“Excuse me!” I said, trotting up to him. “I need your help! My mom…”
He followed me to the boat and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” was all he said, before shoving the boat off the shore and letting the water take her.
“You’re going to come with me now,” the man said. “I don’t have much food so you’re going to have to pull your weight to earn it.”
I did everything he asked, from carrying buckets of water from distant wells to feeding his plants and jungle creatures he caught in traps.
And when we got to the city, he headed straight for the fighting pits and handed me over to them. I remembered he was angry at the price, grumbling about how much food I ate, but he accepted the money, turned, and never said another word to me.
My life only got worse from there.
Alice said I should choose somewhere I had happy memories. I chose a clearing on the outskirts of the Titan village, free of smashed huts and charred bones. The sun crested the jungle, its light glinting off the early morning dew. It was a field I often played when I was young.
I raised my arms and struggled to catch my mother, who waved my favorite toys in front of me before tossing them to my father. He bellowed for me to come get it but before I could reach him, he tossed it back to my mother again. I giggled and screamed with joy…
I felt a little awkward as I bent down and dug at the soil with my hands. It was soft and gave way easily. Alice knelt beside me and handed me each item she’d found one by one. I took a moment to consider them before placing them in the damp soil. My old toy. One of my mother’s gold earrings and one of my father’s silver ones.
Alice handed me the two remaining rings and folded my hand over them. “Keep these for yourself so you always carry them with you.”
I tucked them in my pocket. They felt much heavier than they should have.
I covered the other items with dirt, forming a small bump. Then we stood solemnly for a moment.
Returning home felt strange. I always knew where it was, and though I often passed it, I never sought it out. One day, I always told myself. One day, I’ll visit.
But that day never came.
I guess I wanted to avoid it. The memories of this place still gave me nightmares. Even last night, my dreams were fitful and I found it difficult to sleep.
And when I tossed and turned, she was there to cup my head in her arms and run her fingers soothingly through my hair, easing me back to sleep, back to the depths of the nightmare once again—me as a child and my parents being ripped from my flabby arms.
Then an incredible thing happened. The fever broke and the nightmares faded. Flickering images still kept intruding, but they were easily dismissed as I rolled over and pursued an alternative avenue.
And once, Alice pressed her lips to mine, lulling me from sleep. She had that misty look in her eye and her warm body pressed against mine. I took her again in the middle of the night.
At last, the sickness had broken.
“Now all you need is to break this sadness you feel,” Alice said. “We should perform a funeral ceremony for your parents so you can let them go. But letting go doesn’t mean forgetting.”
My parents’ bodies were lost somewhere out there in the galaxy but this village was always where they’d existed spiritually. With my unconscious link to it, I supposed it was where I belonged too.
I was surprised when a deep rumble vibrated up from my throat. It grew in volume and shook my entire body. It echoed through the jungle which turned silent and solemn as if it were mourning the loss of my parents too. It was a deep and mournful song, not music or lyrics. No words could explain such deep and complex emotions that sounds echoing from a pained soul could.
Once I was done, Alice cradled my arm. “That was beautiful.”
“It’s part of my culture’s ancient death rites,” I said. “I didn’t remember it until now. I remember the whole village gathered around a grave and sang it, helping ease the passing of the departed’s soul from life into death.”
She clutched my arm even tighter. She felt so warm and soft—so fragile, and yet so strong.
Deep inside me, worrying like a worm in rotting flesh, something festered, something as dark and draining as the sickness and sadness had ever been.
A lie I had told her. A lie I still carried in my betrayer’s heart.
We hit the road and traveled toward Klaxxon. Now we didn’t have to slog through dense jungle, we traveled much faster. We carried our belongings in cloth rags torn from my mother’s laundry.
I gathered as many berries, nuts, and consumable plants I could find and divided them between our packs in case we became separated. Then I fashioned a couple of sticks and attached sharp blades dropped in battle by my fellow villagers. They would serve as walking aids and weapons in case someone set upon us.
We joined one of the main roads feeding the city. Traffic grew thicker, and modern vehicles zipped along at neck breaking speeds. Alice eyed each of the alien species with trepidation. I had to remind myself she wasn’t only a stranger to my home planet, but a stranger to the entire galaxy. Her species hadn’t yet wet its toe in intergalactic travel.
She stuck close to me as we weaved between the heaped carts and whirring electronic vehicles. Then, like tiny flying ants, floating ships rose and fell to and from the city. Any of them could head to Rogiz 4 where I could rendezvous with my ship and mutinous crew.
Still, it wouldn’t be a direct journey. Even once I reached the planet, it would take
