What did it say?"
She hadn't the heart to say. The terror was still too near. The hate. The malice. The evil. A terrible species that were all unified as if they were one thing. One organism. A truly ungodly and terrible force that only sought to destroy and subjugate. A pit that could never be slaked. After their planet was reaped, they would find another. The cycle never ending. Yet, they thought so kindred to humans. They knew so much of them. Even then, they had no empathy. Worse still, they would never stop.