Chapter Text
It’s cold.
It must be snowing outside. It's that time of year, right? I think. It was probably snowing yesterday, or... last week, or... I don't remember. Ughhh, I don’t wanna get uuppp. But I’m sure all my students are thinking the same thing, and I really wanna see their faces.
It’s been such a long time… I think. It can’t have been, but it really feels that way… I can’t wait to see them again.
I’m not looking forward to the bike ride to work though. Ugh. The sidewalks won’t be clear. Maybe I can hitch a ride with a coworker. Like-… like…
… why can’t I remember her name? Fellow science teacher. Teaches the sixth graders. I know her name. R-… Rrrr something. Starts with an R. I think. Why can’t I-? We talked yesterday. Or last week. Or...
... Why can’t I…?
…
My muscles don’t feel right. So… so heavy. Unimaginably heavy. And I...
wait, what is that sound…?
Tapping. Clicking. Distant hums and thrums, like someone’s playing alien instruments outside my walls. It escalates. Two, or maybe three, back and forth. Almost sounds like they're having an argument.
I try to blink awake. The light is dimmer than it should be, and a cold blue. I find myself staring at the…
- That’s not my bedroom wall. That’s not any wall I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s made of- I don’t know what it’s made of. I can’t even begin to guess. It’s like- metal, I think, but- wh…
I reach out. But every little muscle movement feels like it takes at least twice as much work as it should, and my fingers tremble weakly. I make contact with it, and-
- I jolt back. Not at the wall. At my hand. At my freaking hand. That is not a living human’s hand. It’s skeletal. Pale. How is that what my hand looks like?! It didn’t look like that yesterday! Whenever that was!!! And-
Mechanical sounds behind me. The name my brain puts to the distant sound after that is pressurization. Like, in an airlock? Whatever it is, it’s weird. My brain is sluggish and foggy, and moment to moment the present sort of slips and slides in my fingers like water in clumsy hands.
Then, thumpthumpthump. Like- like several heavy rocks are falling on crystalline tile, but in a staccato pattern, like footsteps. And then clicking. Tapping. I can feel it vibrate in my chest.
Something’s behind me.
I’m terrified. Every muscle in my body freezes, seized by a primal threat response. Evolutionarily, my brain thinks it’s just heard a tiger, prowling through the brush- hoping that if I don’t move, it won’t hear me, won’t see me. My heart pounds in my throat.
There’s silence for a while. And primal rat brain starts to think we’ve gotten away with it. Maybe the predator’s gone. But it won’t unfreeze just yet.
And good on it, because the clicking returns. I feel something tap-tap-tap against my bedframe, hard enough to shake it just a little, and my body against my conscious control automatically flings around to look at what-
“JeE-miNIIYYy CHRISTMAS WHAT ARE YOU!!!” I scream, flailing back against the wall.
My hands try to grab for something on my nightstand to fling at the terrifying rock spider thing in front of me to deter it, but there is no nightstand. There is nothing except me, the bed, and this creature that is definitely not something that exists anywhere on Earth alone in this rectangular chamber.
The rock-spider, which is wrapped in a strange see-through material like a suit, backs away rapidly at my exclamation as if to give me room, its carapace tilting back. That’s nice of it.
It produces a terrifying series of loud musical-sounding hums that I can feel in my feet. Oddly, a distant, foggy part of my brain almost feels like I can, like… understand it. What that part of my brain thinks it’s saying is… I don’t really know for sure, something reassuring? I feel like it’s apologizing.
One thing that part of my brain also seems to be telling me that is also completely illogical, is that I’ve hurt its feelings. At least it’s not attacking. It’s for sure not attacking. Just- sitting there, watching me.
“Sorry, sorry, dude,” I pant, for some reason, lungs working heavy as I press myself up against the wall as if that’ll protect me from it. My voice is almost high-pitched whine, as I say, “I just- what- you scared the- the craaap out of me!!” I don’t even know if it understands me. I release some shaky breaths, trying to force myself down from my terror. “Where the heck am I? What the heck are you?! Are you an alien?! Am- am I on an alien spaceship? Did you abduct me? Am I gonna get probed?”
At my blabbering, the rock-spider just holds up a finger. Is it pointing up? I glance up at the ceiling of geometric squares, squinting at the strange blue light, but by the time I glance back down, it’s already turning and running to the square door in one of the walls. It moves so fast it floods me with instinctual fear. The door unlatches with mechanical sounds, and it disappears behind it. Again, I hear those air sounds, like an airlock. Was- was it telling me to wait? That was an absurdly human gesture, if true. Quite a cultural coincidence.
Oh, god, I am… so scared right now.
But… not as scared as I should be. I think. I don’t know, none of this feels real. It’s way too detailed to be a dream, but how could it be real? I went to sleep yesterday- whenever that was, I can’t remember- as As I take in my surroundings, a dim alien room about 25 feet long and 15 feet wide, somehow now I’m feeling a sense of… I don’t know, it’s as if some part of me, deep inside, believes I’m safe. But I don’t know how that’s possible.
The tile floor gleams iridescently in the light. Some parts of the wall are shallower than others. Inset squares.
FRIEND GRACE.
- I nearly scream again. The voice is strange- like a vocal synthesizer, but made- well, made by aliens. The phonemes are all technically right, but it sounds scary and strange, kind of hard to understand, and yet I do. I look around wildly for the source of the noise, and I think I find it in a-… well, maybe that’s an intercom, up there? Like, an alien intercom. Wait, what did it say?
“- Grace. What a- oh, yeah, that’s my name! How’d you know my name?! We’re- we’re friends? That’s nice! Having rock spider alien friends! That’s cool! Wow!” I don’t even want to be saying these things. Somehow I get the impression that my apparent rock alien friend, wherever it disappeared to, would be even more annoyed.
GRACE IS SAFE. YOU AND I ARE FRIEND. MY NAME TO YOU IS ‘ROCKY’. YOU NAME ME THAT.
- Oh my god, of course I did. That is so something I would do. Okay, I immediately trust and believe everything you’re saying, Friend Rocky. I think.
WE KNOW EACH OTHER 4 YEARS. I LEARN ENGLISH FROM YOU. USUALLY YOU UNDERSTAND MY LANGUAGE. DO NOT NOW. YOU LOSE MUCH MEMORY. WE NOT UNDERSTAND WHY. YOU BECAME VERY SICK. SO RIGHT NOW I AM USE A VOCAL SYNTHESIZER TO TALK TO YOU.
“O-oh.” My mind is racing. “How’d I get sick?”
It’s a somewhat long moment before the voice comes back. Maybe Friend Rocky needs to take a moment to queue up the words.
WE NOT KNOW. ON HAIL MARY, YOU START BECOME CONFUSE. START FORGETTING VERY RAPID. THEN LOSE CONSCIOUSNESS. I HELP KEEP YOU SAFE AND ALIVE UNTIL CAN GET TO ERID. LEARN NOT RADIATION SICKNESS. SOMETHING ELSE. ON ERID, WE BUILD HABITAT FOR YOU WITH HUMAN ATMOSPHERE. YOU ARE IN MEDICAL CENTER. WE LEARN HUMAN BIOLOGY FROM YOUR LAPTOPS. TRY TO HELP. FINALLY SOMETHING WORK. YOU ARE AWAKE. HAPPINESS.
… Okaaaay. I feel like we skipped a few steps of explanation. They just said a loooot of things that did not make any sense to me right there.
“O-okay. I have… many questions. Um. One.” I tentatively raise my hand, like I’m one of my shier students asking a question. “What’s a Hail Mary?”
My apparent alien friend does not respond for a little longer than I think the short utterance should take.
HAIL MARY IS HUMAN SPACESHIP.
Huuuuman spaceship. Okay. Human spaceship. Didn’t know we did those. Knew even less that I did those. Alrighty then.
OTHER QUESTION? my friend Rocky prompts.
So much more. But I go to the next unfamiliar term in Rocky’s explanation. “Okay, what’s an ‘Erid’?”
ERID IS OUR PLANET. IT IS IN THE 40 ERIDANI STAR SYSTEM. I AM ERIDIAN. ALIEN TO YOU.
… Ah. Okay. I’m… on an alien planet. Lightyears away. Sure. Alright. Fine. Not freaking out.
“Got it, got it.” 'Eridian'- that's a better name than rock spiders. Now for the next most obvious question. “Soo… out of curiosity… do you happen to know just how I managed to get on a spaceship to meet an alien?”
… LONG STORY.
“Yeah, I bet! Because I’m pretty dang sure I’m not even, like, remotely qualified for that!”
WILL EXPLAIN LATER. MAYBE NOW FEEL BETTER, YOU MEMORY WILL COME BACK.
Maybe. Seemed like a long shot from where I was standing.
“Well, that’s great.” I move toward the edge of my bed. Every muscle in my body feels so weak and shaky, like its made of string and feathers. I tentatively move a trembling-leaf foot to the floor-
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WALK, Rocky chastises me immediately. Given the latency of the device, that means maybe Rocky started typing- or whatever an Eridian does with such a device- the second he saw me move. He knew what I was about to try to do. Yeah, I don’t know why or how I of all people was able to make friends with an alien, but this guy really was my friend, wasn’t he?
“I’m sorry, but I’m just-… I’d like to take a look around.”
DOCTORS WANT TO CHECK ON FRIEND GRACE. BE STILL.
“Oh, doctors. Okay.” I pause. I ask what might be a stupid question, but I kind of need to know: “… Wait, alien doctors?”
OF COURSE ALIEN DOCTORS. YOU ON ALIEN PLANET.
… IIIII don’t know how I feel about alien doctors. My friend Rocky may have said they’re learning human biology from laptops, but that’s a big topic that even human doctors on Earth need years of complex, hands-on study of to even begin to practice medicine ethically. I don’t know how long I’ve been out, but it can’t have been long enough to stretch the span of a medical degree, even assuming the information found on my human computers is sufficient.
Besides, my alien friend Rocky- oh, wait, I just love that. It’s just so delightful My alien friend Rocky! I have an alien friend! His name is Rocky! ‘Cause he looks like a rock! (Okay, maybe I’m still loopy from the- whatever happened to my brain)- uh, my friend Rocky may be great, and we may be best buds normally, but I have no way of knowing that other than his word. I certainly don’t feel like I actually know him right now. And I even less feel like I know these doctors. I’m uncomfortable being touched by human strangers at the best of times. Alien strangers, who look like scary rock spiders, and have five scary rock spider hands, is something else. Probably compounded by the fact I just, you know, got introduced to the concept of aliens are literally actually real and they want to interact with you exactly like 2 minutes ago by waking up to one looming in my face.
WE UNDERSTAND GRACE AFRAID OF ERIDIAN NOW BECAUSE OF LOST MEMORY. AND GRACE VERY WEAK. UNDERSTAND VERY IMPORTANT WEAK HUMAN NEED LOW STRESS TO STAY HEALTHY. SO WE OPERATE ROBOT TO INTERACT WITH GRACE. SO GRACE WON’T BE SCARED.
Oh, good. Phew. No offense to these aliens, but that was a relief. Even though, come to think of it, a robot might not be all that much better, depending. Though I don’t see any-
Something unfolds from the wall to my right. A dark, smooth, robotic arm-thing. It crawls along a line toward me. Another comes from my left.
BE STILL, Rocky commands. YOU ARE SAFE.
I try to trust him. The robots are slow, gentle. Approaching me like I’m a flighty kitten. But I still feel cornered by them. I try to wrestle control over my animal brain, which seems desperate to maintain its executive chair position.
As they approach, a table flips out from the wall around the bed to my left. It has a bunch of medical supplies, in little inset nooks, or cubbies. Some almost look like Earthly medical devices but in an alien rendition, others I have no idea about. I’m getting more anxious and shuffly by the second, but one of the robot arms grabs what I think is a blood pressure cuff.
Then the other reaches for my arm, fingers starting to enclose as if about to grab it- I jerk back. It stops.
BE STILL PLEASE FRIEND GRACE, Rocky repeats. YOU ARE SAFE.
The hand reaches for me again. I manage to force myself to be still, as it holds my arm in place. The other wraps the cuff around it.
The hands press one of the buttons. It starts to squeeze, just like a real blood pressure cuff. - Probably because it is a real blood pressure cuff. They said they had access to human knowledge. They probably built as exact a replica as they could.
The little module on its edge that I think tells it my blood pressure in alien language clicks- raised bumps lift up on the surface. That’s interesting. It’s like a Braille output. But I don’t know who’s here to read it. … Unless there’s a camera behind me.
I hear distant musical humming through the walls. What I think is movement.
BLOOD PRESSURE IN EXPECTED RANGE. GOOD.
Yeah, good. I agree.
The hand reaches for another device on the table. This one, I don’t think is anything human. It’s like… I don’t know how to describe it. It’s shaped a bit like an oblong diamond. There’s sort of a honeycomb pattern of deep dents along it. At one end, a thick tube is attached that runs behind it to a tiny hole in the wall.
After the hand scoops it up, it activates. It starts to vibrate, slowly, producing a noise.
The hand brings it toward me.
BE STILL, Rocky reminds me.
That’s gonna be difficult. I shuffle away from the vibrating tool. “I-I totally trust you and all, Friend Rocky, but what’s it gonna do to me?”
The arm hangs in the air for a while, before Rocky replies.
DEVICE ALLOW US TO HEAR YOUR INTERNAL ORGANS.
“O… kay…” I say slowly, at a loss, but I guess I have no choice but to trust this. I stay still, and the device again comes toward me.
I only realize by now what I’m wearing. A paper-thin, breezy gown, made out of a somewhat stiff material that I think is trying to mimic Earthly material, but not quite getting there. And… that’s… all. I realize the aliens must have undressed and re-dressed me at some point, and I feel weird about that.
But not as weird as when the vibrator finally makes contact, touching to my chest. I feel it shuddering in my torso, sending waves through my whole body- I feel it in my teeth.
Again, there’s an alien musical chord playing distantly beyond those walls.
BREATHE IN SLOW AND DEEP, Rocky tells me.
Ah, hey, I do know this one. ‘Hear your internal organs’- now I get it. That was just Rocky’s way of saying this device is like a stethoscope, right? I feel a little stupid for not putting that together. Though I still don’t know why it has to vibrate. I do as they say, like I’ve done at doctor appointments all my life.
More alien thrumming.
HEART WEAK. BEAT ABNORMAL. LUNGS WEAK. WORK TOO HARD.
“S-Sorry?” I offer, dumbly.
WE'LL HELP. GRACE REST NOW.
The robot arm replaces its tools in their proper cubbies on the table, which then retracts back into the wall slowly. Then, the robot arms slide away, going back to their homes where, they, too, retract into the wall.
My heart is still pounding. I realize just how weak I feel. I guess Rocky told me about that. But adrenaline and all the questions in my head made it kind of hard to really notice.
But I’m not exactly willing to rest, if you can imagine. I want to explore this incredibly bizarre situation I’ve found myself in. Is this room all there is in my little alien-made world right now? Can I go visit my alien friends? Is their atmosphere even remotely compatible with mine?
I decide to try and ask. I point a shaky finger to the airlock door. “Can… can I leave this room?”
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO-
“- Okay, okay, I get the picture!” Even though it was perfectly monotone, the robot voice’s repetition was more than enough to convey it. I would 100% die.
SOON, GRACE WILL HAVE MORE ROOMS. WE ARE WORK ON FULL HABITAT FOR GRACE. BUT GRACE STAY IN THIS ROOM FOR EASY ACCESS AND CARE TO GRACE NOW. WE MONITOR GRACE HERE FULL-TIME UNTIL GRACE HEALTHY.
“… Okay, thanks. I understand. I think.” I slowly lie back down, and once I relax every muscle in my body wheezes in tired relief.
I… I think I like these aliens. My head’s full of a whole cultural baggage of boogeyman fear about alien invaders from outer space, so there’s a skeptical part of me that’s scared they’re keeping me alive to lay eggs under my skin or something. And sure, I have no idea know why they brought me here. But maybe they’re just very scientifically invested in the idea of keeping a human alive on their planet to be studied. I know I would be. Presumably they had my full consent. Rocky is apparently my friend, after all. He wouldn’t be my friend if he had abducted me against my will. … I think.
If I trust what they say, and I guess I have no real reason not to, they seem to be doing everything they can to help me. Even though my biology is probably like nothing they’ve ever encountered before. That’s pretty nice of them.
But still… something’s bothering me.
“Sooo… where are the others?” I ask. “When can I see them?”
OTHERS, QUESTION? prompts Rocky.
“The other humans,” I say. “There had to have been other humans on the spaceship. Right?”
Rocky is, again, quiet for a while.
ALL OTHER HUMAN DIE ON WAY.
GRACE ONLY ONE LEFT.
…
“… Oh.” I… I don’t know how to wrap my head around that for a second. “I’m… the only human. On this planet.”
YES. ONLY.
I try not to be overcome with terror. This is not the world I expected to wake up in. I didn’t even know I had gone to sleep, I think. Last I checked, I lived on Earth. Humans were everywhere, even if I didn’t always appreciate that fact. I- well, obviously, I never even imagined it was possible that one day I’d wake up in a place where I was completely and utterly alone, the sole member of my species.
How do you even make sense of that? How do you even start to process it? Nothing about this situation feels remotely real.
Okay okay next question. Really important question. Probably the most important, given all the information I have just learned. “Okay, uh. Wow. So, whennn…” I rub my face, trying to claw myself free of the cobwebs in my brain. I crack a smile, like it’s a joke. Like this situation is all some prank being played on me. “Whennn, uh, am I leaving to go back to Earth? Any… plans? On- on that?”
The silence lasts so long, I start to wonder if Rocky has left. And then what am I gonna do?
Then: NOT KNOW FOR AT LEAST 7 MORE YEARS. POSSIBLY MORE. VERY POSSIBLE: NEVER GET TO GO BACK. I AM SORRY.
…
I…
…
NO MORE QUESTION, Rocky says. GRACE REST. EXPLANATION WILL COME SLOW. GRACE NEED TO FEEL OKAY AND NOT BE SCARED. NOT STRESS. STRESS CAN MAKE SICKNESS WORSE.
Somehow, I can sense the urgency in that flat tone. But I don’t know how the heck he can expect me not to stress.
IF ROCKY COME IN AGAIN, WILL GRACE FEEL SCARED, QUESTION?
… I don’t know the answer to that. I think that Rocky is telling the truth when he calls himself my friend. I have no memories of him, and all I have is his word for it- and yet I just… feel it’s true. I feel a familiarity at his name. But not, really, so much, at his form. I don’t know how that works out. If his story is true, I must have had at least just as much time with his body as with his name and his voice. But the brain is a funny thing. Maybe it’s because a friend with a name and words is a normal regular human thing that I’ve spent all my life prior to the cut-off in my memory with. Alien rock spiders approaching me are a liiiittle more new.
“I might be scared,” I say slowly, uncertain in it, “but I think I might get used to it.” Honestly, I’m scientifically curious to see a real alien now that I know- sort of- what’s going on. And I really need a distraction from what I just learned. An alien is a pretty big distraction.
ROCKY HOPE SO. ROCKY WANT TO COMFORT GRACE. GRACE NEED FRIEND.
Even delivered in monotone, the sentiment was just… so sweet, that I almost tear up. I know at once that I’m open to this. Even if it freaked me out at first.
Soon enough, the airlock opened. My friend Rocky the alien- or, the Eridian- steps through in that strange suit. Maybe its like, a hazmat suit. Or possibly, given how insistent Rocky was against me trying to leave the airlock, a spacesuit- maybe our atmospheres are totally incompatible. And he’s got something under one of his arms- it’s like, a flat, thick pad of some kind. Dark in color.
Again, I’m frightened, but less so. At least, now that I’m really looking at him, I start to feel that sense of familiarity. Faint, but there. Like I’ve spent a lot of time looking at him, and I just don’t know it. Or maybe I’m making it up.
He approaches slow. He doesn’t need to approach that slow. … Or maybe he does. God, he looks like a spider. I’ve never been scared of spiders, but when a spider-like being is the size of a dog and intelligent and you’re on an alien planet alone and you don’t remember anything of how you possibly could have got there remotely at all and you just got told you’re the only human being for what amounts to many vast trillions of kilometers…
Rocky speaks. I don’t understand him. But somehow I think I know that last word. It’s question. He’s asking me something. I don’t know why, obviously I can’t understand.
But Rocky seems to realize that, because he shakes his body as if frustrated with himself- hey, it’s alright, buddy, I would do the same thing, honestly- then continues approaching. It’s sort of mesmerizing to me how he moves. With all five of those limbs. They’re covered in what look like intentional scars, depicting patterns, possibly language, and that alone helps bump my primal fear brain into categorizing him as more person-y- though not enough to really get rid of my fear. In fact, it may only intensify it. This alien being is very, very much intelligent. He’s not an animal. I probably couldn’t outsmart him. In fact, he might be even smarter than me to a level I can’t comprehend.
“H-hey,” I say, as he comes up to my bedside. My voice can’t help but waver, and automatically I shuffle back toward the edge of my bed.
Rocky pauses, not coming any closer, as if to give me space.
“Wow. You’re… amazing,” I say. “You’re- you’re really- really real. Right in- right in front of me.” I nervously laugh. “Sorry, I- I know I must’ve seen you a million times, but for me right now, this is still literally the first time I’m meeting an alien.”
Rocky holds something in front of himself. It’s like a pad. He nudges free a pen clipped to its side- at least, I think it’s a pen. He brings it to the pad, and draws, creating raised bumps that I can just about read if I squint. It’s like an alien whiteboard, but I don’t know what he’s writing, or why he thinks I could read-
Oh, they’re letters! English letters! I watch closely as they form into being with Rocky’s rapid movements.
HOW DOES GRACE FEEL ?
His penmanship is pretty good for an alien with three fingers on one hand. Who is writing pretty fast. And isn’t even looking at the front of the pad. Man, that’s impressive.
“Uhh… still shaky. But I-I think I’ll be fine.” I offer Rocky a nervous smile- I hope he knows what that means. He’s known me for long enough, right? That’s gotta be like, Human 101. “You seem like… a nice alien?”
Rocky… watches me. I think he does. He doesn’t have a face at all, let alone eyes. I don’t know how he sees, but he must, right?
He writes again.
CAN ROCKY STAY ?
“… Uh, yeah, yeah, Rocky can stay,” I say. My curiosity is honestly overpowering my fear right now, though they’re so tumultuously balanced I feel like it can tip the other way any second.
Rocky touches the bed idly with one of his free hands. While doing that, he writes again. BED GOOD ?
“Y-yeah, bed good.” I shuffle, looking down at it. It’s… not quite like a human-made bed. It’s almost twice bigger than I need, which is weird given how Eridians seem to be less than half my height (or is that just a Rocky thing?), and it’s made of materials I can just feel aren’t quite right. But it’s actually pretty dang comfy. I even have a blanket. A nice, soft blanket. It might actually be better than a human hospital bed. Heh. These guys really did their homework. “Really good, actually. You guys did, uh, did a good job.”
Rocky seems to perk up. He makes a series of pleasant noises. He writes: GOOD GOOD. WANT GRACE COMFORTABLE.
I’m in a situation that is cosmically terrifying. But somehow, this strange alien expressing, over and over again, how comfortable he wants me to be, how much he doesn’t want me to be scared, how much he wants me to know I’m safe…
… In this moment, it honestly just really helps.
“Thanks,” I say softly. Now that I’m beginning to actually relax, despite everything, I notice just how exhausted I feel- even sitting upright makes my muscles hurt. I slowly lower myself down onto the bed.
Rocky takes notice. He writes again, and lifts the whiteboard high to angle it right at my face, as if wanting to make sure I see it.
GRACE TIRED ?
“Yeah,” I yawn.
Rocky practically shoves it into my face as he writes.
ROCKY STAY WITH GRACE WHILE SLEEP
No question mark. He taps emphatically at the sentence with his pen. A non-negotiable statement of fact.
“Uh, I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that, buddy,” I say slowly.
He taps the sign again. More aggressively. As if repeating it. ROCKY STAY WITH GRACE WHILE SLEEP.
Okay, so, I’m not allowed to say no. I don’t know why. With Rocky fairly close, I can feel a warmth radiating off of him, through his suit. It’s not unpleasant, given how cold it is in here. I wonder if his atmosphere runs hot.
“Wh-why?”
He writes so fast the letters are barely legible. WATCH GRACE CLOSE MAKE SURE GRACE NOT HURT NOT SICK
That doesn’t say because I want to lay eggs in your eyes, and I run out of bravery anyway, so I don’t protest as Rocky climbs onto my bed, even as I shy away. It creaks, and bends a little to his weight, and I wonder how heavy he is. He settles on his limbs, and there’s something almost… cat-like, about it. Like he’s a loafing house cat. It’s kinda cute. He may not have a face, but I feel like he’s very closely watching me.
I settle into place. I pull the blanket over me as tight as I can. “Uh, by the way,” I say, hoping this is something they have control over, “it’s kinda cold in here.”
Rocky jerks up a little. He reaches for pad. He writes fast. With two hands. KNOW HUMANS NEED COLD. SORRY MAY HAVE OVERSHOT. WILL CORRECT
Ah, that makes sense. Their bodies were hot, even through their tough suits. I must be like a blobby ice planet alien to them. So attuned to my care, they overestimated how cold they’d need to make my habitat. “Thanks,” I say.
He clears the pad, and immediately rushes to write again, like he’s straining against time. ROCKY WARM. ROCKY COME CLOSER ?
Uhhh. Ahhhh. I’m already bending against the weight of several deeply ingrained human instincts here, but…
… I am chilly.
Rocky stares at me- or I think he stares at me, kinda hard to tell when I don’t know where his eyes are- with deep intent. I think he’s really, really hoping I say yes, but hesitant, because he doesn’t want me to be scared.
“… Okay, yeah, sure,” I say slowly.
Rocky shuffles closer. I feel him against my blanketed legs, then my stomach, then my chest. He is very warm. I can already feel the heat radiating through.
I really don’t know how I feel about him getting so close, though. I have decided to believe that Rocky is telling the truth, and he is my friend. But however close Not-Amnesiac Me was with him, for the Me of Right Now he is a strange, unknowable being I only just found out exists.
But still, I decide to try and trust in Not-Amnesiac Me’s choice of friends. I give Rocky another smile, as I settle into place. “Goodnight, Friend Rocky.”
Rocky purrs a melodic response that pleasantly vibrates the bed and in my rib cage, like the infrasonic hum of bass at a rock concert. I assume it means goodnight in Eridian.
I try to keep my eyes closed, and resist the primal, wary urge to keep opening them to check on the friend my brain still has halfway pinned in the possibly threatening unknown animal category.
... Honestly, the expectation that I actually have any chance of falling asleep like this might just be the most bizarre thing about this situation. And that's saying... a lot.