“Any meanin’ for dis one, den?”
I close my eyes, and try not to grit my teeth as the needle buzzes across my ribs. I’m used to the pain, at this point -- this isn’t exactly my first tattoo -- but that first contact always stings. I take a deep breath, doing my best not to show my initial jolt of discomfort. “Eh, butterfly’s overdone, you know?”
“Ahhh, but you still need to show transformation, yeah?”
My eyes flutter open to the sight of Kale’s grinning face, three-hundred pounds of tattooed hawaiian leering down at me as he starts to scribe my most recent ink. I let my breathing steady, and become one with the searing hum traveling throughout my body.
“Yeah, I guess. I always told myself I’d get it when the time was right,” I pause, hissing inward through my teeth, then relax. “Guess the time was finally right.” I don’t look down, but I know what Kale’s drawing -- an Atlas Moth, wings stretched across my left side. It’ll be a while before he’s done, but I have no plans to throw in the towel.
A few moments of silence pass, and Kale takes it upon himself to try to distract me with conversation, though remaining intent on perfecting the image on my skin. “How’s de whole job kine goin’, eh? Still tryin’ for engineer?”
“About the only thing I’m qualified for,” I try not to let Kale see me wince. “You know how it goes, though. Jobs are hard enough to get already -- and I have plenty of other reasons not to get hired.”
“What you mean, da 'Rona kine and all dat? Ya ain’t even chinese.”
“Try telling them that,” I grunt. “So basically I’m just hoping unemployment holds out.”
“Well, you start selling feet pics or somethin’, you know my numbah,” Kale chuckles. I’d smack him, but don’t wanna fuck up the tattoo. Like it or not, I’m at his mercy for the moment. Another short silence follows, and Kale pauses, washing off his face and reevaluating the current state of my tattoo. “So, uh... how’s everythin’ else goin’? Boyfrien? Girlfrien?”
“Nah, nothing like that,” I shrug, still holding my shirt up over my barely-existent chest as I wait for him to inevitably continue. “Just... still figuring myself out, I guess. With the hormones and everything, so much of what I feel’s been changing, and I just don’t wanna subject anyone else to going through that with me.”
“Reasonable,” he muses, taking a swig of water before returning to work on my already-raw skin. I wince and suck in a sharp breath. “Don’t mean to pry or nothin’. I know you’re goin’ through shit, just hangin’.”
“Nah, you’re good, Kal,” I sigh, letting my eyes drift shut again. “Just wish I had better news, I guess.” I inhale very slowly, predictably, keeping the rhythm of my chest easy and shallow so that Kale doesn’t fuck the tattoo up. Honestly, things have been better, but they’ve definitely been worse, too. Being unemployed has given me a chance to catch up on movies, painting models, stupid shit like that.
What I told him’s a lie, though. Yeah, a part of me doesn’t want anyone else around -- wants to just wallow in my own boredom and self-pity -- but every other part of me screams for companionship. Just to have someone else around, someone with me, someone I can share my feelings with. I don’t expect to find anyone like that anytime soon... especially when I’m not looking.
I keep my eyes closed, and stay silent for the rest of the tattoo, doing my best to remember what little I retained about meditation from my parents. Just try to make my way through it. Just vibe ‘til it’s done.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
With my midsection wrapped in plastic bandages, I finally pay Kale and leave the tattoo parlor, hopping onto my skateboard and cruising down barren sidewalks as evening makes its way to the rich velvet azure of dusk. I pop my earbuds in and let them pour a lo-fi punk remix into my brain, keeping my mind twitching with activity but, at once, focused. It’s odd, this feeling of having nowhere to be, nowhere to go. I could go home, sure -- probably will. But nobody will miss me if I go the opposite direction, ride along the sidewalk until something stops me, ‘til night swallows everything and I’m just flying through the dark. I’m tempted to.
I ride around town a little, the grungy little neighborhood of Marion, cross between pitiful suburb and shitty city. Still home, though, I guess. Grew up here, went to school here. Made a lot of friends, lost most of them when I came out. I skate past the CD store and the cheesesteak place, both of them closed now as the gloom of night begins to swallow any trace of human activity. They roll up the sidewalks after 9pm, they say. It’s pretty fuckin’ close to true.
Course-correcting from my way home, I start speeding towards the 24-hour gas station not far from my place -- figure I’ll pick up some beer or something so I can be a shut-in in style. Through the music bleeding from my earbuds, though, I barely notice the sound coming from above me, and it’s only when the eerie blue light reflects across my eyes that I notice what’s in the sky. A streak of brightness, like a black spot beaming out a trail of shimmering cerulean, speeding through the deepening blackness of the night sky. I slow, and brake, looking up at it. I consider making a wish, but don’t. That shit never did much for me. As I stare at it, though, I notice how long it’s remaining in the sky... and how much larger it’s growing.
Blinking, I tilt my board and turn to follow it with my gaze. It’s not a shooting star, I don’t think. It’s... it’s getting closer. Much closer. Planting my foot back beneath me, I kick off and start speeding back in the direction I’d been going before, following the shooting star with my eyes, trying to trace its direction. There’s no way it’s gonna land here, in this shithole town, in my little shithole town. Nothing interesting’s ever happened in Marion, not since it was founded... but if something does, I’m sure as fuck gonna be the first person to discover it.
As I chase the streak of cosmic light, its destination becomes more and more clear: it is coming towards the planet, and it is coming right to this town. Even more specifically, it seems to be headed to my neighborhood. I pump my leg beneath me harder, faster, shooting forward on my skateboard up and down short hills, past Ms. Harris’s tulip garden and closer to my own home. The light goes out, and I find myself in darkness once again, my path lit only dimly by the streetlights and soft glow coming from the windows of peoples’ homes. Did I lose the streak? Or... imagine it? It seemed so close, yet....
Breathing heavily, I halt my skateboard and grab it, scooting through the busted gate towards my house (piece of shit doesn’t quite close, doesn’t quite open either). The light’s gone, but as I make my way through my shoddily-upkept backyard I see a strange glow, that eerie blue now diffused with a haze of other colors, like this dark rainbow flickering in and out of the blue light. My heart races in my chest as I move closer to the glow, pulsing gently next to my grandpa’s old toolshed, like this shapeless node of gloomy light that’s now, with each passing moment of trepidation, beginning to fade.
My mind’s speeding along as quickly as my heart now, trying to think of what this could be. Is it just some kind of semi-solid wad of space-radiation that decided to crash in my backyard? A meteorite that I can’t make out the shape of? Fuck, maybe I can sell it -- that’d take care of my financial problems for a bit, I bet Kale knows a guy who can buy a meteorite. Or it’ll just give me fuckin’ cancer or something, that’d be my luck.
As I stare at it, though, the glow fades enough that I can make out the shape of a solid object, about the size of a small Volkswagen bug, though it doesn’t appear to have made any kind of impact crater. Semi-spherical, more ovoid than anything else. Smooth, kinda translucent, like smoke-stained glass. I set the board down and look around, behind me, checking to see if anyone else has noticed the falling light and come to investigate it like I did. Seeing nobody, I slowly move closer, investigating it in the dim illumination. Cautiously, I touch one hand to the thing, expecting it to be hot, but find it cool to the touch, smooth, like glass or porcelain. “What the fuck....”
As if in response to my words, or maybe my touch, I feel the thing click and shift, and a hissing sound escapes it, prompting me to back up a couple steps, eyeing it warily. The smokey shape cracks and splits, a segment of it lifting away as if on a hinge, and suddenly the nature of this weird object becomes much more clear -- it’s a capsule, some kind of... some kind of spaceship. What I really have to worry about is what’s inside.
Or, I guess I should say, who’s inside.
It’s a girl. Not... human, or anything close to it, but definitely a girl. It’s difficult to make out many details in the dark, but I can see a purplish tinge to her skin, and two short, straight horns jutting up from her temples, behind which is a dark mass of what I assume is hair. The only clothing I can make out is a bodysuit made of a smooth, skintight fabric, looking almost like endless network of tessellating seven-pointed stars.
“Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh...” I whisper under my breath, but fall silent when I see her eyelids twitch -- through from the top of her eye, rather than the bottom -- and then recede downward to reveal glistening black orbs. Grogginess turns to surprise, then curiosity, then suspicion, and at least she speaks.
“Yahat daay?” she exclaims, her eyes widening as she sits up in the capsule, revealing a small, cushioned seat beneath it. Glittering against the moonlight, I can make out more detail in her eyes as my own adjust to the dim light -- they sparkle like jewels because they’re compound, made up of little onyxes the size of Dippin’ Dots.
“Hey, hey, you’re good, you’re...” fuck, what do I say. How do I deal with this. What do I do? My brain screams at me from within my skull, telling me one single thing without giving any hint of a solution.
Shes’s a fucking alien.
I take a step back and search my own thoughts, hoping the girl’s disoriented enough to give me time to think. What if she’s dangerous? What if she’s, like... toxic? Like, not just individually dangerous, but what if she’s carrying diseases that humans can’t survive? What if I’m already infected? What the fuck do I do?
“You’re just... it’s all good, let’s just, um... oh, fuck...” I swallow hard, blinking my eyes. My mind changes gears out of raw necessity -- from the long term, to the short. I need to get her inside before someone sees her, and before... I dunno, before she does something. I reach out hesitantly in an attempt to take her hand, and am surprised when she cautiously reaches out to accept. Her hand has only three fingers, but a human-like thumb, making her grasp seem just slightly unnatural (perhaps the worst kind). I clutch her wrist and pull her out of the pod, to her feet, and while I’d like to take a better look at her, the dim light mostly prevents it.
“Aanocos u neeklah?” she chirps pleasantly as I lead her through the yard to the back door, ushering her carefully inside and flicking on the light. She winces, her eyes taking a moment longer to adjust than mine do, and I finally get my first chance to look at her. Her skin is a shade of pale lavender, and what, behind her horns, had appeared to be hair becomes so much more clear -- slim tendrils of unwavering flesh, about as thick as a pencil or marker, trail down to her shoulders. From her scalp they mimic her light bluish-purple skin tone, but fade quickly to midnight, then black, descending to what I believe to be just above her shoulderblades and spilling lightly along her slender shoulders. Her eyes, indeed, are compound and black, her figure slim but womanly, and everything about her is just slightly... off.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
I breathe in deeply, not noticing how much I’m shaking, and take the few steps necessary to reach the dining room, sitting down and turning my gaze back to her. I try to take more of her in, and it seems each repeated glance yields a new discovery. Swaying loosely behind her is a long, thin tail, not unlike that of a manta ray, and my limited knowledge of animal biology tells me that her feet are anisodactyl -- three forward-facing toes, one facing back for balance. They are both unclad and unclawed.
“You’re...” I breathe in deeply, my eyes blinking, then remaining shut as I wonder whether she’ll vanish if I can force myself to awaken from whatever wild dream I’ve been cast into. “What do I do with you. Okay, you’re...” I open my eyes, she’s still there. Eeeaaaauugghh.
She emits a soft sound, almost like a trill or the purr of a cat, and drops to her knees so that we’re still at eye-level. “Ahsia aaw ugyacagam,” she says, tilting her head and looking up at me, her scintillating eyes narrowing just a bit. As she speaks, I get a glimpse of her teeth -- rows of short, sharp fangs, so neatly interlocked as to be not entirely dissimilar to human teeth. Just... way scarier, obviously. On account of the sharpness. “Yahat daay?”
Okay, so, obviously, I have no idea what she’s saying. I do, however, pride myself on recognizing patterns, and that includes languages -- she’s repeated herself from what she said what she first met. Considering her almost conversational, introductory tone, I try to think of what questions would be obvious to ask when arriving on... a distant planet. Fuck, it sounds insane even to think. What would she ask? ‘Where am I?’ ‘What are you?’ ‘Who are you?’ ‘Where the fuck is my money?’ I discard the last one as unlikely. “I’m human,” I say. “Hyuuuuuu-man.”
“Hyuumin,” she smiles softly, showing off those teeth again. She looks equally pleased to be making progress and uncomfortable regarding her admittedly precarious situation. If I feel uncomfortable on my own planet, I can only imagine how she must feel... provided she isn’t some kind of psychotic alien world-conqueror. Which I really hope she isn’t. She touches a hand gently to her own chest, nodding to me. “Ahsia.”
Shit. I’m not sure if she means her people, or her. I point to her, then to the sky she bolted down from. “Ahsia?” I try to mimic, though it doesn’t sound quite the same as when she says it. Some slight lilt, or roll, a tumbling of syllables I find untumblable.
She narrows her eyes a moment, following my finger, then traces my direction with her own index. “Aksoob,” she says, then looks back to me. Bringing her finger to herself, she repeats her first greeting. “Ahsia.”
Will it sound insane if I’m finding this... sort of fun? It’s terrifying, sure. Stressful, bizarre, maybe still a dream. But at the same time, this is kind of... awesome. This is an alien, a real fucking alien, and a pretty cute one at that. For a lot of people this is a dream come true, though I doubt they’ve ever had to worry about forming a basic communication... or, much worse, trying to figure out what to do with this alien.
“Do you... want some food, or something? Err, wait a sec,” I hold up one finger, gesturing for her to wait, though she seems confused by it. Making my way to the kitchen, I rummage around for the most agreeable thing I can find. By the looks of her fangs, I make the risky assumption that she’s a meat-eater, and pull a drumstick of fried chicken out of the fridge, making my way back to the living room where I left her.
I see her staring daggers at Bastard, my cat -- the smokey-gray fluffball staring back and emitting low, threatening growls. I watch for a moment, seeing Bastard lower himself into a defensive crouch, his tail lashing, and Ahsia (I think that’s new name) begins to quietly growl back. Better interfere with this before something bad happens. “I brought you something to eat... Ahsia? That’s your name, right?”
At the sound of my voice, the purple-skinned girl’s scintillating black eyes flick back to look at me, and she tilts her head to the side to regard me. That unreadable gaze goes from my face to the piece of chicken I’m holding, and she gasps lightly. “Gaagid?” she chirps pleasantly, forgetting about Bastard for the moment and cautiously approaching, one three-fingered hand outstretched.
“Chicken,” I point to the cold, club-shaped segment of fried poultry, “fried chicken.”
“Fraid tsi’ken,” she looks back up to me, but her hand doesn’t stop snaking outward. I hold it out a little more, making it as clear as possible that it’s for her. Narrowing her eyes, she snatches it away in a single fluid motion, backing up a few steps before stuffing the end of it (the wrong end, at that) into her mouth. I wince as I hear a crunch.
“You’re, ah... you’re not supposed to eat the--”
Another crunch, and another, and Ahsia’s eyes lighten with joy. Looking back to me, she offers a wide, fanged smile, a soft squeak of delight escaping her as she wipes the grease from her mouth. “Tsi’ken!”
Whew, at least she liked that. Hoping she isn’t anything like the aliens from Signs, I return to the kitchen to pour her a glass of water, handing her that and seeing if she’s interested. “Water? You thirsty?”
She looks at the glass with a blank expression, then points one finger towards the fridge. “Tsi’ken? Fraid tsi’ken nadab?” I really need to be writing down everything she says if I’m gonna try to figure her language out, but I’ll get to that another time. For the moment, though, I nod.
“Yeah, sure. More chicken.” Returning to the fridge, I just pull the whole box of leftovers out -- there’s not a ton left, but I manage to scrounge up a to-go container of mashed potatoes, a few more pieces of chicken, some leftover eggplant parm, and a pudding cup. Maybe this will give me some sort of idea as to what, exactly, she eats.
Putting whatever I can onto a plate, I bring it out to Ahsia, setting it cautiously in front of her. I can tell we still need some time to get used to each other, but I take a small amount of solace in the fact that she seems as afraid of me as I do of her. She hasn’t made any aggressive actions to speak of, either... though being able to bite clean through bone is admittedly a little troubling.
I try to give the simplest possible name to each item (“potatoes,” “eggplant,” “pudding”) and watch carefully as she sorts through them. The potatoes she seems okay with, if not as enthusiastic as the chicken, and she makes a face at the eggplant before peeling the cheese off and just eating that. The winner of the evening, though, is pudding. Nobody can resist chocolate pudding.
“Pooding!” she gasps. “Pooding, ahh, pooding nadab? Naldaf?” She points back to the fridge. “Pooding nadab?”
More. Nadab means more! Hah! I’m starting to get it! “No more pudding,” I hold up both empty hands, and shake my head. She studies my expression for a moment, but the look of disappointment on her face tells me she’s getting the idea. Ahsia lets out a soft, high-pitched sigh, whether out of annoyance or contentment is difficult to exactly say.
“Ahsia,” she says her own name again, putting a hand to her chest to cement the concept before gently placing the same hand to mine. The contact is a little startling, but she doesn’t seem to mean any ill will. Her hand’s cool to the touch. “Yahat daay?”
“My name’s Min, Min Molina,” I say, then quickly rethink giving any but the simplest of introductions. “Min,” I repeat, placing my hand gently overtop of hers. “Min.”
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
My thoughts on where, how, and if Ahsia will eventually go to sleep are put to rest (pun tragically intended) when the alien girl curls up on my couch, one hand on her filled belly, and drifts off. The sound of soft trills that I can only liken to snoring gradually drift through the air, and for a long moment I find myself just watching her. Thinking. Trying not to admire the way her tail curls around her body like that of a cat, or the way her toes scrunch up into blunt talons.
As scary as she -- as this whole situation -- is, the thought of how cute she is continues to revisit my thoughts. In more ways than one, too. While her chirping language and odd behavior have considerable charm, not to mention the fact that she’s a fucking alien, she’s also a girl. A girl with some really odd physical and social characteristics, sure. But as I study her from the safety of the sofa I can’t help but notice, again and again, the sleekness of her long legs, the tight curves of her slender figure. The exotic angles of her heart-shaped face, seemingly structured around those oversized eyes. Even the way those scalp-tendrils cascade around her shoulders while she sleeps is not so aesthetically dissimilar to hair.
I inhale through my nose and finally stand up, being as quiet as I can so as not to wake her. Bastard’s nowhere to be seen, probably hiding beneath my bed, the fuzzy, cowardly derp. I have so much to think about, now, so much to worry about. I’m just glad this happened at a time in my life when I don’t have much else going on.
Discarding my clothes on the way to the bathroom, I hop into the shower, turning the water as hot as I can possibly stand it. Getting past the first few gasps of “Oohh, hah! Hah! Fuck!” I manage to acclimate and relax, not bothering to wash my hair.
Who in the world do I tell about this? About Ahsia, and the... what did she say her people were called? Aksoob? Is that her species, or her planet? Or... space station? Fuck, I have no clue.
Kale will think I’m joking no matter what I tell him. He’ll be cool about it, he’ll laugh and everything. But not for one second will he unironically believe that an alien girl crash-landed in my backyard and ate all my fried chicken. I’d be shocked if either of my parents actually answered the phone. No co-workers. None of my friends are really more than acquaintances. Ms. Carico, my old science teacher? Maybe I can try to bring up the subject subtly? What even would I say?
When I finally finish my shower and topple into bed, my mind’s still going a mile a second, but not coming up with anything new. I’m just spinning my mental wheels, going over the same thoughts and questions over and over again. The only thing that brings any amount of comfort is when I think back to Ahsia’s smile, to her squeal of delight when introduced to chocolate for what I assume is the first time. It was like watching an otter be tossed into a river for the first time: pure, innocent bliss. Seeing her happy made me happy too. Happier than I’ve been in a long time.
With that thought last in my head, I drift to sleep, and hope Ahsia doesn’t wake up before I do. It seems really, really unlikely.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
I awaken to the sound of a shriek, and shattered glass. My eyes shoot open, and I throw on my nightshirt as quickly as possible, rushing from my bedroom to the living room, unsure of what I’ll find. “It’s okay!” I shout as I rush through the hall. “It’s okay, she’s with me, she’s fine!” I don’t know what’s happening, but I can only assume someone traced her here. Maybe... oh fuck, the pod outside, someone saw it and barged in, and--
On top of the kitchen counter, his tail standing straight-up and his fluff all a-floof, is Bastard, several broken cups on the tile floor beneath him. The fat gray orb is letting out low, staccato growls like trying to rev up a chainsaw that’s out of gas, his wide-set green eyes staring dead-on at none other than Ahsia. What draws a chuckle from me, though, is how much her posture matches the cat’s -- stance wide and horned head low, her tail lashes slowly from side to side, her fingers tightened into hook-like gestures, for what kind of attack I don’t want to see or learn about. She, too, is growling, though her voice is several octaves higher.
“Ahsia!” I shout. It gets the alien’s attention, an opportunity Bastard seizes to scramble from the countertop and down the hall like a fluffy nine-pound bullet into my room. Ahsia’s eyes trace the cat’s movements, and her posture finally relaxes, her gaze turning fully to me. Sheepishly, she points to the refrigerator.
“Tsi’ken,” she says under her breath. “Orij am tsi’ken nadab.”
Whew. Okay. This could have been a way worse disaster to wake up to. Bastard’s been known to come running when he hears footsteps in the kitchen... looks like he caught our guest snooping and they had a little ‘misunderstanding.’ Unfortunately, it does look like I have a very hungry alien on my hands, and since I’m out of leftovers, it means either leaving her alone in the house, or bringing her with me.
With my options on the table, the former, however distasteful, is quite obviously the only acceptable choice. Shit. “Okay, um... alright. You?” I point to her, then to the floor beneath me. “Stay here, okay?”
“Ahsia. Heer?” She points at the floor, mimicking me.
“Yes, yes. And I--” I put a hand to my chest, the same way she introduced herself last night. “Will go--” I point out the window, hoping she gets the point, “--and get more chicken. Chicken nadab, okay?”
That smile again. Her predator’s maw alights with joy, and I hope -- God I fucking hope -- that she understands.
“Min,” she points out the window, “go.”
“And, um...” I think for a moment, gesturing down the hall and mocking a feline hiss. “That’s Bastard. Be nice to Bastard.”
“Bass’terd,” she growls, her eyes narrowing again, but she finally moves back to the couch and sits, her tail curling around her again to form a little nest. “Ahsia, heer.”
Confident that I’ve gotten the point across as well as I’m able to, I nod to her, get dressed, and walk out the door, locking it carefully behind me -- as much to keep Ahsia in as anyone else out. I pause on my way to grab my skateboard, noticing the pod that Ahsia came here in. While I seriously doubt I can move it, it can’t stay where it is... or at least, not how it is. Ducking into my grandpa’s toolshed, I manage to scrounge up a tattered blue tarp and toss it over the shuttle, weighing it down with stray cinderblocks and hoping nobody gets too nosy. Taking a deep breath, I hop into my board and scoot out the gate, out onto the sidewalk heading into Marion.
My shopping list is short -- fried chicken, and whatever I can find with chocolate in it. I still haven’t seen her drink anything, which is worrisome, so maybe I’ll pick up some milk or something. All I know is that for the immediate future, my life’s gonna revolve around keeping this alien girl happy, and forming as much of a basis of communication with her as I possibly can until I can figure out what to do with her.
Somehow, it doesn’t sound that bad. As I speed down the rolling hills of my hometown, the world -- the universe -- feels so much bigger than it ever has. I feel... excited.