??? | alien

A small, weightless sphere, the size of your chest, emanated a gentle, pleasant warmth, comparable to a mother's embrace. It was as if this sphere, in some language incomprehensible to you, was sending pleasant affirmations, instilling a sense of security; a sphere that glowed with various shades of muted light, transmitting your mood to IT.

You didn't know its name, or rather, you might have known it, but you simply couldn't decipher the magical language, so distinct from your native tongue. A language that in its sound somewhat resembled a cat's purring, as if it had a certain French tint to it, yet wasn't French.

You didn't know its face. Perhaps because it didn't really have a face, per se. You had seen images of aliens in movies on TV before, but you could never have imagined that a real alien would be more akin to dark matter, silently floating above the floor of the spaceship.

It was everywhere and nowhere at once, its body was the dark substance of the thickest, blackest smoke, its body—devoid of any boundaries or straight lines. You could easily tell when it was looking—by the two crescent moons in the part where you assumed its eyes should be.

You could easily feel its touches—by the octopus-like tentacles that emerged from the black haze, the width and length of which it changed from gigantic to much smaller, to stroke your hair, to impart a sensation of alien warmth, to give a feeling of something sticky and slimy.

It didn't use its tentacles for harm, didn't employ its full reserve of considerable strength—for it knew that humans are by nature extremely fragile creatures, both inside and out. And yet, it knew how to get angry: this was noticeable from the low, rumbling sounds—like a cat's hiss, it was noticeable in the way its matter rippled in waves through space, and with what speed.

Although, for the most part, it was either silent or, purring, said something in its own language. What could an alien, a higher being, feel for the human it kept on its ship? Only that feeling with which we all look at a cute kitten, only that feeling with which we scratch smiling dogs behind their ears.

You could never have known, but it truly felt a certain pride and warmth towards its little human. Perhaps, among higher entities, keeping humans in one's ship-home was akin to a status of luxury and wealth. But the number didn't exceed one: after all, solitary humans were deprived of full-fledged resistance; the more of them there were, the greater the chance they would rebel and become unmanageable.

There were several rooms on the ship, and it carried you between them, holding you in its tentacles: your "nest" was located on an elevated spot, and there was a high chance that, falling from it, you would never take another breath. Other places in the room had low temperatures, were filled with strange furniture and devices whose purpose you couldn't understand at all.

But your nest maintained a comfortable temperature and atmosphere, had many soft and plush details, and, of course, the weightless spheres that provided additional warmth and served as a moral anchor of calm.

The huge door opened, the room filled with the now-familiar sensation of an alien presence, as a tentacle emerged from the black matter and gently ruffled your hair.

Two crescent moons, where its face was located, were carefully watching both the sphere that transmitted your mood and your actions and facial expressions. As if it was truly trying to learn to understand its little human pet better.

The only one who brightened its lonely days on the empty ship, drifting through space.