Alien Abduction

.:7:.

By the time we reached the very first building, it was getting light again. We were exhausted, dehydrated, starving, and covered in red dust. Except for my suit of course, which was still spotless. Mary had lost her shoes a few times, and had collapsed about halfway down. Richard and I had carried her in turns. We had slid down rather than walked, in the end.

But we had made it, and we were still alive, when we stepped into the shadows of the first egg-shaped house. It was enormous, and it seemed unoccupied. Of course I didn’t trust it at first. I had no idea how the other aliens lived. But Richard didn’t care if it was inhabited or not. He had taken a long stick with him, and kept it with him as a weapon as he stepped through the door. Or was it the wall? Like with Chadann’s flying vehicle, there was an opening, and then there wasn’t. We were inside, in a cool, spacious house.

Richard was the first to spot the bottles on a floating shelf. Before I could even utter a warning, he had opened one, and had emptied it in one long sip. “Water,” he announced with a pleased sigh. Mary was grateful to accept a bottle, and as they didn’t drop dead, so did I. It tasted like nectar.

“Are there any pills here too?” I asked. “I’m in bad need of some nutrition.”

“Goddammit, Orlando, you sure are brainwashed, aren’t you.” Richard helped me looking for them anyway, but he clearly didn’t understand how I had adapted to my new life.

“I like those pills,” I tried to explain. “They’re clean, I don’t have to use the bathroom, and they give me all I need.” I tapped against walls in the hope to open hidden cabinets, and finally I found something. They were the right color and shape. “Thank you,” I whispered, kissing my pendant.

“Stop praying,” Richard grumbled. “But yeah, well done. At least we will live another day.”

I swallowed the amount of pills I always took, and collected the rest to take with us for later. I felt much, much better after that. I almost felt good. If I didn’t have that awful beard, it almost felt as if I were at home with Chadann. I joined the other two, and made myself comfortable. “We’ll live another day, yes,” I said to Richard. “That was your plan, wasn’t it? To live, and to defeat the aliens?” I smirked as I looked at the miserable display of the two. “And you just left the humans, to follow me into the unknown. Why didn’t you stay in the forest?”

Richard tried out a few explanations, but they were all transparent lies. I don’t even remember what he said, but I remember one thing. He mentioned a space ship. He had my attention. “What space ship?”

“We were brought here by a space ship,” Richard said. “It has to be somewhere... Do you remember how you got here? I mean, when your priest took you with him?”

“We flew to the top of his mountain,” I said. “I have no idea where I landed when I arrived. Do you?”

“I woke up in that dreadful house,” he answered, shaking his head. “Mary was already there. I only remember the route from our home to yours. But a space ship, Orlando... It has to be somewhere, and it has to be big! We will be able to find it, won’t we?”

I played with the beads of my rosary as I listened, lying comfortably on an almost invisible sofa. I drank some more water. “Just for the sake of the argument... Let’s say we find that space ship. Do you know how to fly it? Or do you want to force the pilot to fly it for us...?”

Of course he didn’t think about that yet. He told me he would come up with a plan when we got that far. He wanted to save all the humans with one ship, and travel back to earth. I couldn’t believe he actually thought about it, no matter how heroic it sounded.

I didn’t try to argue with him. Mary had fallen asleep, and I decided to follow her example. I didn’t want to go outside while it was light, anyway. Richard promised he would stay awake to stand guard, just in case the house was occupied after all. He didn’t keep his word. We all slept, undisturbed, until it was getting dark.

We had taken as much of the water and all the pills with us as we went to the city. We were all naïf, to be honest, even me. We had expected clean streets and rich aliens. We had never expected to find dirt, mess, and chaos. This was a city. Imagine the busiest and most criminal city of your country, and multiply it by hundred or so. Replace the cars by flying eggs. That will give you the idea of what we found.

Since we were so small compared to the natural inhabitants of this planet, we were able to hide easily. No one saw us as we moved through the streets, trying to find a reasonable peaceful place to gain our bearings. We couldn’t believe our eyes. As we were hiding behind a stinking container, equivalent to an oversized dumpster, we talked about what we would do next. But first, Richard had to tell me something.

Mary was sitting close against his side. He comforted her with a protective arm as he looked at me. “You were right,” he admitted with a soft tone of voice. “About how good we were treated. Imagine we were owned by one of these losers. Look at them... They’re worse than the worst hobo I ever saw on earth. We wouldn’t have survived a week in this place...”

I couldn’t disagree. I loved my alien priest, but I doubted I would have ever developed feelings for any of these. I had grabbed my rosary again, sliding the beads through my fingers until they were glowing softly. “So now what?” I asked. “You have attacked your owner, and I have been stolen from mine. I want to go back to Chadann. I never wanted to leave him in the first place. And you? What do you want to do?”

“I have no place to go anymore,” Richard said softly. For the first time, I heard regret in his voice, and I felt a bit sorry for him. “I have no other choice now, do I? I will find that space ship, and leave.” As I didn’t reply, he looked at another dirty alien passing by our hiding place. “I rather die in space than trying to live here,” he concluded.

“And what do you want, Mary?” The girl hadn’t spoken for days. She looked like a wingless bird, more than ever.

“I want to go home,” she whispered after a long hesitation.

“Where is your home, Mary?” I asked her, but she didn’t answer. “I want to go home too,” I helped her. “But my home is with Chadann. I don’t want to go back to earth. And you?”

She shrugged, crawling deeper away in the shadows. I was amazed how Richard kept holding her close. “Home,” she said. “With anyone who loves me, and takes care of me.”

Fair enough, I thought. I decided to leave it up to those two, where they would go from there. All I wanted, was to go back to my house up the mountain. I wanted to welcome the sun again, and to smell the flowers. “Perhaps we should get moving again. We can’t stay here.” We had to take the risk of being spotted. We had found a city, we had a taste of daily life on this planet, and I had seen enough. I wanted to go back.

“Can’t you get rid of that suit?” Richard asked when we stood up. “You’re standing out like... anything white in a dirty place. You’ll be discovered soon.”

“I don’t care,” I said stubbornly. I had enough of it, and I really didn’t care if I got discovered or not. But still, as I stepped away from that stinking container, I froze to the spot. Two large aliens jumped up when I appeared. They stared at me with eyes like plates, too startled to move.

I was quick. They were quicker. I tried to run away, but one of the aliens grabbed me around my waist and lifted me under his arm. The other one grabbed Richard at his throat. Mary was no trouble at all. She fainted, and the one who was holding me picker her up as if she was weightless.

Richard and I screamed and struggled. It was no use, of course. They couldn’t hear us, and they were a lot stronger than us. Seemingly without any effort, we were lifted in one of the flying eggs, dropped on the floor, and we flew away.

My heart was pounding as I stared at the scenery flying by below us. One of the aliens had put his feet on my back, to keep me from moving. Richard got a blow on his head as he kept fighting, and he was a limp puppet next to me. We were brought out of the city, into the woods, in yet another oddly shaped house at the edge of a cliff. At least we didn’t have to climb out of that crater by ourselves…

I didn’t try to fight free as we were brought inside, and I stepped into the room by myself. Richard and Mary were brought elsewhere.
The alien who brought me to the room had seen my rosary. He reached out for it. I had been calm the whole time, but I couldn’t let him take it away from me. Kicking him in the nuts was pointless, as he didn’t have any. So I slapped him hard on his mask with my flat hand. The effect was amazing…

I quickly jumped into a corner as the alien collapsed on the floor, squirming as if he was skinned alive. He held his face behind the flashing palms of his hands, and although I couldn’t hear him, I knew he was screaming in agony. The other alien burst in, clearly shocked.

I expected to be punished severely. I already braced against the wall, ready to defend myself. To my big surprise, nothing happened. The squirming alien was helped on his feet, and taken out of the room. I was left alone. It took a while before I relaxed, but eventually, I left the corner and looked around.

From the church into a forest, into a city, and back in the forest. I felt annoyed rather than worried as I ran the previous days through my head.

Like the house we had found at the edge of the city, this room was luxurious and spacious. I found pills, bottles of cool water, and shaving gear. As I turned away, I froze. Shaving gear. Why would there be earthly shaving gear in a room on another planet…?

I moved slowly, looking around for signs that I was watched, but the walls were smooth, white, and without imperfections. I wasn’t watched, apparently. Still slowly, I undressed, and stepped in the clear cubicle I recognized as a shower. Moments later, I was clean and refreshed. Shaving took me a lot longer… but I had all the time in the world.

When I was finally done, I lay down on one of the strange, fuzzy sofas, and I took the rosary between my hands. I was naked. I thought about Chadann again, as I so often did, and rolled on my side to hide my slowly growing arousal from any spying eyes. Yes, I longed for my priest, so badly…

And then a priest stepped into my room.

He was dressed like Chadann, he resembled Chadann, but I wasn’t fooled. This was not Chadann. All aliens looked alike, with their gray skin and steel eyes, like they would think we all looked the same. But I knew my alien lover. I knew exactly what he looked like, and how he differed from the other aliens. I jumped up, grabbed my white suit, and quickly dressed up.

The priest flashed his jewels at me, in a seductive, soothing manner. I backed away, scowling at him. He wouldn’t be able to hear me, so I didn’t speak. But I thought, telling him to fuck off. When he kept sliding closer, I hunched. He would have had the same treatment as the other one if he hadn’t stopped and dropped his hands.

I raised a hand, and pointed. “Get out,” I said, thinking it as well. “You are not my owner. You’re a fraud.”

At that moment, Richard screamed. The alien turned away and vanished as quickly and quietly as he had come.

“Richard!” I yelled. “Don’t fall for it! That’s not Chadann!”

I didn’t know if it worked, but it was quiet again, and I trembled as I walked back to the sofa. Damn. Where was I this time? Why did that priest turn up, just as I had happy thoughts about Chadann?

I had to focus, and think rationally for a moment. I sat in the lotus position, took the rosary again, and took a few deep breaths to clear my head. I relaxed as much as possible considering the circumstances.

Alright, I thought, so a group of humans had attacked a church. If that would have happened on earth, it would have been all over the news. We would have hunted the aliens with armies and angry mobs, and we would have slaughtered them.

We were on anther planet, we were abducted, and we had attacked the inhabitants. I had been with them. I was a human. They wouldn’t care if I had anything to do with the attack. All humans were bad, now.

So why were we still alive?

I took another slow, deep breath, and thought back at what had happened when I woke up, after three weeks in the forest.

The other humans had basically ignored my existence. I could easily get away, I wasn’t followed by anyone but Richard and Mary, and we hadn’t seen any aliens. In fact, the whole group had been hidden in the forest for three weeks, they had hunted, and still they hadn’t been discovered.

We had walked for hours in wide open space without being seen. We had found an empty house, right at the beginning of the city. There had been water and pills for us. We had slept undisturbed, we had entered the city, and even when we finally got caught, we weren’t hurt.

I slowly opened my eyes. “You are testing me, aren’t you,” I muttered quietly in front of me. “You’re in my head, all the time, and you protect me.” I sighed deeply, closed my eyes again, and thought harder about Chadann than I had done before.

“Forgive me, Chadann…”

Open your eyes, Orlando.

I had flung myself around his neck before the thought was finished completely, and almost knocked him over. I faintly registered how beautiful he was dressed, how important he looked, but I didn’t give it much thought. I showered his masked face with kisses, clinging to him with all my might, uttering his name between kisses.

Chadann cuddled me, his eyes narrowed a bit in amusement.

Hello, love.

“I’m sorry,” I could only cry. “I’m so sorry, Chadann.”

You’re safe.

“No, I’m not! We killed some of you!” I kept going on like that for a while, until I was out of breath and out of tears. All the time, Chadann held me tight, gently rocking me, stroking my hair and neck with loving, slow caresses. When it took him too long, he sat down with me on his lap.

Orlando. You didn’t kill.

“Huh?” I was afraid I had the wrong words in my head. After all, Chadann couldn’t really speak my language; I merely formed the words myself.

No death.

I leaned back a bit, and looked at Chadann’s chest. I touched the spot where our heart would be. “Richard stabbed him,” I said. “I saw him collapsing.”

No death. Leave it.

I was more than happy to leave it, and to believe my priest. I wrapped my arms back around his neck, and kissed him on his mask. “Take me home?”

Yes.

But Chadann didn’t take me home just yet. After another warm cuddle, he put me on the floor and stood up. The wall opened as he approached it, and it stayed open. I could follow him. He walked to the other rooms, and opened them, revealing Mary and Richard. I was glad to see they were still unharmed, even Richard. Mary barely responded when she saw Chadann, but Richard threw himself flat on the floor. He begged loudly for forgiveness. Chadann looked down on him, and then looked at me.

What does he want?

“He wants you to forgive him,” I said, trying to explain it with feelings and thoughts. ‘Richard,” I said, “Get up. He can’t hear you.”

“But you talk to him!” he cried out in frustration, scrambling up. “Explain it to him, Orlando! Tell him I didn’t know what I was doing!”

“Chadann,” I said quietly, thinking his name loudly. He looked down on me. “Shut him up.”

I wouldn’t have said it if I had known what effect it would have. Chadann flashed with his jewel, and two large aliens grabbed Richard from both sides. They tied him up in some kind of cocoon, and masked him. He couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound, and couldn’t see anything anymore.

I was startled. I grabbed Chadann’s hand and pressed against his decorated skirt, staring at how Richard was carried away. “What about Mary?” I managed to bring out.

Chadann flashed with his free hand, and another alien walked to the quiet, weak woman.

Come. Both of you.

Finally, Chadann took me home.