DISTANCE
“Come in, come in, we’re just getting started.”
Camilla held open the back door of the S&M Institute of Scientific and Technological Research. Sangha and his great grandson, Makata, climbed inside, shivering from the outside cold.
Today was Saturday, but Sangha came to work today, anyways. He had been working as a human tester for Camilla’s research, and today was the final demonstration: they would teleport her apprentice’s mother right into the room with them. Sangha brought Makata along, because he insisted he wanted to see it, too.
Camilla led Makata to the Viewing Room, a small space beside the Tech Room with rows of wooden chairs, where he could watch the demonstration from afar. Meanwhile, Carl, her apprentice, took Sangha to the empty Demonstration Room, where him and Camilla would give instructions to him, so he could teleport Carl’s mother. Camilla marched down beside Sangha, to give a speech to him and his grandson.
“Thank you both for coming today, it means a lot to both me and Carl.”
From the Tech Room, Carl shifted his feet around, embarrassed. Secretly, he was beaming with pride.
“Today, in 2078, transportation is becoming more and more difficult. I noted this problem, and came up with a solution - teleportation: a simple and efficient way to travel. If you want to go somewhere, just type in the geographic co-ordinates into the hand-held pad, and you will go there immediately, hassle free. But say, however, you want to invite someone to come over to you. Then all you do is send out a signal to where they are, and they will receive it on their’s. They must approve the invitation, and then they will be brought to you instantly. This is what we are here to demonstrate today.”
Camilla felt a tinge of loneliness follow her words. She always felt a void in her spirit, and tried to fill it with scientific breakthroughs. Saying her speech, though, she felt emptier than ever. She hung her head low, sniffed back her tears, and solemnly joined Carl in the Tech Room. She was silent, though, so Sangha or Carl didn’t suspect anything.
Makata stared at her suspiciously, and she looked back, surprised. He looked up to her, because she had achieved something in her life; something he would never be able to do. Sangha had moved to Canada as an immigrant back in the 1980's, so in today’s world he was part of Lower Society. Makata, as his great grandson, inevitably was too. People in Lower Society were lucky just to find jobs, so Sangha’s job as a tester was very rare. He was over 100 years old now, so Camilla only hires him out of friendship. Makata resented Sangha, after all, it was his fault he was in Lower Society. He had restricted him from being someone important, like Camilla. It confused him as to why she seemed so sad.
“Sangha, I need to look up the geographic co-ordinates of Carl’s mother, and I will give them to you in about two minutes, so just stay there until I’m ready."
Sangha waved to Makata through the glass wall between them. Makata just gazed back blankly, ignoring him. Sangha could sense he was treating him differently now. Maybe it was just some pre-teen thing, where he was trying to become more independent. He hoped so, for he could never stand to lose his only relative. He didn’t want to be thought of as a bad role model - he wanted Makata to look up to him. He wanted to teach him that compassion is more important than money. But why should he believe him? When he was in Cambodia, he escaped from the Khmer Rouge by himself, never thinking to save his best friend. He still feels guilty.
Carl watched them from his perch in the Tech Room. He remembered when he first met them both, when Makata still loved his great grandfather. That was like what him and Camilla are now. The thought depresses him. In the future, him and his employer could grow as distant as they are now. He shook the thought out of his head, and looked over Camilla’s shoulder to the computer.
“Okay, Sangha, please type in these numbers in your hand-held teleportation pad.”
He wrote in the numbers.
“Now press send, and we’ll just wait for Carl’s mom to come join us.”
The lights flickered for a moment, and suddenly blacked out, washing the room in a palpable layer of thickness. Too much energy was used for the teleportation, so energy was taken from the electricity in the lights. It was a safety requirement from the government, given to the Institute directly.
A dark silhouette suddenly appeared, centered in the middle of the room. It took a few steps outwards, feeling the cement floor under its feet, and returned to its original position. Everyone saw its teeth, like dinosaur fangs. They could see its claws, like porcupine skin. Nothing else. They all imagined the rest differently.
"That's not your Mother, is it, Carl?"
Immediately the figure ran towards the opened Tech Room door, seeing two human figures inside. Carl and Camilla found themselves trapped inside, with no sight of Sangha or his great grandson. Camilla had concurred it was an alien; some sort of outer space creature who had developed the same technology she had. She must have sent out a different signal, and the creature must have thought it was receiving something else, too. It approached her and Carl, and cornered Camilla into the wall.
Camilla circled around to the back door behind her.
“It’s locked! The door is locked!” she shouted, “Carl, run down the hall between here and the Research Department, and push the emergency unlock button!”
Before Carl could move, the creature took a bite of Camilla’s legs, holding her upside down in its jaws. She tried to scream but couldn’t, her fear seemed to grip her throat as well. In this moment, she felt like her life was so inadequate compared to Sangha’s. She was about to die a gruesome death, with nothing in her life except for money and science. What good was science anyways? It had caused the creature to come to S&M Scientific and Technological Research Institute in the first place. She wanted to be loved, and to have a real relationship. Sure, her and Carl were close, but he had become more distant from her recently, perhaps needing to assert his teenage identity. Once the truth slowly settled in, she called out to Carl again.
“Run! Run!”
He spun around, and immediately ran down the hall, obeying her orders. Startled, the creature let go of Camilla, and ran after the young man in the hall.
* * * * *
The ground seemed to fall out underneath him - it was so dark, he couldn’t see the ground he had tripped on, and could just barely see the wall of brightly coloured buttons about twenty metres away from him. The hallway smelled like sweat - possibly his own - but he had no time to dwell on it. Carl struggled to get back up; he had badly injured his knee and both of his feet.
The door slammed shut. ‘I left that door open’, he thought, ‘the alien must be in the hall with me!’ Carl turned around to face the alien, but was met only with darkness. He sprinted the other way again, heading towards the button to unlock the back door of the Demonstrative Department. Limping, he managed to reach the end of the hall, until he saw its claws.
There, directly in front of him, the alien must have stood, for Carl could just see its menacing claw. Blood dripped off the end, assumably Camilla’s, and he wondered whether or not it was worth his life to hit the button for his mentor.
A surge of guilt wavered through him. Camilla was as close as his own mother to him - he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he had trapped her in the Tech Room. But what was his relationship worth, anyways? He was born into a rich family, and had just graduated from the most prestigious scientific school in Canada. Camilla was just a person, he couldn’t frame her on his wall like he did his graduation certificates. And anyways, what he had with her wouldn’t last - like Sangha and Makata. They are becoming farther apart by the day, and inevitably he and Camilla might start, as well. At least with just himself, he wouldn’t be able to be hurt.
In a thrilling act of adrenaline, he darted away from the button, but was snapped up in the alien’s jaws just seconds before he could escape, his body folding in half with a sickening crunch.
* * * * *
It was silent. Makata knew it is was in the Viewing Room with him - he had heard it skip through the Demonstration Room through to his room, breaking the glass along the way, making the air taste somewhat like mold. But where was Sangha? He needed to be with him right now, to feel safe - without him, he felt more exposed to the creature. Carl’s death only added to his insecurity: he actually could be eaten.
Click, click, click.
It was walking around behind him. Or was it to his left? The sound seemed to come from all around him, and he couldn’t tell how close it was, either.
He felt something slide across his back, and heard the alien move to the other side of the room. As he heard its feet come closer, it placed its hand on his shoulder; a warning, a threat.
Hot breath blew on his neck, like steam from a train whistle. Makata covered his mouth to keep from gasping in fear, in hopes that the alien wouldn’t hear him, either. He couldn’t sit still; his legs and fingers were shaking and bouncing so hard they were uncontrollable, almost detached from his body.
The creature’s rough tongue slid across his shoulder, as if to tenderize the meat. It left a mark of saliva: wider at the bottom, and increasingly thinner as it rounded out at the top. Makata’s instincts came into play - his spine hyper-extended, telling the alien that he was, in fact, alive.
A solitary fang cut into the place where it licked him, an incision so delicate it could have been made with a scalpel. A warm drip of blood ran down his shirt, dripping onto the seat below. The creature was playing with his mind; drilling fear into him so hard, that he would react quickly and involuntarily. It was then that the alien would capture its prey, in a fury of colour and resistance.
Makata wasn’t breathing. His face was contracted into deep ridges, with his eyes a brilliant shade of pink. He let out a single gasp - maybe closer to a whimper - and then a wail of fear immediately followed in a simple realization: this is real. Immediately he leapt to his feet, all the while still trembling, with his spine curled over like a leaf in autumn. And he screamed a terrible sound, so awful it hurt him just to hear it. Maybe he could drown out his fear in noise - silence was to painful for him to stay calm. His mouth was locked open, and salty tears evenly flowed into it, leaving a sour taste behind.
Across the room, Sangha finally heard Makata’s screams. But where was he? The darkness was disturbing; it made it sound like he was coming from all around him. He turned around behind him, and saw a dark shadow perched over a small figure seated in a chair below, assumably Makata. Sangha ran over to him as fast as he could, for he couldn’t stand the thought of him being eaten as brutally as Carl or Camilla. His fear launched him as fast as possible towards the room.
Once he arrived, they hid under a row of unturned chairs. Sangha’s arms locked around his great grandson in a grip so strong, he himself never thought it possible for his age. Him and Makata had never been so close. The past few years, he had been growing up, becoming more independent, and growing more distant. But right now, in this single moment, they were so close they could feel each other’s heart beat; a fast pulse at first, but now a slower, more even tempo. Poetic, almost.
The alien lurched over to their hiding spot, smelling their humanity. It flipped over the chairs they hid under, until they were completely exposed, Sangha’s arms being the only thing between the two species. The alien jumped onto the spot where they were, its teeth open and ready, but Sangha and Makata rolled onto the next level of chairs. Now hungrier than ever, the alien spun around, desperately searching for its prey.
Sangha looked up at the alien, and was met with almost the same features he’d seen in the officer’s eyes back in Phnom Penh. Except the alien’s eyes did not discriminate: its prey was all equal in his mind, but the officer saw differences between people - between the uneducated and the educated. He almost felt happy to be seen as an equal. It had slammed Carl around the room as hard as he would anyone else it wanted to eat. With that thought he had a realisation.
“Makata, did Carl unlock the back door?” Sangha’s whisper quivered ever so slightly.
“I think the alien must have slammed him against it while he was being eaten”, he responded, “but I’m not sure.”
Sangha dragged his great grandson up onto his feet, grabbed his wrist and ran towards the glass wall between them and the Tech Room, smashing it to tiny shreds. The sharp pain blasted through both of them, making them wince. With eyes tight shut, they flicked the glass off of them, and looked down to a brilliant surprise.
“Camilla!” Sangha exclaimed, “you’re still alive!” His wrinkled face lit up in joy, seeing his employer’s face smile at the sight of him. Everyone felt relieved.
Sangha looked again at Camilla. Her legs were severely injured; they were twisted and they seemed to have no strength to stand up. She was lying in her own blood, her face and hands were drenched in red, with her face distorted in pain. Instantly he remembered his friend’s face, staring back at him with the same level of pain, back in 1980. The Khmer Rouge took him to the forest to dig his own grave, because of his education. Why didn’t he rescue him? Why didn’t he try to stop the officers? His guilt lingered on, even today, in the midst of his own disaster.
“Makata! The alien sees us, we have to leave!”
Makata bent down, picked up Camilla in his trembling arms, and fled out the open door with his great grandfather. He couldn’t stand to see her abandoned body in his mind the rest of his life.
I didn't notice that till you pointed it out, so thanks 
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