Not someone. Something.

My breath quickens as a mental image of the dark-eyed aliens returns, and I look for them. Wherever I’m at, I’m alone.

Thank God.

I squint in the low light, trying to make out my surroundings. It seems to be a large, dark room. Faint orange light is emitted from small running tubes in the ceiling about twenty feet above. The walls themselves are black, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say this looks like a cargo bay from some weird science fiction movie. On the wall opposite me, I count six large six-foot metal tubes lined up against the wall like lockers. Orange and green lights run up and down the sides of the tubes in a variety of squiggles and dots that might be some sort of alien writing. On the far wall, there’s an oblong oval door. I can’t get to the door, though, because I’m behind a metal grid of some kind.

And there’s a god-awful smell. Actually, it’s not just one smell, it’s several of them. It’s like a piss-shit-vomit-sweat cocktail, and it makes me gag. I try to cover my mouth with my hand, but my arm is slow to respond and all I manage to do is flail a little. Ugh.

I swing my drugged, heavy head, looking around the room. Actually, I’m not alone, now that I look around. There are others piled onto this side of the grid, bodies curled up and asleep. In the low light, I count seven, maybe eight forms about my size, huddled together like puppies. Seeing as how we’re all on this side of the metal grid, I’m starting to suspect I’m in a jail cell of some kind.

Or a cage.

I guess if I have to be in a cage, it could be worse. There’s room enough to stand, though not much more than that. At least there are no aliens in here with me. I want to panic, but I’m too out of it. This is like going to the dentist’s office and getting a dose of laughing gas. I’m having a hard time focusing on anything.

My bare upper arm aches, and I sluggishly rub my fingers on it. There are several raised bumps on my arm that weren’t there before, and I rub it harder, feeling something hard under the skin. What the fuck? I try to peer at it in the dark, but I can’t see anything. Images of the aliens and the light shining in my eyes, the nightmares, the terror—it all rises, and I panic. A whimper escapes in my throat.

A hand touches my other arm. “Don’t scream,” a girl whispers.

I roll my too-heavy head until I can look over at her. She’s about my age, but blonde and thinner than me. Her hair’s long and dirty, her eyes big in her lean face. She glances around the room, and then puts a finger to her lips in case I didn’t understand her earlier warning.

Silence. Okay. Okay. I choke the cry rising in my throat and try to remain calm. I nod. Don’t scream. Don’t scream. I can keep my shit together. I can.

“You all right?”

“Yeaaah…” I slur, my mouth unable to form words. And…I drool all over myself. Lovely. I lift one of my heavy hands to swipe at my mouth. “Thorry—”

“You’re okay,” she says before I can panic again. Her voice is pitched low so as to not wake up the others. “We’re all a bit hungover when we wake up. They drug everyone when they arrive. It’ll wear off in a bit. I’m Liz.”

“Georgie,” I tell her, taking time to sound out my name properly. I rub my arm and point at it, at the strange bumps. “Whattth going on?”

“Well,” Liz says, “you were abducted by aliens. But I guess that one was obvious, right?”

About the Author

Ruby Dixon is an author of all things science fiction and fantasy romance. She is a Sagittarius and a Reylo shipper, and loves farming sims (but not actual housework). She lives in the South with her husband and a couple of goofy cats, and can’t think of anything else to put in her biography. Truly, she is boring.

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