Cave Alien (Ancient Earth Aliens 1)

The communicator goes dim and silent. Either Krave terminated the call, or he lost connection.

I have never felt this helpless. Tres needs my help. If we were up in the ship, she would be healed in seconds without so much as a scratch. Here, on this primitive planet, she will die from the blunt force swelling of simply having hit her head.

At least Krave managed to send down antiseptics, clean medical tools, a drill, bandages, and antibiotics. There are even drugs to help control the swelling, and an IV. He’s given me everything I need - except the will to drill into the woman-I-love’s skull like a coconut.

She is twitching and making noises which aren’t quite coherent. Her eyes are open, but they do not see.

“Tres,” I whimper, pulling her body into my arms and holding her close, as if proximity alone might somehow undo what has been done. “Tres. Please.”

Chapter Six

Tres

I feel nothing.

This peace, is it what death feels like? Just a casual lack of everything? Is this good? Is it bad? Is it… anything?

“Ow,” I complain to myself as my head suddenly throbs. “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.”

I open my eyes to discover myself bathed in a soft golden glow. It is the kind of light which makes me feel as though everything is going to be alright. The kind of light that heralds a new dawn, on a new world. I stretch, and aside from the ache in my head, I feel a softness and a lightness in my body which wasn’t there before.

“Good morning.”

A voice I don’t recognize welcomes me to the new day. It is rough, and faintly animal. There is a smell in this place, a musk of some kind. I don’t recognize the smell, or the place. Lichen and moss cling to the roof of the cave above my head. I was in a cave before. This might even be the same cave - but it is a different place. I can feel that in my bones.

“Who is that?” I look around and see a trickle of water running down a far wall into a pool which is ringed with stones that stop the water from flooding the cave completely. It must flow down somewhere deeper, I suppose.

“It’s me,” the voice says. Unhelpful.

I sit up slowly, my head pounding. “Ow. Ow,” I complain, reaching for the place that aches.

“Your head doesn’t actually hurt. You just have memories of pain. They will go away soon enough.”

“It feels like it hurts,” I mumble, looking around myself for the source of the voice.

“You can’t feel pain anymore, Tres,” the voice says. There’s a warmth and an amusement to it, as well as a familiarity I cannot quite place.

“I’m over here,” he says.

Now I see him. He’s a man. At least, I think he is a man. He has a head like a man, arms and chest like a man, but the legs of a goat and horns perched atop his head. His eyes sparkle with good humor, and his horns are two small points poking through an abundance of curling auburn hair - the very same color as my own.

I feel an immediate kinship with this creature who is lounging in a seat made from covered furs. The ground beneath my feet is sand. The walls and ceiling which curl up and around us mimic the cave I left, but I feel that I am very long away. I have never felt time before, but now I sense it streaming around me, the same way I might feel the wind blowing past me if I were outside on a windy day. It catches the tendrils of my consciousness and makes them flow in the time breeze.

The man-creature holds up a finger to me, as if I have interrupted him doing something else. He is looking into what seems to be a mirror, and speaking to his reflection.

“Call it the cheeseburger,” he says. “Because there is cheese and also, the intangible quality of burger. What’s that? Hm? What does burger mean? Well, you know. Burger. Okay. Love you. Bye.” He touches the mirrored surface. It ripples and his image disappears, which is unsetting because now he has no reflection.

I am deeply disoriented in both space and time. I feel sick, but I also feel as though I might not have a stomach to be sick with anymore.

“You’re early,” he says. “Or maybe you're late. I’m very bad with linear time. Cause and effect are tedious and more complicated than you might think.”

He’s talking to me as if I should be able to understand him, but the truth is, I have no idea what any of those words he just said mean.

“What has happened to me? Where am I? Who are you?”

“All useless questions,” he says. “What you should be asking is when happened to you, what are you, and why… am I?” He cocks his head to the side and smiles in a way which is impish and reassuring at the same time.