Mentally and Physically

Mentally and Physically
A Short Story
Written By
SpaceFaction

     Death is what I see real soon for the Kovinans living on Yanica. I have been watching them for almost three hundred years, and it doesn’t appear they have grown up too much in all those years. If they can’t convince me they should remain living on my Land Mass, I will have no choice but to eliminate most of them, thought Yanica as she continued to watch over the Kovinans living under her watchful eyes.

     Suddenly, Yanica stepped off her flat rock and began walking toward the Kovinans who lived there. The first step started the cracking sound as the stone surrounding her form began to fall off her. It started with her feet. First her right foot as it hit the ground beneath her. Then her left foot. As she continued her walking, the rest of her stone entrapment fell off of her. Within only about a minute that stone was gone.

     Yanica, the gigantic Kovinan of seventy-five feet started to get smaller with each step she took. On her back kneecap, her long yellowish hair swayed slightly as she walked. The shoulder-length hair on the side of her head and in front of her small bumps and bumpy face didn’t sway. It just hung there because it was so thick. Especially, on its sides.

     By the time she got to the other Kovinans, she was fifteen feet tall. Twice the height of a normal Kovinan. Yanica left big hole footprints while she walked through the food production land on her way to the nearest community. A few Kovinans saw her walking through their production rows. Not caring that she was destroying that part of it.

     These Kovinans quickly got out of her sight as she walked past them. When she got to that community, she stopped. There were a whole lot of Kovinans doing things in that part of the community. As soon as they saw her, they quickly took protection in the nearest structure they could find.

#

     Yanica lifted her leg. It appeared she was going to use her foot to destroy the structure it was above, but she stopped only inches from doing that. “You do know that I can do considerable damage to this structure by stepping on it. I may even destroy it. Come on out. All of you. I want to see everyone in this part of Yanica right now.”

     “If you don’t, I will start destroying.” A few Kovinans came out of the structures they were in very quickly. Most of the others slowly started coming out of their structures, but they did do it. Within only a few minutes the walkways in front of those structures were covered with Kovinans. Very little room between them. It was that crowded.

     “That’s better,” said Yanica. “You know why I’m here. Which one of you is going to challenge me mentally first?”

     At first, no one pushed their way through the crowd to accept Yanica’s challenge. They just mumbled among each other and looked at one another. Avoiding contact with Yanica. Finally, a middle-aged Young One by the name of Thonia did it. She stopped just before bumping into Yanica and looked up at her. “I accept your first challenge.”

     “Aren’t you a Young One?” Yanica asked. “How old are you Young One?”

     “You are correct,” answered Thonia. “I am a Young One. I’m thirteen mentally, but thirty-nine physically.”

     Yanica started laughing. Grabbing her belly as she almost bent in half forward before bending slightly backward several times. “I do not accept your challenge. Not only are you a Young One, but you are a female. Only adult males can challenge me.”

     “That isn’t true,” said Thonia. “According to the Watcher’s Rules, the challenger doesn’t have to be a male or an adult. That means anyone can challenge you. That’s what I’m doing. Do you accept my challenge, or do you admit to defeat right now?”

#

     “I admit nothing,” said Yanica. “You are right about the Watcher’s Rules. There isn’t anything that says the Challenger has to be a male adult. That’s because it’s up to each Watcher. To decide who the Challengers will be, and I choose them to be male adults.”

     Yanica slowly started looking at the male adults in the crowd in front of her. Slightly nodding her head as she comes to one of them that she likes. She smiled as she pointed at him. “What about you? You look mentally and physically enough to challenge me.”

     Robbic pointed at himself. “Are you talking to me. You can’t be talking to me. Mentally I may be able to challenge you, but not physically. I may look physically enough to challenge you, but I’m not.”

     “You are afraid to challenge me because you know what will happen if you fail,” said Yanica. “I can understand your physical fear, but what about your mental fear? You just said you could probably mentally. There are no rules that say you need to do both challenges. If you even need to do the second one.”

     “We will need to do Challenge number two,” said Robbic. “If not me, then it will be someone else. Every three hundred years you have done this, and you have been doing this for almost five thousand years. Not even once have you ever accepted the mental challenge only.”

     Yanica’s smile got even bigger. “You are correct. I have never done that, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t do it now.”

     “I’m not going to accept either challenge, and I don’t think any other adult male will do it. You already have a Challenger. If you don’t accept Thonia as a Challenger, that is up to you.”

     “I have already told all of you I do not accept Thonia as a Challenger,” said Yanica. “If you don’t find at least one adult male to challenge me, I will have no choice but to start killing most of you right now.”

###

     Thonia stepped closer to Yanica and almost broke her light green neck bending it back she looked up at her. “If you are going to start killing us, then start with me.”

     “I’m not going to kill you or any other Young Ones,” said Yanica. “Only Older Ones and Older Adults will be killed.”

     “When you come back in another three hundred years, I will be one of those Older Ones. So, you might as well kill me now.”

     Thonia turned and began walking back to the other Kovinans. Her light-yellow hair swayed as she did it. Suddenly, Thonia stopped and turned back toward Yanica. “What do I need to do or say to convince you to accept me as a Challenger? At least for the mental part of it.”

     “Nothing you can say or do will make me change my rules,” answered Yanica. “Besides, I don’t think that you can even handle my mental challenge.”

     “I can handle both, but I guess we will never know if I can because you won’t accept me as a Challenger. If you did accept me, you would find out that I can do both.”

     Yanica got down on her green knees to be more face-to-face with Thonia. “Do you think that will make me change my rules?”

     “No, I don’t. I know whatever I say isn’t going to change you or your rules. Also know why you don’t want to do it. You’re afraid I’m right about these challenges.”

     “I’m not afraid of anyone or anything.” Yanica got back up and started looking at the male adults again.

     Robbic stepped toward Yanica and looked up at her. “I will accept your challenges if you accept Thonia’s challenge first. If she can’t do it, then I will step in and do it instead.

     Yanica looked down at Robbic and smiled. “I will accept your challenge. Only because I know that Thonia won’t be able to do it. Especially, the physical challenge.”

#

     “I have been watching this community for the last three hundred years, and it doesn’t look like it has changed much in all those years. If it has changed at all. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill most of you and start all over with the rest of you?”

     Thonia sat on a small thin tree that had been cut down into a flat surface. In front of her was a slightly larger cut-down tree she was leaning on. She sat up straight. “It’s true, we haven’t advanced that much in the last three hundred years, but we have advanced a lot more than you think.”

     “Like I just said, we have advanced. We have just done it gradually so you wouldn’t notice it.”

     Yanica was seventy-five feet tall again. She sat forward in the gigantic floating stone seat with armrests she was sitting on. “What are you talking about? I see everything.”

     “Then you haven’t seen some of us going underground. Because that’s what we have been doing for the last two hundred years.”

     “You haven’t been doing that. If you had, I would have seen you do it.”

     Thonia smiled. “Oh, yes, we have. Going there isn’t all we have been doing. We have also been advancing.”

     “I don’t believe you. You are just saying that to get me not to kill anyone here. If you have done that, then show me what kind of advancing you have done.”

     “Thought you would never ask me that.” Thonia got up and turned toward the crowd behind her. She placed her long arms out in front of her. Then she separated them.

     When she separated her arms, the crowd also separated to reveal a long wide walkway with trees on both sides of it. At the end of that walkway, there was a large opening into the side of a huge mountain. A few seconds later a gigantic metal-looking weapon came out of that opening. “We call this a Giant Shooter.”

#

     “Are you ready to accept defeat or do we now go onto the physical challenge?” Thonia asked.

     Yanica stood up. Her jaw dropped slightly, and her eyes got wider as she stared at the Giant Shooter. “What is that? Do you expect me to believe that is what you call advancing?”

     “It is advancing, but that’s not what is doing here. We are a whole lot more advanced than just this weapon. Almost all of us are living underground now. Keeping only enough above to stop you from seeing what we have been doing.”

     “The only reason why I am showing you this part of our advancing is because of you. We are going to use it to kill you.”

     Thonia turned back to look at Yanica. “It shoots a huge tree-length metal tube with a large, pointed end at you fast enough it will go right through you. That’s not all. If that doesn’t kill you, it will return to try again until it does.”

     “There is one other thing we want you to know before we kill you. We have been communicating with the other two hundred and ninety-nine Land Masses, and we have given them the knowledge of the Giant Shooter to them. When their Watches challenge them, they will use it to kill them too. It may take another three hundred years, but we will all finally be free of your rules.”

     Yanica looked at Thonia and back at the Giant Shooter. “I still don’t believe that this thing will kill me, but even if it can kill me what makes you think that it will.”

     “We have thought of that too. That’s why we have covered the Killer Shot with the only thing that can kill you, Locina.

     “Besides, your back is facing the Death Water that surrounds these Land Masses. If the Killer Shot doesn’t kill you instantly, the force of it will push you into the Death Water.”

Word Count = 1,981