Page 78 of Citrine

It's a fucking tentacle.

I focus on the idea of making it move and feel… muscles on my skull. The shifting in a place that has never felt the contraction of muscles makes my stomach heave.

I look back at the water. There are easily a dozen of them floating around my head like I'm some sort of demented, yellow Medusa.

They're miniature, compared to what he has, and they are bright yellow just like my hair, but they look just like his.

They weren't there yesterday.

"Wroahk!"

His head pokes out of the water almost immediately and he looks directly at me. I point to my head.

"What is this?"

"I do not know."

"What do you mean you don't know? Except for the color, they look just like yours! What is this?"

"It is the same as last time. You stole my voice, now you are stealing my body."

"That does not count as an explanation, damn it!"

There is so much he doesn't know, so much that makes me anxious. I can't just be growing gills and tentacles out of nowhere.

"Basta. ¡Qué rabia!"

I just keep muttering every Spanish phrase my father ever taught me like it might somehow anchor my reality.

Then more I never learned start tumbling out, but I stop myself. They aren't special, not like the ones he taught me.

And I'm pissed off that there are whatever Spanish words I want to say ready to be spoken, like the ones I learned from him are now cheap somehow.

Nothing has made sense since I got to this place, and I can't just chuck it up to a mutation. No, something more serious is going on and I just can't tell what it is.

"How did this even happen?"

A tentacle reaches out of the water and pokes me. I glare at him but he just stares back in return. He reaches out the tentacle to me, like a hand. I give him a deadpan stare, but he doesn't desist. The tentacle is still raised to me, like a gesture. He's trying to tell me something.

"Look at it. It is harmless."

The tentacle dances in front of me, like a rope.

I suppose right now it is harmless. It has held me safely, though it has also broken creatures in half.

Still, I let out a huff of breath. He's right.

Regardless of my feelings on the matter, the tentacles on my head are part of me now. Like Wroahk, they won't harm me.

So, I don't need to panic, I tell my heart.

Just think about what he's saying. My forehead wrinkles. It is surprisingly thoughtful of him, especially since there is no clear connection to any agreement we have made.

"Thank you."

This alien is calm and straightforward. Maybe I need to be more like him.

"Calm down, Eli," I say to soothe myself. "They're just tentacles, your tentacles. They can't hurt you."

---