Lathonia At War

Chapter Three

Once again, my simple life changed forever. Ms. Belaine was no ordinary woman. She was a shape-shifter. She was a beautiful creature. She had beautiful dark eyes and scales on her large body. It was all blurry. The dust started to settle.

I saw her. She was magnificent. Her body was so graceful it looked as if it was flowing gracefully. Her face looked as if she was ten years younger. She seemed less tense. She finally got the stick removed from her back.

She finally spoke, “Come here,” I got closer and said, “I’m stunned. I don’t know what to say.” she chuckled and told me, “Adriana, listen closely,”

“All right.”

“There is a place far from here, above the clouds, where creatures live together peacefully. If you wish to see this, you must go to your mother's and tell her you wish to stay with me. I will let you visit her whenever you like, but promise me, and this is the important part; you must never tell anyone about the town above the clouds. Understood?”

“I understand. Though, how do we get to the town?” She answered, “This will reveal itself soon. First, you must pack your bag. We shall go to your mother's to tell her about your decision.” As soon as we could, we went home to pack. She transformed into a human as we got closer to the house. I packed and got in the carriage.

When Ms. Belaine was ready, we left our quiet house. We talked and talked way more than we did the ride to the house. I looked out the window and saw the mud splash onto the side of the carriage, hitting my dress. I quickly wiped it off and flicked off the chunks of small rocks. Then I looked up and saw my small shack of a house. I felt the horses slow down and finally stop.

I exited the carriage and ran to my mother. She was probably trying not to raise her hopes too high, but as soon as she saw us coming, she ran to me as well. I missed her. I realized I was crying and wiped my face. I was crying for no reason; I knew I would see her again. I hoped I wouldn’t grow fond of life in Ms. Belaine’s house and took Mother and Zander for granted. “Are you all right?” Mother asked.

I responded, “I have to tell you, I wish to go with Ms. Belaine. I will visit you, don’t worry.”

“All right.”

I started sobbing. Mother joined me, “If you leave, I’ll have to care for your two-year-old brother alone.”

“I know, but I will be here once every week. I promise.”

“I hope so. I believe you have to leave,” She said while looking at Ms. Belaine. We said goodbye. While leaving, I walked into a small chair. The feeling of something interacting with me made me sniffle and cry more.

Ms. Belaine did not talk, so I would have time to calm down. We slowly walked into the forest, and she said, “Okay, let us stop here.” I didn’t respond to her, though I still obeyed her. She told me to back up, and as soon as I started to walk, she began to spin, similar to when we were on the mountain. I quickly went further back because she was making the rocks fly up. I did not want to get hit in my eye. Finally, the little tornado slowed and stopped. The dust was settling. I saw her. She looked just as beautiful as before. I stopped moping and opened my eyes with amazement. She said, “Well are you coming?” I nodded and climbed onto her back. She looked back at me and said, “Be cautious, and don’t fall.”

Then she started up like an engine and began to fly with her giant feathery wings. Her feathers lightly stroked my legs. It made a tickle feel down my legs. It made me start giggling. I nearly slipped and fell. Luckily Ms. Belaine saved me by lightly lifting my legs up and softly sweeping me back onto the surface of her back. I exhaled and thanked her. I was excited about seeing her hometown. After an hour or two of daydreaming, I looked around and realized that we were in space. I looked around and tried to blink rapidly. I thought I was in a deep sleep. I tried asking Ms. Belaine how I was still alive and still breathing. I had not spoken in a while, so when speaking, I was raspy. She curiously turned her head to check on me. When she saw me sitting peacefully, she moved her head to look where she was going. After clearing my throat, I said, “How am I alive?” I still sounded raspy though it was better than before. She gently said, “You in a safe place; with me.”

It is strange to look back at the time when Ms. Belaine first met me, she was so tense and daunting, but now she is so soft and kind.

I smiled and made waves with my hands. I stood up and spun around. When I sat down again, I started giggling. Before I knew it, I looked over in the distance and saw a small sphere-like planet. I pointed to it and asked what it was. Ms. Belaine said that that was her home. Lathiona, she called it. She described how I should behave, “Never, and I mean ever, tell someone-” She began to speak a language I didn’t quite understand. We soon landed. Everything was colorful. The trees were bright orange and produced fruit of all shapes and colors. I went over to a tree, and someone human-looking came over to me. He wasn’t human because he had three pairs of eyes where his forehead should be. He growled at me and looked me up and down. I walked backwards towards Ms. Belaine, frightened. Everyone looked different. Some creatures were half-human but with eight legs. Others were entirely different. Though, all of them were wondrous.

Ms. Belaine held onto me and whispered, “Stay close. This place is at least four times as dangerous as Earth. Some hamfilumpens are human researchers.” I said, “That doesn’t seem so bad.” She also said, “To collect information, they eat your faces and remove your intestines.” I gasped quietly, though it sounded like a strange hiccup. I asked her if everyone could turn human. She said, “No, being human is a terrible thing here. Being human is frowned upon just as badly as murder here.” I squealed and walked closer to her.

I wondered where we were heading. Ms. Belaine stopped me from walking by putting her hoof in front of my chest, “hang on,” she told me. I looked around and saw a small cabin. It was a strange little house. It was quaint and cute. I realized Ms. Belaine was walking up to it and signaling me to follow her. I obeyed her. She knocked on the door and spoke a few words in the language she was uttering when we were in space. I asked her, “What does that mean?”

“It means do not ask questions and just follow me.” I chuckled and followed her as she opened the door. We walked into the house. It was old-fashioned and had cobwebs everywhere. It was as if nobody had been there in decades. I looked around to see if someone was home. I started walking with Ms. Belaine into another room. A small crowd was in that room. There were three men and one woman. The woman had blue skin. Everything else was human except her three eyes and antennas. She had long, black hair that was half up and half down. I heard her being called Bonna. Next to Bonna was a thicker man. He had half-moon glasses and a hot pink face fading into a blue body. He is bald with a small mustache. He had

He looked like an average father but in hamfilumpen form. He is Stonbert. The one next to Stonbert was a tall, slender man. He had a single eye and a long neck. He had purple skin with yellow dots. I called this man Simonus. The last man was in the room watching the gambling session. This man was a centaur-like hamfilumpen. He had one eye that took up his entire face. He had the body of a horse with an orange fur coat.

I thought he should be named Phiop.

Stonebert started mumbling and getting in my face. I realized he was trying to smell me. As I backed into the wall, he slithered away. Ms. Belaine began to walk toward them and speak in a strange language. I asked what she said and in what language.

She responded, “Hiluinglosh, that is the language. I told them that you were a human but were not deadly.”

“Well, do they believe you?” I asked.

She answered, “They have to inspect you,”

I nodded and followed the hamfilumpen into the next room. The room was a doctor’s office. We were in a hospital. The room we were in previously was the waiting room. That explains the table and uncomfortable chairs. All I saw afterward was Phiop pushing me onto a table and him stabbing a needle into the vein in my wrist. Then they injected a liquid and it made me black out. All I heard was a high-pitched sound that made my ears ring. When I woke, I heard Bonna say, “Wait, I think it is awake.” she scrambled over to me and gasped. “Everyone, look.” Everyone went over to me, including Ms. Belaine. They picked me up from the hospital bed. Everything was getting less blurry. I realized I could understand them, “Are you speaking English?”

Bonna replied, “No, we are speaking Hiluinglosh,”

I asked, “Then how do I understand you?”

She responded excitedly, “I injected a language translation pharmaceutical into your brain. It means you can understand any language you hear. Sometimes you can pick up on thought frequencies and hear the petite chatter of Hamfilumpen brains at work.” I asked her if everyone keeps this around the house. She said, “Well, no. Our headquarters is a rundown hospital. Which is precisely why we have it; to save lives.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She came closer and whispered, “There are Hamfilumpen that like to kill. They take pleasure in murder.” She shuddered and added, “We have eighty-two Hamfilumpen ready to die saving our planet. They will not die for nothing.” I asked, “How many murderers are there?”

She replied, “Approximately four hundred.” She looked down pitifully. I patted her shoulder. I told her I could gather more Hamfilumpen to join the fight against the Murderizers. She thanked me and took my hand to lead me into the next room. I saw a different type of doctor’s office. It was a surgery room. I was a bit nervous about what she brought me in here for. Then she said, “So, your mother is a Hamfilumpen. Therefore, you are too. Unless your father was a human.” I told her I had no clue who my father was. “Oh, that’s a shame.” She said. “Yeah,” I responded.

I told her that I could take a DNA test.

“What is that?” She asked. I told her that they were to find your family tree. I explained further what a family tree was. She said, “Oh, we have those.”

Then she started shoving and sweeping me to the machine that could test my DNA. I frantically scanned her face as she swiftly arranged adhesive tubes on my chest and stomach. I heard a loud, ear-piercing ringing in my ear. I finally woke up. As Bonna finished the test, I asked about my father. It turned out that my father was dead. He got killed by the Murderizers. But further down the page it said that his species was unidentified. Though it showed only two photos, he looked human in one. Though the other photo looked extremely blurry, it was hard to make out what I was looking at. It looked like a dark blob with… Wings? I ignored the wings and convinced myself they were too blurry and far away to even clarify if they were positively wings. His mother was human, his father was Hamfilumpen, it stated. It said that he could transform into an unidentified creature, and he could also transform into a human. Bonna said,

“He was in his human form when they decided to murder him.” I nodded in understanding, Then I looked at his face like a human. It was chiseled and he had a strong jawline. He was five foot eleven. He had a black mustache, black hair, and half-moon glasses. If my biological mother and father are both Hamfilumpens, then I am too. I was confused and anxious. I asked Bonna, “How do you shapeshift?” She told me that she didn’t know because it wasn’t possible for her to shapeshift.