Do you know what? The fact that Melia managed to hack my account to tell you how ridiculous I was at the old time doesn't surprise me at all, I myself was going to tell you how nervous I was and how idiotic I was that night! Yes ... of course I was going to do it ...
What really surprises me about all this is that Melia has managed to use the earthly internet!
I already told you two chapters ago about the equivalent of youtube/netflix/twitch all in the same Acheron service, Pulshare. Today, as we move away from the terrestrial solar system towards the first Gala-Door, I have decided to start talking about the equivalent of Google in Acheron ... is it correct to say equivalent to google if you want? It's more like Google and Microsoft put their differences aside and have a gifted son in the form of an operating system named Legac1.
Legac1 is Acheron's main operating system, and unless you are a fan of sub computing and use the equivalent of linux there, the only computer system you will ever need! You will see, Legac1 (whose name and similarity with the word Legacy in our language is a coincidence) is designed so that anyone can handle it without problem, either domestically, for business use or for official use; This was achieved thanks to the fact that the Acheron Parliament bought the company in its early days and turned it into a free platform where everyone can create their virtual space with a series of joint rules not easily avoidable. (I say the latter because there is a Darkweb also in Acheron, it is one of those things that every intelligent civilization ends up generating in the globalization process)
Within that space is S33ker, the online search platform that would be the most direct equivalent to Google. It's a fast, efficient, search system that can return as precisely as you need it ... you already know all that stuff. The point here is that S33ker is ... relatively complex if you haven't grown up there, and going from using something with so many options to something as simplified as google is something that the Akken have a hard time with! I think it costs them more to use our internet services than to walk through the narrowest streets of our cities, And believe me, it was in the middle of the only chance we had to date in Geneva with Vell when I saw her maneuver in an alley with hardly any space with balconies, buckets of garbage, fences and a dog tied to a door, a very very angry dog! It was a show … Surely some of the photos that the perverts were taking of us will still be posted on the web if you want to look for it.
You can call me romantic if you want because of what I'm about to say but lying here, floating in my cabin waiting to be allowed to go to the next sector, seeing the immensity of space through my "windows" makes me remember the days long gone, days when I was just one human with the great honor of being the first to travel to Acheron…
Change of subject! I'm going to tell you about the Earth-Acheron trip, okay? You have no way to answer so I'm going to say Yes for you, no need to thank me later.
The trip involves around 43 Earth hours of travel, crossing 3 sectors in the process before reaching the Acheron sector. A Sector for those who are not up to date on space travel nomenclature is the space limited by the gravitational force of a solar system.
This doesn’t mean that the Earth is 4 sectors away from Acheron, make no mistake! For a solar system to be considered a Sector it must have a planet with life or the possibility of it, otherwise they are considered Barren Lands and their access is restricted to the closest civilizations or if they enter auction to the civilization that buys them for their exploitation. It's a bit scary but we're talking about investments so large that only Acheron or the Torih alliance could even afford it.
Between Acheron and Earth there are exactly 14 solar systems away (Here I am deliberately not counting all the empty terrain between sectors, okay? Keep in mind only what I am telling you to avoid getting too confused), and that's where the Gala-Doors come into play. The Gala-Door are space titan-constructions controlled by the Milky Way Alliance (name that will sound familiar to you because Earth will finally be accepted in 2057!), The intergalactic organization in charge of managing all interactions between the civilizations of our galaxy and all issues that have to do with common hollow space (literally what we humans understand as outer space or the Last frontier).
Its function is simple to understand (unlike its mechanisms which I daren’t even look at!), creating "rapid transit tunnels" between sectors so that the average citizen can travel between planets without having to go through territories. Because of this and due to the complexity of the Gala-Doors, they need to have very specific positions and cannot be particularly long, which is why engineers tend to prefer to connect the closest sectors and build more Gala-Doors than daring to try to build a “tunnel” between specific sectors.
I suppose I should add that the Gala-Doors are themselves M.W.A Space stations, so they have all the necessary services that their crew and the travelers who cross them may need for their day to day life. Some even have entertainment venues like parks or shopping centers!
Think ... think of them as if between two countries there was a barren terrain and an underground tunnel was built that would connect both countries, and in that tunnel in turn there was an entire micro-city. Nor do I think it is so complex to need an example, but it doesn’t hurt either, who has to write extra is me, not you.
One of the things that Gala-Doors have is that they are treated as borders, and do you know that there are usually borders between countries? Right, border and customs police! The Gala-Doors are no different, the queues that form while checking the ships are even endlessly long! Let me explain our day so that you understand what level of queues we are talking about
We arrived at the Gala-Door at 06:30 Earth time, Melia and I started filling out all the documents as official Acheron agents while my family enjoyed a guided tour courtesy of an old friend of our team.
At 15:00 Earth time we met in the urban area of r03;r03;the Gala-Door to eat in a restaurant, and that lasted until 18:00 between appetizers, first and second courses, desserts, alcoholic beverages and a late afternoon snack. (Do you want to know how much the joke cost me in the end? 980 euros, 1166 US dollars or 8,010.80 yuan ... almost nothing)
Then we took my family to the mandatory medical examination that ended around 8:00 p.e.m. that we returned to the ship with dinner bought to go. (My father managed to convince my nephews to have dinner at what he thought was a hamburger joint ... and although technically it is, I'm sure he still regrets looking at the ingredients! I'm sorry daddy, but beef is a kind of delicacy caviar off Earth and as much as we like to pretend not, many animals out there outside of our planet have tentacles)
The officer in charge came to tell us at 11:15 p.m. that we could continue the trip at around 2:00 a.e.m., so Melia and I decided to send my family to sleep in the cabins of the crew and we stayed awake in the main cabin to leave as soon as they gave us the signal.
Right now it is… 05:30 a.e.m! Melia is snoring deeply in the seat next to me and there is no sign of any kind that they will open the door for us anytime soon! Bureaucracy ... always so absurdly slow it doesn't matter which planets they are on … Isn't it reassuring that all the races of the Milky Way have that common denominator to complain about?
Don't think that Melia sleeping is a problem, I don't want to brag (Of r03;r03;course I do!) but you are reading the memories of an official Acheron pilot! No, if I say that and one of my bosses reads this, they will yell at me a lot… I have the Akken personal ship pilot card of maximum 8 Akken passengers, that means that I can and I have to act as Melia's second in command, nothing more.
Now you will wonder how someone as small as me could have gotten the pilot license of ships designed for beings as huge as Akken, right? Well, with patience, effort, dedication, eating all the vegetables and going to bed on time!
Joking away, I owe everything this time to Melia and Caedence who redesigned a Torih Pilot Adapter so I could use it.
The Torihs are three times taller than me (although now technically I am about to reach 3 meters in height so that difference is smaller every day) so it took a lot of fixes but it was worth it. The adapter is a platform in the center of the steering console designed so that with my respective equivalent devices I can remotely control all the different navigation systems. Except for our guns, they won't let me touch our guns. Again.
And now that I was going to mention how I got up to the adapter I realized… I've never explained how I live in Acheron, right? I have never explained to you how I live in an Akken house, how I work with Akkens and how I can lead a normal life in a world where I am (was) practically a 1/7 figure? Two words are enough for me to explain everything:
Jet.
Backpack.
Take that! A fucking jet-backpack. (Not to be confused with a jetpack or different devices)
Nahh… it's less cool than it sounds. You see, the vast majority of humans in Acheron don’t have to deal with Akken institutions on a daily basis, in their neighborhoods they have all the basic institutions and services necessary for day to day. And then there is me, a human who doesn’t step into the human neighborhoods except to go buy video games and imported collector's editions and that means that I have to deal with everything at Akken scale.
When Vell, her family or our friends are there, it's pretty easy! They carry me from one place to another without me having to say it! (And if someone is going to interact with an Akken, keep in mind that they will be asking your permission to hold you in their arms all the time, so if you don't want to have to repeat “Go ahead” or “Please” over and over again, make sure you make it clear that physical contact doesn’t bother you.)
And when I don't have family or friends nearby and I want to go to the bank to do some business, to a store to buy something nice for my girl or I just want to take a walk on my own I have the Fullmotion Matrix, a Haze invention, which in case you don't know is already an alien race whose average height is one meter and twenty centimeters high (about four feet high). The Fullmotion Matrix looks like a "backpack" that covers up from the rear to the neck made of an ultra-light metal, with different panels of wave fabric on each side of the "backpack".
Once placed and activated, it allows the owner to perform "impulses" that catapult him to enormous heights, and can also do things such as slow down the fall or propel himself in the air several times. It’s… much more difficult than it seems, more than once I fell on my face trying to “Earth jump” as they call it here; But when you master it, it basically allows you to be a kind of video game character in real life, having access to dashes, double jumps, slow fall ...
It is thanks to F.M. and all the voice recognition and accessibility technology from my Vc that I have been able to live with Vell all these years without problem.
...
....
It was hard, really. Much more than I want to pretend. When everyone around you is so huge, when even jumping from the sofa requires carrying a device on your back all day, when any little girl could cause me terrible and permanent damage just for a silly thing like stepping on me accidentally ...
I know that it isn’t fair because it was me and only me who chose to live with Vell in an Akken house and live in the heart of the Acheron society without any type of aid that the later humans settled in the human neighborhoods have... but sometimes I felt so defenseless that I pretended to be sick to go back home. It isn’t fair and I don’t have the right to complain, so I will only say this:
If you want to follow my path, you have my full support. Following Vell is the best decision of my life no matter how much I say it, and if all that I have learned as a human now I can use it as Akken to make your life as easy as possible then it will be the best decision of my life X2.
The Night season or Rimewake, where the day is shorter than the night and the temperatures drop enormously, more during the day. During this season, life in Acheron becomes nocturnal, we sleep during the day and do work and social life sheltered with the night embrace. Furthermore, this is the first of the two times of the year in which the holiday period occurs, these being the most important holidays of the year and where more activities are carried out abroad.
Next we have the Season of Growth or Bloomtide, where day and night are equal and the temperature begins to increase, more daytime than nighttime. During this season, life in Acheron begins its phase of renewal and growth, the cycle of its sleep slowly beginning to carry over into the night. As a bonus, this is the season where the Akken grow the most during their life, either naturally or forced growth to fight as I had already told you.
Then we have the Diurnal season or Warmreach, where the night is shorter than the day and the temperature stabilizes at the highest peak of the year. During this season life is completely diurnal, the shortness of the night is left to sleep and that's it. This season is also where all the products planted and started in Rimewake are collected and stored in underground warehouses until needed. Here the second holidays of the year take place, these are much more designed to travel outside the city and even the planet.
And we end the year with the Ending season of Stormcome, where nights and days begin to meet as temperatures begin to drop dramatically. This season is when the great rains and storms that give their name to the army of the planet occur, the most terrifying climate that you can imagine (imagine a huge typhoon on Earth but three times as long and twice as intense) so cities activate their barriers and isolate themselves from the outside in underground facilities. This translates into much more family and home time, more streets and community.
With this explained, let's get down to business!
It was the morning of the 4th day of the 2nd month of Bloomtide, only two days away from the anniversary of my 4th month in Acheron. The adaptation had been… how could I put it properly…
It's difficult. It's very difficult.
It wasn’t only adapting to a new atmosphere and a slightly greater gravity than that of Earth, the combination of learning to navigate in a world not designed for you with tools that until now I had only seen in movies and dreams next to the classic initial stress when living with your partner for the first time was turning out to be a lot more than my self of half a year ago could have imagined. All of this was aggravated by the medication I had to take so that my body could resist the effects of the atmosphere correctly and increase my body's hardness.
Luckily Vell was always by my side, making the whole learning process with the FullMotion Matrix much easier ... and reaffirming that I had done well to choose her.
This morning was a little different from the others. Not only because the night had brought with it some light pre-morning rains and the weather was cooler than the day before, but also because it was going to be the first morning that we could not spend together in the 4 Akken months and 1 Terrestrial month that we have been dating together.
As part of the diplomatic process with the Earth, Vell and the rest of the team had to attend from time to time to testify in front of parliament or the Council of Foreign Affairs, mainly on questions of their stay of 2 Terrestrial months on Earth.
Normally these statements were arranged several days in advance and organized so that if I could not accompany them (at that time I was only a guest from Earth) one of the girls would stay with me to… take care of me.
Yep, like I'm a puppy or a 2-year-old. The reality is that it bothered me less than it seems now, mainly because I didn't have much confidence even maneuvering in the air.
That morning, however, the call from the Council on Foreign Affairs was sudden (so sudden that it was only 4 in the morning in Acheron), requiring all the members of the diplomatic team in the ministry without the possibility of me going with them even if I was waiting outside. All of this wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that a week ago we met a teacher friend of Kalliah's so Vell and I could give a talk about Earth at her academy.
"Ummm ... good morning, Fi ..." My brand new and huge girlfriend whispered at the time as she moved under the covers, each movement allowing me to admire her curves covered only in underwear, courtesy of the especially high thermostat for my comfort. At that time I slept in a bed designed for Okrols, another species from the Milky Way that are slightly taller than the average human, which Vell's mimicry had bought me as a gift upon learning of… well, my existence on the way to Acheron.
And yes, my bed was on Vell's nightstand, you can laugh all you want and compare me with how many shrunken characters you want. It is comfortable for both of us, it allows me to jump into the main bed with ease and have an overview of everything in the bedroom and hallway.
"Hey, precious" That was my attempt to sound interesting, and for the record, I had been awake thinking about what to say for almost half an Earth hour. "Kalliah has sent you another message, you can't be late"
"What an idiot… I don't wanna go" Vell has never been very good at waking up super early. And although we may not have been together for an Earth year yet, that was not an impediment to our complicity in being such that words were beginning to become unnecessary.
Just by seeing my beloved Vell rub her face with the back of her left hand, I already knew that she would immediately reach out to invite me to snuggle under her sheets with her. Technically snuggling between her large (not much larger than average Akken but gigantic for me, who's laughing now huh?) breasts and her neck. And there were plenty of words to say how much I was willing, jumping into her hand as she brought it closer and not even waiting for her to retract her arm so I could jump up her arm into my sanctuary's soft velvet sheets, warm as a sauna and slightly sweaty… Again like a sauna. "I can't wait for the Resitin to take effect sleeping with you every night, Fi ..."
The Resitin is a drug invented by the same race that invented the Fullmotion Matrix, the Haze, which basically serves to increase durability and resistance to pain of smaller and more fragile species than Torih or Akken. One of the first things I had to do during the first month of adaptation to Acheron was to take it every 6 Earth hours to become resistant enough and not break my bones when being manipulated by the Akken.
At the time of this anecdote, I was still in need of treatment, according to the doctor. He was treating my case (Doctor Gelko G'her) and he had already warned me before that there were still a few weeks until I could sleep in the same bed as Vell without danger.
And believe me when I say that I listened to him as I have never listened to a doctor, the danger was constant! Vell moves so much sleeping that I have lost count of the times she has crushed me sleeping! Once I fell unconscious but due to lack of oxygen, my poor girlfriend was so traumatized that she spent almost half a year sleeping with her legs tied to the wall.
"I can't wait either ... have I ever told you that even your sweat smells good?"
"Disgusting ..." Vell chuckled softly, the movement of her chest rocking me. "But I'm glad, the others say I stink when I sweat in the gym"
"The others don’t smell this as close to your skin as I do! What they smell are their own smelly asses” This managed to get a laugh out of my girlfriend that, unlike her soft laugh, causes a sudden movement, one that for me was translated as a wall of meat hitting me in the face with no way of stopping it. It was and is more erotic than painful, I can confirm that now. "Hey, do you think you'll be able to come back in time for our talk?"
Vell bit her lip doubtfully, stroking my head with her index finger all the while. "I'm going to try and you know it, precious ... -"
"But no, right?" The evening light through the window helped me see how much my words hurt my girlfriend, and I had no intention of hurting her!
"You know how this is ... if they want us so urgently and they want us at 5 o'clock it must be because of something that will surely not be resolved in 2 hours," Vell's good morning exhaustion sigh was a sign that she did not even have any confidence. "I'm going to prepare everything here in the bedroom so you don't have to move a lot and you can practice with the padded floor. I'm really sorry, babe… I know how much you were waiting for it"
At that moment I decided to combine all the values accumulated within me during the 30 Earthlings minutes I had won by waking up before the alarm. All the courage, all the enthusiasm to be able to speak with the youngest Akken so that they know and understand a little more about the human race ... All this in a single force that prompted me to bite my lip nervously (gesture that however tiny it was in the comparison made Vell raise a confused eyebrow) and whisper words that I didn't believe myself. "I could ... I could go by myself"
Vell, as is logical and evident considering my previous denials (one the same night before), went to say something cut in the middle of the word, squinting, re-evaluating what her ears had captured and asking again. "That you could ... what?"
"You know ..." I am not very proud but the nerves led me to mimic, one hand pretending to be ground and the other a person walking. God, how I hate mimes. "Going to the talk by myself ... it's better than canceling it, right?"
"Is this some kind of wry Earthly humor that you haven't told me about until now?" Vell asked, again with all the reasons in the world backing her up. "Are you suggesting that you can go to the academy alone ... let's remember 19 streets away from here... when yesterday you didn't even see yourself strong enough to go out to the garden by yourself to get the mail? Our garden, let's remember ... literally in front of our house?"
"It's so crazy, isn't it? "
My poor Vell could only shrug, her face a confused and honestly almost a bit teasing expression. “Crazy… Yeah, it is really crazy, you can't deny that. I'm not going to directly oppose it because as your super-cool girlfriend who knows how you earthlings like that passive and relaxed attitude would be to go against everything I believe and see in me... -"
"I see much more in you than that, Galactic size idiot.” I apologize for this, but if any Akken calls you a galactic size idiot thinking it is a compliment, I am partly to blame for it.
"It’s normal that you see much more in me, I am practically a landscape for your perspective!" Vell and I really liked the size game, we liked it and we like it even though it’s becoming more limited due to my growth. “But what could I say… yes I am really worried that this is irresponsible on your part and on me. My love ... Fi ... I love you very much but I am afraid, very afraid, that if yesterday you still don’t have the confidence in being able to make the journey to the mailbox, today you are only unconsciously trying to demonstrate something that you do not need to demonstrate"
Before continuing a small paragraph, the "mailbox" we are talking about all the time isn’t a literal mailbox, Acheron doesn’t use paper other than official documents as representation for like a millennia. This "mailbox" is more like a kind of electronic panel at the outside entrance of the house where all the affairs of the neighborhood are displayed ... It's unnecessary garden furniture today in Acheron but many houses still have it for aesthetic reasons. In the case of Vell and I it is an ideal goal for my first ride outside using the Fullmotion Matrix.
"Does that mean you don't want me to try?"
My words weighed more on Vell than I first thought, be it because of my sad, just-awakened eyes or the whispery tone of my voice. My personal giantess huddled against the wall, pressing my body even more against her with both hands.
"Fi ..." Vell whispered to me even softer than my previous whisper, tilting my body up so that we could look each other in the eyes (More she to me than I to her because of my position between her breasts). “You trusted me when we met, you trusted what I had felt inside my heart even though humans cannot understand our… signal. You trusted me to the point of wanting to come with me to Acheron ... you trusted my signal to the point of learning the rite of oath and performing it in front of my parents...-"
The rite of oath is something much less important than the name suggests It is simply a small custom where two Akken recognize that they have felt the "moment or signal" for each other and demonstrate it in front of the family by reciting some verses and kissing each other.
"You've always trusted me ... and I know that this context is literally less than a year old, don't laugh small-ass!" What?! Have you ever suffered from nervous laughter in a super-emotional moment? I didn't start to laugh wantingly, it was because I remembered how ridiculous it was to kiss me in front of Vell's mothers without having previously agreed to kiss her on the lower or upper lip! “So as your great, incredible and huge girlfriend who loves you so much, I will fully trust you! I'm just asking you ... I know it's hard for you to wear your Vc but today always wear it on your wrist and on, okay? I only ask that ... I want to be able to call you or send you a message to know that everything is going well out there."
I don't know if my girlfriend's concern seems tender but it seemed to me, and to respond with the same affection I tried to climb outside from his soft grip to her lips. And it's difficult, her hand was about u36; my height and I'm sure it's heavier than me!
“I will always carry my smartphone… Vc turned on and I will always be ready to call emergencies. I will not leave the sidewalks or the Haze routes and I will use all the audible and visual warnings to make passers-by Akken and Torih aware of my presence.”
What I recite here is the rules of road safety for the Hazes living in Acheron, the Humans being so close in size we must respect those same rules for the good and the safety of a correct experience between species ... or something like that, there is normally no type of punishment if you don’t comply with them beyond the possibilities of accidents.
And believe me, when you live with such great beings, the possibility of an accident is more than enough to stop any attempt to be a… “rebel without a cause”.
"Don't do that to me, don't make me look like some kind of road safety legislator!" I know that what I am going to say next may scare some but remember that it is totally spoiled and sometimes even wanted by me.
Disclaimer: No Fiore has been hurt or stinked out beyond count during the course of this and other anecdotes.
Continuing with the intimate game and Vell's revenge for my comment, my beloved giantess jumped up from the bed, throwing me towards the ceiling and catching me in the fall at the level of her lips. After a kiss with the intention of giving me confidence and security in myself, Vell proceeded to punish me for my… verbal assault on her concern. The punishment consisted of "depositing" me on "a certain item of clothing" while she cleared up the bed and room and prepared for a morning shower.
We have to understand that "a certain piece of clothing" here means the back of her sleeping panties, and "depositing" in this context means partially trapping me between her buttocks. Those of you who are disgusted by the idea of r03;r03;being there tight after a whole night of sweat and the natural smell after 24 hours since the last shower ... I'm so sorry. To those who are envious I can only say that it is very cool, much more than it seems! Especially if you are proactive and not passive ... you understand me or I hope you do ... wink wink.
And since it is too early to talk about sex in this story (I have some thoughts for that topic ... and if everything goes well and I manage to convince who I have to convince, it will be great) and breakfast and the subsequent choice of wardrobe for the day it isn’t something that differs much when one of the members of the couple is 8.82 times bigger than the other. I am going to jump directly to a few hours after Vell left for the Foreign Affairs Council.
The moment I saw myself at the door of our house armed with my Fullmotion Matrix on my back and my Vc (a personal wrist computer-projector, the equivalent of Terrestrial smartphones) charged and turned on my wrist, my fashionable dress elegantly swaying along with my short hair in the cold night wind.
In those moments all my training with my instructors Hazes and Akkens passed before my eyes, all their lessons on road safety, on the use of the Fullmotion Matrix outdoors ... And with the same confidence that I woke up that morning I activated the screen of home control of my Vc to close the door and make my way back to my bedroom.
Call me a coward all you want, that was my decision! Being alone out there in such a big and dangerous world is scary and my sheets are soft and warm by themselves!
…
Do you really think that I turned over to lie down again to sleep? That opinion after 10 chapters do you have of me? WELL I DIDN'T! Well, I did turn around BUT THEN I TURNED A SECOND TIME! After lying in my bed for about 10 terrestrial minutes BUT IN THE END I WENT OUT TO THE STREET!
The cloudy and cold dark sky received me, returning me to reality, to the cold reality where I was alone in front of our door. I vividly remember how a group of neighbors (all Akkens) passed right at that moment in front of our house jogging, how as soon as our direct neighbor across the street Caahna saw me she stopped to come to congratulate me on going outside, like all our other neighbors. They came after me and out of nowhere I stood with a circle of 10 Akkens cheering me on… Those damn wonderful friends prevented me from following my instincts to go back to bed a third time!
It will sound cliché but in a situation like this what motivated me more than all the words of encouragement was to perform my best version of the first steps on the moon, using the Fullmotion Matrix to jump the slight curb that surrounded our door while I was surrounded by applause of 10 young, beautiful and successful Akkens. No one understood it as "a great step for humanity" but they all found it adorable and they let me know when Cahana grabbed me to get up and they all congratulated me by kissing my head ... They then said goodbye and continued their race around the residential area.
Again alone with my Vc showing me the best route to the academy, I started walking through the section of the sidewalk designed for smaller races practically unused, trying to use all the means at my disposal so that others would know of my presence.
By methods I mean to go activating the streetlights in my path with my Vc (This is not something that only I can do, all beings of species under 15 feet or 3 meters must do it) or use the Fullmotion Matrix to go up to each waiting platform in pedestrian crossings (I believe I have already said it but in the cities of Acheron there are almost no private motorized vehicles, the streets only serving the equivalent of buses, trams or smaller vehicles such as bicycles) so that my position would appear indicated to any approaching vehicle.
It was terrifying for no reason, everyone I came across offering help and some even venturing to ask to carry me to the Academy. Going down each one in the most correct way possible was a large part of the difficulties that morning, seeing their faces fall when they said politely that I could alone made me feel really bad.
At that time I had not had much contact with other Akkens outside my environment and to see that they honestly want to help me despite being an "unknown" (In quotes because my arrival in Acheron was celebrated and disseminated by all the media on the planet) was such an unusual concept coming from… you already know our planet. It's full of both amazing and kind people and bastards who just want to make their lives easier no matter who they pass by.
One of the scariest experiences that morning was when I arrived at the academy. You see, the building where I was going to give my talk was the one assigned for the maturation stage (as the Akken call adolescence) which was right in the farthest section of campus, beyond the central plaza and the buildings designated to the childhood stage (3 to 7 years) and the discovery stage (7 to 13 years).
The logical thing would have been to cross the central square and wait for my friend in front of the building, right? It was also ideal because I arrived during one of the breaks and the central square was designated as a rest area for the students at the reflection stage (18 to 25 years old). With such mature girls talking and sharing a cheerful breakfast it would be easy not to get in trouble ...
And that's when my Vc vibrated indicating that I had received a message. At first I assumed that being the time it was, it would be Vell wanting to know how it was going, and that thought caused me to smile from ear to ear. The smile died instantly.
From: Gynanna.
I'm a little late and haven't been able to get everything ready in the conference room, ladies. Can you stop by my staff room in building # 1? I'm having breakfast here.
I have never felt so hurt by a change of location. I suppose that from how I have written it before you can imagine the reason but there it goes: The rest time is general with the central square open for each building according to the time of day except for the students of building No. 1 who have their own playground in front of their building.
And this leads us to the fact that the students in building # 1 are the students of ... (drum roll) ... childhood stage!
Do you remember Toy Story 3, the nursery scene when the kids play with Buzz and company for the first time? Akken girls are just as… out of control as human boys and girls, with the slight difference that an Akken girl weighs like a whole human nursery class.
Girls of 5 meters tall playing wildly with each other, used to the fact that between them they had to use a lot of strength to really hurt themselves, used to putting things in their mouths to discover if they are edible or not, used to play in a particularly physical way that implies throwing oneself on top of the other, pushing each others...
All this serves as a barrier of hellfire between me and the door of the building, a barrier without any teacher with a Vc close enough so that my signal of near presence could reach them. ...
Now you're going to have the right to call me an idiot. My first thought as soon as I reached the fence that separated the two rest areas was to look for a toy cube, turn it over and discreetly enter under it ... my second idea when I realized that I would have no vision was the same play but hiding under a "plastic" cup and crawling forward. I spent a long time thinking about different terrible ideas, so absorbed in my thoughts that I did not realize that a whole small crowd of young spectators had formed, watching me with bright eyes full of illusion from the fence.
"Hello miss" One of the girls closest to me whispered as I started to look at them, too scared with fear to react. "You are very small" She told me with many pronunciation errors that even someone new to Aekun like me could notice.
"Yes, yes I am" I said, arming myself with courage and approaching the fence, trusting in the goodwill of these girls. "And you are too big for me!" I managed to get a smile from all those little girls, that was assigned to me as an achievement! "Do you know a teacher named Miss Gynanna? I am a friend of hers and I am looking for her!"
So far I had dealt with the tone of voice of adult Akkens, so the power with which the girls responded to me by shouting "I KNOW HER!" I was so taken by surprise that I fell on my ass grabbing my ears. “A little bit lower, girls! I am very small and the screams hurt me!" I screamed as loud as I could, the girls covering their mouths with their hands as soon as they realized they were hurting me.
"I'm sooooorrrryyyyyyyyyyy!" I couldn't get angry with them, I don't know if any of you could have been in my situation.
"It's okay, I'm fine!" I said jumping up a couple of times to show them my ears didn't hurt anymore. "Can you take me to her or tell her that I'm here?"
Terrible choice of words on my part, the girls were divided between those who carried me in their arms like a doll and those who went to look for Gynanna ... except that those who carried me never reached the interior of their building. During most of the recess time I was passing from arms to arms, girls passing me between them while they introduced me to their friends.
I tried to reason with them, try to convince them that I had to get to Gynanna but something always happened that made them radically change their focus ... whether it was to play house with me (it turns out that I was the ideal size to use the furniture of the dolls that they had bought the academy, so they made me try ALL the dollhouses), show me their constructions such as "slides" and "swings" with the obligatory round after testing them ... Some girls even invited me to meet their mothers because according to them they love to talk from “the famous tiny Akken”.
A couple of times I tried to explain to them that I was a human who came from Earth but as soon as they started thinking about another planet they lost interest, once reaching the point where one of them didn't like anything other than Akken, deciding to push me throwing me to the ground and threatening to sit on top of me if I didn't stop lying. The very ***** ... no, I can't insult her now-
This is a necessary thing that I have to do. The girl who pushed me is called Rosae and I met her again a few years ago in a talk for the students on the reflection stage, Rosae came to me after the talk to apologize and when I told her that nothing was wrong she broke down crying ... It turns out that Rosae had been thinking about our little encounter when she was just a little kid all this years, her friends constantly remembering the day she almost killed the first "honorary daughter of Acheron" as a joke. We talked for a good long time and ended up reconciling (she more than me, I am an adult who knows well that our behavior as a child does not reflect who we are after growing up) with me inviting me to my next talks that she gladly attended.
She is a little weird but she is a good girl and I really appreciate her help organizing everything… and if you are reading this by any chance, Rosae, you know that she gladly accepted your crush on me but I am still married!
Nah, just kidding. Akken feels admiration and devotion but never love except for those who feel "the moment or the signal".
The tricky situation continued until the girls who had come after Gynanna managed to remember their mission and dragged her to the playground, saving me from an unpleasant visit to the water font. I guess you're wondering what my friend did when she saw me, right? Pick me up like someone who sees a puppy drowning in the river, scold my current playmates saying they couldn't treat an adult like that, and carry me to the bathroom to wash me up. All without stopping to apologize for something that she could not control, maybe now in retrospect I should have sent her a message to let her know that I was alone ... God, I like to complicate my life too much sometimes.
My first solo visit abroad ended up with me being dragged around the playground by 3-to-7-year-old girls, a talk to a slightly older youth who listened to me with more attention than ... well, nobody has ever heard me speak and with a lengthy second breakfast with Gynanna that lasted until Vell came to pick me up. If you had seen the face of my girlfriend at that time when she was listening to my adventure with the girls… she didn’t leave me alone for a second the rest of the week, all the while promising me that Akken girls were not normally so physical.
This new fear of Vell I solved it in a single magisterial movement, whispering in her ear how much I had enjoyed playing with them and how much I was going to enjoy playing with ours girls ... maybe my caresses to her ear had help me but I want to trust my labia was the winner of that resolution. That and how much Vell wanted to have daughters at the time, before unfortunately discovering that no matter how much we are genetic brothers, humans and Akken are incompatible to reproduce. Add having daughters of ours to the list of reasons why I am becoming Akken, a list that keeps growing by the looks of it.
I would love to extend more but I am starting to see the workers prepare to activate the Gala-Door, which means that it’s time to resume our journey back home ... at least to start the journey until we reach the next Gala-Door where we will have to go through the same process! The luck is that if you have to cross several Gala-Doors on your route, just passing the medical control in one is enough for the others.
Just allow me a little thought before saying goodbye.
We have reached Chapter 10 of my memoirs and I find myself in the situation that… I am enjoying this much more than I thought! Originally I was only going to continue with this while I was on Earth to visit, but seeing the traction I am having both for you humans and on the Akken website where I also posted it would be a shame to stop now! I have many more anecdotes to tell about these years living with "giants" and I also want to tell you what it felt like during my transition to become an Akken, so I hope you will join me in this second stage of my memories!
Thank you all for reading so far and I hope to see you here!