ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62252565/chapters/159260353
Sonder Eclipse
Summary:
The shorter Angler-Snake gave Grian the exact opposite reaction from what he had been expecting. Its face morphed into what he could only describe as a smile, its mouth didn’t move, but its eyes suddenly squinted heavily, scaley wrinkles piling up at the corners. It looked strangely gleeful.
“You are a fighter then, Deathworlder?”
Grian stayed silent.
“You will get plenty a chance to fight here”. The alien said, and its tone mirrored that of a judge finalizing a sentence.
Or:
Grian was never the type to believe in aliens, as far as he was concerned, anything that he couldn't see, touch, taste, or smell toed the line of conspiracy. However, when he is captured and imprisoned on an alien trafficking ship, it gets just a tad harder to keep his unbelief. Faced with a strange new environment, a strange new cellmate, and the threat of a fighting ring hanging over him, Grian devises a plan to escape. If only his cellmate would start cooperating instead of trying and failing to kill him in his sleep.
Chapter 1: Captured
Grian’s consciousness returned in fragments, like pieces of a shattered mirror reflecting images he couldn’t quite grasp. Cold seeped into his back, making him shiver, and a faint ache pulsed through his head. He reached up, pressing a hand against his forehead.
Or at least.. he would have, if something hadn’t been keeping his hand down.
With an increasing sense of anxiety, Grians eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, all he saw was the blinding white of the ceiling. Then his vision focused.
He was laying on top of a small metal table in an otherwise empty room, the table was cold, and a slight draft brushed through the room, making the hairs on his arms stand up straight.
Grian tried to move, but his body refused to obey. Panic flared as he realized why—his wrists, chest, legs, and neck, were all bound. Grian immediately pulled against the bonds, but they didn't budge. He wasn’t bound with rope or metal; the material felt rubbery and pliable, flexing slightly as he struggled. Worse yet the table he was on was too small for him and it was causing his legs to dangle awkwardly off the end of the table, adding to his discomfort.
Grian tugged harder, his breathing quickening. The restraints stretched under his effort, but before he could pull free, they snapped back, slamming his wrists into the freezing metal. He winced, biting back a yelp of pain.
Where was he? How had he gotten here? He searched his memory, but it was like trying to grasp smoke. Everything before waking up was a hazy blur. He knew who he was, he knew where he was from, but how he got here? Nothing. Grian squinted at the lights, racking his brain.
Flashes of light.
Floating, and then an overwhelming sense of wrong.
He remembered now.
He had been walking home, when he had suddenly been blinded by light. Completely unable to move, he had been lifted into the air, and then after that… nothing.
Grian renewed his struggle against his restraints. He got the distinct impression that whatever reason for him being here, it wasn't benevolent, and he didn't feel like waiting around just to find out.
Grian stretched the bands further, if he could just get it to loosen up he was sure he could get out of these and then he could-
A sound pierced through the silence of the room, breaking Grian out of his thoughts. Faint at first but growing louder. Footsteps. Grian froze, his heart hammering in his chest. Whoever—or whatever—was approaching, he wasn’t ready to face them.
The footsteps stopped just outside the room. A mechanical hiss filled the air as the door slid open. On impulse Grian shut his eyes, forcing his breathing to steady.
Two, no, three pairs of footsteps entered, their movements heavy and deliberate. Grian could hear the shuffle of their feet and the faint rustle of what sounded like fabric—or maybe something harder, like armor. He kept his eyes closed, straining to listen.
A sharp, grating noise split the air, like nails dragging across a chalkboard. It made Grian’s skin crawl, the sound twisting and changing pitch unpredictably. Grian struggled not to move to try and cover his ears from the awful sound. The grating stopped, replaced by a new voice, a low, guttural warble. The sound resonated through the room, deep and primal, like the bellow of an unseen predator. Grian’s heart pounded, his breath catching in his throat, and unbidden, his muscles tensed, and ever so slightly, he flinched.
The voices fell silent.
They’d noticed.
A faint, clicking noise—almost like the chitter of insects—broke the stillness. One of them moved closer. Grian kept his breathing steady, every muscle in his body screaming at him to run, to fight, to do anything but lie still.
A short click, nails on chalkboard again, then, in perfect English, “Open your eyes, Deathworlder, we know you’re awake”.
The voice was throaty, like a seasoned smoker who hadn’t drank water in years, and Grian cringed in on himself at the unnatural sound. Whatever that thing was should not be speaking like a human.
There’s no use in hiding now.
Grian wrinkled his nose as he opened his eyes, squinting at the bright lights above him. His vision focused on three figures in front of him; the tallest was only about Grians own height at best, but their unnatural appearances completely killed any amusement he could have felt at their height.
To his right, two figures loomed over him. One close to his height and the other, hunched over and about a foot shorter. His gaze was drawn to the tall one first.
It was an awful sight.
It struck him as a humanoid mix of an anglerfish and a snake. The thing was absolutely covered in greenish black scales that trailed over its back and shoulders, moulding to rippling muscle and a pale white underside. The combination of dark green and just about clear white, gave a feeling of illness to the creature that made Grian lean away.
His gaze trailed up towards its face and made eye contact with two pale bulbous eyes that stared straight at him. They had no pupils and there were no eyelids in sight. Then there was its mouth, thousands of sharp, needle-thin teeth, gleamed under sickly pink gums that sagged off its face.
Grian shuddered, resisting the urge to hide his face from that thing.
A glance at the shorter one told him they must be the same species. It was much the same as the first, but its gums were more grey, and it had strange markings on its face, as if the scales there had decided to lose their color.
Lastly, to his left Grian could vaguely see the top of the head of something else standing near the table he was lying on. It wasn’t tall enough for him to see fully without craning his head, and since Grian’s neck was strapped down, there wasn’t much he could do about that. He could tell though that it was shifting back and forth, turning towards the other two creatures before turning to him again, darting around in indecision.
A voice suddenly broke the silence, and Grian suppressed a flinch.
“Cooperate and we won’t sedate you again”, the shorter Angler-Snake thing said, and it was the same throaty voice from before.
“What—what is this? Where am I? What do you want from me?” Grian said, his mouth full of cotton. Then, with false confidence, “Just try and sedate me, I swear you’ll regret it”.
The other two creatures backed away, obviously alarmed, but the shorter Angler-Snake gave Grian the exact opposite reaction from what he had been expecting. Its face morphed into what he could only describe as a smile. Its mouth didn’t move, but its eyes suddenly squinted heavily, scaley wrinkles piling up at the corners. It looked strangely gleeful.
“You are a fighter then, Deathworlder?”.
Grian stayed silent.
“You will get plenty a chance to fight here”. The alien said, and its tone mirrored that of a judge finalizing a sentence.
The Angler-Snakes smile abruptly dropped off its face, and it turned to the other creatures with a glare. With a grating noise from the short Angler-Snake that sounded something akin to a command, the tall one pulled out a long black stick from its belt. They then started to untie Grian, twisting the rubber ropes in some complicated pattern until the ropes suddenly snapped back and receded into the table, leaving the table looking as if the ropes had never been there in the first place.
Grian sprung up immediately, lunging for the larger Angler-Snake, but before he could get within two feet of it, it jabbed Grian with the prongs of the black stick and Grian blinked and he was on the floor.
Rivers of pain flowed through him as the stick shocked him repeatedly, it was all he could do not to pass out right then and there. His body convulsed on the floor and he struggled to breath. When it finally ended, Grian lay there, gasping, he stared up at the alien, not processing anything but the way his muscles kept twitching with aftershocks. Finally getting some air, Grian scrambled to sit up. He felt extremely vulnerable, laying on the floor below the Angler-Snakes.
Grian looked up just in time to see the shorter Angler-Snake cuff the taller over the head, grating out some sort of insult as the taller fiddled with something on its stick. Once satisfied, it then returned its stick to pointing straight at Grians head.
“Get up”, the short Angler-Snake ordered, all traces of interest gone, and Grian did, biting back a hiss at the pain of standing up.
The Angler-Snake with the stick prodded Grian with the butt of it, forcing him towards the door.
As Grian stumbled forwards, the door gave another hissing noise, and opened into a dimly lit hallway. To his right the hallway continued to travel off and out of sight, the lights flickering down into darkness. Grian carefully noted the many doors lining the hall. He then turned to his left and almost screamed.
Three more Angler-Snakes were skulking in the hallway, standing so still that he hadn’t even noticed them.
Pale eyes stared at him unblinking, and Grian felt a shiver go down his spine. He gulped and squared his shoulders, trying to hide his fear, and to his shock, the Angler-Snakes took a step back, looking at each other in alarm.
Unfortunately Grians attempt at intimidation was short lived as he was struck from behind, stumbling forward again as the tall Anger-Snake walked through the door behind Grian. It stayed behind Grian like an abnormal shadow, warbling orders to the other guards as they surrounded Grian, each drawing a black stick from their belt and pointing it straight at him.
Grian couldn’t help it. The panic brewing in his chest was too overwhelming. Working on something instinctual, Grian stood as tall as he could, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he let out an almost primal noise, snarling at the tall Angler-Snake behind him. He felt like a cornered animal.
He felt like he was surrounded by predators.
The group of guards stumbled away at the noise, tripping over themselves to get away from Grian, and he couldn’t help but feel a moment of victory. However, he barely had two seconds to feel smug when he was back on the floor.
While he had been distracted, the short Angler-Snake had come up behind him and struck him with the pronged end of the black stick, sending him back into a convulsing heap on the floor. The short Angler-Snake barked orders at the guards, and they flanked him, and blocked off one end of the tunnel, leaving Grian only one way to go.
“We will drag you there if need be. Do not play games with me Deathworlder”. The short Angler-Snake spat the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth, disgust heavy in its voice.
Flinching at the sticks pointed at him, Grian stumbled to his feet and began to walk down the hallway. Each hallway looked the same, a long corridor filled with cold, lifeless doors, and the more Grian tried to memorize the pathways, the more he forgot them.
Slowly the doors lining the hallway petered off and were replaced by what must have been celldoors. Heavy, metal doors with a porthole at the top of them. Grian tried to peer into a few of them as they walked past, but they were either empty or too dark to see in.
Until one wasn’t.
Grian paused in his step. Unlike the other doors, this door had bars over the porthole, and the room inside seemed a bit bigger. It was dimmer in this cell, but one light was on, flickering like all the rest of them. Sickly yellow light poured down like a dispirited waterfall, illuminating a figure slumped in the corner. Its eyes were open but glazed over; dead, and its neck was definitely broken, bent to a painful ninety degree angle. Streaks of green were smudged on the floor, presumably the aliens' blood. Grian winced as he traced the blood to the other visible corner of the room. The corner was dark, but Grian could just barely see another figure, huge and hulkling in the shadows, a shudder went down his spine unbidden. The figure began to turn into the light and just as Grian was about to glimpse the things face, he walked out of sight of the window.
What was that?
Everything on this ship was Angler-Snake sized, made for a creature that was six foot at the absolute most, but that thing had to be at least nine feet tall. And why was there a dead body in there? Was the body a cellmate? An unfortunate guard? Food??
Grian didn’t have any longer to contemplate the strange cell as the guards took one more turn and stopped outside a heavily reinforced door. The porthole was obviously multi-layered glass, and locks of all kinds dotted the seam between the door and the wall, huge heavy deadbolts, codes, chains and a large bar across the front of it. Whatever was in there was dangerous.
The tall Anger-Snake stepped forward and began to hurriedly undo the locks, glancing behind himself at Grian every few seconds. It was obvious that the alien wanted to get whatever they were about to do over with as fast as possible, and his urgency only caused Grians own anxiety to rise. His eyes darted to and fro across the guards and back to the door that possibly contained the horrors of the universe. Assuming whatever was in there was violent enough, it may cause a ruckus once the guards disturbed it, and that. That had to be Grians chance to get away from the guards.
Grians eyes locked onto a smaller Angler-Snake near the side of the circle of guards. That one was the weak link surely. With the others momentarily distracted, he was fairly certain he could bowl over this small one, and take off down the hall.
He had it all planned, now he just needed the assumed monster to do its part.
Grian glanced back at the door and saw that the tall Angler-Snake was on the last lock now, it was heaving the bar off the door, the other Angler-Snakes were crowding in, here was his chance. The door swung open and Grian braced himself to be assaulted by the sight of the most terrifying, dangerous and violent creature he could imagine. And…
And the cell was empty.
“Wha-”, Grian managed to stutter out, before the Angler-Snakes took his momentary surprise to pounce.
Prodding, and gnashing their teeth, they began to herd him towards the door, brandishing their black sticks. Grian stumbled back, they were trying to keep him in there. Immediately a surge of adrenaline hit.
The Angler-Snakes encroached further into his space causing the small Angler-Snake to be near him now. Grian took the opportunity. He darted to his left before jerking back towards the small Angler-Snake, weaving between guards. The small Angler-Snake gave a jab at him but he dodged, grabbing the black stick near the handle, and ripping it out of the creature's grasp. He didn’t bother to flip the stick around as he let the momentum carry the pronged end of the stick straight into an Angler-Snake behind him. Strange gurgling noises came from the Angler-Snake that he had hit and Grian, stupidly, so so stupidly, glanced behind him.
The momentary distraction was all the Angler-Snakes needed.
The shock came suddenly, one, then two, then all of them. Grian couldn’t think as every guard that had escorted him to the cell shocked him repeatedly, there were sounds akin to yelling but Grian couldn’t figure out if it was the Angler-Snakes or his own screams. In between shocks he was hit by the butt of the stick, and Grian could already feel bruises forming. All he could do was curl into himself and cover his head.
Between flashes of consciousness, Grian felt slimy hands on him, as well as the butts of sticks pushing and shoving him, until finally, it all stopped. He heard the sound of metal meeting metal as the cell door closed, sealing Grian into the cell and sealing his fate.
_______________________________________
A lot of things sucked about being in a cell.
Besides the very obvious fact that he was imprisoned against his will. A fact that he was trying very hard not to think about. The heavily reinforced walls kept almost all sound outside of his cell from reaching him. Or at least he thought it did, he’s not sure if there even had been a sound outside since the Angler-Snakes left him here. Grian curled closer towards his knees. If he weren’t so scared right now he’d be talking to himself. Something to fill the silence. Something to help him feel like he’s less alone.
He shifted onto his side. He was lying on a too small cot that had been shoved to the corner of the room. It was cold, and seemed to suck the warmth out of him like metal. But at least it was softer than the floor. Everything hurt to move, and no matter how he positioned himself, something was poking into one of his many, very fresh bruises.
After the Angler-Snakes had left and Grian had stopped drifting in and out of consciousness, he had dragged himself over to the door, and with the help of the ledge of the porthole, he had pulled himself up and into the light. Ignoring the rush to his head, he slowly looked down at the rest of his body. His arms were polka dotted with bruises, all the splotchy square of the end of the guard's sticks, and there were sluggishly bleeding cuts all along his ribs from where the sticks had hit especially hard and broken skin.
Grian winced as he glanced at his arms again and quickly looked away. If he didn’t take care of those they were going to get infected, but it wasn't like he had antibiotic cream and bandages, and he was pretty sure he was more likely to be beaten again than given supplies if he complained to the guards that passed by every few hours.
That’s another thing about being in a cell. Perception of time? Gone. For all he knew, it could have been only a few hours, or it could have been half a day. Nothing about the lighting changed, and so far nothing about the guards had either. What he should do is start counting. See how long it was between guard shifts, but with every breath he took, his chest expanded and aggravated the cuts on his ribs, and he immediately lost count.
Hours past, or maybe just minutes, he couldn’t really tell. Nothing broke the sterile monotony of his cage, and he found himself becoming more and more unaware of his surroundings.
He remained like that, until he heard a commotion outside his door, breaking him out of his stupor.
For a moment he was so overjoyed at hearing noise again that he didn't even process that the sound was outside his door. But once he did he scooted as far back into the corner as he could, all muscles tensed and ready.
The door was flung open, and the room was suddenly flooded with light. Grian blinked at the doorway. Two silhouettes blocked the light, one obviously the hulking figure of an Angler-Snake, the other smaller and unidentifiable. Without any fanfare, the small one was flung into his cell, along with one word from the Angler-Snake;
“Dinner”.
The door shut, and Grian was once again plunged into semi-darkness.