3
Flesh Prison
Silva woke to alien smells and sounds. Her hearing was duller than a wolf’s but sharper than a Terran’s. The sounds of a fire crackling, bacon sizzling, people outside chopping wood, talking, laughing — all the sounds of a morning on a farm — assaulted her.
There were too many hearts. The rhythms were off. She was used to one heart per body; now she had…two? Three? They thrummed in her ears; she could not escape the beat of them. Her chest felt as if it would explode.
She couldn’t divide the smells. There were so many. A cacophony of scents invaded her nose. She knew she smelled bacon, for the sounds had told her she would, but the rest was a mishmash: horse, cow, pig, snow, dirt, fire, must, sunlight. Her first coherent thought was gratefulness that her sense of smell w
