Sorcha The Alien Book One

Chapter Four

I jolt awake. My first morning in space! Can you have 'morning' in space? I ponder the thought. Yes, I decide, you can. My first morning in space! My legs swing out of bed, and I push a button for the drawer beneath me. It slides open and my hands clap together in excitement.

I grab an outfit, my usual out-of-school uniform of leggings and a t-shirt, and crisp clean underwear, of course. My clothes smell fresh, they smell ... I sigh, they smell of Jen, of her house.

I jump up abruptly and physically shake away the feelings of guilt. This is my life now, and I'm living it for me. Jen will recover, I think, and I skip to my bathroom. Toothpaste slips from the tube with far too much enthusiasm, and I scrape a little off so as not to overwhelm my delicate taste buds. I scrub my face with my favourite face wash and stare at my reflection.

I smile widely and for the first time in a year it's genuine. A real, caught-in-the-wild, smile. I dress quick and leave the bathroom. Lockers line one side of my ship and I rummage through my selection of food. Chocolate chip brioche, a firm favourite.

With my breakfast clutched firmly in my hand I finally allow myself to stare upon the cosmos. I sit before the cockpit. The Milky Way, up close and personal. Stars twinkle in the distance; this view will never get old. From my pocket I retrieve my phone and set my favourite song on repeat. I pull my legs up and chomp on my breakfast.

A flashing screen grabs my attention. It's our trajectory, I zoom in and search for Earth, for the pointer I added yesterday before I slept. So I'd always know just how far I've come. But I don't see Earth, I zoom out further and further. Wow.

"Sask," I say, "you're fast! Like, really fast!"

"I know!"

My days begin to unravel. Time, out here, in space, it does strange things. It barely exists. I stretch in bed, how long was I asleep? My phone displays the time, six hours asleep. Not bad. My third morning waking up off Earth. The battery bar edges into red, and I put the screen to sleep. No songs for me this morning, not until I figure out a way to charge this thing.

I stick to my morning routine, wash, dress and breakfast, cockpit and stare at the view. The last two brioche disappear in my mouth and into my gut. Stars twinkle against the backdrop of black and Sask's head turns to greet me.

"Hi Sorcha!" she says, as if truly excited by my presence. "What are you going to do today?"

"I'm going to read through the ships data. Yesterday—" I say as I bring up the information on the touch screen "—I found lots of records, it mentions aliens, and different planets. I thought it might be useful to learn everything I can ... and you know, fun."

"This will be so exciting!" Sask says, mirroring my own eagerness precisely.

We spend the day reading together. Together, because Sask is in my mind, consuming the same words I am, at exactly the same time. Because she's peppering the fact-based information with strange completely non-factual thoughts, like: what if these aliens have even smaller aliens ... like beetles, living in their brains controlling them? Or maybe these aliens did this because giant alien beetles came to their world and made them leave. But the strangest thing is, I don't mind her weird interruptions, in fact she just makes me laugh.

I laugh at yet another beetle analogy. "What's the obsession with beetles?"

"I'm related to them! We're practically family."

I frown hard and look up from my screen. "I thought you didn't know anything about your past?"

"I don't. But once I went to a home orb and these people saw me and they said: look at its eyes, it could be related to a beetle, and the other person said: it could be related to entra. I think entra must be a type of beetle."