Page 49 of Ruby
Living really hurts right now. My legs feel like giant logs, my head and scalp feel like they’re being attacked by tiny stinging bees and my stomach and intestines feel like they have been taken out of me and put back after being tossed around in a washing machine.
Suddenly, there is immense pressure on my neck and the alien who captured me drags me along until I am able to scramble to get my feet under me, staggering behind him as he hisses at the other aliens to stay away.
I am too weak to argue with the hunters when they jeer lustfully at me and make remarks about my body, following them to theback of the camp that is close to a stream. The forest is sparser here and a lot more light filters through the leaves and dances off the slow flowing stream.
They whisper amongst themselves in a disgusting, amorphous huddle before I am left alone with the same hunter that led me back; his face has a greedy look on it as he pushes me toward the stream and speaks.
“Clean yourself quickly so you can be kept properly. Can’t risk you escaping again.”
Clearly, I can banish any expectation of privacy. After willing the black suit to recede to the thin band around my waist, I wash myself under his watchful eyes, making sure to meet his gaze as he tells me the new rules of my existence. I can’t tell if I’m making him as uncomfortable as he makes me but I sure as hell try.
After I’m done cleaning myself, he drags me to a small enclosure and unceremoniously throws me in, shaking and wet. There is a small black carpet on the ground with a slightly raised end on one side. I settle myself in a corner with my legs pressed against my chest and my arms cradling my shaking body.
My cell has a small round window in front of it so I can see glimpses of the world outside and it is dark outside before I’m given some crackers and a bowl of water. I cry again at the animal-like treatment, and then I remember that is all I am to these creatures.
An animal useful for nothing else but cheap entertainment and sex. Nothing much new here than on Earth, I suppose. If bysome miracle I get the chance to go back, I will commit myself to veganism and charity work. If I manage to survive this. No one deserves to live like this.
As night falls, the camp quiets to a low murmur of conversations and the occasional hunter pressing his hungry face against my window as I try to force myself to sleep. Though I am exhausted, sleep is far from me. The pain in my head and legs are nearly gone now but there is a new problem.
I do my best to keep it quiet, but the itching burn in my arms and hair keeps me scratching and huffing in discomfort until I fall into a restless sleep.
20
Szhe’ka
I wake up to something pressing into me painfully and when I open my eyes, I see a purple and orange plume.
I shake my head trying to center my thinking, dazed and confused. My hand reaches out to find Ani but she is nowhere around me. Panic sets in but my memories are fuzzy and incorrect. There is hardly any pain but I feel as if I have chunks missing from the events of the past.
The memories come rushing into my head; the dizzying odor of the hunter and Ani, scared; pain in my shoulder; and life leaving me.
“Ani,” I murmur, the world spinning around me.
“Who that?” someone sings, bringing my attention back to my painful reality.
“Ree?” I chirp.
“Yes,” she answers, then she switches her language and I can no longer understand her short, harsh words.
Someone rumbles back in the same language.
“Forgot,” she sings. “Szhe’ka. You hear?”
“Do hear,” I sing back, my voice weak. My vision is starting to fail.
“Give medicine. Change you forever, but you live. You want?”
Do I? This is my chance to slip away, I realize. Embrace my grounding and just die. All I have to do is tell them where Ani is and they will help her. Far better than I did.
I don’t want to, I realize. I need to see her safe.
“Yes, give,” I respond.
There is a sharp pain in my upper left arm and a hissing sound. The pain worsens, quickly becoming unbearable as my vision blackens.
***
When I wake, the pain has lessened and when I open my eyes I can see clearly.
