Ages
ago, before any race had so much as risen above
the feral beasts of their individual home
worlds, the Enlar had already mastered the art
of interstellar flight. Their huge and powerful
brains, composing the majority of their body
masses, had brought them to the pinnacle of the
galaxy’s early technological achievements. They
traveled amongst the stars in gargantuan
space-faring vessels—mapping out the countless
uncharted solar systems and anomalies of their
surrounding galaxy.
Though
these starships traveled with agonizing
slowness, taking decades to journey from origin
to destination, their voluminous hulls were
crammed with enough provisions to sustain them
for generations. Thousands of Enlar were aboard
each vessel, and millions of these vessels
scattered across the galaxy in an unending quest
to shine as much light as possible upon their
still dark and mysterious universe.
An
ordinary Enlar Observer class starship, whose
name has been lost within the annals of history,
came upon a barren, stone sphere orbiting
lifelessly about some unnamed star. First
appearing to the Enlar as a sort of huge,
wayward asteroid, the planet possessed virtually
no atmosphere, and its surface was completely
blanketed in a convoluted network of deep
craters and enormous canyons.
Though
at the time it was impossible for them to
realize, their recent discovery would ultimately
become notoriously renowned amongst the entirety
of the known universe as “Old Ignus.”
The
Enlar perfunctorily scanned its vastness with
their sensors, expecting nothing of
significance. Their departure was planned almost
immediately upon their arrival, and just as
their engine’s powered up for retreat into the
black void of uncharted space—something
incredible happened.
They
were completely dumbfounded. The Enlar had
believed that the existence of any life upon
such a hostile world was all but impossible.
But, to their great surprise, the entire globe
soon became overridden with the presence of
countless snake-like beasts, which spilled forth
from the depths of the crater-ridden rock from
the various gaps and fissures that scarred its
hideous face.
Gawking
with unbridled fascination, the Enlar watched
these creatures boil to the surface as if in
direct response to their vessel’s
radiation-based scanners. Their sinewy bodies,
averaging some twenty meters in length, tapered
to a tail-like point at each of their posterior
ends. Like giant centipedes, their bellies were
lined with hundreds of sporadically convulsing
talons. Their huge, eyeless heads pointed upward
to the orbiting Enlar starship, mouths gaping
wide open to reveal an enormous gullet bristling
with a galaxy of flashing teeth, and razor-sharp
fangs.
And in
the midst of this astonishment, a blasting
message crackled from the Enlar loudspeakers to
every corner of their starship’s capricious
volume.
“We have
been long awaiting your pres-senc-se…” began the
broken transmission from the world below. It was
the sound of countless scratchy voices rasping
together, slowly, and near inaudibly soft
beneath the static din of the weak signal. They
overlapped one another’s words in a
disharmonious blend of slithering voices. It was
as if they had one mind: one purpose.
“Our
pros-sperouss s-civilization wass des-stroyed s-centuriess
ago in a…natural dis-sas-ster. We are all that
remainss of our sspec-siess. Every day our
provis-sionss grow more sscarc-se. Pleas-se…help
uss, for we are sstarving, and are willing give
you anything that you want from uss!”
The
Enlar, though utterly marveled at their first
encounter with another form of intelligent
organism, at once grew fearful. It was their
nature to be instinctively frightened by the
unknown, and there was something in particular
about these serpentine beasts that struck some
ominous chord of fascinated horror deep within
their psyche. They reminded the Enlar of
something from their past, something that
screamed out with deadly warning from the echoes
of their ancestral memories….
With
their potent intelligence, the Enlar quickly
rationalized amongst themselves innumerable
reasons as to why they should leave; but such
efforts were ultimately proven futile. In the
end, it was their driving interest, their
neurotic obsession to attain every last
available detail about the mysteries of the
universe—their gift of creation, from Lord
Order, himself—that compelled the Enlar to stay.
It was
this that sealed their fate.
For a
great length of time, their ship hovered above
the planet in high orbit, observing all that
happened with their primitive scanning
instruments, and ignoring the incessantly
pitiful cries for aide of the starving creatures
below.
They
diligently watched, with cold-hearted reserve,
as the giant serpents collapsed lifelessly to
the earth by the thousand. And it was not long
before the Enlar began to wonder exactly what
caused this world’s obvious devastation; exactly
why these creatures were presently starving to
death; and, most importantly, how they had
simply known that the Enlar had arrived.
“Help
uss!” the slithering beasts never ceased to
wail, in their utter desperation. “And we will
give you whatever you want from uss!”
And when
the answers to these questions did not come, for
all the careful scrutiny and speculation that
their prodigious brains could afford, the Enlar
grew impatient. It seemed that the more
knowledge they gathered, the more riddles came
to surface, and the more insatiable their
appetite to learn became. It was then that their
inexplicable interest in the strange creatures,
catalyzed by their paranoia into an almost
obsessive compulsion, became manifest in their
actions.
“We will
provide you with enough food to survive,” the
Enlar then stated flatly, causing, for the first
time since their arrival, a distinct lull to the
unending transmissions from the world below.
“But you must yield to our demands...”
“Anything” the slithering voices responded.
“Pleas-se hurry…we are sstarving…”
“You
must provide us with one of your kind,” the
Enlar then asserted. “A non-living specimen for
us to examine, ‘freshly terminated’ for our
research.”
And so
the Ignus made haste for the preparation of a
corpse, with which to deliver to their Enlar
benefactors. Mere minutes passed before the
Enlar received yet another transmission,
informing them that the desired specimen had
been acquired, and was now ready for transfer to
the orbiting vessel.
But the
Enlar, skeptical of the creatures’ seemingly
innocent countenance (and downright terrified to
go anywhere near the planet’s surface), merely
sent a small, resource-gathering probe down to
the world below.
Descending through the planet’s thin atmosphere,
the unmanned probe traveled to the specified
coordinates. But, upon acquisition of the
corpse, the autonomous machine then blasted off,
without hesitation, to the safety of orbit,
without so much as providing a single scrap of
food to the starving peoples.
Afraid
of their giant, slithering bodies and lacerating
appendages, the delicate Enlar quickly
calculated that it would have been a grave
error, on their behalf, had they provided the
potentially deadly serpents with any sustenance:
an unforgivable act of foolishness. In much this
same fashion, they also quickly concluded that,
upon the advent of their specimen, they would
promptly leave, having acquired sufficient data
on this striking phenomenon….
Before
the creature was so much as brought onboard, a
number of detailed biological scans were done on
its transport vessel. And once these various,
drudging, time-consuming tests had all confirmed
that not even the faintest spark of life existed
within the serpentine beast aboard, the small
carrier probe was then carefully loaded into the
main hull of its mother ship.
Still,
the Enlar were not yet satisfied, as they
continued to scan the miniature vessel with
every useful instrument at their disposal. They
began to feel firmly convinced that the organic
cargo was, indeed, lifeless, and so they then
decided to open the main hatch upon the small
probe’s hull—under the careful scrutiny of
several dozen armed guards.
In all
their observations of the broken world below
them, the Enlar had never bore witness to a
creature of such immense size. The beast before
them was so large, that they were unable to view
the entire length of it colossal body in a
single glance. And so, uttering great cries of
elation at their marvelous fortune, the Enlar
inched their way closer, slowly boarding the
small transport vessel: it was the perfect
specimen
Completely overwhelmed with fascination, each
Enlar present stared with his lone, glistening
eye at the monster’s countless three-pronged
talons, lining the entire 30-meter length of its
scaly underbelly. The behemoth’s enormous mouth
was closed shut, as it now lay resting
lifelessly upon the probe’s metallic floor,
protecting its deadly teeth from their view.
Like
timid scavengers preparing for a feast, the
Enlar continued their way closer. Their
writhing, electrified tentacles sparked with
mystified interest, and their crab-like legs
tapped frantically against the metal floor in
anticipation of the monster’s dissection.
Surrounding the beast in a tight circle, they
crowd of meaty, brain-like organisms began their
experimentation upon the beast.
No one
knows the exact transpiration of the following
events. Some speculate that it was, perhaps, the
Enlar’s electrical appendages. Other scholars
maintain a firm understanding that the monster’s
latency was completely controlled by will. But,
regardless of the cause, the effect was all the
same.
The
monster’s body, having been in perfect
hibernation, and devoid of any metabolic
activity whatsoever, proved too thick a veil of
deception for the Enlars’ delicate sensors to
penetrate, until it was too late…
The gargantuan serpent began to writhe and twist
violently—exploding to life as it effortlessly
extricated itself from the tiny probe. The hull
of the beast’s container was shattered like a
hollow eggshell, crushing to death all those
helpless Enlar within. Rising to its full
height, the monster’s elongated body arched
upward and cleaved through the ceiling of the
cargo bay as if it were a mere sheet of tin
foil.
Then,
before the terrified throng of Enlar, the
beast's mouth slowly opened to reveal an arsenal
of pointed blades, sparkling wet with saliva.
Its expansive craw, noisome with the stench of
its internal fumes, was a yawning black hole of
death and decay. And at once, the Enlar were
reminded of their past—and the blaring pleas of
mercy from their long-dead ancestors rang
through their brains in remembrance of the
ancient predators of their birth world.
The huge
serpent’s slashing talons then detracted from
their sheathes and began lacerating to shreds
anything that came within the grasp of their
razor-sharp edges. Its protracted, slithering
body crashed through the thin metal walls of the
surrounding vessel, laying waste to all that
came into contact with the vehement motions of
its meteoric mass. The surrounding victims
screamed with high-pitched terror as their
electric tentacles were systematically ripped
from their bodies, and the soft severed flesh of
their oversized brains shoved down the gigantic
gullet of the starving colossus.
Mere
seconds after its awakening, the monster had
already consumed its entire greeting entourage.
Minutes later, its huge, trashing body had
nearly ripped its way throughout the entire
vastness of the Enlar vessel, devouring all
within.
Those
few Enlar unfortunate enough to be spared from
the monstrous serpent’s initial wrath were
forced to reveal the secrets of their species’
hard-won accomplishments. The creature took
great delight in its methodic torture of the
overly sensitive Enlar, who seemed to experience
pain at a greatly magnified intensity. The Enlar,
helpless to do anything while their skin and
body parts were ruthlessly pealed asunder, were
soon horrified to discover how fast the enormous
beast could master the complex, procedural
methods necessary to pilot their space-faring
vessel….
Not much
time had passed, before the behemoth lowered its
recently captured spaceship to the surface of
its world. The main hatch of the colossal vessel
opened to reveal the victorious Ignus champion.
The few
remaining Enlar captives were hoisted like
trophies into the air. Before them stood an
ocean of writhing snakes—stretching further into
the distance than what their powerful eyes could
see.
“Leviathan! Leviathan!” the sea of serpents
screamed in their simultaneously slithering
voices, as the Enlar were then tossed into their
midst like discarded entrails to a pack of
ravenous hounds. “You have brought us our first
sscrapss of food ssins-ce the last Great Feas-st!”
The
Ignus serpents snapped and cackled with festive
delight, fighting amongst themselves for even
the smallest bits of these delicious morsels.
The Enlar were ripped to stringy strips of flesh
upon impact of the crowd, shrieking with
hell-born excruciation while they were devoured
with the starvation of a hundred years’
hibernation.
“I have brought you more than
that!” Leviathan then roared in its great,
booming voice as it stood before the gigantic
space-faring vessel. “I have brought to you all
the stars in the sky, which we are soon to
plunder! This world of ours has been sapped dry
of its flesh, utterly destroyed by the ravishing
nature of our kind—but there are many more
amidst the heavens that will fill our bellies
for every age to come!” |