Alien Song (Scifi Alien Human Romance #1)

Chapter 1

I was so anxious I felt like I might throw up.

Heavy with the stench of rotting seaweed exposed by the receding tide, the brisk sea breeze wasn't helping the nausea any. The clanging from the shipyard was muted by the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.

There was her car.

It pulled up, tucking into a spot near the café.

I walked over to her as she got out. My stomach flipped over as my emotions wielded a spatula against my insides.

My ex-best friend gave me a tentative smile, her blond hair catching in the sunlight as it always did, her comically large eyes widening as I smiled back. She held out her arms, open and inviting.

I wanted to punch her in her stupid, pretty face.

Instead, I hugged her.

I sank into the warmth of her hug with a sigh.

She was so soft.

"I'm glad you could make it." The truth of those words didn't negate the other words we both knew I wasn't speaking. It was important to start gently. To start kindly.

To hold back the swell of emotion that frothed inside of me like a storm.

We could do the "why did you" and the "how could" you later.

"Me too," Arnina said as she squeezed me, then let me go.

There was an awkward pause - the kind that hangs in the air when both people want the other person to break through a wall that took heartbreak to build.

"Let's walk on the beach," I said and turned to head out towards that runaway tide.

Arnina went with me, threading her arm through mine, like we used to do, as we stepped over long driftwood logs that lined the sandy slopes - remnants of the massive logging operation that had once clogged the waters with the corpses of steamboats sunk deep under the water.

My feet sank into the goopy sand, and I veered to a firmer-looking patch.

I didn't know how to say what I needed to say.

The pressure rose in my chest, and then the words just broke free like a volcano spewing from the surface of the Earth.

"You finally broke free, you magnificent bi-"

"Lorelei!" Arnina cut me off as lava hit the ocean, cooling its headlong rush. "It isn't like he kept me in a cage."

The sound of metal grinders echoed in the air from the boatyard further inland while seagulls squawked at them from above.

I rolled my eyes at her and flipped my messy braid back over my shoulder. Then I squeezed her arm.

"Are you so sure about that?" I asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

Arnina winced but didn't reply.

She knew it. I knew it. Now it was time to finally say all the things I wanted to say about that piece of trash she called an ex-boyfriend. She wouldn't let me say them before.

She wouldn't listen before.

"First, that man wouldn't know an act of selfless consideration if Eleos, the Greek god of mercy, came down and gave him a revelation; and second," I let the words sit in the air a moment by themselves, making sure to give my elaborations their proper performative pause.

"He let his friends trash talk you, which means he was trash-talking you to them; and third, you finally stood up for yourself and broke up with that fool you've been wasting your time with for three years. Sometimes you have to be a bi-"

"It wasn't all bad." She cut me off again.

So, she still didn't like cursing that much.

Well, that was disappointing.

If we were to repair our friendship, she would have to deal with the cursing. She owed me that much, at least. Still, I wasn't going to try again at this moment. Now wasn't the time to push hard.

Now was the time to be here for her.

"He smashed a plate on your feet because you didn't wash his dishes for him," I pointed out. "You have a scar on your ankle."

"I told you about when I tried to break up with him and hid in the bathroom?" she asked, a frown fluttering across her beautifully rounded face.

"And he removed the hinges and took the entire door off to get in?" I squeezed her arm again. That had been near the beginning of their relationship when she was still talking to me.

"He called me a bitch when he came in with the drill in his hands," she said softly.

I paused, silent for a moment.

So, some words were going to be more tender than others. I should have guessed that he was cursing at her and calling her names. He did just about everything else.

"He was the bitch," she muttered.

"Damn straight," I agreed.

There was something shimmering out over the gentle waves, and it caused my eyes to water, so I looked away.

"Where are we heading next?" she asked.

I whipped out my phone.

I had this trip mostly planned out, as I was overly excited when she called me up for the first time in years, but there was always room for adjustment.

"I think it's called Vintage?" I checked my phone. "Looks like we will have a great view of the sunset over the bay. It's the only other wine bar with tastings unless we want to figure out getting a ride to one out of town."

"Why don't we skip more wine and instead go to dinner? There is that cute restaurant walking distance from the ferry - the one with the owls?" she asked.

"That has health food, right?" I asked. Part of this trip was to rekindle our friendship, but I'd sold it to her as a heal your heart by seeing what else is out there mission.

"You're looking for the kind of guy who thinks that physical health is just as important as wealth rather than find him in a bar? "

"Next relationship I get into, the guy is going to have to slay a dragon or something." She grinned at me and then shook her head. "That isn't realistic, though. I should have at least normal standards."

"You could have him do a pro wrestling match with a man in a T-Rex costume," I smiled back. "The bar is in the dirt when it comes to normal standards, Neen. It's okay to have some hurdles they have to clear. Even better if they involve dinosaurs.."

It was good to see her smile again.

She frowned and looked past me out at the water, squinting. I turned my head to look in the same direction. It was that same shimmer I had seen earlier, but I could see now that it wasn't just a trick of the light over the water. It looked like a giant blob wearing a Klingon cloaking field.

"What is that?" I asked.

"I don't kn-" her words cut off, and I glanced back at her.

Her face was completely slack.

"Arnina?" I asked, waving my hand in front of her face. "Yo girl, are you alright?"

She didn't respond.

I looked back out at the ocean.

That big shimmering blob was a lot bigger.

A flash of primal fear raced through me.

One thing I'd learned in the last two years was that fear was a gift.

It was a tool. It was a part of my brain that served my greater survival.

When I felt it, whether in the small traces of anxiety or the huge sudden swell, it was utterly essential that I pay attention to what it was trying to tell me.

Now, it was telling me to run.

"Neen, we gotta go." I pulled on Arnina's arm, but she didn't budge. "Neen, wake up. We have to go."

She wouldn't move.

I let go of her arm.

She wasn't going to budge.

I could run.

I could leave her there to whatever had her trapped like a fish hypnotized by the glow of an anglerfish, a deer staring into the headlights of its doom.

I could leave her there and run away. She had abandoned our friendship anyway.

She hadn't spoken to me in the last two years because she didn't believe me, didn't believe in me.

Just because she finally broke up with that piece of trash who had latched on to her didn't mean that it fixed anything.

I didn't owe her shit.

She abandoned me first.

The fear roared within my chest, urging me to flee.

I took a step away from her.

It felt wrong.

"Fish sticks!" I cursed

The fear said run, but my heart said stay.

I leaped back over to her and put my back against hers.

I laced my arms through her unresponsive ones, squatted a little to get my butt under hers, and then leaned forward, booty scooted a little, and straightened my legs, scooping her off the ground and onto my back.

She flopped there like a land bound sea jelly.

"Uuugh, girl, you are so lucky to have me in your life," I grunted as I struggled through the wet sand.

Then, my next step sank into a patch of quicksand up to my knee.

"FU-"

My stomach dropped like the fall on a rollercoaster as my body suddenly yanked in one direction - up.

The world spun around me as I flailed in mid-air, losing my grip on my friend.

I reached for her, my fingers closing on thin air instead of her arm.

"Get back here!" I yelled as I attempted to swim through the air like a mermaid in a net.

I spun again, having no notion of which way was up or down. Then I saw the ground below me rapidly receding, one of my beautiful, knee-high boots stuck firmly in the sand.

"Noooooooo!" I screamed, my voice raw in my throat as I reached out for it.

Those boots set me back three hundred dollars.

Something grey wrapped around me, pressing in on me.

I tried to push against it. I made no impact on the hard, plastic-like material.

It engulfed my body, starting with my back and wrapping around to mold to my legs.

Its soft, unearthly glow undulated around me, shifting me as I slid further up.

Or was it down? I didn't know which way was which.

My face pressed against something soft. I looked up. Arnina was up above me in the tube. Her foot was digging into my shoulder, her calf against my cheek.

The tube undulated again, and we shifted further, sliding into the belly of the beast.

There have been plenty of moments in life where I had just grated my teeth and buried my fear, where I had known that the only thing to do was to be brave and keep going, keep trucking along and all that good stuff. However, this was not one of those moments.

This was a moment of pure, unadulterated terror.

I was being swallowed.

I screamed.