Surviving Skarr

I manage a nod.

“Great. You’re doing great.” She beams up at me, all sun-browned skin, dark hair and white teeth. My vision’s too blurry to make out who she is, but her eyes seem oddly blue and glowing bright in her tan face. “What’s your name, my friend?”

Opening my mouth to speak, I pause. Something that should be easily in reach just…isn’t. I search through my memories, looking for something that sounds like a name, but I don’t have anything. Anything at all.

It’s a blank.

Panicked, I cling to her arm. “I…I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, honey,” she tells me in a soothing voice, continuing to lead me away from the “pod” and towards the blurry distance. “You’re not the only one that doesn’t know your name. Probably some medication side-effect and nothing to panic over. Let’s give you a name for now, okay? Just so I don’t have to call you ‘Hey you’?”

“Okay,” I manage in a small voice.

“How about Vivian? That’s my sister’s name and I always thought it was pretty.”

Vivian. Vivian. I test it and it doesn’t bring anything in particular to mind except one thing. “Like…from Pretty Woman?”

“Exactly like it. How’d you guess?” She chuckles, and the sound is friendly and kind.

I want to tell her that I hate the name. That it makes me feel awkward, because I’ve never been pretty, not even in the slightest. I’m nothing like my sister. I have a gawky frame and wide-spaced eyes that look strange in photographs. My boobs are nonexistent and my hair is flat and limp and sad. I don’t want to be Vivian. I don’t want anyone to realize where the name comes from and laugh at me.

But Flor seems to know what’s going on and I don’t, and my confused terror mingles with my desire to blend into the background, and so I say nothing at all.

She leads me over to what looks like a fire, and others are huddled close by. A man moves, covered in a strange blue jumpsuit that covers his entire body, and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s not a jumpsuit, but that he really is blue. Another muffled gasp escapes me, and I flinch backward.

Flor is there to pat me on the arm again. “That’s my husband, I’rec. He’s an alien but I promise he means you no harm. Just trust me, okay? I’ll explain it all once everyone is safe by the fire.”

An alien…?

Numb, I sit on the boulder she indicates and something warm is tossed around my shoulders that feels like a fur coat. Shivering, I search it for armholes and find none, so I just wrap it around my body and try to make sense of what’s going on around me as I huddle near the fire. Others are being led towards our fire and I can hear someone crying. I desperately wish I had glasses or contacts with me because this is triggering all my old fears about going blind. That my vision—bad since early childhood—will continue to get worse until I can see nothing at all. I touch my face furtively to make sure that I’m not wearing my glasses, and I’m relieved that I’m not. That’s something, at least.

My teeth chatter and I hunch over, trying to make myself small. Why are there aliens here?

Where is here?

“You,” the blue man says, pointing in my direction. His accent is thick and he sounds irritated, which just makes me quiver even harder. “You are still cold?” When I manage a nod, he makes an impatient sound. “You and the female next to you, huddle together. Share warmth.”

“Right,” says the woman next to me. “I should have known that.” She opens up her blanket and I move in next to her, tucking mine around our legs. She’s got blonde hair and seems to be about my age. “I’m Sabrina. Do you know what’s going on?”

I shake my head. I genuinely have no idea. “I don’t have my glasses either.”

“Shit.” Sabrina tucks the blanket closer around us. “I wish this was a bad dream.”

Me, too.

“What’s your name?”

Inwardly I wince, but I offer the one that Flor gave me because I still don’t have anything else. “Vivian?”

“You say it like it’s a question.”

Oh, it is.

Flor returns a few moments later with another blurry-looking person and then a

God, I would love another blanket. I could sleep in a pile of them and still be cold. But I don’t want to be a problem. Well, more of a problem than I already am. I bite my lip, waiting to see if there are any left as others get up and grab another blanket, and when they’re all gone, I’m disappointed in myself. Even in this strange, terrible situation, I still can’t find the courage to speak up for myself.

Some things never change.

“Food,” the alien man barks, holding something out to a figure nearby. They take it and then pass it along, and it makes its way to Sabrina. Someone coughs and then Sabrina digs in the bag, getting a handful of what looks like trail mix. She passes the bag to me and I take a small handful, because I need to leave enough for the others, and then turn to pass it to the person on my other side. To my surprise, it looks like a man with green skin. He takes it from me, and when I lean in enough to make out his face, I’m startled to see that he has scales on his face, dotting his brow, and pointed ears that wing up. His eyes have slitted pupils and a yellow sclera, and despite all this weirdness, there’s something handsome and strangely appealing about him.

He studies me as I hand him the bag, and then his expression grows dismissive, his gaze focusing on Sabrina instead. It’s something I’m very familiar with. No one finds me interesting. In this scenario, that’s not a bad thing, though. I mentally dismiss him, too, and return to my seat.

Sabrina’s making little choked noises as she tries to eat. I hesitantly nibble on a bit of what feels like granola, and immediately start coughing. Is it made entirely of pepper? My mouth burns and I cough.

“I think you just pepper sprayed my mouth!” someone cries out.

The bluish alien harrumphs. “Trying to save you,” he mutters, stabbing at the fire. “Eat, don’t eat, I don’t care.”

“I think that’s everyone,” Flor a

The alien gets up and moves to her side, and they talk quietly, ignoring us for a moment. I glance over at Sabrina, and her expression is that of stoic despair.

“Do you remember how you got here?” she asks me. “Or what day it is?”

I shake my head. I keep trying to pull thoughts forward—where I’m from, what this place is, how I know Sabrina or any of the others—and I’m drawing a blank. Your name, I prompt myself. Try to remember your name.

I’m…

I’m…

Shit. I guess I’m Vivian, because I’ve got nothing. I glance down at my hands, because I have a mental image of a tiny finger tattoo in my mind. A quotation mark, to remind myself to speak up. I got it once because I was always looking at my hands when I should be saying something…didn’t I?

Because my hands are blurry, but there’s no black ink anywhere on them.

I turn my palms over, studying my hands again in case I missed something, and that’s when I notice the slender silver bracelet on my wrist. Even though my vision is horrid, I can still make out what looks like a red button on the underside. Curious, I run my fingers over it, and as I do, it flashes. I hold it closer to my nose, and then push the button firmly.

The air crackles, like a speaker with feedback, and then an image appears, projected from the bracelet itself.

I gasp in shock, holding my arm out as if getting the image away from me will somehow help. The picture looks three-dimensional and features an older-looking woman with the same blue skin as the alien and a wealth of tattoos on one side of her face.

 “Lucky you,” the image says, clapping her hands once. “Turns out, you’re a clone. And not just any clone, but an illegally made one. Normally an illegally made clone is immediately euthanized, but someone with a lot of credits paid to have you dropped off somewhere safe and hidden away. So, here you are.” The recording spreads her hands wide. “It’s a little chilly here, but the locals are nice and they’ll take care of you. Tell Daisy and Mardok I said hello, and that I hope they’re getting keffed hard and regularly by their respective mates. As for you, my little clone, I left you some supplies. Play nice with your new buddies and have a great life.”