Bulla smacked her dry lips together. Her blood stiff hair crunched as she raised her head off the ground. She ripped her dried short curls free from the tile floor. Her eyes settled on the dirt-stained corner of the room, but her sore body demanded her attention. She managed to sit on her butt, crossing her legs beneath her.
Is this my blood or… the guard's?, Bulla thought.
A tremor erupted through her body and she squeezed her eyes shut.
"1," she said aloud.
Where am I?
"2."
Drewda, where are you?
"3."
I-I killed them.
"4."
I'm a murderer!
"Pup, what are you counting?," Cloak said.
Bulla shuffled on her knees until she reached the cell door. She planted her hands on the door, losing her composure.
"Where's Drewda?," she asked in a half whine.
"I'm not authorized to disclose that," Cloak said as he squatted in front of her cell," Do you remember what happened?"
"I didn't mean to do it," she replied.
"But you did though pup. The result was the same."
"I already feel bad enough and you know what- there is no rule that says you have to come in here and rub it in," she mumbled.
"Correct," Cloak mused cocking his head over his shoulder, "But there's nothing prohibiting it either."
"Why are you here?," Bulla snapped at him.
"That's not my role-no. That's in captain Naisong's employment description, not mine."
"Well, you said it yourself- get lost before they catch you."
"If you insist, I'll eat this on my own," he said, clutching a metal tray in his hands.
"What?," Bulla questioned.
Bulla studied Cloak's cloudy body. He looked like a crude body outline made of black chalk. His presence sucked the heat from Bulla's skin. Cloak sat on the floor, mirroring Bulla's crossed legs. Bulla imagined that she was sitting next to a black hole. He carried around subtle hints of ozone, a pungent smell akin to dirty motor oil. It lofted to Bulla's nostrils through the tray slot in the door. In the beginning she often wondered who or what exactly he was. Now she had the strong foreign urge to avoid this knowledge at all costs, yet fascination wasn't lost on her yet.
Cloak took the lid off the tray and stacked the serving platter neatly on top of it. With a sharp knife he began whittling away at the slab of flaky red meat and shredding the other tender morsels. Bulla spotted something green and leathery with a sweet fruity smell. The steaming round balls on the plate held her attention. Saliva pooled in her mouth at the thought of biting into a 'potato' for the first time in months.
"Now, let me make this clear," Cloak began, "I did not steal this from the commissary for you. I purchased this for myself, then I've decided to share it with you- understood?," Cloak said.
"Wait now, wait a minute," Bulla said trying to talk down the uneasy pinch in her gut," What are you really doing?"
"Trying to give you real food," he answered.
"Okay," Bulla said leaning closet, "But what do you get out of this?"
"With your permission, I want you to taste it for me. I want to feel-"
"What does this entail exactly," she interrupted him.
"I need access to your neural synapses- your nerve endings, temporarily that is," he reassured, "It's painless."
His flat speech lacked the inflections of persuasion, but Bulla's brain read between the lines.
I'm not even sure his species is capable of laughing, or sarcasm, let alone something like coercion, she thought.
Her brain replayed their last conversation, recalling elements and tones of indignation.
Is it that you're incapable of feeling or just incapable of expressing it?, She pondered.
"Does it go both ways? Will I be able to experience your senses?, she asked him.
"No- not unless I allow it."
"Here's the deal Cloak, you can't use my tongue without allowing me to use your eyes. I want to look outside. I haven't seen the sun in so long."
"It's dark," he said perplexed.
"I don't care," she said, "Ill take it."
Cloak paused, staring at Bulla long and hard. He slinked close to the door, chilling the air with his presence. Static popped from his fingers as he scaped food off the tray. Pieces of meat and tidbits of mystery items slopped to the floor. Bulla studied the white sparks dancing on his fingers. It brought her back to being a little girl. She remembered the dazzling display of aluminum foil scorching in the microwave and her mother's scolding voice.
"So, what do I do?," she asked.
"Eat it," Cloak noted, "Go ahead."
Bulla picked at the food, scraping her dirty- nubby fingernails on the floor. It was unceremonious and anticlimactic. She imagined dancing at the smell of real food, let alone the opportunity to taste it, yet she found herself silent and empty. She brought her cupped hand to her mouth and crammed the flaky red flesh between her lips. Saliva pooled in her cheeks as the smoky flavor melted onto her ecstatic taste buds. Cloak watched intently. Bulla felt exposed and naked before his unblinking eyes. Whirl pools formed on his shadow surface, churning around his core, like water circling a drain. Excited smoke zipped across his body. Black misty droplets fizzed around his body.
"Try the vegetables next, pup," he jittered," Oh- wait, more protein instead."
Bulla bit into the powdery dry ball. Her teeth squeaked against the leathery skin. Something akin to disappointment visited her heart. The 'potato' that she prostituted her tongue for was more like a gritty, steamed mushroom. Bulla chomped off another piece of meat.
"All you have to do – had to do- was look at me?," Bulla asked him.
"Yes, as long as you let me in," he said, "Would you like more?"
The last syllable of his voice lingered in the air between them. Bulla found herself at a loss for words. She had expected something more internally erosive, some sort of violence, even if it was cognitive only.
"No thank you. Now I want to see outside," she gulped.
"Very well," Cloak said as he walked away.
Before she could draw breath, he disappeared out of sight.
"Cloak-Cloak!," she hollered, fearing that he ditched her.
A whisper passed behind her head, tip toeing from one ear to the next. Bulla gasped and tucked her elbows to her chest. She twisted her neck, only to stare at a dirty cell wall. She sincerely contemplated not answering him. Her father's voice echoes through her mind, "Don't entertain something if you don't know what it is."
Bulla shook the thought off her heavy shoulders and reasoned with herself, Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
"Close your eyes." Cloak nudged her again.
Bulla followed his directions and waited.
"Say something, so I know you hear me," he requested.
"Uh-okay," she hummed.
He can't hear my thoughts- good, she concluded.
The view was a grey drunken haze, like a dream recorded on an old VHS tape. She wondered if this is the view of a human with cataracts. Cloak glided down a long narrow hall. Shoulder high lockers lined the walls.
"Cloak."
"What, pup?"
"Is this how you see?," she asked.
"Hard to tell exactly," he answered.
"Do you see color, like at all?"
'I see shades of a shade, of a shade," he muttered.
The black and white hallway tapered to an end. Bulla's eyes settled on the crisp edges of the black square embedded in the wall. Bulla questioned the visual disproportion, thinking she was looking at a chalk board or a pin board. Cloak closed in, eventually leaning against the wall. Bulla's eyes traced the window seals in disbelief. There was no sky, no land to be trot. The outside world was an aimless void. Silver stars glimmered in the inky abyss. She watched with hopeless ambition.
We could be underwater- yeah, and those could be compound lights across the way on the bottom of the ocean, she desperately hoped.
Unpleasant reality sunk in as the massive wheel outside turned. No bubbles glistened off the fiberglass-like machinery. Lights twinkled far beneath the connected pods outside leading to the wheel's axel. They were hovering along in the quiet vacuum of space with distant stars. Turbulence churned in her heart as her brain processed the cold, still world outside the plexyglass. Bulla's knees buckled. She fell to a trembling squat. She wedged her hand over her crumpled mouth. She wished her tongue would rot off at its roots.
"Are you satisfied?," Cloak asked her.
"Cloak," she sniffled.
"What pup?"
"The meat- where did it come from?"
Cloak answered her with silence. Bulla's eyes fluttered open and she hugged her knees. In the moment she found solace, thinking he had left and it would forever be a mystery.
At least I can hope, she thought, even if it's in vain.
"Carbon based life if recyclable," his disembodied voice said.
Her stomach heaved and acid burned her throat. A loud retching gag breached her lips, but her gut refused to give up its contents.
"Why are you doing this?," she demanded to know.
"You're a liability, pup. They'll recycle you soon-"
"What?!"
"I wrote your contact myself. Your guidelines specify that if an asset becomes a physical danger to-"
Bulla pivoted on her heel and swung her fist toward his disembodied voice. She huffed and puffed after flailing to catch her balance. The momentum was too much and she flopped onto her rump.
"Oh Bulla," Cloak sighed, "You know I cannot bend the regulations."
"You sure can when it benefits you," she seethed, "Fuck off- leave me alone!"
"There is only one way that they'll forfeit the policy. They want stem cells. Lab attempts are unsuccessful, so I've arranged for-"
"I don't care what you have to say!," Bulla exploded.
"Listen to me pup!," he warned. His voice echoes across her cell.
"Huh, so you can get pissed," she spat.
"They're coming and I will allow it because if it is successful, it will save your life."
"Get out! Get out of my head-OUT!"
The prickled hair laid back down on her red skin. Her temples pulsed with sharp pain. Her composure creeped back into the cell as Cloak's presence drifted away and the ions in the air lost their charge. Bulla rubbed her face, but it was futile. She couldn't scrub reality from her skin.
Memories of everyday life bombarded her mind. Her mother's smile flashed in her conscious. Trunks trampled through her head; his antics played before her mind's eye. Her gut shriveled up and crumbled inside of her as it tried to twist itself in knots. Her father cropped up in her head, hard as stone. He stood there arms crossed as usual, like an impassable colossus in her head. His face was gone- hidden from her. Disappointment hugged him like an aura.
I'm going to die, she thought, But I'm ready for this to be over.
Greif seized her heart, leading bitterness and anger in its conquest. Death itself wasn't the perpetrator. It was a deep rooted shame and self-disgust that the veil of death couldn't release her from.
