Page 13 of Alien's Eternal Mate

“What is this?”

The numbers changed back to their normal white hue. I started as the bands moved of their own accord, changing the configuration of the symbols.

“No, stop!”

I kicked at the console, but it never stopped moving. I squirmed like a madman to escape the band, opening up the gash on my side again. I didn’t care, I just knew I had to escape, I had to break free?—

The symbols lit up until they grew too painful to look at. I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a scream of terror and misery. The light grew ever brighter, until it burned like fire. My scream turned to a breathless rasp, and I waited for the end.

For what seemed like an eternity, I floated in an abyss. I could not see, I could not hear, I could not feel. I panicked, realizing that I did not breathe and my heart no longer beat. I don’t think I even had a heart, or a body at all.

Desperate to feel something, anything, I imagined myself waking up, again and again. I felt as if I were trapped somewhere between waking and a dream, my mind aware but my body still offline.

Is this death? Just drifting through emptiness, unable to feel, only able to think? It’s more like Hell.

I never believed in an afterlife, or the reincarnation religion of the Alliance and the Ataxians alike. I always thought that consciousness was intrinsically tied to the physical form. Without a living body to preserve the brain, then what amounted to the ‘self’ would vanish.

Yet, I existed without a body, or a brain for that matter. I wondered if it were all a hallucination, a moment in time stretched out to virtual infinity.

What was that silly novella they foisted upon us in that undergraduate literature course? Something about a bridge. Owl creek bridge. A man facing execution envisions an entire escape fantasy in the seconds before he is hanged.

Perhaps I am simply not that imaginative.

Something thudded hard, shaking my non-physical being to its core. It came again, and again, in a steady rhythm.

The thudding intensified, concentrated in my chest.

Wait, I have a chest! And I’m breathing, and I can feel my body. I’m laying on something soft, and I’m terribly thirsty…

I opened my eyes and focused on an unfamiliar ceiling. Not the smooth silver-gray of the Alliance cruiser, nor the merciless black of my cell on Novaria. This was strange, yet familiar.

Emerald metal. Must still be inside the Precursor facility. But why do I feel so strange?

The metal wasn’t quite the same. Lines of faintly glowing light traced in patterns similar to circuitry. Had someone managed to power up the facility while I lay bleeding to death at the bottom of the shaft?

I felt my side with ginger probing of my fingertips. No sticky blood, no pain. My wound appeared healed as if it never existed.

A sharp gasp drew my attention. I moved my gaze from the ceiling at a snail’s pace. It felt as if my mind had to accustom itself to being attached to a body again.

The dark chamber I lay in was little larger than my cell on Novaria. Unlike my cell, the lone door held no bars or force fields. Also unlike my cell, I was not alone.

A figure crouched near the foot of the bed, as if they sought to hide behind it. Long, slender fingers clutched at the metal bedpost. A pair of large, almond shaped eyes of the purest purple stared up at me.

Eyes like luminous twilight. They glint like a cat’s gaze.

“Where am I?”

My voice croaked, dry as a board twisted by a desert sun. My thirst burned so badly I could scarcely breathe.

The figure stood up, resolving itself into a humanoid form with feminine curves. Her lavender skin changed to a darker hue near her shoulders and back. Something moved behind her, and I stared in surprise until I realized what I saw.

A tail. She has a tail. I’ve been rescued by aliens. Just my luck.

I did not recognize her species. She appeared similar in form to a human, other than her coloration and the fine scales on her shoulders, back, and tail. As I took in more details, I realized she had a nasty bruise on her right cheek, which also showed signs of swelling. She wore a leather harness that protected her modesty, but just barely.

Which was more than I could say for myself. I lay on the bed without even a blanket to cover my shame.

“Forgive me,” I said out of politeness as I moved to cover myself up. One of my limbs slid up and covered my privates, but it was not a hand.

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