Terrestrial Alien ✔

Chapter 47: Mint Touches

J o s h u a

    I don't open my eyes as Sundo shifts this time. I keep them closed, and only when I hear that clicking growl, feel the shifting of weight on the mattress, do I dare open them.

I always know I'll have this feeling of not being prepared when I see it, and I'm always right. Looking up at Sundo's monster, my limbs cry with the urge to run.

But I don't run. Not this time. I promised Sundo I'd be alright without the ropes. So I sit on the bed, tense against the pillows and the headboard, and the creature crouches at the foot of the bed, inches from my feet. He sits on his haunches, his claws pressing into the blanket in front of him and his boney tail curling over his feet. The mattress sinks significantly under his weight.

He peers at me with those glowing socket eyes, as if waiting for me to react. My heart is thrumming a frantic pulse in my neck, and my tightly controlled breathing feels like it's burning my throat. But I don't panic. I don't let myself. I can't break down.

Maybe this is working. I feel slightly less panicked than last night. Maybe it's just that the ropes really were a terrible idea that didn't help at all.

"Well." I say, unable to totally keep the tremble from my voice. The creature flicks a long ear at the sound, and it makes my pulse jump more than it should. "I—I'm going to sleep. Don't... Don't try anything funny."

When I say I'm going to sleep, that's a total lie and I know it. But I'm going to try to sleep. I'm going to try to ignore this thing. Settling down onto my back, I look up at the ceiling, and I silently wish there were glow-in-the-dark stars.

I hear the creature rumbling long before I feel the mattress shifting under his weight. My body goes rigid immediately, and I can't tear my gaze from the ceiling. The frantic thump, thump, thump of my heart is doing nothing to help me remain calm. He's moving.

Jesus, Joshua, did you expect him to just stay there all night?

I feel the mattress dip on either side of me, and suddenly the monster's giant skull-mask of a face is looming above me, peering down at me. A very unmasculine squeak escapes me, and I stare up at it, frozen.

We're caught like this for a moment, before that rumbling sound in his chest returns, and it's not a growl, but it's not quite a purr either. It's something. The monster dips his head and nudges my cheek, and I all but jolt out of my skin.

"Sundo!" I squawk, lifting my hands to shove him off, but stopping just short of touching him.

The creature—Sundo—lifts his head, peering down at me again, this time in a perplexed manner. My breath is shuddering from my chest now, and I bite down on my lip as I look up at him, to keep it from trembling.

Sundo makes a sound, something between the grating caw of some sort of bird and the rumbling of some beast. I don't know how to describe it, except that it sounds monstrous. It rumbles in my chest, and I want to be anywhere but beneath this thing.

He gazes at me as if waiting for something, and I grimace up at him.

"What do you want?" I whisper, as though speaking any louder than that is a danger I can't afford.

The creature makes that sound again, but this time lower, and I shift uncomfortably. He's not moving. My hands are still hovering between us, as if caught mid-decision, and Sundo tilts his skull face in their direction. And I realise what he wants.

"No..." I say quietly, some part of me crumpling at the thought.

But he doesn't move off of me, and he tilts his head again insistently. A little bit more of me crumples.