3. Within My Midst
THREE
WITHIN MY MIDST
Lukys
My pulse vibrates rapidly and my hands open and close at my sides.
A female, one I could only dream of, is in my territory. Shocked by the sight of her, and taken by her pale features and dark brown hair, my tail coils under me. Tears stream down her face, glistening her cheeks. Disheartened by them, I ponder why they flow, and why she is here at all.
As she peers out the window of her spaceship, I slip deeper into the evening shadows, aware I have alerted her. She freezes and searches for me among the trees, wiping at her cheeks, not realizing I shook the branches on purpose and now she will not find me.
I did not want her to turn away just yet.
Her dark brown hair slips across her shoulders in messy but silky waves, framing a face that appears redder the more I study it. Tilting my head, I notice her tears continue to fall.
I do not immediately see anything that would have made her cry…
Until another realization hits me.
Is she… alone?
Abruptly, she picks up a bottle from a table in the middle of the floor and turns and walks deeper into the ship. She pauses briefly in the very back before she disappears through a door that slides open to the right.
Why was she crying?
Easing farther into the shadows, I wait for her reappearance.
After several hours go by, I decide to scope out the rest of her ship and the other two ships behind it.
It is dark out now and I cannot see as well as I can during the day.
But the darkness will cover my movements.
If someone is watching, I will not be easily seen, even out in the open.
Leaving the first ship behind, I enter the meadow and come upon the next ship nearest it.
It is smaller in size but only by a little bit.
Peering at the third ship that is nearly identical beyond it, they are both still and quiet in the dark.
The windows are small and thin and much harder to see into than the first one’s open front dome.
Approaching the second, I peek inside one of the thin windows.
On one side, there is a dimly lit room filled with chairs covered in straps, all facing the same direction. On the other side is a closed door. If there are humans, they are all currently out of sight.
Pulling back, I head to the last ship.
Still billowing with smoke, I approach the same window on this ship as I had on the other.
With the vessel slightly ajar and on its side, the smell of burning metal and chemicals fill my nose.
Looking inside the window, the arrangement, down to the seats, is the same as the previous ship, except in this one, half the floor is gone and there is smoke thickening the air.
I see bodies in some of the chairs, but they are unmoving.
Dead humans. I hiss and draw back.
When both smaller ships remain quiet, I lose interest in them and return to the first.
I head straight for the large, rounded window, foregoing the coverage of the trees, and lifting my hands, I peer inside.
Small blinking lights, mostly golden in hue, light up the space softly.
They cast the normally white chairs in shadows, emphasizing their plush shapes.
Deeper inside I see more places for humans to sit.
Along the wall to my immediate right, past the chairs, is a series of shelves lined with bottles.
Past that is another space with counters and tables and then a wall at the rear.
In the center of the rear wall is a hallway.
The hallway is lit up by more subtle golden lights lining the floor, casting the white walls in a muted yellow hue. It ends at a large mirror.
Without glimpsing the female anywhere, I assume she is still in the back.
I pull away and return to the trees.
I have learned that humans, like most nagas, rest at night. If she has not reappeared now, she will probably not reappear until daylight. I will not see any more humans tonight.
Swiftly leaving and traversing the slopes of my mountain, I eventually track down the buck’s corpse by the side of the river.
Thoughts of the humans and their ships plague my mind as I spend the rest of the night butchering and removing the buck’s hide and antlers outside my cave by the water. I remove the fat with a short, metal blade and prep the hide to begin drying as soon as the morning.
For a time, I debate whether to bring some of the deer meat to the humans, only deciding to forgo it for now. I still do not know if they are enemies. I do not know who, or if anyone is on the middle ship.
By the time I rinse the buck blood off me, morning light is filling the sky. A dewy, gray fog filters across the land, emerging from the lake.
I return to the female’s ship.
I lean against a tree out in front of it, obscured by others, and cross my arms.
When she finally appears, I jolt from my hiding spot, surprised to see her.
Her head swivels in my direction before turning the opposite way.
In my brief glimpse of her face, I see that her eyes are squinty, her lips are pursed, and her dark brown hair is a mess around them.
She dashes down the hallway toward the mirror at the end.
It slides open at her approach. Unlike last time, where she was wearing blue pants and a shirt, this morning she is in an oversized white shirt and short pants. Very short pants.
Her legs are on display. They are shapely and fair-skinned, and I am temporarily intrigued by the backs of her knees. How smooth and soft they appear.
The door slides shut, and the mirror returns to its place.
I settle back into the shadows to wait.
I am good at waiting.