Page 21 of Rescued

He couldn’t help remembering how Maddy used to shout, “Na-than-ial!” when he teased her. She always punched him with her little fists. He would give a million dollars to see her and have her punch him like that again.

“I can’t promise anything, but we can at least look for your sister when we get to the Mother Ship,” Lan’ara offered. “We’ve been scanning the Earth for human survivors for months now—it’s possible someone has seen her or heard of her.”

“That would be fucking amazing if we could find her.” Nate’s voice had gone hoarse on him again. Maddy was ten years younger than him and so innocent. She’d still been in college when the Scourge invaded.

“We’ll look for her,” Lan’ara promised firmly. “For now, I’m going to give you the anti-paralytic. It will probably take a few minutes to work and thrashing around in the water could be dangerous. So please, don’t try to move too much until all the feeling returns to your body.”

She reached behind her to a place Nate couldn’t see and came back with a tiny white bottle in one hand.

“Just a few sniffs will do it,” she told him as she held the bottle under his nose. “Breathe in slowly and you’ll soon start to feel your extremities tingling.”

Nate did as she said, inhaling something that smelled sweet and faintly minty deep into his lungs. The tingling began at once but he held still, waiting impatiently until it spread from his fingers and toes up his arms and legs and finally reached his torso.

“You feel it?” Lan’ara asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

“Yes—I feel it.” Experimentally, he lifted an arm, then kicked out with one leg. He was immensely relieved when his body did what he told it to do.

“All right—you should be okay to—” Lan’ara began but he was already rolling over in the water and finding his feet.

It was a fairly shallow pool they were in—when he stood up, he found it only came up to his chest. It came up to Lan’ara’s shoulders and when he stood straight, he towered above her. But that was usual for Nate—he’d always been the biggest guy in the room.

“The shore is this way.” Lan’ara moved gracefully through the water and Nate followed her, looking around cautiously as he did. They were in kind of cavern, he saw. Now that he was upright, he could see that the ceiling, high above them, was covered with the hanging purple vines. More and more of the glow blossoms were blooming, casting a soft, golden glow over the milky blue water.

Up ahead, he could see a smooth, sandy beach and a kind of jungle glade filled with plants that had broad, feathery leaves, all of them in muted shades of blue, purple, and green. Beyond that was the opening of the cavern. It was a truly vast underground space and it wasn’t even really underground, since the mouth of the grotto was so big, it showed an enormous section of the evening sky.

It seemed to be dusk, Nate thought, because there was still a dim purple glow outside that was fading slowly to black. All around him was the soft humming of the blossoms and the gentle lapping of the waves as they waded slowly through the milky blue water, making their way towards the shallows. It was nothing like Nate had ever seen before—he didn’t even mind that the wet, white trousers someone—presumably Lan’ara—had put on him were sticking to his legs.

“Do you like the view?” she asked and he looked down to see that she had reached the sandy shore of the pool and turned to face him. His eyes automatically flicked over her, taking stock of the alien woman who had rescued him from the Flesh Bazaar.

Lan’ara was wearing a white, sleeveless gown which trailed low in the back and was cut high in the front to show her long legs. The wet fabric clung to her full curves—especially her large breasts. The gown molded to her there and the sharp points of her ripe nipples were clearly visible.

“I said, do you like the view?” she repeated and for a moment, Nate didn’t know what to say.

“Uh…” He cleared his throat uncomfortably, his eyes still fixed on her breasts.

“Many have said that the Outermost Pool is the most magical place in the Healing Grotto,” she continued. “Especially at sunset.” She gestured to the purpling sky.

“Oh, right! The view—it’s amazing.”

Nate coughed and dragged his eyes away from her luscious globes. What the hell was wrong with him, staring at her like some kind of creep? He became uncomfortably aware that his cock had risen to attention and was currently pressing insistently against the wet fabric of his white trousers. He might not know how to feel about this strange woman, but his body certainly did.

“I am glad you enjoy the view,” Lan’ara said, smiling up at him. Showing no evidence that she felt uncomfortable about him staring at her earlier, she came up to him and looked closely at his chest.

Nate looked down at himself. Aside from the embarrassing erection, which still persisted, he didn’t see anything special about his chest. He was muscular—he always had been and a life of constant running and fighting over the past five years had kept him in excellent shape.

He had a small patch of dark hair between his pecs which led in a little trail down his washboard abs. He didn’t work on the abs out of vanity, however—it was important to have a strong core, especially when you had to be constantly ready for anything.

Then he realized that something was different. Earlier, he’d been covered in the small red marks which were scars left from the wires the Scourge had shoved under his skin when they’d hooked him up to the machine that fed him bad images so the AllFather could feed on his pain. Now…they were gone. Every last mark had been erased completely.

And that wasn’t the only thing missing.

“Hey—my appendectomy scar!” Nate muttered, looking down at his right side. As a kid, he’d suffered a burst appendix that had gone septic on a camping trip and nearly killed him. By the time they’d gotten him to a hospital, there had been no time to do a laparoscopic surgery—the surgeon had been forced to open him up the old-fashioned way which had left a jagged scar.

“We had to gut you like a fish, boy! You’re lucky you lived through it,” he’d told Nate cheerfully, when he came to check him after the surgery. “Your guardian angel was looking out for you—that’s for sure.”

Guardian angel…was that what Lan’ara was? Was this some kind of heaven or afterlife? How had all his scars been erased?

He was also missing the various war wounds he’d gotten while fighting the Scourge. The twisted, puckered spot on his left triceps where a laser blast had gone right through the muscle…the knife cut he’d gotten from hand-to-hand combat with one of the Flesh Vat grown monsters the Scourge called soldiers…even the burn marks on his wrist he’d gotten cooking for the guys one night. All just…gone.

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