Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

The Return

That was a memory one did not forget lightly.

Which is why the suit he wore today did it's best to mask his body head in case something were to go awry.

Everything was silent.

He tilted his head listening for the distant sound of cracking, though he heard none.

Something splashed distantly in the bog, but other than that, there was silence.

He inched forward slightly, scanning the ground before him, and pausing only when his eyes fell across something strange, something that didn't belong there. He knelt down in the center of the clearing, reaching forward with a glove hand and lifting the strange object from the ground.

The strip of fur that he held was caked with dried blood on one side, but not yet rotting.

"Admiral." One of the marines called, and he got to his feet still holding the strip of fur and walked over. He peered over the marine's shoulder and looked down, "What did you find."

The marine looked up, holding out a cylinder of plastic.

He took it in one hand, "What is this."

It was Sunny's tur to butt in, and she took the cylinder in one hand examining it from end to end as she rolled it over in her hands, "This is the canister for a modified Tesraki Stun rifle, model 3 if I'm not mistaken.

Admiral Vir held up the fur, "Well that makes sense with what I found here.

A couple of the other marines crowded around though the rest formed a small perimeter watching the trees above.

"Some kind of fight?"

"It seems like it."

He dropped the piece of fur back to the ground and looked up, "Hopefully they will be more accepting of my visit.

"Well mating with the queen should generally put you on good terms I would think." Ramirez said, smirking from across their little huddle.

Adam sighed, "Whatever that was, it wasn't mating." He turned his back on them and muttered low under his breath, "I hear mating is supposed to be way more fun."

With those words mostly dead on his lips, he reached up and began clambering up the nearest root. It was slow going, but not because the climb in itself was difficult. The humidity made the bark of the branches rather slick, so he was careful to deliberately place his hands and feet at every juncture as he dragged himself up the side of the tree. He could feel himself sweating profusely under his wetsuit as he climbed.

Below him, a couple of marines tagged along, and they made it almost thirty feet up into the tree before signs of adaptids really began to speed up. Sticky filaments and strings like spiderwebs hung from branches. Spots of dried brown blood stained bark and moss alike, while strips of fur and clothing littered the area. Small animal bones were found in the crooks of tree limbs.

Climbing even higher they encountered a nest, large and milk white in the darkness, it was made from the same sticky covering that coated the branches, made into a large circular shape with a hole in the side, like some sort of elaborate birds nest. Peering inside he found it to be vacant. More small bones covered the ground, as did the discarded remains of eggshells.

Ramirez stepped forward onto the sticky mat and reached down, plucking a bone white skull from one of the piles and held it up for Adam to inspect.

Tesraki.

Adam looked down and chose another skull holding it up to the light.

This one was clearly human.