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Castle Oblivion

Chapter One: Promise of Big Payoff

By Made in DNAPublished 2 years ago Updated about a year ago 16 min read
16
Castle Ryutsue / Original content by Midjourney

The scream is the most delectable part of the feast.

— The HoloScrolls of Ryutsue

The lighting of the cramped bridge of the Kaveri flickered with a nervous air, reflecting the mood of the crew. Not just the interior lighting but the instrument panels, indicators and front viewscreen as well. For great, breath-stopping spans, utter chill soaked into the bones of the five persons aboard each time they were plunged into darkness.

Adding to that distress, to reach their destination, they had been forced to plunge blindly into an immense pseudo-matter shield that absorbed all light. A negative-space defense mechanism protecting the soul of an ancient civilization lost for millennia on the edge of a lifeless strip of solar systems — the void-fortress of Empress Ryutsue.

Helpless but to stare out into the abyss, Ajay cursed. Any haul worth its weight was balance by protective measures; that was a given. He and his crew of salvage specialists had tackled any number of such setups. But power dropouts while navigating blind... If there was trouble, there was no one to call on to save them. He pounded his fist on his armrest.

As if in retaliation, the ship bucked violently, bouncing everyone in their seats. Only their harnesses saved them from eating the overhead in a buffet of crushed skulls.

"Yo, Boss, Take it easy. Try not to jinx it." Brandt, the lanky man with slicked-back hair in the pilot's seat protested. His fingers raced across the flat console, pulling up stabilizer and dampener controls in an effort to lessen the effects of the shielding. He understood Ajay's anxiety. His own stomach was in revolt and was plenty eager to voice its disapproval at the heavy disturbance they were encountering.

"Can't you even keep the lights on?" Ajay glared.

"It's not the ship," said Jobelle, a red-headed tech with a splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose and upper cheeks. "The shielding is alive. I can feel it," her voice grew soft with a hint of agitation. She peered into the shadows around her seat as if expecting to see something.

"Stow the superstitious drivel," reverberated the grill set in Dietz's throat. The fourth member of the crew sat with stoic ease in his seat. His face was a smooth, unliving mask of flesh, the result of surgery replacing all nerve-endings and muscle with an underlying support structure. "Were you expecting this, Doctor?"

The ship jolted again, rattling everyone's teeth. All four heads turned to the fifth passenger, a small woman with jet-black shoulder-length hair that billowed over her down-turned face. Doctor Luna Domeki, cultural archaeologist and expedition benefactor.

Luna was hunched down over her left hand, rubbing and scratching at the palm with the thumb of her right. It itched like hell and everything up to just past her wrist was swathed in immense pressure, as if someone were yanking on it. The unease had begun not long after the ship had entered the local system and grew as they closed on the castle, as if the structure itself had ahold of her and refused to let go.

As child she had dreamed of finding the castle. As an adult she had worked all her life to get here; had been driven to come. Now that she was swiftly approaching her destination though, she wanted to be anywhere else in the universe but here.

Another jolt and the ship began making an awful noise. A very specific, awful noise.

"Inverter field!" Brandt yelped. "I’m cutting the engines!"

"I told you!" Jobelle swiveled to face her tactical console, her fingers dancing across the panel, digging deep into the commands and options in hopes that she could find something, anything that might salvage the situation. Fruitless effort though it was, it beat sitting and waiting for a gruesome death. She growled through gritted teeth. "Brandt, turn the ship around."

"Doctor?" Ajay called to Luna trying to keep the worry out of his voice. Had he been wrong to take this woman at her word? She hadn't seemed like a complete nutjob in the seven months since they'd come to know each other; her background, everything she had told him and all the data she'd presented had checked out. He had chosen to believe her despite how obviously fantastic her story was. Of course, part of him wanted to believe her. Who wouldn't? Long lost fortresses on the edge of known space loaded with all the loot they could carry away? It was too good to pass up. It remained to be seen though, could she get them through, or was she going to get them all killed?

Hunched over, Luna was in her own little world; obsessed with her hand. He didn’t blame her. Some people didn’t deal well with stress. She held it close, rubbing it, or perhaps trying to clean it? Past sins? "Our movement toward the target has released latent energy woven into the shielding, Luna. Are you hearing me? The threshold of kinetic energy will tighten until we are crushed."

"Seven minutes until we lose structural integrity," Brandt warned. His face glistened with sweat. He wanted to answer Jobelle's entreaty. If they turned around now, he predicted they had a better than sixty percent chance of survival. He wasn't ready to cross Ajay though. "Boss?"

Luna heard their voices. Heard their pleas. Heard their fear. Sensed an underlying cauldron of frustration ready to boil over into anger. But she could not take her eyes off her palm. It was burning now and the black outline of something beneath her skin was taking shape. A sigil… or a crest?

Ajay frowned. No matter how much a client paid — and the good doctor had paid well enough — he kept himself beyond discourtesy. It never resolved a situation. But they were out of time. He moved to her and took her wrist firmly, hoping she’d look up. "We’re in great danger unless you know how to circumvent—"

"The hell?" Jobelle straightened in her seat as she watched Ajay take the woman’s wrist. The faint smell of cooked flesh reached her nostrils. It would have been pleasant if she hadn't realized the source. Her stomach lurched. "Ajay!"

Looking up at Ajay with tear-streaked cheeks, Luna opened her mouth to speak but her tongue went numb, black spots flooded her vision and a pressure ballooned at the back of her skull. A deluge of images seared her brain. Leering faces. Terrible creatures. Ten thousands blades. Dishonor. Rage.

Luna screamed. All control of her body was lost as she flung herself forward and convulsed. If not for the harness, she would have smashed into the metal flooring.

Dietz dove for the lock on her harness, punching it with practiced expertise. "If she chokes, we die." The reverberation in his voice strangely placid.

Luna bounced to her feet unaided, standing ramrod straight, and knocking the two men back. Her rigid body trembled, the whites of her eyes filled her whole face, and her mouth moved with a soft, ghastly, meaty clicking.

Jobelle released her harness and grabbed Luna by the standing collar of her jumpsuit. "Snap out of it!" She unleashed a hard open-palm across the smaller woman's face, deflecting it to the side.

Without looking, the doctor returned the blow with an unnatural strength that knocked the tech back into and over her seat.

Recovering, Jobelle stood, murder in her eyes.

"Jobelle!" Ajay put himself between the two, using his bulk to hide Luna. "Business," he scowled, reminding the crew member of her obligation.

Luna took two mechanical footsteps forward, stumbled to her knees before the console and slapped her left palm to the reflective black surface.

The console flared to life like a sun gone nova — every touch button, indicator and holosplash — and grew in intensity until Brandt was forced to physically turn away. Command trills and freqcomm squawks raked a discordant din across everyone’s hearing. And the violence of the shielding returned, threatening to shatter the hull once and for all.

Ajay scrambled for Luna as her petite frame jerked and bounced viciously. How she kept her hand glued to the panel was anyone’s guess. Why she was doing it was still another, but he’d followed this woman too many light years across the galaxy to not follow through. Wrapping himself about her, he interlocked his legs through the console structure to keep her from harm. Holding fast, he pressed a big hand over hers on the flat, dark touch-paneling.

Heat shimmer rose from her entire body, causing his own to break out in a sweat that swam over him like a live thing threatening to swallow and carry him off to Stygian depths.

The clamor reached a crescendo, rising on a single harmonious, questioning note before dying away.

Luna raised her head, drool stringing from the corner of her open mouth. From the ship's speakers, a slow deep bass like whale song. Long and hollow it drifted over many octaves, the light pulsating to it until it finally ground out with a growling clicking and fading static.

Silence engulfed the ship as the adrenaline-soaked heartbeats of everyone aboard harmonized. The terrible tremors ceased. And soft light filled the cramped space.

Great ache and extreme exhaustion consumed Luna. Wanting nothing more than to sleep, she let herself go, expecting to hit the unforgiving metal flooring. When she didn’t, she felt the great weight that engulfed her. Ajay…

"Are you alright?" His soft query startled her.

"I-I’m sorry." A wave of shame washed over Luna. Her hubris and selfish desire had brought them all the brink of death.

She felt him shake his head and stand.

"No worries, it’s over."

If only she could agree with him. She made to stand but stumbled as a second series of rapid flashes burst through her mind’s eye. Coffins. Deception. Screams. Teeth. Ruin. No, it wasn’t over. Putting aside the inexplicable events of just moments ago, she understood now that something terrible awaited them. They should not have come here. Correction, she should not have led them here. What a fool she’d been. It would have been better if the defensive barrier had crushed them. She couldn’t in good conscience let these people continue on.

She struggled to catch her breath, doubled over on the floor. "Turn back. I’ll pay whatever you want. Just leave this place." Finding the strength, she used the console to push herself up and brace herself against it to face the crew. "Please."

Despite the crew’s near encounter with death just moments before, the bridge was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. In a way, it was more upsetting than the earlier panic and anger. Luna opened her mouth as the crew stepped toward her. So this is how it would be. She would at least make it right before they dispensed their justice. She opened her mouth to apologize to Jobelle in particular, but the woman followed the others in stepping past her. They were shunning her; she understood and accepted it.

Ajay broke into a grin so wide it filled her vision. "Doctor… your money is no longer good here." Placing his hands on her shoulders, he gently guided her to look out the forward viewscreen.

Luna’s breath fell away as a sweeping 100-km vista of a full-face relief loomed out of the cold depths of space. The dark avatar of a woman who had held a crushing grip on countless worlds: the Empress Ryutsue.

*****

The quantum ballast of the dead castle shuddered, jolting She from her deep slumber and bringing on a heavy brainfog. Her three sets of eye slits blinked sequentially, struggling to adjust. Flush against her reptilian head, their faceted surfaces glowed with a deep purple hue.

She uncurled, stretching her thick, muscled body, and scraped her rough armored skin against the soft, moist innards of the half-gutted biomech in search of a scream. It mewled weakly. She cocked her head. Not right.

She rubbed her home-cum-meal further, but it did not respond.

She flick-caressed its flesh-sheathed circuitry with her long, forked tongue. The foul tang of something off bit her taste buds. She skittered through the disabled warmachine testing various points. Food die? No die! Need scream! She raked her claws across its most vulnerable point near the engine-heart, but it did little more than whimper.

She bound out of the blackened hole in its shoulder, the one that had taken its arm and put it out of commission centuries ago. Crawling over the biomech’s large frame She flicked, tasted and then hissed upon discovery of the toxic thorn roots. Following their burrowed path through the rubble and ruin of the castle grounds She sighted a distant patch of nightshade bushes.

She spat at the bushes.

The biomech — home and feast for long years — would now die. Its screams leeched out of it.

A gardener appeared. Walking upright, it was all gangly limbs and pale flesh. The twisted bonsai that protruded upward and hung forward from its neck was almost too heavy for its sickly frame, forcing a jittery gait upon it.

She bolted at it, covering the ground between them before it realized it was in danger. Whipping her great tail at it, She knocked it high into the air and snatched it with extended jaws before it hit the ground.

The leaves atop the gnarled structure of its body squealed in delicious tones — vibrant, verdant, and virile. She shuddered, letting the screams soak her, nourish her. Holding her head up, She gulped the still living gardener down to the shoulders where the roots of the bonsai began. She felt its warming fear within her throat and belly.

The flora portion still protruding from her mouth, She lumbered back home in vengeful triumph. Even if only a fleeting moment.

She would need to find a new source of food. She snapped her powerful jaws shut, severing the bonsai away before reentering the biomech.

The world quaked once more and She pressed herself into a corner, freezing in hypervigilance. She radiated tendrils of her consciousness to probe for the source of the disturbance.

Nothing.

She relaxed her stance over a period, tasting the air, feeling the ground, listening… until She felt safe again.

The flimsy, deformed walls about the biomech offered little protection from the other creatures of the castle save for its location along the outermost gardens. Shattered from the castle foundation, the island hung on the fringe where the protective shields were weakest, only a narrow band of frequency anchoring it. The lacerated patch of earth between the castle grounds proper and her home was stretched by unforgiving quantum gravitational forces between the two.

She slipped out into the time- and war-ravaged wasteland once populated by tens of millions — now a mausoleum, a tumbling, ruinous relic.

Bounding over densely packed structures and ancient walls She took in the distant main grounds in their slow tumble against vibrant gaseous nebulae and distant stars. Vast and wild, it would have been impossible for her to cover every centimeter of them. Food was plentiful, yet so was danger. Here, in her isolated world, She could predate without worry, but beyond, from the sky-breaking main keep to the dank subterranean levels, dwelt creatures and entities to whom she would be little more than a morsel.

In the near distance, a star — no, a machine streaked across the sky. Big food! Bigger than the biomech by far. Forever food. A shine gleamed over the thousands of ommatidia of her eyes as they grew wide with fascination and hungry greed.

She watched as the machine flipped, fired great gouts of fire from its belly and dropped slowly among the many gabled spires and leveled walls.

Far. Dangerous.

Her two hearts pounded in her breast. So much scream… She could not ignore it.

She gave in to baser instincts and charged down a long stretch of former residential streets. Reaching the treacherous corridor of energy and strained earth, she dove in, riding the swift current to the main grounds, her powerful tail nudging her through subtle directional changes. Around her, the molecules of the earth were stretched to a crystalline transparency shot through with quantum wounds ever-threatening to disintegrate into the ether.

A heavy atmosphere pregnant with equal measures of procreation and desecration met her as She waded ashore within a tangle of grouper shark bone scaffolding. Moons ago, the predator had tried to follow She through the corridor, only to be everted in a visceral explosion. After scavengers had striped it clean, it had become a natural waystation.

Slinking through the skeletal remains up to the top of the open-jawed cranium, She flick-tasted the static-etched blue sky far above. It glitched, winking out for several minutes, exposing a dead mirror-sister city above before regaining its composure.

In the distance, her next destination — a tall structure that had fallen from the sky city, piercing the floor of this one. Its tight spacing offered protection from larger predators.

Leaping from the skeletal remains, She hit the ground running, the thick claws on her muscular legs piercing the walls and streets to propel her at good speeds over obstacles at any angle.

A scurrying gaggle of dawghs burst from their cluster webbing to her right, catching her off-guard. She snarled and snapped at them. The smaller beasts ignored her, streaming around her like a fast-moving river, their bloated stomachs forced up through their mouths in a show of fright. The other creatures of the area took to flight as well, the sea of puffed, screaming stomach-faces warning them of the silent jelly wraith that flickered through a wall in pursuit.

Sharp pain in She's hind right haunch preceded a cool, spreading sting. Instinct sent her leaping for the nearest wall, but the taut strength of the wraith's tentacle and the sharp pain of the barbed tip hooked beneath her skin forced her back down with a hard smack.

She hissed and spat in defiance at the wraith, her eyes blazing an angry shade of purple. Foul thing.

The hunched, oily entity flickered forward, closing on her. The heavy stench of its form coated She's tongue. A grouping of tentacles burst forth, puncturing the ground as She dove inside the wraith's guard. Snagging the thicker portion of one beneath her foot, she raked her claws through it, shredding it, soaking the ground in white ichor. Dashing through a broken wall she shot up the opposite side and popped out on the roof, pulling the beast into a tangle of wires, trapping it.

A quick, tight circle, dislodged the barb still in her hindquarter with a snarling yelp. It laid on the edge of the ruined building, throbbing. She snapped it up and shook the dismembered appendage in her mouth before gulping it down in full view of the other monster, her muzzle painted in its milky blood.

The wraith flickered through the tangle to the wall and stretched a full third of it tentacles upward toward her, beckoning her to come back down like a lost pup to its mother. She took a defensive stance and the two predators eyeballed each other until the wraith spotted easier prey in several stray dawghs.

Pinned and paralyzed, their bloated face-stomachs convulsed in horror on the ends of tentacles until the wraith brought the helpless animals to its cowl-shrouded maw and devoured them.

She made haste in leaving the scene and reached the obelisk without further incident. Scuttling up the innards of the structure, she gulped down an unattended nest of raggid bird eggs. The embryonic screams soothed the stinging wound and settled her nerves.

From the temporary safety of the structure, She observed the city around her. It would eat her if she if let it, and it would feed her if She was clever enough. With grim determination to reach the big food, She raised her head and chuff-barked a challenge to any who dared to stand in her way.

===

WORK ON FULL NOVEL NOW IN PROGRESS.

FOR MORE INFO: https://samuraipunk.substack.com/

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About the Creator

Made in DNA

The not-yet bestselling, non-award winning author of work you haven't read yet!

Work spans various genres -- scifi, weird, non-fiction, life in Japan.

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  1. Excellent storytelling

    Original narrative & well developed characters

  2. Easy to read and follow

    Well-structured & engaging content

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    Creative use of language & vocab

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    The story invoked strong personal emotions

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Comments (19)

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  • Tonya R. Moore8 months ago

    How's the progress going on this novel? I want to read more!

  • WORK ON FULL NOVEL NOW IN PROGRESS. FOR MORE INFO: https://samuraipunk.substack.com/

  • Alina Z2 years ago

    You have a very smart and elegant use of vocabulary - for example 'vibrant, verdant, and virile', yay! Impressive choice of action verbs. Loved all visuals, especially the ones illustrating She's savagery. One minor, subjective observation: the first part is an awesome action packed scene but I had a bit of trouble following (and keeping apart) all five characters. Pls share next chapters, can't wait for the confrontation between She and Kaveri's crew!

  • Due to all the wonderful comments I've received, I've begun the actual novel. Follow any of my social accounts or my newsletter for info updates. (See bio.)

  • Max Russell2 years ago

    Loved the two plot lines that are going to come to a head. Great story!

  • Miles Pen2 years ago

    Awesome descriptions! Very entertaining, flows nice. (if you get a chance check out my story; it's also about monsters in space)

  • G.B. Veen2 years ago

    Amazing writing and beautiful choice of vocabulary. Loved the character development and idea of the castle and She. Looking forward to reading your novel. Subscribed 🙂

  • C.D. Hoyle2 years ago

    Great start - would definatly read more! Good luck!

  • WOW WOWWW WOWWWWW!!!!! This story blew my mind. Loved She! You did a fantastic job with the imageries. I loved this story so much!

  • This comment has been deleted

  • Cathy holmes2 years ago

    This was incredibly well written. Great job.

  • Caroline Jane2 years ago

    Love the concept of this one! Well written imagery with some great gluts of gore that really had my stomach churning.

  • E. J. Strange2 years ago

    Amazing writing!!!! So jealous

  • Dylan Crice2 years ago

    Great cosmic creature feature!

  • I loved the premise! Wonder what else is lurking in that mammoth castle. It was very interesting to experience things from the monster's point of view. Would definitely read a full novel!

  • Heather Hubler2 years ago

    What a great first chapter! You raised a lot of questions that I really wanted answered in further chapters, so well done on that :) I liked the interactions of the crew members and thought you did a good job giving me a quick sense of their personalities. I was completely intrigued by She! My only suggestion would be to bring it around at the end where She is maybe seeing the crew members, or where the crew members are seeing the city for the first time. But that is probably just my personal preference talking :) Overall, I think you could definitely keep going with this story! Great work!

  • Kat Thorne2 years ago

    Incredible imagery! Loveddddd those first few lines!

  • Should anyone be interested in an actual full novel of this, please, feel free to say so here or on social media or to me privately. It's always encouraging to hear that. Thanks.

  • Madoka Mori2 years ago

    Came for the character development, stayed for the HOT MONSTER ACTION.

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