A Storm in the Making

Chapter 10--The Nik Niks Won't Hurt You

Chapter Ten

The Nik-Niks Won’t hurt you

The alien rituals were over. I sat up and twisted this way and that experimentally. Not a trace of the pain left.

“Wow! You have healed me! I can’t believe it!”

Princess Ranaloxa smiled her dignified smile, but I could tell she was smugly pleased with herself as she helped me down from the table. I didn’t want to think of it as an altar anymore.

“Chloe,” the Princess called with her pure, bell-like voice so at odds with her wild hairdo.

A dark-haired human-looking female looked up from her low conversation with a group of several other students at Princess Ranaloxa’s call.

She excused herself and flitted lightly across the floor like some dark-haired fairy. She was tiny with elfin features and tip-tilted leaf-brown eyes. In contrast to Princess Ranaloxa’s hair, Chloe’s black cap of hair was so short her ears showed, adding to her air of being a life-size pixie.

Her broad and friendly smile revealed the whitest set of teeth I have ever seen. Her mouth, a little too wide to be perfect, fit in with her high cheekbones and pert nose.

“Storm!” She skidded to a stop and gazed up at me with a puppy dog, eager to please, expression in her eyes. “I so hope we can be friends,” she bounced on her toes, too excited to be still. Her sheer exuberance was too much for me after everything else that had happened today—or at least I thought it was still today--my never-ending birthday.

“Chloe,” Princess Ranaloxa interrupted. “Could you take Storm down to the decontamination pool?”

“Sure!” Chloe said, grabbing my arm enthusiastically.

“Careful, Chloe,” the princess warned her before I could. “The ribs, remember.”

“We’ll be careful, won’t we, Storm. You’ll love the pool.”

Chloe tugged on my sleeve, to get me going with her, causing the hood to fall down over my face. I pulled it back with trepidition. They were deliberately herding me out of the room, which made me reluctant to leave.

I looked back at Princess Ranaloxa hopefully, but she just mouthed, “Bye,” and waved her delicate, blue hand at me. I hadn’t even gotten the chance to thank her for healing me.

Almost against my will, Chloe led me from the dusty-smelling room out into the daylight. The brilliant flash of lavender sunlight made me flinch after the gloom inside.

I’ll never get used to looking up at such an alien sky, I thought despondantly, still trying to wrap my mind around this altered reality me and my family had fallen into. I’m on an alien planet, I said to myself, as if saying it would make it real, but no--it still seemed like a bad dream. A very bad dream.