Chapter 6 - ELLA #2
A hysterical laugh bubbled up and out of me. “Okay. That’s not unsettling at all.” I tried to compose myself, scrubbing my hands over my face. “Look, tell your master I need a minute. I smell like a corpse, and I look like something that crawled out of a storm drain.”
Still no reaction. Just that strange, inhuman patience. It could have been a statue or a ghost haunting the room. I reached for the edge of the bed, realizing I had slept in my clothes, the same ones I had been wearing since I’d been taken from Earth.
"Uhm, I need… a shower, clothes?" I told the servant, who could have been a robot with all the emotions he showed.
Instead of an answer, he glided past me, silent as wind, and pressed a splayed hand to the panel beside one of the grand pillars.
The wall didn’t open; it melted, a perfect seam dissolving into existence.
Inside was a closet; the kind you saw in movies about rich people, with rails of clothing that looked spun from spider silk.
The colors ranged from solemn black to an iridescent blue so electric it made my teeth ache.
Next to the closet, another panel peeled away, unveiling a bathroom that should have belonged to a palace or a particularly extravagant cult leader.
I took it all in: the bathing pool sunk into the floor, the walls tiled with shifting pearl, the sink that glowed faintly as if lit from within.
Steam curled languidly from the pool. There were no obvious pipes or fixtures, but the air smelled of something sweet and comforting.
I couldn’t place it, but it reminded me of rain on grass and held a slight citrusy scent.
The silver figure gestured toward the bathroom, its face as blank and impassive as before. I was done being confused. That would come later, when I had caffeine and distance from the previous day’s horror. For now, I shuffled toward the bathroom. “Fine,” I muttered. “Alien spa day. Why not?”
Inside, the heat was soothing, the humidity a gentle slap to my sinuses.
The pool was big enough for three people, but I saw no sign of jets or nozzles, just perfectly still, hot water.
A stack of towels—or what passed for towels—lay folded on a slab by the edge.
I tested one: warm, weightless, softer than anything natural.
I took off my filthy clothes and slipped into the water, where my muscles instantly unknotted. I shut my eyes and listened to nothing. For a moment, I let myself dissolve into the sensation, forgetting where I was.
Then, as I dunked my head, I heard a sharp click behind me.
I snapped upright, hair plastered to my face.
The servant hadn’t moved from the doorway, but now I saw that it held a small tray in one hand.
On the tray: a squat cup, steam rising from its surface, and a glass vial no bigger than my thumb.
The cup looked like it might have been carved from bone, but the liquid inside was a deep, reassuring black.
The figure advanced, set the tray on the lip of the pool, and retreated to a respectful distance. I eyed the offerings, half-expecting them to be a joke or a trap. Curiosity won out. I took the cup, sniffed: rich, bitter, familiar. Coffee. Or a passable imitation.
I drank. The taste was like an electric shock, a jolt of normality in the otherwise deranged landscape of my morning.
I drained the cup, wiped my mouth, and eyed the vial.
It had no label, just a sliver of oily green liquid.
I considered ignoring it, but something in the servant’s posture suggested that was not an option.
“What is it?” I asked. “Alien mouthwash?”
No answer, of course.
I uncorked the vial, hesitated, then tipped it back. The liquid burned, but not unpleasantly. I felt a tingling at the base of my skull, as if tiny insects were massaging my cerebellum. The fog in my head cleared instantly. I blinked, startled by the sudden clarity.
“Okay,” I said, “that’s actually pretty good. But now I'd like some privacy, please." For good measure, I waved my hand, and after a bow, the servant left. Only when I was sure I was alone did I get out of the pool and dry myself with the most heavenly towels ever invented.
I found a brush—or at least a brush-like implement—and managed to untangle most of the knots in my hair.
My arms were covered in faint bruises, and I had a shallow gash on my shin, leftover souvenirs from the previous night.
I raided the closet, found a flowing dress in a color somewhere between gold and the inside of a seashell, and slipped it on.
The fabric was frictionless, lighter than air, and it caught the light in impossible ways.
The effect was… dramatic. I looked like the villain in a science fiction opera, or maybe a space pope.
By the time I emerged, the silver figure had already made the bed with fresh sheets and discarded my old clothes. He gestured for me to follow.
The suite was immense, a series of caverns linked by archways of live stone that seemed to shift and move.
I tried to spot windows, but there were none, only wall panels that flickered between translucent and opaque, letting in light that had the blue-white cast of an aquarium.
My suite overlooked a central atrium, where another, larger figure waited at a table laid for two.
Zapharos.