by Ashley West
“I invited her. As one of the women who keep our children safe, and someone who has known you for the longest, she has a place here,” Calin said. “Please, have a seat, Mirrigan.”
She did and turned to look at Khaos. “You have always been strong, and you’re much smarter than you’ve ever given yourself credit for. The people trust you and look up to you. They need you to save them.”
“But why me?” Khaos demanded. It took a great force of will to keep himself in his seat, and he clenched his hands into fists. “I don’t know anything. I don’t even know what to look for. How can the people pin their hopes on someone like me? Why not the scientists and the medics and the people who explore the other planes? I’m just a warrior.”
“You are strong and you are clever,” Calin said. “We would be sending you to Earth, and our teams are already elsewhere looking. Earth is both more advanced and more primitive than our society, but they have many more illnesses and many ways to fight them.”
“Can’t you just contact their government or whatever and get them to help that way?”
Calin shook his head. “There are far too many leaders on Earth for that to work. We’d all be dead by the time we got them to do anything. Someone has to go there and make a connection, and we would like it to be you.”
No matter how many different times they said it, it still boggled Khaos’ mind. He wasn’t fit for something like this, but it was clear they had their minds made up. They wanted him to be the champion in truth.
“Think about it like this, Khaos,” Mirrigan said. “If the people know you’re going, someone they trust and believe in, it will give them hope. You have a way with people that I have always noticed, and I believe that you can go there and find something that will help. You could find something that will allow us to keep more people from dying.”
Khaos remembered his parents and how much he’d missed them once they were gone. Granted only one of them had died from the Sickness, but there were kids who were younger than he’d been who had their entire families wiped out.
If he could help…
“I’ll try.”
It was like those two little words set off a whirlwind of activity. So much had to be prepped for, and he had a lot to learn. Humans and Earth had never been high on his list of things to learn about, although since they were a dominant part of the universe, it had been required knowledge to learn about them to some extent when he was younger. But that had been years ago, and he had a lot to read all of a sudden.
More than anything he missed the arena, but he understood that this was important.
He read for three straight weeks, learning what he would need to know to interact with humans without drawing too much attention to himself.
“There will be others there to help guide you,” Mirrigan promised. “They’ve been preparing. It will be fine.”
That’s what everyone kept saying. That it would be fine. That and that they were proud of him for what he was doing. That his parents would be proud of him.
Khaos didn’t let himself think about that too much. He didn’t know how his parents would feel about any of it, and thinking about it wasn’t going to help so he focused on what he knew and what he need to know.
Time seemed to slip away as he prepared, and soon enough he was bidding his friends and his home farewell and climbing aboard the vessel that would take him to Earth.
He’d be far away from anyone he knew, and forced to basically start a new life for however long it took him to find what he needed to find.
It was more than a little daunting, but as he watched Blessini shrink away and the vast darkness of space stretch out in front of him, he had to admit that it was an adventure of a lifetime.
Chapter 4: Where It All Gets Weird
If she ever had the chance to look back or write her memoirs or something, Kayla was pretty sure things would be divided into two sections. The section where everything was normal and quiet and she did her job and fed her dog and paid her taxes like every other slightly boring American out there, and the section where everything changed.
Her whole life she had been led to believe that change was a gradual thing. You slowly added or took things away from your routine until you had a new one or you worked hard to make things better than they were.
It seemed completely unrealistic for things to change simply because someone walked into her waiting room with her at half past twelve on a Wednesday morning, but that was exactly what happened.
The Wednesday that everything changed started out like any other day. She woke up at six forty-five in the morning, showered, fed Charlie and let him out, made herself breakfast, let Charlie back in, got dressed, and was out the door by seven forty.
By seven fifty-five she was pulling into the parking lot of the clinic, and by a minute past eight, she was ready for the day.
It was a light day as far as appointments went, but there was always the chance of walk ins. Mrs. Hunter called to cancel her physical at two, leaving a large gap of time between lunch and her next appointment at three thirty.
If no walk ins came in, then she’d have all that time to herself, and she planned to very firmly ignore the suggestions from the nurses that she ‘take a walk, maybe across the street, maybe stop and smell some flowers wink, wink’ (honestly, it had been over a month, and she still hadn’t gone over there, what made them think she was suddenly going to change her mind and decide she needed to meet him?). If anything, she’d hold up in her office and maybe try and catch a nap since by Wednesday of every week, the twelve hour shifts were really starting to wear on her. She could make Christina or Nina promise to wake her before her next appointment and everything.
A better use of her time would be looking through the applications from other doctors who were interested in working at the clinic part time since she really did need the help, but the stack was daunting, and she just really wasn’t in the mood for that.
They all seemed to act like they were doing her a favor by showing interest in her little clinic, and she didn’t have time for that. Kayla would much rather have continued doing all this work on her own than have to put up with some pompous doctor from the city who expected her to bless the day they walked through the door.
She took care of the people who came in that morning, writing prescriptions and telling people that their coughs weren’t that worrying and that the bumps on their bodies would be better to be looked at by a dermatologist and any number of other things that came with the nature of the job. She did it all with a smile on her face, and her usual charm, sending people away with smiles on their faces and candy in their hands when they needed it. It was a good feeling, as it always was, to be able to do things to make people feel better even a little bit.
By noon, the clinic had cleared out, and the nurses went to see about their lunches. Kayla hadn’t had time to bring anything from home this time, so she left with them, hurrying down the street to the little Greek cafe and getting herself a warm gyro and a salad that would have to tide her over until she could get home and have dinner.
As she headed back to the clinic, she frowned, catching sight of an absurdly tall man lingering around the entrance looking nervous.
It wasn’t rare to have people come to the clinic looking like they needed help, but large, muscular men in general made her feel on edge, especially when she was the only woman around.
“Is there something I can help you with?” she asked as she approached, having to crane her neck to see his face. She wasn’t short, really, but the man was even taller close up. He had to be easily over six feet tall, and Kayla really wished she had something to use to defend herself if she needed to. A bag of Greek food was only going to do so much if he wasn’t just a confused patient.
“Oh,” he said, looking surprised to see her standing there. “I. I’m looking for a doctor?”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Are you asking me or telling me?”
“What?”
“Never mind. Why do you need a doctor? Are you hurt?”
Kayla couldn’t put her finger on it, but something felt...off about this man, and she didn’t intend to let him in until she’d figured out what exactly it was he wanted. Or until one or more of the nurses came back so she wasn’t alone with him.
“No, I just. Look, is there a doctor here, or not?” Now he sounded annoyed.
“There is, but this is a clinic. Our time and resources are limited, so unless you need immediate help or have an appointment, I’m going to have to send you to the Urgent Care on Main.”
“The...Urgent Care?” His eyes lit up. “They can fix problems immediately? Any problem?”
“No,” Kayla said slowly. “That’s not how it works.”
“Then why is it called Urgent Care?”
“Because it’s faster than going to the hospital or a doctor’s office if you just need medicine or a shot or something,” she explained. “Are you...not from around here?” Because honestly, this had to rank among the most bizarre conversations she’d ever had.
The man chuckled somewhat ruefully. “You could say that. Can we maybe start over?”
For some reason she found herself nodding. This just got stranger and stranger. It wasn’t like her to spend time talking to people she didn’t know outside of her job. Especially when they were hitting all of her ‘this person is weird and maybe dangerous’ buttons, but she found him compelling for some reason, and she didn’t know why. It was more like her to try to figure things out, so maybe that had something to do with it.
Or maybe it’s because he’s really good looking, went the little voice in her head that sounded like all the nurses combined, and maybe a bit like her mother, too.
That was most definitely not the reason, even if it was true. He was tall and well built and tan, with short hair and strange eyes. His arms were folded in front of him, showing off muscles and thin scars, and she had to admit that he was one of the most interesting looking people she’d seen.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t deranged or dangerous or both. She’d just been spending too much time with the nurses lately in their relentless teasing about her lack of a love life.
“My name is Khaos,” he said, hesitating and then offering her one of his massive hands to shake. “And I need help.”
Kayla looked at that hand for a second. It was calloused, as if he was used to hard work or using tools (which didn’t lessen her worry about him being an axe murderer one bit), and her hand was dwarfed in his when she reached out to shake it.
She blinked, suddenly lightheaded when their skin made contact, and she pulled her hand back, looking from the confused expression on Khaos’ (and what kind of name was that?) face to her own hand.
“I’m Kayla,” she said. “Dr. Kayla Abernathy, and I might be able to help, depending on what you need.” Her stomach growled loudly, reminding her that she was wasting her lunch break out here talking to this guy. It would have been perfectly acceptable to send him away and ask him to return once the clinic opened back up after lunch, but she found herself sighing instead and letting him in.
“Kayla,” he repeated as he followed her into the waiting room. “That’s a nice name.”
“Thanks,” she replied, voice a bit dry. “So, I assume it’s not medical help you need? You certainly don’t look like you’re ailing, a big strapping guy like you.”
“Thank you,” Khaos said, pleasure in his tone. “And I do need medical help, it’s just. Not for me.”
She frowned at that. “I can’t do long distance doctoring, Khaos. Whoever needs the help is going to have to come here if you want me to help them.”
It was only common sense, but when she looked back at Khaos’ face, the defeat on it was a bit too much for her. Clearly he really did need help, and there was probably a reason why he hadn’t brought whoever needed the help to her. And she was a doctor. She’d taken her oaths to help people to the best of her ability no matter what.
So she pushed aside her wariness and her tiredness (but kept the hunger because she could eat and talk at the same time, and she couldn’t help anyone if she keeled over from starvation first) and smiled at him. “Let’s go talk in my office, okay?”
Khaos gave her a grateful look and motioned for her to lead on.
Her office was moderately sized, but somehow Khaos’ presence there made it feel smaller. Or he seemed larger in it, one or the other. He sat in the chair across from her desk and watched as she ate, head cocked to one side as if he’d never seen anything like the food she was consuming.
He didn’t rush her, though, and she was grateful for that, letting her get through the gyro and most of her salad before he showed any signs of impatience.
Once she’d washed down the food with some juice, Kayla folded her hands on the desk and met his eyes, which she could see were an odd shape from this close.
“What do you know about diseases?” he asked her, clearly taking that as permission to carry on.
“...As much as any other doctor that doesn’t specialize in them, I suppose,” she said. “I’m more a general practitioner.” She’d studied a bit about them in college, but it had seemed to specialized for her, and she’d wanted to spend her time helping people directly and not behind a microscope.
“Could you identify a disease? Or how to cure one?”
Her eyebrows jumped up at that. “That’s a tall order. What kind of disease are we talking about here.”
There was a grave look on Khaos’ face as he leaned back in his chair. “It kills without caring who it kills. The old, the young, the already sick, the healthy and strong. There’s no connection between the people who die only they are all the same race of people.”
“Well, some races have a predisposition for certain diseases for whatever reasons. Can you tell me about the symptoms?”
He nodded. “First you get very weak. Moving around is nearly impossible because it wears you out so much and nothing can help. You stop eating and sleep all the time, and then your body starts failing until you die.”
There were many illnesses that she could name off the top of her head that would cause a person to get weak, but that level of extreme weakness sounded like nothing she’d ever heard of before.
“And you said the only link between the people who die is their race?”
Khaos nodded again. “There are no known cases of any other races getting the Sickness.”
He said it like it was meant to be capitalized. “Why hasn’t anyone ever heard of this before?” she demanded. “Where are you from?”
Now he looked nervous, which instantly put her on edge. If he was lying about this, then she was going to be very upset with him, but the distress on his face was enough to make her wait and see what he had to say. “Calin said that some people don’t believe.”
“Believe what?”
“In...I guess you’d call them aliens? Call us aliens, that is.”
Kayla opened her mouth to tell him to get out and then shut it. There had always been conspiracy theorists and people who believed in Area 51 and life on other planets. Kayla didn’t know much about space herself, but she had always been a believer that the universe was too vast and too wonderful to just be inhabited by people on Earth. There were too many other planets, too many things that were out of their reach.
How arrogant would it be to believe that all of the rest of the space was uninhabited?
Her father had always believed, as well. He’d told her stories when she was a child about secret government organizations that worked with the governments of other planets, setting up exchanges and putting aliens on Earth so that they could learn from each other.
“Who knows what else is out there, Kayla bear,” he would say as he filled her head with stories of shape shifting aliens and creatures smaller than grains of sand and ones that were so big they needed entire galaxies to themselves.
She’d always believed to a certain extent, and now there was a man claiming to
be from another planet in front of her.
Well, she had thought there was something off about him from the get go…
“You’re an alien?” she asked, careful to keep her tone neutral. “From where?”
“Blessini. It’s a small planet, but in another galaxy.”
“And you came here to try and find a cure for this disease?”
He nodded, looking somewhat relieved. “Yes. I’m not a medic, I’m a fighter. A warrior, and they named me champion and sent me here. I can’t go back without something that will help. My people, the Kaspersi, are dying. I know it’s not something you have to care about because they aren’t your people and our deaths don’t affect you, but please. If there’s anything you can do to help, please.”
This was definitely beyond her skill set and her pay grade and probably a whole lot of other things, too, but Kayla Abernathy had never been able to ignore a cry for help, and now didn’t seem to be any different. If there was nothing she could do, then she’d at least be able to point him in the direction of people better equipped to help him, even though a small, almost jealous sounding part of her demanded that she be the one to do it.
“I’ll try,” she said. “That’s all I can promise.”
The brilliant grin he gave her seemed to say that it was enough.
Chapter 5: New Places, New Feelings
Earth was nothing like Blessini. His home planet was a tiny place, and while people lived on top of each other in some areas, it was nothing like where he was on Earth. People were everywhere. He had gotten so used to the variety of the people around him back home, that the sameness of humans was strange. Everyone had the same basic structure (two arms, two legs, hands, feet, one head) with some variation of disabilities and skin color. There were no vibrant colored eyes or people with scales or forked tongues here, and it made Khaos feel like he stuck out even as he blended in.
When he’d arrived on Earth, he had been a bit disappointed. At first glance it didn’t seem all that different from Blessini. It had air and water and technology, and even though Khaos had read all the information about the planet and watched the video feeds, he’d expected something...more.
