Zariman Ten - Zero: The Child's Nightmare pt. 1

[Ash_of_Narmer]

Note: Depending on what the community thinks of this, I'll post consecutive parts to the story.

Brief background on inspiration:

I am currently writing this story (It is not complete yet, but I have almost 3 complete parts) for my personal character in Warframe RP clan, and I figured it could actually work as a standalone Warframe story. The following is written from the view of a young adult Tenno about his memory  of the Zariman incident. He was a teenager when the event happened and is recapping centuries later in the present time of the Warframe Universe.

This is going to be a hefty read just for those who might tldr this.

WARNING: for those who are squeamish and don't like graphic descriptions of gore and potentially horrendous actions, you should probably not read this.

Disclaimer: This is a creative and fan made take on events that are not clearly explained in the game's history. All naked characters do not exist in real game lore.

For those that do, please enjoy! Let me know what you think in comments or PMs please! Criticism is welcome as long as it is legitimate.

(Original Title -- Mataeru: Agony of Loss)

 

“A gentle soul... Broken… Lost...”

 

    Zariman Ten-Zero, The Ship of Mystery. That was what I decided to call it. I had been everywhere open to the civilians on board and still could find no hint to the ship's purpose. Asking my father, Dorsus, about it yielded nothing. I played the discussion over and over again in my mind, desperately trying to glean any information about it, but could not find anything substantial...

    “Father, why are we here? What is the purpose of the Ten-Zero?”

    “Mata, how many times must I tell you not to inquire such things? The will of the Golden Ones is not to be questioned! It is to be obeyed!”

    “I'm sorry father…” I replied lowering my gaze. “But, we left everything behind… Our home, our lives, our friends…”

   Father sighed and put a hand on my shoulder. “You miss that girl don't you. What was her name…” He closed his eyes as if searching for a name in his mind. “Marata?”

    “Yes… I never got the chance to say goodbye…” My face fell at the memory of my only true friend.

   My father smiled and pulled out his holopad, navigating several screens, then scrolled through a particularly long roster to a specific point.

    “Mata, look here.” He tapped one of the listed names to highlight it and held the holopad so I could see what was displayed.

   When I read the name I smiled. Maratania Torvoa.

    “She is here!? Where is she?” I looked up at father's face hopefully.

   He chuckled and replied with a mischievous tone, “Well now, if I tell you you won't have any fun searching for her. Now go son, and question the will of the Golden Ones no more.”

   I was elated, and remained that way for days knowing Marata was aboard as well, but I did not forget how my father avoided the original question. I knew he used her to try and distract me from the ship's purpose. There was nothing I could use as a hint, not a change in father's voice, his eyes, or his facial expressions as we spoke. He was a politician after all, and I still feel foolish for thinking I could glean any kind of information from him. The ship’s true purpose would remain mystery to me for a long time...

    He told me to go find her, on a ship with hundreds, maybe thousands of people... I never really enjoyed interacting with people very much, so I devised a plan to find Marata. This would involve my younger sister Xyvonya who was my complete opposite. She was incredibly friendly and likeable, and she loved being around and meeting new people; probably because of her buoyant and energetic personality. But her blonde hair and pretty silver-green eyes probably had a part in why people liked her as well. I planned on making her do all the talking while I recorded every little detail about each person or family she met. Granted, hacking into the mainframe and just finding Marata would have been faster, but I did not want to risk getting caught just to make finding her easier. I also decided that learning about the passengers could give me clues about the ship's true purpose. There were enough people on board for the ship to be classified as colony frigate, but I did not think that was what the Zariman was… I had previously concluded it was not a military vessel. There were no weapon ports outside that I could see when we boarded the Ten-Zero. If I had only known the true purpose of that cursed ship...

   Xyv and I spent weeks on my mission and we had only finished sections I, II, and a small part of III. She was enjoying every second of it, and I was starting to get demoralized. We had met hundreds of people, and none of the people on board had any qualities that you want for a colonization mission, further confirming my doubts. The people she interviewed had nothing in common and came from various social levels. We met rich Orokin families of high status, poor Corpus families, labor families, scholars, and so many more. Despite this, many of the children from the families we met were quite interesting. A few stood out to me though. Zairiah was very quiet like me and was an incredibly gentle soul while Solun was a loud and rambunctious boy who liked being the center of attention. And then there was Barik… that child… He was broken in ways I still cannot even begin to comprehend. I accidentally stumbled upon him during a break from my interview sessions with Xyv. I was exploring the more... Obscure areas of the ship when I heard the anguished cries of some small animal coming from one of the ventilation grates. I followed the wall until I found a maintenance hatch. I touched a spot on the wall I had seen Grineer workers touch before and it slid open. As I followed the crawlspace, the sounds got weaker and weaker even though I was moving in the right direction. As I came to a bend in the shaft, I cautiously peeked around the corner, and what I saw, illuminated by the pale blue emergency light, utterly terrified me. There was a boy, not much older than I was, maybe by a year, sitting at this cross junction humming to himself. He was large and muscular, and he had short cropped dark hair. He was sitting there next to a lineup of rodents that were alive. As I wondered why they weren’t running away, I realized, each of their legs had been broken. I could see where the bones snapped by this maniacal child poked against their skin and I could see the pain in their tiny eyes as the squeaked softly... In addition to those, there were a few who had been disemboweled, their bodies empty shells with nothing inside. I looked up at him and saw that he was now hunched over something. I heard the sound of tearing flesh and the brief agonized squealing of a rodent before I heard the snapping of bones. I watched in horror as he straightened his posture and held the rat above his mouth, letting its organs drop unceremoniously into his mouth. He then pulled the now empty husk of the creature away, tearing the last few ligaments and tendons out before sucking them between his lips and dropping the carcass. His throat bulged as he swallowed, after which he grabbed the next rat in the line. After witnessing that, I immediately turned and crawled back the way I cam with silence that would put a spectre to shame.

When I got out of the vent, I immediately made note of this child and wrote everything I observed down and then I ran, looking for my sister.

    I found her in one of the meal areas, happily eating some kind of salad, and sat with her. I asked her about the boy I saw.

   “Hey Xyv, do you know this boy based on his description?” I showed her the document with all the details of his appearance I logged, but nothing more. She looked it over for a moment before replying.

   “I have seen him before, but never had the courage to talk to him.  Something just… seems off about him. Scary even. Zairiah told me that his name is Barik. She's terrified of him.” She took a bite of her salad and asked with her mouth full of green and colored things. “Why?”

   “Xyv, I want you to stay as far away from him as possible, okay? He… he is broken, there is something very very wrong with him. Promise me you will not go near him.”

 She swallowed and looked at me with a concerned expression before she nodded. “I will stay away from him, but what did he do?”

    “It is better you not know. Trust me.” I shuddered internally at the memory of what I saw.

   After she finished we decided to resume our interviews hoping to finish section III that day. We met a few people that day. The people in Section III were not very cooperative as compared to the other sections,which ended in us gathering less than a third of the population's information. They were mostly poor Corpus families who held us in contempt simply because our father was a politician of high status. We decided to call it a day after dealing with them.

   Mother was so unlike most Orokin families that are conceited and racist. Because of that, we were raised to be kind and accepting, polite and understanding, which is something most Corpus never see from Orokin. That is probably why we were so adamantly shunned. They must have thought we were trying to get something out of them.

    As we returned to our quarters in section VIII, we heard an announcement over the comm system.

   “Attention all passengers. We are about to enter our Void Jump. Please find a location to sit down as we may experience slight tremors while the drive powers up. I will notify you again when it is safe to move around.”

   If Xyv and I had known this would be the event that changed the course of history, we would have never boarded the ship. We were heading back toward our “apartment” as the drive powered on. The tremors started as we were walking but it was nowhere near as bad as the captain made it sound. And then the void drive exploded. Xyv and I were thrown from our feet and landed several meters down the hall. Due to the loss of power, the shield protecting us from the dangerous void energy collapsed. Consequently, the ship was enveloped in energy from outside. I screamed in pain as the energy seeped into my body through my skin, my mouth my ears my eyes, everywhere. I was surrounded in it and it hurt, my body burned as if it was on fire. I thought my insides were liquidating and felt like my skin were charring, but after a minute of pure mind numbing agony it abruptly subsided. As I sat up, the world was spinning and blurry; I could not focus on anything because everything looked like a distorted abstract painting. I heard an agonized moan nearby and looked in that direction, and oddly, Xyvonya was the only thing among my surroundings that was not in a haze. I crawled over to her and put my hand on her shoulder and she opened her eyes.

   “Aeru… it hurts… I'm on fire…” She was sobbing from the pain and was curled in a fetal position, her long blonde hair sprawled messily around her.

   “It will go away, just give it a minute.” I looked around again to see if there was anyone else nearby. My vision was finally clearing up, which allowed me to make out my surroundings. The hallway was empty, but the various tables, plants, shelves, and the Ayatan sculptures that had been on them were scattered everywhere.

   Xyvonya stopped shuddering a few moments later and she looked up at me as she wiped her eyes. “Why are we still alive? Exposure to energy like that should be lethal, right?”

   I shrugged in response. “I do not know why we are alive, but we ought to go find Mother and Father. They told me they would be in the section VIII lounge.” I stood and offered my hand to Xyv, which she accepted, and pulled her up.

   Another explosion rocked the ship. It sent us tumbling further down the hall once more, and then the ship went dark. A few seconds later, but the pale amber emergency lights activated, casting a surreal glow on our surroundings. The engines were destroyed and the emergency lights are what notified us to that.

    As we walked through the chaos, we heard muffled screams and crashing sounds behind the doors of each family “apartment”. We didn't understand what was going on, and decided it would be best to avoid any contact with other people. As we reached the section VIII lounge, we were met with a gruesome scene. There were several children about Xyv’s age standing in the middle of the room screaming in terror as energy radiated from their bodies. Around them were decimated corpses of adults and other children, organs hanging out of torsos and resting on the ground in a small ocean of blood. The corpse's limbs were all scattered among the rest of the gore along with a few severed heads. Looking at the children I could see their bodies and the remains and blood of the dead were slowly petrifying with each pulse of the energy. Their bodies were turning to stone and they didn't know why…

   Xyv turned away and vomited behind a fallen shelf. I continued to watch, however, their bodies and everything organic around them turned slowly to stone, and with one last pulse from the child in the middle of the group, the room went silent. I couldn't believe my eyes. Where had that energy come from?

   “Aeru? Is it… is it over?” I turnhed back to see Xyv hiding behind a nearby table.     “Yes, it is over, cover your eyes, I will guide you through the room so you do not have to see anything. She cautiously came out from behind tbve table b her hands over her eyes. I put my arm arounfd her shorr and slowly walked her through the room staying near the walls, at a  bafe distancefhhut from the the statues vufyvffvvfnfnfnffvvvfffcgtddddft  “Xyv, we should try to avoid as many people as possible. If everyone is going through that… we could be in h.”n

tdddd  She nodded in response, and I could feel her shaking with fear.

   I wished I could help, but Irrrhwas not very good at comforting people. But I did hug her as we walked through sectio n VIII.

   When we arrived in the lounge another incredibly gruesome scene met us. There was even more blood than in the previous room. I could barely see the floor through it and the ground up bits of flesh... And then there was the bodies. So many corpses and parts of others littered the room. There were deep gashes in the wall, floor, and ceiling revealing metal girders and severed wires that rained sparks intermittently. The amber color of the emergency lights bathed the room in a surreal glow as we stepped inside. The amount of blood in the ground made it sound like we were walking in water. Xyv vomited again and I held her hair back until she finished. I then put my arm around her once more, attempting to comfort her. While we looked among bodies for any sign of our parents, I wondered if whatever caused the gashes in the wall was responsible for this carnage.

    After a few minutes of walking through the mess, Xyvonya fell to her knees behind me and started crying. I turned to look at her and she gestured to a puddle of blood with two mounds of meat, flesh, and bone that hardly qualified to be bodily remains rested. In the puddle was a number of fingers. However, two stood out both fingers had a single ring. Once I saw them I sank to my knees as well. I did not care that the blood soaked into the knees of my pants, my kind was numbed with sorrow...

   “Mother and Father's Ayatan rings…” I stared in disbelief. They were dead. While the reality took root in my mind, Xyv suddenly stopped crying and went as silent as the dead around us. I was snapped out of my trance by a sharp voice from behind.

   “Well look what I have here! Fresh meat!” I turned around and my eyes widened. There stood Barik, his face and clothes saturated in blood, and a hunk of bone in his hand with a little bit of flesh on it. I could handle anything, blood, organs, gore, all of it, but this was almost too much, I nearly wretched as I watched him take a bite out of the flesh on the bone of what looked like a leg.

    I could not move, I was in a daze, horrified. Before I knew what was happening, I felt an intense pain in my chest for a split second, then I lost all sense of sound as time  seemed to slow. I looked down and saw a gaping hole in my chest. It was as if my lungs and heart had simply vanished. I could see the floor behind me and blood shot out of my severed veins, causing a plethora of red rivulets to flow down the front of my shirt. Shredded bits of my lungs hung from what was left of my ribs poking out of my flesh. I looked back up at Barik and saw his outstretched hand pointing at me with a wicked and sadistic smile on his face. I fell forward on the floor, blackness seeping into my vision. I closed my eyes as a pair of hands rolled me over and cupped my face. I could not see or hear, and I was losing my grip on reality. My body was a weightless, empty void and as my consciousness began to fade I realized this was the end. My sister, my precious, innocent little sister would be alone with that demon. I had failed to protect her…        

    Just as the infinite blackness of death was about to consume me, I felt a warmth surround my body pulsating like heartbeat. I felt something warm and wet drop on my cheek. Why was I not dead yet? I strained to open my eyes as my hearing slowly returned and I could hear Xyvonya screaming and crying. When I finally managed to open my eyes, I saw a soothing pale green light emanating from her body. It was almost the same color of her eyes and it flowed like the waves of an ocean. As my senses slowly returned, I looked at my chest and saw the hole filling. My lungs, ribs and heart were regenerating before my eyes! How was this possible? Was she healing me? Was her power healing my body? I looked back to her and I finally heard what she was saying.

   “Aeru, get up! Please! Do not leave me alone!” She was screaming at me to wake up over and over and then as my body finished its regeneration, she suddenly stopped speaking and threw up blood all over me. As I looked up at her, I could see the life leave her eyes as her body fell down to the floor in two pieces, bisect just below her chest. Her shoulder was a bare nub and her arm falling to the floor beside me. Her lower body fell back, a clean diagonal slice spewing blood as her intestines fell all over the floor. My own blood froze as I tried to process what just happened. My sister was… Dead?

   As I turned to look up at Barik he was smiling. “I bet she’ll taste delicious,” he said as he sucked the last of the meat off his bone and dropped it. “I’ll just kill you again and then eat you both!” He cackled maniacally as he raised his hand towards me again. I looked up at him and felt a strange energy building inside my body. It was strong, and it felt like a wildfire running rampant through my body. Slowly I  rose to my knees, and I looked at Barik with a dark expression. I opened my mouth and screamed. Raw, unbridled hatred and rage. I was going to kill him and I wanted him to know that. A second after I started screaming I felt a wave of power surge from the soles of my feet through my body to my lips and shoot out of my mouth as a wave of pure energy. When the wave hit Barik, the beam he was preparing to fire at me discharged into the ceiling, cutting a deep and long gash as he stumbled back. He shielded his face with his other hand in what seemed to be pain.

    Once he recovered he fired another beam of energy at me and I quickly sidestepped it. He was barely holding his balance, and upon a closer look at his eyes, I could see they were having trouble focusing on me, almost as if he was dizzy. I smiled as I realized that I too had power and understood what it was capable of.

    “How did you do that!?” Barik practically screamed the words at me as he fired off another beam.

    This time, however, it didn’t end. As I rolled out of the way, the beam left a glowing cut in the wall and floor as he attempted to follow me with it. I continued to roll, jump and duck as he he aimed at various parts of my body and after a couple of minutes, the energy he was using began to weaken and sputter. I could tell he was getting tired when all of a sudden, the beam stopped abruptly and he sagged to his knees, sweating and breathing heavily. He looked up at me and thrust his hand forward. As I dodged I noticed a brief spark of energy, but nothing else happened, no beam no destruction, nothing. I walked up to him and kicked him hard in the face, and he fell to his back, spitting out his front teeth and looking indignantly at me.

    “You think you can overpower me you maggot?” He snickered as he sat up.

    He was right. I couldn’t hope to overpower him in a physical fight as he was about twice my size in pure muscle. I knelt down to grab the bone he had been holding while he rose to his feet. I looked at him again and screamed like before, the energy flowing through my body again and once more, he clutched his head in pain and sank to his knees.

    I broke the bone in half over my thigh and pulled it apart, being careful not to cut myself on the jagged and pointed end. Walking up to him I tore his hands away from his face and punched him. It hurt him, badly. I felt his jaw crack from the impact of the blow and fell back, clutching his now lopsided lower jaw. He had that disoriented look in his eyes again and I crouched over him. For the first time I saw true fear cross his face when he saw me. He tried to crawl away but I brought my foot down on his knee, shattering the joint. When he cried out in pain, I kicked it again and knelt with my own knee on his chest. I raised my hand, clutching my bone weapon and brought it down into his left eye. He screamed and grabbed my wrist trying to pull the bone out as I pushed, twisted and ground it in as far I could. After a few seconds, he stopped screaming and his arms went limp. Xyvonya, and my parents had been avenged, but it didn't remove the ache in my heart. That feeling only got worse when I looked around the room,  noticed just how many people this child had probably killed. Too many...

    I walked over to where Xyv’s body lay in three pieces and sank to my knees. Tears formed in my eyes as I looked into her lifeless silver eyes staring off into nothingness, her mouth agape in a silent and eternal scream. Her hair was stained red from the blood covering the floor. I reached forward to close her eyes and I lost all control of my emotions when I saw the miniature Ayatan Orta pendant I had given her for her birthday only earlier that year. I had never seen her wear it until now and this sent me into a fit of sobs as I slowly undid the clasp. After allowing myself a few minutes to grieve and release my sorrow, I wrapped the chain around my hand and closed my fist around the pendant. I walked to the puddle with my parents fingers and pulled the rings off of each one and realized I had no pockets. Unwrapping Xyv’s necklace from around my hand and fingers, I slipped mother and father’s rings on each side of the sculpture. Father’s Amber on the right, and mothers Cyan on the left. Wrapping the pendant on my hand again, I looked back to Xyv’s body and closed my eyes. It felt wrong to leave her here, but I there was  nothing else to do. After a few more seconds I walked out of the lounge. I did not look back.