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He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t even glance at me. He just keeps moving.
My cries don’t really sound like words. My throat is dry, and my voice is hoarse, and it is traveling to him across the valley. I thought he was going through the wreckage, maybe a scavenger, but he’s not interested in it or me.
His legs are long, and he is strong. I would have had trouble keeping up with him even if I was at full health, but in my wounded state I keep falling behind.
I can’t give up. I have to follow him. He’s a lifeline.
I keep crying out, keep gasping for aid, but my words are getting less and less coherent every time I cry out and eventually the sounds I make prove to be my downfall.
Finally, the alien male stops and turns toward me, spinning around with vicious gold eyes. He has two dark pupils, narrowed in a way that really feels like not a good thing for me.
He roars at me, displaying terrifying fangs, like those of a lion or an orc. He is green, a deep chlorophyll color. His muscles trammel his body like massive snakes. There is something plantlike about him, but there is something more viciously, dangerously animal in his bearing. I don’t know anything about the life on this planet, but I am learning quickly.
I retreat as hastily as I can, withdrawing back into the bushes. I don’t have the strength to run, and I definitely have no way to fight a creature like him. If he comes after me, I’m done for.
But he doesn’t.
He doesn’t want to hurt me. He just wants me to leave him alone. Having snarled at me, he turns around and keeps walking.
I hesitate for all of thirty seconds, then keep following, but silently now. What else can I do? I have now left the shelter of the ship, and I know I will not be able to survive the open elements of this world. This much greenery suggests heavy rain showers. Just because they haven’t happened yet, doesn’t mean they won’t.
I keep following him because I have to. Hour after hour, day after day. At one point, he drops a scrap of food, a thick chunk of dried meat. I fall upon it and devour it. It tastes like life. I don’t know if he intended that kindness, but he just extended my potential survival time by several hours.
This was the right call, even if he is hostile. He just provided the only sustenance I have gotten on this planet since landing here.
With my decision to follow renewed, I stay on his trail. I keep back so he doesn’t see me. He is moving at a steady walk, which is good for me, though it does mean I occasionally have to limp-sprint to keep up. He knows where he is going, and soon his path joins up with a stream, which means now I have water.
I watch him pluck various berries and leaves, and dig roots up from the ground, and I gather the same. There’s no guaranteeing that they are safe for me as they are for him, but I don’t have the luxury of a product label. All I can do is nibble a little and then wait to see if I feel sick or not.
I feel sick a lot over those first couple of days, but I am getting calories, and I am starting to realize that there are things I can eat. There are leafy vegetables with thick, starchy roots, and I can stomach them. They are better cooked, I learn when I quickly forage through his camp, which I do every morning after he leaves.
I start to get comfortable with this routine of being his shadow. I am being driven by very basic instincts now. I know he’s hostile. I know he doesn’t want me near him, but hunger is a powerful motivator.
One night, I simply cannot wait until the next day. I wait until he falls asleep and then I creep in and help myself to the little scraps of food he didn’t finish. Probably the food he intended to eat for breakfast. It is the first cooked meal I have had since the crash, and it makes me feel happy and sleepy. Very sleepy.
I crawl away from him and the fire and into the bushes, curling up a few feet from him, very well fed. I tell myself I’ll stay alert. I won’t let myself sleep too long.
* * *
Iwake up to the wet smell of an extinguished fire, alone. Oh no. I took his breakfast and now he has moved on without making any of the usual sounds that wake me.
It is with the greatest of relief that I see him going down a hill in the distance. He’s quite a way ahead of me, so I run to catch up and stay in his wake.
I slept so close to him last night. There was every chance he might have seen me. The bushes that seemed to provide a lot of cover in the night did not do much in the light of day at all.
He didn’t kill me. He didn’t hurt me. He let me sleep. He also left me to die, but I don’t know if he understands the stakes here. I don’t know how sentient he is. They do call these creatures savages, after all. He is as much of a mystery to me as I am to him.
* * *
This goes on for several days. I stay out of his way, but I stay close. I become accustomed to crouching in the flickering camp light next to him, keeping an eye on him to make sure that he is still asleep. He’s so large. At least six foot five tall, and twice as broad as any human man. The white tips of his lower fangs extend up over his upper lip in a way that’s kind of cute.
He is handsome. He has the only face I have to look at here, and I find myself looking at it a lot. Gazing at it, really. I find myself imagining what conversations we might have if we spoke the same language. I even imagine what it might be like for him to smile at me.
None of that ever happens. His face is impassive in his sleep, and I am aware that I am to him like a stray kitten following a hostile hunter. I’m dependent and weak and an unwanted problem.
I make sure not to fall asleep near his fire again, and I make extra sure never to sleep later than him. I sleep after he sleeps, and I wake before he wakes. I follow his every breath, avoid his every glance, spare myself his every glare. I live distant from him, but with him.
Fssst fssst fssst…
