The alien reached back.
Our fingers touched.
And just like that, the jungle around me whispered in welcome.
A rush of sensation flooded my system—not just the physical warmth of his skin against mine, but an awareness that pulsed between us like a living current. Images flickered at the edges of my consciousness: the dream that wasn’t just a dream, the one where his mouth had traced every inch of my body while stars burst above a jungle canopy. Heat rushed to my face.
“Let’s pretend that didn’t happen,” I said quickly, pulling my hand back. “The dream, I mean. Let’s start with names and maybe an explanation of why I’m gift-wrapped in jungle tentacles, and we’ll circle back to the whole...whatever that was.”
The alien—Lor, if my dream-memory could be trusted—watched me with those unnerving golden eyes. His gaze was too knowing, too intense, like he could see right through my deflection. The vines around my body loosened further, allowing me to sit up properly.
When he spoke again, the rumbling sounds meant nothing to my ears, but the vines vibrated against my skin, translating:
“The jungle preserved you until I could find you. You came through the rift gate. They sensed you were important.”
“Important to who?” I asked, though I was pretty sure I knew the answer.
His tail flicked once. “To me.”
I swallowed hard. “Right. About that.” I gestured between us. “I’m Miri. Mirabel de Leon. Human. Journalist. From Earth. And you’re...?”
Before he answered, I already knew. Because somehow, I knew his name.
“Lor Pardus. Legion Reaper.”
“Legion Reaper,” I repeated. “Sounds...intense. Like a space marine or something.”
His head tilted again, considering. “Not inaccurate.”
I took a moment to really look at him now that my initial panic had subsided. He was easily seven feet tall, even crouched as he was. His body was all lean muscle beneath bronzed skin marked with black rosettes—like a leopard’s spots, but more stylized, almost geometric in places. His face was a striking combination of human and feline features: high cheekbones, a strong jaw, a nose that was almost flat with slightly wider nostrils, and those hypnotic amber-gold eyes with vertical pupils that expanded and contracted as he watched me.
The most decidedly non-human features were his slightly pointed ears that swiveled independently toward sounds, the claws I could see partially extending and retracting as his hands flexed, and the long, powerful tail that moved with unconscious grace behind him.
He looked like he had stepped right out of a 1980s cartoon—ThunderCats come to life—except there was nothing cartoonish about the raw power evident in every line of his body or the intelligence behind those predator eyes.
“You look like a ThunderCat,” I said before I could stop myself.
The vine-translator rippled with confusion.
“It’s a, uh, Earth reference. Old TV show. Cat people from space. Fought evil. Had cool weapons. Wore very little clothing.” I waved my hand dismissively. “Never mind.”
Interest sparked in his eyes. “Terra Prime has stories of beings like me? I did not think they had the memory of our kind.”
I skipped over the implications of that phrasing. As if more than one species of extraterrestrial have not only visited but repeatedly. “Fiction, yeah. Lots of it. Cat people are very popular. Nine lives, always land on their feet, purr when they’re happy—” I stopped myself. “Sorry, that’s probably offensive. I don’t mean to compare you to a house cat.”
His chest rumbled with what I realized was laughter. “I do not purr, though I haven’t had the occasion to do so before. But I do always land on my feet.”
The unexpected humor caught me off guard. I found myself smiling back at him, the tension in my shoulders easing slightly. “Good to know. So...Legion Reaper. That sounds military. Are you here to, I don’t know, conquer Earth or something?”
His expression sobered. “I am stranded. The portal you came through has been dormant for cycles. Until you activated it.”
“I activated it?” I blinked. “I just touched the weird glowy panel in the abandoned military bunker I was investigating for my podcast. I didn’t mean to—wait.” My brain finally caught up to the situation. “I’m on another planet, aren’t I?”
“Yes. GL-7. A research outpost, abandoned after the Helixian incursion.”
“GL-7,” I repeated numbly. “That’s...not even a proper name. Just a designation. Great.” I ran a hand through my tangled hair, trying to process. “And the jungle is...alive? Like, sentient alive?”
“Yes. The entire ecosystem shares a collective consciousness. The vines are its most direct method of interaction.”
