Ashes (Of the Earth Series)

Chapter 3.2

I sighed as the voice entered my mind again. "Alec... I would like to converse with this creature."

I shook my head. "No."

"Alec, this aberration might be what we could truly call a friend, given the right circumstances. We were just talking about this. Martin could never truly understand. Nobody that we - you - know could. But it speaks of peace with humans, living among them. Perhaps it is a place that we could, if not enjoy living in, at least suffer ourselves some peace of mind by not being so on guard all the time."

I sighed again. The voice was right more often than not, and it was starting to get on my nerves. "What if it betrays us? What if it is actually an enemy trying to lure us into some kind of trap?"

"If it ends up betraying us, then we will deal with it when the time comes and nothing more can be done. But for now, I think we should take a chance on this one; see what happens if we put our trust in them. We have survived so far, but we can't expect to go on like this forever. Perhaps it will help us find a way to fight off our enemies - or even defeat them. And Alec -" my eyes widened at its tone. It sounded sarcastic. Uppity little shit, just agreed to talk to it today and it's already being condescending? "- it has no idea what we are. As far as it's concerned, it could gut us like a fish right here in the river, there's no need for a trap." I sucked at my teeth. Okay. Maybe I deserved the sarcastic tone.

I knew the voice was right. We couldn't keep living like this, always on the run, always looking over our shoulders. We needed to find a way to fight back, and maybe this alien could help us.

"Okay," I said aloud. "Okay, okay, okay. Fine." I put my hands up in the air and turned around, walking back up the riverbank, away from the spray of the water.

I looked back at her, my eyes narrowed in suspicion. I hadn't trusted anything, not even myself, in a long time. But now, for some reason, I felt a strange sense of hope. It was odd to feel hope for anything these days, especially in my current condition. But I couldn't help but to feel that there might actually be something to hope for here, the potential for more. Perhaps a chance to escape from this endless nightmare.

I took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "I'm one of you," I said.

The creature tilted its head to the side in curiosity. "What do you mean, one of us?"

"Perhaps I can answer that question," the voice replied in my stead. It had never spoken to anyone but me before, and as it did so, I became acutely aware of both the voice's and the Matriarch's thoughts.

It was an odd sensation for me. As if I were in a dark room and could see the static of a TV left running through a cracked door. Close enough to be aware of, but distant enough that I wasn't able to clearly make out what was going on.

The Matriarch's body tensed and she whirled around, her eyes darting from side to side in search of danger, her head swiveling at impossible speed as she searched for all possible vectors of attack. Her thick tail thumped the ground wildly behind her in a threat display as her mouth opened and a hiss escaped. I felt my throat seize up with terror. I held our breath as we watched her, knowing that if she attacked, we would have to fight for our lives.

The tension dissipated as she realized there was no danger around us, and she refocused her attention on me. "That came from you then... So you are Drayna after all. I knew it."

I rolled my neck, popping the vertebrae with a sharp crack. "I wish you wouldn't do that," the voice complained. "It squishes me."

"Tough shit." I replied. "This is too much for me. Too much has happened today. I'm not dealing with this. You figure it out." I sat abruptly, and assumed a relaxed posture, my hands placed on the ground behind me and my knees propped up. I made a sweeping gesture towards the creature. "Take it away," I said to the empty air.