The Void

Part 4

Read Parts 1, 2 and 3.

Dinner time.

The guards slid a plate of slop under our cell doors. I didn’t rush to eat it, of course. Slug-sauce, rotten veggies, and years old Tangarian milk wasn’t my idea of a good meal.

I looked over to my new neighbors across the hallway. It’s been two days since they’ve arrived, and the human hasn’t even touched a meal. I could sympathize with him not liking the damn stuff, but he even crossed the line and slid every plate the guards gave him back into the corridor.

The knock-off, however, was much more inclined to chow down; it scarfed down its meal through its intake valves between its steely orbed head and its leathery neck. It even complimented the guards on the nutritionist value of the junk when it was finished clearing the plate, and asked its comrade if it could have his serving; a request that was always refused.

“You know, you should always eat your vegetables. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?” I remarked, grabbing my plate and retreating back to the cot with it. “There’s veggies from a thousand worlds in this.” A thousand of the worst worlds, I thought to myself as I swallowed a spoonful with such force as to keep myself from gagging. It was still wretched, even after the hundredth plate. I smiled forcefully. “You should try some.” I ate another glop. No wonder my cell smelled rank.

The human just sat there, more still than stillness. He hadn’t talked for days. I wasn’t making much progress, evidently.

“Master doesn’t talk to strangers.” The knock-off said the same damn thing every time I tried to initiate a conversation with its companion. But he said something new: “Master doesn’t like you.”

That came as quite a shock. Aside from father and his scurvy gang, everyone liked me, or so I thought.  “Master should be careful.” I replied, gulping down another slosh of hell without realizing it. “I don’t like assholes.”