The Archaeological Chronicles - The New World

Mari

I hate him. I hate him more than words can describe.

I hate him!

He had the audacity to clean me. Every single part of me. I want to lie down and disappear.

This is not okay.

I hate him.

He hasn’t touched me since the shower-scene. I’m fine with that. More than fine.

I hope he never touches me again, even though this is now ‘a daily routine’.

I will rip his balls off the second when he doesn’t stare into my soul, like he does. All the freaking time!

I mutter as many curse words I know under my breath as we walk towards the ‘dining area’.

I’m pulled out of my thoughts when another white haired, extremely tall alien walks towards us. His skin is fairer than Kai’ine’s. Just barely a blue tinge to it.

He looks just like him, and I’m guessing that they are related somehow. Or maybe they all look alike. How would I know, anyways.

However, they appear almost identical, but this man is a bit shorter and has striking yellow cat-like eyes.

They’re creepy to be honest.

Their eyes are in general pretty big and pretty creepy.

He smiles as his gaze shifts to me.

Why the hell is he smiling at me?

They exchange a few words in their mother tongue, and I can hear that the blue Smurf beside me is not happy with him showing up. The yellow-eyed man just brushes him off and approaches me.

Um, no thanks.

I take a step back, and I see in the corner of my eye that Kai’ine reaches his hand out to support my back.

Why would he do that?

I still in my tracks, not wanting him to touch me. He clasps his hands behind his back as he intensely stares at me.

‘’Hello, I’m Zuuri,’’ the yellow-eyed man introduces.

I frown up at him. I don’t care who he is.

‘’I’m sorry if my brother has scared you. He’s just a bit of a drama queen. He only likes it his way-‘’

Kai’ine interrupts his introduction with a silent growl.

‘’See?’’ Zuuri points at him. ‘’Drama queen,’’ he smiles.

I just can’t help it. A small smile forms on my lips. It was a little funny. I hope he bothers him again.

I want to see that Smurf suffer.

Zuuri is wearing the same clothes as both Kai’ine and I. The only difference is the colors, very faint colors, on the clothes.

He has this golden leaf-like crown-ish thing resting on top of his white hair. It’s not as long as Kai’ine’s. It only reaches the shoulders. He has it braided like the braid Kai’ine has.

Mine is different than both of theirs.

I don’t know why.

His whole demeanor looks kinder and gentler than the sex-offender beside me.

‘’I brought your laptop and your books. I see that you study archaeology? I know a lot of the human past, but I would like to know more. Maybe you can tell me a little about it some day?’’

My smile widens a little. I don’t know if this is a trick or not, but Zuuri really seems nice. I could really need a potential friend in this situation.

Maybe he even can help me escape when the time comes.

Wait. I’m getting ahead of myself again. I cannot overthink the situation, I’ll go mad. I won’t be able to get home if I go mad. That’s for sure.

Fuck me. Fuck this situation. I just want to go home.

‘’Okay,’’ I nod and smile a little.

I feel Kai’ine staring holes into my skull. Zuuri clasps his hands together in delight.

‘’Great! I’m looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I have to go and fix somethings with the core system on this ship. I’ll see you around Mai’yri,’’ he smiles and walks pasts us.

Wait. How does he know my name? Oh, that’s true. I forgot for a moment that he’s probably part of this kidnapping too.

Kai’ine gestures for me to walk into the dining room.

I do.

He pulls forth a chair for me, and I sit down in it, like the obedient human I am.

‘’What would you like?’’ he asks as he continues to stare me down.

‘’To go home,’’ I snap back. Probably not the smartest comeback, I realize.

‘’To eat,’’ he corrects.

‘’Fuel that will get me home,’’. I know that I’m playing with fire right now, but I’m still not giving up without a fight.

He takes hold of my braid and tugs on it, so that I’m looking straight up at him. He stands behind the chair I’m sitting in.

‘’Do I need to hurt you, to get you to understand that your smartass comments and disobeyance will not be tolerated?’’ He says in a monotonous voice.

I don’t see any of those dark swirls that appear in his eyes when he’s really angry. So I’m assuming this is only a threat.

’’Do I need to hurt you to make understand that you cannot control me?'' I snarl back.

A sinister smile appears on his face after that remark.

The fear hits me like a brick wall.

’’How do you plan to hurt me, when you can’t even break out from the simple hold I have you in?'' he mocks as he bends down, leaning closer to my face.

I don’t even have a snarky reply to it. How do I reply to it? He’s not wrong. He could squish me like an ant in a second if he wanted to.

Instead he chooses to have showers with me. Like the strange creature he is.

When he sees that I have no snarky reply, his sinister smile grows even larger.

’’Just what I thought. Now, you are going to eat, and if you don’t, I will personally shove it down your throat,’’ he says in a deadly calm voice.

He tightens his hold and leans even closer to my face. Ripping my personal-space boundaries and tossing them away.

‘’Do you understand?’’

‘’Yes,’’ I hiss out.

He releases his hold the second later. His pull didn’t hurt, but I got the warning bright and clear.

‘’Cheerios with oat milk,’’ I mutter.

‘’What with what?’’ He asks.

There is still no emotion on his face, yet his tone seemed less monotonous. Surprised, maybe.

He turns to face me, from what I would assume was a kitchen. Not too far from a regular ‘earthly’ kitchen, but there are some utensils and appliances that I do not recognize.

‘’Cheerios with oat milk,’’ I repeat a little louder.

‘’The cereal, oat milk as in milk made out of oats,’’ I answer. He only stares at me intensely.

‘’You asked what I would like, I’m giving you an answer,’’ I say, a bit annoyed.

I slouch down in the chair I’m sitting in and cross my arms over my chest.

‘’I know you are, it’s just a strange request,’’

‘’How is that a strange request?’’ I retort back.

‘’You could have chosen anything, and you want cereal,’’ he states. An amused look crosses his face.

Only for a moment.

Until it turns emotionless, once again.

‘’So? I like it,’’ I mutter.

He places a bowl with a spoon in front of me, and not a second later there is a carton of Cheerios and a carton of oat milk in front of me.

He sits down right across me and pulls out some sort of device. It was a clear screen, like the size of an iPad, just a bit more ‘advanced’ as I would imagine him explain.

He looks up from his device for a moment.

‘’Eat,’’ he orders.

When he sees me pour Cheerios in the bowl with milk and take the first spoonful, he gets back to focusing on his iPad.

Satisfied that I ate.

Fuck him.

***

After walking in these strange clothes, I can with certainty say that they are the most comfortable clothing I’ve worn in my entire life.

Not that I would ever give him the pleasure and admit it to him. I only miss more colors.

White can be so boring when there are no other colors combined with it. I would say it kind of reminds me of the traditional male Japanese clothing.

Just kind of, not quite though.

‘’You are free to roam as you please,’’ he says, after the litte tour of the ship he had just given me.

I refused to come with him, until he started being a bitch again and threatened to throw my laptop off the ship. He stops abruptly and turns his whole body towards me. He is always so stiff and stoic.

I often wonder if he’s just a robot or an actual living being.

‘’The windows won’t break no matter what you do, your body is way too weak. There is no way off this ship, to you that is. There is no one to call – and even if there was, what would you have told them? Taken by an alien? No one would believe you,’’ he says as he bends down and try and grab my jaw – again.

I flinch back the first time, but he always catches it.

‘’I mean it, little Viking, you will only get hurt in the process,’’ he says sternly as his huge white-less eyes gaze into mine.

The interesting thing about this alien, or his species is that even though they have barely any facial expressions and always sound monotonous - I start to catch up on slight shifts in the tone of voice.

Like now, he sounds more stern.

‘’Stop touching me,’’ I yelp. ’’You can explain things to me without touching me!’’ I say as I try to wriggle free.

‘’This is exactly why we have exposure therapy every morning from now on,’’ he says as he pulls my face closer to his.

‘’No we don’t! I’m an adult, I can choose for myself whether or not I want someone touching me,’’ I hiss.

His hold just won’t budge!

‘’I need to teach you to accept that I am going to touch you. Whether you like it or not. The quicker you learn that, the easier it will be for you,’’ he says sternly as he angles my jaw to the side so he can leave warning bite on my neck.

A fucking bite. He fucking bit me. Like the being he is.

‘’Ah! There you are. I was wondering if you could tell me a little about archaeology now, Mai’yri?’’ Zuuri luckily interrupts this horrible scene.

Kai’ine releases me slowly as he gives a deathly glare towards his brother. If he thought that I missed it, he was wrong. The next second his face was back to being emotionless.

I nod vigorously, as I hurry towards him. Still clutching the spot where he just bit me. It didn't feel deep, but it still scared the shit out of me.

‘’Let’s go get your books as well, I’d love to read some of them. We can sit it the study,’’ Zuuri says enthusiastically.

He stands a good distance from me, not touching or invading personal space.

Finally someone who understands it.

I didn’t even look back to see Kai’ine’s reaction to this. I don’t have to ask permission to live my life. He can fuck off.

I really do not like him.

It seems as I can get pretty used to Zuuri, though.

‘’What do you want to know about? I’m specializing in the Iron Age in Scandinavia, but I know a lot about Ancient Egypt as well,’’ I smile up at him.

I can see the excitement in his yellow cat-like eyes.

‘’Cool! I want to hear about both!’’ he clasps his hands together again, his sign of excitement.

As we walk away from Kai’ine, I miss the wink Zuuri gives to him in a mocking manner.