Aura was at a complete loss for what to say to Ilian, let alone how to even speak with him at all after witnessing another truly terrifying ability of his. Instead of even making any attempt right then, she fled from the living room. The glass doors closed behind her mere seconds before Ilian stepped back through the steel doors and into the room again himself.
She moved down the hall with rushed steps and entered she and Adan's bedroom once more. Closing the door behind her and leaning back against it, her eyes moved to where Adan's gaze met hers, worriedly noting her agitation, as he always seemed to.
“God, is there more of them?” was his greeting.
“What?” she responded.
“Something's obviously got you rushing into the room, looking even paler than usual, somehow,” he added, his worry matching hers much more quickly than it ever used to. “Did more of his friends find this place... or something.”
“Now who's the one panicking at a moment's notice?” Aura attempted a smile, though it failed to come to life on her lips.
“I suppose we could blame it on the excruciating pain?” he offered, attempting another shrug, which in turn caused him to wince again, only proving the truth to the description of his continued physical state.
“Are you still insisting on just sticking with Ibuprofen, Adan?” she asked, worriedly biting her lip as she allowed a few steps toward the bed.
“You're deflecting,” he told her as he tried to bite back the remainder of the pain his slight movement had caused him.
“Please, Adan, if there were actually more of his... friends,” she shook her head and averted her eyes, “then don't you think that would have been the very first thing I said when I walked in?”
“So what is it then... whatever had you practically running into the room?”
Aura let out a shaky breath, her eyes briefly turning back toward the bedroom door before moving to take a seat at the foot of the bed with a soft sigh.
“He got rid of it.”
Adan took pause as he tried to process her brief explanation. “What did he get rid of... now?” he asked, the final word nearly a whisper.
Aura looked down quickly before responding, “It... Its body,” she clarified as she momentarily caught his gaze.
“Oh.” Adan looked as though he was also trying to find any further words. “Wait, he didn't go back out there did he? Is he OK?” he asked quickly.
Aura narrowed her eyes again before answering, “No, he didn't go back outside.”
“Then...?” he left his question there.
She shook her head, struggling to try to clarify exactly what she had just witnessed their shared lover doing moments earlier. “You really should take something other than Ibuprofen, Adan.”
Adan centered a skeptical look on her. “Why is this a hard question to answer, Aura? He didn't like... eat it or something, did he?” He hadn't meant the question seriously, but after it left his lips, he also paled a bit at the thought that such an outlandish thing may have actually happened. That would definitely have been disturbing enough to send her running from the room, after all.
“Adan!” she scolded with a grimace.
“What? These are aliens, we're talking about, aren't they?” he defended his theory, though weakly, as he hardly wanted it to be true either.
Aura just shook her head with defeat, looking away as she spoke, “No, he didn't eat the poisoned corpse of his former friend, or family, or lover, or whoever the hell it could have been, honestly,” she added, the thought just occurring to her. After all, this was one of his own people that he helped kill... for the two of them.
Adan sighed with a slight relief. He then couldn't help adding, “Well, knowing what we know about him, I think we can safely rule out the possibility that it was his former lover, at any rate.”
“Great. That makes everything better,” Aura mumbled as she moved to lay next to him, burying her face in the pillow.
Adan was only quiet a few more moments before having to continue, “So then... how...?”
Aura let out a groan of frustration which was muffled by the pillow her face was still buried in. She then flipped onto her back to coldly glare at the ceiling once more.
“Go ahead,” she told Adan with brevity, her tone a mix of that continued frustration and then regret upon noting another wince from him in response to the motion of the mattress beneath them.
“Ahead?” he asked, the pain he tried to mask in his voice making her wince as well at that slight amount of added discomfort she had caused him with her physical display of the frustration she was feeling.
“Tell me I'm being ridiculous. He nearly died for us. Killed his own kind for us. Risked his very life to go out there and help us, and to get me...” she left it there as she looked away guiltily. She rushed to speak again though, before Adan could question another of her unfinished sentences, “He's so obviously on our side here, right? This is all just me being... me,” she finished sadly.
“OK, but what exactly am I telling you you're being ridiculous about again?” Adan offered, though he did furrow his brow at that unfinished part of her sentence nonetheless.
Aura let out a heavy breath, “Just because he can do... insane things, that doesn't make him less on our side, right?” she shook her head at the mental spiral she had been letting herself succumb to as always.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Adan tried to force any of his own frustration from his tone, “So I'm guessing some other 'insane' thing happened yet again?”
With a sound of defeat, Aura answered his repeated attempts at getting her to clarify what had brought her to their room in such a state in the first place. “He disintegrated it; that thing's body.”
Adan raised a brow at her thoroughly unexpected answer, “And how did he do that, exactly?”
“Exactly,” she muttered under her breath. One glance back up at him and she knew her answer was still woefully inadequate. “He touched it, and it disintegrated.” Adan's eyes widened as he looked down at her. “And the worst part is, I don't know if it was his touch that made the thing just... turn to dust, or if that's just what their bodies do.”
Another moment passed before Adan offered any response, understandably, “Or if we should even still be using words like 'them' and 'us,' considering,” he added, though his voice was quiet, his eyes cast downwards in thought.
Aura's breath was shaky as she moved much more gently this time, to slide up to a sitting position against their headboard as well. “Meaning?” she asked him, her voice even more of a whisper than his own.
“Come on Aura. You heard him talk about the weapon that thing shot me with. And what it was supposed to do. Then look at the effect it actually did have on me instead,” he left the words there, as if that was all that needed to be said to make his earlier point.
Aura sighed, “Shouldn't you be happy it didn't have the effect it was supposed to though?”
“Of course. But at what cost? Why didn't it? I think we can both make a pretty good guess as to that answer by now, can't we?” he whispered, not able to move his eyes from where he watched closely for her reaction.
Another shaky breath before she responded a few moments later, “So you really do think he's... changed us?”
“Well, the fact that he was able to go out there with those death seeds of his and well, not die, I think is proof that we've changed him. Wouldn't if be willful ignorance to pretend he hasn't changed us as well?”
“So now we're all part us, part them? That's what you're really saying,” she stated the words softly, as more of a fact than a question though it seemed.
“As scary as that even is, it does also seem to mean that the three of us are likely the only people who could even survive out there at all. At least until the dark seeds overtake those blue ones.” Adan continued to study her face to gauge her feelings on the matter.
“And when that finally happens, assuming it actually does work that way, and we get the fairy tale ending where the humans can once again safely survive here, then the world will be full of the black mushrooms instead, right?” Aura asked as she gave him a worried glance.
“That's what Ilian seemed to imply would happen.”
“But then what does that mean in the long run? He's still only able to withstand the black toxins for so long, even with our DNA.”
“Maybe his resistance will get stronger in time. I mean, it did from the first test to the second, right?” Adan attempted a guess.
Aura scoffed slightly, “And we know how that happened.”
Adan looked down again, “I assume you have some thoughts on whether or not you want it to keep happening? With both of us? You know, when I might actually be able to move again, that is,” he added to attempt to lighten the weight of his actual question.
“You're asking how I feel about continuing an intimate relationship with an alien whose very touch can cause miscarriages and disintegrate other aliens' bodies?” she scoffed again at the absurdity of the question at all.
“Well, when you put it that way,” Adan mumbled. “But despite... that,” he settled on, “there are still some other worries in regards to that continuing too, aren't there?”
“Ah, you mean getting pregnant again?” Aura forced an obviously insincere smile.
“Pretty sure that was the main worry even when it was just you and I though, right?”
Aura scoffed, “Well, hey at least now I wouldn't have to worry whether it would be a human baby or a half-alien one. Only whether it's two-thirds human or two-thirds alien now instead, right?”
“Aura,” Adan scolded gently, knowing her well enough to know that there was a lot of terror hiding behind her sarcasm.
Aura sighed deeply once more, “That honestly won't matter now anyway.”
He narrowed his eyes before deciphering the comment the only way he thought to, “So I assume that means that you've already decided that you don't want to continue our... encounters, after all?” his voice broke slightly as he spoke.
She looked back at him quickly, a stammer in her voice, “That's not---”
“I get it,” Adan interrupted, unable to look back at her as he made himself continue. “If I was the girl in this situation, I'd be terrified out of my mind too. No one's gonna blame you for that, I promise,” he attempted to console.
“That's not what I--” Aura attempted to correct him again, though her words fell short, as they often did. She then decided it would be easier to show him rather than tell him. “Be right back.”
Adan looked more than a little apprehensive when she returned to the bedroom a moment later. Then he gave her a questioning look as he noted the bag in her hand.
“I figured out what took him so long to return,” Aura offered as she unzipped the bag and moved toward the bed again to show him the contents.
Adan reached to push open the bag with his good arm, taking more than a few moments to read over the boxes inside, swallowing hard as he did.
“That's what I meant when I said it wouldn't matter anymore.”
He let out another breath as he looked up at her again, “OK, assuming this stuff still does what it's supposed to...”
“Wait, why wouldn't it? It's only been a couple months since the world ended. Surely this stuff can't be expired yet.” She worriedly moved to take one of the boxes into her hand, searching for an expiration date.
“No, I mean because...”
“Because what?” Aura asked him worriedly.
“Well, I mean... things are different now.”
“What? What are you talking about, Adan?” she asked, pushing the bag aside to reclaim her seat on the bed.
“Well, we're different now... biologically speaking, aren't we?” he dared to state that worry out loud.
Though when he saw her panicked look, he immediately regretted sharing that fear with her at all. She already had enough fears of her own, the last thing he wanted was to add more. But the words were out now, and all he could do was wait for the fallout.