Page 1 of Ahelno
CHAPTER 1
Blinking my eyes open, I found myself strapped inside a three-sided box. It looked more like an alcove than a box, but whatever it was, I’d been buckled into it like some kind of display doll. Apparently, it was designed to keep passengers from being tossed around the spaceship.
My stomach dropped as I recognized the ugly-ass insectoid alien at the helm.
For a few disoriented seconds, my brain struggled to catch up. Then anger rushed through me, hot and sharp, followed quickly by panic when I realized I couldn’t move.
Thankfully, the alien had its back to me, focused on whatever lay beyond the front window while I fought not to hyperventilate.
Up close, it was even worse than I remembered. Four inky-black eyes. Six legs. A vaguely humanoid torso balanced on top like some nightmare version of a centaur. When it had first approached my holding pen—on some other planet, or moon, or whatever hellhole I’d been incarcerated on —I’d thought it looked almost beetle-like beneath the harsh lights.
It had growled and hissed in a language I couldn’t understand while arguing with one of the furry blob creatures acting as zookeepers for the captives in the pens.
Or slave traders.
Ever since I’d been kidnapped from Earth and woken up in a freezing, barren cell, I’d had no idea what was happening to me. But one thing was painfully clear:
Nothing about this was good.
When it first spied me in that cell, the shiny centaur-ish insect had leered at me obscenely, and I knew I was in trouble. After a brief, unintelligible conversation with the fuzzball zookeeper, the window of the pen lowered, and the insect-alien quickly reached out and grabbed me by the throat. It ran another hand down my body and squeezed in places I absolutely did not want to be squeezed. No, no, no.
It continued its inspection by shoving its hand down my pants and between my legs, then brought the hand to its mouth and licked. Terrified, angry, and humiliated all at once, I fought back, kicking and punching like a honey badger on steroids. The alien reared up on two of its legs, suddenly bipedal and now a foot and a half taller than me. It used all four of its remaining limbs as arms to truss me in ropes and carry me out of the cell. It spoke to the fuzzball again as it hauled me over its shoulder like a sack of flour.
I could tell we were making our way between dozens of pens, but that was all I could see. I struggled to get free and received several hard blows in response. The fuzzball approached me with a giant needle, which it plunged in my shoulder and within seconds, all my muscles went slack. My eyes worked, but I couldn’t blink, and I suddenly couldn’t move at all.
My captor ferried me through what looked like an airport (spaceport?), but I saw nothing from my prone position other than its back. It carried me to a ship and stood me up against the wall in this compartment, like a mummy in a sarcophaguson display. It closed the transparent door, and I was trapped inside, still unable to move. The alien looked me over from head to toe to make sure I was secure, then scuttled to the front of the ship.
Paralyzed and frightened, I focused on my surroundings to see if anything would be of use in an escape attempt. Everything was mostly red, and I could see a table, a lot of buttons and lights at the helm where the alien was crouched again on four legs, a few alcoves like mine along the walls of the room I was in, and a hallway to my left. I tried to move, but I couldn’t even lift a pinky. There was nothing I could do but observe and wait. My terror kept me awake for hours, but eventually I succumbed to sleep.
CHAPTER 2
I had no idea how long I’d been stuck in this box, but the fear had faded somewhat, and I was bored out of my mind. The alien pilot checked on me now and then, knocking on the transparent door to see if I would move, but of course, I couldn’t. Sometimes it disappeared down a hallway, but mostly it stayed at the helm, chittering in a language I didn’t understand.
I couldn’t turn even my head, despite many frustrating attempts. I kept trying to move, but my muscles simply didn’t respond. With nothing to do, my mind catastrophized. Would I starve to death in here? How long could I go without water? How long had it been? I dreaded reaching wherever we were going, but at the same time, I desperately wanted something - anything - to happen.
I figured several days had passed, given my sleep cycle. I dreamed mostly of the kidnapping - walking across campus after our last performance of Cabaret. It was the last musical theater performance of my college career, and it was bittersweet. I was excited for graduation, but also worried about my uncertain future and planned move to New York City.
Lost in my thoughts, I heard a noise behind the dumpsters next to my dorm. I expected to find a stray cat or dog - maybeeven a raccoon - and instead, there was a thin, gray being that my mind struggled to comprehend. We both froze as we stared at each other, then it lunged. There was a flash of light as it locked a bracelet around my wrist, and that’s how I woke up in that pen.Stupid, stupid, Andie, I scolded myself for investigating noises alone in the dark. I knew better. Well, I did now.
This “morning” I was able to twitch the fingers on both my hands. Overjoyed, I surreptitiously tried flexing all of my muscles in sequence, starting from my toes up to my eyelids. I wasn’t able to move much, but some feeling was returning. I was careful not to flinch when the insectoid pilot banged on the box again. I didn’t want it to realize the drugs were wearing off.
I could turn my head a tiny bit and saw the ship was approaching a planet or a moon. I didn’t know, really. The alien pilot became more animated, and if I didn’t know better, it sounded like it was arguing with a disembodied voice. Suddenly, I felt a jarring impact - how could the ship hit anything out in space? I was jolted in the box and thrown against the wall. Thankfully, I was able to right myself with some effort.
The alien, for lack of a better term, went bananas. As the ship rapidly descended into the planet’s atmosphere, lights started blinking, alarms sounded, and the alien was shouting and slamming buttons all over the dash. The ship began to shake with the force of reentry, and I suddenly felt cold water at my feet.
Looking down, a blue jelly-like substance started to fill the box from the bottom grate. I panicked at how quickly it was filling my cubicle. I wasn’t sure which was the worse way todie – fiery spaceship crash or drowning in slime, but I really didn’t want to find out. I tried to punch and claw at the door, but my arms and hands still weren’t fully cooperating.
Once the thick gel encased my torso up to my chin, I realized I was in deep trouble. The alien pilot ran to a compartment across from mine and buckled itself in. Gel started to fill its box as well, but it didn’t seem to fear it the way I did.
I closed my eyes as the jelly covered my face. I held my breath as long as I could, but eventually I felt my lungs would explode, and I involuntarily exhaled. On the subsequent inhale, I dragged the fluid into my lungs, coughing and sputtering.
I managed to lift up a final prayer to my Creator for a merciful passing and prepared to die.
After a few minutes of not dying, I realized two important things:
One - I could somehow breathe the slimy gelatin. This made no sense, but once I stopped resisting, I found I was able to breathe somewhat normally, although the gel felt a little heavier than air.
Two - I was suspended, floating peacefully in the goo while everything went to hell around me.
