Page 22 of Alien Desire
“Gryton,” he repeats. Then points back to me and that word, the one that does strange things to my insides, comes tumbling from his mouth. “Omega.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
He points to my reflection. “Omega,” then his, “Alpha.”
“Alpha,” I repeat and a spiral of colour races across his skin, his eyes swirling with excitement. I take a step away, unsure what this means. How two words can elicit such power.
I remember the stories my mum would tell me when I was a kid. Of witches and magic and spells. Words could create whole worlds in my head. And the words in these stories could turn princes to frogs and lions to stone.
Is he casting a spell on me?
In this shimmering blue and white mirror, it feels like it. It feels like it when he holds me with those eyes, when he touches me.
I hurry back to my vehicle. I’m afraid I’m losing my mind.
Over the last few days Tor has suggested I sit in his lap many times. The requests have been so comical. I, a grown woman, a space cadet, have not sat on a lap since I was five years old. What absurdity! And yet each time I’ve had an overwhelming urge to do just that.
I lead him to the wreckage of my ship first. I don’t know why, but I want him to see it. He walks through the debris solemnly and to my surprise he does not touch the carcasses, or search his way through the remains. He simply observes, pausing at each of the bodies of my crewmates and lowering his gaze to the ground, his lips moving silently, almost as if he is praying.
What do they do with the dead of his world? Do they bury them? Cremate them? Cast them out into the sea? Build huge monuments and plinths to them? Or do they leave them where they’ve fallen?
He turns back to his vehicle and our drive to his ship is more subdued. Here he conducts a systematic examination of every piece of his shattered ship, collecting certain pieces and loading them onto his vehicle.
I sit on my own bike, wrapped up in my fur coat as I munch my way through another pack of his berries. They are irresistible, so sweet and flavoursome, and I realise I’ve grown so used to the bland taste of space food I’d hardly been aware of the lack of flavour anymore. The sugar mixed with the slight sourness of the juice mix on my tongue and give me such a hit my head buzzes. It’s better than any booze or drugs.
Finally, he seems satisfied and we start the journey back.
We haven’t gone far when a sudden mist sweeps across the flat landscape and engulfs us in a thick blanket. Our visibility is impaired and the temperature within the cloud is bitterly cold. Tor edges his vehicle up close to mine and we crawl forward, the navigation system showing us the way. Without it we’d be lost completely.
It is agonising work and my head aches with the force of my concentration, my fingers and my toes numb with cold. My goggles are useless, fogging every few seconds, so I remove them though my eyes immediately stream with tears. Wiping at them with my sleeve, I lose control of my vehicle for just a fraction of a second.
It veers to the right and teeters over the lip of a hidden crevasse. I grab at the handlebars and try to jerk it around. But it’s too late and I crash through the fissure, the bike out of my control.
I yell, tugging to the right and to the left, scrabbling at the brakes. I try to force it back, I try to stop. It’s futile.
My stomach plunges. The white ice streaks past my vision. I lift in my seat. For a moment I am weightless and falling, waiting for the impact.
Then I crash downwards, smashing onto smooth ice. The impact jolts my spine and my head is thrown forward. The snowmobile splinters beneath my thighs and skids across the surface.
I halt, sweating despite the cold.
All I hear is silence and the pounding of my own heart.
And then the ice roars and splits in two.
I plunge through, screaming as I sink, my grip on the bike now lost.
My body hits freezing cold liquid that sucks the oxygen straight from my lungs, my limbs stiffening against the impact. And then I’m underwater, the world a blur of icy blue and spots of black as I struggle to stay conscious.
I force myself to move. Despite the numbness overtaking my body, I make my legs kick and my head breaks through the surface. I gulp for air and immediately sink back down, pulled by my weighty clothing. I kick again, but something curls around my ankle and drags me down. I struggle to free my foot as I’m towed deeper and deeper.
The water grows murkier and murkier. And then my wrist is caught too and my other thigh. Strong, twine-like tentacles latch onto me and pull me down, down, down.
My lungs beg for oxygen, my head pounds, my vision darkens.
No, no.
Not like this.
