The Other Earth

by Amber LaShell

  So I did the only thing I could think of. I ran away back toward the front door. I didn't make it far when I felt something hit me in the back and all of the air rushed out of my lungs as I collapsed onto the floor.

  Suddenly there were hands pulling me up and carrying me away from the door. I managed to finally look around and saw what could only be described as a cattle prod in the hands of the graying man. I wondered for a second if he had shocked me and it was why I had fallen so suddenly.

  "Stop! You can't do this, where are you taking me?" I asked, yelling as loudly as I could.

  There was no answer as the men holding me pushed through a double door and walked inside. I looked around and noticed that this was a part of the building that I had never been to before. I was in a hallway with nothing but doors on each side. I struggled to free my arms from their hands as they walked into a room at the end of the hallway, but they managed to hold on to me without even struggling.

  They sat me down in a chair in the middle of a white room and before I could try to escape, tied my hands down onto the chair's arms.

  "What are you doing? Let me go!" I yelled at them.

  All of the guards turned and walked out of the room, leaving me along with the gray haired man.

  "Please calm down Randi, we are only trying to help you" he said, setting his cattle prod down next to the now closed door.

  "What are you talking about, why are you doing this to me?" I asked, my eyes burning as tears threatened to escape my eyes.

  "It has been brought to our attention that you are having some very grand fantasies and I am here to help you see reality" he said.

  "Fantasies? What are you talking about?" I asked, the tears finally escaping and streaming down my cheeks.

  "Well you see, Vanessa came to me with concern for you because you told her you were visiting here from another planet. There are no other planets and you need to drop these fantasies immediately" he said.

  I gasped, "Vanessa told you that?" I asked, realizing that I should have listened to Brandon.

  He nodded, "Yes, but before we can give you the treatment you need, you will have to be cataloged" he said.

  "What do you mean?" I asked as I looked over to the door, which was slowly opening.

  There was an older woman with short white hair coming into the room and closing the door behind her, "I'm sure you remember Alberta" he said as the therapist I had worked with since arriving here walked into the room.

  "Don't be afraid Randi, I just need to scan your birth mark" she said.

  My eyes widened as I wondered what mark she was talking about. The only birth mark I had was a small mole on my arm, but I was sure that she wasn't interested in such a small mark.

  "What are you going to do?" I asked quickly, afraid to admit that I had no idea what she was talking about.

  "Don't worry, it's not a big deal, I just need to remove your bra to get to the mark okay." She said, her voice portraying that she was not happy about having to be the one to do this to me.

  I just nodded and hoped that something would keep them from digging too much. I held my breath as Alberta walked behind me and lifted my shirt just enough to pull open the clasp holding my bra closed. She walked back around and stood to the side of me and untied my arm, the man quickly grabbing my arms and holding it up over my head. Alberta then pulled my bra to the side and gasped.

  "What is it Alberta?" the man asked, his eyebrows coming together.

  "She doesn't have it" she said, touching my skin as though her touch would make this mark appear for her.

  "What do you mean she doesn't have it?" he asked.

  Alberta grabbed my arm from him, "Come and see for yourself" she said.

  He walked around to me and shook his head, "I'll be damned. She must be from the underground. Alberta please go and call the guards back in please."

  She let go of my hand and ran from the room, leaving my hand untied and my bra open. I watched as the men came back into the room and untying my other hand, lifted me back up into their arms and carried my deeper into the building.

  ***

  I held back my tears as the man once again stuck the cattle prod into my side. I didn't have any idea how long I had been standing in this room after they had taken me to the end of the building and into a room where they had tied my arms above my head in the middle of the room, essentially baring me to the sting of the cattle prod as he asked me questions about the underground. Questions I didn't know how to answer, and with every wrong answer I was once again jolted.

  "I am only going to ask you one more time, what underground city are you from?" the man asked slowly.

  I had already been asked this question five times and each time I had answered with I don't know, and had received a poke.

  "Italy" I said, naming the first city that popped into my head.

  The man shook his head, "There is no such city. Since you have decided to continue to lie to me I will have to take more drastic measures" he said, pulling the end of the cattle prod to him and pushing a small red button on the end.

  I watched in horror as three strips of leather fell out of the end, wondering what he was going to do next. I didn't have to wonder long, because just seconds later he threw the prod toward me and the leather straps hit my legs, sending a stronger zap of electricity through my body. I screamed out as the pain was much harder to take and as I looked down at my legs saw that the leather had actually cut through my gray jeans and blood was already started to stain them.

  "Are you crazy?" I asked.

  The man laughed, "No, you are. That's why we're here remember" he said, slashing though my jeans again.

  "Please stop" I pleaded for the first time, no longer holding back tears.

  The man pulled back, "Okay let's start simple" he said. "Were you born in a sector?" he asked.

  I shook my head, "No."

  The man smiled, "Okay good. Were you born in an illegal underground city?" he asked.

  I shook my head again, "No."

  The man's face turned red, "Were you born anywhere on Terra?" he asked.

  I looked up at him, "No."

  The man frowned as he looked at me, "Since you are determined to lie to me, I am going to teach you a lesson of always telling the truth to a government official" he said.

  I closed my eyes as he pulled back his hand and I felt shock after shock as he hit my legs over and over again with the leather cattle prod. I lost count after a few seconds and started to scream as the pain became too much and I felt my vision start to go black around the edges.

  I felt my head slump forward and he finally stopped, "There, that might help to loosen your tongue. I want you to think about what the truth is, and when I get back you are going to tell me everything, or I can come up with a worse punishment for you" he said, walking out of the door and slamming it shut behind him.

  I looked down at my legs and started to cry as I saw that the entire part of my upper thighs were nothing but ripped jeans and blood.

  I don't know how long I stood there crying when I heard a noise coming from the other part of the room and I stiffened up, expecting him to be back with a worse toy.

  "Oh my god Randi!" I heard Brandon yell.

  My head snapped up and I saw him standing in front of me, bathed in the light like an angel. "Please help me" I said.

  "Oh baby, we are going to get you out of here now" he said.

  I caught that he had said we and as I looked around him, I saw Vanessa standing behind him. I looked back to Brandon, trying to tell him silently that this was a trap and that Vanessa was the one that had turned me in.

  "I see that way you are looking at her, but it's really okay." Brandon said, trying to figure out how to untie my wrists.

  "Randi, I am so sorry. I thought maybe you were losing your mind and I confided in Paul, but I had no idea he would do this to you" she said, looking down at my legs.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked her.

  "After Al
berta saw that you didn't have a birth mark, she came to me and told me what was going on and that was when I knew that you had to be telling the truth" she said.

  I shook my head, "That man thought I was from the underground" I replied, hoping that Brandon would get me untied soon.

  She nodded, "Yes I know, but he doesn't know things that I know. Underground citizens are given the mark at birth just the same as we are, so that if they are caught they look like regular people. Only someone not born of this planet would not have a mark at all" she said.

  "What kind of mark are you talking about" Brandon asked, managing to get one arm free.

  "They brand us at birth" she said simply, looking behind her. "Are you almost done? He could be coming back."

  "I've almost got it" he said, gritting his teeth.

  "Vanessa I trusted you. I can't believe you would do this to me" I said, delirious.

  Tears started to stream down Vanessa's cheeks, "I'm so sorry Randi. I really had no idea he would even try to get you. I was waiting for you to come into work so that I could talk to you about it."

  I finally felt my other arm come free as I slumped into Brandon, "Can you walk?" he asked.

  I pushed myself away from him and nodded, "Yes. Let's get out of here." I said.

  He looked back from me to Vanessa, "Okay I found a break in the wall close to here and I flew the ship close, so we can be back inside the ship in just a few minutes, so let's go.

  "Wait, how are we going to get past everyone?" I asked.

  Vanessa pulled out her key card, "I know a way out the back door" she said.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  I held onto Brandon's hand as we ran away from the prison. I had never been happier to breathe fresh air in my life. I had begun to picture myself lying on a table, dead and opened up, the government of Terra studying me to see if I was somehow different because of where I came from.

  "We have to get to the ship!" Brandon yelled from in front of me, still pulling my hand behind him.

  I looked behind me and saw that Vanessa was running right with us, keeping our pace matched. I wondered what would become of her now, since she was the one that had turned me in, the alien they hadn't expected. I had thought that we have grown to be close friends in the time we had spent together and it hurt me to know that she had thrown me over to the government that she had said she hated time and time again.

  I looked back in front at Brandon and saw the tip of our ship just above the trees and sighed with relief. There was nothing I wanted more than to just get off of this planet and go back home to people that wouldn't try to dissect me. Even the pollution didn't seem quite so bad at that moment.

  I felt myself slowing down and looked down at my legs, which were still quite numb from all of the electricity they had pumped through them over the past few hours. I was surprised to see that my gray pants were not only streaked with dirt from standing in a dank and dirty room, but they had lines of blood seeping through them as well.

  Whatever small amounts of scabs that had formed over the slashes had obviously broken free from the running and were bleeding once again. Actually seeing the blood seemed to break my mind from the numbness in my legs, because as soon as I realized they were openly bleeding, the pain hit me. I gasped as I moved my legs, stabs of pain that felt like I was running through shards of glass.

  I started to slow even more, tears burning my eyes as the pain became almost unbearable. The only way to keep going was to concentrate on Brandon's hand in mine, pulling me along.

  Feeling me slow down, Brandon turned to look at me and seeing the look on my face, he slowed down long enough to glance down at my legs. I watched his eyes widen as he slowed to a walk and stopped running.

  "Randi!" He yelled, grabbing me as I lost all use of my legs and fell forward into his arms.

  He picked me up and held me in his arms like a newlywed husband would carry his bride over the threshold.

  "What's the matter with her?" I heard Vanessa say breathlessly behind me.

  "Her legs are bleeding! I'm going to have to carry her the rest of the way to the ship! Come on!" he yelled, as he started to run again with me in his arms.

  I held on to his neck as tightly as I could to avoid being bounced too much in the running. I shouldn't have worried about that because Brandon ran like a sleek gazelle, graceful and smooth.

  We reached the ship and ran inside, straight for the living quarters. I looked behind Brandon and saw that Vanessa had stopped just outside of the door, looking slowly inside with an uneasy look on her face.

  "Brandon, Vanessa didn't come in" I said quietly in his ear.

  I felt him nod and he slowly lowered me down onto the small couch that was in the common area. Once I was down he turned and went back to Vanessa, talking to her in a quiet voice that I couldn't hear.

  She walked inside, looking around but still walking quickly toward me. Brandon turned toward the controls as she came over to me and looked down at my legs.

  "Brandon told me to get your pants off so that he can help your legs. Is that okay?" she asked, obviously scared of crossing some line that had been drawn.

  "Yes, but please be careful, the wounds are stinging" I said, wiggling my pants down as far as I could without help.

  She reached down and slowly peeled my pants away from the open wounds. I hissed and braced myself against the couch as pain shot needles up my body.

  "I'm sorry" She said.

  I gritted my teeth, "Don't worry about it, just get them off!" I said as loudly as I could manage.

  After only a few of the most grueling seconds of my life, she finally had my pants down past the wounds and for a blessed second I felt some relief.

  I took a deep breath and looked down at my legs, gasping as I saw the damage that was done. My thighs looked like raw hamburger meat, with so many slashes in my skin, that most of the skin was nearly impossible to see. Blood was slowly oozing thickly out of each cut and running down my legs onto the sofa.

  My vision blurred as I looked down at myself and realized that the tears I had been holding back were now flowing. I reached up and wiped my cheeks as I looked up at Vanessa, who was standing over my legs, holding her hands over her open mouth. As she looked up at me, I saw that she also had tears streaming down her tanned cheeks.

  "What did they do to you?" she asked, horrified.

  "Well, they kept poking with an electric rod, and when I wouldn't talk they eventually got mad enough to start cutting me with it. They went just a little overboard" I said.

  "Okay I have the first aid kit" Brandon said, coming around the corner with a large red suitcase.

  I groaned, knowing that he was going to have to touch my sensitive legs. "Please hurry" I said, hoping to get this done so that we could get out of here.

  He nodded and opened it up, digging around until he found what he was looking for.

  "Okay, Vanessa I am going to need you to hold Randi's hand. Randi, this is a disinfectant, and I'm sorry baby, but it's going to hurt." He said.

  Vanessa walked over and grabbed my hand and I closed my eyes and braced myself for the pain. I heard a bottle cap opening, then felt Vanessa's hand grip harder as the cool liquid rushed over my legs. For a split second, the cold felt good. But then the pain started, it was a searing pain that could only be equated with someone dowsing acid onto your face.

  I screamed as tiny needles of pain shot up my legs, tears streaming down my face, and beads of sweat instantly forming on my forehead.

  "I am going to dress it now Randi, almost done!" Brandon yelled.

  I kept my eyes closed as I felt slight pressure on my legs in segments, then sighed with relief as I felt a soothing balm going onto the wounds right before they were being covered with what I assumed were bandages.

  I finally opened my eyes as Brandon was putting a thick paste onto the last set of cuts just above my knees and covering it with white gauze, taping it down on the sides that were untouched.

  He lo
oked up at me, tears lining his cheeks. I reached out and pulled him to me, wiping away the tears that I had never before seen him shed. He laid his head down onto my chest and held onto me as though I was going to float away.

  I looked up at Vanessa, whose tears were still streaming down her face, "I'm so sorry Randi. I didn't know they would do this to you" she said.

  I gave her a weak smile, "I know. You saved me. You both saved me" I said before blacking out.

  ***

  I opened my eyes and looked around, for a second confused as to where I was. I turned my head and saw Vanessa and Brandon sitting at the small table, watching me silently.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  Brandon stood up and came over to me, "You passed out after I finished tending to your legs" he said.

  I suddenly remembered and looked down at my legs, which were still bandaged from the tops of my thighs, all the way down to just above my knees.

  "Oh, sorry" I said.

  Brandon smiled, "Don't be sorry" he said.

  "How long was I out?" I asked.

  He shrugged, "Not long, maybe twenty minutes or so" he said.

  I slid my leg to the side, remembering the sight of the blood flowing onto the couch, and saw that there was quite a large puddle under my legs.

  "Brandon, can you help me move? I don't want to lie in this blood. I can sit up in a chair at the table" I said.

  He lifted me into a standing position and grabbed a few moist towelettes from the first aid kit and cleaned the back of my legs, which were crusting with drying blood.

  After my legs were reasonably clean, he helped me sit down in a chair. I looked over at Vanessa, who was sitting in her chair, looking down at the table.

  I looked over at Brandon as he pulled a chair from the desk in the corner, "Look. We need to talk about this. I want to go home. I know we talked about leaving early, and with the government knowing about me, they are going to do nothing but keep hunting until they find me. I see it as our cover is blown and we need to get the hell out of dodge."

  "I agree, I think we should leave immediately" Brandon said from beside me.