Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
The next morning, I wake before X stirs. I’m so used to opening my eyes to find him already waiting, his arms wrapped tightly around me, wearing his human guise so he doesn’t startle me now that the lights are on.
But I can tell, even with my back pressed to his chest, that he’s still in his natural state. When I try to twist around to face him, his body feels…strange. Stiff. With his tentacles wrapped around me, I can barely move.
“X,” I say, twisting my neck, trying to look him in the face, but I can’t. “X? Wake up.” I grab the arm wrapped around me and shake him, gently at first, and then harder. “Hey!”
After several seconds of my panicking, he stirs. His tentacles slowly shift around me, transforming into arms, and finally release their ironlike grip. I turn around and find his eyes are open and blinking, black for a moment before they, too, become human once more.
“X,” I breathe, relieved.
“Calli,” he murmurs. His voice is weak.
“Let me…let me see if I can get you something to eat,” I say with a wavery smile.
I climb out of the pod and head to the metal slot, searching in vain for a tray of provisions that hasn’t come.
Then I march to the mirror. My reflection stares back at me, wild-eyed with greasy hair and fists clenched at my side.
“You need to send us some meat,” I say. “He’ll eat if you do.
I’ll make sure of it. But you need to, or—” I pause, taking in a shaky breath, and run my hands through my hair.
“He’s going to die,” I say. “Don’t you understand?
He would rather starve to death than eat me.
Because he’s not some animal or monster.
He’s just like us.” I pause. I don’t know why; I know I won’t receive a response other than my own face reflected back at me.
They’re too cowardly to speak to me over the intercom.
So after a moment, I grab the overturned water jug, refill it in the bathroom, and return to X.
His eyes have shut again, and for a moment I just watch the subtle rise and fall of his chest. His breathing is shallow; his skin is turning a deeper shade of blue as he loses the strength to maintain his guise.
“X,” I murmur. “Drink.” He accepts the water wordlessly, murmurs something unintelligible in his native tongue, and returns to his fitful sleep.
I curl up by his side in the pod, hoping that my body heat will provide some comfort, because it is all I have to give him.
The day passes with agonizing slowness. X barely opens his eyes, though he stirs when I sit up, his eyes opening to slits before closing again.
My own body has grown weak from lack of proper nutrition, but still I roam restlessly around the room, searching for a way out that I know doesn’t exist. Every time I think about the scientists behind the mirror, watching the two of us die in here as some kind of sick experiment, I want to scream and throw things.
But I don’t. I need to keep my head. I need to think of a way out of this.
Yet as night approaches and the lights dim, I still have nothing but despair.
I’m about to climb into the pod again when I hear the metal-on-metal creak of the door slot opening.
I pause for a moment, unsure if my daydreams of escaping and taking bloody revenge conjured the noise, but then I hear the soft thud of a box hitting the ground.
I race to the door and sink to my knees in my haste to look inside. There’s a pang in my chest as I realize X is too weak to insist on checking the delivery himself; he didn’t even move from the sleep pod.
But there’s no danger in the box they gave us. No food, either. There’s just a small piece of paper with a scrawled note.
Remain calm. You will be extracted soon.
For a moment I can only stare. Now they’re going to tell me to keep calm?
To pretend that we’re working together? Am I meant to trust them now?
My fingers twitch, crumpling the paper in my grasp.
But I force myself to relax my grip, take a deep breath.
I turn back to look over my shoulder at the mirror, and I nod.
When I climb into the pod beside X, he opens his eyes to slits again.
“It’s okay,” I lie. “Everything is going to be okay.”
He shuts his eyes and falls back asleep. Trusting me completely. As I curl up beside him and try to sleep, guilt is a stone in my stomach.