The Mies Divide (Tentative)

Chapter 1 - Prologue

With my head bowed deeply, I made slow calculated steps. In the darkness I could hardly see the rocky ground, but my captors had given the tunnel enough light to alert us to the fact that the path we trekked was our only option. To my left was a steep rocky wall and to the right a deep chasm. The path we trudged along was too narrow for comfort, if I fell, I knew it wouldn't only be my fate, but also that of an undeterminable number of other captives to whom I was tethered.  

"Will you hurry up, already, Rathki? Fleck grows impatient!" The gruff voice of who I assumed was Fleck, yelled at me, using the derogatory term for humans. Fleck jerked hard on the lead that bound my hands together and I hastened my pace. I tried to outstretch my fingers, but they were pricked by whatever it was that bordered the cage in which my hands were encased. Even grazing them as I just had sapped a significant amount of energy from me. I recoiled my fingers and glared at my captor wearily through the curtain of black hair that dangled in a mop around my head. He was short but surprisingly intimidating. He only came up to my waist, as did most Nemians, they were odd looking beings, he ,for example, had a dark red complexion and a huge head and his nose was a long trunk, which reminded me of ancient creatures from Earth. I think they were called "elly-fants"? His body was round and all of his appendages, even his fingers were as thick as trees. I'd often wondered how they managed to grasp anything at all with their long thick fingers, but they seemed to get along just fine. Big ears about half of the size of his head were tied back tightly behind his head and he wore rags for clothes.

I feigned a cough and turned my head as I did so to glance at the person behind me. I caught a glimpse of fire-red hair and my heart skipped a beat; as badly as things were going I at least had a companion in my misery. Before I could see her face though, something struck my lower back and I nearly fell over but I caught myself and turned back toward Fleck.

"Are you dim like the Long-Snouted Gorksnak? Keep moving, Rathki!" He grumbled.

"Can't we rest just for a moment? We've been going on for hours now." I said, taking a few, deep labored breaths. The air in the cavern felt tight and stale, though it was oddly cool considering the weather on the surface of the planet and while the caves back on Earth maintained a comfortable temperature year-round the ones on this planet would fluctuate.

His saucer-like eyes blinked slowly and when they did so it was like a film over his eyes and not full-on eyelids like I was used to seeing, "Two blinks." was all he said and turned to another Nemian ahead of him. The two began to converse in their native tongue, I didn't understand enough to know what was being said, but I took the opportunity to look behind me once more. It was the one thing I needed to see to get me through this trekking.

Behind me was Lea and even though we'd been imprisoned for weeks now she refused to give up constantly analyzing our surroundings; assessing the possibility of escape. It's not that I had given up, but I conserved that energy for when our captors were resting. A few feet behind me she stared silently across the chasm, concentrating on something. Her tongue was pursed into her cheek and her mouth hung slightly agape as the minimal light refracted off of her red eyes. Fiery red hair rolled around her head and was fairly tame considering she hadn't been able to maintain it for a while.

Then something drew my eyes down to her hands, the last bits of a metal cage filled with energy-siphoning spikes were falling to the ground as she had somehow managed to free them but not without cost. Her hands were shredded and bloody but if she were in pain, I could not tell. Something told me to duck so I went down face to the cold rock floor just in time for the temperature to rise a good hundred degrees. I heard shrieks coming from the Nemian captors behind me and peered in their direction just in time to see a fireball careen into the gaping chasm.