Chapter 10: Message from Afar

Jess had no concept of time, apart from the well-known fact that Alonzo only visited her once per day. Seventeen times: seventeen days. The pain was almost a constant companion. Her body regularly slipped into unconsciousness, and ever time upon awakening her body would be in unbearable pain.

'So, little one, are you going to consider my offer?' Alonzo asked.

Jess rolled her eyes. Alonzo turned up at the end of every day, and every time he made the same offer: the pain stops if I agreed to become his weapon. It was so tempting, to take the offer and make the pain stop for good. But Jess realised that as long as she was here, in this pain, she was safe from the other "pain" that he had inflicted when she was a child.

So every day, she told him with great pleasure what he could do with his offer.

'Stick it up your ass, you old coot,' Jess growled.

That earned her a smack across the face. Jess snarled out a few of the more choice words in her vocabulary as she felt her nose break. Unable to reach up and at least snap it back in place, she merely turned her head away to look at the opposite wall.

The door slid twice, signalling that Alonzo was gone – that and she couldn't hear the old fart breathing in her ear any more.

Jess looked up at the ceiling. She let the barriers drop slightly. It allowed the full use of her abilities, but the pain also multiplied by twenty. Forcing herself to concentrate, Jess focused in on where her family were, where Nick and Godzilla were.

.: Brother, help me.



Godzilla had managed to get to sleep. Since his sister was taken from him and Father, the whole clan had been depressed. He wasn't close to any other the others Father kept close, but he could tell that they were all feeling Jess's loss.

His sleep was silent, dreamless. There was nothing but an intense darkness that seemed to stretch on for miles. He wasn't even aware of his own body. Godzilla spun about, looking for something...

'So, little one, are you going to consider my offer?'

Godzilla spun again, this time towards the light that shone so clearly before him. Sheer whiteness dominated the area, and a man. Godzilla snarled at him, instantly disliking the way that he was looking at him. There was something in his eyes that was off...

'Stick it up your ass, you old coot,'

Jess! Godzilla's heart soared, but dropped as he watched the man raise his hand. It connected with something, and the view changed. It blanked out before the field of whiteness returned. There was pain, and then a voice.

.: Brother, help me.

Then, Godzilla woke.



.: Father!

Nick jerked up right in his seat. Godzilla's presence filled his mind. Moving out onto the deck, he watched as his giant charge surfaced and began swimming in wide circles around the Seeker. Never, in all the time that Godzilla had been with Nick had he seen him act like such a child.

'Godzilla?'

.: Sister! I saw Sister!'

Nick stared. .: Where?

.: Close. Very close. Godzilla's excitement was all consuming, so was his eagerness to go. .: We go find her now?