Alien Abduction

.:1:.

There are stories about people being abducted by aliens. We’ve all heard them, read them, and we’ve all laughed about them.
I’ve laughed too, just like you. I’ve snorted, smirked, and moved on with more important things in my life.

Of course, deep in our heart we all believe in aliens. We love watching those movies, about attacks from outer space, UFO’s and robots. We want to believe. But we laugh when people tell them it had happened to them.
We laugh, because secretively, we’re envious.

Why them? What’s so special about them that the aliens would take them on their ship, investigate them, implant things or fertilize them? I’m much more interesting. I have things to tell. I’m intelligent; I would be able to understand them.
I’m no overweight dumb ass or unmarried mum living from welfare. Why didn’t they take me?

Not too long ago, there were other stories in the street. This time there were no ‘look what happened to me’ tales. These stories went further.
People weren’t just abducted by aliens and returned; they were stolen.

Oh, we know those stories as well. We know the famous line when someone tells you ‘they say terrible things will happen and no one lives to tell’. You simply say ‘and how would they know, if no one lived to tell?’

Yes, I laughed too. But these stories didn’t say anything about what happened. They were about people disappearing… And no one was able to tell what had happened.

We dared to speculate. Rumors began to spread around the world. It seemed to happen everywhere; suddenly people were vanishing. It didn’t happen often, but often enough to be notable. People began to be scared… And we all looked at the sky when we walked.

It didn’t take long before everybody missed someone they knew. A colleague, a friend, a family member. At that time, people began to ask the government to wake up and face the sky. We asked, no, demanded, for the truth to be told.
Were there aliens? Was it some kind of experiment from the government? Did they know something we weren’t allowed to know?

We were hushed and silenced. They tried to assure us nothing was going on, there was no conspiracy against the civilians, no scary experiments on humans. And no telescope, plane or satellite had picked up anything remotely recognizable as an UFO.

We were reassured and silenced, but the disappearances continued.

At first, there seemed to be no pattern. It seemed to happen to anybody. Men and women, apparently at random, vanished from the face of the earth.
Only after a year, when hundreds of people were missing, the pattern began to appear.
All the missing people were in their twenties, healthy, and strong.

This time, there were no poor, needy; thrill seeking or attention addicted fools missing. The vanished men and women were of all races and layers of society, but they all had those things in common: strong and healthy.

Like me.

I was getting worried. I looked at the sky as I walked through the streets. I took my car rather than being in the open air, and only left my house when unavoidable.
And people were still vanishing…

One day, my neighbor’s son didn’t come home from his walk in the evening. They were closing in… I was more scared than ever. Would it happen to me? Would they come after me as well, or did it mean I was in the clear now?
Maybe they wouldn’t notice me. Perhaps they’d moved further, and didn’t find my physique interesting enough.

I tried to hide my shape behind wide, unflattering clothes, and didn’t leave the house anymore.
I realized, like many with me, that I was waiting for the inevitable. They would take me away… They would come after me.

And there was no doubt about who they were. They… were aliens.

And then there was white light all around me…

I wasn’t even out of my house. I stepped out of the bedroom into the hall, and there was only light. Bright, white light… a smell of tin… a sensation of weightlessness… and I woke up in the dark.

Perhaps the seriousness didn’t come through to me, at first. I remember to have opened my eyes, seeing nothing but blackness, but I never panicked. I moved, feeling the space around me, and I felt cold, smooth iron under my hands. I cried out, hearing my voice echoing back to me, and then there was white light again…

Now I know I was sedated, of course. I’d been drugged to stay calm, and was in an artificial sleep all the time. I still have no idea how long I was lying there in that metal coffin, attached to wires, sleeping, and feeling nothing.

When I opened my eyes again, there was light. Not the bright, white light which sedated me every time I made a sound, but dim light from unknown sources. I was lying in that casket, but I could look around.

There was a soft humming sound around me, and I saw shadows moving. I knew better than to make a sound. I didn’t want to be put to sleep again; I wanted to be awake. Carefully, I moved my head. A soft groan escaped me. Everything was stiff, and my muscles refused to obey. I was scared the light would blind me again, and I already closed my eyes, but it didn’t come.

The journey was over.

I wasn’t helped out of the box. The shadows moved closer around me, and I had a glimpse of a humanoid creature nearby. Then, the metal case I was lying in seemed to slope, and I groaned when my muscles were forced to carry me. I closed my eyes… and when I opened them again, I looked straight into big, steel-colored eyes of an alien.

I remember I cried out in shock. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. I tried to raise my hands, but they stayed right where they were; next to my body and attached to wires. All I could do was shout and move my head away from the hand that wanted to touch my face. I screamed, as far as that was possible with my dry throat and sore muscles. It didn’t help. The alien came closer, and examined me.

It wasn’t too bad, actually. It was a brief look-over, a bit of tugging and prodding, and I even dared to open my eyes and look at what he was doing.

I say ‘he’. That’s because he looked male to me. A flat chest, tall with broad shoulders and slim hips. But he was wearing a dress, richly decorated, jewels and some sort of crown. He had a heavy cloak around his shoulders, fastened with a decorated broach. The colors were hard to describe; they seemed to change every time I looked. It was blue, then green, or yellow or red. I have no idea.
I could see a decorated belt, with strings of beads attached like a rosary. And like a rosary, it carried a strange symbol at the end.

He looked quite human to me. He was humanoid, at least. But he had no normal skin. His skin seemed made of velvet, or suede, and was a gray kind of beige. I hope I make sense; it’s difficult to portray an alien.

It would have been easier if he had a face like a human. He had a head alright, and it was at the proper position. He had eyes, big and slanted, and like I already said; they were like steel. He didn’t seem to blink. Instead, I could see a transparent eyelid slide over the eyeballs from time to time.

The eyes were all that there is to describe. I couldn’t see a nose or mouth. This alien, and the others I could see in the background, was wearing a mask.

The alien prodding me was obviously rich and important. He made a movement with a hand –long fingers with rings, and a blue-green flashing jewel in the palm– and the other aliens quickly detached all the wires.

I sighed when I was freed. And collapsed. When I opened my eyes again, I was lying comfortably in a soft seat, and I looked down into an abyss. Yet another cry escaped my throat and I shot upright, ignoring the pain in my muscles and joints. The alien calmly looked at me from the opposite seat, his hands folded in his lap and idly playing with the symbol on his rosary.

We were sitting in an egg-shaped… thing. There was clear glass all around us, and we were flying at high speed. My alien moved his fingers every now and then, and green lights briefly flickered up under his fingertips.
The seats we were in were dark red, and very soft. I have no idea what they were made of. They didn’t seem substantial, only when I touched the surface. I was getting slightly nauseous.

The view didn’t make me feel any better. We were flying high over dark green forests. There were flowers everywhere, big and brightly colored, but mostly it was green. Green and vast, with enormous rocks peeking through the trees.
The alien brought his flying vehicle to the top of what seemed to be a high peek of a mountain. It was surrounded by trees and flowers, and had a large, oddly shaped kind of house built on top of it.
He flew inside the garage –let me use earthy words to explain what I saw– and parked.
The egg didn’t open. It simply wasn’t there anymore, and we were standing in the wide-open space. Only when I followed him a few steps, it seemed to be back where he left it, as if it had never been away.

I followed the gray creature into what seemed to be a hall. It had stairs without steps, gracefully curling up in the corners. There were high, narrow windows with symbols in bright colors, filtering the light from outside. There were huge chests against the walls, large pots with green plants and flowers, ornaments in odd shapes, and long wires with what seemed to be lamps hanging down from the high ceiling.

I looked around in awe, still a bit shaky on my knees. My host let me look, and waited patiently. When I looked at him, he made a wide gesture with his hand. Since he kept looking at me when he did it, I had no clue what he meant. But it seemed to be addressed to me at all. Right after he made that movement, four other aliens appeared quietly in the hall, as if they’d been there all the time.

These weren’t dressed as richly as my host. They were wearing seamless, plain, light green pajamas. At least, it looked similar to that. The only decoration they wore was that same symbol I saw everywhere now, like an X with some orbs. It’s hard to describe. The four servants all had them around their neck as a pendant.

My host stayed in the hall as I was led away from him. They never touched me, only moved their hands, the blue-green jewels in the palms flickering. I was led to the stairs and moved up without walking. I simply floated upstairs… I’m used to it all now, but at that time I was stunned and scared.

I was brought to a room, and left alone. The door closed quietly behind me, and I looked at a very familiar room. I remember I laughed when I looked around… it was my own bedroom. Only the view was different.

I was standing in my bedroom. It had my bed, my cabinets and my chairs. It even had my books, my keepsakes, my fluffy cuddles and my bedspreads. The floor was different, but it had my old rug under my bed. I even saw my own curtains, at the sides of the tall windows. The shape of the room was different, but it was my room… to the tiniest detail.

I moved through the space, touching my stuff and smelling it. It was cleaner than ever, but all mine. When I opened a door in the corner of the room –not my door, this one opened as soon as I approached it– I stepped into my own bathroom.

No, I’m lying now. This wasn’t my bathroom… It was what my bathroom would have looked like if I had the money to build it.
The bath was huge. There were mirrors everywhere, large showerheads and taps like waterfalls.
But it had my brush, my own shaving gear, my scents and my own bottles of bath foam. Even my toothbrush was standing in my own glass on the sink.

I felt like I’d arrived in paradise.

First thing I did after aliens had abducted me? Taking a bath. I can still laugh about it.
I soothed my sore muscles as I soaked in the slick, scented water. I felt so much better after I washed my body and hair, and I felt so happy when I shaved.
Only when I shaved, I could see how long I’d been sedated in that coffin. My beard was probably months old already. It took a bit of time to make my face smooth again.
I didn’t cut my hair, though. I wouldn’t be able to make it look decent enough, so I only washed it thoroughly.

Shaven and cleaned, I dried off and stepped back into my bedroom. I wanted to dress up, but when I opened my wardrobe, I saw my clothes weren’t there. Only suits like those of the servants were hanging in my closet, and they were white. The cloth felt soft under my hands as I touched it. And when I put it on, it was weightless on my body. It felt like being dressed in a cloud.

All the clothes closed with magnetic strips rather than buttons or zippers. I only had to move the rims against each other to close the blouse and trousers.
My footwear seemed magnetic as well. I only found foot-shaped soles on the floor, and at first I had no clue what to do with them. I sat on the edge of my bed, playing with them, examining them, and finally shrugging. I stepped on them, and suddenly they were attached to my feet.
Not only was I wearing clouds, I was walking on them now as well.

I didn’t try to leave my room. Frankly, I was scared. I think I wanted to avoid the inevitable as long as I could, by staying in my room and reading my books. I tried to forget the idea aliens had abducted me, and was now on an unknown planet months away from earth.
I tried to fool myself by ignoring the fact I was dressed in magnetically closed clothes. I tried to forget the white light, and the wires in my veins when I woke up in that metal casket. I tried to convince myself I was in my own bedroom and I would see my friends and family when I went outside later.
I even succeeded, until the door opened, and I was given my food. They were pills.

I wasn’t on earth at all, anymore. I wasn’t at my own house, in my own neighborhood, in my own city. I wouldn’t see my family again, ever, or my friends. I wouldn’t go to work after the weekend, or walk in the park, or do the shopping.
I was no longer at home.
Where the hell was I?