Endosymbiosis

11. Anemia

"And are you willing to give one of these?!"

Arkadi almost laughed at the seller, but he was afraid of what would happen if he did.

"Not today."

And then he placed the extra starstones on the counter.

"Put away your stones." The vorrampe growled, awakening in my legs a desire to run. "You can take the cartridges if you pay in another currency..."

Cartridges? Like the ones Arkadi said he used to sell?

"No way."

Arkadi put his hands on the cartridges. And then, as the vorrampe's claws curled around his fist and held him in place, I knew that something was wrong.

The vorrampe's mouth opened as if it could swallow planets, his fangs much longer, sharper and numerous than I'd imagined, and he roared, rocking the entire world beneath my feet.

Arkadi pulled a pistol from his pocket and fired at the creature, grazing him and splattering his gray blood across the walls.

"RUN!"

And I was already doing it.

I ran to the door and tried to open it, but another vorrampe splayed his claws into it and closed it in my face. He stared at me like I was the noxdiem's ​​dinner and his claws flew into my neck, but I was already running again through the maze of shelves and bumping into the walls. The vorrampe's claws scraped the floor in my heel, the drops of his saliva splashing down my back, the wind of his exhalation warming the back of my neck and his shrill growls demanding that I stopped, as if my death were his right. I was going to be devoured for cartridges! Were there no laws in this world?!

And to think that I've already complained about the Earth before.

When I bumped into Arkadi, I realized I was running in circles. The vorrampes cornered us against each other and I saw the fear in the human eyes that stared back at me, telling me I was right to fear. Apparently he was right when he said there would be a lot of monsters in the way to the galaxy's core.

Arkadi fired towards the vorrampes and we ran. The beasts flew across the shelves, bending the metal with their claws and knocking the silver packages all over the floor. At some point the claws of one of the vorrampes dug into my left ankle and pulled me back, knocking me down onto the pile of produce. The packages exploded beneath me, spreading a viscous liquid everywhere that imbued my clothes with scarlet and my nose with a metallic smell...Blood.

The vorrampe turned me to face his mouth, the darkness staring at me like one of those chasms I dreaded falling into. His needle-like teeth approached my carotid, vulnerable beneath just a few layers of skin and muscle, pulsing to show exactly where my nectar hid. And then the vorrampe inched up my neck.

Arkadi shot him in the head and his gray goo fell on my face as I screamed. I tried to get up but stumbled over my shattered ankle, exploding with pain with each step. Arkadi helped me up and we stumbled to the door.

Before leaving, however, I sent a glimpse over my shoulder, watching the second vorrampe suck everything of color on the ground until he lost the gray of his skin and became a crimson creature. His body expanded, his teeth sharpening against each other, guttural sounds escaping the hungry black hole of his mouth and his eyes, thirsty, aiming for us. But, before I could see his entire transformation, Arkadi pulled me outside.

"They'll smell your blood." He growled, tearing a piece of his shirt off to tie it around my ankle and stop the smell.

"Why did they attack us?!"