Chapter 11 The Survivor

“I have seen the future. And it doesn’t work.”

- Robert Fulford

 

Emma

 

I smile as delicious scents reach me from the kitchen and I follow them to the stove. Sara, our cook smiles at me and pats my cheek as if I’m still a child and not two inches taller than her. And I tell you, I’m not that tall.“Almost done sweetheart,” she says to me, “why don’t you plate up?”Ever once I can remember I’ve helped Sara with dinner. Be it plating the dinner table or cutting vegetables. I like feeling useful. Servants have always made me feel uncomfortable. I don’t need people to fix my drinks and fold my clothes. I’m perfectly capable of doing that myself.I take the plates from the cabinet and set the table. It isn’t often that we all eat together, but my parents have the night off and they promised we’d have a family diner. Sara and I have been preparing all afternoon since I came home from school.Maybe this time we can finally have a normal conversation. I’ve been dying to tell hem my mural won first place and it will be on display in the library for a month.

I look up when my mother enters the dining room. She seems to be in a hurry and barely notices me until she almost knocks into me.“Hey honey,” she says, “have you seen my keys?”“In the drawer where they always are,” I answer confused, “why do you need your keys? We’re having diner in a few minutes.”“Oh I’m sorry Emma. I just got paged. There’s an emergency at the hospital. I need to go. But your father will be down soon.” She kisses my cheek and hurries out the door. Disappointment pings at my heart, but what am I supposed to say? That I don’t want her to go? She’s a doctor. People need her. I can’t really argue with that, can I?Sara sticks her head around the door. “Was that your mother?”

I nod. “Yeah. She’s gone to the hospital.” Sara doesn’t say anything, but I can clearly see the sympathy in her eyes. “It’s fine,” I assure her, “at least my father is still here.”

But another half hour passes before one of our maids enters the dining room to inform me my father will be late and that I should start without him. I wonder why I still expect anything else.I’m already at the main course when my father finally shows up. He doesn’t even look at me, his nose buried in one of his files, and starts eating as soon as Sara serves his reheated soup.

After a few spoons he looks up. “Where is your mother?”“Hospital paged her.”

He nods and continues reading. “Excellent soup Sara,” he compliments as Sara reenters the room. “Thank you sir.” She smiles.“Dad,” I start.“One moment sweetheart,” my father answers, “I’m this close to solving the equation.”I sigh and finish my dish. Why do I even try?Sara pats my shoulder and places dessert in front of me.My father scribbles something down and then moves to the next set of papers.“My mural won a prize,” I blurt out.The phone rings. My father looks up at me questioningly. “Did you say something honey? Hold on a moment will you?” He answers the phone and I know it’s going to be a long conversation.I’m done eating an his dinner is getting cold. Nothing new.I’m used to my parents not hearing what I say.“So will you watch?” I ask when my father hangs up the phone, “it’s on display for a month.”“Was there some special event this month?” he asks confused and checks his Blackberry. “I’m sorry honey, I must have forgotten. This month will be very busy. We finally made some progress. We picked up signals. We need all the time we can to try and make contact. Ask your mother will you. She’ll take you to that thing you mentioned.”That does it for me and I stand up from the table. “You know what? If those aliens are so important, why don’t you go live with them?!” I stomp out of the room. I need to be alone before I break something. In the distance I can hear my father calling. “Emma? Emma, come back here. What’s the matter? Emma.”I ignore him. He doesn’t get it, does she? He never listens to me. I don’t see any reason why I should listen to him.

 

***

 

I wake up gasping for breath. That might have been one of the last conversations I had with my father. And I wished for the aliens to come and get him.My thoughts wander off to the Soul downstairs. I can still feel his arms around my waist from when I tried to make a run for it yesterday. He didn’t harm me, didn’t call any Seekers to come for me. Maybe he’s serious about this whole studying human behavior thing.

He asked me to cal him Burns, but I don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet. And I don’t plan on staying long enough to get acquainted. Let him think he won me over. First chance I get I’ll be out of here.

I turn on my back and stare at the ceiling. Studies. I sigh.My father and this Burns Living Things would have made great friends. He was always so devoted to his work, searching the universe for any signs of life. Was he happy when he found his answer?I can see the irony of he situation. My father studied alien life and now is daughter is being studied by aliens. I’d laugh if I didn’t feel so sick.

Downstairs I can hear the Soul roaming the kitchen, probably making breakfast. He’s an early riser. I’m not.I turn on my side and pull the blankets over my head and wonder why he is trying so hard to make me feel comfortable here.

“Some people are just nice.”

 

I can hear Ashley say it and imagine the roll of her eyes while doing so. She always said I was too serious and that I shouldn’t be so difficult.

“Not everyone has a hidden agenda.”

I sigh again and climb out of bed. After I’ve dressed I make it downstairs. I was right. He’s at the stove, making pancakes as far as I can tell. He briefly looks up when I enter.“Morning,” he smiles.I nod a vague smile at him and watch him turn over a pancake.“You like pancakes?” he asks over his shoulder before turning to the food again.“Sure,” I mutter.“Good.” He sighs with relief. “Do you often have pancakes for breakfast or are you a cereal person?”“Doesn’t matter much,” I shrug, “whatever Sara made for me.”

“Sara?” “Our cook,” I tell him.He smiles his amused smile. “You had a cook eh?”Suddenly I feel the need to defend myself. “It wasn’t like she was a slave or anything! She loved working for us. She was like a mother to me.”Burns Living Flowers looks up at me in surprise. “That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.” I color red and turn away. There’s a slight pause on his side before he asks me another question. “What about your real mother?”For a moment I’m not sure how to react to that. There’s a curiosity in his voice that is new to me. As if to him it isn’t a mere question. It’s like he really wants to know.I shrug. “I wouldn’t know,” I say softly, “she wasn’t the motherly kind.”The look he gives me now is filled with sorrow and I realize he must be thinking I was abused or something. Little does he know it was quite the opposite. I was smothered with their love, if only materialistic. I wonder which is worse.

“She was a busy person,” I tell him before he can ask.He considers this for a moment and then nods in thought. “What was she busy with?” “She was a doctor.”“Healing is a beautiful Calling,” he tells me.“So is motherhood,” I say through gritted teeth. He blinks at me a few times and seems genuinely surprised. “At least that’s what they say,” I mutter with burning cheeks. I jus made a complete fool of myself.

“It is,” Burns Living Flowers says, “at lease for Souls. It is the most selfless act a Soul can perform.”Isn’t that great? Even aliens have better parents than I do. That’s an awful thing to say, isn’t it? Still, something about his comment is off, but I’m not sure why and I don’t want him to think he’s won me over, so I keep silent.“Emma?” he asks. I look up at his serious tone. Normally his voice is more lighthearted. “Why won’t you call me by name? I know you don’t think I’m human, but I am. It would make talking a lot easier, don’t you think?”I swallow. I don’t want to call him by name. He’s asked me before, but I feel like I’m giving up on something if I agree. It feels like acceptance.There’s something sad about him when I don’t answer and stupidly enough it makes me feel guilty.I accept the plate with pancakes he hands me and stare at it for a while as he cleans up the mess he made. He just goes on as always, even though I treat him like a monster. He’s never angry. He gives me food and saved me from the Seekers. All he wants is for me to use his name.“It feels strange,” I whisper. He doesn’t look up, but I know he’s listening. He always listens when I talk, even if what I say is stupid. I’m not sure how to explain this to him without sounding insulting. So instead of explaining I ask him a question.“Where does your name come from?”Now he does look at me. He eyes me curiously as if to determine if I really want to know. “It was the name I had on the last planet I lived on. It is called Fire World and I was a Fire Taster. I suppose to humans we would resemble something like a fire or a flame. But we could walk. There was another race on the planet, the Walking Flowers. The were our food source, we inhaled and digested their smoke. I was one of the Food Gatherers. That’s where my name comes from. Burns Living Flowers.”

It takes me a moment to understand what he’s saying. I though perhaps his name was a joke of some kind, but now I realize he was being quite serious. He burned living flowers. As in alive. That only proves I was right all along. I can’t trust these creatures. No matter how nice they appear to be.“You… killed…” I manage to get out. My throat is dry and I can feel it close up. I’m in a house with a murderer.He looks away s if ashamed. There’s a clear pain in his eyes. “We didn’t know,” he whispers, “we didn’t know they were an intelligent species. We thought they were just food. The Fire Tasters didn’t seem to have any remorse about killing these creatures.” He glances at me. “I suppose eating the Living Flowers was as normal to the Fire Tasters as it was for humans to eat the meat of animals.”

He has me there. I mean, I love animals, but I’m not a vegetarian. Then why does it feel so different? It’s my turn to look away. This Soul makes me think about things I’ve never considered before.

“We’re trying to find a way around it,” he continues, “find another source of food for the Fire Tasters. We won’t make that mistake again.” He hesitates for a moment. “How about you?” he asks, “where does your name come from?”“My parents gave it to me,” I say a bit annoyed. They couldn’t even do that little thing right. Catherina Emma Dupree. I was named after both my grandmothers. How original. I didn’t know my mother’s mother, but my grandmother on father’s side wasn’t the nice cookie baking granny every girl wants. She was the sit-up-straight-and-speak-with-two-words kind of woman. We didn’t visit often.“You don’t like your name?” he asks.

“My name is boring,” I answer with a sigh. I’ve always wanted an original name. My parents thought Emma sounded lovely. “It’s unoriginal,” I add.“I don’t think it’s boring,” Burns Living Flowers says.Of course he would think so. He’s an alien.There’s an awkward silence after that. The first, now that I think of it. And I’m starting to feel uncomfortable again. Being confined to this house is suffocating me. I need to get out, but I’m scared to leave this place. Strange how things can change so quickly.“Why don’t we go somewhere today?” his voice interrupts my thoughts, “outside the city. I should catch up with my research. There’s this place in the mountains I wanted to check out and since you’ve traveled there for a while, I thought perhaps you could show me some of the spots off the trail. What do you think?”Show him the barely visited spots? So he can figure out where humans might be hiding? Where I might hide once I’ve escaped?He can see the guarded look in my eyes and I’m not sure what he’s thinking. I’m not sure what I should make of him. One moment he seems to be honest and kind, the next he says something that makes me doubt his sincerity, makes me think he’s working with the Seekers after all. But I would love to go outside. If only for a moment.“What are you researching?” I hear myself ask.A slow smile appears on his face. “Come on,” he says, “I’ll show you.” He pushes away from the counter and walks towards the study. And I? I stand there stupidly with a plate of pancakes still in my hands.

***

A/N: Please check out my friend's story, GotMyselfShot, called  "Truth is the only safe ground to stand on." It's an Obi-Wan story and I love it. Thanks.