“Ahh.. It’s good to be free.” He exclaimed and put his fists up in the air. He stretched his back and craned his neck up as well. He took a deep breath, and his lungs filled up with air so fresh and heavy it made his nose sting and his eyes tear up. He’d never tasted air so delicious before.

Then, as if it took courage, he opened his eyes, and feasted upon the view before him. The Sky, a blue so light it made him want to fly, with clouds so fluffy he could sleep and munch on them both. The Sun was yellow and hot like fresh baked custard pie. The breeze was clean and it ran over his hair to refresh his scalp, sending locks of light brown hair dancing. The trees were tall and green, of all shapes and sizes, and their barks came in all colors and forms.

On their branches there were little critters, chirping birds, slow moving bugs, little butterflies and bees, beetles and squirrels climbed up and down, the former slow, the latter quick as lightning.

Every now and again Myron would spot a Nest under the roots of a big tree, or up on its branches, some times right inside large cavities within these grandfather trees that could be oaks but could be anything else as well. Myron hadn’t really seen a tree in his life. Or at least, in recent memory. And even then, the wilderness of this forest was nothing like the curated viewing experience he had had with his parents as part of a package deal on some vacation.

Back when they were both alive.

The sound of streams gurgling down rocky beds amidst roots, came with the call of frogs, and it made Myron want to skip down the forest like a kid from a fairytale, maybe find a horse and ride off to the horizon.

“As if. I don’t know how to ride anyhow. I could never.” He mumbled yet scanned the area around him hoping for a horse to be there. “Huh.” He exclaimed as his eyes landed on something. “Not a horse. Really…. But even better. An Alien.” He whispered to himself in sheer awe, stretching out his last word for emphasis.

A woman was there, laying on the floor with hot green blood leaking from her belly. She was alien yet humanoid enough to be alluring, if it weren’t for the massive amounts of blood smeared over her, and pooling below her writhing form on the forest floor. Silver hair, chitinous protrusions at her shoulders, eyes like those of a fly but green.

“Bond with me.” She rasped out and reached for him with her hand, at the other side of her palm, scale like armor formed and rose up her wrist, like the tail end of a fierce-fantasy gauntlet.

Myron pondered over her words for a few precious moments and then walked up close. She looked dangerous. Yet Myron was in a mood. He didn’t feel any short of apprehension, the only reason he took his time was because her request caught him off guard.

“You see, today I quit my job. It was a tough decision. One that I’ve been told to never make my whole life. I was ‘lucky’ to get it in the first place you see.” He said as he sat down. He waited for a bit but seeing as there was no massive reaction to his bombshell of a statement he continued. “It’s a big thing where I’m from. I’ve rarely seen it done, and it really pushed against the social norms of my society.” He continued. “What do your people feel about their jobs?” He asked and waited but got no answer.

He waited a bit more, cocked his head to one side and then to the other with pursed lips.

“How am I to bond with you if you don’t respond or react a little?” He wagged his finger at the dying alien and tapped his leg in impatience. She frowned, then frowned some more.

“Are you mocking me? Clearly that is not what I meant.” She frowned.

“I’m not! Also, how should know I know what you mean? How are we even speaking the same language? The word ‘Bond’ could have an infinite variation of meanings in your tongue. Like James!” She raised her brows and seemed utterly confused. So he coughed into his fist and continued.

“I just, thought that you wanted someone to talk to before you, died. Some company to bond with, to not be alone in your last. I’m not soulless enough to deny one, their final wish, even if they are a strange alien with… Knife hands that are also actual hands, but you can of course change between the two forms casually, and can also fillet a tuna with that thing, one of this blue fin monstrosities near Japan. Awesome.”

Myron couldn’t help his mutterings. The woman before him, as clearly non-human as she was, had a beauty that was simply out of any world. Straight nose and sharp brows furrowed into lines, pale skin like snow, with a hint of green on it. High cheekbones with a dusting of silver on them as if she wore makeup. An oval face and silver hair that was as straight and flowing as freshly spun silk. She also wore… suggestive clothes that freed her body and showed off her curves… and two large gashes, gaping wounds, on both her forearms leaking green blood incessantly, as well as a deep puncture wound in one of her thighs.

“Where did you come from? How did you appear in this forest?”

“Through a Gate. A big Purple gate that destroyed half of my city and killed a million people.” Myron nodded.

“And you don’t have Aimon over there? Or Aether? Or the System?”

“We have none of those indeed. Though we fantasize about such things a lot… Well, not Aimon exactly. I don’t know what you are.”

She reached out suddenly, grimacing at all the pain that wracked her as she grabbed onto his wrist. He pulled away on reflex but didn’t budge a bit. As if heavy chains tied to a mountain had already drawn taught. He couldn’t move a centimeter more, there was no slack to give.

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“Let go of me! Are you going to kill me? To hide your secrets!?” He shouted half heartedly, as he didn’t sense any threat to his being, but felt just a tad angry that his freedom was restricted so literally right after escaping from his previous prison.

“P…Pl… Please, Human.” Visible disgust dripped from her mouth like spit as she uttered the word, ‘please’. “Save me. I don’t want the fate that awaits me. It can’t end right now... Bond with me. I’ll show you how.”

“Fine. I get it. Operation save the pretty bleeding alien girl is a go.” He said for his own enjoyment and his focus sharpened.

She bit her lip but stopped before she added to her worsening condition, and let those doubts and worries go. She looked into his eyes.

“Come here, closer. Lay down with me.” She said, softly, slowly. Blood still leaked from her wounds by the second, her face grew more pale at a visible rate.

Myron did as asked, he placed himself on a bed of moss and grass, with his head resting like her own, on the root of a tree that ran into the clearing the two had found themselves. She placed, with more than a bit of struggle, her hand over his heart, and he copied her to do the same. He could feel it galloping wildly, a train without breaks and without a driver. She was going at full speed, rushing head first into her death. Blood pulled out of her by its withered hands.

“Focus.” She told him.

Myron took a deep breath and felt himself truly calm. He opened his eyes and nothing fazed him.

“You’re new to this world, to this whole thing. I want you to open yourself up, your mind, your soul, as much as you can. Humans… always find this hard and thus have discovered other ways to bond with Aimon. But we have only ourselves. So I’ll lay myself bare, too bare in fact, so you should be slow and take care.” She said and breath left her body. Her eyes, pure emerald grids like the eyes of a fly, rolled into her skull leaving even more of that shining emerald to take its place.

Myron breathed out as well. He let his forehead touch her head, almost leaning on her. He breathed in softly and exhaled heavily. His vision blurred a bit. He saw his hand, literally, be taken into her chest and the world begun to fade around him.

He opened his eyes again standing within a bubble of light blue and gray, and white energy, which floated in nothingness. Just himself, his bubble, and absolute darkness, abyss without light or substance, infinite expanse of nil.

Yet faintly, he knew, there, where his eyes were locked, across a horizon that didn’t exist, hidden behind the curvature of the abyss, of which there was none, Syl stood in a bubble of her own. Their two souls and their personalities given form as avatars. So he pushed at the walls of his Soul and it rolled forward.

He pushed again, and again, and like a little hamster on his wheel he toiled to advance.

Before long the flat terrain of the abyss turned steeper and Myron had to push against the force pulling him back down just to stay in the same spot, constantly turning. He grit his teeth and gathered himself with a deep breath and begun to job forward, not even bothering with his hands. The bubble extended around him, a tunnel through the distance with the sphere of his soul left behind.

The job soon turned into a run. Myron galloped across nothingness alone, in his ears rang not a sound, yet he could feel his labored breaths, the sweat dripping into his eyes and forcing him to spend precious energy to wipe it off and stop the stinging. He could feel the slap of his feet against the bottom of his Soul tunnel and yet he heard not a thing.

“I can do this! Syl! I’m coming to save you!” He shouted out, hoping his ears would pick it up. “Run damn it! Run!” He beat his fists against his chest and picked up the speed even further, his whole body protesting. Him, an office worker, sat chronically in his chair for the past 6 years, since his last year in University for his Bachelors had begun. Stopping all other activities, ball sports, martial arts, the Gym. 28 and decaying like most modern humans, he sprinted like his life depended on it.

He sprinted because Syl’s life depended on it, and he would not stop carving through nothingness, alone, with pain as his only companion, if it meant he could get to her, and save her.

He didn’t hear his own words, his promised, though he knew he made them. But Syl did. She did and she sighed. She looked back at the shadow her avatar cast within her own soul. Like a gap in the sphere, a way for the abyss to enter. She also stared at the tears and wrinkles of the deflated shape and realized that the decision was her own.

She could not keep Myron waiting any longer. He would have succeeded long ago if she had truly given her consent. It seemed he had opened himself much more than she ever did despite her promises. And if Syl was anything, she was a Woman of her word.

She pushed forward, and as if the curtains had been pulled apart she saw Myron and he saw her. Their two souls clashed into one another the next moment, and they rejoiced at the union. A golden wave started from the place of union, it spread all the way to their souls and bounced back around, as Myron fell upon her, sweaty, heavy, and tired, but smiling to his ears.

“Thank you, for bringing me back.” She said with a soft smile and he nodded. Patting her head and ruffling her hair, her two antennae flapped back and forth comically and Myron chuckled. She felt his amusement, she felt his thoughts. He was so free, so easy to and eager to share.

He left but she remained for just a tad longer. Shocked. His happiness and satisfaction filled her, rushing over from his soul like a tsunami of good emotions, and she took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the positivity.

Unbeknownst to her, the shadow of a dead man she had clung onto the past 27 days waved at her as he disappeared, a gap in the darkness showing a pearly white smile. Her soul healed, her eyes opened.

Color, true color, returned to her face, and her skin while still pale like porcelain now felt healthy and glossy. She looked stunning, despite the green blush given by the green blood, or in spite of it.

Myron himself remained unmoving. The sensations of a bond truly achieved overwhelmed him.

A menagerie of sensations, like the softest mattress after the hardest day, or the relaxing pressure of an oil-massage, like the feeling of a marshmallow melting in his mouth, or that of warm chicken broth soup sitting warmly in his stomach on a cold winter’s day. Hot chocolate on Christmas night, with family and a good movie. Feelings he had never felt. Memories he had never experienced, yet they were there. Tears fell down his face, a few, small ones. He felt complete in a way he could have never imagined.

Finally she stood, her eyes open. She went over to a bag she was carrying, a small satchel more than anything that had fallen to the wayside and got a new shirt to wear under the torn garments she had. Pants that were now more like hot-shorts, and a crop top with short sleeves, now with a white undershirt to cover her belly. Both the Pants and the Shirt where in the color of green with silver embroidery and it matched well with her natural colors.

“Hello again, Syl. Nice to meet you.” He waved at her and greeted with a smile.

“Nice to meet you too, Myron. Thank you for helping me out. You did amazing.” She waved back, unsure of what the gesture meant but going along with it.