#gene writes

"Wh-What the--?!" Prism sits up suddenly as she reaches out for Phoenix. Her hand accidentally bumps into the breakfast tray they were holding. The sight of pancakes and a slightly disturbed coffee mug answers…some of her questions, but the answer came with even more questions.

"What happened to you? Why do you look like you just burned down the kitchen?!" She exclaims. She just notices a trail of smoke on the tip of Phoenix's hair. "And why are you smoldering while the breakfast looks pristine?"

Phoenix lets out a mischievous chuckle before winking at her. Prism sighs, slightly exasperated, but a smile manages to escape her lips. "You can't just laugh like that when I'm asking you an important question…"

She adjusts her position on the bed so that Phoenix could set the table tray on her lap. Now that their hands are finally free, they sign with a big ol' smile on their face.

'Just wanted to make something for you! A chef never reveals their secrets.' They giggle slightly again. 'Bon appetit~'

After the little flourish Phoenix made with their hands, Prism laughs as she shakes her head. They're still so unbelievable...

Now that she's able to take a whiff of her breakfast, she melts in this wonderful warmth. The room, the breakfast, Phoenix…who's just as radiant as ever. Even if they look like a solid shadow right now.

She takes the tissue on the tray and gestures to Phoenix to lean down to her. Once their head is in her grasp, she holds their chin, then she wipes their soot away while she pats down the smoke on their head. Once she could see their face properly, she kisses them softly on the lips.

"Thanks for making my morning, Phoenix." She whispers sweetly. Phoenix hums in great satisfaction. They were just about to move, but Prism doesn't let go of Phoenix's chin. "Hmm, one last thing, dear."

Phoenix looks at her expectantly, blinking at her with those sweet round eyes.

The evening breeze coming through Phoebe’s open window matched her sighs of boredom. Not only was this assignment extremely tedious, she was also too hot in her apartment and had been working in this state for hours. She knew this was everything she could’ve asked for — attending an Arizona college for a degree in Astronomy with some hefty scholarships — but even a studious and driven woman feels the need to drag her feet with projects like this. Tapping her pencil against the offending first draft of her research paper, Phoebe struggled to remind herself why she was doing this. “La trabaja está tan, tan aburrida, y los compañeros son molestos, pero son estar afortunado de todas maneras.” She thought. The college student didn’t miss the days she lived with her strict parents and three rowdy siblings. Phoebe desperately wanted to show them — not to mention all the white men she had classes with — what she was capable of achieving. She worked hard to get here, and would continue to work hard to prove herself.

Lazily her attention shifted to the sky out her window. It had always given Phoebe solace when the noise of her family was too much, or when bullies in her earlier years of school were getting to her. She’d already been a nerd with her interest in science and reading, but was mostly picked on for her chubby features. She never cared about silly things like social status, but the ridicule and shaming was hard to handle. If anything, being socially blacklisted inspired her to pursue academics further.

While her thoughts wandered she noticed streaks of light flashing across the sky — a meteor shower. Since she hadn’t been working anyway, she quickly put shoes on to go outside and watch the event. In her lifetime she’d never actually seen a meteor shower before, but that didn’t stop her from hesitating once she’d left the building. Something was strange. Before there were thin beams, now replaced with abnormally large orbs of light, moving as though they had actually breached the atmosphere. This was definitely more interesting than her research essay, so Phoebe walked in the direction of the cryptic lights.

The night was cooling down now, which made her glad she’d at least been wearing a long sleeved shirt. Looking down to adjust her clothes and brush the fronds of grass away from her, a cold, bright light covered everything in sight. A faint humming left Phoebe instantly lightheaded, too. When she squinted up, the object putting a spotlight on the field descended about fifty yards ahead of her.

For fear or curiosity she wasn’t sure, but Phoebe couldn’t move or look away from the scene as silhouettes approached her. At first glance, these creatures were just off from passing as human. From what she could see, they stood about a foot and a half above her height, with thin, cartoonish proportions. While caught up in making sense of their otherworldly appearance, one of them came uncomfortably close to her. Her blood turned to ice with realization as the being reached out to grab her, locking cold, long fingers around her arms before she could react. Not even thinking to scream, she tried to pull herself away from the skeletal grasp of those hands, only to be frightened by how unflinchingly strong they were. Still fighting, she could see other people around her now, all being dragged to that blinding light and horrible humming sound like she was. She was losing energy fast, having never been forced to defend herself like this before. When she was tugged sharply she fell to her knees and pure panic clouded every inch of her consciousness. Then, she passed out.

When she woke up, it was immediately apparent that she wasn’t anywhere on Earth. The room alone consisted of so many abstract shapes and touchscreens everywhere. Even if aliens weren’t staring at her beyond this bubble-like wall, it would be clear humans hadn’t made any of this. Trying to ignore the foreign objects and sentient beings observing her, she turned around to look outside the long, ovular windows. It didn’t help at all. The sight that once brought her comfort and security was now a stark reminder that she was missing those very things more than she could’ve ever imagined. She was completely alone as a human. She didn’t know if it was better or worse that there were likely more than ten other people captured and brought here, too. Suddenly she could hear the extraterrestrials behind her talking, or at least what she assumed was talking. Their mouths never moved, yet they showed other signs of conversation —like hand gestures and eye contact — when they weren’t watching Phoebe. She didn’t look at the others much longer, feeling like the bright lights were making her searing headache and nausea somehow worse. To prevent further panic, Phoebe put her head down and counted her breaths in her head, “uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete…” It wasn’t much, but it distracted her enough that she didn’t notice when the group of aliens left the room. Then she let herself cry, taking off her glasses and folding them onto the collar of her shirt. She started thinking of all the things she was leaving behind on Earth, and how impossible it would be to make it back there on her own. Phoebe was utterly helpless here, and she had no idea what they wanted to do with her.

Within the next few minutes, an alien Phoebe hadn’t met yet entered the room. They were alone, and the stranger wasn’t touching any of the technology the others seemed to take notes on. Without warning, they began to speak to her, gently asking, “Do you s’eak English?”

“W-what... you speak English!?” Phoebe stuttered, wiping tears away from her cheeks before putting her glasses back on.

“Yes, to understand hunans ‘etter, they teach us.” the other explained, “I an Ziraxi, you haz a nane, yes?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m Phoebe but Zear-awk-skee? Why are you talking to me?” she asked, struggling to pronounce the alien’s name.

“Well… eh, I wanted to neet soneone here. A hunan, I nean. I’n not interested in ex’eranenting on you or anything. It hel’s that you s’eak English, though, that is the language I an nost co- conderdul?” Ziraxi stopped in the middle of their rambling, unsure how to say the word comfortable, “the one I can use easiest.”

While she was still processing this information, Phoebe couldn’t help but laugh at that, “I’m surprised, English isn’t my first language either, but I think it’s way more complicated to use.” She continued, now back to her serious tone, “But um… do you know what they’re going to... do to me?”

“To ‘e honest? No. I know they want to do tests, research hunan anatony and ‘iology, ‘ut I an just a sanitation unit on this shi’.” Ziraxi sat down in front of the barrier between themself and Phoebe as they finished, “a sanitation unit who ‘ery ‘uch disagrees with the ethics o’ that.”

“So, you won’t hurt me… can you help me at all?” Phoebe asked, knowing it was probably wishful thinking to assume Ziraxi had any way of helping her. It showed her desperation that she was even asking for help, too - from an alien no less.

“Yes, I think we can hel’ each other…” Ziraxi responded, making Phoebe scared again because of the possible things that could mean. “I don’t want to ‘e around ny ‘eo’le anynore, so I was ho’ing… you could teach ne how to ‘e on your ‘lanet?” they asked tentatively, moving closer to the barrier holding Phoebe. She was speechless. There was a chance! Phoebe could survive this, and go back to worrying about research papers and annoying classmates instead of defending herself and the prospect of being sexually harassed by extraterrestrials. Sure, helping someone adapt to human society would be a challenge, but it was better than whatever adversity she’d face here.

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” she finally agreed. “What do we need to do?”

———

With Phoebe on board now, Ziraxi let her out of the round cell she was in; Phoebe wondered if not uncaging her right away was something Ziraxi did intentionally or not. She still didn’t really trust this alien, but as the two talked more and discussed plans of escape their conversation started to feel more natural. Phoebe felt like Ziraxi was a bit socially awkward so far, but they probably had a mutual feeling toward her, so she tried to avoid it. “It shouldn’t matter anyway,” she thought, “I just need to worry about getting back home for now, and if I somehow did survive this I could figure out what being friends with Ziraxi would be like.”

“Okay, we need to go now, or the others will ‘e here to test on you soon.” Ziraxi prompted once their plan was mostly solidified. They didn’t have time to flesh out the details, but risky was better than nothing for Phoebe. “Just ‘ollow ‘e until we reach the esca’e zessel and you will not get lost.” Being a janitor, Ziraxi knew the ins and outs of the ship’s halls, which Phoebe was about to find out were maze-like if you couldn’t read the signs. Once they left the room, Phoebe kept her head down and her mouth shut as to blend in with the aliens. She could only really see where they were going by looking at Ziraxi’s feet. What made her most nervous was the fact she stuck out as human pretty clearly. There was no way for her to disguise as one of the aliens. Her skin was much darker than Ziraxi’s translucent white, which looked almost like watercolors with their multicolored insides visible under the bright lights. Ziraxi didn’t even have hair, whereas Phoebe’s reached her knees with how long it was. All of her appearance othered her from the aliens on board, and it was a death sentence; the pair’s plan was riding on them moving through the ship unencountered.

Every step Phoebe took felt loud, which wasn’t good when the only other sound was the incessant humming noise that kept her feeling nauseous. There were too many ways this plan could go wrong, and she was constantly on the brink of her third panic attack. Despite this situation, she couldn’t imagine going through this alone. Ziraxi must have really hated it here if they were willing to risk everything to live on Earth. “Ziraxi, I-” Phoebe was cut off as they turned a corner and came face to face with a group of aliens. She looked up for the first time in awhile when Ziraxi stopped walking, and for a second the group in front of them simply stared at Phoebe in apparent shock. In an attempt to take advantage of their surprise, Ziraxi held Phoebe’s hand and only said a word: “Run.”

From then on, the scene was a blur. They pushed past the group who was in front of them and Ziraxi led the way. It was more important now than ever that Phoebe stay close by so she wouldn’t get lost in all the chaos. Soon enough an alarm was another thing making her want to throw up, but she had to keep running. Her feet on the floor and her hand in Ziraxi’s were the only things keeping her grounded, and she knew focusing on those things could save her life right now. When they finally got to an escape vessel they were locked out. Phoebe wondered “Is this it?” before Ziraxi interrupted her thoughts.

“They nust ‘e locking these now that they know we are here, we have to keep going ‘efore they are all locked,” they explained, pulling Phoebe a little to encourage her to keep moving. They both knew there were just a corner or a door away from being caught. If Ziraxi didn’t know how to avoid the main traffic areas they would’ve been long gone. Finally they got to an open escape ship, and Phoebe quickly took note of the controls Ziraxi had described back in the room she was held in.

“The ship has to ‘e ‘iloted ‘y two of us,” Ziraxi said earlier, “so that is where you come in, I need soneone who knows the ‘lanet and can hel’ ne get there.” The co-piloting part of this wasn’t something Phoebe was comfortable with in the plan, seeing as she wasn’t even trained to fly a human plane, let alone a rocket of sorts made by aliens. She did say she would do what it takes, however, so she had to try despite the inevitable danger. Once they took off, Phoebe looked back for the first time in this whole affair, and aliens where just beyond the docking area they’d just left. Any second longer and they would’ve been caught but against the odds, they survived. Once again Phoebe was speechless as she refocused her attention on manning the ship. As their travel back to Earth continued, the two started to talk again, calming down from the stress of escaping the aliens’ main vessel.

“I didn’t want to say anything earlier, but I noticed that you don’t say certain words the same way I do, and you don’t move your mouth when you talk.” Phoebe mentioned, now that they were talking about how to get Ziraxi to blend in with humans. “Why is that?”

Ziraxi hesitated, thinking for a moment before responding, “Without li’s there are certain sounds I cannot ‘ake, and none o’ us o’en or close our ‘ouths when s’eaking.” They glanced at Phoebe’s own mouth, then added, “I thought it was… interesting that you ‘ove yours.”

“Yeah, the only people who don’t are ventriloquists, who don’t move their mouth while they use a puppet to make it seem like it’s talking.” Phoebe explained, hoping the idea of someone talking like Ziraxi would make them feel a little better. “I would show you a video if my phone worked out here.”

“A ‘ideo… on your phone?” Ziraxi echoed, confusuion clear on their face.

“Oh- I wonder if your idea of human technology is outdated.” Phoebe replied, taking her phone out of her skirt pocket to show the other. Now that the ship’s course was set, they didn’t actually have to sit at the dashboard or control the vehicle until it landed. Phoebe would definitely inspect this rocket more once she was safe again; it would likely do a world of help to space exploration. While she thought, Ziraxi seemed enamored by her smart-phone, which likely reminded them of the touchscreens the aliens used. They looked like they were trying to turn it on, but Phoebe guessed its battery was dead by now.