Prompt: A betrayal no one saw coming. The words: "Building trust is the first step in the perfect betrayal." End in a cliffhanger.
Word Count: 1900-2000
***
"You okay?"
Bone waved off the question from his partner, Clay. He was doubled over, hands braced against his knees, and wheezed like a stuck pig.
"I think you're getting old," Clay remarked.
"Says the...guy with the...gray beard," Bone gasped. With some effort, he straightened. "Next time, you're dragging the Other from its ship."
Clay scoffed. "Don't be daft, kid. I'm too delicate for such things."
"Delicate."
Bone gave his partner a long, pointed look.
With a scruffy gray beard and a face heavily lined by a hard, stressful life, Clay looked every bit of his 68 years. But he was immense and burly, with wide shoulders and a round gut that persisted even though he could easily lope across rugged terrain from sun-up to sun-down. He was the kind of person that endured like a cockroach: tough, gnarly, and stubborn.
"Exactly." The old roach grinned, as if knowing exactly what Bone was thinking. "Now then, let's take a look at what you dragged in."
They both turn their attention to the body. It lay sprawled awkwardly upon the dusty earth, its one-piece gray suit reflecting the harsh sunlight. At first glance, it looked like another human in a weird, body-hugging space suit, complete with a rounded, featureless helmet.
But Bone already knew one thing: this thing, this Other, weighed at least twice as much as a normal person. It had been an absolute nightmare to drag it through half a mile of ravine to their base camp.
Clay nudged the body with a toe. "You sure it's dead?"
"Yes. I got it with the ion rifle for a good ten seconds. Doesn't matter if it's organic or machine, it's good and cooked."
Bone crouched and placed a hand on the Other's arm. It felt cool and smooth, which was strange because in this unforgiving place, everything was hot, dry, and unbearable.
Clay slowly walked around it. "We've been hiding in this ravine for eight years because of these bastards. They've been picking us off one by one and akari'shtet! Look at it. That could be one of us in this suit!"
Bone could understand the old roach's outburst. When he'd first dragged the Other out of its ship, he too, has been deeply unsettled. The shape and size were exactly that of a human, but its weight...
A furrow dug into his brow. It felt like a mockery.
How many people had vanished into thin air, taken by Others? A handful every month, dozens every year. And that didn't count the many, many who had died fighting them.
Bone knew that one of these days, he'd be another casualty. He'd go down fighting to the very last breath, and he'd make sure to take at least one of them with him.
"We don't know what it is yet," he finally said. "Let's get the helmet off first."
"Tch. Ma'kri, Bone. Be careful. I'll cover you." Clay shrugged the rifle off his shoulder and aimed at the body. His finger rested a millimeter from the trigger pad along its stock.
It was one of the two ion rifles the entire group of survivors possessed. Bone had the other, though it now rested against the rocks a few feet away. It was an uncomfortable feeling to be so far away from his best weapon, but Clay was here.
Everything would be okay because Clay, the undefeatable old roach, was here.
Bone nodded curtly. "Got it."
There was a small ridge at the neck, which he'd noticed earlier, so he leaned in and firmly ran his fingers along it. Something gave. A faint click and hiss, and a gap opened up.
"Huh. That was easy."
"Careful, kid."
"Always am," Bone returned. Very carefully, he eased the helmet off.
When the Other's face was revealed, both men stared.
"Huh." Bone set the helmet aside, his gaze fixated on the Other. "That's... kind of disturbing."
Clay grunted. He too, looked both fascinated and repulsed. "I'll say."
The Other's skin was a deep, unnatural gray-blue. A weird, silky sheen coated the flesh, giving it an artificial look. Apart from that, however, the features were completely normal for a human male.
"Maybe it is a machine," Bone suggested. "Like everything else they send after us."
"Maybe so. But why does it have to look like us? That's the creepy part. We know they came from off planet, so they're clearly alien."
What if they do look like us? Bone thought, but he kept that to himself. It wasn't something that Clay would want to hear. The old roach was traditional and fiercely opposed to anything Other. He lived to destroy them and fought to protect the few who still survived.
"I need to see what's inside this thing," Clay decided. He passed the rifle to Bone, then drew out his hunting knife.
Like Clay had done earlier, Bone lifted the heavy rifle to a shoulder and readied himself to fire. Just to be safe.
He watched as Clay set the blade's edge to the Other's bare neck. Sharpened carbon steel split the dark blue skin like it was paper. There was no blood. No water, no oil, no fluid of any kind. Just strange gray flesh split open like a fruit.
"What?" Clay frowned. And then his eyes widened. "Akari'sh!"
He immediately rose, only for his legs to give out beneath him. He crumpled back to the ground with a startled gasp.
"Clay!" Bone hurried forward to help, but stopped dead when Clay thrust out a hand.
"No! Don't! Something's–"
His words cut off like they'd been severed by a knife. Eyes bulging, his mouth moved as he tried to speak. No sound came out.
The Other's corpse hissed.
Bone's eyes darted to it. From the gash of its neck came a gray, silver fog. It billowed out like the exhaust from a ship, rolling and curling into itself even as it expanded outward.
Ice crept down Bone's spine. He knew that fog. He'd seen it once before. It had swept throughout the ravine and swallowed every living thing in its way. Bones were the only thing left in its wake.
And so had been Bone himself. He'd awakened in a pile of the dead, staring at the writhing mass of deadly fog as it drifted away from him. That was the earliest thing he remembered, and soon after Clay had found him wandering the ravine, dazed and naked and lost. He'd never told anyone about it, because he was certain that he should be dead.
Clay knew what it was, too. He opened his mouth wide in a scream as the first wisp of silver brushed across his cheek. Flesh evaporated at its touch, leaving a fleshy, bloody pit in the side of his face. At a second brush, the blood burst into fine pink mist, and Bone saw the pure ivory of bone.
As the fog swirled to engulf Clay, their eyes met. Clay's bloodless lips formed one last word:
Run.
Bone turned and ran. He slung the heavy ion rifle onto his back, and sprinted like the hungry claws of death were at his heels.
Silence followed him.
And he ran, cheeks wet, with a horrible grief and terror gripping him tight in its fist.
Somehow, he reached the caves, four miles deep into the twisting, narrow ravine. The fog, which had followed him doggedly three-quarters of the way, had inexplicably dissipated. But that gave him no lasting relief, because just outside the caves, he discovered the first body.
Stenji, old, fragile Stenji. He was the oldest survivor at 71, but where Cray had been strong and stubborn, Stenji was timid and kind.
He'd been flayed open like a fish, his innards hewn about him in brutal savagery.
Bone stood over it numbly, too stunned to feel much of anything. He turned and stumbled into the beckoning darkness of the caves. The second body tripped him, and he fell heavily onto soft, mushy flesh. It was someone small. Painfully small.
With a soft cry, he scrambled up and away. In the spill of the daylight coming through the cave entrance, he saw auburn curls. His heart clenched.
"No..."
Little Laya. The youngest. The brightest. Their little spark of hope in a grim reality. And now she was snuffed out forever.
He staggered deeper into the cave. Light flared from the string of bulbs along the walls. It revealed further atrocities, further death. He recognized bodies by the purple bracelet wrapped around a dismembered wrist, the distinctive green plaid shirt, the red shoes, the-
The ground beneath his feet was slippery, forcing him to step carefully. That only made him pay more attention to what he was stepping on, and bile filled his mouth. He clamped his teeth shut, refusing to lose it all now when because there were sounds deeper in, and sounds meant someone was still alive.
He moved faster, purpose overtaking the horror. The sounds led to him a smaller chamber.
Bone stepped inside. There was an Other there, complete with the gray suit and dark helmet. Before it trembled Marlene and her teenaged daughter, Arla. Blood splattered across their faces, but they looked otherwise alive, if not frightened out of their skulls.
"You," Bone snarled. He didn't even stop to think.
He lunged. The Other lightly sidestepped.
Bone stumbled past, catching nothing but air. But that didn't deter him. He twisted around, his fingers latching onto a smooth arm. He yanked with all his strength, and the Other actually was forced to step closer.
Bone's fist smashed into its throat.
The Other recoiled.
"Stop it!" Arla yelled. "Bone, stop it!"
He didn't stop. He threw a second punch, but the Other neatly caught it in the palm of its hand. Its fingers closed tight around his, painfully, unbearably so.
Bone grunted. He thrust his other hand at the Other's neck, fingers brushing against that familiar ridge. Something clicked: the helmet's release.
"Please, Bone! He'll kill you!"
The Other pushed its other palm into his chest. The force of it nearly threw Bone off his feet. The only reason he didn't fall was because the Other still had one of his hands trapped in its grip.
With his free hand, he pulled the ion rifle off his back. It was awkward, but he swung it around, clamped its butt beneath an armpit, and grazed the trigger pad. The Other shoved the muzzle away, just as an invisible blast pulsed harmlessly by, and then wrapped its hand around the barrel.
It wrenched the rifle effortlessly out of his grasp.
Bone hissed, and against his better judgement, drove his knee between the Other's legs. It didn't even react. Instead, it yanked him in, grabbed his other arm, and twisted him around. Before he could even blink, he found himself effectively trapped with his arms behind his back.
"Now," said the Other in flawless speech, "are you quite finished, Bone?"
"What?" he gasped.
"You have done very well. There is no need for further action on your part."
Marlene and Arla stared at him, faces tearstained and confused. Something about their faces wrenched at him and he shuddered.
"Let go," he whispered, and tugged fruitlessly at the Other's hold.
"This is for your safety, Bone. Your compassion is your greatest strength, but it's also your greatest weakness. It lets you understand the weaker race, to become one of them, for building trust is the first step in the perfect betrayal. But that means it's always very difficult for you to... let them go."
Out of the shadows, a second Other stepped forth behind Marlene and Arla. They didn't see him. But Bone did. And he knew in that instant what was going to happen.
He groaned. "No... I don't..."
"Yes," hissed the Other behind him. "You have shown us the way, Bone the Betrayer. Now let us finish what you have started."