Swirls of pink, yellow, and orange moved between the clouds as the sun rose on Qwortar. The sky was beautiful, but the ground was dark and dreary with twisted and rotten growth.
Benti watched the colors bleed through the window. The last leaf from their house plant rested on the tip of their tentacle. Benti looked from the leaf, to outside, and back to the leaf.
“One leaf, one last sunrise.” They were surprised they had the strength to speak, but maybe Benti was imagining the raspy gasp of a voice.
“Hey Benti.”
“Skylar?” Benti’s eye lolled to the side as they looked to the side. Was this a hallucination? The blob form of Skylar standing in their doorway. A large eye stretched out towards them. “Is that really you?”
“Yes Benti.” Skylar came closer, and blinking through tears took in the state of their friend. Benti was small, their organs shrunken and wrinkled. “I have food.”
Benti perked up a little at the word ‘food’. Their whole body puffed up half an inch, and they lifted their eye stalk off the edge of the nest. “Give me.”
Skylar came up to the nest, a thermos held in their tentacles. “We’ll start with some broth okay.”
“Only broth?”
“For now.” Skylar poured some broth into a cup.
“I could eat a Stampfer.” Benti moaned.
“We can’t let you guttle too much right now.” Skylar chirped as they held the cup up to Benti’s beak. “Slow and steady back to recovery okay?”
Benti took a sip of the broth. “But I’m hungry.”
“I know.” Skylar pat Benti’s tentacle. “I brought tons of stuff so hopefully no one else will have to be hungry for a while.”
Benti slowly finished their cup of broth and Skylar went off to feed another Qwortarian.
Word count: 300
