by Lily Graison
“Humans,” he said, the words slightly accented. “Welcome to Prison Moon One.”
Prison Moon? That didn’t sound inviting.
Marcy leaned her way. “I hope his use of the word prison doesn’t mean the same thing it means back home.”
“Me either.”
“To prove we’re not heartless, we’re giving you two choices.” The Big Head’s voice boomed in the stillness. He pointed to the barren landscape to their left. “You can take your chances in the Wastes or,” he paused and pointed back to the jungle, “try to survive in there.”
The other Big Heads standing nearby made that weird chortling sound Sara came to recognize as laughter. Whatever the joke was, it was apparently on them.
“The Wastes are uninhabited but there’s very little food and even less water.” He shifted and pointed to the jungle. “In there, you’ll find fresh water, fresh meat if you’re lucky enough to catch and kill it, and an abundance of wild berries and fruits. It will be up to you to figure out which are poisonous and which are not.”
Someone in the front of the group snorted and said, “I’ll pick door number two.”
Sara couldn’t agree more. The jungle held shelter and food. Only an idiot would stay in the Wastes.
The Big Heads fishy mouth split and it looked as if he was trying to smile. He glanced at the other aliens and they seemed to share in his amusement. “Here’s where the other shoe drops,” Sara whispered.
Marcy raised her hand and chewed her thumb nail. “I’m sure you’re right.”
“The jungle holds a few dangers. There are animals who will find you a tempting treat and will most likely kill you, so I suggest if you see one, you don’t linger to see if it’s friendly or not.” A few gasps from the girls cause the Big Heads to laugh again. “There are also high cliffs and sheer drop offs that you’ll need to be careful of, and—“
“Here it comes.”
He raised his huge head an inch higher. “There are the prisoners.”
Someone up front said, “Prisoners?”
Sara couldn’t see who said it, but it made little difference. Everyone had to be thinking the same thing.
“This is a prison moon,” Big Head continued. “A penal colony for the most dangerous beings in the galaxy. Death sentences are exchanged for banishment and as for the others, when no one else can control them, they are left here. And forgotten.”
“I guess it does mean the same thing, Marcy.”
“Aren’t we the lucky humans?”
The Big Head drew her attention by doing some weird thing with his mouth again that she assumed was a smile. “Aside from being home to the vilest creatures in the galaxy, Prison Moon One has a dual purpose. You would think life would never get boring in the vast reaches of space, but it does, so everything that happens on this little moon is live streamed to the far reaches of the solar system, and for a price, anyone can watch.” He paced to the far side of the doorway and pointed to the sky. “Those are the eyes and ears of this place. They see everything, and they’ll be watching you, constantly.”
Someone near the front of the group yelled, “For what?”
The Big Heads laughed again. “For our entertainment, of course.”
Sara turned to look at the monitors. They were huge, prism shaped, flying structures and as she watched, one piece broke off from the rest and flew over the jungle, another close behind the first. They were drones of some kind but far more sophisticated than anything she’d seen back on Earth. “Reality TV,” she whispered.
“What did you say?” Marcy asked.
“I said, it’s reality TV.” She shook her head. “It’s like those, lost in the wilderness, shows, where the camera follows people around and watches them try to survive.” She pointed to another set of the prism shaped drones as it broke off from the rest and headed their way. “Only this time, we’re the stars of the show. Us and those criminals they drop off and forget about.”
The Big Head’s voice rose, and Sara turned back to face him.
“Four times a year supplies are dropped off for the inmates,” he said. “Food, clothing, medicine. Nothing is rationed. It is every man for themselves here and everyone knows their place, but … the inmates get restless after being confined for long periods of time with nothing to do but fight to survive.”
Marcy took a step closer. “I have a very bad feeling.”
She did, too.
“Every six months we drop a special sort of supply.” His mouth pursed. “The species of aliens kept here vary but they all have one similarity—the desire to mate. That would be where you come in.”
Her heart slammed against her ribcage. “And there it is.”
“As this moon is home to mostly males, female companionship is a prize worth fighting over—so we let them. Some of them are sexually compatible with your kind, some are not, but they won’t care. They’ll mate with you anyway, regardless of the outcome.
“Some of you will be selected and extracted for The Arena Games. Those inmates not fast enough, or are unwilling to chase you, are allowed to battle to the death in order to claim you. Those of you not selected for the games will have to survive on your own and not get caught.” He nodded to the monitors hovering in the sky. “And the entire galaxy gets to watch as you try. So, you only have two choices. Let them catch you—or run.”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, Sara heard it. The rustle of branches, the pounding of feet against the ground, snarls and growls that filled the air loud enough she barely heard the massive door on the spacecraft close. She glanced at it as the hiss of air stirred the dirt around her. It was leaving.
She turned back to the jungle. The noise was getting closer, blood rushing past her ears so fast she was dizzy from the wild pulse of it.
The natives were coming.
She grabbed Marcy’s arm and tugged her forward, then grabbed Emma. “Move!”
“But they’re in there?” Emma screamed.
“Then die out here of starvation.”
She didn’t wait to see if either of them was going to follow. Honestly, she didn’t give a shit. She barely knew them, and their lives meant nothing to her but hers sure as hell did so—she ran.
She ran straight into the jungle where the snarling and growling grew louder and hoped like hell she didn’t meet what was on the other side.
Chapter Two
The temperature dropped twenty degrees when Sara stepped into the shelter of the trees. The thick canopy above her head blocked most of the sun, leaving the jungle a cool, crisp break from the oppressive heat of the Wastes.
The fear she felt when she first woke on the alien ship was nothing compared to now. Her heart hammered in her chest as if it would burst. Her eyes stung with tears she didn’t have time to shed and the urge to sit down and start screaming was so strong she had to force herself to not give in and do it.
A flash of movement to her right caught her attention. She glanced that way and saw Marcy. She shot her a look as they ran, jumping limbs and scrambling under brush until her lungs screamed for air and her legs ached from exertion.
The noise behind them grew. She looked over her shoulder and saw a mass of bodies in varying shapes and sizes, the snarls and growls turning into horrified screams, some human, some not. The human screams went silent a few moments later. She lifted her knees up higher, the phrase, run for your life, whispering through her head. She didn’t know what was happening to the other women who were on that ship with her and she didn’t have time to stop and find out, or mourn the fact she knew some of them weren’t going to make it. Neither would she if she didn’t keep going. Keeping Marcy in her peripheral, she ran until the pain in her legs and side were so intense tears filled her eyes, the noises behind her grew distant, and the trees in the jungle started to grow farther apart. Vines crawled stone walls and the smell of dirt and something that reminded her of wet moss filled the air.
A tree larger than any she’d ever seen in her li
fe loomed, in the distance. The trunk was as large as a building, gnarled roots stretching like bony fingers were half unburied and snaking across the ground. As they neared it, she stopped running.
The far side of the tree was sitting on a structure of some kind, the roots draping the top and running down the front to crawl back into the dirt. It was four stories tall, great columns standing sentry by the open doorway. Vines crawled up the face of the stone to partially hide it from view. The stone was crumbled in places and large pieces of the structure littered the ground. It was abandoned now, nothing more than half-fallen rubble and broken stone.
Marcy stopped beside her and leaned over, bracing her hands on her knees. Sara sucked in gasps of air, placed a hand on her side and tried to walk off the stitch of pain aching at her waist. She looked through the trees behind them. Whatever had been coming for them wasn’t any longer. The growls and shrieks were now silent.
“What do you think that was used for?”
Sara huffed out a breath and looked at the stone walls in front of them. “Hard to say.” She stopped pacing and faced the structure, looking up the length of it. It was massive, whatever it was. The entrance was big enough for six people to walk inside abreast. Strange writing covered a stone tablet over the door and ran down both sides. “A bigger question is, why is it here? If this is a prison moon, why build something like this only to let it go to ruin?”
Marcy stumbled to the structure and sat down near one of the huge columns flanking the door, resting her back against the crumbling stone. “I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t always a prison.”
“Maybe.” Sara turned in a slow circle, taking in the surrounding jungle. It was quiet here. Too quiet, actually. There wasn’t a rustle of leaves, not a chirp of insects or birds. The entire area was—tomblike. “Do you hear that, Marcy?”
Her new friend raised her head. “Hear what?”
“Exactly.”
Marcy raised an eyebrow.
“Listen.”
Long minutes passed as Marcy looked left, then right, before looking back at her. “It’s too quiet.”
She nodded and joined her next to the stone structure. “Think we should be worried?”
“When I hear something coming through the trees growling, then I’ll be worried.”
She had a point. Her legs ached as she lowered herself to the ground. “I can’t remember the last time I ate.”
“Me either. I’m starving.”
She gave the too-quiet jungle a once over. “You don’t suppose there’s a Shop n’ Save hidden out there somewhere, do you? I’d kill for a candy bar.”
Marcy snorted a laugh. “If only.”
“I know. I could drink a gallon of water, too.” She sat until her breathing returned to normal, then stood. “Now what?”
Marcy shrugged. “I don’t suppose hailing a cab will do much good.”
“Probably not.” She studied the surrounding jungle. There was nothing but trees and vines as far as she could see. “Do you want to stay here or move on and look for food and water? As much as I’d like to hide and never come out, the rule of three will take us out if we do.”
Marcy’s raised eyebrows said she had no idea what she was talking about.
“The rule of three. We can only go three weeks without food, three days without water, and three minutes without air. I’m not worried about the last one but the first two will kill us even if we manage to stay out of sight and nothing finds us.”
“Well, when you put it that way, food and water is the main priority.” Marcy stood and pulled down her short skirt. “I wish they would have given us something less revealing to wear. I feel naked in this getup.”
Sara ran her gaze over Marcy’s short dress. She was practically naked. She could see enough through the shimmery material to know Marcy preferred a bikini wax and was a true redhead. “I think the less part was on purpose.”
“So you don’t think the locals are going to eat us?”
Sara raised an eyebrow at her. “Define eat.”
Marcy made a face and shuddered. “Never mind.”
She moved away from the stone structure and stared into the jungle. It was still silent. Not hearing any birds or insects buzzing was just—eerie. It was as if nothing wanted to be here. Maybe they shouldn’t be either. “Which way should we go?” she asked, turning back to look at Marcy.
“I don’t know. It all looks the same to me.”
It did to her, too. “All right, then. Eenie-meanie-miny-mo.” She nodded to the right. “Let’s go this way.” They’d taken several dozen steps when Marcy grabbed her arm.
“Shhh. Listen.”
Sara stared at her. Marcy’s eyes were comically wide, her mouth forming a perfect, “O”. She heard what Marcy did a few moments later. The sound of feet against the ground, the steady thump of things running, the creak and crash of limbs breaking and falling. They were coming. “Oh, shit. What do you want to do?”
Marcy looked out into the surrounding jungle, fear shining in her eyes. “I don’t know.” When she turned and looked back at the stone structure, Sara did too. She had no idea what lay beyond that columned doorway but it couldn’t be any worse than what waited for them out here. She hoped.
The light streaming through the doorway only shined a short distance inside the darkened interior. Five steps in and she was plunged into darkness. Sara felt her way around, one hand on the wall to her right, each step cautious as the stone corridor gushed cold, stale air. She paused and looked behind her. “You still back there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
She nodded, not that Marcy could see her, and turned back to the darkness and continued walking. A few broken pieces of stone litter the floor. The sound they made when her foot connected with them was loud in the stillness, along with her hissed curses. Like the sorry excuse for a dress, the aliens hadn’t bothered giving them decent shoes as most of her foot was exposed.
She took careful steps and when her hand reached the end of the wall, she stopped. “The wall ends here.” Should she continue forward? The light was so faint she couldn’t even see her hand in front of her. Feeling along the stone, she felt the gentle curve that indicated another passageway veering off to the right. “I think there’s another hallway here.” She took a small step, tracing the wall with her hand and paused when Marcy grabbed the back of her dress.
“Lead the way,” she said. “I’m right behind you.”
They turned the corner and Sara stared into total darkness. Three steps in and she stopped. “I can’t see a thing, Marcy. I could lead us straight off into a bottomless pit for all I know.”
“Then we’ll go back.” A gentle tug on her dress and she turned, following Marcy around the corner. “Now what?”
“I don’t know.” They both look back to the sunny entrance. “I think I’d rather stay here in the dark than try to outrun whatever that is out there chasing us. Did you get a look at them?”
“No,” Marcy said. “I was too busy trying to outrun them to worry about what they looked like. If they are even half as ugly as those aliens on the ship, then I don’t want to meet any of them face to face. Let’s go back around the corner. I’d rather not be in plain sight of the entrance in case one of them looks inside. Unlike us, they may be able to see perfectly fine in the dark.”
They move back into the darkness and waited. The noise from outside grew louder as they stood there. Grunts and snarls, like they’d heard when they were told to run, filled the air and the sound of feet hitting the ground, the crash of vegetation being uprooted, and the occasional scream caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand on end.
The light from the entrance didn’t shine far up the corridor they came through leaving everything in total darkness but once Sara’s eyes adjusted to the low light, she saw a flickering, pale glow. “Do you see that, Marcy?”
“See what?”
She pointed to her left then lowered her arm knowing Marcy couldn’t see it. “Ov
er there to the left. That blue light.”
Marcy was silent for long moments then whispered, “I see it. What do you suppose it is?”
She had no clue. It could be a pool of crisp, clean water, a sanctuary filled with mounds of edible fruits, or the glow of some creature’s eyes. Stooping down she felt for a stone and stood when she had one, then tossed it toward the glow.
The light flickered, then more lit the area until she could see what appeared to be some sort of doorway. She peeked around the corner. Seeing no trace of the things looking for them, she darted across the dark corridor to the other side, stepping into the fissure she saw in the stone wall.
“Sara, where are you going?”
She shushed her and took a cautious step and peeked around the corner, then gasped. “Holy shit, Marcy. Come look at this.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure but you’ll want to see it.”
Shuffling noises filled the silence long moments before Marcy leaned against her back. Careful of where she stepped, she moved forward and stared at the cavern below. It was enormous, the air cool, and she could hear what she thought was the faint sound of running water. The chamber smelled musty with the scent of dirt and mold but something like a sweet perfume mingled with it. She closed her eyes and inhaled, a small tingle rushing through her veins as the scent seemed to fill every ounce of her being and she wanted to roll in it, pull it in close, and bury her face in whatever it was and live there forever.
“What is that stench?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you smell that?”
“I don’t smell anything bad. What’s it smell like?” A set of stone stairs led down into the cavern below and she turned her head to look at Marcy. “How stupid is it to go down there?”
Marcy studied the corridor behind them, the stone steps, then the twinkling lights high up on the ceiling. “No more than going back out into the jungle and waiting for the locals to find us.”
She had a point. “Shall we?”