Feel Again (7 page)

“I do not know,” she said.
“I do not know.” Silence. “Then,” she continued, fighting back
tears as best as she could, “I will tell Blekrin that I have
changed form in order to disguise myself. Hopefully, I will soon be
able to join you on your home planet of Earth, though that is not
completely certain as we stand here today.”

Lionel was trying to come up
with the courage to ask Samakri a question that he had been holding
back for quite some time; a question that she would only be able to
answer truthfully now that she was human. Yet, for some reason, he
was more afraid to ask this question of her than he would have been
to ask it to a complete stranger. He wanted to send it to her by
way of thought bond, but then he remembered that she could not read
his mind anymore.

“Before I go,” he began.
“I mean, before you send me back to Earth...”

“Yes?” Sam asked him.
“Please continue.

“I would like to ask you a
question.”

“Go on,” she said. “Ask
me.”

“Do you
love me?” Lionel asked Samakri, feeling the words flow from his
tongue like a mixture of fire and ice. He would understand if she
did not love him back. After all, she had only yesterday been
inhuman; frightening.

“I do,”
she said.

Lionel prepared himself for
the inevitable. Samakri marphed him back to Earth. One minute, they
were together; Lionel surrounded by an orb of eerie green light;
the next, he was completely alone back on Earth. Back where he had
started.

He
looked around the room and realized that it was
his
room, back at Carla’s house. It
was the ugly carpets, the ugly wallpaper, the broken furniture and
the ghetto peeping from beyond the windows. It was home, and yet it
wasn’t really home anymore.

Then, Lionel took a look at
himself in his dresser mirror. He looked a little different then he
remembered. And then he saw; his blue eyes were turning a strange
shade of dark purple, similar to the color of Samakri’s hair. Then
he took a good look at his own hair. It was still mostly black, but
the roots were growing in neon green.

Lionel was truly afraid now.
He walked away from the mirror and stood in the light. His skin had
become pale; as white as a blanket of snow studded with pearls
where Lionel’s freckles used to be. He was panicking. He knew what
was happening to him, but he did not want to think it. His mind had
changed too.

He could hear Carla coming
home with her kids, and, suddenly, like a flash of lightning had
entered Lionel’s mind, he could hear them. He could hear
everything. He could hear their thoughts; everything that they had
ever said, did, wanted; all rushing through his mind like a tornado
through Kansas. And, then, he just knew the truth.

He, Lionel Davidson, was a
Zebdian.

He was
an
alien.

No, this
can’t be, Lionel thought. This cannot be happening. I can’t be one
of them; not after she finally became human. Not when we finally
had a chance.
Lionel Davidso was perplexed
beyond a shadow of a doubt, and he also knew for certain that he
was no longer human. Samakri
was
human. It seemed now as if nothing would allow
them to be together.

“Lionel, is that you?” he
heard Carla, his foster mother, call out in a tone of both joy and
fear, which was, however, somewhat diluted by the cries of her
youngest child, a baby girl named Lily or Lana or something of the
sort. “Are you home? Where have you been all this time? Are you
hurt?” She was knocking on the door now. Perhaps she had cared for
Lionel all along. A lump rose in his throat. Had he worried
her?

“Yes, it’s me,” he began,
hesitant at the thought that she might discover him in his current
state. “You can’t come in though; I’m getting dressed.” He figured
that Carla might assume that he had company and back off. It
worked.

“Well, I don’t want to bother you if
you’re, uh,
busy
in there. I’m going to be heading back out with the kids, so
if you don’t mind, it would be nice if you could get dinner started
while we’re out.” So long as he could conceal his changing form, he
would be all set; eager to help after all of the trouble that he
had apparently caused.

Once Carla and her babies
were safely driving out of the parking lot, Lionel threw together a
mix of chicken, carrots, and potatoes, dumping the concoction into
a slow cooker. Then, when he was sure that they had gone far
enough, he grabbed a black hoodie and pulled it over himself,
grabbing his car keys hastily and exiting the apartment.

Lionel chose a
multifunctional tattoo and tanning parlor called “Sun and Sin” a
few blocks away from the apartment building where he, Carla, and
her kids resided. Nervously, he walked in through the dirty glass
door and approached a bald-headed muscle-man in his mid-thirties
who stood behind a rusty metal counter lined with displays of
gold-plated jewelery.

“How may I help you, kid?”
the man asked grudgingly. He seemed none-too-pleased about
providing services to a kid who might be underage or looking for
trouble.

“I need a medium tan,
non-prescription blue contact lenses, and a black dye-job,” Lionel
asked him anxiously.

“Gee,
kid,” the man started, giving Lionel a once over for the first
time, and looking a little spooked, “You say that like you’re
making an order at McDonalds.” The guy really did not seem to have
any sense of humor whatsoever.

“So, you can help me
then?” Lionel asked, wondering if the man was going to turn him
down. “Uh...”

“Sure I
can,” he said, “As long as you show me an I.D.” Lionel knew that
the man wasn’t joking about this and would probably get him into
trouble with the law if he didn’t get his card out. Lionel handed
the man his battered driver’s licence over the counter, trying not
to contaminate himself with rust and germs. “All set to go,” said
the man.

Lionel was relieved. An few
hours later, freshly tanned, dark-haired, and blue-eyed, at least
for the time being, he was on his way back home to Carla’s
apartment. As he walked in, the gloominess of the sullen place was
lightened by the smell of freshly roasted food. When Carla and her
kids walked in just a few short minutes after Lionel got home, he
thanked his lucky stars that he did not get caught. If anyone back
here on Earth learned a single secret of Zebda, it would surely
mean their death. In fact, Lionel was not yet certain that he would
remain alive for long after escaping from planet Zebda. Samakri
would only be able to keep their secret for so long before Blekrin
would wonder what had happened, as he would soon become suspicious
of Samakri’s inability to appear alien, or, on Zebda,
“normal.”

“Is
something bothering you,” Carla asked, sounding more concerned than
she normally would have. “You know, you can tell me. You don’t need
to keep everything a secret from me all the time. It’s okay to be
honest. We’re
family.
”

Lionel
could not believe what he had just heard. Carla, a woman who had
seldom cared for anyone, or, at least, according to what Lionel’s
assumptions were, was here, telling him that they were a family.
For the first time in his life, he knew that it was true. Or, at
least, it
could
be true if he wanted it to be true; if he allowed it to
happen. However, he could not stop thinking about Samakri. Was she
safe? Would they ever see each other again? He did not
know.

That night, Lionel dreamed
of Samakri. He dreamed that he was back on planet Zebda. The evil
Nelvak was torturing him nearly to death, a Yalmax whip slapping
hard agaisnt his bleeding and burning flesh. And, then, he saw her.
She was a Zebdian again, with her magenta tresses flowing against
her back, down over her full chest and past her tiny waist. Her
yellow eyes were glowing with friendliness and human love, which
she expressed by pulling her brother off of Lionel. She then smiled
at him and took his hand in hers, and they walked out of the Haklar
and marphed to Earth where they both became human and lived happily
ever after.

Lionel was more than
disappointed when he awoke at 3:14 A.M., his muscular body sweating
profusely against his plaid flannel bedsheets. It had been only a
dream. Lionel sighed. He wanted more than anything to see Samakri
again; to be with her again. Just then, one of Carla’s little ones,
a boy of three named George, walked into Lionel’s room.

“Li’nel,”
he mumbled, toying with his little hands. “I ‘ad a bad dream,” he
added, looking wide-eyed and apparently quite frightened.

Yeah,
kid, well, join the club, he thought.
But
that was not what he said to the young child. “What’s the matter,
Georgie? What did you dream about?”

“I dreamed that a pretty
girl with purple hair came to our house and she took you away from
us and brought you somewhere else and me and mommy never saw you
ever, ever, again.”

A chill
ran up Lionel’s spine. Could the little boy, George, really have
dreamed of Samakri as well? Was it possible that they still had a
thought bond? Could Sam connect with Lionel while he was still on
Earth? He wanted to know.
It isn’t
possible, though, he thought. Samakri can’t connect with me anymore
because she’s human now.
But, could Lionel
connect with her?

“Li’nel,” the boy said again, sucking his itty-bitty thumb
and drenching it in spit.
Gross, Lionel
thought.
“Can you get me somethin’ to eat.
I’m h’ngry.”

“Sure,” Lionel replied,
although he did not really want to get up for the day just yet.
“What do you want me to make you?”

“Pancakes, pwease,” George said, smiling his award-winning
and innocent smile up at Lionel.

“Okay,
sure thing,” Lionel grumbled. They pattered along into the kitchen,
hopefully not waking up Carla or her other children. As Lionel
flicked on the lightswitch on the wall adjacent to the
refrigerator, George screamed very suddenly.

Lionel
turned to face him. “What’s the problem now?” He suddenly felt as
though he did not really care if the boy had a problem any
longer.
Uh, Oh, he thought. I’m losing my
emotions like one of them.
He turned to
face the boy once again.

“You
don’t look normal, Li’nel,” he said. You have green hair and purple
eyes,” he said, stuttering. “It’s the same c’ler as that girl’s
hair,” he added, becoming even more scared than before. “Are you
dying?” the boy asked, concerned.

“No,” Lionel replied,
realizing in that moment that what was now happening to him was
much worse than dying could ever be. He needed to get to Zebda as
soon as possible. But, who would get him there. Lionel looked at
the boy, his eyes beginning to spin.

“You will
not remember any of this,” he said, his voice and spiraled irises
entrancing the boy; locking him under his spell. “You will go back
to sleep and not ask me for food, or anything else, for that
matter, ever again.” Lionel had the boy so entranced that he feared
that he might also be under a spell-at his own hand.

Once the boy, George, was
safely away from the kitchen, presumably nustled up back in his
tiny toddler bed, Lionel charged over to the countertop, where a
large yellow phonebook rested on top of a stack of old, assorted
newspapers and magazines. He scanned through the pages with
lightning speed, until he reached the page he was looking
for.

The top margin read,
“Psychics.” Lionel was not entirely sure if a psychic could help
him locate Samakri. Scanning to the bottom of the page, he spotted
an ad that read, “Psychics, Witches, and Healers: Serving All of
Your Daily Supernatural Needs.” It was not what Lionel originally
had in mind, but it was definitely worth a try.

Lionel dialed the number
into Carla’s grimy cordless phone, each button leaving a loud beep
in its trail, which was dangerous for Lionel. It could wake up the
others. An eerie-sounding voice answered the phone. A
woman.

“I’ve been waiting for you
to call looking for her. What’s her name again? Samakri?” Lionel
was too stunned to speak, but all he could do was reply with a
simple “Yes.”

Lionel awaited the
mysterious psychic woman in a strange room filled with the smoke of
incense and the aroma of herbal tea. Most of the other clients were
superstitious old ladies and gothic teenagers with black and red
clothing. Many of them looked at Lionel rather suspiciously because
he seemed so out of place. It made him feel rather uncomfortable,
and his strange appearance must have scared the bejeezes out of
most of them, regardless of how badass or old and wise they thought
they were.

After about two hours of
waiting somewhat impatiently, pacing back and forth in the eerie
waiting room, a woman with silver hair and colorful beads around
her neck came out from behind a bright blue oriental curtain. She
shimmied past a table full of skulls that Lionel sincerely hoped
were not real, her long and flowing skirt swishing against the dark
wood. She glanced over at Lionel and their eyes met; the woman
staring right into Lionel’s. That kind of pissed him off because he
now felt the need to reserve eye-gazing for Samakri.