Greg
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Nobody Left Behind 18
🕑 Added 2025-12-28 21:47:08 +0000 UTCIt's nice having some time to write again. I like this. Really can't wait until next fall when I get to switch to writing full-time!
Anyhow, Sarsuk has pissed off Siki with his candor. She's been fuming about how he treats the geroo, and it's time for her to uncork.
Nobody Left Behind 1
Nobody Left Behind 2
Nobody Left Behind 3
Nobody Left Behind 4
Nobody Left Behind 5
Nobody Left Behind 6
Nobody Left Behind 7
Nobody Left Behind 7.5
Nobody Left Behind 8
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Nobody Left Behind 17
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Sarsuk waited while the little geroo glared at him. And he waited, and waited. When he finally opened his mouth, Siki raised one palm, and he shut it.
She stood. She drew a breath and slowly released it. None of the scientists were around, and the laboratory had grown so icily silent that her words felt like a shout. “If I do get a transfer to Lakeside,” she said in a slow, even tone, “it still won’t be far enough away from you.”
Sarsuk’s auxiliary heart ached, and he felt a stabbing sensation in his throat. He shouldn’t have cared, but he did. Siki was the only friend he had—or the closest thing he had to one, at least. They’d talked non-stop, every day, all summer long, but from the set of her ears, he could tell she meant it. She hated him.
Siki turned and walked toward the door.
“Wait,” he said, making her pause but only for a moment. “Come back.”
When she headed for the door once more, his anger and cruelty returned like a waitress with the check. “Stop right there, slave!” he growled.
Siki froze, her pelt standing on end. Then, she slowly turned. “Don’t you dare—!”
“Don’t tell me what to do, you little vermin,” snarled the head. “I’d crush your parents just to watch you cry. I’d tear your boyfriend’s—gak!”
His words cut off suddenly, and not just his words, but all air through his throat. He struggled and strained, but no matter how he tried, air would not flow. He was caught between breaths, unable to inhale, unable to exhale. His venom turned to panic, and his virtual body rolled onto his back, grasping at his throat. He put his fingers against his tongue, trying to open his airway wider, but it didn’t help. No matter how he tried to cough or choke, there was nothing.
On his stomach now, he beat both of his fists against the carpet until his wrists ached. Big hot tears formed in the corners of his eyes. He was suffocating once more like when he was beheaded. He needed air. He was desperate for it.
With eyes closed, Sarsuk stumbled to the kitchen and ripped open the junk drawer, feeling through it just as quickly as he could, tossing rolls of tape and old pens aside until his pads stopped on a dull pair of scissors. Gripping them in one first, he used his pads to locate the softer hollows at the base of his throat, spaced between the harder rings of cartilage that lined his trachea.
If he could just pierce the layers between his hide and airway, he could twist the blades and open up a space for the air to flow…
As he pressed the scissors’ point against his neck, he opened his eyes to find Siki with tablet in hand, ears low and furious as she glared at him.
“Okay, that is more than enough of that,” she hissed. “I really didn’t think I’d have to use this—you’d been so civil all summer, but I will not tolerate your insults. I will not allow you to threaten me and my family. I am not your little kicking bag, and you will not treat me like one. Do you understand?”
He did not understand. What had she done? Why couldn’t he breathe?
“But of course, you can’t answer, can you? Well, let me explain,” she said. “You don’t have lungs anymore, since you’ve got no body. When you inhale, no matter how real it might feel, that’s not your diaphragm drawing in the air.”
Siki pointed at the wall behind him. “There’s just a big fan back there, or a pump, or something. That’s what’s sucking in air through your … your…” She tapped at her throat with her fingertips. “What’s this? Your trachea?”
He tried to croak, “Yes,” but the air still wouldn’t flow. He managed a nod.
“Good.” As if taunting him, she drew a deep breath and released it slowly. “Doctor Palani warned me that krakun could be loud and that I shouldn’t try to shout over you if you got moody.”
She set the tablet back down on the lab bench. “He said that if you wouldn’t listen, then I should feel free to turn off the pump so you couldn’t talk. That way, you wouldn’t have any choice but to listen.”
He waved his invisible claws wildly in the air. “No! No! You don’t understand!” his lips pleaded silently. “I can’t breathe! I’m suffocating!”
She retook her seat in silence and waited for the krakun to settle down.
His lips kept moving, silently begging, “Please turn that back on. Please. Please turn it on!”
“You don’t need to talk,” she said at last, “and honestly, no one needs to hear it, if threats and insults are the sorts of things you’re going to say.”
Using the air in his cheeks only, Sarsuk struggled to sound out individual syllables with each puff. “I!” “Am!” “Suf!” “Fo!” —
“Stop making those disgusting sounds so you can hear what I’m saying!” she demanded.
He closed his mouth and lowered his trembling chin.
“You don’t need to talk!” Siki repeated. She held up her index finger and thumb spaced closely together. “In fact, I’m this close to leaving it off all weekend just so the janitorial staff won’t have to listen to you when they empty out the trash.”
Sarsuk shook his head in wide arcs, his snout nearly touching the walls on either side of him. He was still in a panic, but the reasoning portion of his enormous brain was coming back online. She could leave his breathing off all weekend. If Doctor Palani’s machines truly were adding oxygen into his blood and removing carbon dioxide, he wouldn’t die. He would just feel like he was going to die … all … weekend … long.
He tried to visualize not needing to breathe. He didn’t need it. Breathing wasn’t keeping him alive. It was only a way to talk. He needed to control his fear.
When he first became a commissioner at Planetary Acquisitions, they’d required him to take a class on surviving emergencies. He hadn’t needed the information in centuries, but he still remembered every lesson.
Step 1. Don’t panic. Remain calm. Focus on your breathing.
…
Fuck!
He stretched his neck as far forward as he could. He looked Siki in the eyes and demanded with his lips. “Turn! It! Back! On! You! Stupid—!”
Siki glared at him, all her fur standing on end. “All right. Screw this.”
Sarsuk froze. His eyes opened wider.
“I only had one week left before the fall semester started anyhow,” she explained to no one. “I hate you. I hate this job, and I can live without one additional paycheck. I quit!”
“What?” he mouthed, frozen in place.
“I quit!” repeated the geroo. “And frankly, I hope they leave your pump off until they hire a replacement for me. It’s not like Doctor Palani understands your words anyhow. I’m sure he’d appreciate the peace and quiet!”
At this, the former commissioner lost the last vestiges of his temper. How long would he feel like he was suffocating, unable to ask someone to turn the pump back on? Weeks? Months, perhaps?
Tilting his head to the side, Sarsuk lunged forward just as far as he could stretch his neck. He snapped his jaws shut, savoring the sensation of something rigid popping between his teeth. Siki screamed, and Sarsuk thrashed his head from side to side, up and down. Ceiling tiles exploded and one of the fluorescent lights sparked and flashed as his horns ripped it from its mountings.
Sarsuk whipped his head back and opened his jaws wide enough to release his prey, the momentum throwing it all the way across the lab, turning an entire cabinet of glassware into a heap of jagged shards.
The krakun rested his blood-covered chin against the ground. He wanted to pant, to heave, to regain his breath, but still the air wouldn’t flow.
Within moments, several researchers rushed into the wrecked lab. Doctor Palani paused just inside the doorway with paws over his mouth, but then he rushed to Siki’s side. They spoke in the Lio language, and Sarsuk couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they gestured at him repeatedly as they spoke.
Another one of the scientists carefully fetched Siki’s mangled stool from the pile of broken glassware. He turned it around in his large paws, stunned at how much damage the krakun’s teeth had done to steel and plywood.
Palani pressed a fingertip against a spot on Siki’s scalp, and it came away with a tiny drop of blood. Then, he stood and fetched a couple items from the emergency medical kit bolted to the lab’s wall. With a squirt of ointment on the tiny wound and a cold compress he activated by bending it back and forth a few times, he treated where the falling light fixture had hit the intern’s head.
With her health squared away, Doctor Palani brushed the sawdust and gypsum from Siki’s tablet, then tapped the button to reactivate Sarsuk’s airflow.
The krakun gasped over and over, the air replacing his panic with exhaustion.
When at last, Sarsuk returned his attention to the two, Palani spoke in tight angry phrases, then waited for Siki to translate each.
“I am sending Siki home for the weekend now,” they said. “I will speak to her mother. We will see if she can return to work next week.”
———
Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CLeYSkw8Go_2ZQsJzMmF5lYd2QzY1XDLBDpl3RinstE/edit?usp=sharing
Thoughts?
Comments
Greg
Thanks!
Edolon
I’m glad you’re finding some time to write, you do very seem to enjoy it Do appreciate the little bit of suspense thinking he might have caught Siki, also made me terrified for her being hurt badly I think at one point you were worried about her turning off his air was too mean, it is mean but I don’t think most people are going to blame or hate her for it (as much as we think she’s not a great person for doing it) the way Sarsuk was behaving and reacts probably will have people cut her a bit more slack
Greg
that's absolutely a valid question and truthfully, i've waffled on it a lot to this point. my current thinking is that friendly or not, sarsuk is still a krakun, and she's still a teen with a chip on her shoulder (hence the dinner outburst). his people treat hers as disposable and two murders is hard to ignore. however, i will c/p your comment into the doc comments and give it more thought when i compile the scenes together into a draft
CrazyCaboose009
Sorry for the length, I wanted to walk through my thought process and explain how I experienced this chapter, along with my current understanding of each character. If this scene is happening immediately after Sarsuk told Siki about the execution, he had just admitted he was thinking about all the people he hurt. He was in a reflective, almost softened state. So Siki’s anger pouring out here doesn’t quite match the emotional tone we just left, especially with that brutal line the executioner ended the last chapter on. Shouldn’t that line have at least made her pause for a moment at the start of this chapter, ears down, or some sign that it hit her? It felt heavy enough that I expected some reaction to it before her anger kicked in. I can understand Siki having some growing resentment toward Sarsuk, she’s been processing a lot, but up until now she’s been consistently cheerful, kind, and genuinely connecting with him. She cared enough to ask her dad about his situation because she was trying to reconcile her feelings about someone who did terrible things but was also wrongfully convicted. That emotional complexity was working really well. Sarsuk did have one outburst at the start, but after that he was engaged, joking, thanking her, and even apologizing. Someone with his trauma absolutely would have occasional flare‑ups, but this one felt out of place because it comes right after he was introspecting about how much he valued her company, and about her feelings, even wondering if he considered her a friend. Snapping at her immediately after his calm, embracing thoughts feels abrupt. I’m not saying you shouldn’t take the story in this direction, but I do think the tension between them needs more buildup before they both snap. If that tension was supposed to be simmering already, I haven’t really picked up on it so far. For this scene, something that stays closer to where Sarsuk’s thoughts were just prior would help; The jump from Siki being a friend to “I’m gonna kill everyone you know” feels like too big of a leap to me.
