I'm finally growing a backbone and publishing a Project Hail Mary hunger fic on here.
It has been a few months of Rocky spending more time with me on my ship. We are still heading towards the planet Adrien and I think Rocky is starting to get impatient. He skitters around in his ball, as though pacing around, waiting for something to happen. One of the less distracting habits we both have formed is watching each other sleep. It sounds strange, but it makes me feel a bit more safe when Rocky is around. I also have a feeling it makes Rocky feel better about missing his crewmates. I’m usually a side-sleeper, preferring the fetal position, and Rocky likes to roll his ball over to me where he places himself between my chest and knees. He has said that he would rather sleep on my chest, but I’m nervous that his weight would break my ribs; he’s a lot heavier than his size would lead you to believe. The morning after we first came up with this system, I woke to find Rocky huddled against my stomach. I rubbed the residue of sleep from my eyes and got up to check on the ship’s navigation progress. I left Rocky in the sleeping quarter, assuming he would follow me into the common area of the ship when he wanted to. A few minutes later, Rocky scuttled in, being careful not to bump into anything.
“Morning, Rock. Did you enjoy watching me sleep?” I replied with a hint of sarcasm in my voice, not that Rocky would have picked up on it.
“Grace sound ridiculous when sleep, statement. Is noisy.”
I turn to him, while holding a bag of coffee in one hand.
“I’m noisy when I sleep?” I ask, wondering what he was talking about. I was wondering if he heard me talking in my sleep. I got these awful nightmares that I can never quite seem to remember, but the fear and dread lingers over me for several hours after I wake up. Could that be what he’s talking about?
“Grace is noisy when sleep. Is constant. Rocky surprised it didn’t wake Grace up.”
I sat down to match his height.
“Rock, what are you talking about? Where was the noise coming from?”
He rolls over to me and points at my belly with one of his appendages.
“Loud noise from there. Humans make constant noise even when sleep.”
“Oh.” I said. I stood back up and put a hand to my midsection, chuckling embarrassedly. “That was probably my stomach rumbling. Sorry you had to hear that. I've been trying to ration the food a bit for the journey to Adrien, and I guess it’s showing, huh?”
“Why stomach make noise when sleep, Question?”
I didn’t know how to answer this question. Do eridians have hunger cues the way humans do? I would assume so, but they would probably be different from the shaky hands and dull internal ache of a human body in need of sustenance. I was no stranger to being hungry, especially since my journey to space. Humans have such a fantastic way of adapting to change, for better or worse. I had learned to tune out the pathetic sounds my empty stomach would make, and even ignore the weakness in the hands that comes along with being hungry for hours.
“Well, when humans get hungry our bodies have ways of telling us, through symptoms like irritability, shakiness, and sounds from digestive organs. I was pretty hungry last night, so what you probably heard was my stomach was trying to tell me that I was hungry, even though I was asleep.” I didn’t know if I was doing a good job explaining anything, and to be frank, I was a bit embarrassed. It’s not surprising he heard my stomach rumbling and growling ceaselessly through the night, with his hearing. He has even shown to be able to hear my heartbeat when I get stressed. “Does anything like that happen to eridians?” I ask, hoping to find some kind of eridian reference to use.
“Rocky feels tired when not eat, but Rocky stay quiet. Eridians not need organs to tell us to eat. Humans do. Inefficient”
I laughed. “Yeah, I get tired when I’m hungry too.”
“Grace do it again, question?” Rocky asked curiously.
“You want me to make my stomach rumble again?” I asked, amused at curiosity. “It’s not a party trick, Rock. It just happens involuntarily when it wants to. It’s actually pretty embarrassing sometimes.”
“Why embarrass, question? Is interesting.”
“Well it’s probably interesting to someone learning about humans, but for a human, you don’t always need your stomach loudly announcing that you're hungry, especially in front of other people.”
At this, I realised I haven’t even eaten breakfast yet, I only had a few sips of lukewarm coffee. That familiar ache of hunger in my belly was making its presence known. If I didn’t eat soon, I might get a migraine later, which means no work would get done. I turned and grabbed a cup of dry noodles from the storage and poured some hot water and put frozen chunks of meat and vegetables in the cup as Rocky watched. I sat next to him, waiting for the noodles to cook. The hunger was starting to hurt a little bit, and I think Rocky could tell I was pretty uncomfortable.
“Grace alright, question?” He asked.
“I’m alright, buddy. I just need to wait for the noodles to be done cooking. Nothing I can really do in the meantime.”
My stomach was really starting to cramp now. I placed one of my shaky hands just under my diaphragm and tried to rub some of the pain away. Suddenly, my stomach let loose a long and pitiful grumble. I instinctively put both hands to my belly, in a useless attempt to muffle the noise. Rocky lifted his head.
“That! That noise Grace make when sleep! Grace stomach goes ♫♩♪♫.”
It was kind of endearing how excited he got over such a mundane thing. My stomach continued to gurgle and growl while we waited for breakfast. Rocky would occasionally make eridian chirps that sounded a bit like he was trying to mimic the noises coming from my belly. That I can only assume, because the computer did not seem to be able to translate what Rocky was saying. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the noodles were ready. Most people would think that noodles for breakfast is an odd choice, but those people were thousands of miles away, and Rocky has no preconceived notion about what foods should be eaten at what time.
I peeled the lid off of the container, and fanned my hand over it, trying to get the steam out of the container so I wouldn’t burn myself out of ravenous desperation. The food was still hot, but I was so hungry that I didn’t care. Each bite felt like a piece of heaven as the hunger started to fade. After the first few bites, I had to restrain myself to eat slowly so that I wouldn’t come down with an upset stomach from eating too fast. Soon, the cup was empty, and I felt much better. It’s amazing how forgiving and at peace you feel after a filling and well digested meal. The weight of the meal sat comfortably in my belly. I felt warm and calm, as opposed to the stress and irritability caused by having an empty stomach. Rocky had gone to the next door room so he didn’t have to watch me eat, which disgusted him.
“I’m done, Rocky!” I called. He rolled back into the room.
“Grace need to eat more. Grace angry and inefficient when hungry.”
I laughed and started to get to work.
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