Page 10 of Alien in the Depths

Sofia pressed a few icons on the control dash and the door to the pod opened. Fresh, sweet air flooded the cockpit, and Zaraq breathed it in deeply. For the next few hours, they would be wandering the forest together, searching out the site of a ruined Thryal monastery built in the feudal days of the planet’s early life. It was said that the souls of the monks who worshiped there could still be seen meditating in the moonlight.

“Do you have your pack?” Sofia asked. Her tone was uncharacteristically business-like.

“I do,” Zaraq answered, slinging it over his shoulder. “But you knew that since you’re the one who loaded the pod before we left.” He smiled, hoping she would recognize the sparkle of humor in his eye and return the expression.

It would be nice to know that she is looking forward to having a good time with me, he thought.

She grabbed her own pack and got out of her seat without even looking at him.

Being ignored felt like the nerves in his chest were being tied into knots. Had he done something wrong? Her demeanor toward him had changed since the uncomfortable dinner with her family. He could have done a better job of masking hisdiscomfort with what even he had to admit were rather harmless questions, but he wasn’t ready to discuss his past with anyone yet. He wasn’t sure he ever would be.

Following the dinner, Sofia made all kinds of excuses for her sisters and brother-in-law. “They think they have to protect me because I have a habit of committing super hard to things,” she said. “I mean, the second the opportunity to leave Earth presented itself, I jumped at the chance, only to panic a bit on the trip here. I bet they think I’m jumping into a thing with you so quickly.”

“Athing?” Zaraq had asked, tickled by the phrase.

She fluttered her hands in the air as if shooing away a bothersome insect. “Never mind. I’m being dumb. They were being dumb.” She stopped then, and Zaraq noticed her eyes shift from her feet, to him, and back again.

She wants to ask me something but is too afraid, he worried.

“It was fine,” he told her, desperate to put her mind at ease. “They were just curious.”

Dodging the questions of two royals and an extraordinarily intelligent woman was difficult enough. He didn’t think he’d manage to keep anything from her.

If she asks me, he admitted to himself,I will tell her. Everything.

Now, noticing how she avoided eye contact with him and kept an odd distance between them, he became increasingly concerned that the conversation he desperately wanted to avoid was soon to be unavoidable.

I’m sorry, he silently apologized.I’m sorry that you’re going to have to see me differently.

Sofia’s body language changed the moment their eyes found the rocky remains of the small monastery. Instead of being perched atop a cliff, as they’d both imagined, it was built into the bottom of a cliff face itself. The overall structure of the place was crumbling and pocked with decay, but the spirit of what the building was remained.

“Oh my god,” Sofia said in a stunned whisper. She gently gripped Zaraq’s right biceps. Her touch sent ease through his entire body. “Can you believe it?” she asked, her mouth hanging open. “It was built thousands of years ago, and here we are, stepping into history.”

“It’s smaller than I expected,” Zaraq said. “But still beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” Sofia chided. “The place is creepy as shit. I love it! Let’s go inside.”

Laughing, Zaraq followed her to the entrance of the ruined holy place. The tunnels beyond the deteriorated entrance were deep, dark, and cavernous. The air slowly flowing from it was damp and sour.

“Feels like we’re peering into a dead thing’s mouth,” Zaraq said.

“Yeah, that’s what blows about haunted places. They always stink.”

Sofia was, of course, the first to cross the threshold. The beam of her flashlight served as a beacon, chasing away shadows just enough for them to avoid getting surprised by some sleeping predator. It did not, however, protect them from unsteady ground.

A few feet into the main entryway, Sofia’s foot snagged on a stone and she almost went face-first into a boulder, but Zaraq was able to hook his arm around her midsection in time. He held her tightly with both arms to help lift her out of the divot. Placing her on a more even surface, he felt her shiver.

“Are you cold?” he asked. “I can give you the jacket from my pack.”

“No,” she said, almost breathless. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

He smirked in the dark. She wasn’t being cold and distant like before. That was the tone of excited nervousness. Holding her like that, with her form fitting perfectly against his own, had been a thrill for him as well. It was comforting to think she was affected by it.

There were etchings on the walls that neither of them understood. Zaraq tried to find corresponding diagrams in the guide they brought with them, but the carvings were far tooweathered to match them with anything on the pages. Instead, they made up their own stories.

“That is Puroo the lazy,” Sofia said, pointing at what could have been a woman lounging on a piece of furniture. “She thinks she’s better than everyone else just because her husband is a god and people have to do whatever they say. Typical god-wife complex.”

“And this,” Zaraq said, approaching markings that suggested a very skinny person with long limbs. “This is Skirak the lanky.”