Nyx (Complete✅)

Chapter 34

She was still asleep. Liam looked at her for a few seconds, and then a sudden realization hit him. Kelbar wasn't even in Beth's room anymore. The stress and activity of the day had driven the memory far from the front of his mind. Beth had returned Kelbar to Nyx. He shook his head at his forgetfulness, took one last glance at Beth, and then he turned and ran back down the corridors, and out of the huge front doors. It would get increasingly harder to visit Beth because he'd heard a few people talking about starting a guards rotation. He would have to move her soon.

He tried not to worry about anything as he brushed his teeth at the temporary water pump that they'd set up that day. He didn't feel like talking around one of the many bonfires, so he went into his assigned building, and he dozed off. He couldn't stop thinking about the story that Beth had told him, about the huge lizard monster that had attacked her and Kelbar. He didn't know why the search parties hadn't found the lizard creature, but he was pretty sure that it wouldn't be far off. He dreaded the day that it got hungry for humans. He also wondered if the monster would attack Kelbar, and Liam's heart started pounding at the thought of the alien all by himself in Nyx's wilderness, but the worry eased away when he remembered that Kelbar had survived for quite a while by himself before Beth had come along, so he should be fine now, right?

Every once in a while, he would wake up in a cold sweat, having just had a dream about the lizard monster attacking the freshly-created settlement. He wasn't able to stay asleep for more than half-an-hour at a time, and the whole night's sleep added up to little more than two hours.

The next day was busy because he was in the architecture department. He had to find the sites for buildings, and when he'd done that, he needed to find the correct materials. They had planned which materials to use based on the probe's findings. Cutting down the thick, fungus-like trees was hard work, even with the chainsaws. He was half-expecting the tree to be unworthy for building material, but after a few inches, the slimy fungus-like outer bark gave way to harder wood, more like the trees from Earth. The wood was actually harder than the trees from earth, which was completely unexpected. It nearly broke a saw. The work was slow-going and tedious, he always had to be careful with the chainsaws and where he put them, lest they get snapped by the incredibly hard wood. Usually, the agriculture department would take care of the actual labor of cutting the trees, while Liam's department would focus on building, but the agriculture department was already extremely busy setting up farm plots and the like.

They hardly even had the materials for one cabin by mid-day. Liam knew that they wouldn't have to do that kind of work every day, but he still didn't like the thought of doing in again. They would have to the next day because they barely even had wood, but when the first rush of colonization wore off, they could work easier with more frequent brakes. Liam wasn't a slacker, but his muscles were sore, and he felt like he would collapse from the aching, and it was only mid-day.

The plan was, they would slowly build more and more small cabins, and as each cabin was built, a family or small group of people moved in. eventually, the shelters that they were currently living in would be converted into storage houses and firewood bins. One or two would be dedicated to the livestock.

But that plan was far, far in the future. Judging by the day's work, they could hardly even get half of the people into real cabins by the end of the year. Even with extra help.

Liam sighed as he sat down to lunch. They were eating the last of the mush. There had only been enough prepared for the next day anyway. Of course, they still had barrels and barrels of the stuff, but now that they were on Nyx, they would be saving it for emergencies, because it had a shelf-life of over twenty years.

Liam finished his food, and he was just standing up to check on Beth, his muscles pretty much shrieking in protest, when he saw her peeking around the nearest corner of the huge ship. She'd come from the big front entrance, by the looks of things.

She smiled widely when she saw him, and he sat back down, waving her over. Beth was nearly to him when the teal grass started waving frantically around the edge of the clearing. Beth froze as she watched, and a second later, Kelbar burst through the long frond, his chest heaving as if he'd just exerted a ton of effort. His eyes were filled with the unmistakable gleam of fear, which was recognizable, whether he was a human or not. He stumbled over to Beth, and for the first time, Liam noticed that there was a long gash on his arm, oozing blood into the surrounding fabric.

Kelbar, still unnoticed by the huge group of settlers, frantically told something to Beth, but of course, Liam couldn't understand a word, but whatever it was, it was obviously urgent. Very urgent indeed.

Kelbar was still relaying his urgent message when Liam heard an earsplitting whistle, coming from very close by. Liam knew what it was from Beth's stories, and dread filled him from his scalp to his toes. He blocked everything else out as he fell to his knees, trying to cover his ears so that the horrible whistling wouldn't reach him anymore, but he knew that it was pointless.

Although the sound was already impossibly loud, it seemed to grow until it filled everything. The trees around the clearing that they hadn't cut down yet began to shake violently. Liam's throat constricted with fear. He knew what would happen next, and he wished almost too hard that it wouldn't.