Any form of movement was futile. JC’s hands were bound to the steel table with unbreakable silver links. His feet and hips were easily secured by two, twisted, metallic slabs. Two unmoving cylinders held his head immobile. His mouth was bound with some form of impenetrable adhesive. He could not move, he could not speak, all he could do was lay, and stare, and feel.
For countless hours he simply laid, laid and watched that endless, torturing light that swung steadily back and forth, back and forth, above him. The thoughts that carried across JC’s mind were indecipherable. He could not focus even as the panic in him resided, as more essential needs became present. The need for food, and water were among the top most. His throat was parched, dried and caked over like some eternal hell. His fingers could not even curl into a simplistic and begging gesture, as they were each firmly secured to the cold, flat surface. There was no one to call to. Not a single, whispered echo bounced across the small room in which he was confined. He was completely and utterly alone.
As a quiet, long and moaning howl came to his ear, the slow jets of electric energy began to course once again through his body and his mind joggled back into focus. His eyes, the only part of his body with the ability of movement, scanned the rims of his peripheral vision for some key to this long, monotonous yelp. It had almost become background music when a sudden crack in the galaxy of eternal light clicked it back into his focus. The crack began as only a slight parting in the silver rays. Then it began to spread until he was faced with a large, open square in front of him. It stopped abruptly and with it the dying cry.
JC’s body tensed in preparation for something, anything. Gazing into the ebony depths, he saw something. A flicker of golden orange light, just for a second, had flashed brightly to one side. There, he saw it more clearly this time, the amber globe that peered towards him in the darkness that hovered inches above his face. The darkness again began to move until it had enveloped him and the light was gone. The amber flashes became more insistent, like a dozen candles flickering on and off with the wind.
From the darkness came a form, a body. JC watched as a slim, multi-limbed figure melted from the darkness. From two, dangling tentacles hung a pair of dark, golden orange eyes. The first set of arms came out of where Jake thought the shoulders ought to be and jolted up and back. The next joint in them brought them down again to rest against the creature’s steely spine. The second pair of arms stuck out of mid chest area, curving forward and ending with twelve, spindly fingers and three sickly thumbs. A set of six legs protruded from his swelled abdomen. Jake stared with horror as the figure approached. More sets of amber globes still flickered from time to time in the enveloping darkness. A small glow, coming from seemingly nowhere, lit the nearest objects in JC’s view, including the massive creature that stood before him.
“You are he,” the alien figure said. From nowhere, a thin and well-worn piece of parchment came into his view above his head. On it he saw the picture that he had seen many times before, the simple descriptions of the male and female of the species Homo Sapiens. The one that NASA had jettisoned into space years ago. JC could make no movement being constrained as he was. His eyes enlarged in fright and he tried, over and over, time and again to kick out, to lash out, to scream, yell, fight at this creature. The only result in his attempts was his own weariness enlarging.
The slit from which the alien talked parted once again and his dark, booming voice called, “You are he.”
JC tried to nod and found, with sudden realization, that the steel bars had been removed and his head was released from the vice-like grip. The creature made no reaction to this but to turn and vaporize back into the darkness. Trying to move his head, JC found that he was again restrained by the same former barriers that had held him captive. He closed his eyes, too tired for any more of this nightmare. He had had enough of this dream. He wished desperately to be back on the bus, in the comfy bed that contained all his things. He wanted to wake up and look across to see Jay quietly whispering away his thoughts and troubles to the ghosts and spirits of the night. He opened his eyes, fully expecting to see the dark wood of the top of his bunk. He was met with only that same darkness and unwavering immobility.
He would wake up any minute now, he told himself. Any minute he would just open his eyes and the sun would be casting its gentle fingers against his skin. Any minute now.
He continued to tell himself this, only for the small comfort it brought him, for another hour at least before the flickering of the amber globes returned. This time there seemed to be many more, at least fifty. Soon the room was moist and stifling from the many breaths being taken in it. The room seemed to have expanded and each steel colored alien slowly came forward from the darkness. The new aliens, each one seemingly identical, wore only dim, blue tunics that had holes for arms and draped around their six legs. JC stared at them in horror as they came closer and closer until he was surrounded by them on every side, pressing up against the edge of the table he was imprisoned on.
The terror he had been in before was nothing compared to the rapid convulsing typhoons of adrenaline that thundered over him as he saw the glistening object in one alien’s hand. His eyes widened and his vocal chords burned as he tried to scream. Not a sound, not even a whisper, came through to express the terror inside. The alien with the glistening tool marched forward. He looked down at his nearly naked body, exposed except for his blue boxer-briefs. A trio of aliens placed a silver sheet on top of him, leaving his head uncovered so that he could watch the gruesome task about to take place. A small square of soft flesh was still exposed, a five inch square in the silver material that lay over his body like a shining shroud- A five inch square, right above his heart.
The alien that carried the deathly blade came so that he was just beside him. He held out his hand, like a doctor asking for a scalpel. Another one of the impossible figures came up behind him and handed him a giant cylinder with a single, hair thin wire coming from it’s base. JC’s eyes nearly erupted from his skull as the huge needle came closer and closer to his skin. Trying to gulp, he attempted to twist. The aliens saw his struggle, acknowledging it with a twist of their two tentacle-like eyes.
The alien brought the needle down into the open flesh of his left chest area. The point sliced into his skin, leaving a wound that would be impossible to find. It ripped through the many layers of flesh, then into muscle, and finally into the ripe, red organ that was his heart. JC arched his back in pain and then lay still. The breath from his noise was harsh and labored. His eyes, not daring to close, remained open and watched as one of the alien’s thumbs pressed the fluid from the needle and into his body. The yellow liquid was finally gone and the alien retracted the small, cylindrical canine from his body. Not even a drop of blood came from the wound. JC fell back and his muscles relaxed. Things turned hazy and his vision clouded.
JC lifted his head into the humid air above him. His eyes wandered around at the strange shapes around him. Somewhere in the back of his head he was aware of a dull thump. The thump grew louder and louder as JC got up and walked around this place he had landed in. Was this some weird extension of his dream?
Thump. He liked the sound of it, whatever it was. It was like a mesmerizing tick of a clock, ticking, ticking, ticking. Fog surrounded him, wherever he was. He could continue walking in any direction, but would always end up in the same, blue sphere that he had awakened in.
Thump. He turned to his left, then to his right. He could see the blue sphere that was his origin in the distance. Where was he?
Thump. Yes, he did like that sound. But, it was not coming as often as it used to… why was this? It was slower now, and each thump was more prolonged. The rhythm was degenerating.
Thump ump. The beat of it was becoming erratic, wild, and more and more time was passing in between. Damn it, why wouldn’t that sound keep on going, smooth, soothing, steady?
He wandered, the thumping, ticking, whatever you wish it to be called, was getting louder. He could now pass by his blue sphere twice in the intervals, then three times.
Thump. The beating grew louder until JC simply sat down and waited for its arrival as if his life depended on it. He walked back to the sphere and stood in its confines.
Thump. The sphere was getting smaller, it was closing in on him! The sphere was grabbing him; it was narrowing. He tried to jump back out but the walls had hardened.
Thump. There it was again, it was speeding up again, but the beat was more erratic than ever! The walls got closer to him. They pressed against his skin, forcing his breath back inside of him.
Thump. Ah! The pressure! Flaring pressure coming at him from all sides as the THUMP walls closed in around him and THUMP sucked against his skin.
THUMP UMP! Ah! He screamed and screamed and only a THUMP degraded cough came from his mouth. He THUMP tried to breath and THUMP inhaled the blue wall. It squirmed THUMP down his throat and he THUMP gagged and coughed THUMP as it filled THUMP his lungs THUMP and THUMP crushed THUMP them.
Silence. The blue material carved it’s way around his heart, encasing it forever.
The steel alien cut off the last vein coming from JC’s heart and placed it onto a silver tray. The aliens that had gathered around watched as it still spewed blood onto the silver sheets. On either side of the examining table lay hundreds and thousands of other bodies. The slaughterhouse was the Theg mother ship, hovering in orbit above Earth. They had received the invitation to dine on the life forms years ago. The piece of parchment had entailed them to dinner, they were merely here by our own invitation.
