Paul Young missed the Ill Nights completely. He had killed an alien tracker with the help of his fellow detective, Marcus Colston, and then a strange being from another planet appeared to them both. The alien had the appearance of a very tall black man and he wore what appeared to be a shiny space suit with no helmet. The alien had only three fingers, and the shortest had a long talon on it like the alien tracker the two men had killed.
“You killed the tracker?” the alien said to them. “This is horrible news for your planet, truly horrible. The impossible has happened. A Razew has passed through the gateway and is loose on Earth. The tracker hoped to kill it before it developed a taste for humans. We must find it. You must find it or be responsible for the death of your species.”
Young stared at the alien with disbelief and when Colston raised his weapon to fire, Young stopped him.
“What are you?” Young asked him.
“I am Druinte of the planet Druont,” the alien said. “You may call me Eakran.”
“Where’s your spaceship?” Young asked.
“It is possible to travel between Druont and Earth without a spaceship, though the quantum bridge between the planets was sealed to discourage irresponsible contact between our species and to avoid razews on Earth or Earth predators on Druont.”
“Paul,” Colston said, trying to hide the fear in his voice, “we just killed one of these things. I don’t think we should trust that this one came in peace.”
“The death of the tracker is only a tragedy for your species,” Eakran explained. “Eris death is less than ideal, but the job of a tracker is dangerous. They hunt Druont’s apex predator, the predator of our species even, so death is a constant part of the job. I did not know the tracker well, I was assigned to chart eris progress in the mission of either eliminating the razew that made it to Earth, or bringing it back to Druont. This tracker had a good history of success so I was surprised to see that the monitor of eris vitals reported erim dead. And there is no tracker available to replace erim.”
“Paul, let’s kill this thing and bury it!” Colston said loudly. “It don’t make no sense, it’s probably just stalling us, waiting for his friends to show up.”
“I only came here to confirm the death of the tracker,” Eakran explained, “and I was curious if it was as easy as they say to travel across the universe on the quantum bridge. It is surprisingly easy.”
“What happens now?” Young asked. He stood in front of Colston to prevent him from shooting prematurely.
“I go back and report what has happened and you all should hope for another tracker to become available soon, before the razew develops a taste for human flesh. They shape shift, and they are extremely intelligent. It probably already speaks your language and will be impossible to detect without advanced knowledge of the things, like a tracker has.”
“You can’t track it?” Young asked.
“The trackers are of the wild Druintes, I am of the city Triusia, we are almost a different species and their hunting instincts make them better suited for the task. I could do it, but it will take me longer, and I don’t know that I care to risk my life hunting a razew on such a primitive planet.”
“I could help you,” Young said, “if you teach me about this thing you’re talking about.”
“You believe this shit?” Colston said with disbelief.
“I really do,” Young said, looking back at Colston. “Look at it, it’s obviously not from around here, and if he wanted to hurt us, he could have done that.”
“I’m out,” Colston said, shaking his head. “Have fun with your weird friend. Call me tomorrow so I know you’re still alive.”
“That’s fair,” Young said. “Thank you for everything, man. I really appreciate it. You probably shouldn’t tell nobody…”
Colston waved a hand as he turned to leave.
“You don’t even have to say it,” he said. “Ain’t nobody believing this shit. Take care of yourself old man.”
He left as fast as he could and Young was alone with the alien called Eakran.
“So how do we do this?” Young asked and turned back to Eakran. “You got a hologram or something with information about this thing?”
“No, I didn’t think to bring anything like that. I could go and retrieve something, but given the circumstances, if you are willing to train as a tracker and you can demonstrate any aptitude at all for it, then we should hurry. Time is not on your planet’s side. You should come with me to Druont.”
There was part of Young that was sure all of this was some dream he was having, or maybe he had finally had too much to drink and his brain had cracked from the constant abuse, but everything he had experienced since he heard those strange clicking noises in the dark had been almost otherworldly and standing before Eakran made more sense than anything that had happened to him in some time. Even if it was all a dream, Young was hopeful that this whole experience offered him purpose outside of his sad and empty home.
“I’ll go with you,” he said and the two got into an invisible craft that was very high tech inside with so many buttons and lights and touch screens. They flew for a short time but when they emerged from the ship, Young knew they were nowhere near Knoxville, TN.
“We are in Tulsk, Ireland, specifically the archaeological site known as Rathcroghan,” Eakran explained as he pushed a button on the sleeve of the spacesuit and the invisible ship became visible as a sleek metal vessel about the size of a small car. As soon as it was visible, it began to fold in on itself until it was small enough for Ekaran to put into a pocket.
“The quantum bridge goes from the Oweynagat cave here on Earth, to a lake in the wilds of Druont where there is a small monitoring station. We will travel there, and I will teach you what I can.”
Paul Young left the Earth shortly after and he was gone for much longer than he anticipated. Shortly after entering the cave and emerging on the pristine scene of a lake surrounded by lush, red foliage that made his jaw drop, Young was assaulted by Eakran, who laughed at his gullibility.
“Everything about the tracker and razew is true,” he explained when Young came to his senses inside of a cell that looked out onto what he could only describe as a high tech laboratory. “But I never expected to run into a human, I didn’t know you all had the wherewithal to kill a Druinte, much less a tracker, but there you were. Don’t worry, there’s no way you could ever learn enough to track and eliminate a razew, that part I made up. You were just so eager for answers, and I’ve always wanted to experiment on an Earthling, it was easy to lure you here. This should be an absolute delight. For me. You will be tortured beyond your imagination.”
Young yelled and beat at the bars of his cell, to no avail. He was Eakran’s prisoner for almost two years and only barely survived, though it is possible that the being who called himself Paul Young and returned to Earth after that two year ordeal was not the human man that left.
Young returned to an Earth that had been recently freed from the grips of Illuminatos. He knew that he had to find and eliminate the razews, no matter how many had been born on Earth in his absence.
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