Guest of the UFO

Chapter 12

EMMA

When Peter squeezed my hands, my heart made several leaps. Regardless, I was still petrified. Aunty Petti was groaning, visibly weak from all the draining and the tight confines of the vines. She could not even speak. Everyone looked to be in the same state of distress except Major Santorez. He had thicker vines around his body, and even another tightly strung over his mouth like a gag. His body was bruised more than others and although he seemed unconscious, he still twitched.

It was not long before I understood why he was subdued like that, different from everyone else. The next morning, we were all groaning from the pain except Major Santorez who was still unconscious. Immediately, one of the guards poured water over him and he was revived but still weak. They then proceeded to give us our daily ration which was a thick white porridge that weighed less than fifty grams. It was tasteless and foul smelling. I still had energy from leftover travel food, the snacks Peter and I had eaten on our way here, so I covertly passed my food to aunty Petti who thanked me profusely and gobbled it up. Everyone ate this horrible meal with gusto and my heart broke, knowing that someday, my senses would be blocked by how nasty the food was due to hunger. I, too, would eat the meal like my life depended on it because it would.

I heard a loud, guttural yell. It was Major Santorez. He had spat out the food he was given on the face of the guard and was thrashing and yelling about.

I tuned to Aunty Petti, who shrugged and told me, "It is a normal occurrence now. Major Santorez is the most uncooperative of all of us and he once succeeded in giving a guard a deep injury on his forehead with his fi gets. He spied on them till his mouth dried out, and that is why he has been gagged. He is erratic. You know how he is. A part of me thinks they are scared of him but the other part is convinced he will get us all in trouble. Perhaps they won't bother releasing us because they can see in his eyes that he would kill them all if they do so."

I sighed. Major Santorez was always going to be Major Santorez.

"He has not eaten a single thing from them since we came here." Aunty Petti added.

When the meal is finished, I watch in disgust as one of the guards comes to take the now full jat of blood that had dripped from our bodies over night. I was repulsed at the fact that my blood was there. A part of me was mixed with that of everyone and it was going to be ingested by that foul elder.

The guard who took the blood was a bald headed hiermocht with a head shaped like a brick. He had transparent pools of water in place of his eyes, and the ability to extract two extra arms from his sides. Before serving the blood to the elder, he was made to taste the blood. This was to ensure that he hadn't contaminated it along the way. I found it hilarious because there were a host of things that could contaminate the blood, right from us humans to the unsterilized cups, to the very air itself. A lot of things could turn into weapons against them.

The elder drank up the blood and commanded the guard to bring Peter forth. The door was shut and no matter how much I strained, I could not hear what they said or did to him. I was frightened. I still had not gotten the chance to talk to Austin but I was glad he was alive at the very least. My heart was heavy for Peter. A lot of options of what could be happening ran through my mind. Were they going to kill him because he was a thing they could not understand? An intersection between a human and a hiermocht not by birth but simply by adaptation? Perhaps, they were ready to listen to his negotiation but even that seemed too much to hope for. I tried hard not to imagine that so as not to raise my hopes and have them fall like the aftermath of a high, drunken spree. It was better not to hope in the first place.

Finally, Peter stumbled back into the cell we were all held in. The guard did not bother to tie him up because the vines had a mind of their own. With their strong thick branches, they reached for him, held him up to the wall and bound him. Peter made no resistance so the vines held him snugly, not too tightly at all, and they did not dig into his skin, past fascia and tissue to reach his arteries. They let him be.