1
- Callie-
I wake up anxious.
It’s not the sharp, clean kind from a bad dream that gradually leaves again as I come awake. This is the fuzzy, creeping dread that slides in sideways, carrying the faint echo of bad decisions and too muchfrine, that caveman booze that Theodora and I sipped on all day.
My mouth tastes stale. My head is dull and heavy, and my heart is beating like it knows something I don’t. Yep, it’s the old symptoms that have been with me since long before I was abducted by aliens.
I lie still on the metal floor of the flying saucer, staring up at the plasticky ceiling. The air smells faintly recycled, tinged with smoke from the campfire we kindled outside many hours ago. The blue light is faint and alien, a constant reminder that we’re not on Earth and likely never will be again. The saucer took us to this dinosaur-infested planet, but now it’s mostly dead.
Theodora is asleep across from me. Her breathing is slow and even, her back turned. She curls around herself when she sleeps, like she’s holding on to something invisible. I don’t want to wake her. She needs rest. We both do.
But my legs feel twitchy.
The day-drinking was a mistake. We knew it at the time, of course. We were laughing too loudly, pretending this was just a camping trip gone hilariously wrong, not a stranded-on-an-alien-planet situation where half of our group of interplanetary castaways had just left us for somewhere better. Now it’s burned off, leaving only the consequences behind. Morgan and Riley left, and I feel more alone than I should.
I stand up and let the dizziness pass. My heart keeps racing, insisting on movement. It’s not my first time waking up like this. Not at all. But at least on planet Xren I know what I’m scared of: everything.
Fresh air,I tell myself.Just a breath.
I move carefully, barefoot on the cold metal floor, easing the hatch open just enough to slip through. I pull it shut, sealing Theodora inside where she’ll be safe.
Outside, the night is dense and smelly with the ordinary decay of the huge mass of organic material all around us.
The jungle is never completely dark. Some plants have a faint light in them, and the moon, Yrf, sometimes sends a blue beam through the dense canopy of leaves.
The air is cooler at night, heavy with salt and damp earth. Somewhere far off, something shrieks, high and sharp, and then goes quiet.
I draw in a deep breath anyway. “It’s fine,” I mutter to myself. “The more noise, the less danger.”
It helps. A little.
The constant hiss from the waves rolling up on the beach should be reassuring, like a white-noise machine, but it’s just another reminder of how far from home I am.
Cora and Sprisk left hours ago, taking with them Morgan and Riley. They’re heading back toward the Borok tribe. Toward warmth and firelight and people. Toward more Earth girls, a well-ordered village, and something that looks almost like a future.
I can still catch up, maybe. If I run.
The idea sinks its claws into me. There would be safety in numbers. Shelter. A tribe that at least knows how to survive here. More or less.
It also means being at the mercy of those caveman aliens. The only one I’ve met is Sprisk, and he was so weird and scary that I had to look away from him for the first couple of days to not break into tears of terror. I’m not sure I can stand having hundreds of those things around me every day—eight-foot-tall giants with voices like subwoofers and hands as big as dinner plates. There’s no defense against them if they decide there’s something they want from you. And on this woman-less planet, practically all of them are virgins.
Cora claims that the chief is really good. But what happens if he decides not to be? Or if he has a fight with his Earth-woman wife? Or if he dies? That tribe could easily become a mob. And who wants to live in a dictatorship, anyway? Better to stay out of it completely, invisible, not having made a permanent choice.Because I’m sure Riley and Morgan are never coming back. I’d be astonished if they’re ever allowed out of that village again. That can’t be my fate.
“No thanks,” I whisper into the darkness. “I’ll stay right here.”
And then there’s Theodora, asleep in the saucer behind me. Stubborn, hopeful, determined to fix the saucer, despite both of us knowing that it can’t be fixed. She’s fraying at the edges. I can see that because I’ve been frayed for years.
I rub my arms, suddenly chilled. The thin jumpsuit the aliens gave me on that space station is sturdy, but it doesn’t keep me warm.
I can’t leave her. Even thinking it feels like betrayal?—
My head snaps to the side. There’s a light.
A flicker, low and orange, over by the beach. It’s firelight, reflected in the treetops and the sky.
My stomach tightens. We didn’t leave a fire burning, and we never lit one on the beach. Our own campfire is all embers by now.
