The Archaeological Chronicles - The New World

Mari

Even though we’re somewhere in the galaxy and the light outside always has the same color – black with stars and planets dotted everywhere – my internal clock is telling me it’s starting to get late.

Boy, do I not want to go to bed.

Even if Kai’ine leaves me alone or not, I know when I get into that bed, my mind will run crazy and there will be no way out of it.

All of the panic and fear that has bottled up inside over the last two days will come through at some point.

I rub the spot between my eyebrows, frustrated.

After the giant Smurf forced me to eat, I went back to the study to try and read some articles about my subject for the thesis. I’ve been staring at the same one for the last three hours and I can’t seem to concentrate.

I can’t get my mind off the situation I’m in. I’ve been debating if I should try and get online to notify someone, but then again, who would believe me?

I remember that I sent out that emergency signal from my iPhone when Kai’ine snatched me from that hiking trail in Trondheim, and I pray that someone is looking for me.

Then, they at least know that something isn’t right. The other dilemma is to figure out what to tell them when – and if – I do get home.

Gudrun.

She always listens to my rants and theories. I know that she will believe me if I get to live to tell the tale.

I decide to try and take some sneak photos of them and the ship, while there is still battery left – don’t know if they have anything I can charge it with – so that I’ll be able to show it to Gudrun, if I do get back home.

A fond smile graces my lips as I start to think about all the conversations we’ve had over the phone during these last years.

What a lifesaver.

Tears blur my vision, while I’m desperately trying to swallow it. My friends, family and home.

How will I ever get out of this mess? And how will I explain what happened the time I was gone?

Vanished from planet Earth in the most literal sense.

‘’What are you doing?’’

I jump in my chair as I whip my head towards the door with the biggest frown on my face.

If they don’t kill me, I will most certainly die from a heart attack if this is the way they approach people.

Kai’ine is standing in the doorway, stoic and emotionless as ever.

Wait, I think I can see some emotion in his eyes, but I don’t know how to place it.

This is the first time I’ve seen his emotions through his eyes, other than anger.

They turn completely black when he’s angry. I wonder how they turn when he’s sad or happy?

‘’Reading,’’ I answer curtly and turn my back to him.

My braided hair falls over my shoulder as I turn my back to him. I’ll never admit it out loud, but I think it’s really pretty. I wish I knew how to braid so well.

It’s nothing like any of the braids I’ve seen back home. This has to be some Ter’aisan type of braid. I find no other logical explanation to it.

‘’What about?’’ I jump once again as he asks the question.

He’s standing right beside me now.

How in the world did he manage to move so quickly – and as silently?

‘’How identity and migration can be interpreted in prehistory,’’ I answer truthfully.

‘’That is what your thesis is about?’’ He asks curiously.

He’s staring at the laptop, and not me, for a change. I see his pupils move from side to side in an astonishing quick pace.

Is he reading the article?

‘’Partly, mostly, it’s hard to explain,’’ I shrug.

His eyes return to mine. ‘’Interesting article,’’ he muses, without breaking eye contact.

‘’But it is also a pointless one,’’ he comments.

I frown. A little offended.

‘’Why?’’ I press.

‘’Because it is quite obvious. Identity and migration can be explained very simply, not matter the race or cultural group. They wanted to explore, or were chased from their home country.

These two options lead to two diverse developments. The first one is they wanted to see something new, for whatever reason, and they bring their culture – because they have good associations with their own culture and their homeland.

The other is leads a different direction. If they were chased or forced to leave their homeland, for whatever reason, they probably didn’t have any good associations with it or wanted to forget it, start new. The traces they leave will therefore be based upon those two different developments,’’ he explains, quite delicately, actually.

I’m surprised and taken aback by his tone.

‘’Yes and no,’’ I answer. ’’It seems reasonable to argue about those two options, but you also have the option of those who migrated to one country and stayed there for a while, and then went back to their homeland and probably brought pieces of the ‘new’ culture. The same goes for trading and what’s considered ‘fashionable’ at that time. Clothing and accessories were as important – maybe even more – than it is today,’’ I argue back.

His eyes stare right into me. I can see, even without emotion on his face, that he’s thinking.

‘’Fair point,’’ he muses after a while.

We look at each other for a few seconds.

Just looking. Without any malice or anger.

He is probably, no, most definitely, the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. His pointy ears and sharp teeth remind me a little of elves and fairies.

Maybe folklores originate from small glimpses of these beings? I won’t be surprised if it is.

His fingers twitch a little, before he is pulled out of his own trance.

‘’Well, little Viking, it’s time for bed,’’ he announces.

Dread fills me up the second he utters those words. I think he notices.

‘’Not tired,’’ I say as I try to return my focus to my laptop.

Before my fingers even can reach the keyboard, he closes it.

‘’I don’t care for your feelings in this matter either, little Viking,’’ he says calmly, but with a hint of irritation.

‘’I can also practically read your body. I can see that you are tired,’’.

He takes the laptop in his left hand. He nudges his head towards the door and motions for me to follow. When he starts walking and notices that I’m not following, his head turns slightly towards me, piercing me with his gaze.

‘’You will go to bed, one way or another,’’ he threatens.

That makes it for me, and I shoot up from the chair and walks with him, hurriedly, towards the bedroom.

He opens the bedroom door and waits for me to enter first. I hesitantly walk inside and hear him shut the door behind us.

He brushes past me and places the laptop on the desk beside the window and proceeds to walks into a room and returns with a short sleeved shirt in his hand.

‘’Here,’’ he reaches his hand out with the shirt, for me to take.

I accept it and walk into the bathroom.

I let out a sigh of relief, just for the fact that he let me walk inside the bathroom alone.

I do my business quickly, in sheer fear of him just bursting in here. No time to think, and no time to start panicking.

I take a deep breath as I’m turning the doorknob to open the bathroom door. Just to gather myself as much as I can.

When I walk into the bedroom once again, the lights are off and the only source of light is a decorative lamp hanging over the bed. The curtains are pulled close and there is a cool breeze in the room.

I see Kai’ine moving on the other side of the room, and his gaze snaps up to meet mine as I enter. The darkness makes his eye glow, like some sort of glowstick.

Fucking terrifying.

The shirt I was given reaches my knees. I’m figuring it’s probably his. The night gown I wore yesterday, was torn to pieces this morning so he had probably nothing else to give me.

Or didn’t want to give me anything else.

He motions with his arm for me to get in the bed.

I frown. Gripping the shirt tightly, making my knuckles turn white.

’’You don’t need to see me in the bed. I’ll go to sleep, don’t worry. You can leave,’’ I press out nervously.

My left hand, behind my back, tightly grips the fabric of the shirt even harder. I don’t want him to see all this built up horror, fear and anxiety I have around this whole ordeal.

His monotonous expression gives nothing away. Impossible to read.

As I squint my eyes to see him better in the darkness, I suddenly realize that he’s shirtless.

The second I do, I bolt for the bathroom.

It is as if a glass is shattered inside of me and I wheeze as I try to take a breath. Chest constricting.

Fear. Panic.

A hand snakes around my waist, yanks me back, and throws me on the bed. Before I can even react, he’s towering over me in the bed. Straddling me.

And that’s about when I have a full blown panic attack.

As I scream, cry and beg for him to leave me be, he pins my arms above my head.

‘’I call this exposure therapy part two,’’ he whispers in my ear.

I try to kick, claw – anything – that might make him loosen his grip or even better, fall off me. My breaths are coming out in quick pants and I get dizzier by the second.

‘’Calm down Mai’yri,’’ he murmurs.

‘’Let go of me!’’ I scream back.

I can hear in the back of my mind that he’s talking to me, but I’m not getting a word of what he’s saying. Too lost inside of myself. Too scared and panicked to break free from my own panicked trance. As his face closes in on my face, I only get wilder.

I see his mouth moving, but I hear nothing.

His forehead touches mine.

A few seconds pass and nothing happens. I’m still in my panicked mode.

As my brain is going crazy, my breath is slowing to a normal.

Step by step.

My violent shaking is now a slight shiver. My trance is broken and I am pulled out of my panicked haze. I stare up at him, suddenly actually seeing and hearing him.

He looks at me without emotion.

My body is completely calm, my breathing normal. Everything normal.

‘’What did you do?’’ I croak out.

‘’Told your brain I’m not a threat,’’ he murmurs.

‘’But you are,’’ I say angrily. ‘’You are!’’ I repeat more sternly.

He shakes his head no, his floating hair falling around him.

‘’I have told you many times before, if you just do as you’re told it will be easier for you,’’ he states as he moves from his straddling position.

He moves to the right side of the bed, closest to the bathroom. He pulls out that clear device again, the one that looks like a clear iPad. Idly tapping can be heard as he is deeply concentrated with whatever he’s doing on that thing. Odd symbols and what I presume are words, pops up everywhere.

As if this whole ordeal never occurred, mere seconds ago.

As I try to leave the bed, his eyes snap to mine, without even moving his head.

The threat is clear.

My defeat is probably quite prominent on my face.

I just can’t win with him.

I refuse to go into panic-mode again, and have him calm me down, no matter how he does it.

No way.

I pull the covers over me, so just barely my head is visible. I move as far away from him as possible and turn my back to him.

I cannot resist the urge to curl into a fetal position as I think about what these two days have brought me.

I’m lost in thought for a long while, trying to figure out what to do and how to act. What to do if I ever come home, how I’ll submit my thesis, what I will tell people and how to avoid Kai’ine as much as possible.

I imagine several scenes where I smack his face and jump out of the ship and magically lands on Earth without damage.

But that is all it is, imagination.

My worries grow, and I’m once again tuned out from the actual world. I’m so deep in thought that I can barely move.

Not that I want to.

Long, warm hands wrap around me. I’m turned around and pressed against his body. My head are resting on his right shoulder and he places his hand in the crook of my neck, with his thumb resting on my jaw.

I try to protest, I was pulled out of my trance the second he touched me, but he just hushes me.

When I look up, his eyes are already closed. His breathing even. I try and push against him once again, and his eyes opens quickly and stares down at me.

‘’Stop it,’’ he orders.

My only reply is the annoyed grunts I let out as he won’t budge. I’m so close to his face, so close to him in general.

His touch scares me, makes me feel weird.

I don’t like being touched.

I suddenly feel long fingers, with claws slowly stroking my back in a comforting manner.

He hums silently, as his glowing eyes closes once again.

‘’Don’t… don’t touch me,’’ I press out.

For some sick, sick reason his stroking is so calming.

Am I getting Stockholm Syndrome already?

His only reply is nuzzling his nose in my hair. ‘’Exposure therapy,’’ he murmurs.

That is the only thing I remember before I fall into the deepest sleep I’ve had in years.