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Chapter Nine

     As I stared in horror at the history of his people, he looked away, and I tried to completely grasp what I was seeing. I didn't want to hurt or upset him, but I wanted to be sure I fully understood.
  "Is this area 51?" I would've laughed if I had stumbled upon this on the internet, I probably would've seen it as an elaborate hoax. A joke someone spent way too much time on. Seeing it in person, imagining my own government committing these obscenities against children, grandparents, and mothers - just because they were of another world? I understood now why they didn't immediately leave, why they stayed long enough for the CIA to steal their ship. They only wanted to find their families, they took everyone but the fathers. Seeing them as anatomically identical, they didn't feel a need to capture multiple. 

  "Yes, it is." He looked at me, and for the first time I noticed that he didn't have ears. Or really any eyelashes to speak of, he definitely looked human, but part of him.. just didn't. He saw me staring, and nearly spat in disgusted fury. "What you see in me is canine. Fucking canine, do you have any idea what they did to her?" His body was rigid as a rock, he stared at the floor as he explained, "When they found the dihncara, my mother was a newly wed creature of barely 20 years. They told her she could spend her life in a cage, or she could "volunteer" to help research vital information for human reproduction. My mother had no idea what kind of minds these men had, and she desired freedom, so she agreed to assist in the research. Human reproductive research. That's why they needed my alien mother, right? Human reproduction my ass their purposes were purely scientific curiosity. They found a new thing, and they wanted to know how they could play with it. They thought they could so decided they should without anybody's consent." Irwin was yelling at this point, but I didnt mind, he had every right. I tried not to cry as he continued, "Because of them, my mother gave birth to a "litter" of triplets, none of whom she loved. Because of them, she sold her children as house pets, and left the second she could. We disgusted her! She couldn't believe what had been made with her body, what she had been forced to grow inside her body... Sometimes, I really can't either. Janice and I can change, but we usually prefer to resemble our natural mother. Our little brother, unfortunately, took after the donor, and was born physically canine, but mostly dinhcara. I believe he must have horrified her the most- he was so abnormal, I was told they euthanized him. He was truly something out of a nightmare. I've only ever seen him in pictures."

   I was speechless. In my life, I have experienced some immense tragedies, but mine were a pebble in the shadow of his boulder. I tried to give him a hug, and was pleasantly surprised when he didn't shove me off. We sat in silence and stared at the wall, both trying to recover from the conversation. It began to dawn on me that we were deep in the earth and the wall we were looking at was somehow lit - I'm completely amazed at how infrequently I notice light that should not be there. I looked around for fairies, but saw none. Puzzled, I looked at Irwin, who had been watching me and too amused by my confusion to explain on his own terms.

"Come with me," he smiled sadly, "I promise it will all make sense soon."