Endosymbiosis

11. Anemia

"They are hematophagous. Their economy is based on blood."

"So tourists shouldn't be treated well?!"

Arkadi smiled, trying to balance my body and the cartridges.

"We are more valuable dead."

Before we could make it back to the ship, the second vorrampe flew over Arkadi. He fell to the ground and his gun flew at my feet. I took it and fired about ten times in the direction of the vorrampe, but I didn't hit a single shot. Annoyed, the creature lunged at me as if he could already taste me, able to rip my spine out of my body with one movement. When the beast was closer, I finally managed to land a shot - purely by chance - and he fell to the ground, squirming violently. Arkadi stood up and froze, his eyes terrified on something behind me.

I turned around slowly...

And I saw hundreds of vorrampes flying towards us with their claws and mouths ready to destroy us.

"This would be a great time to release your fevino!" I screamed.

"I agree!" He replied. But nothing happened. That wasn't how it worked. The fevino would let Arkadi be way much closer to death to decide to expend his energy and help him (before they both died). At that point, however, I would probably no longer be alive.

I fired a pathetic shot into the nearest vorrampe, but ended up leaving only a hole in the street floor. The claws knocked me down and my head slammed into the ground, shattering my conscience in it.

• • • ֍ • • •

When consciousness came back to my mind I tried to move, but my arms were tied behind my back, around a metal pillar. I blinked, stunned, and looked around. I was in a dark shed with a yellowish light bulb over my head and Arkadi was tied beside me to another pillar, still unconscious.

I stretched out my leg and nudged him until his eyes opened, as confused as mine.

"Why didn't they kill us?" Yet.

Arkadi opened his mouth to answer me, but when he heard the sound of footsteps in the darkness, he decided to keep silent. The knuckles of his hands pinned behind his back turned pale... Because he knew what was coming. Footsteps echoed off the walls of the shed, one by one bringing something to us. I heard claws scraping the floor and the stalk of a creature in the darkness, sniffing us.

And then he appeared, beneath the faint beam of light that illuminated us, a solid creature of muscle and sharp claws that gleamed like razors... A being red like pure danger.

A vorrampe. Smiling at us like we were a snack expected by someone very hungry.

"I would never kill such an old friend, Phaga." The creature hissed in his torn language, his three eyes watching us intently. The tips of his bones weren't as visible as those of the other vorrampes we've seen so far, because his hid behind a heavy layer of muscle and skin turgid with blood.

"Korrok..."

Arkadi knew him?!

The vorrampe's claws neared him and I fought my eyes' desire to close to spare me from what would happen to Arkadi... But then the vorrampe ripped the ropes that held Arkadi an released him with no intention of doing the same for me.

Arkadi did not thank him the way one do a true friend, because he backed away, tense. Did vorrampes really understand what a friend was?

"Did you bring something for us?" Korrok asked and Arkadi gulped, answering in a whisper in the vorrampe's language: