Page 3 of HaL

“How many of us did you take?”

“One … others escape, but not next time. No one stops Korgon …” He points at the opening, “Food, drink.”

From back here, I can make out what looks like pellets and some kind of green liquid. He doesn’t say another word. He simply reaches out and touches the bars, then ducks his head beneath them; his enormous, gourd-shaped head clearly wouldn’t fit any other way. Then he exits back through the opening.

The bars slam shut behind him.

Thankfully, most of the stench leaves with him, but that does little to ease the panic clawing its way through me. One thought keeps circling in my mind: I’ve been abducted by aliens. Not the friendly kind, either. Not the ones from the movies who show up to save humanity.

The nightmare kind.

I can’t believe I made it all the way out here in one piece, only to end up trapped like some kind of specimen; handled, contained, and treated like an object instead of a person.

My legs fold under me and this time the tears are real.

CHAPTER 2

DAWN

I must have dozed off because I’m startled awake, frantically looking around for the sound that must have disturbed me in all this silence, only to find that the noise is the food pellets spilling out of the little cup onto the floor. Even though I hate to put anything in my mouth from here, I know I must eat something. I can already feel my body weakening from the extensive bruising that I received and I understand how, just by looking at the beast who captured me.

What I don’t know is how they got me on this ship, or how they bypassed the security measures Commander DaR implemented on Ethra.

I spent hours in the main cockpit with ANDI, talking with him as he showed me the plans for Ethra and the settlement’s expansion. It was the one place I didn’t feel alone, especially when everyone else was planetside. We talked about everything: Ethra, the settlement, the crew, and sometimes things that had nothing to do with any of them. Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking of him as a machine and started seeing him as my friend.

He was always patient with me, even when I asked him question after question about the blinking lights in the main control room, or how he kept the water fresh. Where did all the food come from in those magical little boxes he called replicators? How had he become so personable? And how were we traveling in or even floating through space?

ANDI never became aggravated with me. If anything, he encouraged my curiosity, which only made me keep questioning him about everything that was alien to me. The ship, which it turns out was ANDI, fascinated me. I was like a sponge, soaking up everything I could about what made him … well, him.

I touch my communicator again.

“ANDI … Can anyone hear me … Please, someone.” My loud whisper seems to echo all around me.

Of course, nothing happens, and I fight the despair that is trying to sink into all my thoughts. I made it off a dying planet and survived space travel … surely, I can find a way to escape four-armed, bad-smelling aliens, right? Walking over to where the pellets are, I pick one up only to notice it has the texture of dog food, and I pop it into my mouth before I can overthink it.

Instantly, it starts swelling inside my mouth, and I almost choke before crunching it up and swallowing it. I’m not sure if I should be thankful that it has no taste at all, but at least it isn’t gross. When I finally get that one down, I eat one more, then decide to stop and see how my system takes this odd food before tasting the green goop next to what I’m going to now call alien dog food.

Sticking my finger into the thick goop, I find it has no smell or flavor either, lucky me. Picking up the container, I take a few small sips, then set it back inside the wall until I can be certain I’m not going to heave everything up in ten minutes.

Once again, I scour the entire area, hoping to spot something I may have missed the first time, but there’s nothing here. The only sound I hear is my own heartbeat in my ears. The walls, besides the scratches, are dull, the floor is unadorned, and the bars are unremarkable. This is my own specialized form of torture as my mind needs constant stimulation, and here I stand in the middle of nothing with zilch to do or focus on. I should probably enjoy this downtime because I’m sure whoever or whatever bought me didn’t buy me to be their buddy. The calm before the storm, as they always say.

Since I have nothing better to do, I sit back down on the floor and start running my fingers through my hair, trying to work all the knots out so that I can braid it. I let my memories run wild, which is something I seldom allow myself the luxury of doing, because looking back never moves you forward. Plus, I feel like I cried enough in the first days after EvO found us to last me a lifetime.

As I work on an especially stubborn knot, my thoughts wander to some of my favorite things about Earth—things that are forever lost, both back home and, in some ways, always from the part of me that yearned to experience them more fully.

The wind blowing through the trees on a cool fall evening. The smell of freshly cut grass in the spring after a long, cold winter. Blowing on dandelions as I wandered through the yard. Lightning bugs, hoot owls, and whippoorwills calling in the early evening. Sunbeams and rainbows—little things that made you smile quietly when you noticed them, even though you usually took them for granted.

I remember as a kid, lying on a blanket and staring up at the stars because we were studying them in science class. Wondering if there was anyone else out there, looking back at us.

Dumbasses.

I got my first smartphone mainly because I wanted to photograph the moon, but every picture came out as a white blob. Back then, we had no idea how much of what surrounded us would someday become a memory. We thought those moments would always be there, waiting for us to notice them again.

It makes me laugh a little, because I spent so much of my childhood looking up at the night sky, convinced that if I wished hard enough on a shooting star, it might actually come true. I spent countless hours outside in the dark, waiting for that brief streak of light, never knowing that what I thought was a little piece of magic was something far less romantic.

I loved so many things about being outside. I loved floating in a boat or walking along a beach, watching sunlight scatter across the water in tiny sparkles. I loved the smell of rain before a storm and the crackle of heat lightning, imagining the heavens themselves were having a face-off. There was something about those moments that made the world feel alive.

My allergies made it difficult to enjoy very many of them, but I kept trying. I wanted so badly to be outside with everyone else that I often felt cheated by my own body. I can’t count the number of days I spent alone in my sterile bedroom, watching other kids ride their bikes, play games, and simply enjoy being outdoors. While they made childhood memories, I was watching from behind a window.