Extraterrestrial Moors

4

After waking up I feel better, the best I've felt since this nightmare has begun. It's about breakfast time, or dinner time or one of those times. I don't know for sure, but it has been awhile since I've eaten so they should be bringing me something soon. I hope it's the edible stuff and not that slime they keep trying to feed me.

The door opens and I look up hoping it's Rafe, but it's not and so I look down once more. Whoever this new comer is sets down a bowl.  I don't smell food so I'm looking at being hungry again. There goes my good mood.

I take the bowl and look inside. Yep, slime. I decide that just this once I will talk, "Don't bother bringing anything if this shit is all you're bringing." Then I throw the contents on the smug face of the one that brought it. Then I turned over and curled back up into a ball. I decide that the only  one worth talking to is Rafe.

The other person still hasn't left. I can feel them staring at me. So once more I break my silence. "If you idiots want me to speak, get Rafe back in here. I won't talk to anyone else."

I can hear the teeth grinding of the previously smug person that had brought the so called food. I haven't eaten that crap since the first time they fed it to me. Apparently my violent reaction didn't register or perhaps they just don't care.

The smug bastard that brought this crap is still standing here and hasn't left yet. I just don't understand it. Why won't he leave?

I watch the surveillance videos as the head doctor does everything opposite of what I told him they should do. Some idiots just never learn. It was beautiful watching her throw that food on him. He knew that it makes her sick and still he insists that they feed that slime to her.

When she says that she'll only talk to me it makes me smile. I know the reason, it's because no one else will give her respect. I've made mistakes, but at least I've done my best to fix them.

Then I hear her tears. Through this whole ordeal she's remained amazingly resilient and stoic, but I guess everyone has a breaking point. I want to go to her, but I've been ordered by the idiots to stay away from her. So I can only watch as she cries alone and it breaks my heart.

It's the tears that finally drive that smug ass out of my room. I want Rafe to come, but I suspect that because he actually answered my questions and treated me good that I won't be seeing him again. The race they call the others killed off everyone else, now it seems the whosits, I forget what name Rafe gave me, are trying to kill me. It would be easier to just give me something that will kill me rather than try to starve me to death.

All they would feed me yesterday or however long since Rafe talked to me, was that slime. Not even my starved body would touch that.

How ironic. When I realized I was all alone on Earth I realized that eventually I'd starve to death. Now Rafe's people are doing the same thing to me, but there is food, they just don't want to give it to  me.

I finally got my commander to look at the video footage of Maha. How terribly the doctors are treating her and how much weight she's lost due to not being fed. She was furious. She hadn't realized that Maha was being treated like that. She had believed the reports the doctors had been giving her.

She sent MP's to arrest the head doctor that is in charge of her care. The one that would always take in that slime for her to eat.

She then assigned Maha's care to me, since she has responded to me the best. I just hope it's not too late for her.

"Maha," I hear him say and I try my hardest to wake up. "Maha."

"Rafe?" I manage to get out of my dry mouth and throat. Just that much makes it so I start coughing. Rafe helps me sit up and hands me a cup of liquids.

"It's not water, but it will help, I promise." Rafe promises, huh. Well since he's back and that idiot isn't here I'll go ahead and trust him. The taste isn't very good, but my body is desperate for anything to hydrate it. 

"The doctor that was in charge of your care is being held on criminal charges. His refusal to give you decent food or even water is enough to charge him for intent to murder. You were being treated worse than a criminal in our society. I'm sorry Maha, I couldn't stop it."

"Not your fault," I tell him. I figured out that he was probably being punished because of what he told me. "They kept you away because you told me the truth right?"

"Yes. He didn't like that, thought it would do you more harm than good, but what he's done is far worse."

Rafe lifted me up in the bed and made me comfortable. "I brought you some real food. You need to eat it all, but do so slowly. If there is something you don't like I'll get you something else, but you need to eat."

The smell was nearly overwhelming. There was the fruit bowl, that I think he'd smuggled in before, but there was also a tray with what looks like meat and potatoes and vegetables. The potatoes looked like they even had gravy on them. My mouth demanded to be satisfied. I didn't care how they had similar foods to what I loved. I just wanted to eat everything before me.

Rafe waits anxiously by my side. Waiting for me to try each bite and enjoying the flavor before relaxing. "The food then is to your liking?"

I finished it all before he asks this question, "Very much so. Thank you!" I could have given him a hug but didn't think he'd appreciate that.

"In the future if there is something you don't like just let me know and I'll bring you something else. What that idiot was trying to feed you was emergency rations. Meant to keep someone alive until help can come. We are the help though and there was no reason to feed that to you. Especially when it didn't sit well with you the first time you ate it."

"The only time I ate it. How can you survive on something so disgusting?" I demand and Rafe only smiles as he clears away the tray.

"For us, it doesn't taste all that great but neither does it cause us to be sick. 

"Now, would you like to rest or do something? You aren't confined to this room like a prisoner, I could take you on a tour of the ship if you'd like?"

I stare at Rafe, "You have permission to do that?"

Rafe smiles at me, a genuine smile, "I have been assigned to your care full time. You are the only duty I have unless we are attacked and then you are my job to protect. Poor you, huh?"

"Don't you mean poor you? Being stuck with me, babysitting me," I can't help the bitterness that seeps into my voice.

Rafe looks confused and a bit hurt. "How am I babysitting you? If you don't wish for me to be the one in charge of making sure you have all your needs met, then I will have my Commander assign someone else."

When she said that I was merely babysitting her, like she needs a care taker full time it hurt. She's a grown person, albeit a young one, but still well able to take care of herself. I can only assume that it's my presence that she finds objectionable. For some reason that hurts me.