SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Three days later, when it’s time for my meal, I find a bowl of organs, the ones I’ve asked for. I can’t eat fast enough.

Weeks pass before I hear from Ruhan again. When he shows up, I feel more relief than I want to. But he sounds tense, even frightened.

“How are you?” he asks, his voice shaky. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I was worried about you.”

“Worried about me? Ah, osita, how nice.” His words don’t line up with the fear I sense from him.

“You got in trouble for bringing me the organs, didn’t you?”

“Oh…yeah, some trouble,” Ruhan says. “Kept me locked up for a few days. But…you don’t want to hear about that. Talk to me, Kata. Tell me how many different ways you were tortured.”

I’m startled by his request. Does he wish to identify with me somehow, or are there darker, perverse urges at play? “I don’t understand what you’re asking,” I say finally.

He’s quiet for a long moment. “I think, sometimes, that if you went through so much, I can face it too, you know? I can handle it.”

I reluctantly rattle off a list of unsuccessful attempts by others—and myself—to end my life: drowning, burning, impaling, poisons, acids, bullets, explosions, radiation, lasers. And when nothing worked, confinement to small, dark rooms, exile to wastelands, separation behind impenetrable fences…then I stop. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yeah, I guess. Are you scared, Kata? Scared of the end?”

“You mean, scared to die?”

“Yeah.”

“No. I welcome death if it comes.”

“You think it won’t? You think you’ll stay alive forever?”

I ponder his question; my answer. “I hope not.”

Ruhan releases a long breath. “They want to kill me, Kata.”

“Who?”

“CM and CJ. They’ve killed CB.”

This news alarms me. “ What? ”

“We’re close to a planet. Looks like it’s habitable. A lot like Earth. Either we’ll burn up in the atmosphere or crash. Who knows? But there’s only one escape pod. I figure CJ; he’s the strongest. He’ll knock off CM and me, and take the pod. He might land on the planet; he might not. But he thinks he will.”

I open my port window, which I’ve kept dark for the past few months, and see what I’ve missed: a large, bright planet fills the view. Outside, the space plankton skim gracefully past, unperturbed by our presence. But there seem to be more of them, gathering close, as if waiting. I understand the purpose of their presence now; they’ve been guiding and maneuvering the ship through space toward this point. It was never random. The minute the ship launched, it had a destination.

But it’s Ruhan’s revelation that surprises me most. “The ship has an escape pod?”

“It only fits one person. Files and logs are stored in there. It can be maneuvered and it’ll make it to the planet in one piece. That’s what CJ said. But who’s to know what the atmosphere’s like? He says it’s good…But what the hell, it doesn’t matter anyway. We’re all sentenced to death, right? Here it is, ready and waiting.”

There’s a hitch in his voice. “I don’t want to die alone, Kata.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t want him to die at all. He’s been the only human friend I’ve known in nine hundred years.

Ruhan says, “I love you, Kata. I know that’s crazy. But I do. You never once asked me why I was sentenced to this ship. You always made me feel like I was a real person. An innocent man. A free man.”

My throat tightens. If I had tears, I would cry. “You’ve been a good friend, Ruhan.”

I hear scratchy, disjointed sounds of screaming, but it’s not Ruhan, it’s someone else.

“Oh shit,” Ruhan says. “CJ’s killing CM. I knew it. He’s coming after me next. Jesus!”

Inside me, desperation wells up, one part born of an urgent need to rescue Ruhan, and another born of a craving to feed. I can’t deal with it. I cry out and slam my fists against the door.

Ruhan says, “If I open the door, if I go in there with you, will you kill me, Kata?”

I’m shocked once again, not by his question but by this news. “You can open the door?”

“I found the code. It wasn’t easy. Years of searching. I thought maybe, someday…”

I want to answer his question with a no, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to control myself. “Ruhan, I don’t know what I’ll do. The wasp, he—”

Ruhan is yelling now, and suddenly the door slides open. Warm air rushes in, with terrible smells—the odor of blood and shit, of fear. Ruhan stares at me, wide eyed, and the color drains from his face. “Oh God,” he says, “You are an alien.”

I realize with a jolt of astonishment how shocking my appearance must be. Until this very moment I never understood, but now I do—now that I see myself as Ruhan sees me for the first time. I’ve been remade—the alien has recreated me in his image, so slowly and so minutely that I simply accepted the changes without question. But more than adapting my body to carry his seed, I’m now perfectly adapted for life on this new planet, the alien’s home world. He never had any intention of letting me die. He’ll keep me with him, and I’ll live in his world, as though I belong there.

I smile ruefully and say, “I’m not. I’m still me. Am I so awful?”

He shakes his head, breathing hard. “I’d rather die by your hand.”

I’m not sure why he says that, and I don’t believe him.

From the corridor behind Ruhan, I hear someone yelling. I know it must be CJ. Here’s my chance. I rush toward Ruhan, who screams when I grab him, but I merely fling him aside and make my way out the door. I’m filled with anger and a need for vengeance. But I’m also hungry. CJ will get what he deserves.

I sprint down the corridor and turn a corner, almost slamming into him. CJ stumbles back at the sight of me, his eyes wide and full of fear. He’s splattered with blood. It drips off his gray beard and runs down his arms. The iron bar he’s gripping falls to the floor with an echoing clatter, and he runs, but I catch him with little effort.

“Don’t kill me, please!” he pleads, but I must. I throw him to the floor, rip out his throat and pry him open like a clam with a strength I’d forgotten I possessed. Hungrily I feed, finding everything I need by instinct. When I’m finished I get up and look for Ruhan.

I find him cowering in a corner of my room. He knows there’s no use hiding from me. I must be a sight now, blue, naked, and smeared with blood. For the first time that I can remember, I feel self-conscious. I don’t want him to see me this way. And I don’t want him to be afraid of me. “Do you still love me, Ruhan?” I ask, almost as a joke, a feeble attempt to break through his terror.

He’s shaking; breathing in short, shallow puffs. As I approach him, the crotch of his trousers grows dark with a wet stain. “I don’t want to die,” he says.

“I didn’t think so.” I grab him by the wrist and pull him up. “Where’s the escape pod?”

“Two levels down.”

“Take me there.”

We hurry down metal steps and along dingy corridors until we reach a small storage bay. Ruhan points to a door. “There.”

“Get in,” I tell him.

He stares at me, trembling, unbelieving. “No, Kata, I can’t do this.” He thinks I’m giving up my chance of escape for him. He doesn’t understand the real reason I’m putting him in the pod.

“You have to, Ruhan.”

He shakes his head firmly. “I won’t make it.”

He’s made it this far. I haven’t killed him yet. Perhaps the wasp has done this for me. I don’t know. But I’m sure it’s a short reprieve. Already I feel the beginnings of need blooming in my gut. “You might,” I tell him. “But if you stay here with me, you most definitely won’t make it.”