She crossed her arms under her breasts and huffed, looking up as she tried to hold back the tears. “So if you’re looking for someone ‘special,’ your buddy Roth is right – I’m not the one you want.”
“Oh, but you are,” Athan insisted.
He reached out and lightly cupped Melinda’s chin with warm, dry fingers. Urging her to lift her head, he looked into her eyes and offered a gentle smile.
“It is disquieting how you have allowed others to see you as undesirable. Among our people, women of your stature are highly regarded for their beauty.”
He looked her over in unabashed admiration. “What a pity that your kind does not value you for your worth. On Volos, men would fall at your feet for a moment of your attention.”
She pulled away from his hand. “Yeah, there are a lot of Chubby Chasers on my planet, too,” she said with a sardonic snort. “I don’t want to be objectified for my looks. I want to be appreciated for me – for who I am inside.”
“And that is why you are here,” Athan said, still smiling. “We have traveled a great distance to find you. This was not our first visit to your Earth. We had come here long ago on an extended expedition. We could have stayed but now we exist there only in the legends of your people. To some, we were symbols of good fortune, while others saw our kind as harbingers of evil.”
“Okay,” Melinda said, shaking her head. “You’ve lost me. What are you guys supposed to be, anyway?”
“It would be easier to show you, and let you come to your own conclusions.” Athan twisted to look at Roth. “If you would be so kind as to reveal yourself to the young lady.”
Roth let out a heavy sigh. Stepping away from them, he stood near the center of the domed room. He reached up and removed the ornate metal clip holding his hair and shook his head briskly to set the long, white-blond mane free to fall around his shoulders. Taking a deep breath, he spread his wings out to either side and closed his eyes.
As Melinda watched, two leathery gray wings rose up from behind his back. Luminous scales resembling inside of an abalone shell grew out along his exposed skin, traveling up his neck and around his face. His hands as they lengthened and sprouted sharp, curved talons. A tail dropped into view and slithered along the floor. Roth dropped forward and when he hit the floor on all fours, his transformation came to its conclusion. He lifted his great head on his now long neck, the tips of his pointed ears now grazing the ceiling high above. He looked down at Melinda, blue eyes like multi-faceted crystals.
Reality would never be the same as she once knew it. What had been real and not real had suddenly merged in her mind into one twisted similarity. There was no such thing as real and make-believe after what she had just seen. The very laws of the universe as she understood them and her own sanity as she had always known had just started to break down inside of her mind.
What had just happened in front of her? How could a man turn into… a dragon? Dragons weren’t even real… but there it was. The handsome man she had been talking to seconds ago was gone; in his place a large, beautiful dragon like something out of a Greeky mythological story she’d watched the movie of in high school instead of reading the book. That was always fun when the director took liberties and changed things to make people cheating on their school work like her look stupid.
“Oh my God,’’ Melinda gulped, blinking in shock. “H-he’s – he’s a dragon!” She tore her gaze away from Roth and stared at Athan. “Your people can shape-shift into dragons?”
“Some of us are adept at taking on other forms, as well,” Athan said.
He nodded to Roth. “We are, for the most part, a hybrid of Dragon and Human, able to change between the two at will, sometimes achieving partial transformation. We can even be found in Earth legends in that phase, where we are more commonly and erroneously labeled as ‘demons.’”
He smiled and turned back to Melinda. “I can assure you that we mean you and your people no harm, in whatever form we may take.”
“I still don’t understand,” Melinda said. “You’re a highly-advanced race of people. You’ve mastered intergalactic space travel, and you can shape-shift. With all the information you say you’ve collected over the years, you probably know how to cure cancer, what to do to solve the problems of global warming, and where to locate all single socks that go missing after they’ve been through the dryer. I mean…” She gestured to Roth. “Come on. How the hell am I supposed to be of any help to you?”
Roth dipped his large head down and snaked it around behind Melinda. “I told you this was pointless,” he growled, his voice deeper and more resonant in his dragon form. “She could never be the one.”
He got up close, and Melinda could see her reflection in his eye as he peered at her. She blinked, and in the time it took her to do that, Roth changed back to his human form and now stood right next to her. He continued to stare at her in a manner she found as unnerving as his physical proximity. Everything about him seemed to set off warning bells inside her – and yet, despite the danger, she could not shake the feeling that they had met before.
Athan broke the spell with a simple command. “Leave us,” he said.
Roth looked up at Athan, and for a moment Melinda could see surprise register on his face. His scowl returned just as quickly.
Looking at Melinda again, Roth set his jaw, turned on his heel, and walked away. A door opened in the otherwise seamless wall and closed again as soon as he stepped through.
Athan offered Melinda another smile. “Forgive him. While he is an efficient Hunter-Warrior, he often treads the fine line of insubordination.”
He inclined his head. “You must also forgive me. All this time, you have shown clear signs of distress and I have neglected to offer you any form of comfort. If you will permit me, I will continue to explain our plight as I escort you to less sterile chambers where you might feel more comfortable.”
Confused, tired, hungry, and feeling like the floor of a movie theater in her soda-stained clothes, Melinda found it growing harder to summon the strength to argue or resist.
“Fine,” she sighed. “Lead the way.”
Chapter Four
Instead of going in the direction of the door Roth had taken, Athan guided her to a different section of wall. Another door appeared and they passed through to a windowless corridor with soft lighting coming from behind the ivory colored walls and up through the opaque white floor panels beneath their feet.
They wound their way through a series of passages. Occasionally, they would pass other men, all of them tall and all dressed in the same attire as Athan and Roth, bringing Melinda to the conclusion that it must be some kind of crew uniform.
To her surprise, all the men looked like guys she would see on Earth, representing different races. Guess that shoots down the theory that all aliens are white Englishmen, she mused.
The Volosians would stop and turn to stare at Melinda as she passed, some of them smiling as they looked her over. Wow, she thought, feeling self-conscious. I guess Athan wasn’t kidding when he said his people liked big girls! Of course, now that I know they’re dragons, how do I know they aren’t just eyeballing me as their next meal?
“As I mentioned before, my people visited your world long ago, first arriving in the area you know as ‘Mesoamerica.’ The primitive indigenous people had been struggling, their region struck by terrible drought and famine. My colleagues and I offered solutions. We taught them forms of irrigation, and how to improve their agriculture. We lived among them and studied them. That is when we made an interesting discovery. Some of the women of that region had a curious genetic abnormality, a very rare trait that played no significant role in the development of the human race but one which we found to be compatible with Volosian physiology. These women had the same robust build as the females of our own species – much like yourself – but more importantly, they possessed the ability to assist us in the rejuvenation process which sustains and prolongs our life forces.”
“H
ow does that work, exactly?” Melinda asked, but in her mind, she began to panic. Oh, shit, she thought, they are going to eat me!
“It is accomplished through an intimate ceremonial rite,” Athan said. “Traditionally, a Volosian woman would enter a large ceremonial room, within a circle of sacred salt. It is the salt that spilled to our world during the extinction of our last moon. Inside this circle, the woman would wait for a male to approach. He would join her, and as she proceeded to enter a trance state, she would grant him the blessing of renewed life. Only women possess this trait.”
“It all sounds kind of strange,” Melinda said with a nervous chuckle. “But I guess I shouldn’t judge. People from my planet are known to do some crazy stuff to slow the aging process, up to and including injecting themselves with small amounts of poison and undergoing surgery that often leaves them looking worse than they did before they went under the knife.”
She looked up at him. “So you’re saying I have this ‘genetic trait’ that you mentioned?”
“Yes,” he said. “It has been passed down to you through your lineage. You are descended from ancient Aztec women who had once been companions to our people – including one whom the natives came to call ‘Quetzalcoatl.’”
“The feathered serpent,” Melinda murmured.
As a child, her abuela had gifted her with a book of Mexican fairy tales. Melinda’s favorite story had been one about Quetzalcoatl, a god who sometimes appeared as a winged serpent – a dragon? – and sometimes as a white man. Quetzalcoatl had been attributed with teaching the Aztecs how to farm.
She gave a bemused snort. “Looks like all those stories about ‘ancient astronauts’ are true. We really were being visited by aliens.”
“We established a symbiotic relationship with the human women of Earth in our time there,” Athan said.
His brow became pinched. “But over time, something changed. We became hated. The people rose up against us. Those who did not flee were met with death. They also killed anyone who aligned with us, starting with the Oracles of Life. In our search for the genetic match we require, we found ourselves drawn back to Earth. We were surprised to find the trait still existed there. Apparently, someone had survived to pass along the gene.”
Athan stopped walking. “Ah! Here we are.”
He inclined his head toward a wall and a portal opened.
Melinda peered inside before taking a cautious step over the threshold. She looked around. The room looked like it had been decorated by someone stuck on the whole ‘pink is for girls’ mentality. The tiled floor had a coral cast to it, the walls a dusty rose; even the lighting had a faint pink tint to it. Plush reclining couches, low tables, and thick rugs dotted the large chamber.
On some of the tables, she saw bowls of recognizable fruit – apples, grapes, oranges – next to trays containing bricks of cheese and loaves of bread. A tall, slender pitcher stood beside an ornate goblet.
“Looks like you were expecting me,” Melinda remarked. “Although if you were really doing your homework, you’d know that I can be won over more easily by a pepperoni pizza, extra cheese.” She glanced at Athan, who looked at her quizzically. “Just kidding.”
In the center of the room, was a large, beautiful bed. It was a canopy bed with huge pillars on all four corners that stretched upwards probably ten feet towards the huge ceiling, white and opaque bright. It was almost hypnotic to watch the post moving up towards that blank light.
And farther on the other side of the huge room, she saw an image of the circle, but it was in a different room. It was like she was staring at a miniaturized version of another world right there. It was lined with candles that sparkled brightly in the already bright room, but the flame was a beautiful emerald green color that shimmered hypnotically mingling with the other light in the room. It was breathtaking and it called out to her somehow, as if reaching some primitive place inside of her. Like it was meant for her to be a part of it.
“So, you expect me to ‘bless’ all of your males? The idea sounds a bit like a group activity I may not be fond of...”
Athan laughed. “No, you misunderstand. We do not merge quite the way you do. The entire event is spiritual; not physical.”
“So, I would just have to sit in this circle and it just all happens naturally?”
“Yes,” Athan said. “You would become our new Oracle of Life.”
Melinda turned to face him. “Is this going to kill me?” she asked, point blank.
He shook his head solemnly. “No. You may feel tired afterward, but you would be given ample time to rest and recover.”
“How often would I have to do it?”
“At this time, there are over two thousand Volosians left in existence. You would be required to bless each one every two cycles – the equivalent of four of your Earth months – for a period of three years.”
She nodded. “And then what?” she asked. “Will you take me back home?”
“If it is what you desire, yes,” Athan said. “But if you find you enjoy life on Volos, where you will be treated as royalty for the rest of your days, widely respected and adored, then you will be welcomed to stay.”
“What’s the catch?”
“’Catch?’”
“Yeah,” Melinda said. “There’s an old Earth saying: ‘if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.’ Nothing is ever free. There’s always some hidden detail, something they never tell you, and down the line they’ll reveal it was written in the fine print if you’d bothered to read it.”
She brushed her messy braid off her shoulder and folded her arms across her ample breasts. “What if I decide I want out of this contract? Or am I locked in with no escape clause?”
Athan smiled at her again. “I will tell you this,” he said. “You are free to choose, at any time, to return home. We can take you back right now. If you decide to help us but change your mind once we reach Volos, we ask that you stay for at least one cycle while we seek a replacement. In that time, you could still save many lives. Remember that you are not only preserving an entire species, you are also allowing us to continue our work, amassing knowledge from every corner of the universe.”
“Nothing like a little extra pressure…” Melinda sighed. She sucked on her lower lip for a moment, considering. “Is there any chance I could see this library you’ve been putting together? You’ve really got me curious about it, now.”
“If that is what you wish,” he said and bowed his head.
Melinda continued to hesitate. “Can I have a little time to consider it?” she asked.
“Of course.” Athan turned and started for the door. “I will leave you to your privacy, now. If there is anything you desire, there is a control panel on the table next to the bowl of fruit. The panel has been coded to recognize Human genetic patterns. Touch it, and anything you request will manifest before you.” He paused to give her a final parting nod. “I will return periodically to ascertain your well-being.”
“Thank you.” Melinda watched him pass through the wall, the door opening, and closing again, leaving no trace of its existence. Sighing, she pivoted to take in her surroundings again. “It's official: this has been the weirdest, most fucked-up day of my life.”
She looked at the table with the fruit on it. Curious, she wandered over to it and yet did not see any ‘panel’ on the surface.
“Maybe it’s like the doors,” she said aloud, passing her hand around the table. “You just can’t see it, but it’s there.”
A section of the tabletop lit up as her fingers brushed over it. She sat down on the sofa. Hmm…what to ask for, first? With a grin, she said, “Large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese.”
A flash of light off to her left made her jump. Twisting around, she saw something on the neighboring table: a pepperoni pizza. Her eyes widened. “Holy shit,” she breathed.
She started to get up, only to glance down at her soiled clothing. She looked over at the tub. A bath sounds good, she thought, but I need s
omething clean to wear, afterward. “Clothes,” she said, then added quickly, “something comfortable.”
A golden light enveloped her hand as it rested on the control panel; it traveled up her arm. Melinda’s eyes widened as it began to move over her body, all the way down to her toes before retreating.
Another flash of light, this time to her right; to her surprise, it turned out to be her favorite pair of pajamas – or at least a really good replica – along with underpants and a pair of fuzzy ankle socks, folded and stacked in a neat pile.
Every night when she got home from work, she would have dinner, take a shower and then climb into a pair of soft cotton pajamas and fuzzy socks.
Melinda laughed, amazed. “Are you serious?” She reached over, cautious, and ran her fingers over the material. It felt real. “Wow.” She looked at the panel again. “I could really have some fun with this thing. But first…”
Pushing up from the sofa, she walked over to the table with the pizza. Hot, like it had just come out of the oven, cheese stretching for miles, thin crust… She pulled up a slice and took a bite. “Oh.” She groaned around her mouthful. “Oh my God, that’s incredible. Mm. This Oracle gig is starting to look pretty damn good.”
She finished off the slice and began undressing. Her uniform shirt came off first, her skin sticky underneath where the soda had soaked through.
Kicking off her shoes, she slid her dark blue slacks down, along with her purple cotton panties and socks. She reached back to unhook her bra, letting out a loud sigh of relief as she pulled it away from her body. “Oh God, I’ve been waiting all day to do that!” she groaned. Rubbing her now liberated breasts, she headed over to the tub in the far corner of the room. It appeared to be a large Jacuzzi. It had been so long since she’d enjoyed a soak in one of those.
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