Chapter 2: Green Eyes

The girl spun around to face his direction and made direct eye contact. Grimley felt his heart quicken at the speed she had managed to find despite him being submerged in the reeds.

He felt it was useless to keep hidden now she'd obviously seen him. With a crunch from the broken reeds, he stood to his full height and began to ready himself for a possible confrontation.

She was shorter than him. He estimated that she only came up to his shoulder. Her skin looked deathly white like the skin of the drowned. The clothes she wore were deep blue and crimson, not the yellow and green of the Humans or the red and black of the Xandrian uniform.

Around her head she wore a white and black headdress that framed her heart-shaped face, she had a small flat nose distinguished by pale orange markings either side of the nostrils and instead of eyebrows had long antenna that swirled in his direction. But the most striking feature about her was her eyes. They were the most intense, glowing green Grimley had ever seen, made even more so by her lack of a pupil and sclera.

They fixed him. Seemed like an ocean of something unknown. Beautiful and yet somehow disturbing to look at. Alien.

Grimley confessed to himself that he'd never seen her species before, perhaps something went wrong and the portal skipped its destination by a few planets, bringing her in. Still, he didn't know if she was friend or foe and continued to stand defensively.

To his surprise, she smiled widely and waved at him with an arm covered in bracelets.

"Hi!" She called out, her accent emphasizing the 'I'

Not expecting the sudden shift from foreboding to positivity, Grimley found himself waving back in her infectious enthusiasm. She stopped and started to crunch through the reeds towards him, the smile still on her face. Grimley looked over her shoulder and saw the same Humans who'd been at the portal a few minutes prior come through the mist behind her.

He shot out with his arm and almost yanked the newcomer into the air behind him as he turned to run with her back into the swamp.

"Come on!" He hissed as they took shelter beneath the roots of a large cypress tree. She seemed to understand as neither of them made a sound as the two men walked the road leading from the beach deeper into the swamp. Grimley waited a moment before climbing out from underneath the tree and stared in their direction with contempt.

"We should leave before they come back." His tone was sullen, reminded of his failure at the sight of the two men.

"Wait!" The voice said from behind him, "What's your name?"

Grimley turned to face the girl, "I'm Grimley." Her eyes lit up with that same infectious joy as she placed her hand on her chest "My name is Atari. I'm so glad I've found you, do you know a man called Xaviour?"

Grimley cringed at the name, reminded of the punishment he was sure to receive when he got home. But then he paused, how did this stranger know who his father was?

"How do you know about him? Who are you?" He asked, almost accusingly.

"I'm an Ootzie. We live on Mars, Xaviour is in charge of our resource imports-"

"Mars? That wasteland? What business does a Martian have with my dad?"

"Oot-Zee." Atari sounded out. "I need to talk to him in private, it's very important-"

"I'm his son. Whatever you can say to him, you can say to me." Grimley leaned in, towering over the pale alien. "Otherwise, you can go home." he pointed in the direction of the portal.

He expected her to become defensive, which would give him an excuse not to let her see his farther, instead, her face dropped into a pleading expression and she grabbed his arm in desperation.

"Please."

Grimley half considered throwing her touch away, but nobody had ever asked him with sincerity for anything before. He looked down at her and saw something silver glinting in the folds of the cloth wrapped around her waist. Suspicion crept into his mind. Mars was not highly revered, many thought of the Ootzie as savages but there were rumors that they once had a great society with a talent for creating destructive weapons.

"Destructive weapons." Grimley mused to himself. "If I can get this Martian to spill the beans about what's in her pocket maybe dad won't scold me." He thought.

Grimley put on his best friendly smile and patted Atari's hand.

"Alright then, I'll take you to him." He condescended.