My lungs burned, but it didn’t matter, I was on a different fucking planet. How was that possible? I should know better of course but of all the things I thought there was a possibility of being real, Shi being alien hadn’t even crossed my mind.
I turned back to the field and for the first time, I looked up and saw the sun was different, not as harsh. I could see the sun, but it looked like when you peer up at it from the bottom of the pool.
It was expected of course because the air felt moister than anticipated, and the leaves of the Shi rippled. The sky wasn’t actually blue either; it was a strange colour. And that didn’t even make sense, blue but not blue? The lack of my air was starting to affect me severely.
“Hey! What are you doing? Who are you!”
I looked and in the distance, I saw what I thought was a person pointing at me. I assumed he was shouting at me. Time to go, I scooped up my case and took a step back to my side; Earth. That suddenly appeared to shift away.
Slipping out of my reach, what the hell? I started moving again when I heard the man shouting at me. That time I didn’t understand him, but I knew that I had to move. I took another step and again it was just out of my reach.
It felt like some messed up nightmare, I backed up a bit and started running. I kept running, pushing harder and harder. Finally, at a full sprint, I managed to pull closer to the edge. My lungs were screaming at me; I couldn’t maintain this pace for much longer. Soon I would have to stop but damned if I were going to get stuck here.
With one last push, I reached the edge of the plantation and through the dividing edge. On my side, I pulled in a ragged breath of sweet blazing desert air. It hurt as bad as the other side but, at least, I knew it wouldn’t burn my lungs to pieces.
I bent over double and laughed, of course, the dessert air would toast me as easily as the other side but luckily not as fast. Denny was by my side and rubbing my back.
“I saw you running and not getting anywhere. What the hell happened, you were in only a couple of steps, but you looked stuck.”
“I was, it was like the edge stayed out of my reach. Ugh, it hurts to breath. Let’s get out of here, someone on that side saw me.”
He helped me up, and I felt weak, all out of breath -duh!- and sore. We started walking towards the SUV, why the hell did I park way over there? We heard shouting from behind us, the guy from the plantation was with us suddenly.
“What are you doing? You shouldn’t have gone in, give me back the plants!” He ran towards us; we stood to stare at him flabbergasted.
I was still pondering whether I could kick his ass with the low energy levels I had. Denny let go of me, and I nearly fell, he had evidently decided to deal with our noisy friend.
Before he could reach him though the man from the plantation started howling in pain and dropped to the ground. He lay there twitching and struggling to breathe, as we reached him he jerked a final time and went quiet. He had died in the short time it took us to reach him.
I guess as an alien he couldn’t handle our side as well as I could his. I looked at him carefully; he looked human to me. There was nothing that indicated that he was different to either Denny or me.
“What the hell happened to him?” Denny was attempting to find a pulse in the stranger’s neck. Failing to find one he stood up and peered into the plantation and back at me.
“What happened over there, Eliza? You look like hell and honestly only a bit better than this guy does.”
I shook my head; I didn’t think I could explain just then. Talking would hurt for a long time.
“I have no idea Denny; it hurt to breath there. Like hot water was in my lungs. Let’s go please.”
He sighed, clearly frustrated but he helped me up. I kept hold of the case, the one thing that was my link to life everlasting. We tucked the case securely into the back of the SUV; I made sure it couldn’t move. I didn’t want it falling over and spilling the Shi.
“Want me to drive back? I think I might insist as well, of the two of us I am the least oxygen deprived.”
I was about to agree and started walking around to the passenger side when we heard more shouting. We saw men rushing towards us from the warehouse. Of course, nothing was ever as simple as I kept hoping.
“I think I’ll drive Denny. Get in please.”