Free Aetheran Child by Antonin Januska

nudged him with her elbow. She wore a dark blue robe that matched her eyes. The robe fit tightly against her torso where a thin silver ribbon fastened it. It widened, however, at her ankles and also at the sleeves which bore ornamental silver-lined letters. The girl’s hair went down to her shoulders with a few elegant curls and silver, matching, dyed strands. She resembled a character in a fairy-tale because her thorough beauty stunned Alexander.
    The boy looked down upon his robes. He too was dressed up, but he wore dark brown robes, so dark they may have been black, with a golden line coming down the middle from the bottom to the neck. It was also a bit tighter at the ankles, about only shoulder wide. Unlike Alary’s robes, his covered his whole body, while hers were low-cut. He felt the tightness of the fabric across his chest. Lexan noticed a single symbol on his shoulder with the same golden motif.
    He also noticed that his hair was no longer long but rather short and spiked with gel in a chaotic way.
    Within a few moments, the boy noticed that both of them stood in a large room. It was more of a theatre or an auditorium but without any chairs. He and Alary walked through enormous ancient doors that instead of opening outside or inside, completely disappeared into nothingness.
    Strange creatures crowded the enormous structure. Large spiders stood upon their numerous legs, human-looking beings eyed him with ease. They were blue, green, stripe-skinned, with horns, tails, duplicate eyes, and other features showing. Some head animal-like faces while others did not bear any markings or parts upon their heads at all. They were faceless, devoid of noses, mouths, and even eyes.
    They all expectantly watched Alary and Alexander. The boy noticed a single girl waving at him, which caused him to feel warmth around his heart. It started beating loudly so loudly in fact, that Lexan felt the urge to scream at it to shut up. He felt a sting in his arm, and his heart quieted into a murmur.
    Next to the girl stood a boy, also waving, happily. A spider next to the boy created flashed a myriad of colors with one of his legs, no, tentacles, which replaced a symbolic wave.
    Everything around, Lexan noticed, was blurry. He could not focus his eyes on anyone else beside those three and Alary. Even as he looked around and tried to distinguish the strange creatures, he realized that he never saw all diversity, he inherently knew it.
    Music started playing, distorted again.
    “This must be a dream,” Alexander muttered to himself and then turned to Alary, “Alary, I will never you again. The real you is back on Earth. Everything is gone.”
    “What?!” She asked in surprise and with that everything shattered and disappeared.
    Once again, Lexan fell into the darkness of sleep and hibernation.

CHAPTER SIX

    I
    A hiss sounded pierced the total silence. Needles pressed tightly against Lexan’s skin from all around. The boy could hear Raki’s voice reverberate through his head.
    “Do not move, Lexan. I am using an alien equivalent of acupuncture. A wrong move will cause you pain,” The world cleared and the haze dropped as the boy opened his eyes to see the professor making adjustments on some device, “It was actually us, Aetherals, this technique to the Earthlings.” Master Raki chuckled and the needles withdrew from Lexan’s body.
    “Done. Now get up and let’s go eat. We have a lot of material to cover and we need to start right away. I also have a new suit for you,” Raki moved onto the central computer console in middle of the room which changed its texture to wood instead of metal.
    “Should I take my suit off now?” the boy asked, his throat dry and voice raspy.
    “In exactly fourteen minutes it will be six months, which is the required time. An alarm will sound at that time, “Master Raki abandoned the table and walked around the room. He took a box out of shelving that was not there before, “Put this on, it’s a new