THE night was dark, close to black, except for the few flickering lights that lined the paths between the buildings. The overhead light bore down on the two Matoki in the infirmary.

Cece glared at Dada as he hissed again while she changed the bandages on his feet. He gripped onto the arm of his chair so tight the two could hear quiet cracking sounds.

“Calm down, if you move too much I might put the bandage on wrong,” she smirked at his anguished look, “then you might die.” He feigned kicking her and she interrupted her snicker with a yelp.

She moved up to clean his face again, growling in his ear.  She leaned over him, reaching to his right cheek. He hissed at her when the antiseptic met his grazes while they met each other with a glare.

Their stare off ended with a gruff cough from the doorway. Joko stood leaning against the frame, his eyes darting around the room while he tapped his foot pointedly. Cece regained herself, moving away from the seated Matoki while her cheeks became hot with anger, invisible under her orange mask and dark skin. Dada’s stare lingered but his thoughts snapped back to the doorway.

“Hey Joko, what’s up?” He laughed shyly and rubbed the back of his neck. The other scoffed and moved towards them, ending up on the seat against the wall.

“It’s almost sunrise, Dada.” Joko gave a short nod and the other turned to the window, dawn creeping over the smothered horizon.

“But I haven’t slept yet!”

Joko shook his head. “Dada! Why are you thinking about sleep? You didn’t forget right?” Shock flickered across Dada’s face but was replaced with all the seriousness he could muster. “It’s our turn for patrol and you better be ready when I come back.” Joko stalked out of the room.

“I’ll fix up your face and you can go.” Cece spoke up from across the room. Dada had forgotten she was there, shifting to her as she moved back with the gauze and bandages.

Just as she placed the last of it across his forehead, Joko knocked on the door again and with a flash of green, Dada left Cece to her work.

“We’re just doing a perimeter run. The commander wants us to make sure everything is ok after yesterday.” The words were a little muffled under his yellow mask but the memory of the rumbles jolted back into Dada’s head, the feeling of fear tickled his stomach.

They moved through the wall of green in the Wood and began a steady jog. Dada skipped lightly over the place he had fallen just the day before. When they made their way out the other side, they moved into the black sea of foliage. They could only hear the silence of the planet, their ears flinching with each minute sound, their own sounds silenced. Dada looked around him through the bushes but bumped into Joko as he walked backwards.

“Joko, why did you stop like that?” Dada scolded him as he rubbed his forehead but stopped as well when he turned around.

A large black lump lay twenty feet from them. Their noses filled with the smell of burnt meat as they snuck closer. The mass had small pillars of smoke drifting from the centre and the sky above seemed darker than the rest. The ground was black, a dark circle below the black lump. Joko raised his hand to his eyes, shielding them from a small flicker of light that caught his eye. He moved towards it and picked up a claw with a small fistful of ash. He walked around the beast to Dada who’d made his way around the other side. They glanced at the claw then wide-eyed at each other.

“It wasn’t one of them.” Tyrants had the ability to travel across galaxies, but still lacked the expertise to use fire. Joko shook his head and pointed to the green spill at the head of the Tyrant.

“It had to have been. We could never get that close, not to mention all the weapons are checked and accounted for each day, I do it myself.”

“Then who did this, hey?”                                                                         

“I don’t know, but it can’t have been a Matoki. You were out here yesterday! Didn’t you see this?”

The memories of the day before filled his head again. The whole thing went backwards; meeting the commander, running with Shishi through the wood, falling over, I was wondering where you got to. Joko recognised the look in Dada’s eyes as he gasped. The former was stunned for a second as his companion began to run at full pace. Joko ran to the edge of the Wood but Dada had disappeared.

“Ugh,” Joko panted, “can’t you wait just once?” He jogged slowly after Dada, knowing he wouldn’t catch up.