"The Lady and the Forged"

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Chapter 3: Restless Hunger

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The daughter of Alois Tyran sipped in the sweet liquid latte through her straw as she studied for her medical license in a campus coffee shop. She had enough money to afford multiple cups of different varieties throughout the day, with the side effect that she had to make frequent restroom trips to relieve the extra water, but it made for great study fuel.

"Excuse me, miss," a disheveled man with, sniff, questionable odor spoke, "Can you spare me a cup of coffee."

Lexi glared at the next lower class bum who stupidly thought she'd comply. "No."

"That's alright, miss," said the man, who moved on.

19 year old Lexi scoffed internally, failing to wipe the scowl from her gaze as she willed the man to get accosted by campus police. She really needed to get more used to this. It was just a fact of life.

'Only losers ask from their betters,' Lexi thought as she drank a side cup of cool, refreshing, iced water to wash down the caffeine and sugar staining her teeth.

---

Lexi rolled her tongue inside increasingly viscous mouth, not daring to open her decreasingly damp mouth to the dry air that chipped at her chapped lips and kidnapped any sweat that would have lingered in her light-absorbing gray jumpsuit. It quite literally felt like she was pushing through a mass of physical heat.

Her feet were sore and tired from trailing after Carnivek's ever constant, powerful strides as they trekked through the dead forest. The protoss' mechanical legs (set to the two-toed configuration) stamped the dirt in a constant rhythmic stride, though she couldn't see his legs in motion behind the flowing red waist-cape.

With his inert dagger-axe in his right hand, he often stopped and waited for Lexi to catch up rather than being considerate enough to slow his pace for her.

"You are slower than I thought, you pathetic ape!" growled Carnivek.

Having been subjected to unjustified berating while trekking in sweltering conditions, Lexi had the gall to shoot him a withering glare, because Carnivek at the moment couldn't hope to be as tyrannical as the sun.

"Excuse you!" Lexi snapped back, though she had to raise a hand over her eyes to block the light. "I'm hungry. I'm tired. And I'm thirsty! Ain't you concerned that we're gonna die in this desert?"

Carnivek shrugged as his cheeks rose. "Of course, a less evolved animal such as yourself is subject to the failures of your inefficient form. Such is an organism that has to shove disgusting biomass and fluids into their orifices, then expel it out the other end. Disgusting. I, in contrast, conserve all the matter I take in through my skin. Nothing is left to waste for my superior body. Yes."

Lexi just glared across the desert horizon she would inevitably be forced to drag herself across. Dr. Nguyen would have been fascinated by Carnivek freely spewing protoss biology but, bless her heart, Lexi with dehydration and sun-burnt red skin couldn't care any less for his arrogant bleating. The damn protoss has done nothing but boast and bluster since they've met. Is he going to talk her to death?

"Sorry I ain't heckin' perfect, mister! I gotta eat and drink somethin'! Whatcha gonna do if I keel over from dehydration?! I could die in three days, two for someone of my," she gritted her teeth, "lesser constitution."

Carnivek hummed and looked down at the ever dry earth under his feet where he proceeded to claw deep gouges inches down to reveal not a single drop of moisture under the sunbaked crust. "There is no water in the air to even absorb through my skin." He tapped his bare chin which was vertically flat instead of tapering forward like she observed in some protoss. "No…this is a problem."

He looked down at Lexi, "For you, mostly. I conserve water in my body even as the star's luminance itself nourishes me with its power. Look at you. Even if you weren't excreting your own liquids from your skin, your dirty orifices expose so much to evaporation."

"Cause I ain't a freak of nature like you," growled Lexi.

"Correct, I am beyond animals such as yourself."

"Dagnabbit! Whatever. We need to find water."

"Or…" Carnivek planted his dagger-axe into the ground and flexed his hand. "I decide it is easier to just take all I need from your feeble mind and leave you to dust." He splayed his claws. "What say you?"

Lexi's face shifted from heat-induced annoyance to teeth-clenched concern, "Hold up-! You're just pullin' my leg? Right?!"

The dread from the forest rang dimly in her head. Darkness obscured a once blinding world in her eyes so all she could see was the sharp angles of Carnivek's four claws ready to pierce through her skull. "Why should I lie? It is easier…"

Lexi grabbed his large 4th finger and thumb at the non-sharp base with each of her petite hands and pushed him back until they were at a deadlock, though he might be holding back his strength… toying with her life. "No! NO! I can't die here! Please!"

Carnivek forced his hand down and would have nicked her forehead if she didn't duck lower. He paused, but still continued the pressure. "'Please' is such a pathetic word. Of course I would have to hear such begging from a primitive like you."

"I have to see my papa and sister again! I won't die here! So take me with you! I can help you navigate the Terran world, and you need me to talk to my family!"

She was sent flying a foot forward when Carnivek switched from pushing down to pulling up, whereupon she let go and smacked the dry dirt face first. She picked herself up with a grimace, having felt some gravel and sand slip through the holes in her jumpsuit's collar.

"How fortunate that your survival has some entertainment value," said Carnivek coyly. He stretched out his legs, increasing his height as he stared around the vast flat expanse. "Perhaps we can acquire some water from other Terrans. Yes."

They resumed walking. Lexi jankily walked for several steps trying to lose some sand through her legs, though she winced from the stinging in her sunburnt neck, exacerbated after the fall. She eyed Carnivek's waist cape.

Carnivek stopped and stared back at her. "I sense you want something from me."

Lexi threw him a sideways glance, but faced away to hide her eyes. "I don't."

It didn't stop Carnivek from stalking around to hold up her chin with a single sharp finger so she was forced to show him her desperate eyes. "You want something. Try as you may, you cannot hide your thoughts from me. I told you already, you terrans shout your private ruminations into the void. Yes. Why do you hold yourself back?"

The fact that I need to keep him in a good mood.

The fact that this guy's a fucking asshole with no sense of privacy

And the fact that I'm not stooping any lower as a loser than I've already become.

"What's it to you?" grumbled Lexi, furious that he was reading her like a damn book.

"If you become any more pathetic, I will actually strike you down. Yes. You want something, now take it."

"You honestly think I can take something from you?"

Carnivek chuckled darkly, "Of course not. This is not a question of capability, but it is a question of your will. The weak wait for their due. The strong take what they desire."

He continued, kneeling down to her level like she's a fekkin' child. "I will give you a hint, monkey. You could try, hm, asking."

Lexi furrowed her brows as she stared back at his red orbs betraying some level of amusement. She wondered if he was playing some sort of sick alien mind game on her.

Still she refused. Her face reddened. "I can't."

"You mean you won't" corrected Carnivek. "You think you can claim some status or superiority? Look at you! I found you captured by your enemies, beaten, not even a warrior or possessing any modicum of strength. Who are you to put on this act of supremacy when you have nothing?"

Lexi gritted her teeth to hold back the angry, frustrated tears that would reveal, physically, her despair to this asshole.

Look at her now. Barely a year ago she looked down on others with disdain for their unfortunate place, but now she's dehydrated and cooking in the sun, without even the urban slums she could take shelter in. She's in the middle of the FUCKING desert and she's going to die with this shitty protoss. Anyone would be laughing at her situation.

What did she do to deserve this?

It's all the protoss' fault.

The same protoss who wants to make her lower, makes her beg them for mercy and living.

"Stare me in the eye," demanded Carnivek. "And state your wish."

Lexi sucked in her nose and stared up at him.

Survival triumphed over what little pride she could claim as her own.

"May I kindly borrow your red cloth, please?"

Carnivek shook his head. "Ugh. You were so close. Try again."

Lexi's face burned. "What do you mean, try again? I asked, didn't I?"

"Try again," repeated Carnivek.

Lexi wracked her brain for how else she could make her request. She asked tentatively, "May I kindly borrow your red cloth?"

Carnivek smiled like a parent hearing their child speak its first words. "Ah yes. Does that not sound better?"

"Really? All because I ain't sayin' 'please'?!" shouted Lexi.

Carnivek pulled at his waist cape, somehow detaching it without using any other mechanism. "Silence lest I take back my generosity."

He tossed the red cloth over Lexi such that it completely covered her down to her ankles. She pushed the cloth off her face. It was surprisingly silky to the touch, and she could guess its strength with her touch.

More importantly, it provided immediate relief from the heavy beating of the Cantonian sun.

Carnivek glared. "Is it too big?"

"Yeah. Kinda," said Lexi, still feeling meek after being granted the object from the shitstain alien.

Carnivek rolled his eyes and snatched it off Lexi's head, and she held back the whine after losing her protective cover.

"Still yourself, monkey," said Carnivek.

Carnivek spread out the waist cape onto the ground. Laid flat, faint patterns etched in a slightly darker shade of red were visible, though Lexi stopped herself from observing the pattern when Carnivek just stared at her. It was awkward as hell.

"What?"

"Now I know your desired dimensions," said Carnivek, tapping his temple. He grabbed a gauntlet which unlatched by itself without any special input, unlike the tedious undressing Lexi had to memorize, and revealed a white hand with black nail-like claws. If not for the four finger count and claws, Lexi thought it looked quite human.

Carnivek pressed the flat of his index finger on the red cloth and dragged it in a line.

"It's splitting, but I don't think you're cutting it with your claw!" gasped Lexi.

The albino protoss explained, "This is a special fabric that was created with our psionic technology. With psionic input, we can rend and mend the fibers at will."

Lexi's thoughts raced to the possible medical applications for modular fabric. Bandages, sutures, tissue engineering! "This is amazing! How'd ya make this?"

Carnivek tossed a smaller cutout of his waist cape over Lexi's head, and this time she caught it to start wrapping the fabric around her head and shoulders. She'd watch the Cantonian laborers put on headscarves when she visited Canton with her family, and though not a fancy sun hat it would protect her from the dust and sands as she pulled the textile over her mouth and nose.

She sighed with relish in her protection from the sun, and shot a wary glance at Carnivek, "Thank you kindly."

Carnivek just reattached his black gauntlet and pointed to the horizon, "Move, terran." He reattached back to his waist the waist cape, where a sizable rectangular gap at the bottom center fluttered freely.

---

Hunger gnawed at Lexi, who sat at the thinly-shaded base of a withered tree when Carnivek finally opted to stop for her sake. She assumed it was to give her a damn breather because Carnivek seemed tireless; in fact he was not far off digging up the ground with his clawed feet which kicked up plumes of dirt that billowed away.

"Now what in tarnation are you doin'?" croaked Lexi.

"Solving your hunger. It is distracting."

Lexi raised a brow and lazily stared at Carnivek digging. "What could there possibly be for me to eat? Dear god, I'm feelin' low a cup of water."

Carnivek grabbed his polearm standing beside him and pointed it down. "You'll get your hydration soon… Yes!"

He plunged his spearhead into the pit he dug with a wet crunch.

A giant, dog-sized, sandy-colored cockroach sprang from the ground and scurried away leaving a trail of green blood. Carnivek watched the creature run with its legs blurry for a few seconds before his cybernetic legs sprang him forth like black lightning. They were far enough that Lexi had to squint to see Carnivek pounce mid-charge, soaring through the bone-white tree corpses, and pin the squealing and clicking alien insect under his falling talons. It struggled until Carnivek grabbed behind the armored chinks of the creature's neck and tore its head off.

Lexi winced at the sight of the still-twitching headless cockroach being dragged to her by Carnivek, whose talons were caked in sand and blood. The corpse was thrown to her feet with a squelch.

"You can't be serious now," whimpered Lexi.

Carnivek growled, "You complain when you don't eat, now you complain when you eat? You humans are infuriating."

Lexi grit her teeth as she held her arms against her aching stomach. It was a far cry from boiled red lobster and bison steak, but she was desperate. "Fine," groaned Lexi, wringing the hem of her jumpsuit, "Lemme just cook this and I'll eat up."

Carnivek tilted his head, "And how do you intend to cook?"

"We'll need ourselves a fire for starters." She craned her neck to look up to the dead white trees towering around them. "Damn Zerg. Cantonian cities and settlements were all big on growin' forests in the middle of the deserts for carpentry and aesthetics. All part of the terraformin' project. Then the zerg sucked all life from the world with their creep."

The protoss walked around observing the dead oak and maple canopy. He raised his dagger-axe to start snipping off kindling. "And this is not because you terrans chose to plant leafy trees on an arid world?"

Lexi shook her head, "We got drought-resistant trees genetically created by a man named Dr. Hanson from Agria. The trees were supposed to gather and store water as we mined minerals from ice-asteroids. The Cantonians didn't want cacti."

Carnivek gathered the dry kindling together. He activated his bane scythe and grazed the pile, allowing a spark to catch aflame. He then pointed at the dead insect, "There, now you can cook your food."

Lexi grimaced as she stared at the foul-smelling alien bug. She approached the now still carcass and tentatively started fiddling with its legs, unsure how she'd get to any of its… bug meat under the exoskeleton. "I-I don't know how to cook this."

Carnivek squinted, "What do you mean you do not know how to cook your own food? How did you feed yourself?"

Lexi shook her head, "I had cooks make my food for me."

Carnivek stared her down behind his mask, "You had underlings to prepare food for you? Were you some sort of elite?"

Lexi stared at the disgusting monster she was forced to consume and felt the weight of the situation crashing on her once more. She shed a tear, "I was. Tarsonis was a wonderful place to live in until aliens like you destroyed it." She tried breaking off the insect's armored legs to no avail. "Now I'll never eat good food again! Fekkin' hell! I'm gonna die with a goddamn protoss as my only undertaker!'"

"Cease your whining!" snapped Carnivek. "You pathetic whelp! Give me that!"

He took the insect's leg in his hands and effortlessly snapped it free before handing it to Lexi. "Now do as you will. Request my aid with the creature's armor before you squeal your useless noise, or I'll snap your neck instead."

Lexi took the leg from the despicable protoss. She could only mutter, "Thank you," before holding it over the fire.

She had no idea how long to cook alien insect meat, so she bided her time while Carnivek balanced on one leg to preen his other foot, scratching at the sand and blood with his claws; metal on metal.

After several minutes of fire-cooking, instead of turning to Carnivek again for help, Lexi decided to try breaking the leg open herself with a rock she found. She ignored Carnivek's curious stare as she smashed at the leg, internally cringing when one of her nail chipped against the rock. Soon however the exoskeleton cracked with her effort, exposing the off-smelling brown meat.

"Well now… it'll be just like lobster," Lexi told herself, doubtfully. She pulled out a sliver of meat and bit into it.

It was fine for the first second until she started chewing, after which she immediately regretted pulling the stringy, slimy organic garbage into her mouth. She had to spit it out to avoid gagging further.

Carnivek facepalmed his metal mask, "So you chose starvation. Delightful. No…"

Lexi glared at Carnivek before ripping out another sliver of insect meat and throwing it whole into her mouth. She chewed as fast as she could until it could be swallowed, or else her body would reflexively gag it out.

The woman shuddered as the wretched cooked bug meat traveled down her parched esophagus before resting in her aching gasped, "Dear God. Bless my heart!"

Somehow she felt even hungrier. She forced down more arduous ingestions of the insect meat, all while licking the valuable watery juices that ran down her hands to quench her thirst.

Carnivek knelt beside her and attached his mask to his chest through magnetism or something. He next punched his hand into the insect's abdomen, then smeared it over his face.

"What the devil are you doin'?" asked Lexi.

"Absorbing moisture from the creature's blood," responded Carnivek.

Lexi stared blankly and asked, "What does it… taste like?"

Carnivek scowled at her and answered, "I have no sense of taste. I struggle to comprehend your sense of taste even with telepathy. This insect does smell wretched though."

Lexi's brows shot up as her lashes fluttered incredulously, "You can smell?"

"Yes."

"With your skin?"

"And how do you smell, monkey?"

Lexi pointed to her dry-burned nose,. "With a nose!"

The protoss narrowed his eyes, "Another disgusting orifice."

"Well I know you can hear shit. You got ears in your noggin?"

"No. I also hear from my skin."

At that point, blinking her eyes to express shock would have her feeling like a broken record so Lexi just stared off to the side, trying to process the sensation of hearing and smelling from the skin all over her body. "Y'all are freaks."

Her stomach growled and bubbled fiercely. Soon it erupted in pain, a punch in the gut that dropped Lexi to her hands as she grappled with the agony. Fortunately, or perhaps not so, her body took the initiative by expelling the half-digested insect meat onto the cracked earth.

"UGH! That is disgusting!" exclaimed Carnivek as he hovered behind a coughing Lexi. "Who is the freak now?"

Lexi couldn't muster a retort even if she didn't feel like shit. She stared with muted horror at all the moisture she wastefully vomited onto the soil. "Shit! SHIT! It must be indigestible alien biology." She fell to her side in defeat.

Carnival knelt down beside her. "You even stained my fabric. Wretched monkey."

"I'm gonna die," said Lexi. She might as well just accept her fate and die on the spot.

Carnivek did not make another quip. He just glared with his face still caked in insect-blood, then asked, "Is that it? You accept death so easily?"

"What am I gonna do if I'll just up an' die of dehydration?"

"Hm. What a shame, I suppose you do not wish to find your sister after all. You must not love her."

Lexi pushed herself up and scowled back at Carnivek. "I do wanna see my sister again, and my papa too!"

Carnivek's eyes narrowed. "Will you expel more garbage from your mouth-tract again?"

"No… I've got literally nothin' left in me. I'm as empty as a glass cup on a hot day."

Carnivek hummed, then detached the rest of his waist cape.

"Now get on," commanded Carnivek pointed to the red cloth that once wrapped around his waist, now laid out on the ground.

Lexi tentatively dragged herself over the silky red cloth big enough to be the blanket of a king-sized bed.

Carnivek pointed his claw to her, then clenched it to a fist. "This is no act of generosity. You are so weak that I have to account for your fragile survival. Yes." he growled, scratching at the dry insect flakes on his face. "This is nothing but pity."

He pulled a corner of the cloth over his shoulder and pulled it like a sledge. "Try not to die so easily, simian," said Carnivek as he continued methodically scraping his face.

Lexi was initially indignant that Carnivek hadn't offered to do this sooner, since he moved in the desert like a perpetual motion machine. Her frown softened though, realizing that this was the best he could offer in the situation. She readjusted her red head-scarf so that she didn't have to smell the quickly drying bile near her chin.

Better than walking herself to death, she supposed.

---

Even though she didn't have to walk anymore, sliding across the ground was not at all a comfortable experience. The cloth was strong but had no cushioning so it was impossible for her to get any semblance of rest as she was rocked over gravel and dirt. Her black hair was caked to her face after the sweat dried against her sunburnt skin, even as she tried to shield herself by resting her face against the upward pull of the cloth sledge.

Carnivek's march never slowed. He moved in a perfect, ceaseless rhythm.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Crunch.

It drove her crazy in the near eternity before the blue Cantonian sky finally surrendered to orange dusk. They had to take shelter in a craggy cave

"I'll be damned," said Lexi. "We," she interrupted herself with a cough, "made more time than I thought. We're probably two days away. I might have guessed wrong."

"Or perchance it is only because I had to drag you myself," grumbled a still masked Carnivek, who had started a new campfire for Lexi to huddle close for warmth. The desert was rapidly chilling, and Lexi was wrapped in the red cloth that was her transport.

He stood up and pointed to her, "Stay put." Then he left the cave.

"Wait!" shouted Lexi.

Carnivek ignored her.

Left alone, Lexi nervously watched the cave entrance where the orange rocks opened to dark for anything that might come near. Carnivek was dangerous, but for now he was her protector. The only thing better than him… would be another Terran, preferably with water.

She couldn't stare at the entrance for long and instead occupied herself with staring at the flickers of flame. How ironic the heat she vehemently wished to escape earlier in the day was now an entity she desperately clung to protect her against the desert cold.

Fire.

There was fire where weapons and ship collisions struck the skyscrapers.

She broke out of her cold sweat when Carnivek emerged from the darkness, his talons softly stomping towards her in steady rhythm. He tossed something to Lexi.

She heard the sloshing before her eyes registered the canister. She dove out of her red blanket, scrambled across the dirt, unscrewed the cap, and guzzled down cool, thirst-quenching water. She greedily gulped until she was left sucking at what moisture could be physically pulled inside the canister.

Too little, but the everpresent thirst was partially quenched for now.

"That was real good!" exclaimed Lexi, shaking the silent metal canister. "Lord, where did you find this!?"

Carnivek pointed with a curved metal claw. "I found a dead group of Terrans and their transport. All were eviscerated by something animal. I found no food, but discovered what I correctly assumed was their water container on one of the bodies."

Lexi glanced down at the macabre canister and gently set it down. "How far off was it?"

"It was a fair distance from here, far enough that I could no longer sense your psionic presence. Do not be so afraid of the zerg, simian." He tapped his bone white crest. "I can sense the psionic signature of any living creature, a talent taught by my master. Yes. Without you to burden me, I ran, scouting the lands around us so I could find something to keep your pathetic life. You may be surprised how much ground I can cover without an infuriatingly slow creature to tether me."

Lexi took that as a reassurance of safety, which gnawed at her near constantly. Even if they encountered zerg, perhaps Carnivek could fight them off.

A somewhat comfortable silence fell over them as Lexi was nodding off near the warmth of the fire, and Carnivek was meticulously scraping dried insect blood off his white face, delicately with his armored fingers.

She was still hungry and thirsty. Sleep was needed, but her conditions were still shitty, so perhaps pure exhaustion over time would knock her out.

Plus, she had questions.

Poking the fire, literally and metaphorically, Lexi asked the protoss. "Why did you find me?"

Carnivek's mask stared her down. His head tilted (a shrugging gesture?) and he removed his mask to squint his eyes at her. "I was tasked by my master to follow the signal and collect the tribute." His taloned foot angrily scraped the dirt, "She did not specify what the tribute was supposed to constitute."

Lexi's business mind was simultaneously calculating what her family could possibly owe to protoss gangsters while she continued, "She didn't specify?"

Carnivek hummed. It had to be a distinct habit since he had no mouth… or lungs and vocal cords… to do so. Whether it was a Carnivek or a protoss thing, she couldn't guess. He answered, "No, she did not."

"Why not? I reckon it'd oughta be important."

Carnivek ran his claws along the rock to mar it with pale marks. "If I knew, I would have told you already. And I thought your mind was brighter than the rest of your dim kin."

Lexi raised a brow, "My mind is brighter?"

"I told you already, I detect psionic signatures. All beings with a brain emit this… luminance I can see with my mind. I can see the tiniest of verminous lifeforms scurrying in the darkness," he flexed his hand in a threatening gesture, "to the blood hunters who thought they could sneak upon me. Yes. I am the hunter who does not skulk in the darkness. No. I chase them out of hiding."

"That's mighty interesting an' all. But what's that got to do with my mind?"

"More active brains shine brighter."

Lexi smirked, "So you're sayin' I'm a smart gal?"

"Smart? How intelligent you must be, an elite who had her own servants to prepare your food, to end up half-starved and dying in the midst of wasteland! Do entertain me with the tale of your downfall."

Lexi frowned, "I was a doctor on Tarsonis, but that all changed when the Zerg attacked Tarsonis."

A pause grasped her words. They would not leave her throat for she grappled with the raw wounds etched in recent memory.

Carnivek narrowed his eyes, "Then what?"

Lexi exhaled, "I escaped on a ship to Canton, but mah' family's done for. The Dominion came and seized all our assets while I went to hidin' as one of them million refugees. I was hungry, was fixin' to get some money, so I signed up as a medic when the UED came to Canton. Then, well, you saw what happened in the forest."

The protoss scratched his metal-entombed fingers together, creating a deceivingly smooth rubbing noise. "So… If all your possessions were taken from you," He lowered himself with a stomp to loom over Lexi and growled, "what, then, do you or your family have to offer?"

Lexi shrank within her blankets, "I-I don't know."

"You don't know? No. You don't know?!"

"Desiree might have something."

"Pray to your gods that your sister provides. Yes! I can't wait to leave your worthless, destitute carcass to rot with the rest of your starving kin, with your hunger and thirst. The strong do not starve themselves! Waste of my time!"

Lexi just resigned herself to stare at the wall as the shadows from the flames danced over her gaunt face. She wrapped herself in the red cloth to rest over the abrasive dirt and keep herself warm. "I'm gonna try to catch some shuteye…"

"Are you asking for my permission to sleep?" snapped Carnivek.

Lexi refrained her response. Carnivek seemed like the type to test her at any opportunity. She grunted as her bones were laid on the hard ground. She did not want to hear him talk anymore. Sleep was her only safe space in the sector.

Yet she had no peace of comfort even in the privacy of her own mind. Whether it was that uneasiness, or her hunger, or the painfully uncomfortable ground she was reduced to sleeping on, she couldn't sleep. Her mind was occupied by the uncertainty of Papa, who she wasn't even sure escaped Tarsonis. Was Desiree still alive in Tyrador with the other Old Family scions? What would happen to them with the Old Families destroyed? There was a good possibility Desiree would have been sold out by her guards with their checks evaporating. And if they find her? How will they pay Carnivek? Where is Rex who knew their family and was supposed to help her? How is she going to sleep, let alone survive?

"It has been thirty minutes," grumbled Carnivek, whose footsteps pulled Lexi upright from her impossible sleep.

"I'm sorry," said Lexi. "I just can't sleep."

"Your mind not only will keep me awake, but will make you utterly unbearable to deal with when we march in the day."

His claws slowly moved for her face. "Sleep, terran."

Lexi backed away from the digits that could easily mar her face. "Don't touch me," she demanded.

The claws halted and withdrew behind Carnivek's back. He stared down at her with a blank expression, rumbling.

He took one step and loomed over her, his voice dark and unwavering, "Was that a command I heard from you?"

Afraid she crossed an unknown boundary with Carnivek, Lexi nonetheless mustered her resolve and affirmed, "I don't want you touching me again if I'm tryna sleep."

Carnivek chuckled to himself, "Interesting. Yes. If you want to sleep, I can help you psionically. It is a simple trick. Unless… you wish to wallow in your restlessness." He leaned down nearly to her eye-level, arms behind his back. "What say you?"

Lexi stared at him suspiciously. Then she reasoned that if Carnivek wanted to completely screw her over, as he so sadistically threatened several times, he probably would have done so sooner with his freaky mind magic. "Alright. I'll play."

"I grant you this favor, so ease yourself," said Carnivek as his fingers wrapped around her head. "Yes."

Lexi flinched as the cold metal touched the back of her scalp and behind her ears. Yet instead of the sharp, oppressive stabbing sensation she so dreadfully anticipated, she instead felt a cool and gentle touch. A sigh escaped her lips as the tips softly grazed over her scalp and around her ears, as if scratching an itch.

Lexi knew he was bewitching her with his freaky mind magic. Relaxation banished her worries, and drowsiness made her body forget all its current issues. She at least had the dignity to not whine when his scratching claws left her cheeks and forehead, but she did allow herself to slump into his other hand which was conveniently there to rest her head down on the red cloth which was much softer than she remembered a minute ago.

True to Carnivek's word, sleep finally came to Lexi.

---

Encased in the armor of a Confederate medic, Lexi nervously stood behind a convex barricade at the mouth of a city street opening into a green vast park, where the fields of soft grass and fragile trees clung to life with bomb-craters and scorched earth destroying concrete and neosteel. The afternoon sky was set ablaze, for the azure Tarsonis sky was painted sickly yellow with planetwide infernos and black smoke obscuring the three way brawl between battlecruisers, carriers, and flocks of mutalisks. Blue flashes and orange glows were the only hints of the carnage in heaven far beyond human eyes..

On earth, a line of marines, handful of goliaths, and one siege tank were all that stood between Lexi and the zerg charging across the hilly park.

Her brother, Thomas, was in marine armor as part of the line. He shouted to the rabble of militia marines. "Open fire!"

The siege tank's arclight shock cannon rattled Lexi's armor and leaked through her external sound dampeners, but only offered a small splash in the tide of carapace and muscle thundering towards her group. Bullets of all calibers cut down scores of zerglings and hydralisks, but their sheer mass could not be diminished.

They were about to be run over. Lexi would have run away if Thomas did not choose to die bravely and stand his ground.

A trio of protoss scouts pursued some mutalisks over the park and unleashed a barrage of missiles. The mutalisks were killed from behind, with one crashing into the skyscraper right next to the terran line, causing glass, concrete, and metal to shower over the marines and goliaths.

At such low altitude, some of the missiles obliterated the charging zerg.

One struck the center of the terran barricade.

The blinding blue and red explosion which obliterated their one siege tank sent Lexi tumbling to the side, and in her exhaustion and concussion she needed a good moment to pick herself back up.

There was no time to dawdle for triage. Her visor quickly linked to the vital readings provided by the combat suits of wounded marines, identifying those who could be recovered to fight again. There was no time to salvage the bodies of those broken beyond repair.

She turned her laser scalpel on a downed marine grunting in pain, which meant he still had some fight. "Use your stim!"

With his pain subsiding, he drugged himself back to alertness and rejoined the barricade, which was scrambling to fight off the zerg who survived the protoss strafe attack.

She quickly noticed Thomas who got shrapnel in his arm. A minor injury. She ran past other incapacitated marines to grab his arm, pull out the shrapnel, and heal his arm.

"Sis," grunted Thomas. "You okay?"

"I'm d-dandy," answered Lexi shakily while she saw a zergling jump a marine while his comrades tried to shoot it off.

Thomas took one look at the fight, then to Lexi. He shouted to their group, "Let's fall back!"

All too eager to regain their bearings, a trickle of marines and their sole functioning goliath routed, only slowing to shoot back at pursuing zerglings. Lexi and Thomas were already ahead of everyone trying to survive hydralisk needle spines.

They ran towards a fallback point, then Thomas suddenly directed Lexi inside an abandoned street store.

Lexi hissed, "Thomas! What're we doin' here? We gotta regroup over yonder!"

Thomas opened his visor to shake his head with haunted eyes. "This was a mistake. Holy crap."

They stumbled as some distant explosion rocked the city. Thomas rushed to remove Lexi's armor.

"We're desertin'?!" asked Lexi.

"Yes," said Thomas. "One of us is going to die if we stay here."

Lexi was not against desertion. This was hell. No honor or bravery could compel her to suffer this anymore. She wanted her and Thomas to live. "But we'll be shot," she said, rightfully afraid.

"We have to try," responded Thomas.

Fortunately Thomas had the foresight to have them undress in a clothing store so they could ditch their military jumpsuits and pose as civilians. In their rush, Lexi was stuck with pants too short for her and didn't bother with a bra. They were already running towards the starport hastily trying to shuttle civilians even as the sky was torn asunder.

Lexi scratched at the bracelet recently attached to her wrist. It tingled and itched painfully while the red crystal glowed dimly in the dark atmosphere.

Even with their civilian clothes, they didn't want to risk someone checking their military tattoos and the metal socket implanted in their shoulders for power armor connections. The siblings ducked below some rubble as they encountered a Terran rear guard. Siege tanks stood vigil and idle behind concrete barricades. Even with the surroundings in rubble and flames still burning, there was peace at this line.

But there was still shouting. Distress. Agony.

"Fire!"

Lexi flinched when the short burst of rifles popped to her unprotected ears. She never got used to the lethal sound of gunfire.

She and Thomas dared to peek over the rubble.

An angry officer was shouting, "Next! Orders from the Confederate Council: The people of Tarsonis and mankind relied on you to protect them. Desertion must be punished!"

"We can still fight!" A man.

"We were scattered!" A woman.

"I'm begging you! Mercy!" Another man whose voice had turned course.

"Ready!"

"I can still fight! Please!" The same man continued his haggard plea.

"Fire!"

Their pleas were cut short by cries of their death throes. Lexi watched their bodies fall. She saw how one of the bodies turned to fall on her back, the woman's desperate grasp at life. Lexi's medical mind immediately thought how a single bullet to the chest wouldn't kill them instantly. They'd bleed out on the ground. Dying. Fighting inevitable death.

She morbidly wondered… how she would feel what they felt if she was shot.

Panicked shouts immediately ensued from other deserters in line to be shot. One young man tried to make a run for it.

"Don't kill me! I don't want to die!"

A marine easily gunned him down. The boy collapsed and rolled across the sidewalk.

This memory will forever be burned along with other fresh wounds in Lexi's mind. Thomas pulled her arm, helping Lexi tear herself away from the horrible scene.

Her ears could still hear the begging of the remaining deserters when they passed by a pile of bodies, and she gagged a scream in her throat when one of the bodies grabbed her sleeve.

"D-," blood dribbled down the chin man, "Don't leave me."

Cole! Lexi gasped and quickly examined her broken hospital coworker. She noted the streaks of blood staining down from a hole in his chest. A punctured lung for sure, but he was not dead. Cole was still clinging to life! She might be able to save him.

"Thomas!" she hissed.

Thomas looked back. His eyes widened in recognition, and he was silent for a moment before saying. "Lexi, we have to go."

They were still in danger of being caught as deserters, and it would be hellishly difficult to bring her coworker along. But Lexi couldn't abandon him. "Thomas, we know 'im!" she pleaded weakly.

"We can't help, we have to go."

Thomas made the decision for Lexi. Self-preservation won over compassion. "Cole. I'm sorry," she said mournfully.

Lexi let go of her fellow doctor's bloody hand, ignoring his gasp for her to wait for him.

They managed to find a crowd of civilians tightly packed in desperation to force their way through a fenced military checkpoint trying to process civilians and violently rejecting soldiers attempting to escape at the starport.

They hid around the corner. Lexi felt the hope drain from her exhausted body, "Thomas. Thomas. What do we do?"

Thomas grimaced at the scene. A moment later, he whispered, "I don't know."

Screams and panic alerted them to hydralisks unburrowing from the asphalt in the area. Lexi and Thomas wasted no time running to the safety of the crowd while the hydralisks were still breaking through the concrete and slithering out before arming their spines.

At this point, people surged through the checkpoint while the guards were busy fighting the hydralisks and zerglings spilling from the ground. Spines gored unarmored people as zerglings rushed past marines and pounced on stragglers running from the crowd.

Thomas and Lexi tried to push through the crowd to escape the edge where they were the most in danger. The chainlink fence funneling the crowd leaned with strain as grunts and screams of pain sounded from the densest center of civilians crushing against each other and trampling atop their fellows.

"Take down the fence!" shouted a marine.

Power armored marines easily pulled down the fence and allowed the crowd to surge toward the starport.

To their horror, more zerg tunneled around them. The only thing protecting the civilians was the sheer number of them flocking together, sweeping Lexi and Thomas into the herd.

Screams, snarls, and gunfire were lost to Lexi as her pacemaker worked overtime. She was losing her breath. With her legs weakened, she tripped.

She screamed, struggling to breath as soles stomped on her back and someone kicked her head. She distinctly felt someone dive over her, weighing her down but cushioning her against the stampede.

She dizzily grasped her younger brother's hair in a feeble move to cover his bleeding head after he threw himself over his smaller sister. She couldn't say his name with the air knocked out her lungs.

The sounds of vicious alien snarling and the tearing of screaming flesh reinvigorated Lexi to scramble up with Thomas. The zerg were focused on tearing people to bits one by one.

To their horror, one zergling singled them out and pounced.

The siblings held each other.

A blue fireball struck the zergling midair, sending the half-vaporized beast rolling past them with its lower half charred to the bone.

Protoss zealots charged in from one direction to cut down every zerg they came across, as well as any marines shooting at the protoss.

Following the protoss zealots were dragoons.

Her pacemaker beat erratically

The metal spiders, with spotlights flooding their targets, fired their azure bolts of plasma fire to destroy every non-protoss target they saw. Zerglings destroyed in one blast. Marines with their painted armor charred and their limbs atomized.

Her vision blurred. The world was spinning. The sky darkened until the orange sky was choked in gray and black. All she could see was the light of a dragoon blinding her eyes.

"This is what happened?" asked Carnivek.

She blinked away the dark spots in her sight to suddenly discover no sign of life amidst the war torn city leading to the starport, not even the blood of innocent people spilled on the ground.

"What?" she asked dumbly.

The soft clinking of metal footsteps sounded in a steady rhythm behind her. She turned around to see Carnivek, with his dagger-axe in on hand, walking toward her like the embodiment of death stalking her.

Carnivek waved his hand.

And suddenly the blurriness was gone and Lexi realized she was dreaming. With total lucidity, she spun around in place with deep gasps as she tried to process her surroundings. "Bless my heart. Oh god. I'm… it's this again." She turned to Carnivek, or her mental manifestation of Carnivek. "Is that you, Carnivek?"

Carnivek rolled his eyes, "Yes, simian. It is I, Carnivek of the Forged. Tal'darim blood hunter. Repeating my glorious title really diminishes its grandiosity. You were so restless in your sleep you still disturbed me, so I came to investigate."

His metal footsteps stopped next to her as he planted his dagger-axe into the ground, crossed his arms, and surveyed his surroundings. "So the Khalai did indeed strike your world, along with these…'Zerg'."

"Yes," said Lexi. "Ya ain't welcome in my head. I'm askin' you to leave."

"Not until you actually sleep," said Carnivek. "At this rate, you will be utterly exhausted for tomorrow. Yes."

Lexi sadly stared at the scene around her. She was somewhat thankful that Carnivek came… before…

"Do you have somethin' you're fixin' to do?" Lexi asked.

Carnivek held out his hand and twisted, "Let me see…"

A heavy fog swept over the city before bright sunlight under a blue sky evaporated the vapors and revealed a shiny Tarsonis, as Lexi remembered it. People in clean clothes walked the city living their lives with friends, family, and the comforts of technology while a grand Confederate Armada patrolled the skies.

"Interesting," said Carnivek, craning his head toward every noteworthy detail to his alien mind. "So this is your culture. Your homeworld. Your past before your destitution."

Lexi glanced down to find herself wearing a fabulous forest green dress. She somberly felt the silk fabric clinging to her clean, soft skin. "I will never have this again," said Lexi. She was glad that Thomas nor any other family member was here, pretending to exist as anything more than products of Carnivek's illusion.

"Then take it all back," said Carnivek.

Lexi glared at him, "How?"

Carnivek narrowed his eyes, "Who am I to tell you? You are nothing to me. This is your problem to solve. Until then…" Carnivek stretched his arms over his head in a gesture Lexi assumed was his equivalent of yawning. "I must rest. I cannot stay awake forever. Enjoy this moment of respite while you can, Dr. Lexi Nguyen."

Lexi could sense her subconscious was taking over again in the dream world. Everything once lurid became like painted glass as the shroud fell over the world. "Wait." She suddenly found herself asking, dropping her hostile edge. "Don't go," she pleaded, not wanting to be left alone in her mind again. Without family, without any form of familiarity. She at least wanted someone to talk to in a temporary, indulgent world without hunger, thirst, and discomfort.

Carnivek was dissolving in a purple haze. His crimson gaze, always watching her, closed shut.

"I will sleep. Do us both a favor… and fall… to slumber…"