Corruption

New Flame

                                Earlier
Nelson sat in his room, overwhelmed with sadness and anger. His eyes were sore, but had begun to heal since he'd broke down and tried offing himself by taking all of those glowing green pills at once. If they didn't want him down there, he didn't want to be used by the aliens up here. He was afraid and powerless, he felt. Miranda stood at the door, a bit of a sad expression on her face as well. "Taking all of those pills could have killed you," she told him quietly, after a moment of silence. It had only been maybe an hour since he'd had his mental breakdown. He still wanted to cry, but he was too embarrassed to start again with Miranda watching. Plus, his tear ducts felt dry. His body was still shaking from the abrupt change the pills had forced on it. "I know," he merely replied. "I'm sorry.." she told him again. "M-maybe I shouldn't.." "It's alright," he told her. "If you hadn't, I'd have still been wasting my time missing people that don't seem to care about me." How long has it been? Did she think I was dead? It hasn't been that long.. Miranda said they were hunting the aliens down.. we had just gotten married.. yet she was already fucking her friend.? It disgusted him the more he thought about it, because they were playing an RnB song in the background that he and Anora used to have sex to. It was like the most offensive form of betrayal. Tears began welling up in his eyes again. Damn this is embarrassing.. he thought. And Samuel's first reaction to seeing him was to beat him up? He would have thought his friend would have tried talking to him first. It hurt when he immediately tackled him, not just physically.
Miranda seemed to have much more to say, but instead merely said, "Well.. I'm glad you're okay.. if you need anything.. here." She thought on something for a while, before handing him a holographic square. Although it was holographic, it felt as if it were made out of something tangible, and he held it in his hand. "Write my name on this, and it'll let me know you need some company. Maybe I can talk to you and get your mind off of it if it becomes too much?" Nelson nodded, but didn't speak. He felt sort of sick, and his body still felt like it was actively undergoing change. As Miranda was getting ready to leave, Mari came in as well. Nelson put his head now, even more embarrassed about crying in front of this masculine alien. Mari began speaking to Miranda in the Urzuhg Language; and to his surprise, his ears pricked up and he was able to make sense of what was being said mid sentence. "... otherwise," Mari said, "There's no point in feeling bad about it." Miranda still seemed uneasy. "Still.." she replied, "I.. I don't know.." "You need to stop being so weak," Mari interrupted her coldly. "You know this was going to happen eventually." Knew this was going to happen? Nelson thought, now thinking in the Urzuhg language, As in she saw it coming? Does that mean.. Anora immediately just moved on..? Was she hiding it from me to spare my feelings or something?
He snapped out of his thoughts to realize he'd been staring at them the whole time. "What?" Mari asked in English. "I'm sorry," Nelson merely said, but in their language. They were both surprised. "Must be those pills changing him more rapidly than we thought," Mari said, crossing two of his four arms. "We'll need to have that looked into. Lucky you didn't die human." If you say so, Nelson thought, though he said nothing out loud. "Dad.." Miranda said, "Can we just give him a minute? Just let him adjust, please." Mari closed all four of his eyes, sighed, and walked away. "Thanks.." Nelson told her. She nodded sadly before finally leaving the door.
The next week was a blur to him. Aside from not really having any perception of time, his body always felt as if it were vibrating, and his senses were running wild. Sometimes he couldn't smell or hear at all, and other times it was too much and gave him a headache. He was also depressed, crying at times and other times feeling completely devoid of all emotions. He had absolutely no peace of mind. Until Miranda came to visit him each day. Her presence gave him something to focus on other than how hurt he was, and something to focus his senses on so they weren't running wild. She often told him stories about her previous missions that would keep him at least mildly entertained, though he did genuinely enjoy some of the stories. He learned that she was 708 years old, and how Urzuhg biological immortality worked. Basically you aged until you got to your body's prime, then you just remained stationary. In order to keep track of all their memories, and not run out of space in their brains, they have little nanochips that serve as memory banks, that can store 2,000 years worth of memories in them. She said it was around 300x smaller than an ant. Whenever they felt they were having memory trouble at the end of the 2,000 years, all they had to do was inject a chip in and boom, good as new. So there was definitely room for all the memories they would need to store. He learned she was also really touchy about her father. She admitted they had a complicated relationship, and he didn't always use to be so cold. But she didn't seem to want to go into detail, and he certainly didn't push her. She had seemed to open up a bit more to him recently, which was good because he certainly needed to get his mind off of everything else paining him. As a week went by, he'd started looking forward to talking to her everyday day. He liked that she came once a day for a couple of hours no matter what, so he regained a sense of time, she had 700+ years worth of stories to tell him so there was always something new to talk about, and he also really liked that she always smelled like oranges, like a feminine citrusy aroma. He hadn't paid it much attention before, but it was a very pleasant smell in his opinion. He also found himself talking about some of his life, mostly before he got attacked by aliens and saved by the EED. She listened attentively, and she seemed happy to be able to tell all of her stories. He got the impression she never had anyone willing to sit and listen to her. He was still sad in between her visits though.
One day about two weeks from then, now that he had a sense of time, he found himself unable to hold his tears in by the time Miranda came to visit him. Sometimes he couldn't help it anyways, but today it was hitting him hard. He noticed she had something in her hand. She sat down beside him. "You okay?" She asked him, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly. He shook his head. He felt particularly worthless at that moment. "I just.. it really kinda bothers me and gets under my skin.." he admitted to her, "Like... if she moved on so quickly.. had she already planned on it? What had I done wrong...?" He felt more tears wetting his face. "I don't understand why she stopped loving me.. did she ever..?" Miranda frowned, seemingly in her own thoughts. He couldn't see as well as he'd like, but it seemed like there was water at the edge of her eyes too, though they never spilled over. When she finally looked at him, they were gone. "I kind of get how you feel.." she said quietly, "It's not exactly the same.. but I.. I-I found myself thinking those same thoughts when my dad, you know.. but it... sort of gets better.." "I just can't help but feel.. worthless... I mean.. sure you guys want my help in this war or whatever.. but in the sense that nobody cares about just me.. for me.." Miranda looked down, very clearly considering something. She seemed to have allot on her mind lately. "A part of me kinda wishes.. when I'd taken all those pills at once.. maybe I should have.."
      "No," Miranda suddenly cut him off. It surprised him, because he had never heard this tone of voice from her before. It wasn't unkind, but rather reassuring and strong. "It wouldn't have been a good thing if you had.. died. We need your help with the war, most definitely. But besides that, I also... I.. like you being here too. I know we kind of forced you up here and I'm sorry about that.. we had no choice.. but throughout your time up here, you haven't been mean or unpleasant, like I had expected you to be." That's because I was trying to get on your good side so I could finesse you, he thought silently, but if I'd have known nobody cared that much about me on Earth anyway..
His thoughts were cut off by Miranda continuing speaking. "I mean.. I don't really know how to say this.. but you being up here had really been a good thing for me. I'm sure you noticed pretty much everyone up here is cold and mean and rude, especially towards me. I figured you'd blame me for everything and hate me too. But even if you did, or do.. you never showed it. Whenever I talk to you I.. kind of feel like.. well.. like.. I can just kind of relax. I genuinely like being around you.. I mean I don't know.." she seemed to struggle with her thoughts. "I know this is kind of ridiculous.. but you're my first like genuine friend.. I really do care about you.." Miranda sighed deeply and shook her head. "I'm sorry I'm making this weird.." "No, it's okay," Nelson told her. "I never knew that's how you thought. But it really does make me feel better. I'm surprised though." "I see.." Miranda was awkward fiddling with her fingers, seemingly too shy to look at him. "I'm surprised because you're such a wonderful person to be around," he continued, "From what I do know about you, I think you've come through everything as really decent woman." Miranda smiled shyly, now beginning to blush. "And you smell good too," Nelson added, "Do you have a perfume that you use? Like every time I see you I get a pleasant whiff of like this.. citrusy orangey smell. I smells good. It's one of the reasons I get excited to see you." Get excited to see her? Nelson thought, That's a little provocative isn't it? Miranda giggled shyly. "You have a bad habit of making me blush," she said, smiling genuinely at him. "Is it really a bad thing?" He asked her, smiling back. Miranda shrugged, clearly a bit flustered. "It's a smell from my favorite plant on Montroughza," She replied, "I'll tell you more about it later, actually. Right now I brought you something. I remember you telling me how you really liked chocolate so I got you some from Earth. I know we don't need to eat to survive, but you can still enjoy it." "Damn," Nelson said, smiling as he realized the thing in her hand was a dollar general bag, filled with different chocolates. "I didn't know they had so many different kinds," Miranda commented, "It's crazy. Humans have a lot of extra food to eat that they don't need." Nelson shrugged. "I mean shit, I'm not complaining," he said with a grin. "I was thinking you could take those with you," she said. "Hmm?" Nelson asked. "I'm sure you want to get out of here. They want me to take you to get your mutation checked, but I need to stop by Earth and finish an investigation real quick. You can come with me, and then once we get done with all that, if you want I would kinda like to show you Montroughza. I-I mean.. if you want to." Nelson smiled and nodded yes.