“Nora, talk to me. Tell me about what you liked to do on the space station in your free time. Talk to me about what you wishyou had done, and what you could do right now if you weren’t here. Just talk to me while I get their attention,” she says.
I crack my eyes open to see her grabbing onto the side of her cage as she tries to stand up.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” I mumble. “There is something different on this planet with the gravity or something. Everything feels so heavy.”
“Anyone! Help! Nora isn’t doing well at all. I think she is going to die!” she yells.
I close my eyes and feel my whole body relax. Hopefully, by the time they get here, I’ll be dead, and they’ll take care of her so that she doesn’t die.
“Nora, talk to me,” she begs. “Talk to me so you stay awake. Come on, I’m right here, and you can do it. Just say some words.”
“I just want to sleep,” I tell her. “I want to sleep and not do anything else. I think this will be the first time that I’ll get some good sleep.”
I’ll pass out and never wake up, the best sleep of my life. On the space station, I could never manage to stay asleep for longer than two hours, always waking from a nightmare or for unknown reasons. It has been the same here on Venkoria, but I attributed it to the cage we are in and how uncomfortable it is.
“Help!” Ella screams. “Help us! I think Nora is going to die!”
I hear the door open, but I don’t open my eyes, too tired to even satisfy my curiosity. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Even if they did help me right now, I don’t think I would last long at all. Not with how they have been treating us since.
“Please, help her. She’s so sick,” Ella says.
Words in an unknown language are spoken somewhere in the room. I must be really dying if I can’t even understand English anymore. I take a deep breath and slowly let it out, allowing my body to relax even more.
It’s like my body knows I am going to die soon, and it wants me to be as comfortable as possible. But it would be nice to die with a full stomach without feeling the emptiness.
I hear the same jumbled-up sounds, but they are getting closer. What could they possibly want?
“I can’t understand them, Nora. But it seems like they are going to help you. There are three of them, but one looks really worried,” she explains. “Just hang in there a little longer.”
“I don’t want help. Make them help you.” I crack my eyes open and look over at the girl. My vision is blurry as I try to look at her, but I can’t make anything out.
Hands.
Gentle, massive, warm hands touch my legs and the middle of my back. I tilt my head to the side a little to catch a glimpse of the person touching me. I can’t make out their appearance, but he looks male, as the room seems to be getting darker with each passing second.
He opens his mouth, and before I know it, someone rushes over with something in his hand. He places it around my neck before I can even fight against it.
“What is wrong with her?” the man asks, holding me close to him.
I can’t help but lean my head against his chest, taking in a deep breath. He is so warm and smells amazing. My eyebrows furrow when I realize I know the words he’s saying. I thought I was dying before because I didn’t understand what they were saying, but it seems I can understand them now.
“We do not know,” another male replies.
“Have you been taking care of them?” my savior asks. “Have you given her the shot yet?”
“Ronal, we have been busy, but we gave them food a couple of days ago,” a deep voice replies.
Is my savior named Ronal?
“Shit,” Ronal whispers. “Give her the shot real quick if you have not, and then I will be on my way out.”
“You should wait an hour before you take her,” the deep voice says.
“No, I will not be waiting an hour. Chale didn’t wait, and I am not going to, either. You have not been taking care of them. They need three meals a day. I will be talking to your superiors about what you have been doing. This is unacceptable. I didn’t pay for you to starve her until she almost died,” the man, Ronal, barks.
What is he talking about? Wasn’t this their plan all along?
Starve us to make us weak so we couldn’t fight back when they wanted to kill us?
