The light was still blaring down above me when I woke. I strained to hear any sounds over the ambient buzzing that I assumed was from the light. I heard a sigh from the cage. The Vr’ak’l was still there. I rolled my head toward the sound and was surprised to find that I could move.
V’x sat huddled in the far corner of the cage. Her feathers were bent and broken, and though it was a little hard to tell, I thought her face looked a little swollen on the left side.
“Vix?” I tried to say, but only a weak hiss came from my mouth. She looked up and blinked at me. I smiled. She responded with a faint nod, then looked away again quickly.
Looking back to the light, I began to systematically try to move each of my limbs. Everything moved, but all of my extremities felt like they weighed a million pounds. My left arm was the worst. Sharp pain shot through my neck and shoulder when I tried to move it. I remembered falling. I guessed I must have landed on my left side.
Shuffling woke me and I blinked up at the light again. I hadn’t realized I had even been asleep. There was a touch to my cheek, and suddenly a cacophony filled my head. I lurched and cried out, fighting against non-existent restraints. The noise calmed, and there was a voice talking to me. I looked up and the grey person was looking down at me. It smiled.
“What do you want?” I tried to speak to words, but the sounds didn’t come correctly. The grey person understood anyway.
‘We want to help you,’ it said.
“Help?” Wasn’t I a prisoner like V’x?
‘You are injured. We can heal you.’
I noticed for the first time that there were several of these grey people in the room. “How bad?”
‘Your bones are broken. We have reset them. You will heal.’
“What about V’x?”
The grey person didn’t understand. How could it not understand?
“What are you going to do with her?” I tried to raise my finger and point. I didn’t have the strength.
The grey turned to look at V’x. ‘Interesting creature. So primitive. Very dangerous.’
“She’s my friend!” A yelp was the only sound that escaped my mouth. The grey was shocked.
‘Friend? How?’
“She was trying to help me.” I listened to myself. Nonsensical syllables were coming from my mouth, yet somehow I was speaking to this grey creature.
‘How can you know?’
“She told me.”
The grey person was perplexed and blinked down on me. I could almost touch its thinking. Somehow, it had no idea that V’x was a person.
Another voice entered my head. It scolded the first. I realized the others were listening.
“How are you doing that?” I croaked.
The first grey was again perplexed. ‘Doing what?’
“We’re talking, but you’re not talking.”
The grey straightened and looked at the others in the room.
The second voice spoke. ‘How do you come to be with these creatures? How did you get in their enclosure?’
“Their enclosure? You mean, you made that?”
‘We did.’
“Why would you do that?”
‘Tell us first.’
“Tell you what?”
‘How did you get in there? How are so many contaminating the enclosure?’
“Contaminating? What are your plans with them?”
‘How did you get in there?’
“Why did you put them in a cage?”
V’x shifted audibly in her cage. The second grey had thought of hitting her.
“You will not!” My voice was loud and clear this time. “Vix is my friend. Now, who the hell are you?”
A new voice spoke. ‘How do you know it is friend?’
“She told me. We’ve talked about it.”
‘You’ve talked to it?’
“Yes!”
‘Impossible. How?’ demanded the second voice.
“With my voice. I just opened my mouth and talked to her. You know, talked!”
The grey people were quiet, though I could sense that they were conferring with each other.
‘They can speak this way?’ asked the first grey, ‘with the mouth?’
“Yes. And they have a lot to say.”
Read Chapter 29.
Go back to the beginning.
Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist 