Page 48 of Mates for the Raskarrans #1-6

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ellie

I ’m a mess of confused emotions when I wake.

The ache between my thighs is almost unbearable, but the ache in my head is worse.

It’s probably because I haven’t had enough water, and my sleep has hardly been restful, but of course my mind is full of images of those poor people back at the slaughterhouse.

I wiggle each of my fingers in turn, check they are still moving normally, then run my hands over my legs, my arms, check nothing is feeling numb.

Nothing is. In fact, the opposite is the problem.

My feet ache, my legs too. My back doesn’t feel great, and there’s so much tension in my neck I can’t work it out with my fingers.

I know all this is because of my physical exertions, but as I get up, stretch out, I find myself wondering if my legs feel a little more sluggish than usual.

I touch the scratches on my face and I hate that I don’t know whether I’m imagining that they feel hot or not.

I grab myself a drink from our meagre collection of rainwater, but forgo breakfast. Instead, I grab my spear. I think it’s early enough that no one is awake to stop me, but Liv steps up beside me, appearing from inside the escape pod.

“Off again?” she says.

“I have to keep trying,” I say. And it’s not just about the need to feed the others now. If I don’t spend my day doing something, I’m going to drive myself crazy that much faster worrying about and second guessing every little sensation in my body.

Or trying to interpret the dreams that make increasingly less sense every day.

I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to, and he refused.

And I don’t understand. Why all the aching need and desire the dreams have left me with, if they’re going to deny me when I’m ready to embrace it.

Unless it’s the sanity I have left asserting itself. Not letting me throw myself over the edge into a world of false pleasure and distraction at the expense of my real survival.

If survival is even possible for me at this point.

I scrunch my toes in my shoes to make sure I can still feel them.

Liv has the look of someone holding back everything they want to say.

“You need to get your rest,” she says. “You’ll collapse if you don’t. We need you.”

For a brief moment, I consider telling her everything.

The dreams, my fears about what they mean.

Liv can be a bit aloof, but she’s smart.

More educated than many of the other girls.

She’d probably understand. But I can’t bring myself to say any of it aloud, like speaking it makes it somehow more real.

“I don’t like to sleep,” I say instead, meaning not just sleep, but anything that involves sitting still with my thoughts. “It makes me feel…” So many things. I settle for the one I think she’ll understand, that won’t provoke any questions. “…unsafe.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “At least eat some breakfast before you go.”

I don’t know why I feel compelled to do as she says. Liv has that effect on people. The other girls have started looking to Liv as a bit of a leader, and I get the impulse. She’s just got that ‘I’ve got my shit together’ vibe.

Unlike me. I feel like I’m fraying at the edges, my grip on reality loosening every day.

I can’t get the dream to stop, and despite my best intentions, when I’m there, I find myself leaning in to it.

I know it’s not real and I know Anghar isn’t real, but when he put his arms round me last night, comforted me, I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be real so, so much.

He made me feel safe.

I’ve never felt safe before in my life.

I want to feel it again.

Is that the first step on the descent into true madness? Finding yourself wanting to believe the lie?

I don’t know, and it terrifies me.

I decide to have breakfast. There’s a listless energy to the camp this morning, and I don’t think anyone notices I’m feeling out of sorts as I poke at my food. I watch Liv take two rations to Grace, only for Grace to refuse the ration for Lorna. When Liv moves on, Grace’s shoulders slump in defeat.

Even Sam - usually a cheerful presence in the camp - stares off into the middle distance. They’re starting to give up, I think.

I need to bring them some hope. I need to catch something today. I need to be strong enough to do it again tomorrow. I touch my hand to my face again, tracing the edges of the scratches. I can’t afford to be sick.

But of course, the next thing that spirals through my mind is Anghar’s voice.

In the rock pools at the base of the cliffs there will be creatures easy to catch.

I hear it so clearly, I half expect to see him when I look round. I take it as a good sign that I don’t.

But it gets me thinking. That little tidbit had to come from somewhere.

I can’t remember where, exactly, but my mind must have dredged it up from deep in my forgotten memories.

And yeah, maybe it only applies to places in the rocks near the water on Earth, but there are birds here.

Eggs. It stands to reason that there might be sea creatures the same as or similar to ones back home.

I decide to strike out for the rocks. The beach doesn’t go as far in that direction, so if it’s a bust, at least it won’t be a waste of a whole day.

Liv follows me. She pretends like she’s just looking for food of her own accord, but I know she’s following me.

She keeps just a little too perfectly distanced from me, like she doesn’t want to get too close, but doesn’t want to lose sight of me either.

I guess it’s kind of nice, having her care enough to keep an eye on me, even if it stings that she thinks I need it.

Just let me find some food, I think, let me find some food before I start losing it completely.

I don’t know who I’m thinking it to. A higher power. A goddess.

Lina.

I shake my head. It’s probably way past the point of crazy to consider praying to the goddess I’ve invented.

But even as I think it, I glance upwards, almost nervous. As if there might be someone looking down on me, not appreciating my arrogance in assuming I could have invented them.

My headache intensifies, a throbbing pain behind my temple. If I’m not sick, I’m going to overthink myself that way very soon.

Liv watches me closely, and I wonder what she sees when she looks at me.

At last, we arrive at the rocks. I call Liv over, tell her what we’re looking for.

She’s dubious, but she follows my lead without question, clambering over the rocks and looking for the pools of water that have collected in the crevices between them.

The first couple I spot are empty. Too small, really, for anything but the tiniest creatures to live in.

Then I spot a decent sized one. I point it out to Liv and we head for it, my heart racing when I see there’s a collection of spiny things inside it - exactly as Anghar described. No. Exactly as I remembered.

“How do we know they aren’t poisonous?” Liv asks.

“We don’t,” I say. I don’t add that it really doesn’t matter if they are. If we don’t eat them, we die. Better to risk the poison than starve.

I make a bag out of my shirt to carry them in, leaving me dressed in only my shapeless Mercenia bra, the jumpsuit tied around my waist. We spend some time collecting as many of the spiny things as we can fit in it.

Liv might have been squeamish about touching the creatures at first, but she’s soon on her knees, her arm up to the shoulder in water as she reaches into the very deepest pools to collect more.

As more and more creatures go into the bag, I feel tension leaching out of my shoulders.

It’s not exactly going to be a feast, but it will be enough to give the girls back some hope, some fight.

And there are enough creatures left that we can come back here again today, probably tomorrow as well. It’s perhaps two or three days of meals. It will buy us some time - not for a rescue from Mercenia, but to come up with a plan for breaching the trees.

“You need to get more rest,” Liv says as we walk back.

I think about how sleep will inevitably mean a return to Anghar. I hate that part of me is eager for that, embracing the madness wholeheartedly because it feels good.

“We need you, Ellie.”

They do need me. I can’t give up. I can’t give in to the dream and all it promises. I have to fight it for as long as I can. Have to keep going for as long as I can.

“Who do you trust to keep watch?”

Liv’s question throws me, and I give her a confused look.

“You feel unsafe sleeping, right? Who do you trust the most? I’ll make sure they’re always on watch when it’s your turn to go to sleep.”

“No, it’s not that…” I hesitate. It’s the perfect opening to talk, to explain, but the words evade me. How can I encapsulate all the worries and fears spiralling round my mind in a way that makes any sort of sense? “It’s what happens when I’m asleep,” I say in the end. “The dreams…”

Something in Liv’s expression shifts - a flicker of recognition. My heart jolts. Maybe I’m not the only one after all. Maybe it has nothing to do with the bird and the scratches.

“Super vivid, right?” she says. “Almost like they’re real.”

She keeps talking, but my ears are buzzing too loud for me to hear what she’s saying.

She’s having the dreams, too. I open my mouth to ask her about it, to tell her about mine. But Liv doesn’t look even a little uncomfortable about it, so she’s probably not dreaming about an alien who wants to know how she tastes.

My mind is racing to come up with a way to talk about it all when a scream shatters the peace of the afternoon.

I don’t hesitate. I drop our creature haul, grab one of the spears off Liv, and heft it so it’s pointing out in front of me as I run back to the camp.

I’m hoping that one of the girls has just seen a crawler or something, that it’s not that horrible creature with the lashes and the teeth come back to pick us off.

But it seems our luck has finally run out.

There isn’t just one of the monsters, there are three.

Two of them rangy looking, starving things.

Khadija has one occupied with a burning branch.

I launch myself at the other, stabbing at it with my spear and screaming at it, like the sound of my voice might deter it if the sharp end of my weapon doesn’t.

My heart is racing so fast, I barely know what I’m doing, acting on gut instinct and adrenaline alone.

Then I get a little too close and the lashes strike me, the stinging pain of the blow only starting up a few seconds after I feel the hot drips of blood trickling down my cheek.

I hear Liv shout behind me. Then she’s at my side and the two of us are facing the thing together and it’s not going to be enough, I think. It’s still not going to be enough.

Then, suddenly, there’s so much sound all around us, I’m sure another monster is about to burst from the trees. Instead, several humanoid shapes run out onto the beach, going after the three attacking creatures.

My heart stops dead in my chest.

Liv’s fingers close around my arm and I don’t know if she’s afraid I’ll keel over or that she will.

I can’t even look at her, my eyes going instead to the alien approaching us.

Not Anghar, a much bigger alien - broad across the shoulders in a way my dream companion isn’t, but undeniably of the same species.

His expression is intent as he creeps towards us.

I take a step back, involuntary. My heart has gone from frozen to pounding, and I feel light-headed, confused.

I think I see the alien raise a hand, as if to placate me, but there’s blood in my eyes from the cut on my face, and honestly, even if there wasn’t, I don’t think I can be sure about anything anymore.

Except for one thing.

Anghar.

I slide my gaze to the right, landing on a familiar form.

It’s like time slows down to a crawl as I take in the muscles bunching in his arm where he grips his spear, his focus entirely on the creature in front of him, drawing it away from me and Liv towards the trees.

His long hair is tied back out of his face, his eyes narrowed in concentration.

His lips - normally quirked in a smile - are pressed tight together.

Despite this, I still feel a thrill of heat go through me at the sight of them.

He’s real.

The dreams - all of it - it was all real.

A noise fills my head, loud and shrill. It drowns out the sound of shouts and snarls, the clash of spears and the screams. All I can hear is the high-pitched whine and my own heartbeat, both getting louder and louder, the world seeming to spin around me.

I can no longer feel Liv’s fingers on my arms.

Can’t feel anything except the panic as it crashes through my body.

He’s real and I have no idea what to do, how to feel about it.

I can’t even think.

So I do the only thing I can do.

I run.