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I blink my eyes open at the sound of my alarm and immediately I am attacked with blinding, stinging light.
Huh. The light is the same every day. Did the Eridians decide to change the lightbulb or something? I blink some more and my eyes fail to adjust. Everything remains bright and blurry.
That’s when I feel it. A weight presses in on my brain, and when I try to inhale, I realize my nose is all stuffed up, too. Did they put something different in the food? Did I overwork myself? Did an Eridian parasite come and worm its way into my ocean and now it’s eating my brain?
The alarm is still going off. Lovely song, really, but right now it’s attacking my senses. I hit the button on the top and it silences. I sit up and groan. That really took a lot of effort. I haven’t felt like this in… well, since I got to Erid. Even then, it was all just body pains and nausea. Nothing like your typical flu-season headache.
Wait, do I have a fever? I slap my hand to my forehead, but it’s no use since my hand is equally sweaty and hot as whatever temperature my head might’ve been.
Ugh. Even just thinking hurts too much. I let my body flop back down into bed, and drifting off has never felt so satisfying…
-
“Friend Grace!” I hear the familiar voice right in my ear and jolt awake.
“Whuhh…” I mumble. Good one.
“Why Grace sleep so long, question? Your caretakers watched on camera. You never sleep this long. So I come and check on you!”
My brain takes a minute to process what he’s saying to me. I blink open my eyes with surprising ease and see Rocky standing inches away from my face. It’s actually quite a relief, since he blocks the light coming in from the bedroom door.
Oh, right, maybe I should respond to him.
“Uhh… I think I’m sick. I don’t know...”
“Sick!? Grace sick again!? What is wrong, question? You supposed to be better!”
I force myself into a… vaguely upright position and press my fingers into my temples. A wave of nausea washes over me, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Hey, Rock, can you do me a favor and tell me what temperature I am?”
“Is this important to understand sickness, question? I go get thermometer. Do not leave bed.” He scuttles off and leaves me to myself.
-
One-hundred-and-one degrees Fahrenheit.
Yup, that’s a fever alright. How did this happen? I asked Rocky about the food I’ve been given, and nothing has changed for a while. It’s not like some human pathogen followed me from Earth; something like that would’ve found me years ago when I was still on the Hail Mary. And I couldn’t have gotten it from any Eridian, either. When they get sick, it gets killed by their superheated bodies instantly.
And when it doesn’t, they REALLY get sick. Life-threatening stuff. Pretty sure they don’t get allowed near my biodome. Poor guys.
I’m sitting in my bed still, as Rocky not-so-politely advised. I fashioned a curtain by taking the sheets off my bed and covering the window, though the sheets are too small to cover the darned thing, so light peeks out from the edges. Not ideal, but better. I hear a tap-tap-tap on the door, but Rocky invited himself in before I can respond. With two of his arms, he holds a bowl of something above his head.
“What is that?” I point at the bowl.
“Rocky talk to food scientist. They quickly make earth food for sick humans. Contains human tissue. Very healthy.”
Oh, I guess they looked up how to take care of me instead of asking me while I’m in bed. Kind of them.
“I appreciate it, bud, but I think I’ll be okay…” I’m a little afraid of whatever’s in that bowl. Sure, I try new Erid-cooked foods every day, but I’m really not in the mood since my throat feels like it’s screaming at me no matter what I do with it. Breathing? No. Talking? Absolutely not. Eating? Forget it.
“No. Eat please.” He puts the bowl in my lap and I realize it’s soup. It contains chunks of… uh… fiber..somethings? And bits of me-meat. I take a cautious sniff and it actually smells really comforting.
I take a sip and—“HOT.” I blurt as I fight the urge to spit it out.
Rocky perks up. “Is wrong temperature, question?” He asks, panicked. “I can give different salt liquid! Liquid bad, I fix!”
I try blowing on it. At first, I assumed they made it wayyy too hot, as Eridians often do by mistake. Like, a hundred degrees too hot. But now that I’m eating it, it’s just the temperature of regular soup.
“No, thank you. I appreciate it though. Tell the scientists they did a good job.”
He makes a contented trilling sound, though his body language is telling me he’s still on-edge.
I set my spoon down. “You don’t have to watch me eat, it’s okay. You go and do whatever you need to do, and I’ll be in here.”
“No. You eat, Rocky watch. Is gross, but I do not care. Need to take care of you.”
I should’ve known that wouldn’t work.
“Seriously, Rock, don’t you have to go take a look at those generators today? I’ll be fine!”
He stamps his foot. “I stay. End of conversation.”
“Okay, okay, just make sure you let people know where you are, okay?” I offer.
“I don’t need to let anyone know. Again: we are on cameras.”
“Right, right.” That camera thing stopped freaking me out a long time ago. At least Rocky doesn’t have to make his absence known.
…
“Oh crud, the kids!”
I go to stand up and quickly realize there’s a bowl of soup on my lap, so instead I have to awkwardly shimmy out of bed while holding it in one hand. “It’s almost noon already and I have to teach today!”
Rocky jumps with his arms out, blocking my path to the wardrobe. “You are sick! You stay here until we figure out what is wrong with you.”
“Ugh…” I sit back down.
“Eat salt liquid. We figure it out. It’s okay.”
I can’t complain about that.
~
“Rocky learned that humans bathe to help with sickness, confirm?”
He’s back in my room again. All day, he’s never left for more than 10 minutes. He has been an exceptional caretaker, if a little pushy.
“Uh, yeah, sometimes. It can help with calming the nerves and stuff. And regulating body temperature, I think.”
“Rocky make hot bath for you.”
“No need, I can do it myself, thanks.”
“No. Grace stay in bed.”
I don’t know why I even try…
So here I am, half-naked with a towel around my torso, with a little alien running a hot bath for me. He keeps dipping his hand into the water to test the temperature, but i’m not even sure he can feel it with his outer shell being made of rock and everything.
“Is good temperature. Good and warm. You may get in now.”
“Thanks, Rock.”
I go to test the water temperature and—“HOT HOT HOT.”
I jump back and shake my hand rapidly. “God, that’s hot! How hot did you make that thing!?”
“I do not have the thermometer. But if I make any colder, is not warm anymore.”
Yeesh! “I’m sure it could stand to loose a couple degrees.”
Rocky taps each of his legs on the floor in the Erid equivalent of an exaspherated shrug. “Shall I go and get thermometer, question?”
“Okay, wait, no. How hot do you THINK you made this?”
He pauses. “450 degrees, estimation.”
Holy cow! I don’t have a good feel for Eridian temperature measurements yet, but that certainly doesn’t sound good. I run the numbers in my groggy head. First, convert back to base ten, and then… and then…
Ah, fudge it. It’s too hot.
“Um, well, I think if I go in there I’ll boil alive, but, uh… Don’t worry! I’ll fix it.”
“No! You just say if you get in, you boil! Temperature wrong, I fix!”
“It’s a figure of speech. Really.” It’s not. I am 100 percent sure I will actually boil. “Don’t worry about it. I use this bath almost every day, you know that.” He doesn’t look convinced. “Tell you what, I’ll fix the temperature, and can you grab me some bath salt from the cabinet?”
One of the luxuries that Eridian scientists didn’t have to labour away making was bath salt. I never used it back on Earth, but salt is everywhere on Erid, so of course I had to try it.
Some generous portions of freezing-cold water added to the tub has returned it back to an acceptably human temperature. Rocky has been having a blast pouring in varying salts and bathing products into the bathtub-soup.
He stands outside the door while I sink my aching muscles into the warm water. I feel well-guarded.
~
I’m back in bed and oh my god I’m so sweaty this is awful. Everything is too hot! I rip my shirt off and immediately start shivering.
“Gah!”
“Grace angry, question?”
“No—I mean, yes, I— this just sucks!”
“I understand. I do not experience same biological failing, but I understand.”
“Thanks, bud.” I pinch the bridge of my nose really hard to try and fight the raging headache that’s found me again.
My hair is still damp and it’s bothering me. It sticks to the back of my sweaty neck and feels like… well, it feels like wet hair. And it sucks. And I feel nauseous for no reason whatsoever and keeping my eyes open for too long hurts but I can’t shut them because then I’m alone in the darkness with nothing but my thoughts and nasal passageways that don’t work.
I desperately reach for the millionth tissue of today.
“Human body is odd. Odd and loud and a little scary. All you do is make mass mass mass amount of mucus. Is there good biological reason, question?”
“It’s supposed trap bacteria and dust,” I try and explain to him, but I have to pause to cough. “then it goes to a place in the body where the body can—“I cough again—“can handle it correctly. In reality it just makes my life miserable.”
“Apologies your body leaks from so many orifices.”
“Apologies you have to deal with this.”
I lay my head back. It would be so hard to fall asleep, but fatigue is gripping me tightly. My eyelids feel heavy.
“I might go to sleep, just a heads up.”
“Yes. Good. Grace rest.”
He stands by the foot of my bed for a moment, as though hesitating. He then climbs up onto my bed and nestles in next to me. “You sleep. I watch. Cuddle for comfort.”
I can’t help but smile. “Sure, buddy. Of course.” I flop over onto my side and interlock my arm with his.
“…We figured out what is wrong with you.”
“Oh?”
“Actually, I lie. We do not know for sure. But we know is nothing serious. Grace will be okay.”
“I’m…” I’m not sure how to feel about that. Whatever. I’m not dying! “That’s a relief.”
“You do not sound relieved.”
“I guess I just really wanted to know what it was, y’know… I’m… curious…” I’m starting to drift off…
“Not important. Grace being okay is important. Grace will be okay.”
I nestle my face into his warmth, and I’m no longer shivering.
Just as I’m about to lose consciousness, I hear a steady, soothing hum come from Rocky. His voice is beautiful.
I will be okay.