Page 5 of Alien Kraken's Prize

It’s not a goddamned sun or a star or whatever.

It’s a light.

It’s a fucking light, a heat lamp, like I’ve seen used on living creatures in the curiosity shop I worked in on the space station.

“Shiiiiit,” I say, trying my very best not to freak out.

Which, of course, means I’m running full-tilt across ground that?—

THWACK.

A squeaky noise sounds as my cheek slides down the invisible barrier I’ve smacked right into, and I let myself tumble to the ground.

At least I’m not under the heat lamp.

I lie there for a minute, trying to get air back into my lungs, half-expecting tiny bluebirds to circle above my field of vision like the ancient vids from Earth showed.

No birds appear.

A tentacle appears, however, and briefly waves in concern before plopping onto my cheek in solidarity.

I blow out a breath that turns into a raspberry, frankly glad I have breath at all to spare again.

There’s a greasy streak where my face hit the barrier, and I blink at it a few times before it hits me. That barrier? It’s glass, or something like it.

The sun is a heat lamp.

I’m in a goddamned terrarium.

“The irony,” I yell at the tentacle, which is making soothing pets on my face.

I’ve gone from tending extraterrestrial wonders at a freakshow on my shitty space station to being one on god knows what planet.

Fuuuuuck me!

I’m too stunned to even whimper, much less shed any tears from it. In fact, the best I can do is muster a shocked snort, somewhere between amused and pained.

My reflection swims in the maybe-glass barrier in front of me, the tentacle draped lovingly across my face. I pat it, because what the hell else am I going to do?

If I’m a sideshow attraction now, at least I have a friendly tentacle to keep me company. At least they haven’t thrown me in a gladiator pit or something?—

“I’m gonna stop that line of thinking right there,” I wheeze, my breath still not quite back to normal. My nose hurts, too, and I press my fingers gingerly to it, only to see them come away bloody.

“Cool, cool, cool,” I say. The tentacle wriggles, apparently pleased by the fact I’m talking again.

Guilt swims through me.

“Now I see how you felt,” I tell it, sighing wearily. “Sorry we were dicks to you.”

The tentacle apparently takes this as an invitation, and starts to slither down to my crotch.

“Nope!” I yelp. “Absolutely not, that is not what I meant. I meant sorry we didn’t, you know, free you. Sooner,” I tack on, because I guess I had taken pity on the damned thing. Eventually. “And sorry you’re stuck in a freakin’ tank again.”

Pitiful. That’s what this is.

Fucking pitiful.

I lie on the ground in my new terrarium, and I ponder all the life choices that have led me to this moment.

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