The Day They Came (WATTY AWARDS 2016)

Chapter 17

The next morning, Nexivox woke to find a sleeping body beside him. The hair covered the face, but he knew it was Christine.

She had become frightened last night at dinner. He had had the dumb idea to take her down to the dining room. Since Miss Davidson had escaped, the rest of the Mykaleans aboard were not too happy to see another female, despite how energetic and cooperative she would be. Many had tried to kill her.

After that incident, she refused to speak to anyone but him. He didn't know it was possible for a human to be so stubborn.

Now, as he looked at her sleeping form, he won-dered what was going on in her head. He wondered how she felt. He wondered why she was cooperating. Most importantly, he wondered why she was attached to him.

He brushed some hair out of her face, revealing her light freckles and long eyelashes. She slept with her right hand tucked under her head, and her left clutched the blanket to her chest. As he looked at her, he noticed the curve of her nose, the distance between her eyes, and the slight dimple of a light smile in her left cheek.

It wasn't long before Christine was awake too. She woke delicately, as if from a deep slumber in a fairy tale. Her bright brown eyes shimmered from a restful sleep. Red imprints of the wall rested upon her arm and her right cheek.

When she saw him, she furrowed her brows. It seemed to take her a moment to remember what had happened. She sat up, and stretched.

The blanket flowed off her body, crumpling at her waist. Underneath her, the top sheet crumpled and wrinkled from her tossing and turning as she sought a comfortable position on the bed. Her hair splayed out on her back, filled with static.

"G'morning..." She sounded exhausted, rubbing at her eyes as if to wake herself up.

"Morning." He sat up, allowing the blanket to fall off his body as he did so. It had been a warm night, and he had fallen asleep without a shirt on. His various battle scars showed, each a painful memory and a reminder of how he had come to be named Nexivox.

He slowly got off the bed. Ever steady on his feet, he found his balance in no time. His pajama shorts fell just below his knees, and the waistband kept them from falling off. Unlike his son, he was not stick straight.

"Did they...hurt?" Her voice rang out in the room. "Your scars. Did they hurt?"

"Some of them more than others." He grabbed a shirt from the closet and pulled it over his head. "Maybe one day you will hear the stories behind them."

With that, she couldn't seem to let it go. The fact that his arms showed today – and therefore she could see the smaller scars – most likely didn't help.

"Is that a fresh scar? The one on your left shoulder?" Then she asked the dreaded question. She wanted to know if it was a fresh scar.

He sighed. There was no getting away from this question.

"Yes. It is the freshest scar I have." He sat down on the bed. She ran a finger down his scar.

"How did you get it?" The question came out as she ran her finger across the scar, sending shivers down his back. As he took a deep breath, holding back a noise akin to what humans make when they sob, he watched her facial expression change.

"I was at war." He began it with a preface. The gruesome story wouldn't be something she'd like to hear. "A young king thought he could invade my empire. He came at me with something equivalent to a sword." With a slashing motion, he imitated what had happened. "Before I knew what was going on, my shoulder hurt and I could smell the blood."

He flexed his shoulder back, trying to work out a knot that had made itself.

"What's wrong?" He turned to look back at her. She had a look of content in her eyes, as if she knew how to help.

"Just have a knot in my shoulder." Before he could stop her, her hands were on his shoulders. Her fingers pressed deep into his shoulders, moving around. The knot seemed to move away as she moved her fingers.

Whatever she was doing, it really helped get the knot out of his shoulder. It hurt more than anything he'd experienced – which was saying something.

Her hands left his shoulders, and he turned around.

"What did you do?" He was more than a little curious.

"I'm training to be a message therapist after I get out of office." She smiled. "Did it help? You were pretty tense up there."

"Yeah. It helped. Thanks." He smiled back at her, standing up again and stretching once again.

She stood up now, letting the blankets roll off her body. The pajamas she had pulled from his wardrobe were too big on her, but they weren't big enough to be an issue. Well, that's what she'd told him last night.

"Did you sleep well?" He couldn't help but ask the question. Something about her was so intriguing, so...beautiful.

"Yes." She smiled. "And you?"

"As well as I can." He returned the smile, and then walked towards the bathroom. The idea of love never appealed to him. However, as she revealed more about herself to him, he found himself – to use a human term – falling in love.

He slapped his cheek lightly. Snap out of it! His thoughts conflicted with each other pretty regularly. How-ever, this conflict took it to a whole new level. To fall in love or not to fall in love...that was the question.

He splashed some water on his face. The cold water felt good. He simply couldn't explain it. Some things about her felt a little off – her hair, her eyes, her skin...all of it looked good. Yet, in all of that beauty, she was wounded and upset.

Beauty on Earth was very different from that on his home planet. All the magazines and billboards he'd ever seen on Earth had women who looked much too thin to be healthy. Very few had red hair – but he knew why that was. Few humans naturally had red hair.

However, the most confusing thing about it all was that most, if not all, the women showed off at least three inches of cleavage. It was as if these natural parts of their bodies no longer served their natural purpose; instead, they now acted as some sort of beauty enhancement. The smaller they were, the more beautiful the woman.

Nexivox dried his face off, wiping away dried blood from the fist fight that had arisen the night before. When he returned to Christine, she sat on the bed.

Humans were so confusing.