The Gay Space Adventure

Chapter 6: Zyren

I was alive!

Probably! At least, this wasn't how I imagined being dead felt like. See, I felt like death wouldn't hurt as much as whatever this was. Because my head was pounding. Like drums.

Do you know how bad of a headache this would have to be in order for a deaf man to hear drums? I mean, I knew it was just my heart, but damn. It was loud.

My mouth was so dry, I could hardly move my tongue. Which could have been that drug wearing off, too. Because that certainly wasn't gone. My fingers felt like sausages, and my legs felt like trees. Trees were not flexible. In fact, their trunks didn't move at all. I should know. Because my legs felt like trees. Perhaps the worst of it was the smell—a stench of shit, or worse, but it hung in the air. I hoped that wasn't me.

I managed to open my eyes. Thankfully, the air was no longer spinning, and I could actually see the area around me, even if I couldn't quite lift my head. The floor was vibrating with the force of an engine. I was in a ship, that much was obvious.

And... I was in a cage, too. Surrounded by more cages. And those cages were filled with...

Dear Ilrad. They were filled with animals. Some mangey, some pristine. Some a torrent of movement and panic, fighting against the metal bars impenetrable by anything but a key. Most were asleep, either drugged or defeated.

I knew this place. This was where Wyvern had come from.

Well... probably. The hold wasn't the same, I didn't think. And it shouldn't have been. Because we had blown up their old ship—well, we hadn't, but we had sorta caused it. But it was dark—

Wyvern! Oh, no, I had probably crushed him to death, hadn't I?

I managed to pull myself up into a sitting position, despite the pain flashing through my brain. I could hardly move my arm. If my fingers were sausages, that was a giant tuber. I could make a whole meal of myself. Geez, there really was no rest for the weary, was there? When I checked my pocket, no warm lump of lizard was to be found. Probably. Hard to tell with sausage fingers, but if I had poked him hard enough, he would have bitten me as a warning.

Well, at least he wasn't squished. Which meant he was probably somewhere around here.

Hiemyx didn't have lizards. It was too cold for their tiny, cold-blooded bodies to live on the planet naturally. But from what I had read about them while researching Wyvern, they should have been as dumb as rocks. This was not the case for Wyvern.

I had known it from the moment I had seen him. Because he had been freeing himself from a cage similar to my current one. Or at least, trying. Most animals would go for the bars, or the ceiling. The things that couldn't be broken. That was because they didn't know any better, they ran off of instinct and they just knew they couldn't leave. But Wyvern had been melting the lock. His fire-breathing skills were tiny but mighty, and he had been working away at it. Probably not fast enough. There were two other half-melted locks on the ground by his cage, thrown there by whoever replaced them.

Well, after seeing that, I didn't have a choice. I had to help him. And I still didn't regret it. That lizard was my best friend.

He was smart as a whip, and easy to teach. It didn't take long for him to learn when he was being called. When I had figured out how to call for him, anyway.

I tapped on the ground, four times, then after a pause, once more. At least I could feel that through my sausage fingers.

That was it. That was his call. He could feel the vibrations just as well as I could, even against the hum of the floor. Mine were sharp, quick, and noticeable to anyone paying attention.