Viole[n]t Skies

by Derek Baker

  The alien that had foolishly left me alone moments before ran back in with two thin, long cylinders that I knew were going cause me harm. It spoke in its strange language with the two guards, likely asking them what happened. They replied in the same speech, but their reply seemed to have angered the first alien. It came at me, bearing all of its sharp yellow teeth. Its menacing facial expression deepened my fear. I would’ve killed to be back on that sinking ship with no escape of death imaginable when compared to this. The tears that had filled my eyes were now running down my face. Gradually, my resistance had worn down and my screams had turned into low sobs. Submission was the only option, my fighting spirit broken.

  This alien who I had by now taken to be a doctor or scientist took one of the cylinders and removed its cap to reveal a long needle. Then, before I knew it or could prepare for it, the needle was jutted deep into my left knee. Instantly, my entire leg trembled in pain: first sharp, then a throbbing sensation. The other cylinder, as I might have guessed, proved to be for the same purpose, only for my right leg. A very uncomfortable tingling sensation then proceeded to work its way throughout both of my legs and feet. I still could do nothing about it as I was being held down by the guards. Whatever was happening to me, I could not stop.

  In a few short moments, the entire lower half of my body was numb. The doctor, testing this with pinches to both legs, then walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a box full of instruments certain to continue this hellish torture, whatever it was. I noticed the outside of the box was laced with the same material that our suits composed, keeping it from floating around. Surely enough when the box opened up, the instruments began floating up and I came to the undeniable conclusion that this material was what gave the sense of false gravity.

  Obviously I didn’t have much time to be amazed at the discovery of this advanced technology. Once more without warning the doctor took an instrument that resembled pliers and ripped the nails from my big toes, making sure that I was able to see it. I had no time to brace myself for the shock, rather than the pain, that it caused. Rather than shouting out as I had earlier, I barely responded to this torture. I looked in horror as my nails were placed into a small clear container. The alien then proceeded to shave all the hair from my legs. It was very careful about this procedure, making sure all the hair floated into another container it had prepared. The wonders of activities performed in space as opposed to on Earth.

  Nothing could have prepared me, however, for what came next. Using a few of its instruments, the alien doctor very tediously stuck another needle into my right knee, just under my knee cap. I had no choice but to watch as this was happening. A surgical knife was drawn out and with a grunting thrust, the blade was shoved underneath the knee cap and poked out on the other end. Nausea swept over me and I gagged at the sight. Physical pain was transposed into mental pain. I dry heaved as the skin was cut off and exposed the bone. With another instrument, the knee cap was torn completely out from my leg. The next thing I knew, I had blacked out.

  Chapter 10

  My dreams no longer consisted of drowning and other aquatic adventures, but rather of aliens conducting experiments on me. Each nightmare was more dreadful than the one before. Severed limbs, open heart surgery while still conscious, having my tongue cut out from my mouth, all horrible things imaginable occupied my consciousness while I recovered.

  What felt like days passed before I woke up again from the shock of being forced to watch the alien doctor remove my knee cap. When my eyes opened, I immediately lifted my head to see that I was still in the medical room where it had all happened. Much to my relief, there were no aliens present, but when I looked over at the bed to my right there, to my inconceivable speechlessness, was none other than Alexander.

  How I had missed him! Though it saddened me to know he had probably gone through the same ugly mess that I had endured, it was comforting to know he was still alive and there with me. The last time I had seen him, we were on Earth, where there was no material to simulate gravity and no tanks to hold people in an induced coma. Not to mention, there were only humans in the life I had known.

  I tried to get up, but I was strapped down. These aliens were anything but stupid; they weren’t keen to let me easily attempt to slip away again, not after the last time. After a moment of useless struggle, I quit from the obvious fatigue that hampered me. With my hand, however, I managed with great effort to reach down to my knee. There was a great deal of bandages over it, but much to my surprise, I could feel my knee cap back in place underneath. So the bastards put it back in. Had they taken it out to study it, or just torture me? Each seemed equally plausible. I winced at the sharp pain groping my knee gave me, but the relief of knowing I wasn’t going to be crippled for the rest of my life made the discomfort more than worth it. I lay there emotionless, staring at the patterned ceiling above, in deep thought.

  A short while later, I heard Alexander moaning in his slumber, lulling me from my meditation. Then, with a voice that sounded nothing like mine, I choked out his name a couple times. I couldn’t recall the last time I had spoken, and my mind quickly explored this avenue of bewilderment caused from my own voice as I saw Alexander’s eyes slowly open and dart over in my direction. He looked pretty bad, like he’d been mugged or something, but I’m sure I probably looked fairly similar. His face wore an expression of total exhaustion, like someone who was an insomniac.

  “Damn,” Alexander muttered almost inaudibly, “you don’t know how glad I am to see you here.”

  Before this whole incident, Alexander and I had basically just met. I hardly knew anything about him. After everything had happened, though, he was all I had left, the only proof of everything I could remember, the only fragment of hope. He was all the evidence I needed to convince myself that I wasn’t going insane, that all of this wasn’t in my head. Alexander, at this point, was my last fragment of my old life that these aliens had taken away from me.

  “I think I can imagine,” I said, and, after hesitating, asked, “what did they do to you?”

  “Well, I woke up in a strange tube filled with water or something and then I was sucked out into a tunnel leading to this room. An alien carried me over to this bed and that’s when I saw you. You were asleep though, and when I tried to call your name to wake me up they got mad and put something over my mouth to keep me from making noise. Then they put me into this suit that took away the weightlessness. And then, they…they…uh…”

  “They what?” I knew it would have to be gruesome.

  “They… I… can’t say. It was horrible.”

  “Come on, man, I was awake while I watched them rip the knee cap out straight out of my god damned leg. Was it anything like that?”

  “No,” he replied grimly, his voice lowering, “it was worse.”

  I decided that very moment wouldn’t be the best time to make Alexander relive the whole incident, so I changed the subject.

  “How long do you think we’ve been gone?”

  “I don’t have a damn clue; I just know we’re in space. This ship we’re on seems too big to have been the one that landed, though.”

  I nodded in agreement. “If I had to guess, I’d bet they’re taking us back to their home planet. This is their ‘mothership.’”

  “Straight out of a damn sci-fi novel, I swear.”

  “Sure we’re not just dreaming this?” I asked cynically.

  “Wouldn’t bet on it, did it hurt when they ripped out your knee?”

  “Like hell.”

  “I suppose we’re not dreaming, then.”

  I shivered at the thought of what would be in store for us two, imagining what this alleged planet that we were travelling to was like. It could be just like our planet Earth, with blue skies, mountains, hills, oceans, rivers, land masses stretching pole to pole. Then again, it could be completely different. For all we knew, this planet might not even support life as we know it. However, I quickly dispelled that thought due to the fact that these alien
s breathed the same air as we did, which reassured me that this would more than likely not be the case.

  “You know, this is all making me wonder,” I said, “if all those conspiracy theories of the past were actually all true. Maybe the most powerful governments in the world actually were holding aliens prisoner in Area 51 all this time. How else would we know so much about how different alien civilizations might work and how they might live in their own environment? I mean, just think about it, man.”

  “That’s definitely something to consider, but these aren’t the little green men that are trying to invade Earth. You and I both know these things are nothing like that,” Alexander replied.

  “I guess… I just don’t know what to believe anymore now,” I resigned.

  “Nor do I, but I’m sure we’ll find out.”

  The conversation ended at that.

  A short while later, the silence that had taken over except for the hum of the ship which I figured must be traveling through space at lightning speeds was broken by Alexander’s short, rhythmic sobs. He had kept it together while we had been talking, but the emotions were now rolling out, so it seemed. I couldn’t imagine what they must have done to him, and indeed, I didn’t find out until a long time after.

  I fell back into unconsciousness for another while longer until Alexander and I were awoken by the very set of guards that had pinned me and Alexander down during our respective torture sessions. They motioned for us to get up, unfastening our straps that had kept us in place. We were each wearing the suits that gave one a sense of gravity.

  When I rose from the bed, I was almost amazed that my legs no longer carried the same weakness they had previously. I found that with ease I could walk again. Not only that, but my knee that had suffered dismantlement didn’t even give me the slightest bit of discomfort, let alone any pain. It was as if one of the doctors had given me some amazing medicinal remedy that made me feel like a new man. With one guard at the front and one in the rear, the pair led us out of the medical room and into the bright hallway I had seen upon my first day in that room.

  I twisted my neck both ways to find that the hallway was littered with doors like the one we had passed through on both sides going down either way. We turned right out the door and headed down until the end of the hallway which then led to a special looking door, a symbol distinguishing its specific function, whatever it was for I couldn’t tell. As unwilling as I was in my mind to not cooperate with these barbaric aliens, I didn’t dare try to make trouble this time around for fear that more experiments would be summarily conducted on me. Perhaps worse than the first time.

  This unique door turned out to be the entrance to an elevator into which we were led by the fiendish guards. It was laid out much the same way that elevators would be on Earth, with a series of buttons next to the door on the inside with which one could choose a floor to travel up or down to. One of the guards pressed a button with another strange symbol that I couldn’t hope to recognize, but the lurching motion of the elevator sent us up. The whole time, we stood at one end of the lift while the armed creatures kept a close eye on us from the other end, staring intently with those crescent-shaped eyes that had haunted my nightmares.

  Up close, their features were ever more prominent: those beady crescent-shaped eyes I just mentioned, the tendrils jutting out from the tops of their heads, the menacing jaws that they constantly barred, and especially their two-thumbed hands that probably allowed for all sorts of functions I couldn’t do with my own.

  With the lift gradually coming to a smooth stop, the door opened to reveal another hallway. This one, though, had significantly less doors on each side, as opposed to the one before. I could see at the end of this hallway was another special looking door, which I assumed to be another elevator. The guards led us to this door, but what was on the other side was anything but another elevator.

  This room we had come into appeared to be the main bridge of this vessel; the source from which everything on the ship was controlled. Everywhere there were dazzling buttons and display screens that kept the ship’s pilots in constant control of navigation among other things. At the front of the bridge were windows through which we could see for certain we were indeed in space. Never before had I seen so many stars, thousands, millions in all directions that I could see. If only I could have been there as an astronomer and not a prisoner! In the distance, we could make out a purplish looking planet that I never seen before in my life, which I know now to have been their home planet. The room was filled with these aliens going about their daily routine, but everything seemed to stop as soon as we had entered.

  All their eyes fell to rest on Alexander and me as were pushed towards a large chair in the middle of the bridge. The chair swung around, and sitting in it was an alien larger than most of the ones I had seen. The fabric it wore was of a different color than any other, and so I took this particular creature to be the captain of this ship. The eyes all around I could feel studying the pair of us, taking in our features. It occurred to me that we could be the very first humans that this group of aliens had ever seen by the way they were staring.

  Letting out that sound I had interpreted to be laughter previously, the alien in the chair began to speak to us in its unintelligible language. Alexander and I looked at each other, as if trying to figure out from one another what the captain had said to us, as it was obviously trying to communicate with us.

  The leader repeated whatever it had said before, but it was proved futile trying to get the message across to us. Exhaling sharply in annoyance, the fed up alien barked out the word, “Chym!”

  An alien that had been busy at work turned around on the other side of the main room and walked briskly over to its captain. To my astonishment though, this alien who had been addressed as Chym was nothing like the rest of these creatures. Somehow I hadn’t noticed before, but it was clear that this was definitely not part of the same species as the others. My mind raced as I studied the alien that had been addressed as “Chym.”

  Its head was shaped like that of a dinosaur’s, with a long nose and mouth extending from the rest of its face. Not a carnivorous one, but more like a passive one that showed in the kind expression it bore on its face. It had two eyes, but I couldn’t see any ears. Its stature was much skinnier and less intimidating than that of the other aliens, with skinny arms and legs and small but muscular torso. Before it turned around, I saw that it in fact had two small wings on its back. I noticed further that its hands and feet looked much like those of a bird’s, with large, sharp talons extending from all ligaments. Complete with hairless, tan skin, it stood about a head shorter than me.

  Barely having time to take in the wonders of this new species, the captain barked another set of words at this Chym. It spoke at length, until finally the new alien looked at me and spoke in formal English:

  “Welcome, guests. You fine gentlemen of Earth are aboard the ship that my comrades, the Wendrans, call Tinzyick. It was been with much displeasure that our captain Riquaor has been forced to transport you away from your home world for fear that you may cause panic and unrest among the humans. He would like enquire of you, however, your intentions and for what reason you attacked his scouting ship upon the surface of your planet.”

  He? That solved my dilemma over whether these aliens had different genders.

  Alexander replied to this Chym who had addressed us: “I don’t know how you can speak English, but it was definitely not our goal to attack or do anything to harm your captain Riquaor’s scouting ship and its occupants. You see, we’ve never seen anything except humans and other species native to Earth throughout our entire lives. We wanted to know more about these so-called Wendrans, just as you probably wanted to know more about us. It was only curiosity.”

  Chym replied to the captain, to which the captain again spoke in its demanding tone towards the interpreter of languages. Chym turned back to us.

  “Riquaor finds fault in your words, I am afraid. He states that
he was informed by his lieutenant that you possessed bizarre weapons aimed towards the scout ship with which you hoped to thwart the Wendrans’ efforts of scientific exploration.”

  I stepped into the conversation. “Those weren’t weapons. Those are instruments we humans use to look at the sky. They make it so we can see objects in the sky at a much closer point of view. Perhaps your scout ship didn’t notice, but the night we were kidnapped was the same night that Halley’s Comet was passing by Earth. We were looking at it until we saw your ship land.”

  We waited a moment as the process of translation took place. Chym replied, “The captain has not the patience for deception. Until you and your companion can manage to utter the truth, the both of you shall be confined to the ship’s brig. That will be all.”

  With this failure to communicate, Captain Riquaor ordered our guards to take us away. As we turned away, I by chance noticed Chym give what appeared to be a wink. I was perplexed, as I wasn’t sure what to make of his expression. Perhaps to his species a wink was a sign of spite or contempt. Then again, if he understood our language, perhaps he understood much more about us than I thought.

  I knew then that I so desperately wanted to speak with Chym when he was not under supervision by this Captain Riquaor. Whatever he was, Chym was not one of these vile Wendrans who had tortured me and dealt worse damage to Alexander. He had a much kinder demeanor, and though I couldn’t prove that his wink was genuine, I felt like I could trust the unique creature.

  But if it wasn’t the wink that made me like this Chym, then it was when I swore I saw him mouth the words “Don’t worry” when I looked back one last time before the door to the bridge sealed shut.

  Alexander and I were led back through the long hallway and into the elevator. This time, we traveled down, (if that was possible in space) all the way to the bottom of the ship. When the door opened we saw not another brightly lit hallway but a dark chamber with cells that lined the walls on all sides. Most of them were empty, but a few held other Wendrans and yet more aliens the likes of which I had never encountered.