Witness [A First Contact Romance]

2. Lullaby

Earth

2017

Cold cuffs bit into her wrists in the brightly lit room. She kept her head low, searching her memory for any hint that could help her explain to the gun wielding soldiers why she was here.

They'd given her a pair of black sweat pants and a white shirt to wear. It felt lighter and more breathable than the simple gray shirt and pants she'd arrived in, though her original outfit did look very similar to the type of clothes people here wore.

Scientists covered head-to-toe in bulky blue suits had taken blood samples, cut square pieces from the clothes they'd taken, swabbed her cheeks and beneath her nails. Hours passed and still she had no new answers.

Windows encased the room they'd kept her in, with an airlock outside the door. Undoubtedly, they worried about any contamination she could bring to this facility and the people inside it. That meant she'd be vulnerable to pathogens on this planet and simply sitting in this room could kill her through silent, unknowable threats. That should have terrified her, only it all felt too surreal to properly fear her circumstances.

She glanced at her reflection in the window. It was faint, but she couldn't deny the evidence that she looked just like these people from Earth, except for maybe her bronze eyes. No one else she'd seen had her color exactly, though some were close enough. Perhaps her feeling that she didn't come from this planet had been wrong and she simply had amnesia. Amnesia and some strange case of paranoia. That futuristic looking pod in the desert was not normal, though.

Questions flooded her mind. Of the few things she knew about herself, she knew this: not having answers killed her.

By the time another hiss from the airlock came, her throat was dry and body fatigued. Five men and women she had yet to see entered. They all wore the blue protective suits like the scientists, but while the others who had come to take samples from her had white coats beneath theirs, these people wore dark business suits.

They all took a seat across the table from her. The distance felt far, because she was all alone. She didn't even have her own mind to keep her company. Her memories, her life, were locked deep away where she couldn't reach it.

The man at the head of the table spoke first. He looked mid-forties, but the lines set in his forehead were carved deep, giving her the impression that he often wore the hard frown that currently tightened his face. The dark auburn of his sideburns were speckled with gray. "I'm General Price." His voice reminded her of tires crunching over a gravel road. He slid something along the table to her.

A thin, golden bracelet skidded to a stop in front of her. She leaned forward and tilted her head. A little oval piece connected the chains with a name engraved on it. "Rory." Her throat felt swollen. "What is this?"

"You tell me." He studied her with his hands folded on the table and stare unwavering. "It was the only thing we found in the craft you arrived in. It was broken, lying on the floor."