Everglow: Friend From Far Away

5 - Creatures

The alien's eyes snapped open at the sound of his fall. They darted around lightning fast, before settling on the human that lay flat on his back in the dirt. Fischer was frozen with fear. He tried not to look the creature in the eyes, but it was almost impossible. Any semblance of logic or reason had been jettison from his head.

His eyes locked with the aliens. It's eyes were quite large, and shone a bright aqua. They had slit pupils, similar to a cat's. They glowed wonderfully in the light, sparkling and glittering with what little sunlight there was.

The creature immediately noticed Fischer as he lay there. His chest felt like it was rising higher than a tsunami with each heartbeat. The alien began to shiver, like it was cold or frightened. Ever so slightly, it began to move its arms and legs, appearing to try and crawl away from the human that was less than 3 meters from it.

Fischer tried to do the same, slowly trying to back away from whatever freakish reptile he was staring at. He had to keep telling himself not to scream. If he did, the alien was sure to react, possibly in a negative way.

It wasn't long however before he noticed something about the creature. As it crawled, a part of it's clothing drifted from it's left leg, revealing what looked to be a large gash. A strange maroon coloured liquid was dribbling from it, the clothes that had covered it also stained the same colour. It suddenly dawned on him that this creature may not be seeking to abduct him for some sort of strange experiment.

It's hurt. That liquid is blood, he said to himself.

It's hurt, which probably means it's scared.

An idea popped into his head. In the absence of all the horrible voices that usually inhabited his mind, now crazy and stupid ideas took their place.

What if instead of running away and screaming, he tried to communicate with it? It was dumb, sure. But he didn't really have an abundance of choices. If he ran, it probably wouldn't be able to chase him with a busted leg, but at the same time, it would probably die out here otherwise.

As much as he didn't value his own life, the lives of others were precious.

Even strange alien lizards.

Cursing under his breath, he slowly began to sit up, still keeping his gaze locked on the creature which was now at the edge of the charred ground. He raised his hands up near his head in a surrender pose to signify he had no weapons or anything capable of harming it on him.

Hopefully this foreign alien understood human hand signals. Maybe it even understood speech?

It was worth a shot. Slowly rolling over and crouching on his feet, he tried to muster up the courage to say something. An enormous gulp slid down his throat as he tried to speak.

"H-hello?" he wheezed, paralyzed with fear.

All was silent. If the creature understood him, it made no acknowledgments of it.

For thirty seconds the two of them stared at each other, neither one sure as to what to do. It was like dual, only instead of seeing who was the faster shot, it was who had more nerves. In the end it turned out to be Fischer.

Taking a huge breath in, he slowly began to walk towards the creature. If he was correct, and that maroon liquid was in fact blood, it meant that he could possibly help the alien, maybe wrap a tourniquet around it's leg. If a tourniquet would at all help it.

But as he grew closer, the creature's shivers started to worsen, and began to emit a soft but distressing sound, almost like a whimper. It tried to back away even further, clearly frightened by the now large human that was approaching it with its hands out. But behind it were only trees, and so it could crawl no further, becoming cornered.

The whimpers became louder and louder. Fischer stopped where he was, and waved his hands back and forth slowly, trying to express his shared feeling of fear with the creature.

"H-hey hey hey. . . it's ok, it's ok, I-I'm not going t-to hurt you. . ." he fretted, realising that this was going to be difficult if he was to assist the creature. Then an idea popped into his head. If he could show the creature he meant no harm rather than tell it, it might allow him to get closer without retaliation.

He began to move his right hand down, curling three of his fingers and pointing at the alien's damaged leg. With his other hand he grabbed his right shoulder and gave the fabric of his jacket a small tug, signifying his intentions.

The alien still didn't respond, but it stopped whimpering once he hand made the signal. He figured this was going to be the best he got when it came to forms of communication. Slowly making his way towards it, he began to realise just what type of situation he was in.

This wasn't some bad dream, it was real. The creature that lay in front of him really was there. He was about to come face to face with an actual alien.

Its eyes began to slowly open wider and wider as he grew closer. He was mere centimeters away from it now. Taking off his jacket, he pointed at the creature's leg and made a rising motion with his hand. So far it had been able to understand Fischer's signals which meant he could communicate with it, which was huge.

He was the first person in the history of Earth to make contact and communicate with a creature that was not from his world.

But all that was totally absent from his mind. He ever so slightly moved the palm of his hand closer and closer to it's leg. His heart was racing faster than a train, beads of sweat running from his face like a waterfall. Closing his eyes and trying not to breathe, he pushed his hand forwards.