His eyes fixed on mine.
“It sucked you up into the sky,” I said.
“How could you know that?” he said.
“Because it happened to me too.”
I took a seat on one side of the dining table. I couldn’t sit on the bed. Not with a stranger. It seemed too… intense.
“We were abducted,” I said.
“Oh, man,” Chax said, falling into the opposite chair.
He was big and swamped it. He placed his head in his hands.
“Your name’s Chax?” I said. “Where are you from?”
“Phod,” Chax said.
“Phod?” I said. “Where’s that?”
“In the Phodrian solar system.”
“Solar system?”
My eyes bulged and I leaned back in my chair.
“Wait,” I said. “You’re telling me you’re an alien?”
“Sure. You are too. To me.”
I never thought of it like that before.
“But you look so human,” I said.
“Human? That’s what your species is called. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of humans before. Are you a space-faring race?”
“Space-faring? Well, yeah, I guess so.”
“How many colonies does your species have?”
“Colonies?”
“You know, other planets, moons.”
“Uh. None. Just our moon.”
His shoulders fell.
“Then there’s not much chance your species is going to come rescue us,” he said.
“Not for at least a few more hundred years,” I said. “What about your… species?”
The terms felt funny on my tongue. Planets. Moons. Solar systems. Species. I felt like I was back in physics class.
“I’m a Titan. We have one of the largest empires in the galaxy.”
“That’s good, right?” I said. “Your species is space-faring. They can rescue us.”
Chax shook his head.
“I’m afraid not,” he said.
“Why not?”
“The bigger the empire, the more stretched out the defense resources,” he said. “And I’m only a farmer. Nobody is going to waste resources to come looking for me.”
These Titans might be more technologically advanced, but their way of thinking between the classes hadn’t changed.
“If you’re an alien, how come you’re speaking English?” I said.
“I’m not speaking English,” he said.
I rolled my eyes.
“Oh, okay, then,” I said. “Speaking American.”
“I’m not speaking American either. I’m speaking Titian.”
“Then how come I can understand you?”
“Because of this.”
He pressed a hand to the plastic strip at his neck. My hand went to the identical strip on mine.
“It’s called a translator strip,” he said. “It makes it possible for different species to talk to each other.”
My stomach growled loudly.
“Are you hungry?” he said.
“No,” I said, still processing the information.
I had so many questions, so many—
My stomach growled again. Traitor.
“Are you sure?” he said. “Because when most species make that noise, it’s because they’re hungry.”
“I’m not,” I snapped. “It happens when I’m scared half to death by a half-naked man suddenly turning up in my bed in the middle of the night. People have been shot for less.”
“Well, I’m hungry,” he said.
He leaned over to the recess in the wall I noticed earlier.
“It can make whatever you want,” he said. “You just have to tell it. Computer, make a Methusida steak. Medium rare.”
The machine glowed with light and a moment later, a plate appeared with a steak and some funky-looking purple vegetables on the side.
I could even smell it. Had I lost my mind or did I just see food pop into existence from nowhere?
I reached out a hand.
“Take it,” he said. “It’s a Titan specialty.”
Instead of going for the plate, I snatched up the knife and turned it on him.
“Woah!” he said.
He raised both his hands in surrender.
“Don’t come near me!” I said, swiping at the empty air. “I’ll cut you! I will!”
“Take it easy!” Chax said.
“Let me out of here!” I said. “Let me go right now!”
I stamped my foot for emphasis. God help the man—or Titan or whatever he was—if he ignored a woman who stamped her foot.
“Put the knife down,” he said. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”
I swiped at the air, a warning as he drew closer.
“I’m not going to hurt myself!” I said. “I’m going to hurt you!”
“You can’t hurt me,” he said.
“You wanna bet? Just open the door or however you got in here and let me go!”
“I told you. I don’t know how I ended up here. The same way you don’t. So just hand me the knife and—”
He stepped forward with his huge hulking mass. Too close. I swiped sideways and caught something solid.
Chax hissed through his teeth and pressed one hand over the other. Blood spilled from between his fingers as he rushed to the bathroom.
I immediately dropped the knife.
“Oh my God!” I said. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you!”
“Waving a knife around tends to have that effect,” he said. “It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. You’re hurt.”
“No, really,” he said. “It’s fine.”
He turned the tap on and rinsed the blood off his hands.
“Show me,” I said.
I took his hand and peered at it. There was a single notch where the knife had caught him but it was much smaller than I expected. A little blood spurted from it. He rinsed it with more water. When I looked at his hand again, even the notch was gone.
My mouth fell open and I just stared at him.
“But it’s… No… That’s impossible,” I said.
“For a human, maybe,” he said. “Not for a Titan. We heal very fast.”
Okay, consciousness, come up with a reasonable explanation for that one.
I couldn’t think of one. Except…
He really was an alien.
We both really had been abducted.
Nothing else made sense.
The bright light in the sky was from a UFO. Me and my friends had been abducted. I didn’t know where they were. Maybe they were in rooms like this one. Someone locked me up in here as a cruel game. Or torture.
And then put a male Titan in here with me.
For what purpose?
I felt sick.
This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t.
I lived in the real world. Not Fantasy Land.
“Now I really am hungry,” Chax said. “Fast healing takes energy. Lots and lots of energy. Are you sure you’re not hungry?”
He drifted back over to the dining table.
“Uh, yeah, actually, I am,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “But I think we’re going to need a new knife. Titan blood might be powerful
