Page 10 of His to Worship

I have known this for most of my life, and I have come to accept it.

As I walk, the Great Mother’s eyes awaken until three blink in the heavens, casting long shadows as I make my way through the familiar terrain. With jagged rocks, dense thickets, and ice covering every inch, the terrain is not forgiving. Already I must start thinking about where I will camp tonight. While the tracks I saw lead toward the Fire Waters, I will not camp there. The warmth and toothy fish are enough to attract prey and predators alike. I will not want to be caught there when there is but one eye left in the sky.

I move steadily, my eyes sharp and my senses alert. As I crest a small ridge, I pause, scanning the horizon. The sky is a clear, fierce blue, but I notice a strange dark spot. As I stare, the spot grows larger, orange and red flames slowly licking over the outside until my eyes widen.

The large ball of fire streaks across the sky above me like a great glowing beast soaring through the heavens. I look up, my heart pounding like the drums we use for clan meetings. The fire trail splits the sky, leaving a path of light that fades slowly behind the great ball. My eyes water from staring, but I cannot look away. It disappears behind the Blood Mountains, headed straight for the ground.

I continue looking at the place where it had disappeared for several heartbeats before I begin moving again. Veering from my original path, the strange tracks completely forgotten now, I replot my course for the valley behind the Blood Mountains. That is where I believe the fireball would land, should it have crashed to the ground.

I know that I am making a grave decision. My atan will not be happy with me investigating. This is very clearly a gift from the Great Mother; it is not for me, an outcast hunter, to chase. But, there is a calling in my soul that tells me that whatever I have seen was meant for me. I will not ignore the Great Mother.

Besides, it is better to ask forgiveness than permission.

FIVE

- sedona -

The first thing that seeps into my awareness is how fucking bright it is.

Groaning, I go to raise my hand to cover my face—why did I forget to close the blinds again—but, my hand hits against something hard, cold, and decidedly metal.

My eyes flutter open and it takes a long second for me to realize that the bright as hell light is filtering through a small cracked glass window in front of me. I rack my brain trying to find a memory to grab onto. Raising my arms, keeping them close to my body, I go to bang on the wall in front of me, but meet no resistance as it cracks open. That is what triggers a crash of remembrance.

Oh my god, I wrecked an alien spaceship. Not only that, I put myself in a stasis pod. Who knows how long I’ve been asleep? Who knows where I am? Who knows if anyone else even made it? Suppressing the panic, I push against the door and the metal groans in protest.

It finally swings open and immediately crisp, frigid air rushes in to greet me. I take in a stinging breath and everything I smell is tinged with the acrid scent of burnt metal and ozone. Here’s hoping that I can actually breathe this air safely.

I stumble out of the confines of the pod, my limbs heavy with exhaustion, and take in the state of the shipping crate. With the door gone and the roof ripped halfway off, I can’t imagine how I actually survived this. If I had to guess, this crate and the pod are the extra protection that kept me alive, but the crate definitely looks worse for wear.

Deciding to focus on my most pressing issue, the first step for me has to be figuring out what to do about the other girls. I’m relieved to see that all seven other pods survived. From the outside, everything looks fine, but, just to be sure, I move to the pod closest to me. When I reach the metal cocoon, I smooth away the frost on the glass and sigh with relief. It’s the sleeping face of Amari and she looks very much alive. Well, at least two of us made it. Time to check on the others.

I examine the other pods, one by one. By the time I finish checking, I’m shaking from the cold but feeling relief that the girls I arrived with are okay, as well as the four girls in the other pods in our crate. I feel even better when I note that all of their pod lights glow a comforting green. I glance back at my pod and see that it is the only one shining red.

After checking each pod and seeing that everyone appears to have miraculously made it safe and sound, I can breathe a bit easier. No one else is in immediate danger of waking up, which means I’m only responsible for myself, but it also means I’m left to make the big decisions by myself.

Suddenly, I get a sinking feeling as I think about the other fifty-two pods in the other crates. What are the odds that any of the rest of them would survive? I hope they’re okay, or at the very least, as macabre as it sounds, I hope they died peacefully.

Pushing away the darker thoughts, I decide to focus on just the things immediately in front of me. All I feel like I can handle right now is what comes first and what comes next. Anything third or higher will have to wait its turn.

So, the first step? Figure out where I am. With that in mind, I make my way out of the protection of the leftover roof of the crate and through the open doorway. When I get outside, cold air like nothing I’ve ever felt whips at me as I stand trembling in my yellow scrub shorts. It’s fucking cold. I think about going back in the pod, but the glass is cracked. I’m smart enough to know that means my pod is shot. It’s up to me now to figure out what the hell to do about everything.

I try to make more sense of my surroundings, but it’s all so fucking bright. Everywhere I look is covered in shining white snow. The only thing marring the whitescape are large rocks and the wrecked collage of pieces that were once a ship. Despite this, for a second, it all looks Earth-y and I feel a flicker of hope. But, when I look up, there are three suns in the sky, and my heart sinks back down. I scan around me and anxiety grips my chest. There are mountains, but they’re red. Where the hell am I?

Moving further away from the shipping crate, my feet crunch over the snow. I try my best to ignore the fact that the rubber-soled slippers on my feet are not enough coverage for this weather. What little coverage my shoes provide is not meant for this kind of environment. Hopefully, I end this experience alive and with all of my toes.

With a sigh and another shake, I clutch myself tightly and rack my brain, fighting through the haze to remember the things I know about surviving in the wilderness. Considering most of my knowledge comes from stranded-island erotica and Discovery Planet reality shows, I feel like I might be a little screwed. But, one thing I do remember for sure is that the rules of survival start with the four essentials: Shelter, Fire, Water, and Food.

I’m focusing on shelter and fire first. I know that it’ll have to get dark eventually, and if it’s this cold now, then it’ll be a death sentence later, so both of those will be a necessity. Looking at the pieces around me, I get to work.

A while later, I’m dragging heavy pipes across the ground towards our crate. A pipe in each hand, I lean them against the open doorway. I’d attempted to find the actual door, but that’s clearly long gone. Still, I figure I can make a lean-to cover across the door, and with most of the ceiling left over, I will have created some protection from the snow. After going back for a few more poles and finding some wire cords to wrap around and bind things, I know it’s time to find something to cover everything up.

Or just something to cover me because I can no longer feel my extremities, and I’m hoping that the blue tinting my fingers is just my imagination. With that in mind, I embark again to ruffle through the wreckage for something else useful.

The ‘something’ ends up being a weird-looking box. I turn the completely smooth metal cube over in my hands, looking for a tab or seam somewhere to indicate where it opens, but the entire thing is smooth and shiny. I soon figure out that tossing it on the ground also does nothing.

With a frustrated sigh, I pick the thing up and run a finger down a corner, hoping to feel an indent. Instead, the thing clicks and springs open, the contents falling to the ground. I drop to my knees in the snow, snatching up the materials that fell out.

The box turns out to be exactly what I need, an emergency kit. With two thin blankets, a flashlight, and bandages, it’s a start for supplies. I tuck the flashlight in the waistband of my paper-thin panties and look at the other things on the ground. There’s what appears to be some kind of ointment and a package of dried grasshopper-like bugs that I remember seeing on the ship. I grimace. Times are tough, but not that tough. Yet. I set the grasshopper things back in the box carefully. It might get that bad. Who knows? I do the same with the ointment since I don’t know exactly what it’s for.

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