Sorcha The Alien Book One

Chapter Three

A gentle tap rouses me from my sleep. I glance, disoriented, to my digital clock on my bedside table. The numbers illuminate green, 3:17am and the tapping continues. I sit up, my heart moves to an ever-increasing beat. Tap, tap, tap continues, over and over, and quiet as a mouse. I stare at my window, the source of the sound. Carefully, gently, I move aside my curtains and recoil with a gasp.

"Hi, Sorcha!" a cheery voice illuminates in my head. "It took some finding, but I've got a spaceskin. I've been waiting on that hill for ages, why did you leave?"

"You've been gone two weeks!" I hiss within my mind, apparently, I'm telepathic now. "I thought you'd changed your mind."

"Oh, I've not! Shall we go?"

"I... how can I leave everything I've ever known?" I whisper and my blanket tangles around my hands.

"Well, you climb out of this see-through oblong and walk to the hill and go in your spaceskin... spaceship, I mean." Sask flashes a toothy grin and I appreciate the literal interpretation of my question.

I bite my lip and glance around my room, at the posters of space on my wall. My gaze settles on the central picture, a framed photographic print, of earth as seen from the moon. Haven't I longed to go to space? Haven't I looked up at the stars and wished for more?

"Will we return?" I ask.

Sask looks up and down, and all around, at anything but me. "People don't like me, your human people won't let me stay here with you."

"Yeah," I agree, humans don't like different.

"I know you're scared, but I'll look after you. I've never had a friend before, but I know I won't ever let you down."

I look into the black, almond eyes of this creature, this alien and I feel a connection that's resisted me since my parents died. "Okay." I open the window, winter's chill rushes in and goose bumps form all over my body. "Let me pack some clothes and food."

Sask spins in tight circles on the spot and I can't help but laugh. Her claws gouge holes into the frozen ground, and I wonder, come morning, what will people make of the destroyed patch of grass.

There's a suitcase under by bed and I drag it out. I push clothes and underwear into the corners. I grab toiletries from my en-suite. The case bulges and I drag the zip around. Sask's head and neck snake into my room, she grabs the case in her teeth and pulls it outside.

"I just need to get some food," I say.

I creep out into the living room towards the kitchen. Jen went shopping yesterday, the cupboards are fully stocked, and I stuff food into a reusable shopping bag. There's a six pack of bottled water and I grab that too. I return to my room and slip on my warmest coat, and a pair of hardwearing boots.

A wave of dizziness consumes me and my bum crashes against my mattress. What am I doing? Shaking hands grab a pen and rip a page of paper from my notebook. My room is blue, the colour of the sky after the sun sets and it starts to darken. This room is my safe place, it the one place I can be me with zero ramifications and I'll be leaving it. Forever.

Dear Jen,

I want to thank you for giving me a home. I know it's not been easy. I know I've been difficult. I know you won't believe me, but I met an alien. A real one from space, and I'm leaving Earth forever. I think I have a chance to be happy, I think you do too.

Sorcha

And I mean it. I really think I have a chance to be happy. A chance to be something other than sad and stressed, a chance to crawl and scrabble and kick myself out of survival mode. A chance to escape, to run away and have the life I want. Not the life that other people want me to have.