Survival
A short story by Anne Weller
This story includes: non-human, sci-fi, monster, enemies to lovers, strangers, firsts, blow job
The cage is too small.
The cage is too small, and the pain is much worse than yesterday.
Drake shivers as the wound in his thigh throbs.
An infection might finish him off. He hopes it will.
His injury is from the combat ring, where his Srilla captors forced him to fight a fellow survivor. The scaly, long-snouted Srilla walk upright, far taller and stronger than Drake is.
In the ring, Drake fatally stabbed Munson. Munson tried to return the favor but managed only the thigh wound. It brought Drake down and the Srilla dragged him from the ring, bleeding and cursing. Another failure, like the invasion that started the whole damn mess.
It was supposed to be easy—a blitzkrieg attack, then riches for the taking. Instead, with his unit nearly wiped out, Drake and a few other survivors were herded into a communal cell. Left there, unsure of their fate, at least they’d had each other.
Now, after the battle ring, this cramped cage is Drake’s reality. His clothing, companions, and dignity have all been stripped away.
Each morning for the past three days, someone has squirted water into a trough welded to the bars, but its design was meant for creatures with narrow snouts and long tongues. He can’t access the life-giving liquid. Occasional tidbits of food are tossed onto his cage floor, but they land in the straw, befouled by his own waste.
Now he hears voices. Real? Imagined? Real, he decides, but gibberish. Srilla tongue.
Claws click on the tile, coming closer, then closer still.
Footsteps stop at his cage.
He can see only to mid shin on the creatures conversing. The high voice grows harsh, the low one meek. Are they discussing him? One pair of scaled feet is the common gray. The other is iridescent turquoise, a Srilla color he’s never seen before.
The voices cease. Keys jingle. The chain securing his cage withdraws with a series of rattling clanks.
Drake watches, torn between hope and dread.
His cage is rolled into the bright aisle beyond the bars. He squints, trying to see—
But a cloth drops over the cage, plunging him into darkness.
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