Terrestrial Alien ✔

[Part V] Chapter 71: Night Air

Joshua

Sundo runs through the night.

I stay awake with him, keeping a lookout for any signs of the institution pursuing us. I watch as the landscape shifts and evolves around us, as more craggy vegetation begins to crop up, scattered with rocks and dust that flies up under Sundo's claws.

In the distance, dry trees sprout up the sides of rises and outcroppings of rock, and even further on, mountains. Behind us, the Archuleta mountain range grows shorter on the horizon, as though blocking off where we came from, warding off any thoughts of turning back.

When Sundo catches the sound of the near-silent aircraft roving the sky in search of us, he veers sharply to the right. Ducking under an outcropping of rock, he crushes us flat against the cold stone. Dirt crumbles into my hair and I blink it out of my eyelashes.

I don't understand why we're hiding at first, that is, until the aircraft actually goes by overhead. It's hardly anything but the stirring of sand that bites at your skin and a dark form that glides over the stars, temporarily blacking them out.

Goosebumps crawl up my arms and the back of my neck, and I crouch flat against Sundo's back. My breath fogs in the cold of the night against his hair, and my heart sticks in my throat. I swear the thing can see us.

The rock crushes against my spine with how urgently we've pressed against it.

There had been all sorts of bizarre things in that institution, to the point where Sundo might just have been the least of them. It's hardly a stretch to guess the kind of technology they have. What's near-silent helicopters with night vision to a top-secret government program? Anything could have been hidden in that hangar.

A long moment stretches thin as we wait for it to pass over us. Frozen muscles, Sundo's shallow breath rising against my chest, fearing to close my eyes for that thought that if I do, it'll spot us.

An even longer moment sits over us once the sinister presence has pulled out of earshot. Sundo and I both have to work up the courage to venture out of our cramped hiding place, even with the coast clear.

Sundo... a huge, lethal alien monster... and he's afraid to come out from beneath a rock. I can feel his muscles trembling beneath me. It leaves a sick feeling in my chest, something between anger and heartache, all for him.

Carefully, tentatively, I work my fingers through his fur, bumping my thumb over bone and muscle until I can feel a bit of the tension uncoil.

When we finally do pull away and start our journey home once more, we do so with extreme caution and an overhanging sense of trepidation. There's a tension gripping the air that wasn't there before, and I feel too on edge to be on anything but high alert.

We've lost those government bastards... for now. Who knows where they'll be next.

Sundo continues following the highway, though at even more of a distance than before. It sits on the edge of our vision, and occasionally a flash of headlights or taillights will shoot by, startling us both and setting my heart pounding again.

*

It feels like an hour crawls by before we pass into a town that the sign informs me is Amargo, New Mexico. As we approach the first sleepy buildings, Sundo slows to a hesitant step, unsure of what he should do.

I stare at the town from over the top of his head.

It's... civilization. Actual people, people who don't want to hurt us. Who don't know nor care what Sundo is or who we are to each other. They're here, and I... I don't know what to do.