by Zara Zenia
We nod at his words and look all around us at the many sources of light, trying to cultivate the feeling that they are keeping us safe.
“Very well,” Draygus nods. “We’ll keep moving.”
I have to admit that as we make our way through the building with our new footwear squeaking against the floor, I have a strange and nervous feeling inside me. Everything is so new and bizarre. There are countless things I don’t understand, devices I see people holding, and I don’t know why. There is a great cacophony of smells permeating my nostrils all at once. We pass by one place in particular that seems the worst to me, despite the person outside being friendly.
It is like a building within a building, a place which Draygus explains to me is called a ‘shop.’
“Shop,” I chew the word around my mouth. “It is a word of such peculiarity and explains nothing of what I’m looking at.”
“A shop,” he looks down at me, “is a place in which things can be traded.”
I look inside the window of this shop and see glass bottles. They are everywhere, and it’s as though their smells are trying to entice me through the gap in the door. They are all so strong, almost putrid.
“Why would anyone want these?” I wave my hand at the place.
“From what I can gather,” Draygus scratches his chin, “people buy these tiny bottles and spray the contents on themselves as part of a mating ritual.”
“Oooohhhh,” I mouth as if I understand, although I certainly do not.
There’s a person with long hair and a glowing mouth at the front door. Her lips are red and vivid, her teeth perfectly straight and gleaming white. She has huge and spindly tentacles coming from her upper eyelids.
“Draygus!” I clutch at his arm. “Is that dangerous? That person there?”
“No… I think that is a human woman.”
“Hmmmm…”
She sees me paying her attention and comes forth with a little piece of card in her hand.
“Are you looking to buy some perfume today?” she asks, her mouth twisted up into an unwavering smile.
I’m terrified of her and the way she is so close to me, so eager to engage with me. I shrink away from her and shake my head.
“Well, you can take a sample and come back another time. Have a nice day,” she steps back to her original spot and proceeds to ask the exact same question to another person that walks by.
I look down at the card.
“Is this toxic?” I ask Draygus. “It smells toxic.”
Pushing my nose up to the outer corner of the card, I take a short, sharp whiff of the mysterious substance that coats it. It makes my eyes water, and I recoil away from it.
“Urgh! It’s terrible,” I sneeze. “Humans like this?”
Victorinth, seeing my distress, comes and urges me to carry on walking with the rest of the group.
“It can’t be that bad,” she laughs. “Let me smell,” she takes the card from me and breathes in. “Hmm. I actually quite like it. I think I’ll keep this.”
“Please do,” I breathe a sigh of relief as she takes it from me.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group is in just as much awe as I am, with their eyes wide and staring at all the different colors and textures that are before us. In the center of the building, at various intervals, are metal tracks that glide down to the floor below. I see a sign to the left of each one:
ESCALATOR
“Hey Draygus,” I run to catch up with him. “Have you seen those?”
“Escalators,” he says. “I have.”
“Are they like primitive versions of the ascenders we have back home?”
“They very much are,” he nods. “Except they don’t seem to be powered by the air like ours are. They seem to run on a less efficient fuel.”
“Hmm,” I look at each one as we pass by. “I think they are very interesting.”
While the others are more interested in looking in each shop window, I am more focused on the mechanics of the building. The escalators, as well as the boxes I see travel up to the roof with cables on each end, and the way one human is dealt the task of owning a miniature craft that cleans the floor. He must be a very important human, because everyone else has to walk.
As we reach the end of the building, we find ourselves faced with a shop that is about fifty times bigger than the others. This one is the busiest of all and has a large stock of goods.
“Where are we now?” Voland and Ethazol ask in unison.
“This shop is one for food,” Draygus says, pointing inside.
“Food!” Jarick is so excited at the thought he almost shouts. “I thought we’d never eat again.”
We try to enter the shop via one of the doors, but it does nothing, and I watch as Jarick walks face-first into the glass.
“I don’t understand,” he rubs his head. “Those ones over there open,” he points to the ones further down the shop front.
We all line up in front of the other sliding doors, and to our delight, they glide open.
“It must have been an amalgamation of all our minds,” Jarick says. “There’s no way the humans have good enough technology to have motion sensors.”
“I agree,” his little sister Victorinth nods. “The humans seem ever so primitive.”
As we walk into the shop, we discover it is far brighter than all the others and to me—at least, it smells a lot more pleasant. In fact, it smells so good that I begin to salivate at the prospect of eating all the things I see in front of me.
I reach out my hand and pick up something that is round and red. It feels slightly hard to the touch, but once I grip it, the skin breaks and the fleshy inside is revealed. I take a bite, the juice inside reviving me.
“Don’t do that,” Draygus knocks it from my hand. “You have to trade for the food here. You can’t just take it.”
“Trade?”
“Yes. With money.”
“Money? Is that like the currency of the Rigel Credits back home?”
“It is, Benzen.”
“But we don’t have any human money!”
I’m desperate now. After being tempted by the food I feel I need it more than ever, even if I don’t know what any of it is.
“Hey guys,” Voland steps in. “Let’s not get irate. We're all in shock, tired, and hungry but there must be a way we can bargain with the humans.”
“I agree,” Draygus looks to us all. “I assume, if they weren’t reasonable, they would have attacked us by now, but it seems as though we are blending in, and they don’t see us as a threat. Maybe they'll just accept our money. Let’s put together what we all have.”
“I have nothing,” I shrug.
“Me neither.”
“I also have nothing,” Jarick shakes his head. “We have, after all, just survived a crash.”
“Hmmm….” Draygus pinches the bridge of his nose in thought. “I don’t have anything either.”
“I do,” a little voice at the back comes forward.
Victorinth is clinging onto her brother’s arm with one hand and showing us some Rigel Credits with the other.
“How did you manage that?” I look down at her.
“A girl has her secrets,” she smiles. “I only have seven credits, though,” she frowns. “Will that be enough?”
“I suppose we'll find out.” Voland takes them from her hand. “Let us see what we can do.”
It’s very strange and terrifying as we walk around the shop, picking things up and feeling at them with our fingers. Some things look more like weapons than food, while others look rather appetizing. There is one type of food that I enjoy the smell of more than the others. It comes in a bunch of fingers and is yellow. Looking somewhat like an oversized hand, I wonder for a while if it has been taken from a large, yellow animal that resides on this planet. Yet as I inspect it closely, I find it has no circulatory system or nerve endings.
“Do you suppose these hands can hold things?” I show a couple bunches to Draygus.
/> “I am just as unsure as you are,” he frowns. “Perhaps they are not even hands.”
“Hmmm…”
Regardless of whether they are real fingers or not, I do greatly enjoy the smell. It is naturally fragrant, with undertones of health, vitality, and strength. I have the feeling that if I eat enough of these, I will be very strong.
In the distance, I see the others picking out foods they think they’ll like. Victorinth seems to have picked up vast amounts of small things in colorful boxes, while Voland, being as sensible as ever, has looked at what the humans have been wandering around with and is copying them.
“This,” he shows me a giant object under his arm. “I think this will sustain us somewhat. Many of the humans are buying these, and look,” he points to the layer of fat around it. “It’s a form of animal, and therefore, will give us protein.”
I nod, fascinated by everyone’s different choices.
“I think it’s time we try to buy these,” Draygus ushers us to a long line of humans who are putting all their items onto a rubber conveyor belt.
“This seems very inefficient, standing around all day waiting to buy things. There are so many people in front of us, we’ll be here for some time,” I complain.
“I hear ya, kid,” a voice comes from behind me.
I spin around and see a rotund female. At least, I think she is a female, because she has sculpted those strange spindles from the top of her upper lid, and also has bright red lips that shimmer and catch the light. She gives me a slight smile.
“I hate shopping,” she agrees, rolling her eyes.
I’m dumbfounded, and so is the crew. It would seem we have blended in so well, the humans have begun to communicate with us.
“Well done,” Victorinth mouths silently to me.
Despite the amount of people ahead of us, their items are scanned through a laser device with tremendous speed, then placed into bags. The human then carries them away to consume them with vigor, I can only assume.
It isn’t long until our items have reached the human who is doing the scanning. I can’t help but worry that she will interrogate us as we approach, but to my surprise, she does no such thing.
“Good evening,” she says as she slides our items over the laser.
It isn’t long until she is finished and she stares at all six of us in turn.
“And how will you be paying today? Cash or card?” she focuses her eyes on Draygus, as he is obviously the oldest.
“Er… Rigel Credits,” he says.
“Uh?” the woman screws up her face. “What did you say?”
“We’ll be paying today with Rigel Credits.”
I can tell Draygus is nervous, but he’s trying his best. I can’t imagine how scared he is. Looking at him, I try to give him a look of encouragement, and he stares back at me with a worried expression on his face.
“It’ll be fine,” Victorinth whispers.
Meanwhile, the female, the gatekeeper of the food, is still looking at us strangely. She glances at the Credits in Draygus’ hand and then looks up at him.
“Sir… can you wait a moment please?” she stands up from her seat. “I need to speak to my manager.” And with that, she disappears behind a door at the end of the shop.
“Are we in trouble?” I ask.
“I think so,” Draygus sighs.
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