Nemesis: Box Set: Books 1 - 3 by David Beers

from his truck, not bothering to lock the door. He would be quick. He could do that at least. He could get in there, see it— touch it —and get back out here. He could be done with the whole damn thing in just a few minutes. That would be good; that would keep him safe, and once he was done, he wouldn’t have this urge anymore. It would die once he got his fix.
    His fix. He smiled at that, the moon above lighting on his face as he stood in the dark field.
    He started walking, his flashlight on and leading the way. He knew where he was going, knew exactly the spot he wanted.
    Bryan didn’t react when the flashlight dropped to the ground, its light shining crookedly off his path, illuminating another area that he would never see. He didn’t realize when his thoughts slowed down, and when the lens he described earlier fell over his eyes. The deeper he moved into the forest, the thicker that lens grew, until Bryan saw nothing but gray mist. Still, he walked forward, his feet sure and steady over the uneven ground, littered with branches and roots sticking from the dirt.
    He reached the edge of the burnt land and didn’t pause. He moved over the line between living plants and dead ash as quickly as he had the previous mile of forest.
    The orb in front of him was glowing again, though Bryan couldn’t see it. He saw nothing, only thought that he was about to have his fix, that he was close to his fix, that soon—only seconds away—he would be able to scratch that itch and lay this all to rest.
    He didn’t slow when he reached the orb, but walked forward like a sleepwalker. Intent on his own yearnings with no idea, and no care, what happened in reality.
    He leaned onto the orb, stretching his arms out to either side, turning his face to the left so that his cheek lay across the white surface.
    The woods surrounding the orb were bright, the shadows unable to creep in for two hundred feet, far past the line of burnt trees. Bryan lay across a massive lightbulb, one that would have blinded him had he been able to see.
    The needles moved out of the orb fast and with purpose. They pierced Bryan’s skin quickly, sinking deep into his flesh. His eyes widened and he let out a small gasp, his mouth not closing once the air exited. He stood there, attached to the orb by the sharp needles plunged inside him, for hours.
    And when he straightened, his clothes ragged and blood soaked, the light on the orb died.

9
    Present Day
    M orena looked out into the world.
    She found the name of the planet, at least the name that the creature she inhabited used: Earth. Perhaps Bynimian had a different name for this planet, but Earth would work fine. And Bynimian was no more, so it mattered not what anyone on that planet called anything.
    That’s not true.
    It was only irrational anger rising to the surface; she knew she couldn’t hate her home anymore than she could hate her husband. She couldn’t deny her heritage, couldn’t deny the beauty that her society had created, the genius. There was too much pride, too much good that her kind had done for her to simply discard that knowledge. She was the last of them, the last Bynum to exist, and so she had to carry that legacy onward. She had to do what she and Briten set out to do in the beginning of all this.
    She stood in a dark place with large objects shooting up from the ground all around her. She found the names to those objects quickly, as all of this creature’s thoughts were laid bare to her. Earth had a cycle of darkness and light, and she was in the dark part of the cycle. It would change though, within the next few hours. Good. She searched through the creature’s memories, trying to find if this was a place where she could start, if this was a place she could bring Briten back to. That was step one. Her husband, she needed him, and then they would decide about the rest of Bynimian.
    Morena began walking through the forest, her steps as sure as her host’s had been when he