“She insisted on coming after she heard how your patient reacted when she prematurely woke up. I would agree that fewer people is better when trying to handle a rescued victim waking in a strange place. But after you told me how she reacted when she saw you, I believe having Tori here would ease the transition, especially since she appears almost human.”
“Celyze means that she was afraid of your appearance, Zyxel,” the female stated matter-of-factly. “Who wouldn’t be scared wide awake after discovering there was a freakin’ huge-ass snake-man in your bed? Any sane person would!”
“Freakin’ huge-ass snake-man?” Zyxel, who I surmised was the other male voice, repeated. “Celyze, haven’t I told you that you should do something about her native slang not translating well? Can’t you do a memory wipe or something?”
“I am not getting in the middle of this, Zyxel.” Celyze snorted. “Her slang is a part of her native tongue. It would go against my duty as a Cosmic Soul to alter anything about her character. This is the last reminder she has of her life on Earth.”
“You can’t say I didn’t try,” Zyxel muttered. “Fine. Have it your way, Tori, but don’t go near her until I tell you it’s okay. The last thing I need is your Luwyn trying to battle me for your honor and losing for the millionth time.”
“Hey! It only takes one win for him to claim he has beaten you, and when it happens, I’ll make sure to rub it in your face.”
“I will look forward to it,” he mocked. “As long as it’s not when I’m busy trying to save lives.”
The room fell silent.
I didn’t know if they were staring at me, waiting for me to wake up, or paying attention to some more pressing matter. I couldn’t hear the sound of doors opening, so it was safe to assume that no one had entered or left the room. Why had they suddenly stopped conversing?
Keeping my breathing slow and deep, I feigned sleep as I considered my options.
“Vowels?” I thought out loud, hoping to speak to my new companion. Other than speaking with my Circuli mates and Mwe and Oeta, I had never attempted to reach beyond my mental shields for someone who wasn’t already connected to me in some way. Chyox had been the first Circuli I’d reached in Destima’s mental web, but even then, the experience resembled speaking to my nestmates.
How could I reach for someone who was now a part of me? There was no mental thread for me to grab like I usually did.
“Yes, Selena?” His warm voice radiated through me, instantly filling me with relief.
He hadn’t been a strange dream. He was indeed real and inside me, whether I liked it or not. Waking up in this situation, I was relieved that I wasn’t completely alone. I didn’t know what these strangers were capable of, and while Vowels’ intrusion hadn’t been ideal, I was glad he could now protect me from mental attack.
“Are you capable of sensing who is around me?”
“I can, but my range is limited,” he murmured. “My specialty is energy medicine. I can’t scry anything beyond loud thoughts and emotions unless you touch them. If you want to know what they were thinking, it would be more efficient for me to follow your mental thread, but that would defeat the purpose of you pretending that you are still unconscious.”
“Could you please?”
A symbiont skilled in healing was exactly what I would need, especially if I planned to do something extreme to escape. Before I formulated breakout plans, I wanted to figure out exactly what he was capable of.
“There are three beings in this room, whose voices you heard earlier. Zyxel, the Earth-like naga you’ve already met, Celyze, who has a unique mind that intrigues me, and Tori, a female whose morphology is similar to yours.”
“Similar, how?”
As soon as I posed the question, I regretted it. Ice filled my veins with sudden concern that there was a human here. Hadn’t she said that she had been captured and thrown into a prison cell with Celyze? Could she be another demi-human like me?
“The shape of Tori’s body and general aura resembles yours, but your mental shields are stronger.”
“Is she a demi-human?”
“Unknown.”
“How can I understand their words?”
“Now that I’ve finished healing your body, I have been able to focus on translating their languages for your understanding.”
“So, you’re acting as my universal communicator, but instead of being implanted behind my ear, you live in my body.”
“Precisely.”
While I needed time to get used to sharing my body with another lifeform, right now, I appreciated his help in understanding what was going on around me. That would make the coming days smoother—I hoped.
My only other source of relief was that the female didn’t sound stressed or afraid. In fact, Tori seemed relaxed, judging by the jokes she made with the two males in the room. Seemingly, she was friendly with them, perhaps even more with Celyze.
Maybe I could win her over and convince her to help me escape. Perhaps she would leave with me if she were indeed trapped here as well.
“Does she know that we know she’s awake?” Tori whispered, her voice closer to my side than before. “She can’t trick your medical scans.”
“Well, she does now,” Zyxel growled from my other side. “This is why I didn’t want you in here.”
“Don’t get your coils twisted in a bunch, Zyxel. I was just making an observation.”
When I opened my eyes, I hissed, automatically covering them with a hand to ward off the bright lighting of the room. Why did the medical personnel always turn the room’s lights to full intensity when their patients were trying to wake slowly? It took a while before the Circuli medical team realized that waking to bright lights caused headaches and irritability. Whoever
