Page 7 of Berserkr
"I don't want to go in there," I insisted.
He lifted me higher, until the tips of his hair brushed my cheek.
"I do it for you if could," he whispered so quietly that I could barely understand him. "I do anything for you. I know this sound…crazy to you, but I explain it later. After you healed. Hush now. It over soon."
I stared up at him, speechless. He behaved as if he knew me. More than that. He wouldn't say that to an acquaintance, would he? This guy was crazy. Maybe he was confusing me with someone.
No, this wasn't real. This was all just a figment of my imagination. So I shouldn't read too much into it. Eventually, this would all fade and I'd be back on that muddy, rainy field outside of Glasgow. Or maybe I was in a hospital by now. There was no way to tell.
"It will only take few clicks, if injury small,” he reassured me before he carefully lowered me into the coffin. The red leather was soft against my wet clothes, but it instantly hardened around my injured ankle. I hissed in pain, tried to sit up, but the lid was already sliding shut. A small circular window gave me a view of the blue alien. His eyes were full of regret and guilt as he watched me. That didn't soothe me in the slightest. What wasthis machine going to do to me?
I slammed my hands against the lid.
"Let me out!"
The coffin swallowed my words. I doubted they could hear me outside.
"Michelle! Let me out!"
I couldn't see her through the tiny window. Only him. The blue alien with the sad eyes.
The coffin began to vibrate ever so slightly. At the same time, heat brushed against my body. My clothes, wet and sticking to my skin, dried within seconds. A deep rumble sounded from beneath me, followed by more vibrations around my injured foot. There wasn't space to sit up and see what was happening. All I could do was lie there and wait for it to be over.
After a few minutes, a new sensation stopped me from falling asleep. My foot was surrounded by icy water, wave upon wave of it crashing against my skin. I grit my teeth, trying not to scream out in pain. The alien had said this machine would take my pain away. Right now, I felt as if it wanted to torture me instead. Again, I pushed against the lid. The window was fogged over, but even through the mist I could make out the alien. He was still there, still watching me.
"You lied!" I shouted at him, even though I knew he couldn't hear me. "It hurts!"
His lips moved, but whatever he said was inaudible. The icy waves kept washing over my foot, but by now, the cold was numbing the ankle enough to take away some of the pain. Exhausted, I tried to relax back into the soft mattress. Warm air blew over my face, like a breeze on a sunny day. I forced myself to close my eyes. If I managed to fall asleep, it would all be over faster. I might even wake up in real life. Without aliens. Without metal coffins that turned my foot into an ice block.
But when I woke, the alien was still there. And he was furious.
"Your machine changed the colour of her hair!"
6
Rune
What had Klav done? I wanted to strangle him. He was our de facto medical officer. He was supposed to know if our medpods were compatible with Peritans. First, the sedation hadn't worked properly. My mate had been in pain. Klav had taken several clicks until he'd found the correct setting. I thought everything was fine. The medpod's display had showed us a scan of her bones, now fully healed, as well as a complete analysis of her physical state. She was mostly in good health, a few nutrient imbalances that the pod had automatically corrected. At Klav's suggestion, it had also fitted her with a translator implant. Even though my command of their language, English, had become sufficient, it would make it easier for her to communicate with those Vikingar who hadn't bothered to take lessons. Not that she had any reason to talk to other males. From now on, I wouldn't let her out of my sight. As soon as I was sure she was completely recovered, I'd claim her, making her officially my mate. She'd move in with me and we'd live happily ever after. I had no reason to doubt that it wouldn't happen that way.
But first, I had to deal with her hair. It had been a pale yellow when I'd laid her in the pod, but now it was blue, a brighter shade than my own, but still very much blue.
"You were supposed to set all the parameters to Peritan!" I yelled at him while he frantically swiped through the medpod's settings. "You must have made a mistake!"
"I didn't make a mistake. I swear. There is nothing here that should have done anything to her hair. Why would it? Hair isn't an essential part of Peritan anatomy. The medpod shouldn't have impacted it at all. I can't explain what happened."
Klav was out of breath, sounding just as anxious as I felt. If it had changed the colour of her hair, what else had the medpod messed with? What if it had altered her organs? What if it had hurt her more than it had helped?
"What's wrong with my hair?" the female muttered sleepily. "Oh. The wig. It's gone."
"Wig?" I thundered."Explain!"
"First, you explain why your accent is gone. Why is your English suddenly so perfect?"
I growled softly. She was challenging me. I liked it.
"You've been fitted with a translator implant. Before, I was using my rudimentary language skills. Now, I am speaking my mother tongue while the implant is translating for you. It makes communication easier, so I thought you'd like having an implant."
"You thought I'd like?" she echoed. "You implanted me with something because you thought I'd like it? What the fuck! If this was real, I'd report you for doing that. But since it isn't-"
