Chapter Text
“Grace!” The translator spoke. Rocky came barreling in.
It’d been about 15 months since Hail Mary had landed on Erid. And this was pretty much every day. I rub my eyes as i sit up in bed. Rocky repeats my name, ‘Grace, Grace, Grace, Grace’ he’s so loud.
“Yeah, I’m awake buddy what's up?” I slid my glasses onto my face.
He’s probably just here to tell me a new feature that him, Adrian and Pepto – a pink Eridian that had been helping with more chemical levels of the biodome - have implemented, so I can take my ti-
“Rocky find other human!”
There's another WHAT?
My head snaps to look at him. Disbelief. And then scramble to get dressed.
We run out to the edge of the biodome, I'm pretty sure my shirts on backwards, that doesn’t matter right now. I let Rocky form a xenonite suit around me, and we ran out onto the rest of Erid. I follow Rocky, as he leads me to it.
A crowd of Eridians cover my sight properly, but we push through, Rocky screaming for them to move as we push to the front of the crowd. Towards the miniature biodome they had set up, my eyes widen slightly as i see what's inside.
A broken, submarine looking craft. Lays in a crater. It's sealed shut, no entrances or exits. And no space fairing motors of any sort. I don’t know how it got here. But Rocky’s insistence there’s a living human in there leads me to at least some hope he could be right. I ran up. Looking for a weak point. A cracked window in the front. a thick red liquid leaks through the crack, the same colour blocks the whole window.
Blood.
Human blood.
I slam my elbow into the glass several times, until it shatters, blood pouring out, drenching me. It pours out; I hear panicked sounds of the Eridians in the crowd.it slowly fills the crater. And I soon I can see it. A body. A real human body, drenched in the same blood I am.
“Rocky! I need some help getting into this thing!” I shouted desperately. He runs in, wearing his own xenonite suit.
We pry into the welding. Desperately trying to make it in. Until finally the seal breaks. And we bust in. I rush through and pick up the blood covered man. And carry him out of the submarine. Rocky extends my xenonite suit to cover the man, and I carefully carry him to the biodome.
I took him to the hospital. The medical Eridians perk up. And immediately separate us. Starting to clean us both up. I reached out. But the door closes.
I let them clean the blood from me and change out my clothes for clean ones. Taking some blood samples to find out just what it was. And how his whole submarine was filled with blood.
There's just too many experiments I need to do. But for now. I’ll let the Eridian team handle it. It's best I stay with this new human. Don't want him getting scared by some aliens.
After they'd stabilized him, I was allowed in. I didn’t have much of a plan.so i just. Dragged in a chair. And sat down. And watch. As he slept.
The damage was pretty bad, the left side of his face is completely bandaged, as well as majority of his torso, his left arm was missing, although the more i thought the more I wondered if he ever had it in the first place. But he was alive, breathing and real and human.
I resist the urge to touch his face and his shoulder. To hold him and hug him. The touch starvation fills my mind, but i hold back. And just. Continue to watch..
Holy moly, that's another human. I feel the tears fall down my face.
I wasn’t alone.