Chapter Two

 

 

Everything hurts.

I’m floating in that murky place between sleep and wakefulness. It’s warm and there’s nothing to see, but I hear voices. Deep voices, in a language unfamiliar to me. Have I died? Is this the afterlife?

No matter how hard I try to wake up fully, I can’t force my eyes open. It’s as if bricks are piled atop my face. The agony seizing my body intensifies. Though there’s a certain seduction in the promised warmth and safety of oblivion, I don’t surrender to sleep. I can’t.

The desire to understand my true surroundings becomes stronger and stronger, but the more fiercely I fight, the heavier my bones feel.

A breeze caresses my face and blows my hair around. Someone is carrying me; of that I am certain. A fiery pain stabs through me with each breath.

I whimper and turn my head. The heat of the sun hits my cheeks. At least I think it’s the sun. If only I could open my eyes. I must be on Tallia. I wonder how many passengers and crewmembers survived the attack.

The spicy, masculine scent of the person carrying me comforts me in the midst of the sharp pains continually shooting through my limbs. I’m cocooned in the safety of his strong arms. When I try to speak, only a strangled moan escapes my burning throat.

God, I’m thirsty. How long has it been since I lost consciousness?

At last, my eyes flutter open, but the sunlight blinds my vision. I stop trying to look around and instead bury my face against the man’s chest. He’s probably a medic taking me to a hospital. Tallia has one medical center, situated amongst the hotels, restaurants, and shops catering to wealthy tourists in Capital Acres.

The warmth of the sun disappears, along with the breeze on my face. Every muscle in my body protests as I shift in my rescuer’s arms. We must have reached the hospital.

Without the sun blinding me, I’m finally able to force my eyes open again.

I gasp. This can’t be real. I blink again and again, but nothing changes.

Large, dark purple eyes stare down at me.

Inhuman eyes.

I can’t look away, and though my brain screams I should fight and run away from this strange creature who’s carrying me, I’m too paralyzed by fear to even push at his chest. His nostrils flare and a thick vein in his neck bulges.

He’s absolutely terrifying.

Details of the brief attack come racing back. The five sleek gray ships with flashing blue and green lights. The beams of white shooting from those strange ships. The Stargazer being impacted by weapons’ fire and smoke blanketing the air. Fearing for my life.

Realization crashes over me in an icy wave of horror.

The Stargazer was attacked by aliens. Honest to God aliens. I scramble to make sense of it all. Do Earth governments already know of these beings? Or is today’s attack literally first contact? Why did the aliens attack us?

Before I can process today’s events further, black dots dance in my vision.

Fuck, not again. Stay awake.

But I can’t. Not fully. I’m falling under. Deep, deep, and deeper still. Fatigue and dizziness force my eyes shut, and I once again tumble into darkness.

Rumbling voices occasionally punctuate the void I’m floating in. Images from my childhood keep flashing, too, like little pieces of broken dreams. Because only the sad times visit me, and, when I try to conjure up the happy moments—which make up most of my childhood—I start sinking, as if caught in quicksand, and my lungs seize up.

The images flash and flash.

A tour bus crashes into the small red car driving ahead of us, pushing the car underneath a passing tractor trailer. My mother screams. My grandmother is in the car now beneath the tractor trailer. Oh my God, we know she’s dead.

Rain is pounding on the roof. The doorbell rings as I’m doing homework at the kitchen table. My father lets two police officers inside. They say my brother was found dead in an alley. Stab wounds. Probably drug related. There’s a funeral. My mother cries for weeks and weeks.

I stand above the trash can in the kitchen, staring at the remnants of my acceptance letter into the prestigious arts high school. I got in! But why did someone rip up my acceptance letter? I run to my room and slam the door. Drawings and paintings that I’d joyfully made over the years, most of them depictions of Tallia, cover my walls and taunt me. The next day, my parents announce I need to take more advanced science and math classes, if I want to make something of my life. I know it’s because my brother was an artist. They don’t want me to follow in his footsteps. They don’t want to lose me too.

A scream rips from my throat. Strong hands hold me down. I don’t like these dreams. Shouts reach me, making me go still. An argument, two distinct voices, rise above the din of my most painful memories.

Panic races through me, knowing there’s more than one of these purple-eyed creatures. Unless, of course, all of this, including the attack on the Stargazer, is nothing but a dream.

I pray everything that’s happened since my arrival on the other side of the wormhole is but a nightmare. Then all the sounds and images fade to black, and I drift in a sea of nothingness.