Ajos: The Restitution - A Sci-fi Alien Romance, Book 1, стр. 17

It looked like pictures she’d seen of the Aleppo bombings.

She’d known the bombs had dropped. She’d known there’d be damage, but nothing she’d imagined came close to reality.

V’Alen had been right when he’d said their enemies had known they’d be safe within the stasis hold.

Glancing back at the huge structure now. It looked mostly untouched, but everything around it had been completely decimated.

“My God…” Kerena muttered, her feet pulling her over to one of the carts.

She didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to face it. Yet, it was as if she couldn’t pull her eyes away.

The dusty face of an alien with round protrusions on its head stared back at her with lifeless eyes.

She didn’t know she was shaking till she felt a strong hand on her shoulder.

“You don’t have to face this,” Ajos said. “Not now. Not after what you just endured.”

Tears filled her eyes as she pulled her gaze away from the dead being in front of her, but everywhere she looked, she saw another and another.

So many.

They’d been killed so viciously, snuffed out as if their lives meant nothing.

All these aliens, these sentient beings, died because another group saw their lives as inconsequential.

All because the Restitution had rescued her and the others…

“Who—” Her voice broke. “Who could do something like this?”

Ajos gripped her and turned her away from the carnage so she was looking at him.

“The same beings who took you away from your home. They are a scourge across the universe that will be eliminated. Be strong, Keh-reh-nah.” Ajos gripped her a little tighter. “Vengeance will be ours…and it will be yours. The Tasqals will pay for what they’ve done.”

Kerena nodded, but her mind couldn’t help going back to the carnage around them.

How could she ignore it?

If there were innocent children here that died…

Forcing away the sudden pain she felt inside, her gaze moved to the others and she realized they had been watching the exchange between her and Ajos.

There was pain in their eyes too, and she knew they were probably thinking the same thing she was.

Keeping her gaze averted as much as she could, she walked alongside Ajos as he led her with a hand on her shoulder.

The bull-alien, V’Alen, and Athena walked in front, while she and Ajos followed behind in silence.

There was that brown dust everywhere, and she tried to imagine what the place had looked like before the bombs had dropped, just to keep her mind off things.

Judging from what was left of the buildings, the place had probably resembled somewhere like Cairo possibly, and it looked like it had been teeming with life.

It took a few minutes, but soon, most of the destruction was behind them.

“Who’s going to bury them? Their families?” she asked, her mind still on the carnage.

She supposed the aliens had family around.

“Most of those beings were refugees like you are,” Ajos answered. “Most have no blood relations on the base. Only a few, like me, are lucky to have relatives with us.” He paused. “We all are family here. The Restitution is all most of the beings on this base have.”

Kerena nodded.

She guessed that applied to her as well.

The Restitution was all she had now too.

She’d lost everything.

Her family. Her friends. Her job. Cindy Clawford.

Everything.

Craning her neck to look up at Ajos, her heart skipped a beat.

She kept forgetting he was a completely different lifeform. When she wasn’t looking at him, it felt as if she was speaking to a regular person, a human.

Talking to him came so easily.

It wasn’t how she’d expected first contact would be.

“You have family here? You are one of the lucky ones then,” she said, forcing a smile.

Ajos’ golden eyes flicked to hers and as she craned her neck so she could study his face, she didn’t miss the fact that he seemed to stiffen somewhat.

“Some would say so,” he finally answered.

He stopped walking suddenly, and she realized the three others had stopped in front of a large, rectangular building.

There was a glowing sign etched into the wall in a language she couldn’t read, but when the doors slid open, it was obvious what the building was.

The hospital.

As they walked in, the moans and whimpers of the people being treated reached her ears and Kerena tried not to wince.

It seemed as if it was an emergency room.

They’d lined the walls with floating gurneys holding humans on them.

Guilt flooded her as she looked at the faces of her fellow humans.

Muddied, dirty, bloodied—some were in hysterics while some were crying silently.

Others looked numb.

Almost every one of them had devices covering their eyes, possibly to help with the exposure to that bright light.

Those who weren’t unconscious looked like they were in pain, and she couldn’t help but feel as if she’d been given a cheat code by not having any injuries at all.

As they walked past a room on their way to the front of the emergency area, a door slid open and an alien that looked like a huge fly walked out.

He was about five feet tall and had huge bug eyes at the side of his head. At least, she assumed they were eyes. There were no pupils, only two rounded, textured sacs.

But that wasn’t the thing that caught her attention.

The sight behind the alien did.

Inside the room, a dark-haired woman sat on a floating gurney and it was immediately clear that something was off about the woman.

She was staring straight at Kerena, but it was like looking into the eyes of someone dead.

There was nothing there.

The door slid closed, but not before Kerena noticed two more things.

The woman didn’t look dirty or beat up like the rest of the injured humans, and she was in a private room alone.

It seemed as if they had placed everyone else in the huge emergency area.

What had warranted that the woman with the dead eyes be placed in a room by herself?

Call it her “spidey” senses, but something immediately felt out of place.

The fly-looking alien was about to buzz by her when