He’d heard it long before I had and he focused on it.
“Is it them?” I said.
Egara pressed a finger to his lips, listening closer.
Then his eyes widened.
He grabbed me and shoved me onto my back at the foot of a sand dune.
Then he fell on top of me.
“What are you doing?” I said.
He was still wearing his clothes. He wasn’t going to use his chameleon ability to hide from the drones effectively like this.
“Take a deep breath,” he said.
He swept large handfuls of sand over us, burying us beneath the surface.
I took a deep breath as he pressed his lips against mine.
It was completely dark in there and the heat hit me immediately.
My hands were clutched over my eyes, which was a good thing because I couldn’t have stood it otherwise.
I didn’t move a muscle and focused on holding my breath.
How long could I last under here?
Egara’s lips clamped over mine, sealing them tight and leaving no space for where the air could escape.
We lay in total darkness and I wondered how long it would take for the drone to pass overhead.
Not long, I thought.
I hoped.
But they might be performing a sweep of the area and who knew what kind of technology they possessed.
The heat grew intense and I could barely stand it.
Our bodies were pressed together just as tightly as our lovemaking last night but lacked the same sensation.
I couldn’t hear the drone overhead.
I could only hear my heart thud in my chest.
I would have to follow Egara’s lead when it came to coming out of our hiding place.
I felt relieved I wasn’t alone.
Then my oxygen reserves began to fade.
I was going to need to take another breath.
And soon.
A few more seconds passed.
I gulped and my body shuddered.
Maybe Egara’s species could survive beneath the sand like this but humans definitely couldn’t.
My body ached to take a fresh mouthful of oxygen and bucked when I tried to prevent myself from doing so.
Egara pressed his lips more firmly over mine, his hands wrapped around my head to keep me in place.
Was he trying to suffocate me?
Was he trying to kill me?
I struggled harder and found he’d already wrapped his legs around me.
He must have known I would react this way.
I tensed my muscles, unable to free myself from his incredible grip.
I couldn’t wait any longer.
I had to breathe.
I had to breach the surface.
But he held me pinned in place.
There was no escape.
Finally, unable to wait any longer, I sucked in a breath.
I was shocked I didn’t inhale a mouthful of sand.
Instead, my lungs filled with delicious, fresh oxygen.
I could breathe.
Egara opened his lungs up to me.
His breath was warm and moist and I could taste him on my tongue.
I eased into him, careful not to take too much oxygen from him.
I felt his breath press against the back of my throat too and realized we were sharing each other’s breath, each other’s oxygen, cycling it between us.
I remember reading that our bodies don’t absorb all the oxygen when we draw in a single breath.
Most of it gets expelled, which is how professional divers can reabsorb air bubbles they breathe out.
But the oxygen we shared would run out eventually.
It would grow toxic as it was recycled, accumulating more carbon dioxide with each exhalation.
My throat felt like it was closing up, tightening as I struggled to drag in each breath.
But I didn’t panic.
I was used to struggling to breathe on this alien moon.
After a while, we settled into an easy rhythm with me breathing in, him out, and vice versa.
It must be what it felt like to be twins enclosed within the same womb.
I entered a deep hypnotic state until finally Egara began to move.
He pressed against the heavy weight of the sand above us.
I could barely shift it and was glad he was there to help me. I couldn’t have escaped earlier even if I wanted to.
We burst through the sand and our lips parted.
I gulped in a huge lungful of sweet fresh oxygen.
Egara did the same only he didn’t need to struggle the way I did.
He panted, a little out of breath, but otherwise fine.
He peered up and down the valley roads and at the sky, looking for something I couldn’t see.
“Are they gone?” I said. “Did they go?”
“Yes,” he said. “We got lucky. We won’t get lucky again. Come on. We have to find those who took the shuttlecraft and get it back. Then we can get out of here.”
He took me by the hand and led me away.
We traveled in bursts, moving at a fast walk.
Every step I took ground the sand deeper in my crevices.
Boy did I hate being covered in sand!
A thick streak of it wound up the back of my leg and rubbed against my pants.
I could already feel the chafing and wondered if the shuttlecraft had any creams on board.
Shuttlecraft.
Crazy to think how easy it was to believe there were ships that could travel the depths of space so easily, ships that few had traveled in on Earth.
I kept my eyes focused on the swell of the sand dunes, the sharp inclines that had seemed so protective before could now house guards and drones by the hundreds and be on us before we could react.
Egara’s hand held mine firmly, his eyes darting left and right, focused on the blind corners as we took them each in turn.
The sun beat down hard and harsh, and as the day slipped by, we didn’t stop, not even to eat.
To avoid indigestion, I nibbled at the snacks the same way Egara did.
It was high noon, or as close to it as I could assume without a clock to check, when my boot caught on a protrusion of sand.
I fell and landed hard on my hands and knees.
My breath racked my lungs and I could barely breathe.
Egara bent down to help me up but I could hardly move.
I was exhausted.
Each breath sawed in and out of my throat, coming out horse
