In Alien Hands: Meeting Merle

Normal -Holli

 A few weeks passed without event after Grene left. It was the same old routine. Merle kept finding strange little activities for me. I think he wanted to keep me busy. But regardless of what we did that day, it always started the same.

Every morning, without fail, my dog-man would be waiting outside my bedroom door, clothes in hand. I had since realized just how normal the clothes were. You could have expected them to be weird and alien, with metallic fabric or pom-poms and neon colors, but no. Every morning, this massive alien creature gave me clothes I might have worn back on earth.

He wore the same, too. There might be an odd color or garbled alien speak on it, but otherwise normal. One time he had a tee-shirt on that had a creepy purple and blue creature plastered on the front, printed with that same material we had on earth that would crack and peel. I stared at that thing for almost an hour that day, just trying to make sense of it.

The more time I spent with Merle, the more normal he seemed, too. He had since stopped feeling like a massive, shambling werewolf. He was just a man. A dog-man, but a man. His 8 foot figure wasn't as imposing as it was comforting. He would fiddle with his phone just like I would have on earth, though not nearly as often.

What was not normal was that morning. I crept out of my bed like normal, door cracked open, but there was no dog-man waiting for me on the other side. The door creaked, too. His hearing was impeccable, there was no chance he didn't hear it, but he did not appear.

Alarms went off in my brain. I looked either way down the hall, still nothing. His bedroom door? Locked. The bathroom was cracked open, light still on from last night. He always shut it off when he went to bed. Maybe he was hiding in there? 

I crept down the hallway. He might have been hiding in there, and I was always trying to get the sneak on him. The floorboards were meant for much heavier people than me, so they never seemed to creak. 

The door was cracked open, casting a line of light down the dimly lit hallway. The light coming in through my window had told me it was morning, but the hall could have fooled me otherwise. There were no sounds coming from inside. 

My hand wrapped around the end of the door. I stopped and listened again, just to see if I could hear his snickering or shifting around. I was met with even more silence. As the door swung open, the bathroom greeted me.

Everything was normal. Nothing in the tub, even behind the shower curtain. I went as far as to check behind the door. The cabinet under the sink had a safety lock that would have taken me hours to figure out, and Merle wouldn't have wanted me to try.

I stepped back into the hallway. Where was he? His bedroom door was still shut. The silence loomed over the hall. It felt like if I were just quiet enough, I'd hear him breathing. I could reach the knob, but couldn't get the leverage to turn it, my hands were too small. 

I shuffled around the hall again. My room, the bathroom, I even peeked through the slats of the hall closet. No Merle.

His bedroom door looked the same as it always had, still shut. There was nothing to be seen when I got on my knees and peeked under, either. I caught a glimpse of a bed frame, but no furry feet or movement. 

It was probably best to wait. Dog-men sleep in sometimes too, right? It might be super early or he might just not have woken up yet. I wandered back into my room, plopping back into bed. It didn't creak under my weight, but I kind of wanted it to. I wanted to wake him up, send him into the hallway to greet me. 

The biggest downside of captivity, besides losing personal and legal freedoms, was the boredom. As soon as your owner stopped giving you something to do, there was really nothing to do. No phone to scroll through, no books to read. It was slowly getting easier but after years of technology abuse, sitting in silence was not easy. 

After a bit of waiting in my room, I sighed and stood up. There were only a few more options, and one was more liable to get me in trouble. I could try to wake my dog-man up, or I could go in there myself. 

I couldn't have walked to the door slower. I was still in my pajamas. Merle would have had me dressed and fed by now, and it was becoming more and more obvious that I wasn't early. Maybe it was daylight savings? Did dog-men do that? It had to have been longer than an hour since I woke up, regardless. 

Finally, the door. I couldn't tell you why I was so worried. Merle had never even looked at me like he was annoyed, let alone angry. Still, something about knocking on his door was scary. This wasn't supposed to happen, our routine had never been broken like this, let alone shattered on the floor. 

My fist rapped on the door five times. The first two were shaky and hesitant, only gaining confidence when I realized he might not have heard. He would have heard regardless, but there was still no answer. I gazed up towards the top of the doorway, just waiting for his face to appear. 

A minute passed before it was obvious to me he wasn't going to answer. That left one option, opening the door. To do that, I had to step up on something. 

Ideally, there would be no going down the stairs without Merle. He didn't like when i went up the stairs without him, I had my doubts that he would be okay with the opposite. There was always the step stool in the bathroom, but that might not be quite enough. 

I considered going back to bed. I might even be able to get a nap in, sleep the morning away until he woke up. But still, something felt wrong. He should have been waiting for me, he should have woken up by now, and he definitely should have heard me knocking. Was he okay? 

My heart fluttered in my chest while I collected the oversized step stool from the bathroom. It was awkward and heavy, like most things on this planet, but not so heavy that I couldn't carry it. My whole body put itself into shoving it against his door, again hoping he would hear and make an appearance. 

Standing on the stool, I could comfortably grip the knob with both hands. It took me even a few more seconds to try and open it. The knob slipped out of my hands on the first try. With the second try, the knob turned all the way, but the door still didn't open. 

I was going to have to use my entire weight to get it open.

My feet danced from the anticipation of what I was about to do. Everything here was heavy, but the hinges on the doors were loose and smooth. Once I started pushing, I would probably end up on my face. Still, there wasn't any other obvious way to get inside. 

I wrapped my hands around the knob, twisted, and leaned forward. My feet immediately slipped off the stool. My grip on the door slipped, freed hands throwing themselves forward to stop my face from hitting the ground. 

Almost immediately, I heard Merle giggling. I shifted into a seated position, looking around the room for him. 

He was laying in his bed, half covered by his blanket. He immediately sat and stood up to help me to my feet. He didn't seem groggy at all. Had he been awake this whole time? Why would he have sat and waited for me this whole time? 

He didn't give me much time to think about it. He was grinning ear to ear as he rummaged through his dresser. His room was emptier than I expected, just a bed and a dresser. There wasn't anything in his closet, no decorations. 

Merle produced a set of clothes for me from the drawers, still grinning as he handed them to me. I snuck off to the other room to change. It was all very normal and at the same time not. 

While I dressed, I could hear him speaking dog-man into the phone. I still couldn't make any words out and had essentially given up on learning much more than what he tried to teach me, but his voice was fast and excited. 

A/N:
(tl;dr at the end)
Hey guys, long time no see. It's been 3 years since the last chapter, iirc. A lot has happened in those 3 years, none of which really make a difference here. I worked on my shapeshifting story for a long time. I wrote it and rewrote it, tweaked the plot and I feel like my writing has improved a ton. Still, every time I work on it, I'm filled with this horrible feeling. I didn't feel like my work is novel worthy, and it was making it hard to write at all. I was helping a friend with his own writing and I brought up this story, remembering how great it felt to upload things without worrying about it being professional quality, and all the supportive people who left comments. 

I've decided to return to wattpad and continue my stories. I will do my absolute best to be consistent, and all you guys need to do is read and leave comments if you'd like. Please understand that since it has been so long and i have done so much writing since i was active, the style and pacing may be different, and I will struggle to keep details such as the layout of the house and similar consistent. I may also end up touching on the same plot beats, but I will do my best to read through and refresh myself on what happened previously. i remember most of it but it's all very foggy. I probably won't be editing too much, since I feel like enjoying myself and getting more content out is more important right now. My content won't be on the same caliber as a novel but I can be happier with what i'm writing if i can blame it on not editing, lol. 

tl;dr: I am back! Writing novels was stressing me out and i miss the good old days of wattpad. Sorry if the details aren't consistent, I am working on rereading the story to help with that.