“Why not?”
“Come. Let us leave this room for a moment. I will explain everything to you.”
We left the room. As the door slid shut behind him, I started to feel nervous as it all hit me what was happening. Taylor had been abducted by an alien. The man I was talking to wasn’t a man and how on earth could he speak English? His skin was so different, a rich shade of blue — cobalt. I was talking to a cobalt colored alien…
Questions and realizations both flooded into my consciousness and I felt dizzy.
“Kronos…”
>
I’d begged him not to intrude into my head again before but now that he was there, comforting me, filling me with his own emotions of safety and comfort, I welcomed his presence. My dizziness subsided and I took in a deep breath.
“You’re alright,” he said firmly.
“Yes. I am.”
“Good. Let us go to the bridge where we will discuss further.”
I followed him to the bridge of his ship. He must have been camouflaged in the woods because outside of the view screen, I saw thick pine forests and then an icy pond. I’d been there before, but I couldn’t recall when.
“Where are we?”
“About thirty miles north from your camp.”
“They’ll be looking for me.”
“Yes, they will. Now Jess, let me explain what has happened here.”
“Go on.”
I leaned up against one of the consoles which didn’t alarm him. I tried to remain cool and confident, perfectly aware that Kronos could see right through me.
“I came to Earth on a mission to study and observe your people. Long story short, things didn’t go as intended and I was stuck out here. My orders were to observe the nearest civilization which included people from your village. I came to your trailer one night and I could see your dreams in my mind.”
“Mydreams?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, that’s a load of garbage. Telepathy means reading thoughts. I mean what, were you staring in the bedroom window? It doesn’t make any sense!”
“You dreamed that you were a wolf,” he began.
I froze.
“You were searching for food in a vast icy tundra, much like your village. And you were starving. The more you searched, the less food you could find and then you realized why you were so hungry. Vultures pecked at your stomach and as you hunted, your entrails followed. You were so scared that you woke up.”
“Bullshit! How could you know that?” I gasped.
“I explained how,” he said calmly, continuing on, “I was pulled in by your dream, far darker and more violent thananyone else’s around here. So rich and full of symbols. Your mind is unlike the others around you. I can sense it. I’ve been watching you for weeks. I see the people you surround yourself with and I’ve seen how easy it is for them to hurt you. When Taylor attacked you, I had to act. I could not watch you and permit you to be hurt.”
“Isn’t there some rule your people have against intervening?”
“You must be thinking of your planet’s fiction,” he responded, “I did my homework before coming here. I know that you are an imaginative species.”
“So what, you can do whatever you want?”
“No. It’s unsafe for too many to know about my presence. But I had to tell you. I’ve been watching you, Jess. You’re different.”
