The shock from taking in the beauty of the room was quickly replaced with worry. Many questions ran through my mind.
What’s going on? How did I get here? Where is here? Why am I strapped down to a bed? Is that somewhat fresh smell coming from me?
I stared down at my arms and legs, and I couldn’t believe when I spotted clear patches of skin. Usually, my skin was so caked with dirt it was hard to tell the colour of it, but not anymore. Someone had gone to great measures to clean me. While they had done a good job, I could still see patches of dirt and catch the faint twang of stale sweat. I knew my hair hadn’t been washed, considering how itchy my scalp still was. I wondered who cleaned me, but my thoughts on the matter suddenly fled, and my body tensed when I sensed I wasn’t alone. I had heard soft singing when I awoke, but those sounds were now mute and for a moment, I wondered if I had imagined them. That was until I looked to my right and saw it.
A Maji.
The alien staring at me from across the clean room was clearly a girl. I could see her skin was a vibrant grey, the irises of her eyes were the most eccentric colour of pink I had ever seen, and her hair, that was tied up in a long ponytail, was as white as the sheet was I lying on. She looked incredibly young, for a moment I thought she might have been a child. She looked as if she was barely eighteen. Apart from those notable differences, she looked completely human. That was the part that freaked me out the most. She was very similar to a human woman, and I didn’t like it.
I need a weapon.
“Oh, my Almighty,” I whimpered when the alien slowly approached me.
I had to crane my neck back to look up at her when she neared me. She was taller than anyone woman I had ever met, at least six feet, give or take a few inches.
“Be still, female,” she said, her voice surprisingly gentle. “I mean you no har—”
I screamed before she could finish her sentence.
“Female,” she repeated, her features contorting in dismay. “I implore you to be calm. I mean you no—”
The centre of the wall across from me opened revealing a hidden door and in stepped another Maji. He made the alien girl look tiny and very feminine compared to his huge, masculine stature. He had different coloured skin; it had more of a blue hue to it than grey. His hair was black as night and tied in a messy knot at the back of his head, tendrils of it escaped the tie. He eyes were blood red with streaks of silver flicking through them. I lost my calm all over again. I began to scream even louder than before, and it caused the girl to plug her ears with her fingers. The man did the same, and he had a look of pain on his face.
“Silence!” he bellowed after a few seconds. “Now!”
I clamped my lips shut and ceased breathing altogether.
“Mikoh,” the alien girl snarled. “You’re scaring her!”
She actually snarled at him, and the sound reminded me of a vicious animal I’d normally encounter in the woods or wastelands. The man, Mikoh, lowered his hands from his ears. “She was scared before I entered, or was she screaming for another reason?”
“Leave.” The girl growled, her posture rigid. “She is my charge, and you being here is making my introduction to her more difficult than it needs to be!”
Mikoh lazily grinned, and it caused me to scream again because he had gold caps on his sharp canines. They weren’t dramatically long or sharp, but they would do a hell of a lot of damage to someone’s throat all the same. It was weird, but the teeth observation made it concrete in my mind that I definitely couldn’t refer to them as ‘man’ and ‘girl’ anymore because they most certainly weren’t a regular man or girl. They were male and female.
They were aliens.
Mikoh quickly stuck his fingers back in his ears, and so did the alien female, but she was glaring at Mikoh, not me.
“This is your doing, you intolerable fool!”
Mikoh laughed at her, and the sound was almost human, only it had a lot more gruffness to it. I shut my mouth because I wanted to hear the exchange between the two Maji who eyed each other with such obvious distaste.
“Must you blame everything on me, Surkah?” Mikoh asked, still grinning. “Surely, the little alien is terrified of your face, not mine.”
He said her name like sir-kah.
“Leave!” Surkah shouted and threw a sharp object at him, but he ducked, easily avoiding it. “Right now!”
I momentarily wondered where she got the sharp object, and if there were more so I could avail of one and use it to defend myself if I needed to.
“I’ll do so happily!” Mikoh snapped back at Surkah. “If the little alien attacks you, do not cry for my help like you did when the tiny Earth rodent entered your quarters yesterday!”
“I didn’t cry for you,” Surkah mocked. “I cried for anyone, and it wasn’t tiny; it was the size of my foot! It could have killed me.”
Mikoh guffawed, ducking again when Surkah threw something else at him as he left the room quicker than he’d entered. I shook my head, feeling like my eyes and ears were betraying me. I wondered if I had imagined things, or did I really just witness two Maji arguing with one another? It seemed like an awfully human thing for them to do, but that was impossible. Other species weren’t like humans. They were just … different.
I blinked and looked at the female who was now watching me with more interest than before. She made no attempt to talk or move closer to me, and I felt better because of it.
“Please,” I whispered when I was sure she wasn’t going to move. “Don’t kill me.”
Surkah frowned, furrowing her thick white eyebrows. “I wish you no harm, tiny one.”
Tiny one?
“Why am I here then?” I asked, trying to keep my composure. “What do you want with me?”
My heart was beating so fast it felt like it would burst. It was then that I noticed the beeping I had heard earlier was louder now and faster. It began to hurt my head.
“You were injured.” Surkah shrugged as she pressed the machine next to her, silencing the beeping. “I mended your injury, and now I’m tending to you because you’re still unwell. You’re in my charge, and it is my duty to care for you.”
“I was injured?”
Surkah nodded slowly. “Badly. You lost a lot of blood, and I feared your bones would not set and mend correctly when you were brought to me. I healed them as best as I could then I tended to your minor wounds, bathed you briefly, and dressed you in a wrap made for humans … though, I think it is too big for you. You’re very … little.”
I was relived she had been the one to bathe me, but I didn’t linger on that thought long because confusion gripped me, so I closed my eyes and thought. Hard. What was Surkah talking about? She said I was injured, but how? How was I injured, and how on Almighty’s Earth did I end up in a Maji’s charge?
Think, Nova.
I remembered scouting the WBO, and I remembered being attacked by watchmen. I … I killed one of them and fled from the other, only I didn’t get far. I opened my eyes when my memories resurfaced. The watchman that intended to kill me was instead killed by the huge Maji with violet eyes and sharp teeth. I fainted, and they brought me to Surkah for treatment, but why?
Why would they want to help a human?