Brielle Ronaldi has devoted her life's work to uncovering the secrets of extraterrestrial life. After her world was turned upside down, Brielle finds herself quickly climbing the ranks of the G.L. Brooks Association. A recent addition to the facilit...
Warmth covered her body as Brielle felt as though she was floating in mid-air. She could hear voices, but they were warped. She wanted to open her eyes but found that her mobility was limited. She could feel something tugging uncomfortably at her arms near her wrists, her neck, and her abdomen. Intravenous lines... she thought as she tried to figure out why she would be hooked up to such devices. The jungle...I must have passed out. I haven't taken my meds in...I don't know how long it's been.
A sharp beeping sound reached her ears; buttons were being pushed to her right. Where am I? Where did they take me? Where are Ghost and the others? She could hear growling now, and her heart seemed to skip a beat. Dhadtoudi...that had to be her voice. She tried to open her eyes again, but still she failed. Her lids felt as though they were glued together and layered with cement for added effectiveness. That's one, but where are the other two?
Suddenly her body felt as if she were growing heavier by the second, and her hair began to fall against her chest, shoulders, and back. What's happening? Why am I falling? Before she knew it, Brielle could feel a smooth, cool surface against the side of her arm. I can't feel my legs...I can't move...
"Wake up, Ooman." She wanted to frown at Dhadtoudi's harsh voice, but still she couldn't control her own body. "Are you deaf now? Do not try to fake an injury and blame it on me. O'kaor, your Ooman is more defective than you thought." Ghost? Where is he? I want to see him. He's the only one that can understand me and isn't an asshole.
A deep trill of clicks followed her statement, and Dhadtoudi scoffed. "It is not my fault that the pyode-amedha is broken..!"
Why do they keep calling me that? Does it mean 'female'? Ghost used that term when he was talking about Dhadtoudi, so maybe it does...or maybe it means 'human'. But if that means 'human', what does 'Ooman' mean? I haven't been this confused since my college boyfriend revealed that he was a woman...
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A sharp pain radiated through her arm and fire seemed to spread through her veins. At long last her grey eyes shot wide open as she gasped for air and crumpled over in pain. Her body lay in the remnants of a transparent jelly-like substance as she began to cough and vomit more of the substance onto the floor. A mechanical whoosh echoed through the room and Brielle looked up to see Dhadtoudi and O'kaor standing over her while another, smaller male approached from behind them. He was dressed in a metal loincloth that hung atop a pair of leather shogun type pants, a gauntlet on each forearm, and the tell-tale metal boots that his comrades both donned.
The new male seemed older and more muscular than T'ahrou or O'kaor, the spikes on his face and chest longer than theirs, as well as his dreadlocks. "You withheld information, Ooman." Brielle glowered at Dhadtoudi as she spoke with her arms folded over her chest in the same stern manner as she seemed to do often.
"What...w-what the hell...are...you talking about?" Brielle managed to voice her question between the chokes and gags, but Dhadtoudi only appeared more agitated. Since she had given up her plan of always staying masked when around the scientist, Brielle had come to recognize the taller woman's undeniable condition of R.B.F..
"You are defective."
"Y-you can...kiss my ass." Brielle choked again before vomiting more of the clear substance and clearly striking a nerve with Dhadtoudi. "I'm not a fucking defect."
Dhadtoudi clicked harshly without moving her gaze from the sickly woman, and the new male responded in kind. "Your gland." She pointed to the area where her neck meets her lower jawbone. "Your heart. Defective. Correct your false truth."
Brielle sneered at the woman who responded with a deep, rumbling growl. "It's hereditary."
"Your bloodline is defective." The question sounded more like a statement than anything else, and again Brielle scowled at her. "You know of it, yet you do nothing to correct it." Again a question in the form of a statement, and Brielle tried to push herself to her hands and knees now. "Do you wish to die?"
"The heart issue is caused from the excess of hormones produced by my thyroid. I ran out of my medication a few days before Ghost was brought to my lab. I wasn't able to get to a pharmacy to get a refill, but my heart hadn't been acting up, so I figured it was okay for now."
"And what would you have done had you experienced difficulties later on?"
Brielle narrowed her grey eyes at the woman who returned her own heated, grey gaze. "What does it matter to you?"
"Your well-being is not my concern. The healer needs information and O'kaor does not understand enough to translate your...how do the Oomans say...bullshit." Brielle said nothing as she stared daggers into the other woman, and Dhadtoudi spoke over her shoulder to O'kaor. "Have the healer remove the feeds. If she wishes to die, then we will allow her that freedom."
"Why do you hate me so much?"
"Because your kind are all the same." Her tone was low and harsh, but Brielle didn't waver in her own defiance. "You feel as though you must get all that you desire and if something does not end how you intend, you take your frustration out on others. You make others suffer for your displeasure."
"Isn't that exactly what you're doing to me?!" Brielle was finally able to force herself to stand though she was extremely weak as she did so. "Since the first time you saw me, you've done nothing but be a stuck up bitch and act like an overgrown child! So what's your problem 'mighty warrior'? Is your ego just that big, or are you just that embarrassed to admit that you're human? I think it's the fact that you can't - or won't accept the fact that you're not really one of these amazing beings...you're just a human...you'll always be human. You'll always be like me. And I don't think you're mentally stable enough to accept that fact."
Once she'd finished speaking, Brielle began to pull the intravenous lines from her own body but kept her gaze firmly set on Dhadtoudi's eyes. They seemed dark and sunken in, and the usually white sclera seemed tinted red. "You call yourself a scholar of science, yet you know so little of what you speak."
