The Highest Hope - Chapter 1

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I proudly present chapter 1 of The Highest Hope. It's a long one, so I'm sorry it took me some time to get it together. Enjoy!

Chapter 1


“Did you hear what happened to Ms. Stanz yesterday?” The voice was low and afraid.
Another voice answered the question in disgust. “My sister told me after our parents wouldn’t. So disgusting. That has to be one of the worst ways to die.”
“But just think, Luna, any one of us could be next!”
“You’re overreacting,” was the reply, although she sounded just as frightened as her friend.
Charlotte turned a page in her old leatherbound book every few seconds, absently listening to the people around her discuss the current local gossip: that Ms. Stanz, a well-off and involved member of the community, had been found dead in Summer Park the previous evening, having been devoured from the inside out by an Avaworm. A particularly large Avaworm, in fact, which had sent everyone into a state of unease and the ladies into fits of hysteria at the disgusting nature of her death. Symptoms had manifested much more quickly, been more severe, and progressed at a faster rate than had ever been recorded.
In spite of herself, Charlotte was fascinated. How could an Avaworm have killed a human being so quickly? The only explanation she could think of was selective breeding, a common practice for human-raised Comptures, but even then she didn’t think such a feat was possible. The species, as far as she knew, simply didn’t possess the ability.
“You all right, Charlotte?” Eva-Marie, a petite redhead who’d known Charlotte since they’d both been small, said as she leaned over and regarded Charlotte worriedly. “With all this scary business on top of what your father’s going through... I was just worried about you, is all.”
“Just fine,” Charlotte replied absentmindedly, turning the page in her book.
Eva-Marie sighed. Here the two of them were, having their weekly lunch together at the small cafĂ© where the well-to-do women of the community gathered, and all Charlotte could do was look at that moldy old book. Eva-Marie glanced over Charlotte’s shoulder, trying to get a better idea of what her friend was paying attention to instead of her. “Oooh, is that a Draig?” she asked in spite of herself upon seeing the gorgeous painted illustration.
“No, Draigs have wings. This is a Serco, a kind of serpent,” Charlotte replied. Eva-Marie was a nice enough girl, but she didn’t know her Compture species to save her life. And what kind of person didn’t want to know all there was to know about the sometimes mysterious creatures that inhabited their world and were inseparably tied to their own lives? It was one of the major things about Eva-Marie that drove Charlotte a little crazy—her friend’s utter lack of a desire to learn.
As for Eva-Marie’s question, Charlotte didn’t think anyone had seen a real Draig in over a hundred years, since humans, in their infinite wisdom, had deemed the creatures too dangerous to attempt to handle and had instead tried to exterminate as many as they possibly could. Currently, the species was listed as possibly extinct, but it had never been confirmed.
“Is your daddy going to get you a Compture?” Charlotte asked, figuring it was rude to not actually carry on a conversation with the friend who’d invited her to lunch.
“Of course he is,” Eva-Marie said with a bright smile. “Probably for my birthday next week, actually. For my first one, I’m guessing it’ll be something common and easy to handle, like a Pupog or a Frezar.”
Charlotte knew she was going to have to get a Compture soon herself. Everyone did. It wasn’t a matter of status or wealth, but of safety. If you had a Compture that could protect you against other Comptures, either wild or human-controlled, the better off you were.
“Pupogs are so cute,” Eva-Marie continued. “And I hear they’re fiercely loyal to their owners.”
“Wouldn’t be a bad choice for you. But you know, you can always get another one later if your first one doesn’t work out.”
“How could you say such a thing, Charlotte!” Eva-Marie cried, stunned. “You know as well as I do that Comptures bond with their owners.”
“It won’t do a lot of good if your Compture isn’t strong enough to protect you from other Comptures, though. And you can always have more than one at once, so long as you’re able to control them,” Charlotte replied, even though she almost instantly regretted her almost callous words. People did bond with their Comptures as much as they bonded with other people, and in spite of practicality, it would be heartless to even suggest that Eva-Marie or anyone else dumped a weaker Compture in exchange for a stronger one. Unfortunately, many people did exactly that. Charlotte was well aware that she never seemed to think before she spoke, and it had gotten her into trouble numerous times throughout her life.
Besides, Eva-Marie could always have more than one. Owning multiple Comptures was permitted, but you would be forced to get rid of one or more of them if the local CCA determined that you were unable to handle them. That was also a matter of public safety. Even a well-trained Pupog could be deadly if, in one moment of not being under its master’s control, it attacked someone.
“I suppose,” mused Eva-Marie. “Having more than one’s probably a good idea anyway. That way if, Heaven forbid, you lose one of them, you still have another.”
Charlotte sipped her lemonade, grateful for the cold liquid on the hot day. Sweat began to drip down her brow, and the layers she wore, even though they were relatively comfortable, were making the heat and humidity worse. Even though Charlotte didn’t yet have a Compture, she didn’t want to think of losing one to sickness or injury. People had been known to go mad and be sent to the mental asylums upon the death of their Comptures, and most Comptures either reverted to being wild or would bond with a close friend or family member if it was the human owner who died. However, there had been rare cases of Comptures going on rampages after the deaths of their owners and needing to be put down.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Colter. Lovely to see you,” a pleasant voice belonging to a young man wafted up above the quiet hum of other conversations going on in the room. Charlotte nearly jumped. She prided herself on her observation skills, and for Shiloh to sneak up behind her like that without her knowing unnerved her greatly.
“Good afternoon,” Charlotte said politely, regaining her composure in the way she had been taught. “I hope things are well with you?”
“Oh, about the same,” he replied, sliding up beside their table and removing his hat. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Shiloh Saint was a handsome enough young man, with short sandy hair and sharply-defined facial features. Both Charlotte and Eva-Marie had known him since they’d been children, and Charlotte considered him a friend.
“My father did want me to tell you or your father that we think we might have an abnormal Equin on our hands. A little filly born just two days ago. Could he possibly come down to the farm when he has a spare minute and take a look?”
“I’ll be sure to let him know,” Charlotte said, knowing her father would be utterly ecstatic at such an invitation to study a possible abnormality. She pulled up his schedule from memory. “He should be able to go this evening or tomorrow.”
“Much obliged.” Shiloh bowed his head slightly in thanks.
The conversation continued for a little while; niceties that had no real substance to them, before Charlotte decided that she’d spent enough time there and needed to return home.
“Thank you so much for meeting me for lunch,” Charlotte began, gathering her books and her purse, “but I think I should be heading home to help my father.”
“You don’t need to help him with his research if you don’t want to,” Eva-Marie said, almost defensively. She did this now and again-tried to give Charlotte a hint that she needed to be focusing on her social life and finding a husband rather than her father’s Compture research. And each and every time Charlotte ignored the criticism.
“No, I don’t mind. I actually like it,” Charlotte replied politely as she put on her sun hat. She found herself getting a little annoyed with her friend’s constant disapproval of her life choices, even if they did go against what was expected of her in society. After all, instead of living the life of a wealthy landowner, her father had chosen to spend his days doing research on Comptures, which he was rather widely respected for. So why couldn’t she be the same, and actually do something productive with her life besides make babies and social engagements?
Eva-Marie gave her a strange look, but didn’t comment further. To do so would be impolite. Nevertheless, Charlotte could feel her close friend judging her, something that clawed at her mind even as she dismissed it as normal.
Charlotte walked home, traveling down the town’s old but quaint main street. Their community at least tried to keep the main street looking nice, even though different areas of the town and the surrounding countryside were in various states of disrepair, like the old mill on the south side of the River Eren that had been abandoned for as long as she could remember. Some residents of Lexington Hill swore the old mill was haunted by Comptures that were ghosts, but Charlotte and her father had both thought those rumors silly. There were probably plenty of live Comptures living in the derelict building for shelter, some of them probably dangerous to people, but certainly no ghosts.
Charlotte traveled the same road she always took to their rather spacious estate at the edge of town, which led her past the abandoned outdoor theater. The wood that framed and made up the stage had begun rotting and plants had grown over the audience seats that had once been crimson red. It made her feel a deep sorrow to see such a once magnificent sanctuary for the arts fallen into such decay. As a child, she had dreamed of playing the piano on that stage in front of everyone. Now, she was relatively certain that dream would never come true.
The afternoon was dreary and overcast as Charlotte trudged up the final hill to the manor house that had been in her family for generations. Ivy climbed the two pillars that greeted visitors at the front gate. Charlotte smiled a small, sad smile. She was unsure if she would ever leave this place, or if she even wanted to. When her father died, it was likely she and whomever she chose to marry would inherit the land. She’d never felt trapped there—the old manor house was like a shelter from the world outside, and she’d spent her childhood familiarizing herself with every single square inch of the estate’s sprawling grounds. And at the same time, the idea of living there until she died seemed disagreeable.
The house itself came into view from behind a copse of birch trees as she rounded a curve in the path. Even the large manor house was wearing down, and her father would need to hire a contractor sometime soon to fix it before the damage got any worse. Even if her father had been expected to take care of the house’s upkeep himself, he wouldn’t. Her father had never been particularly comfortable working with his shaky hands, or out in the world at all, for that matter. Instead, his life rotated around the Comptures he studied and the books and papers he wrote on them.
She entered through the massive front doors, not bothering to announce her presence until she had descended the stairs that led to the basement. The stairs were concealed behind a door in the front entryway so as to keep them from view. She knew no one would hear her if that door was closed.
“I’m back from lunch, dad,” she said as she descended the plain wooden stairs. She thought she was the only teenage female in all of Lexington Hill that called her father “dad” instead of “daddy” or “father.” One more thing that ensured she remained different from everyone else. But she refused to call him something he was not; she was close to her father and he would always be “dad” to her.
“Hi there, Charlotte,” he replied from where he stood hunched over his favorite lab table. There were three others scattered throughout the lab, but it seemed like he hardly used them, hence why Charlotte had always thought of that one as his “favorite.” “How’s Eva-Marie?”
At least he remembered where she had gone and with whom, and cared enough to ask. This was why Charlotte loved her father. So many eccentric scientists, either real or in the books she read when she had a spare minute, seemed so buried in their work that they forgot life happened outside. He had never forgotten her birthday or not been there when she needed him.
“She’s well,” Charlotte responded. “She’s thinking her father is going to give her a Compture for her birthday.”
“Oh, how exciting. Did she say what she wanted? I have a new litter of Niko, and because it’s the foaling season, the Saints have plenty of new Equins.”
“I think she has her heart set on a Pupog, but I don’t know what her father’s going to decide. He may or may not come by and ask you what you think is best.”
Ed puffed up in pride and Charlotte smiled. He was so proud of his position as the man everyone in Lexington Hill consulted to obtain information or advice on Comptures, and even people from other towns, cities, and even countries sometimes showed up on their doorstep to meet the famous scientist. And tirelessly adhering to the famous Hospitality, he would let them in, no matter how busy he may be at the time.
“So, what do you need done?” Charlotte asked, removing her shawl and hat and placing them on the back of one of the chairs.
“Can you go down to the forest and do some more observing for me?” he asked her, looking up from the table. “I’m so busy in the lab all the time, I never have a chance to get out and do it.”
“Of course, but I think you should get out more,” she responded politely, yet honestly. “It’s not good for your health to be cooped up in here all the time, especially when there’s so much field work to be done.” She couldn’t remember the last time he had accompanied her on a trip to the swampy bayous or the lush, overgrown forest that stretched for miles East of town. She didn’t mind going on her own, but the trip would a lot more fun with company.
“Next time, I promise,” he said with an air of guilt. The same thing he said every time.
Charlotte sighed, knowing trying to change his mind would be like trying to get a Selkhund not to chase every Rabt it saw.
“All right. I’ll go change now,” she replied. The day dress she’d worn to meet Eva-Marie for lunch was not the kind of thing she would wear to go slogging through the mud and plants looking for Comptures. She’d never hear the end of it if she went out wearing pants normally, but she wasn’t going out on a social call, and practicality was more important when going into a nearby forest to gather data on Compture species.
She pulled her pad of paper where she recorded all the information she gathered on her expeditions, as well as the list of all the tags she, her father, or her father’s assistant, Macom, had placed on the wild Comptures. It was sometimes a dangerous job, which was why Ed had never let his daughter go out alone until she’d turned sixteen. But after watching her, he had become more than confident she was capable of handling the task alone.
“Take Rallah,” Ed suggested as Charlotte began up the second set of stairs. This set, instead of leading to the main entryway, emerged by the back door. Outside was a huge enclosed area where Ed kept the Comptures he researched.
Rallah was one of Ed’s favorite Nikos, and was the daughter of the first Compture he had ever bonded with. She was fifteen years old, which was a little beyond middle age for a Niko, but she hardly showed it and Ed had always trusted her the most out of all his Comptures when it came to his daughter’s safety.
Charlotte stopped and looked at the floor. “I think it’s about time I got one too. I don’t want to always be using yours.”
Ed looked a bit surprised, but happy. “You can always have your pick of the litter, Charlotte,” he responded.
She knew that was true, but as she thought of all the Comptures that had been born there in the last year, none of them stuck out in her mind.
The grounds behind the house belonged to the Comptures. They had a huge enclosure all to themselves that gave them plenty of space and encompassed several different terrains to ensure every species had access to their natural environment. A fence nearly twelve feet tall enclosed the area, as some Comptures, specifically the Cerfes, could easily jump or climb fences. Ed had even gone through the trouble of having sheet rock buried under the fence, so no curious Pupogs could dig their way out.
There were isolation pens along the fence for Comptures that were sick, injured, prone to violence, or unruly. After all, her father couldn’t be up there all the time to manage them, and even if he were, there was no way he could control any more than a few Comptures at a time.
Charlotte glanced around, trying to find the Nikos, and Rallah in particular. Unlike the Cerfes, the Nikos did not all stay in the same general vicinity together, as they were not a particularly social species. She finally spotted Rallah napping in the sunlight near a young sapling in the back. The sapling looked like it had seen better days. It drooped sadly and its bark had been marred. She would have to scold Reign, one of their Cerfes, for sharpening his antlers on one of the new saplings. The older trees could handle the typical mating behavior of a full-grown male Cerfe quite well, but the saplings Charlotte and Macom had planted earlier that spring could not.
“Come on, old girl,” Charlotte said to the sleeping Compture. At the familiar voice issuing a command, the feline got to her feet and stretched with a big yawn, clearly unhappy that her nap had been disturbed.
“I know,” Charlotte said with sympathy and a little bit of guilt. “I won’t take long, I promise.”
She led the Compture to the edge of the enclosure and carefully opened the squeaky old gate so the both of them could get out. The fence had once been painted white but the paint had begun to chip several years ago, and now spots of brown wood were beginning to show through. It was good her father didn’t have any firebreathing Comptures back here, Charlotte thought, or they would have taken out that fence a long time ago without a second thought.
Rallah slid through the gate as soon as it was opened and Charlotte followed, looking over her shoulder and down at her feet to make sure no Comptures were trying to slip past her to freedom. She would never forget an incident during her childhood where one of the Nikos had run out between her legs when she’d been trying to exit the enclosure. She and her father had looked for the poor thing all night, only to find it dead some time later, when the flesh had already begun to decay and several other animals had feasted on its corpse. It had been the first time Charlotte had seen a dead body, and as a little girl it had shaken her to her core. To think that one day she too would end up like that disgusting mess of rotted flesh had been almost unbearable.
Shaking the thoughts of death from her mind, Charlotte shut the gate.
The forest on the outskirts of town always set Charlotte’s every nerve on edge. As a child, she’d thought it was the most exciting and beautiful place in the world. But as she’d grown older and the world itself had grown older around her, she started to see the forest more as a place that was still wild and somewhat dangerous than as a friend. Carrying her notepad and notes against her chest, she tred up the path that wound around the forest to take travelers to the next town, some five miles away. Few people from Lexington Hill came here anymore, as an increase in the wild Compture population had made the area unsafe. The forest wasn’t particularly aesthetically pleasing, either. There were many dead trees and the ones that were alive drooped as if they had tired of their existence. The wood was also dark thanks to the thick canopy—there had been times when Charlotte thought night had fallen when it really had not.
Any excitement she’d felt upon leaving the house began to fade as she and Rallah entered the forest. That same terror of being in the wild, away from order and civilization, settled upon her, and Charlotte was eternally glad that Rallah was with her. Rallah was extremely well-behaved and Charlotte never had to worry about the Niko wandering off somewhere. The feline simply walked along at her side, as if not even acknowledging the world surrounding them as reality.
Swallowing the uneasiness and focusing her mind back on the task at hand, Charlotte crouched down in one of the hutches—she and her father, with Macom’s help, had installed observation hutches in the forest years ago to make it easier to conduct their research. With Rallah curled up at her feet, she sat for almost an hour and watched the world lope by. A few Azuras, brilliant blue-feathered birds, and a small Chiluk came by, but nothing exciting enough to catch Charlotte’s interest.
Deciding to move on, Charlotte stood and gathered her things before continuing deeper into the forest, Rallah at her side. The forest seemed to get gloomier and darker the deeper she went, and a sense of unease Charlotte couldn’t explain was beginning to sink its teeth into her.
She ignored the next three observation hutches, as neither she, her father, nor Macom had ever had much luck with them. Ed had been certain when he constructed them that were near areas Comptures would frequent, but it turned out he’d been wrong, so Charlotte rarely wasted her time at them anymore.
Soon the path that had been well-worn by Cerfes began to fade to brush. It was when she settled down into the hutch by the lake—a large, misty lake in the middle of the woods that she didn’t think she’d ever seen in its entirety due to the fog that always seemed to veil it—that she noticed some movement.
A little ways up the bank stood a Cerfe, sipping clear water from the lake. Charlotte recognized the collar around his neck immediately as one of the ones their lab used for tracking specific Comptures, and she pulled out her list in excitement, thinking she knew which one this was. A quick glance at the exact number on her list told her it matched the one displayed on his collar. Standing before her was the oldest Cerfe anyone at their lab had ever recorded—Macom had affectionately nicknamed him Ahllen, which meant “ancient” in the language of the Gaffars. He was a magnificent thing, with a soft, light brown coat, antlers that were almost six feet tall, and a lean body that was beginning to show its age. She often wondered how many battles he must have fought against younger male Cerfes to maintain his dominance and his life. While Cerfes normally did not kill each other when fighting, the ways of nature were often cruel and many bucks died from injuries sustained, either via infection or a predator hunting them down. As far as she knew, Ahllen was even still breeding.
Making a split second decision, Charlotte wasn’t about to let this opportunity wander away. Macom had been trying to track down Ahllen for months now and Ed had been fascinated by the Cerfe’s advanced age. She knew her father had been tracking Ahllen for well over ten years, and yet Ahllen was ever elusive.
Careful to remain downwind so as to not give away her position, Charlotte exited the safety of the shelter and followed the Cerfe in the manner her father had taught her. Rallah picked up on Charlotte’s body language and went into “stalker mode,” as Charlotte liked to call it. It didn’t seem like any human, or Compture, for that matter, could hear Rallah when she didn’t want to be heard. If either of them made Ahllen aware of their presence, Charlotte knew it was more likely to be her.
They carried on for a while, as Ahllen rarely stopped, and never for more than a few moments at a time. He was going deeper into the forest but Charlotte was confident enough in her ability to find her way back that she paid it little heed or worry. Rallah also didn’t seem to mind, and Charlotte knew the Niko would warn her in case of danger—Ed had carefully trained her to be that way.
And then Charlotte saw something even more unusual than the ancient Cerfe. In fact, she would have missed it entirely if she hadn’t been following Ahllen.
Ahllen had stopped to paw at the ground, but it was only when he put his nose down and blew some leaves away with his misty breath that she noticed a metal door, like the kind people placed on cellars that doubled as bunkers, was buried under the leaves.
Realizing that the strange contraption was not food or dangerous, Ahllen lost interest and began to lumber away, continuing his trek through the forest. Charlotte, on the other hand, was feeling torn. She looked from the door to Ahllen and back again, wondering which she should devote her time and attention to. It was getting late and she had written plenty of notes about the Cerfe’s behavior. Figuring she had done all she could in regards to conducting field research, she chose to investigate the odd door.
There was a lock on it, but someone had opened it because the lock lay open, not broken, against the cold metal of the door. Charlotte expected the door to conceal a small hole in the ground where hunters would hide, with perhaps enough room for some food and a light besides a human body, but she quickly found that not to be the case at all. With a heave, she opened the door to find stairs that led down into indefinite darkness. At the sight of it, the fur on Rallah’s back rose and the Niko began growling.
Now Charlotte was even more unsure what to do. She didn’t really want to crawl down into the dark, scary compound in the middle of the woods, especially when her trusted Niko seemed to think it was a bad idea as well. But if people were illegally hunting Comptures out here, she needed to gather all the details and report it to the proper authorities. Or perhaps this was a location someone had chosen to brew drugs. Either way, she figured whomever had built this out in the middle of a forest most people were terrified of could not be up to anything good. It really was the perfect hideout for anyone who didn’t want their activities known by others. She really wanted to take a look and make some sketches in her book if she had the time, because she wasn’t sure if she would be able to find this place again on her own very easily. And the last thing she wanted to do was get the police involved only to find out it was nothing or, worse, that she’d get lost trying to lead them back there or couldn’t find it. Since she’d been following Ahllen for over an hour, she had to admit to herself that she didn’t know exactly where she was. As things stood, she would probably have to follow the major stream that ran through the forest to make it back home. And what were the chances someone was actually down there now?
Her mind made up, Charlotte took in an uneasy breath and stepped down into the darkness. Her foot rested on the cold, metal stair and she wondered just how anyone had gotten the materials out there to build whatever this was. Hell, how had anyone even been able to afford it? Most people just used wood in the construction of any building—metal was ridiculously expensive.
Above her, Rallah paced on the forest floor for a moment, her lean muscles moving effortlessly beneath her fur, as if weighing her options, before ultimately following Charlotte down the stairs. At the foot of the stairs sat a candle in a holder with some flint. There were gas lamps running all down the hallway that all seemed to have been lit recently—she figured the candle and flint was supposed to be used as a lighter to light these lamps as someone walked down the hallway, though she opted not to do this herself as she lit the candle. The last thing she wanted to do was leave evidence that she had been there.
Just a few feet in front of where she was standing, on the left, was a door. Hesitantly, Charlotte reached out to try the knob, but found it was locked tight. A little frustrated, she went further to find another couple of doors across from each other. These were also locked, and so she continued along. Rallah never strayed more than a foot from her side, as if expecting monsters to jump out of the shadows and attack them at any second.
As Charlotte continued on, her anxiety continued to increase. This was a far more advanced operation than hunters or even a drug seller. Something was going on down here. Something bad.
She got her first proof as to what the purpose of this facility was when she came across the first room that was unlocked. The room shared many similarities with her father’s Compture lab, and inside stood almost fifteen tanks brimming with small purple specks floating in liquid. Upon closer inspection, Charlotte gasped. She knew what those were. Those were eggs. And unless she was completely forgetting her Compture bestiary, those were none other than Avaworm eggs.
Swallowing in fear, she forced herself closer, hoping to get a better view. There was a wooden desk off to the side with some papers on it, and she was thinking she’d better start there rather than try and piece anything together.
The sound of flesh slamming against metal and vicious barking filled the room and Charlotte almost had a heart attack on the spot. Rallah jumped instinctively but calmed down marginally after. Just listening to the commotion, it was clear the sources of the noise were in cages, as Charlotte could hear the cages rattling violently in what she guessed was an adjacent room. The barks sounded a little like Pupogs, but deeper. Whatever was back there, they weren’t Pupogs—they were some other kind of canine Compture. Charlotte took one look at the door in the back of the room and decided not to go in there.
What was going on here? Was someone breeding Comptures? The fact that there were Avaworm eggs everywhere made her begin to wonder if this facility had some sort of connection to the mysterious deaths. Or had they been murders?
Now more on edge than ever, fearing that whoever was behind this place had left a Compture loose to guard the facility, Charlotte slid over to the desk and began investigating. She figured she had waded in too deep to quit now.
She didn’t touch anything for several moments as she carefully observed the items that adorned the desk. Papers were scattered everywhere in quite a haphazard manner. A photo of a beautiful woman in a sun dress, holding a brightly-colored parasol, sat on the corner, but that seemed to be the only personal effect there. She was likely a member of the upper echelons of society. There was also what appeared to be a camera—Charlotte knew they had become popular in urban areas like Dolce, but people in Lexington Hill still vastly preferred portraits to immortalize their families. Several pens and pencils had been stuck into a glass that had some unidentifiable slime caked onto the sides that had taken on a greenish color. There was also an open book that appeared to be about Comptures, as she recognized a drawing of a Serco, but the book had been written in an unfamiliar, foreign language. After taking it all in, Charlotte found herself still unsure if this desk belonged to a woman or a man. That was all there appeared to be on the surface, so Charlotte began to dig further. The room slowly faded away into the surrounding darkness as Charlotte focused her attention on choosing what to look at first. She was well aware she might not have a lot of time, and wanted to carefully select the most important-seeming objects to inspect. After thinking carefully and fast, she picked up a file folder situated precariously on the edge of the desk.
“Project Marianne,” read the folder in big, bold letters across the top. But just as Charlotte opened the folder, a loud noise from upstairs caused her to jump more than even Rallah did, whose hearing was a lot more sensitive.
Charlotte felt her heart nearly stop, and after the initial fear passed she quickly tried to think of what to do. Making a mad dash for the exit probably was not the best course of action. Rallah, while past her prime, was still perfectly capable of defending them both, but if the barking from the other room was any indication, these people had powerful Comptures and perhaps more than just one. And fighting in an unfamiliar environment when she was already afraid would put the Niko at further disadvantage. Charlotte feared Rallah wouldn’t stand much of a chance in a fight. That left one option left.
Charlotte let out an undignified squeak of fear and ducked into the corner, hoping she would be able to hide long enough to avoid notice before she could pass the newcomers and make her way to the exit. Charlotte reached out once she had herself settled and gently grabbed Rallah, pulling her close, for protection as well as comfort. Rallah began hissing at the foreign sounds. Those were definitely the sounds of human voices, even though the click of nails on the metallic floor told Charlotte they probably had Comptures with them. “Quiet,” Charlotte ordered Rallah, trying to keep her voice from shaking and maintain control over a Compture that was not hers. Fortunately it worked, and Rallah settled down, yet Charlotte could still feel the tense, powerful muscles underneath the spotted fur.
The footsteps came closer as the people neared, and Charlotte felt her heartbeat speed up, the noise of the blood in her ears making it difficult to listen and keep tabs on her surroundings. She gripped Rallah tighter, burying her face in the Compture’s fur. It was a comfort in what could perhaps be her last minutes; having a warm, fuzzy companion to curl up with. That’s why they were called Comptures—a combination of “Companion” and “Creature.” Once you had one’s loyalty, they would be with you for life.
The footsteps were beginning to fade down the hall in the opposite direction from which they’d come.
Charlotte knew it was a stupid decision, but she did it anyway. She was not leaving there empty-handed. So she reached with all her might. She would have made it if not for the fact that her hand bumped the picture frame as she slid the folder off the desk, which sent it crashing to the floor, sending broken glass everywhere.
Shouts could be heard, the sound distorted by echoes and utterly terrifying. Reacting instinctively, Charlotte slid the folder into the rest of her things and was about to pick up Rallah and run, but she had miscalculated how far away the people had been. Before she could get up, a tall, dark figure appeared in the doorway.
“Who’s there?” a male voice said above the louder growls of his Compture as he stepped into the room. For the first time Charlotte got a good look at it. It was a Selkhund.
In spite of her situation, Charlotte was left astonished. Selkhunds were giant canines, almost the size of horses, and much fiercer than Pupogs. They were also considerably rarer, and she didn’t know anyone in Lexington Hill who had one. Especially not black. She had never even heard a Selkhund could have that coat color.
The man laid eyes on Charlotte and she him. She didn’t recognize him, but the look on his face and the lack of anything in his eyes utterly terrified her. This was a man who simply didn’t care, and would do away with her without a moment’s hesitation.
In that moment of fear, she lost control and Rallah responded inkind. The Niko hissed and slashed her sharp claws at the Selkhund in a valiant attempt to protect her owner, but Rallah, as Charlotte had correctly predicted, was no match for the much bigger and stronger canine. The Selkhund snarled as Rallah opened a bloody gash across its muzzle and then lunged forward, bashing Rallah with its skull. Rallah crumpled to the floor with a yelp. As she struggled to get up, the Selkhund lunged.
Charlotte’s brain was unable to catch up with what she was witnessing, and by the time she let out a scream, Rallah’s mauled body lay dead on the floor in a bloody smear. Part of her face had been bitten off, and the bone of her skull had become visible. There was blood everywhere, some of it had even splattered near the ankles of Charlotte’s pants.
In the carnage, Charlotte hadn’t noticed the arrival of a woman. A slender thing, with long, wavy black hair and dressed in a lab coat adorned with stains of what looked like blood. “Poor thing,” the woman said, regarding the dead Niko as one would a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. Charlotte had a hard time telling if the woman was genuinely sorry for Rallah’s death or if there was any real emotion behind the words. Her face was as unreadable as a mask.
Charlotte covered her mouth with a hand as she struggled not to panic, before backing up into a solid wall. The Selkhund advanced on her, his sharp white teeth shining in the lamplight. He came so close that she could feel his rancid breath on her cheek and the smell almost knocked her over.
The man abruptly called off the gigantic canine with a whistle. The Compture growled, looking irritated that it hadn’t been allowed to finish the hunt, but it relented under its master’s command and returned to his side.
“What are you doing?” the woman asked the man, though she didn’t seem angry. In fact, she didn’t seem to care much at all. “You can’t possibly be planning on sparing her.”
“I don’t plan to let her live,” the man replied. “It’s a pity, though. She’s young and pretty.”
“Do you think she would be a good host?” asked the woman, as if in curiosity.
“Probably not. But we can at least see how long it takes the newest brood to reach maturity.”
Host? Charlotte thought, wondering what that could mean. Were they talking about the Avaworms, or something more? Somehow, Charlotte found it hard to believe the only goal of these people was to breed Avaworms that killed people faster than normal ones did. Something else was going on here, but she was relatively certain she wouldn’t find out what before they did away with her. She thought of poor Rallah, how the Niko had been loyal to the end, and how soon Charlotte herself might die such a brutal death. The thought made her want to weep. She did not want it to be over so soon. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving this world behind and falling into the nothingness of death. The thought that she would soon look like the grotesque corpse on the floor, lifeless and bloody and full of terror in her final seconds, made her want to vomit in fear.
Nearly everyone in her life believed they would live on after death, that their souls would go to join the Highest in Paradise, but Charlotte had never been able to bring herself to share those beliefs. She was more than convinced such a thing was a fiction, and that made her want to fight for her life all the harder. But there wasn’t much she could do that wouldn’t get her killed faster, so she bided her time, hoping against the highest hope that an opportunity to escape or survive in some other fashion would open itself up to her before these people decided to murder her in cold blood.
While she stood there contemplating her end, her knees shaking, the man had gone over to one of the tanks with a clean bottle he’d picked up off a rack. He reached down and cautiously poured liquid from the tank into the bottle from a small nozzle near the floor.
Charlotte attempted to scream as the man brought that bottle closer and closer to her. She could see the little purple eggs inside. If they managed to get into her body, only one of them would grow to adulthood. The survivor would either starve out or kill the others before killing her as well and moving on to another host until it grew big enough to reproduce and then die.
She fought, attempting to shove the bottle out of his hand so it would fall to the ground and break, but he was considerably stronger than she and grabbed her wrist, shoving her against the wall as he pressed the vile liquid to her lips. She attempted not to drink it, but the man unexpectedly reached out and grabbed her breast. Shocked and offended, Charlotte let out a gasp. She realized her mistake all too late, and he dumped the contents of the bottle into her mouth. Reacting immediately, she spat, and the vast majority of the eggs landed on the floor, but the damage had been done. Several eggs would have entered her system and begun their life cycle.
He smirked down at her as she looked up at him, trying to look defiant but really displaying something closer to weakness and vulnerability, the front of her blouse wet and speckled with purple.
In that moment, Charlotte gave up. At the rate those other Avaworms had killed those women, combined with the fact that she didn’t know the fastest way out of the forest from her current location, she would die before she could make it home anyway, leaving the option of escape as a rather fruitless one. The despair that settled in felt like the weight of the world itself.
They threw her into a cage that had clearly been meant for a Compture, but fortunately it wasn’t small enough as to be inhumane. She couldn’t stand up, but there was enough room to fit another person with some degree of comfort. Charlotte looked up at the top of the cage and shivered.
She swallowed and decided to do something she hadn’t done since she was a little girl; when her mother hadn’t come back even after she’d begged the Highest with all her heart for their family to come back together. “I don’t really think you exist,” she whispered softly. “But I figured it can’t hurt to try. Save me, please.” She balled her hands into fists and began sobbing at how pathetic she was. No one was going to come and save her. She was going to be eaten alive by the things she could already feel stirring in her belly. The thought made her feel even sicker.
A blinding white light caused her to look up from the throws of her despair in shock. It took almost a full minute for her eyes to adjust to the radiant light, though she was certain it had started to ebb away to a more suitable level. A man stood in front of the cage, or at least, he looked like a man. He was clad entirely in white. But there was an odd, glowing blue marking on his forehead that looked like some intricate tattoo, and there was just something about him that seemed… ethereal. Like he had never before been in this world and was thus untouched by it.
“Speak my name.” His voice was a deep baritone and boomed, as if another, even deeper voice was speaking at the same time.
She didn’t know how she knew. “Ten,” she said through her tears, her voice nowhere near strong. It came out more as a frightened squeak than anything. But somehow, she was certain that was his name.
And it did the trick. A burst of light exploded from his body and white wings unfurled from the man’s back. He wasn’t human.
“A—Are you a Messenger?” she gasped, not entirely believing what she was seeing. Perhaps she was already in her death throes and this was the image her dying mind had chosen to display in her final moments of existence.
“Messenger?” He looked confused. “I… am unsure of what you speak.”
Charlotte stared at the creature in awe. He looked human enough, but there was something decidedly inhuman about his manner of speech and his actions. As if he really were a Messenger from the Highest. But he was decidedly a Compture. Naming a Compture was powerful and had long been used as the first step to bind a human to a Compture. He would not have asked her to name him if he was not a Compture. Did that mean he wanted to bond to her? She had never heard of a Compture like this one, and she was stunned, and frightened. What kind of a personality and will would it take to control a Compture such as this one? She had heard of monstrously powerful Comptures that many cultures believed to be gods in days gone by, but to actually have one appear before her very eyes was something beyond miraculous.
“You have named me. Therefore, I am bonded to you,” he said. “Speak, and I will do as you bid.”
“Get rid of these things inside me.” She said the first thing that came to her mind.
Without hesitation, he reached down with a thin, lithe hand and touched her belly gently. At the contact, his skin glowed, and almost instantly she felt the difference. She no longer could feel the infant worms picking about at her insides, though she still felt famished in spite of the large lunch she had eaten with Eva-Marie. The worms had already done some damage in spite of only being in her for under fifteen minutes. Amazing.
“Get me out of here, please,” she begged, not wanting to spend one more moment in that horrible place forsaken by the Highest. Would he actually heed her request?
In answer to her question, Ten reached down and effortlessly bent the bars of the cage until there was a wide enough hole for Charlotte to fit through. In spite of feeling ravenously hungry, she also felt a lot better than a moment ago.
“Where shall I take you?” he asked.
“Lexington Hill.” When he looked confused, she said, “I’ll show you, just go.” She didn’t want to risk another run-in with those people, whoever they were. She was sure even Ten couldn’t save her from a slit throat.
Without another word, Ten extended his arms and reached out towards her. Initially she flinched away and he stopped, confused. She then took a deep breath and allowed him to pick her up. His movements were effortless, and he held her as if she weighed almost nothing.
It was astounding. One moment they had been standing in that musty room that smelled like urine. The next, they appeared back in the forest, standing a few feet away from the door Charlotte had originally entered through.
“H—How did you do that?” Charlotte asked, her voice shaking.
Ten looked down at her, appearing confused. “I do not know. I simply can.”
His powers were amazing. She knew Comptures possessed powers no other living thing did, which is what made them so useful and valuable to humanity, but only ghost-like Comptures could really appear and disappear at will, and even then they didn’t actually vanish. What they really did was cloak themselves in a kind of veil that Ed had been trying to study for almost twenty years, and hide themselves from the sight of humans and other Comptures until they wished to be seen again. Ten had disappeared and appeared again where he willed it.
Charlotte contemplated telling him to go back into the compound and reduce it to ashes. She wasn’t sure if he would do it, but she allowed herself to wonder if he would. She wanted nothing more than to shut that operation down and destroy whatever research it was conducting.
But then her rational mind kicked in. She couldn’t destroy the research, not yet. It was evidence. And as much as she wanted that man and woman dead for what they had done to her and Rallah, she wanted to get home to her own bed more. She felt more than disgusting, covered in sweat and grime and Avaworm eggs. Perhaps she wanted a bath most of all.
“Can you fly?” she asked Ten.
“Of course,” he replied. “If you bid me, I will take you anywhere.”
“Take me home. Fly above the forest and then go towards the setting sun.”
Still shaking, Charlotte accepted Ten’s embrace and the Compture lifted off from the ground, flying high above the forest and back towards Lexington Hill.

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