November 24th
Scarlett and I were sitting on her bed as Gruma sat down on a chair. The Taraxian looked at us and asked, “Do the two of you know why I wanted to meet you?” We shook our heads. Gruma looked at our stomachs and said, “It’s because the two of you haven’t been eating for the past week. Both of you seem to just be brooding in your rooms or crying together. I admit, I’m still shaken by Malgorth’s death. Harry and I sometimes continue to mourn him. However, life goes on, and I doubt he wanted you to suffer because of his death.”
“I don’t deserve food. If it wasn’t for my boneheaded decisions, he would be here!” I said as I looked at the floor.
Scarlett looked at the wall and said, “It should’ve been me. I was originally assigned for the task. It was only my ego that got me out of the death sentence. The worst part is that it wouldn’t have been since I wore two suits of armor and had psionic powers shield me from the shots.”
Gruma thought for a moment before saying, “Quentin, you said that your plan was to make everything in the ship flammable, correct?”
“Correct,” I answered.
“The only reason you and Scarlett weren’t caught in an inferno was due to your spacesuits, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Malgorth didn’t have one. If he took one of yours, then someone else would’ve died. Either way, one of us was going to die that day. If it wasn’t him, it would’ve been either you or Scarlett.”
I paused to think about what she said. She wasn’t very intelligent, but she did seem to be wise. What she said made sense. It reminded me about military operations. Sometimes soldiers would have to be sacrificed so the others would live. Without the sacrifice, more would die. However, it still weighed heavily. It was a wakeup call to plan better.
Gruma then looked at Scarlett and said, “Blaming yourself is pointless. Yes, you would’ve survived the onslaught, but Malgorth still would’ve died. I feel like he’d rather be shot to death than consumed by an inferno made by a friend.”
“But I’m a freak loved by no one. He had more of a chance than me,” my foxy girlfriend said as she hid her face in her hands.
“I love you,” I said as I hugged her. She stopped hiding her face to hug me back. Then to our surprise, Gruma came and hugged both of us.
“Scarlett, you are loved. Harry may not say it, but he sees you as a friend. Both of you lost your humanity at the hands of the Qarri. While he regained his, you haven’t. He is rooting for you to succeed. He even joked that he was looking forward to having two beautiful ladies on this ship,” Gruma said as she looked at the foxwoman.
“I’d already say that Scarlett is a beautiful woman. And a brave woman,” I said as I scratched the back of her ears. Instead of getting upset, she smiled. “When Malgorth got kidnapped, you wanted to immediately save him and anyone else who was enslaved by those slavers.”
“I couldn’t let them do to those children what they did to me,” she replied as she looked into my eyes. “Not just being turned into a freak, but also the fourteen years of slavery. Fourteen years I can’t take back. Middle school, high school, and college were experiences I never had. My family lost me, and that has to be as hard on them as it was for me.”
Gruma let go of us and clasped her hands. “There we go. You would’ve done the same thing if you were in his position.” She paused for a while before continuing, “It will take time for these wounds to heal. But talking it out will help. Remember, it wasn’t a mistake that he died. It was a sacrifice, one he willingly made. He’s a hero, not a victim.”
With the speech over, she walked out of the room, leaving us alone. Scarlett looked at me and said, “I’m going to take a nice, long bath. You can sit here, or you can leave. Your choice.”
“Now that you talk about it, I’m going to take a bath as well. It has been too long since I’ve done that,” I said as I got off the bed and went back to my room. In my self-loathing, I neglected my own hygiene. I was in the same pajamas that I changed into right after the funeral. It was a reminder of how I hadn’t moved on.
As I filled up the tub, I glanced at the mirror and saw how dirty I looked. I grimaced, but knew it was my own fault that it happened.
Once I finished my bath, I threw on a T-shirt and shorts before walking into the hallway. As I did, two boys almost ran into me. Right before they did, they slid to a stop and gasped. I crossed my arms and said, “If you want to run around like maniacs, you need to go to the ballroom. Here, follow me.” I walked into the living room, both following me.
As I entered the living room, I could see several other children roughhousing. I was pretty sure two eight-year-old boys were seriously fighting each other. As such, I walked up to that pair and asked, “What’s going on here?” I glared down at them and scowled. The fight immediately broke up.
One of the boys pointed to the other and cried, “He started it!”
The other one pointed back and cried, “Nuh uh! He stole my ice cream and called me a poopyhead!” I pinched the bridge of my nose as I listened to it. I forgot how petty and stupid children could be. Sorry mom, but I’m afraid it’s going to be a while before I’ll recover from this and can deal with children. It may be ten years before you’ll be a grandma.
I pointed at the one who first complained, a boy in a blue shirt, and said, “Stealing people’s stuff and calling them names is rude and wrong. What would you do if he stole your ice cream and called you a poopyhead?”
“I’d punch him!” the blue shirt kid shouted.
“If you don’t like it, why do you do it to others? When you steal things from people and call them names, they get mad. Furthermore, stealing is a crime. When you become an adult, you can be put in a very long timeout. You know what that timeout is called?” I replied, earning a headshake in response. I answered for him, “Prison.”
I then looked at the other boy, who wore a red shirt, and said, “As for you, why did you punch him?”
“He made me angry! It was my ice cream!”
“What he did was wrong, I agree. However, you can’t resolve all your issues with violence. In a civilized society, the correct answer is to tell the authorities about it. Taking justice into your own hands often has drastic consequences. What if you knocked him down and he never got up?” I said.
“You mean if I killed him?” the red shirt boy asked as he looked terrified. It seemed they already knew about the concept of death.
“Yes,” I bluntly replied. I let it soak in so he could understand the risks. Once he was sufficiently scared, I added, “You probably weren’t going to kill him, but that’s always a risk. One wrong hit to the head is all it takes. But let’s say you didn’t kill him. Which is what would probably happen. You still showed you were no better than him. No one likes a thief, but people fear a violent person. Especially someone who’s willing to beat someone to a pulp for stealing an ice cream cone and calling him a stupid name.”
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“Sorry, dad,” the red shirt boy replied before quickly covering his mouth. Without my input, several children turned around and laughed at him. Typical children. It was also something that put a smile to my face. Even through tragedy, life continued. It would be hard to forgive myself, but I needed to move on. It did no good to beat myself up. I knew that, but it was still difficult to implement.
“Dad? Quentin, it seems that you’re becoming quite the man,” Scarlett said as she walked into the living room. She had a weak smile on her face as she looked at me.
“Puppy!” several children shouted as they ran up to her. As they approached, they tried to pet her exposed fur wherever they could find it. Her ears pinned against her head as she looked at me with an uncomfortable face.
After sending the fighting boys to timeout, I clapped my hands in front of all the children. “Who wants to watch a movie? Our TVs have all the greats on them.” I walked over to a wall and pressed one of the buttons. The couches then rearranged themselves to give enough room for twelve adults, meaning there were enough seats for all the children. A massive TV descended from the ceiling.
“Everyone, tell Mr. Smith what you want to watch,” Scarlett said as she pointed to me. The children nodded their heads and ran over to me.
“I want to watch Perios!” “Zephyr Nebula!” “Danger Brothers!” The kids shouted, their voices overlapping each other. I didn’t recognize any of the movies, which gave me a good hint that none of these children were from Earth. As I was wondering how they understood English, I noticed that they were wearing necklaces. All of them were. I was going to assume they were universal translators since them coincidentally speaking English was too weird.
I plopped down on a sofa against an armrest before turning on the TV. I put on an old Disney movie. “We’re watching the Lion King. I know that’s a good movie,” I said before patting the seat next to me. Scarlett sat down next to me while children hopped onto the couches, with a little girl sitting next to my girlfriend.
“What is that?” the little girl asked as she pointed at a lion cub.
“That’s a lion cub. His name is Simba,” Scarlett said as she wrapped her tail around my waist.
“Can lions talk?” the little girl asked. I scrunched my face in confusion as it was an incredibly stupid question. Then it hit me. Her planet probably didn’t have lions. To her, they were as alien as Gruma.
“No, lions cannot talk,” I answered before taking my feet off the coffee table. “Ms. Campbell, can you take your feet off of the coffee table? We need to set a good example for the children.”
“Oh,” she replied before taking her feet off. “I’m sorry about that. Bad habit.” She started watching the movie intently until the little girl started petting her. She grabbed the girl’s wrist and said, “I don’t like being pet.”
“But you’re a dog! Dogs love being pet!” the little girl cried as she looked betrayed.
Scarlett sighed and pinched the bridge of her snout. “I’m not a dog. I was once a little girl like yourself until evil villains turned me into this creature,” she explained. “Long story short, being pet reminds me of all that I lost.”
“I’m sorry,” the little girl cried. Tears streamed down her face as she seemed very upset.
Scarlett placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder and said, “Don’t be too hard on yourself. It was an honest mistake.” Once the girl stopped crying, Mufasa died, making her resume her crying.
The rest of the movie went by in peace. Or at least as much peace that could be had when sixteen children, the two in timeout joined us, were talking over each other and asking several questions. After the movie was over, Scarlett baked three pepperoni pizzas, two for the children and one for us. While the children were full after two slices each, Scarlett and I pigged out, finishing our pizza.
Once dinner was done, we led the children to the bedrooms. Since there were only eight available rooms, two children were assigned per room. After they got into their rooms, I followed Scarlett into her room. I joined Scarlett in her daily nightly prayer. I wasn’t very religious, but I wanted to be there as a show of support.
When she finished, there was a knock on the door. She opened the door and I saw a six-year-old girl crying her eyes out. I walked up to my girlfriend as she asked, “What happened?”
“I had a nightmare, Ms. Campbell,” the girl cried. “I saw my mother get shot by several of the aliens.” She sniffled and added, “I miss mommy.”
“What do you want me to do? We don’t have any nightlights on this ship,” Scarlett replied as she crossed her arms.
“Can you read me a bedtime story? Mommy used to do that every night before she was shot,” the little girl said. My heart felt heavy as I understood what the child went through. It was a reminder of what this galaxy was filled with. Slavery, wars, and callousness. I looked back at the girl and nodded. She needed some sense of normalcy in her life.
We walked into her room and watched as she hopped into her bed and laid down. I browsed my SAD for any available stories while Scarlett grabbed chairs for us. I sat down next to her and whispered into her ear, “We’ll have to improvise.” A twitch of the ear informed me that she heard it.
Scarlett opened her SAD and started spinning a tale. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl. Her name was Lily. She had two loving parents and a dog. One day, a group of angels took her and ascended into the heavens.”
“What’s an angel?” the little girl asked.
I looked at her and answered, “Think human, except they have a pair of wings on their back and a halo.”
“Gross oversimplification and borderline parody, but I digress,” Scarlett replied before looking back at the girl. “These heavenly beings then revealed themselves to be aliens hoping to perfect her. The heavens were truly the cosmos. They experimented on her and changed her. They claimed they made her more beautiful. A perfect lifeform. But she couldn’t disagree more.”
“Did they make her prettier? Can that happen to me?” the little girl asked as she looked happy. It was the innocent thoughts of a child, and I couldn’t fault her for that.
Scarlett shook her head. “The aliens were very different from humans. Their idea of beautiful is different from yours. They made her look like a monster. While she was protected against an early death, she felt trapped in a body that wasn’t hers. She cried for the remaining years of her childhood, remembering the good times she had with her family.”
She looked at me before continuing, “She became a young woman, but didn’t feel like she deserved to live. She thought she was a mistake. Something to be put out of its misery. But then a handsome knight showed up and freed her. While she saw herself as hideous, he saw the humanity in her. He saw her as beautiful and got her to believe in herself. He made her sassy personality change from a coping mechanism to complementing her personality. She made him more charismatic and caring. They helped each other. And I’ll let you decide the ending. Do they get married and live happily ever after? Does she return to being normal, or does she accept what happened to her and embrace her identity?”
“That wasn’t a very good story, but thank you for trying,” the little girl said as she got underneath the blankets. She looked at Scarlett and asked, “Are you going to tuck me in and kiss me on the forehead?”
“I’m not related to you. It’d be weird for me to kiss you like your mother,” the foxwoman replied as she tucked the girl into bed. The girl gave her puppy eyes, making her relent. Scarlett leaned in and kissed the girl on the forehead. “Goodnight princess.”
“Goodnight mom,” the little girl said before falling asleep. Unlike the kids from earlier, there was no hint of embarrassment in her voice. She truly meant it.
We walked back into the hallway and closed the door. Scarlett looked at me and asked, “Mom? I’m only twenty-four! I want at least three more years of freedom before I become a mother! Besides, I wouldn’t be a good mother.”
“My love, you’d be a great mother,” I said before quickly adding, “but that’s far in the future. Whether we stay together or not, no one’s forcing you to get married and have children anytime soon. We live in the twenty-first century. A lot of couples decide to be childless for many reasons. Marriage is seen by some as a thing of the past.”
Scarlett looked me in the eyes and said, “The thing is, I intend to eventually get married and have children. It’s just that it’s too soon. These kids want to form bonds with us, but we need to drop them off somewhere. Who know if the Qarri will attack us again? With Malgorth’s death, I fear that those children will be in danger. What if we’re attacked on this ship? They could be killed in the crossfire.”
I scratched the underside of her muzzle and said, “Don’t worry. We’ll keep them safe. Malgorth’s death will not be in vain! I’m willing to lay down my life to make sure they’re safe!”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” she replied before hugging me tightly. She nuzzled my head. “Quentin, you need to live! There are people waiting for you! We need to promise to survive this journey together. For our sakes and those who love us.”
“I promise. I’ll bring you back to Earth and get your family to accept you,” I said with resolution as I hugged her back.
Whatever happened, we needed to stay alive. Not for ourselves, but for those who cared for us. Scarlett needed to meet her family again and I was going to make sure that reunion happened!