"What is it?", asked Kain for the fifth time.
When I didn't reply, just licked my lips, trying to think how exactly to explain this and not make him freak out, Kain grabbed both of my shoulders and shook me back and forth. "Masie. Sutton. Speak!", he ordered, green eyes staring into my grey ones. I instinctively flinched backwards away from him.
"Uh, I'm afraid it... Marked you."
This life was getting stranger and stranger.
"What?", he said.
I pointed at both of his temples. "The light thing. You have, like, two small white light dots on both sides. And..." How to put this. "They glow."
He looked at me like I'd just revealed to him that I'd found eggs with bacon in the tree closest to us and I sighed. "Look, it's probably only right to revisit our alien planet theory..."
He then clasped his hand over his mouth and grinned. "Oh yeah, you're right about that!.".
"Uhm, what is...."
"You mean I have two dots next to each eye, right?".
"Yeah?"
"And they emit a faint glow, like they're glow-in-the-dark-stickers?"
"Yes?", I asked, a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"Well", he said, leaning back and looking at my face, like he had just been the only person in the room with their pants insides out and now I'd joined. "I've just spotted them as well. You've just got them too, ghost girl."
My hands went up to my temples and there was a faint tickle. I mean I would have freaked out if the entire situation wasn't already less tuansub normal.
We checked on both Ty's and Desirees faces - who were still fast asleep. Our little encounter with alien light ball and our exclaimations of awe and the bit of panic on my side hadn't woken them up, thankfully. But their temples were clear, just tanned skin like they had been before.
"This is not at all freaky.", mumbled Kain.
"Quiet. You'll wake them up."
"Surely should", he said. "You and I should sleep now, mommy cares. Time's ticking and it's meatheads turn to watch"
"I'm not that tired anymore", I threw in truthfully and, as if to prove my point, I rubbed my temples in anguish. "In fact", I grumbled. "I think I'll never sleep again without nightmares. I just developed alien freckles."
"Oh don't worry. From the right angle, they look kind of cute on you."
I tried to manifest a glare that would bore another pair of dots into his head. Preferably holes. Or just shoot him to another planet. But he still stood there in all his black sweatshirt wearing, tousled glory.
He chuckled and stretched in the faint brown night light like me looking at him was an invitation to be theatralic. "Let's freak out over this" He pointed at our temples. "Tomorrow. Trust me. You'll wish you'd slept." He probably pulled all nighter all the time or that's what it sounded like . I could see him sneaking into sophomore girls bedroom windows or partying with the cool kids until somebody passed out. Mighty, he probably knew what he was talking about. I on the other side, was the type who fell asleep before eleven PM. It was like it was physically impossible for me to keep my eyes open beyond that. I'd tried to pull all nighter study sessions before and always ended up drooling on my books.
But the low rumble in my stomach still told me that I was a, too hungry to sleep and b, to psyched.
"You go to sleep. I'll keep watch", I told him.
He looked at me like there had been lack of oxygen in our contamination cubes and it was finally getting to me. "No food, no hydrating, no sleep. You sure know what you're doing.", he said snarkily.
My head was spinning. How come he was the sober one all of a sudden? Maybe this planet did things to me. But he did have a point.
"Yeah okay. You're probably right."
"It hurts you that much, eh? To just say "yes, you're right, Kain'" He batted his lashes in the act like that's something I'd ever do. I glared up at him. "Let's wake up meaty", he insisted.
I still wanted to disagree - if not because disagreeing with Kain Longfort naturally felt like the most logical thing to do - but if I ignored all of my cautions, I did feel drowsy, my eyelids heavy and swollen and slipping over my Iris like somebody had beat them shut. I had over exhausted what was in this unfed body. I would have to ignore the fear that was vibrating deep in my bones. At least until morning came.
We woke Ty, who was so grumpy that we woke him up, that he didn't even realize what was going on with our foreheads - or better the sides of it.
Really, we could have been abducted by and exchanged with aliens and the guy would have no clue. I usually hated the way Kain mocked Ty but the doofus was right about something: Ty really needed to grow more alert. Especially now that he was our watching guard.
"Are you sure we should not knock him back out and make Desiree watch?", whispered Kain.
I glared at him - not even sure why. This time it was probably his tone and the idea to knock out an already hurt Ty. This guy's tongue knew no boarders. "It was your idea."
Kain looked over at Desiree, who so peacefully slumbered on his jacket and shivered. "I have a lot of awful ideas.", he admitted, a strand of his black hair brushing his face. Damn this boy, I thought. How in the world did he actually manage to make me pity him all the time even though ninety nine percent of his problems were self caused, consequences to his supreme levels of idiocy and douchebaggery.
I shook my head and walked back over to where my jacket laid sprawled out over the floor. I dropped onto it. To my surprise, Kain sat down next to me. When he saw me looking, he raised his eyebrows and grinned but then he plonked down into the shady grass, turned to the side and was instantly gone, like a child. He didn't even try to wriggle closer or anything and annoy me. Five minutes later, I leaned over him and realized that his dots were gone. My hands shot up to my temples. My tingling was also gone.
With mixed feelings, I tried to put off any speculation about what this might mean to later and tried to take a deep breath from this sour tasting air and ease more into my situation - yes, as if that was an easy command.
Across the ceased campfire, Ty wrung his hands and consciously glanced over the dark forest line and the mountains in the back. I watched him watching as I fell asleep, and as my eyelids started to droop, I hoped that Ty would keep this level of attentiveness, but I could not put my hand into fire for this as I fell, hazily, into a raging dreamworld of fights and fire, chaos and war.
•
I jerked upright and the air was cool. Bright greyish yellow light hung over the plains. The others were awake, rustling around and talking quietly, laughing. They were sharing another round of berries and I saw a portion on the grass a few steps away, waiting for me.
I suppressed a groan and got up, stretching my aching neck and kneading it with the bale of my hand. It hadn't been exactly a sweet night in the grass hill but I soundlessly sat down next to them and ate my share of the berries.
"Alright", said Kain about an hour later, when we all had dined and rested to the point where it would be unreasonable to keep sitting out here in the open. The light was full on beaming now. It was not much brighter than during a sunny day on earth but I kind of could see everything a little bit clearer. Every sharp line of a grass blades, every leave on the unknown grey trees in the back, that looked eerily similar to Earth's oakwood trees but weren't.
"We've sat our cute butts flat for more than ten hours know - Yes, I've counted. Somebody needs to keep track of time here." Kain grinned into our round. "So now my sweet little, survival-technically challenged friends, I'd say it's time to walk over there" He pointed diagonally behind him into the forest. "And see where we get. Main plan is to make a turn and find that warehouse Ty and Masie here saw by their cube. We passed the river in the mountains so we should be good if we just march back through the forest.
But the thing is, we've come so far, it would be a pity not to take a little Umweg and see what lies further east from here. What.... Or who, I guess." Not sure why he had switched to German midway. Maybe to add that stern Nazi effect. He added a dramatical pause.
"He really needs his Star Wars role", I mumbled to Desiree, who smiled.
Kain pointed at me. "I heard you. However, we have better things to do than to discuss my absolute killer charm." He whistled through his teeth. "In fact I'd say if we don't get going we might become alien food."
That got us all scrambling to our feet and we wiped away all traces of our camp, smudging the ash into the grass with our boots and stomping over our footprints to make them less clear. Who knew who would find this place after us - or how smart they were. They shouldn't know how many of us have been here. It had been Kains idea and had to admit through gritted teeth that the guy annoyingly - again - had a point.
We matched of into the direction diagonally downhill that Kain had pointed to and soon we were all surrounded by the beautiful ombres and golds of the forest with it's thick grey tree trunks.
Kain was taking the lead - naturally - while Ty had offered to trail behind and watch our backs, so that left Desiree and me in the middle. She was sighing next to me, as we stomped over the uneven, leave and yellow moss covered ground, where there was no real path to step on. Somewhere above us, a bird was singing in such high notes that I had never heard on Earth and it set my guts alive with the fire of fear but because nobody else was saying anything about it, I kept mute as well. Only every now and then, I stole a glance towards and I believed I saw the quick shadows of an orange bird with long beak but it it was gone so quickly that I couldn't be sure I hadn't imagined it.
"I like to think they're harmless", Desiree suddenly said next to me, as she followed my eyes up.
I quickly strove for a neutral expression, not wanting to freak her out with my distrust towards our surroundings here. "Sure", I said amicably.
She smiled at me. "You know, it could be worse. We could be all stuck here alone."
I tried to smile back but then I realized that my brother was somewhere around here and for all I knew he was alone I didn't even want to think of the other options that didn't include him being up on his legs and running like us.
"My brother is here", I told Desiree, when she looked at my silence in question.
"Aron", she said.
"Yes."
"Do you guys get along?"
What a question. I tried not to think about it too deeply. "He... it's.... I mean, he is my brother." My answer was hint enough that I didn't like this topic, hopefully. Besides, Aron was here and the possibility of him being here but dead hung over me like a dark cloud.
Desiree nodded like she got exactly what I was saying. In the golden light, she looked perfect with her blond waves and beach tan and full lips. "I have a brother", she said hesitantly. "He's ten. His name is Longin. You know.my parents have a thing with names. Desire and Longing?", she offered and I had to chuckle. "That's creative."
Her face grew serious. "I keep thinking I'll never see him again." She sighed again. "The last thing I told him - well I screamed at him because he keeps forgetting his plastic cars in my room and I keep tripping over them barefoot. I told him he's the biggest nuisance of my life. Now I wonder.." She trailed off, staring into the bushes of ombre.
"Maybe that's the last thing I ever told him. Guess I'm not as nice as I think. Although I try."
"Isn't to try what matters?", I asked.
She made a pained grimace into my direction. "It's what we humans keep telling ourselves but in the end it's what's done what's left to remember. Not what was tried."
"I suppose it depends on who remembers you", I threw in. Although she couldn't expect from a ten year old child to give her his full span of understanding. But even if we were to never get home - a thought I ardently tried to fight - the kid would grow up one day. Depending on who he was, he might look back and remember his sister who screamed - or he might remember the days where she didn't.
"Well, there's nothing I can do about it now", said Desiree with a sort of resignation in her voice.
"As much as I hate to dissolve philosophical thinking", I agreed. "It's probably best to keep your head in the moment." Or rather, keep her head on her shoulders, but I didn't add that part.
We were both silent at that.
I left her to her thoughts, not wanting to snoop more in her private ongoings than she was willing to share, and Kain called us over to a bridge of rocks that led over another, smaller river of mud. No big stream here and nothing else that could pull you under. At least it looked safe. It was shallow water, glimmering in the morning light but there were no fish, no visible life whatsoever.
We crossed the bridge, deeper into the greying forest, when all of a sudden, Kain stood.
"What?", I said. "What is he doing?" I tried to peek past Desiree and Ty caught up from the back.
When we got to where Kain was standing, we all stood and stared in awe, just like he did.
In front of us was probably the most beautiful scenery I had ever seen in my life. Another river, this one an actual river, not just a splashy stream.
The water reached to the very far back of our vision and the other shore was vivid green. Tall, mysterious looking trees, so bright green that poison would be jealous, hung into the gleaming wet. The sky behind was slowly sipping from yellow into a soft pink and blue hues hung in the air, like something loaded it with magic and light. Everything was glittering.
To the left, the water opened into more water and there were steep green mountains in the back.
In front of us, on the water, on a perfectly smooth, handcrafted canoe, sat a woman.
Only that she didn't look like any woman I had ever seen before. She was tall, at least three heads taller than Kain, and she had long, slim limba that almost looked coated with shimmering snow. Her skin was light beige, like Desiree's, but with this pale shine on it and her arms where covered in twirling, playful, white tattoos that ran only alongside the upper side of her arms and reached to her slim, bracelet covered wrists full of blood red pearls, unknown feathers and what looked like a small black marble.
From the chest downwards, her toned body was clad in a floating white dress that showed only her ankles.
Her feet were in leather shoes and her hands held a rudder. Dangling from her slightly pointed ears were huge earrings - rows of perfectly fluorescent white beads that hung over her shoulders in chains.
Next to her in the boat lay the backs of three dead animal like creatures whose heads I could not make out. It was an odd contrast, the dead creatures and her, who seemed so slim and light, yet like the most strong and awake thing I had ever seen.
Her light silver hair was long and reached her waist. Out of her slim, diamond shaped face, we we're being watched from some of the most awake, attentive and deep black eyes had ever seen. They were peering out at us under heavy white lashes and slim silver eyebrows.
But the biggest imoression of all was the sheer hate that oozed from her glaring eyes and was turned directly to us.
•
We all stood there like icicles. Then Ty next to me whispered a hoarse: "Hey." He wasn't talking to me.
He had tried to but failed miserably in addressing the outlandish woman. Or maybe she wasn't outlandish, it struck me. Belike - no, doubtless. We were the foreign ones. She seemed at home, like a queen on her waters.
I instinctively took a step back into the muddy forest floor, glancing tentatively at the shore of the jungle on the other side of the waters, thinking, what if there were more of these people, but I was the only one. My companions all stood within immediate dangers of sliding through the red and brown Reed and into the gleaming waters, towards the beauty of the alien landscape in front of us and the silent woman on her floating canoe.
Then the woman opened her mouth into our direction - and hissed.
It was a sharp, metallic, near animalic sound. It ran down our ears like liquid silver.
But I stared in shock at her teeth, which were near human like one second, and short but sharp like silver knives the other.
"Whoah!" That's what it took to finally get Kain out of his trance. Arms swinging up, he nearly slipped with his black boots on the wet ground in front of the reed and stumbled backwards. While doing so, he had the good sense to grab Desiree by her sleeve and pull her back as well. Ty still stood there at the brim of the water with an open mouth.
"Guys", I said very quietly, and very slowly, but made sure to pronounce every word perfectly so there would be no miscommunication and clear understanding at the very first try. "Do not. Move. Or talk."
There was a silent staring between the water nymph or whatever the woman like creature was and us and nobody dared to even angle a finger.
Then the woman's slim hands shot up to her mouth. Before anybody could react, she let out a shrill, ear piercing whistle that was so loud that it seemed to create minimal waves on the surface of the water. A rumble seemed to echoed back and before we had time to run, blurred blobs of blue and white shot out of the jungle across from us. Ropes swung, male war cries were heard. Suddenly it was raining tall, lanky creatures with a white glow over their skin and clothing made from rough blue, linen like textures, spiky, long white hair slogging behind them in the wind.
Desiree next to me let out a sibilant, her nails digging into the skin of my arm. Then they were all over us. Some came rafting over the river, some had swung here by their ropes but then they were all around us and when the mist and the swirled up steam around us cleared after a considerable amount of time, we stood each separated from the others, spread over the shore on our side of the river, held by respectively two outlanders.
Ty was farthest from me, held by two about eight feet tall mountains of muscle and blue cloth. Then came Kain, Desiree. I was at the far left and when I looked up I met faces that were looking past me. There narrow eyes were looking at the woman on the canoe for confirmation.
The outlandish man to my left was holding my hands in a steel grip that I didn't even dream of getting out. He was three heads taller than me, made of strength, and his sharp, angular and narrow features showed a face of of light skin with a frosty glow and dark eyes with a silver ring in them. He had even features, similar to a human man but his eyes were soulless depths. The other one who had grabbed my neck and put a rough looking, serrated shining white blade against my neck to the point where it stung, was an ever taller, dark skinned pile of muscles. He also had the faint white glow, which had the effect of making his originally warm brown skin looking darker and grayish. His eyes were black pools and his facial musculature showed not an hint of emotion. He also was looking at the woman on the canoe.
Kain behind Desiree, obviously tried to wriggle free but even before I could scream at him to cut it out, the taller of the two mountains holding him gave him a sharp jab with an elbow to the forehead, which had the immediate effect of taking him out. His head rolled to the side and Desiree next to me screeched, which caused the sturdy white haired men who held a blade to her neck take her out with the wrist of his enormous free hand.
Left were Ty and I, staring at the men and then the outlandish woman on the water open mouthed.
On her slim lips appeared the tiniest beginning of a smile.
She gave a sharp order, In a tongue that might as well have been gibberish. I've never heard a sound like it before. It was precise and short, at the same time melodic, throaty, light. With a rolling around in it, like she had something in her throat, while at the same time light and whistling in between. Before my ears could comprehend the succession of seemingly completely arbitrary, but so rationally woven together sounds tgat almost had a magical beauty to it, a hard blow hit my head from the side and I also, rolled back, out.