Once Upon a Wormhole

⬦2⬦

When I was almost twelve, Hollywood decided to remake Biotech: Robots and Roses. They even renamed it. They called it:

Biotech: The Curved City.

Not much of a change, but better than before.

Of course, my parents were ecstatic when they heard the news. My siblings? Fanatical. They bought literally any of the new merchandise they could find. My parents—notorious cheapskates—bought midnight premiere tickets an entire year in advance at the ritziest cinema in town.

We had a bit of an obsession.

We got to the movie theater two hours before the movie even started. Thank heavens we did, because the line was hella long. Eventually, we made it through and sat down in the most comfiest chairs I have ever sat in, in my entire life. I was in heaven.

The ads rolled, the movie began, and I was transfixed.

***

Sounds of running. Heavy breathing.

Lightly shod feet leapt into the air to crash heavily against the rainforest floor.

A boy with dark brown, messy hair and roughspun clothes rolled into the fall then took off running again.

Snarls just barely behind him, the camera shot bounding in pursuit of the boy.

He dodged into a rocky corridor, another winding off to the right.

From the corner of the camera's eye, an iridescent, furless, black rat-cat-like thing pounced, but missed, and smashed into the rock wall.

Barely dazed, it shook the crash off, and the sun caught a glint off it's armored pelt.

Khilgrins, rats with the body of a large cat and an almost impenetrable, practically steel-plated hide, were a menace to most planets in the Rho Quadrant. Lean and mean fighting machines, they took a personal grudge against anyone and anything.

The camera looked to the right to make eye contact with the glowing eyes of another Khilgrin, and it--and a battery of Khilgrin followed that one into the other corridor.

The camera shot back to the corridor the boy had disappeared into. A chittering sound, and it surged forward.

Khilgrins were also remarkably intelligent. Destructively so.

When you thought you got away safely, and hunkered down to take a breather, that's when they would strike, when your guard was mostly down.

The camera bounded down the corridor, the light of mid-day growing dimmer and dimmer until the visual switched to gray night vision.

The camera slowed to a crawl, looking to either side and catching glinting, slithering movement in the periphery.

Flanked on either side now, the camera advanced, predatorily.

They move in on a cursing, muttering figure. The sounds of buttons clicking and switches flipping quickly fill the chamber that was now also filled with the sounds of chittering Khilgrins.

A low buzz filled the room, and the advancing Khilgrin visibly shook the ringing from their ears.

One khilgrin from the left of the camera's viewpoint, yelped in pain and pounced on the boy. A cry of surprise and a flash of blinding white hot light, and the Khilgrin fell to the ground in two pieces, the ends cauterized.

With a snarl, the rest of them advanced, but the bright light slashed through their armor, a knife through butter. The white light slashed and diced through the oncoming batteries of Khilgrin, and by the time the camera's viewpoint flickered out, another one took its place to zoom in on a young Ijan's face breathing heavily and mouthing the words,