The Cell Mate Pt. 02

"Can we use the mine?" it asked again. The Perikos seemed to sense my question before I had time to ask it. "I have an immense memory and many means and sources for obtaining information. I promise you we are traveling the correct way. I can sense movement and temperature but I do not 'see' as you do. What do you see?"

"But you knew about the village," I said.

"You told me there was one. I knew from my memory it could not be inhabited."

"But you knew about the mine," I insisted.

"Human!" The music sounded angry now, loud and commanding. "We do not have time to linger, the star will come and its light will mean both of our deaths if we do not have shelter! Is it safe?"

I looked at the old mine, thoroughly abashed. "The shaft has caved in but the entrance is set into the stone a little. The rocky outcropping would provide some cover at least and I'd have about six feet by maybe twelve feet of relative darkness judging by the angle of the outcropping. Of course I might be completely wrong and the sun will shine in full bore at high noon."

"Thank you. It will do. It is all we have time for." The Perikos' song was much softer and it wrapped a tendril around my wrist, pulling me under the cover of the rocky canopy.

"We will need to move faster tomorrow and for that I will need my full strength. I will not be able to help you if I sense any UV light. You would do your best to stay where you are and sleep as much as you can and I will do the same. I shall see you tomorrow when the night has come. Do not be frightened and do not feel ill-used. I am not angry. I was only afraid. Lie down and it will be more comfortable."

I did as I was told and bent my knees and opened my legs wide. I braced my tender insides for intrusion when I remembered the little nagging hurt I still felt. "Um, rather than 'human', if you need to call me something, call me Jayn," I said.

"Jayn is your title?"

"My personal name. What's yours?" I could have laughed. So intimate and yet we didn't know the first thing about one another.

"We don't have names as you do. We know one another by touch, by…song," it said, shrinking rapidly in size, its tendrils delicately spreading me open, its touch incredibly gentle.

"I need to call you something. It's hard to conceive of something without a name."

"How have you conceived of me until now?" Its song was soft, retreating away as it poised itself at my entrance. I saw the glowing dawn on the horizon.

"As what you are because you are the only one I've ever met." I admitted my hypocrisy.

"So call me Perikos. It does not offend me. It is not a word we use at Home but if it helps you that I am called something, then that shall be my name."

"G-good-night, Perikos," I whispered, bracing myself against it.

"You are not alone, Jayn. Not anymore," Perikos' song whispered back before retreating inside me to press against my barrier until it gave way and I felt that heavy, bloated sensation as the sky above me was bathed in dawn sunlight. I reached down to stroke my distended belly and realized I had never seen the sun on Kragosa.