Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 97459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
She snorts. “And who are we going to resonate to? The rocks? The trees? No, I think you and I are doomed to be alone forever.”
Her words are like a knife in my chest. “I see.”
T’ia touches my hand, as if now realizing the pain of her words. “I’m sorry, R’jaal. I’m not trying to be cruel. It’s just…I’m no longer holding out any hope. This planet has made it quite clear that I’m not welcome.” She squeezes her hand over mine. “Thank you for being my friend despite all of this, though. It’s good to know I’m not completely alone on the sit-out bench.”
I want to ask what this means, but the scent of mushrooms wafts through the air again, stronger than ever.
T’ia tilts her head, studying me. “You have pollen in your hair, R’jaal. Are there flowers here?”
Pollen?
She reaches out to touch my mane, and pulls back yellow-stained fingers. We both stare at them in surprise. “It does look like pollen,” I agree, and my lips feel heavy. “Smells like mushrooms.”
T’ia blinks at me slowly. Her eyes are half-mast, her shoulders drooping. “They…you…”
She slides to the rock floor, collapsing in a heap.
I stare down at her. My mind is sleepy, and as I reach for T’ia to prop her up, my hands seem to move as if I am underwater. I flex my fingers, confused, and wonder why the cave is spinning around.
A thick, heavy leather sack is shoved over my head and everything grows dark. I claw at it, but the slow, languid feeling takes over my body and I can resist no longer.
I fall asleep.
Three
ROSALIND
I wake up in a cave, alone.
This is marginally better than waking up in a coffin, but still awful. Shivering, I sit upright and stare at my surroundings. This isn’t the same cave I was in before. That one was dark and felt small, the walls close around me. This one feels massive, the air around me with a hint of a chill, and when I breathe, it seems to echo in the cavern. I’m in a chamber of some kind, sealed on three sides like a pocket. The fourth side is covered with what look like prison bars.
Am I in a jail cell of some kind? I stare around me, sitting upright. It’s frigid in here, with water trickling from a shiny bit of rock at waist height. My back and shoulders hurt from sleeping on the stone floor, and there’s a few pale, blunted stalactites hanging from the ceiling, like inverted cones.
Or teeth. They absolutely look like teeth. Thanks, brain.
There’s a faint light here, though. I can see just enough to make out my surroundings. The light is coming from a series of crevices in the stone wall, enough of them that they look like veins tracing up and down the rock. I get to my feet, drawn toward the sight. To my disappointment, there’s nothing in the crevice but a gently glowing moss. I touch a bit of it and my fingertips glow.
Where the heck am I?
I brush the glowing dust off of my fingers and move towards the bars. First things first—escape. But the bars are made of cold, strange metal, and too close together for me to squeeze my rounded ass through. I’ve never minded being pleasantly plump, but today, I really wish I was thin. I don’t think I can even fit a boob through the bars, the space between them is so narrow. Frustrated, I press my face against the bars and peer out. “Hello?”
Footsteps sound on stone floor.
Oh shit. That was dumb of me. Terrified, I race to the shadows at the back of my cell and press myself against the wall, trying to hide in the shadows. I’m naked again, the fur that I found in the other cave nowhere in sight. Even my weird watch is gone. Shivering, I cover my breasts with my hands and clasp my legs together in a way that hopefully hides all the important bits and wait for my captor to appear.
At the far side of the cave, by the strange jail bars, a man appears.
No, not a man. A monster of some kind. He approaches the bars and I huddle against the rock, trying to let it swallow me up as he comes into sight. He’s not human. He’s at least a foot and a half taller than me, with mottled gray skin and a furry ruff around his neck like a lion. His eyes glow a strange, vivid blue, and his nose is short and blunted, leading down to a wide, frowning mouth. His features are strange—he’s got two arching, thin horns atop his head and four hairy arms. His chest is enormous and I suspect he could crush me without a thought. A long, fluffy gray tail trails behind him, moving back and forth as he gazes into the cell and eyes me.