Kate turned away from the glare of the moonscape to stare accusingly at the strange man who faced her from the opposite side of the window.
“It’s a trick, right? Just a video screen and some clever computer graphics.”
“No trick,” said the stranger, smiling, “no video, no CGI. You’re looking at the real thing. From just over 100 kilometres out.”
“Do you really expect me to believe that?” she blazed, “Just how stupid do you think I am?”
“Kate, I know for a fact you’re not stupid,” he answered gently.
She was suddenly scared, but also angrier than she had ever felt in her life.
“I don’t like this,” she said fiercely. “I don’t know who you are or how you brought me into your so-called 'spacecraft', but the joke’s over and I want to leave. Now.”
“I am afraid that’s simply not possible, but if you give me the cha - ”
He never completed the sentence as she flew at him, aiming a kick between his legs and following up with a punch to his face. But neither blow landed as, with a speed greater than hers, he caught both her leg and arm, stopping her dead and off balance. Even though he didn’t look particularly strong, she could feel enormous strength in his hands. More than that - for the briefest instant - she registered what felt like an electric shock passing from his hands to her body. But just as quickly as she had noticed the sensation, it was gone.
“Listen to me - ” he said raising his voice, then - more quietly but still firmly, “ - listen to me - please - I’m going to let go of you now, but please don’t try that again. You won’t hurt me, but you might well hurt yourself.”
She held his gaze for few moments, then nodded. He released her and they both stepped back.
Her chest heaved and her stomach churned from the adrenalin rush, so for moment or two she just stood there trembling, focusing on bringing her body and mind back under control.
It gave her the opportunity to study him more closely.
He really was even stranger than she’d first thought. At first glance, he just looked like a man, a very tall man (although she’d seen taller, so nothing so very unusual about that.). But more than anything it was his face. The proportions didn’t look quite right. It was mainly the eyes which were surprisingly large, like a baby’s. And his nose was thinner than it ought to be, especially when the mouth below it was quite generous. Yet despite the odd proportions, it all somehow worked. Not ugly, definitely not ugly. But no oil painting either. ‘Interesting’ was how she might have described it had she met him in different circumstances - and oddly compelling.
His skin was definitely peculiar. The best way she could describe it to herself was ‘bronzed’. Not bronzed like a Californian surfer's and certainly not like any racial pigmentation she’d ever seen. It was bronzed like…like the metal itself. That was it: his skin had a sheen like a bronze sculpture, a slight metallic iridescence that occasionally caught the light. But there was nothing metallic about the hand that had gripped hers so firmly just a few moments before. He was definitely flesh and blood.
She looked directly into his eyes and realised that their size wasn't the only departure from the ordinary. They were dark, like an animal's, a deep brown-black where the whites should have been, with huge irises of dark gold, flecked with tiny points of brighter gold and green that seemed to shift constantly. To look into them was a little like looking into a vortex.
Standing there now, with the Moon - apparently - hanging outside the window and this oddball opposite, an unwelcome and very scary conclusion was starting to take shape inside her brain.
Mastering a growing fear, she spoke to him with all the confidence and authority she could muster:
“The only way I see it," she said, "I've been abducted. Kidnapped. Taken against my will. One moment I'm out running, the next moment I wake up here. Tell me I'm wrong?"
The stranger stared back for a moment, then sighed.
“Kate, you're not wrong,” he said gently, "Won’t you at least sit down while I try to explain?”
After a pause, she sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Since I already know your name,” he replied, “I should start by telling you mine. It’s Matias.”
© Adriana Nicolas 2014