Writing Prompt I: "I saw him. The boy I had to kill" (pt. 1)

A few weeks ago, my writer's group decided to start giving out writing prompts at the end of our meetings as an exercise for us to work on until our next meeting, then we share what we have written. 

It has been a fun activity for everybody and many of us (myself included) are stepping out of our comfort zones. Our poet is writing fantasy, the fantasy writer is writing family drama, and our sci-fi writer is writing comedy.

I want to share some of the short stories I have come up with. The following is the first part of a short sci-fi story I wrote. It is my first foray into sci-fi so, please be kind.

From Alibaba.com
Phasers to stun, please!

Then I saw him. The boy I had to kill. He didn’t look like much, but boy was I wrong.

He was the Bringer. The one prophesized to bring the end of life on Oonden, my home planet and the center of the Kaliege Empire. If Oonden fell, the rest of our galaxy would fall.

He must be stopped.

When my father had been killed, I was transferred to fill his spot in Xans, the Empire’s elite fighters and assassins. They were big shoes to fill and I had hoped, with enough time and training, I would fit into them as if they were made for me.

I was unprepared, to say the least, when my name had been chosen for this mission. I was the youngest member of my unit and the greenest assassin in the Agency, but if I made the kill without too much trouble, it would do amazing things for my career.

The council had objected to someone so inexperienced taking on such an important job, but rules were rules. The one chosen by the Gods was the one sent. It took me almost three months to get to Earth, even in the Agency’s fastest ship. Why the Supreme Being would chose a tiny planet ruled by self-destructive creatures in a distant, sparsely populated galaxy in the gerlac’s anus of the universe to put the Bringer, I will never know.

The boy turned to glance behind him and I quickly ducked behind a vehicle. Then cursed myself for a fool. He had never seen me before and I had been here for nearly a week in disguise. Nobody had questioned it.

But today was the first time I had actually seen him and my nerves got the best of me. I pretended to tie my shoe like I had seen in many of the research chips sent with me to study on the trip. I much enjoyed the ones about beings with superior abilities who destroy cities in their quest to save the cities. Their flawed logic is very humorous to me.

I waited until I was sure the boy was not looking, then stood, only to discover he had disappeared.

“Dammit.” I cursed, taking a bit of pleasure in the harsh human word. I pushed through the crowd, hoping to spot which direction the Bringer had gone but could not see him in the sea of humans that filled the sidewalk. “Dammit!”

“Language, young man!” A tiny, wrinkly, female human scolded me and slapped my arm as she passed me.

I stared after her, shocked and angry that she would dare touch me but also that she had been the first human to address me in the open like that. Apparently, they could talk to strangers, they just chose to pay more attention to their hand-held communication devices than others of their kind. A male about the same age as my disguise bumped into me from behind and barely looked at me as he passed. I wondered if the wires going into his ears were some kind of mind control or if they helped him navigate the maze of streets that I had been hopelessly lost in for the last month. I had seen many people with the same wires but was nowhere nearer to the answer.

It was days like this that I wished I had been able to stay in the research division of the Agency instead of being moved to Xans, then I’d be allowed to investigate what the purpose of the wires was (among other curious things humans did), but instead, I had to hunt down the Bringer again and finally kill him.

I pulled his picture up on my own communication device. He was approximately twenty Earth years old, 1.8 meters tall, black hair, brown skin, green eyes, but otherwise looked like nearly every other human I had encountered. In the picture I had, he was wearing a red object on his head that resembled what Earth females wear on their heads while bathing.

The Agency had no information about him other than the city he resided in and his appearance. Others in Xans had completed missions with less, but I was intelligent enough to know that their own experiences played a large part in their success.

I glanced around again and randomly picked a direction, hoping it was the right one.

It was not. I spent two more days circling the area before I found him again.

He was just exiting a shop filled with brightly colored items and strong smells that mingled until they were unidentifiable and made me sneeze. A reaction that caught me completely by surprise. Apparently my disguise was more human-like than I thought.

The Bringer bowed to the old female who had followed him to the entryway, then started down the street away from me.

Very curious that such a powerful being would show reverence to a female who did not seem to be anything other than a regular human.

I commenced following the Bringer with the beginnings of a plan forming in my mind. I would get close enough to put a tracker on him so I could follow him to a less populated area to kill him. I did not want to kill him in the midst of a crowd. If a human attempted to halt my departure, it would be very bad for us both. My transcarrier could only send one Oodenite at a time. If any more than one or any other species attempted to use it, they would be disintegrated. It could only be used once in this atmosphere and it was my last option if anything bad were to happen.

My plan was to kill the Bringer and use it to get back to my ship, which seemed to have gone missing. It was not in the large grassy area where I had left it a few days ago, but thankfully I did not have to know where my ship was for my transcarrier to work.

I was within feet of him and reached into the pocket of my human pants for the case that held my tracking devices. My hand only felt fabric. I stopped in my tracks, earning myself a shove and a few rude comments from the humans disrupted by my deviation from the norm. I dug deeper into my pocket. Then I checked my other pockets. My communications device and my weapon were where they were supposed to be, but my tracker was gone. I knew it had been in my pocket a few hours ago because I had checked to make sure the power source was holding up to this atmosphere. In a panic, I felt under my shirt to make sure my transcarrier was still on the chain around my neck. I sighed with relief when my hand closed around it.

I looked up and the Bringer was gone again. “Dammit!”

“Language!” A male in dark blue clothing with a metal plate on the left breast and a hat scolded me.

“Apologies.” I waved at him, the action still awkward for me. Only the rudest of Oodenites would make such a gesture but the humans seemed to like it.

I slowly joined the crowd moving in the direction the Bringer had gone. I scanned the shops along the walk, hoping to catch sight of him again.

A picture flashing across a screen in one of the shops made me stop and move closer. It was a picture of my ship. “Dammit,” I whispered as the implant in my head translated the words that scroll across the bottom of the screen.

Diane: What appears to be a space ship has been discovered in Franklin Park. The police are investigating what they are calling either an extravagant prank or an abandoned film prop. They are encouraging anybody with information about it to contact the 800 number on the screen. At this time, it is unclear if or what charges will be pressed. The Captain ended his statement with “we really just want to make sure that the owner gets their obviously expensive item returned to them.”

          The police have my ship.

To be continued...