Clarissa

The pointy-eared-horse-eyed lizard man and I locked eyes, both of us in total shock.

I had yet to hear a single comprehensible word since being sent to this stupid place up until this point, and from the little thing’s reaction to me, the same went for him.

The absolute relief I felt in finally finding someone to talk to caused me to lose the strength in my legs and fall to my knees.

He, now unarmed after throwing his weapon at me, awkwardly mirrored my action.

I couldn’t hold myself back anymore. “So little guy, what’s your name? Where’re you from? What’s-” I covered my mouth and leaned back away from the terrified lizard man, before I had even realized, my face was inches from his and I was practically screaming questions in his face.

I composed myself. “Excuse me, I’m a bit excited to talk to someone for the first time in a long while.”

He slowly took deep breaths before responding. “I can see that madam.”

My eyes lit up, I loved it when people called me such fancy things as madam, it made me feel like I was a duchess or something.

Sensing the change in my expression, he quickly continued. “As to your questions, I’m Galth, a Kalkithu from… well I suppose that doesn’t matter anymore…”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

He began to trace a circle into the dirt with his finger. “Our planet is uninhabitable now, so talking about it is a moot point.”

“Maybe it’s not, maybe humanity can help? What happened?”

“Humanity is your species I take it?”

I nodded. “Human for singular.”

He sighed. “I suppose the worst case scenario is that we die trying to save our world… that’s not so bad.”

I wanted to reply, but I thought better of it.

He continued. “Authu, our home planet, was destroyed by a plague engineered by some death cult called ‘The Ending Perception’.” Anger filled his posture. “Those lunatics unleashed it in the middle of the world capital, and spread like wildfire…” He slumped forward. “Before we could mount any sort of defense, everyone was already infected and dying.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “But you’re alive aren’t you? Maybe you’re immune?”

He shook his head. “I was on my deathbed when a voice like thunder called out to me, offering salvation in exchange for a trial… now we’re here.”

I cocked my head to the side. “We?”

He smiled weakly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I said I was referring to the two of us would you?”

I shook my head. “No, especially not now.”

He put his head into his hands. “Can you at least promise not to tell anyone about us?”

I gestured to the area around us. “Like who?”

“Fair point… yes, there’s about seventy of us, fifty of which are recovering from very nearly deadly symptoms.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I stood. “That’s why you’re out hunting then? To help feed those sick people?”

He grimaced. “I’m not even sure I can feed myself at this rate.”

“I’ll help you however I can.” A thought struck me. “Hey, can you guys eat coconuts?”

“Huh?”

Ten minutes later, Galth was stuffing his face with the pulpy flesh of a coconut.

“I’ve never tasted anything so sweet in my life! I could eat this until the end of my days!”

“I’m glad someone likes it…” I muttered.

Galth turned his head. “What was that?”

“I said I’m glad you like it.” I half-lied. “Also, don’t eat too much of that stuff, we don’t know how it will affect you yet.”

“You’re right…” Galth carefully set down his coconut, grimacing as he pulled his fingers away. “I know you’re right…”

“Dude, for real? You’re acting like a kid who’s eaten sugar for the first time.”

He looked at me uncomprehendingly. “Thugar?” He mispronounced, the ‘sh’ sound clearly foreign to his mouth.

This wasn’t like the previous times when he used English words, this was him actually trying to say it verbatim. There had been something a bit off with the way he talked from the start, almost like he was being dubbed over, I hadn’t really been paying attention to it up until this point, because it didn’t feel important.

I started to wonder if that feeling that it wasn’t important was natural or not.

I filed that mystery away for later, when I had some time to sit and think.

For now, I had a much more pressing topic to discuss. “You’ve never had any sugar before now?”

“I’ve tasted sweet flavors before, but nothing nearly as strong as this… only the rich could afford such extravagant things as this.” He glanced at the coconut, before snapping his attention back to me. “That said, this is the first time I’ve heard the term ‘thugar’ used.”

“Remind me to never let you get a hold of chocolate then.”

He eyed me strangely. “No promises.”

I shrugged. A catastrophe for future Clarissa. “Either way, we should find somewhere to sleep pretty soon-" Suddenly, my stomach rumbled. “Oh right, I’m still starving to death.”

“Why don’t you-?”

I held up my hands to interrupt him. “I’ve had way too many coconuts, I can’t eat any more.”

Galth looked at me like I was crazy, but didn’t pursue it. “Well, I know for a fact that lots of people are going to eat the kukanuth-”

“Coconuts.” I corrected.

“Yes, that… we really need a name that’s easier to pronounce.” He shook his head as if to dislodge the intrusive topic. “As I was saying, I think it’ll be okay to share some of our food with you in exchange for the… uh… pulpy fruit things.”

I picked him up in a big hug. “You are officially my new favorite person.”

He shifted his body, allowing him to pop his head out with a gasp. “You have a funny way of showing it!”

I set him back down. “Sorry…”

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Yuluulth

I was sitting at probably the most awkward casual meetup I’ve ever been to.

Around the table were: Seliel, Vindicost, Jyn, our [Worldbinder]... or Hyun I suppose, Lviyr, and I.

The atmosphere was palpable, almost as if someone turned up the gravity.

If I knew how uncomfortable this was going to be, I never would have invited everyone to lunch so soon after making up with Jyn.

Vindicost, ever the oblivious to the interpersonal, was the first to break the silence. “So, how did everyone like the last round?”

“My Champion died in the first month.” Seliel answered bitterly.

Vindicost worked his mandibles for a moment. “Well, you made some interesting Nemeses right?”

Seliel swirled the liquid in the bottom of her glass. “More like ‘stupid’.”

“Come now, test1 was at least worth something right?” Vindicost ventured.

Seliel smiled, but before she could even say a single word, Hyun interrupted.

“No, both of you can chafe for putting me through that. Do you have any idea how many warning pop-ups I got because of that thing having so many separate bodies?” She sipped angrily on her drink.

“To be fair, it was pretty entertaining watching Andrew clean up that whole mess.” Lviyr added.

“If by ‘clean up’ you mean ‘make worse’. Did you see the monstrosity he made with that [Skill] I let him have?”

Lviyr laughed, but nobody else did.

Lviyr turned to us in surprise. “Did you all not see it yet?”

Each of us, other than Hyun of course, expressed we had not in one form or another.

Lviyr pulled out his communicator and sent us the video clip.

Over the next few minutes, we laughed until our sides hurt, even infecting Hyun with our contagious assortment of hearty giggles.

The conversation quickly devolved into an ‘Andrew’s Greatest Hits’ clipshow, which then became us just showing our favorite clips that we had saved from previous rounds.

By the time we were done, we were all out of breath from laughing so much and so hard.

After a moment, I lifted my glass. “You guys are my best friends, thanks for coming to hang around with me for a while.”

Lviyr clinked his glass against mine. “But of course.”

Jyn slammed his glass into mine, causing both to shatter. He was clearly about to say some witty one-liner, but instead what came out was: “Were the glasses here always so fragile?”

We all burst out laughing again.

I felt like a weight had finally been lifted from my shoulders at last.