hurting from all the screaming and abuse. My head aches as well, and when I raise my hand, I find more of the paste covering my fingers and a bump behind my right ear. There are something like stitches covering the wound right at my hairline, and it hurts when I prod it, so I drop my hand again. I assume he has treated all my wounds and brought me here.
Looking around quickly, I realise we’re in some sort of cave, the walls jagged but rounded, like they have been hacked or sanded away in parts. The floor is the same, all of it a deep, brown orangish colour. It’s dark in here, and a fire in the middle of the room seems to fill the space. At the edges, shadows cling where the light cannot touch.
And in those shadows, I see it.
Another alien.
I gasp then, my eyes widening as my heart slams into my chest, my pulse quickening. He hears it, his head tilting as he watches me. Darkness clings to him as well, giving me a partial view of him.
A noise, an alien sounding grunt, has me looking back at the first green alien who has moved away slightly and is still staring at me.
An answering growl has my head jerking around to the other alien as I cower into the wall, trying to make myself as small as possible. He’s darker than the first, almost the colour of the leaves of a tree. He’s slightly bigger too. Huge, actually—although they both are—like a giant, but his stillness and harshness remind me of a statue or stone.
This new one looks angry, his dark eyes slitted, nostrils wide and flaring, lips thin and turned down, making those fangs look giant and deadly. He’s almost the same as the first alien, green skin and spikes down his back and head, huge and muscular, but there is something…other about him.
Darker. Angrier. Deadlier.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please don’t hurt me. I don’t know where you found me, but I can be on my way, I can leave!” The words flow from my lips, and once I’ve started, it’s like I can’t stop, my voice cracking and weak. “I was running and fell over a cliff, thank you for looking after my wounds, but I will just—” I shift towards where I’m guessing the entrance is, and I notice a speck of moonlight shimmering through the opening, but the second alien growls and steps closer, making me freeze.
Goosebumps rise across my skin at the noise as my heart skips a beat. I press myself closer to the rock, even as it digs into my bony spine and makes me wince, wishing I could melt into it. I ran from one lot of aliens…right into another.
The first alien stands and quickly steps in front of me, a growling type of language coming from his mouth which I can’t understand. My hand drifts up to my head again, to the place where the translator chip was…I’m guessing I damaged it when I fell, because I don’t have a fucking clue what they’re saying.
A hysterical type of laugh catches in my throat as I cower behind the huge tree man, peering through his parted leg as the two argue, because that’s clearly what they are doing. His hands land on his hips, their voices getting louder and faster until it suddenly cuts off, and the darker alien throws me a glare before storming away, right out of the cave.
I’m alone again with the first alien, who sighs and turns to peer down at me sadly. He watches me for a moment before turning away and grabbing some things from a shelf, and then crouches back in front of me. He thrusts the items at me. I look down and see what looks like another skin of an animal, but in the shape of a deflated bottle with a metal cork in it and some type of alien berries. When I don’t move, he crouch walks closer, but stops when I flinch. Slowly, he lowers the items to the floor between us and scoots backwards until he is a safe distance away. Only then do I reach out and grab them, quickly shuffling back to my spot on the wall.
As soon as I have the skin, I open it to see what looks like water inside. It could be poisoned or drugged, but my throat suddenly roars with thirst, my mouth so dry, I can barely swallow. So,