Slipping Ghosts, Pt 3

She was a female from all outward appearances, and she appeared to be nearly human. Probably Delvian. I remembered seeing old features from pre-scorched Hollywood of this mythical race of people called Elves. Turned out to be not so much a myth. Delvians had pointed ears and slightly larger eyes. There was something mystical about them, like they could always peer into your soul. 

And, they were uniquely sensual. At least to me.

I was certain she was Delvian.

“Anazia?”

She nodded.

“Then, where am I supposed to be?”

“When.”

I shook my head in confusion, my stomach clenching again. “Now?”

“Now, you should not be here. You do not belong in this biopool.”

“Biopool?”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes. Bio. Pool. You do not belong in this biopool.”

“Look, I’m kind of new to this leaping from one place to another, and I just got jettisoned out of a nexus, and now I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

Anazia looked past me and up toward the sky. “They know you’re not who you say you are. We must get out of here.”

She grabbed me and blinked once. The air around us sparked and twisted into a thunderstorm before my vision refocused onto the deck of a ship. Definitely not Delvian. We were on the Yllarian Star 

Feeder. Something of fantasy.

“You’re… you’re?”

“Yllaran?”

I collapsed to my knees, my head suddenly throbbing and threatening to shatter.

“Yes,” she responded, though she sounded miles away. “And, you will wake up in a bed in a couple hours. This is simply the illness associated…” then she was drowned out by the black dots and overwhelming urge to pass out.

Above me were soothing, slowly fading lights that transitioned from blue to green to gold to some colors in the red spectrum, and wound their ways back to blue. The whole cycle repeated itself three times before I felt good enough to stand, but I didn’t want to chance it. The room was modest, as I would expect a room on a freighter to be, if I was indeed on a freighter.

There was a bell at the door, and I grunted acquiescence.

“You are feeling better?” Anazia asked as she entered.

I nodded.

“Good.” She walked over to the side of my bed and I sat up on my elbows. “These are the guest quarters. There are three lodging rooms on my vessel.”

“This is an Yllarian ship?”

“Yllaran. Yes.”

“You are Yllarian?”

“Yllaran. Yes.”

“Not Delvin.”

“No.” She closed her eyes briefly, and the form she had assumed before, the Delvian, twinkled then phased, then rippled, and abandoned her completely. She was left standing next to me, a complete Yllaran. I had only ever seen pictures from ancient tomes. I had only ever seen crude illustrations made into 3D images and loaded surreptitiously into a viewing archive. They did not do her justice. Yllarans, from what I could tell of Anazia, were at least Alphamorphic, the same general shape of most galaxial life. Two legs, two arms, a head, and a thorax that kind of joins the appendages together. She, at least I think a she, stood roughly eight feet tall, but her thorax was only a fraction of that. She was mostly leg and neck. Perched on top of her neck was a small head, fashioned after the Earth echidna with a shorter snout. Her face was haloed with nettles, and the nettles traveled down the length of her neck and back. Her arms stretched from the base of the neck to below her knees, and she had third and fourth arms slightly below her neckline, positioned forward. She was bioluminescent. She radiated a cool breeze.

Needless to say, she was certainly not Delvian, and certainly nothing I had ever seen before.

“I thought you were only alive in fairy tales, nonsense, make believe.”

“And I thought we were the only ones in the galaxy until humans sent us a signal.”

I sat up completely and crossed my legs. “My name’s Taro.”

“I am aware.”

I am never one to dwell, and as astonishing as this meeting had been, I said, “well, thanks for getting me out of there, but I have to go back.”

“Go back where?”

“Back to Etna.”

She considered this for a moment. “We haven’t left. You are simply aboard my vessel.”

I stood up. “Great! Thanks!” A rush of blood forced be back onto the bed.

“Perhaps you are not well enough to venture back out.”

“No. Nope, it’s just I got up too fast.” I tried standing again. “Now, where’s the exit?”

“For you? There is none.”

I snorted. “And they said the Yllaran don’t have a sense of humor.”

“Who says that?” Ever calm, she started advancing toward me, forcing me to back up.

“Everyone. But, seriously, where’s the exit? I need to get back to my ship.”

“You cannot leave. It will not be safe for you or anyone else. I must transport…” She began to reach out to me, but her voice was slipping away from me.

There, a shimmering appeared around Anazia, then spread to encompass everything in the room. What looked like heat waves snaked from the floor, and I felt nauseated. I was tingling all over. I looked down at my hands, and they were luminous, outlined in a faint orange glow that was rapidly engulfing my arms and body. “Wha- what are you doing to me?”

I looked up at Anazia who was moving toward me, but she was lengthening, her back foot accelerating away from her faster than the outstretched hand she had in front of her. She muttered something, but sounded far, far away, that sounded like, “No, no. Not now. Not now!”