by Dave Welch
I breathed through my nose while struggling to sit up.
“I can’t! It hurts!”
“I’m coming over there,” whispered Okani.
She fell to her side and then onto her back. She used her legs and her shoulders to scoot her body over to me. She moved fluidly and with ease, like a worm or a slug. I was amazed at how she defied the room’s overly dense interior and vandalizing gravity.
She curled up beside me, aligning my head with her midsection. I grew a bit nervous when this happened.
“Smell me…” she whispered into my ear.
“Hey! Hey! What yawl saying over there?” growled Corey.
I breathed in her sweet nectar, and her pheromones calmed my troubled state miraculously. I mean, the pain was still there, but just not as potent.
I lifted my eyes to the ceiling of this hell-bound cell. It was then when I fell in love with Okani.
“You like Jones…you always doing some crazy shit,” the Speedster uttered.
“Hush, Corey. It’s working.” She replied.
“Sorry about that, Derrick. I only pick on you because I like you.” Corey said.
“Tis true. He doesn’t speak to the people that he hates or doesn’t know.” Okani added.
“This isn’t the work of God. It’s aliens,” Quincy blurted.
“—Oh yea?” Corey inserted.
“-We’ve been…abducted.”
“And we bout to die too. Humans don’t come back from abductions, Q.”
“End your negative spout, brother. No one’s going to die,” Okani softly insisted.
I was still taking her in with every breath I made. She smelled just as fresh as she did that night at the stadium.
“You sure about that?” The speed demon asked. “Huh? How many times you dun’ been abducted and lived to talk about it?”
“True.” Quincy grumbled. “We don’t know what’s about to happen. This is a fact that no one wants to accept. But it’s happening to us now. We should all be afraid.”
“Damn right! I’m bout to shit my pants now. The only thing holding it in is this hard ass floor.” Corey chuckled.
We all laughed, including me, in all of my watered-down pain.
“You’re disgusting, Corey.” Okani giggled.
“Always finding comedy in the storm.” The clergy added.
“This shit inevitable. Ya’ dig? Might as well be happy. I can’t wait to see what they look like,” Corey motioned as his lips shook in fear. “So, are we in a spaceship or a building?”
“It’s hard to tell,” Quincy muttered.
“Anybody gotta watch or cell phone?” I painfully asked.
“Everything mechanical or technological is gone.” Okani answered. “They took my purse too.”
“Yeah, man, I put my cell phone on vibrate when I realized I was being abducted. Didn’t want to piss ’em off, you know? Shit, I dun’ passed out about three times now,” said the Speedster.
“How long have you guys been here?” I questioned.
“It feels like about ten minutes,” Corey informed. “I mean, I still got food from the football game sitting on my stomach. That’s what um’ bout to shit out into my clothes once I-”
“-Ten minutes!” I yelled with interjection.
“Why?” Quincy asked.
“You guys have been missing for about three weeks.”
We all paused in communication as a loud sound jammed our eardrums. The clanging of heavy locks opened the arrant fear of this hardship.
A dazzling light followed in, blinding us completely.
Without making physical contact, something grabbed Okani, sliding her powerlessly over the floor.
Croom!
She crashed into the wall with a deafening grunt.
I knew she was dead by the speed of the jolt.
We had been rendered immobile and speechless.
The beings greeted us swiftly, entering the coarse room.
I couldn’t readily make them out. But I felt them and their aura, or their spirit. Whatever it was, it was strong, extraordinarily strong, and unpleasant. It became a vocal attack, and without them speaking, we fell under their control.
They came directly over to me. But I couldn’t move. It felt like I had broken all my bones in my attempt to stand. They grabbed me nevertheless, one by each of my shoulders.
My constraints dropped from my wrists, thudding to the hard floor.
They lifted me up to my buttocks, and all of my pains, broken bones, and illnesses disappeared in an instant. It was angelic in nature, sort of like magic in a sense. I had been cured from the touch of their hand alone.
I felt like a piece of domesticated cattle as they dragged me out of the super dense room like a couple of savages. I watched, forlorn and helplessly as I could clearly see all my friends now.
Corey and Quincy shook to a rattle, whimpering like upset parents, as Okani rolled to her side.
They grew smaller and smaller with every meter of distance my couriers put between us.
The doors to the hard cell began to close as my friends faded into their petrifying confines.
Okani trembled frenetically, gazing with weary eyes. And right before I lost perception of my queen, I read her lips, whispering fervidly in my departure.
“Crane…”
I tried to look at my carriers, but I couldn’t make eye contact. I could only look to my immediate left or right.
The sounds of alien mischief filled the atmosphere. The noises were unexplainable and hypnotically trancing. This so-called hall drag was profound and almost liberating. I saw colors that I never knew existed. But the mechanics and dense foggy areas were but a prelude for what was yet to come.
I was in so much shock and amazement that I couldn’t look at just one thing for long. My head was on a swivel. I was turning everywhere. There were so many engines and devices grand in scale, all connecting in an unforeseen fashion.
There was one machine that caught my eye. Its buttons and various parts were moving, shifting, and sometimes merging with its own parts and hinges. By the time I looked away from this machine, it had become an entirely different piece of gadgetry. I had watched this massive machine for so long that I felt myself dozing off. But my eyes stapled open.
We later approached a bisecting hall.
Upon turning into the hall, I faced a large opening. It appeared to be an oversized holding cell. I saw a creature sitting Indian style in the middle of this room. He sat with his back facing the doorway. The creature wasn’t bound or restrained at all. And the door to this room was wide open. My carriers could not tell because they were facing the opposite direction, or maybe they didn’t care. Suddenly, the creature’s head lifted.
The creature appeared to be a male. His skin was very clean, silky, and black as the night sky. His body resembled that of a human structure. He had arms and legs like a human. Yet atop of his head were a pair of antennae. They stood straight into the air with small, dark yellow buds at the ends. The antennae were very thin, almost like two long strands of hair. There were also two very thin red lines (equally centered) stemming from the top of his head. The lines traveled over and down his back. This being had no hair, but he was arrayed with definition.
He had muscles on top of muscles. It was way beyond the normal human fascia. It was heavier in density; this I could tell even from my adequate distance.
His muscles were moving and traveling in every direction. Now by human means, this feat was physically impossible. However, this creature seemed to be doing this on his own.
It fascinated me.
I watched engrossingly as his trapezius muscles traveled from his back and up to his shoulders. Both of his pecs shifted around his back, and his trapezius settled in his chest area. His abdominals swiveled around his back and shifted down. Another set of abs toggled from under his chest cavity immediately replaced them. I saw his biceps, triceps and forearm muscles all advance up and down his arms. This obscured movement
did not trouble the creature. I guess he must’ve been using this as a workout or some form of meditation. In all, I was terrified and concerned because his cell door was wide open.
I wasn’t sure if the being was a threat or not, but he had a masterful, God-like feel about him. The more I stared, the more I faulted in my understanding. Then, he finally turned his head all the way around. The creature looked to be just as surprised when he made eye contact with me. When he did, I couldn’t turn away. I was somehow mentally trapped.
Without opening his mouth, he spoke demonically in dialect…
“Co—fi—oo—su—naa.”
The sound was terrifying.
This was no ventriloquism. I had never heard a voice transmit without the use of a vocal box. So, of course, my tough exterior shattered. The action sent my mind into a damaging flummox. I wanted to yell for help, but the creature vanished, compelling me with thousands of already entangled stimuli.
The hall drag ended when my carriers approached another massive hall. And, I could tell from my view because the width of the flooring had tripled in size.
My carriers spoke in a dialect quite different from that of the black-skinned creature. I wanted to see what was happening, but I couldn’t turn around. It was then when I noticed that one of my carriers was only a huge blob of goo and tentacles. He was extremely scary and inconceivably hideous.
Then, I heard a large set of doors opening. A host of different voices followed with numerous other sounds that traveled briefly through the massive corridor.
My carriers sat me on the dense floor. I heard a pair of heels, as another being walked over to me.
I looked up to visually capture… a woman?
She was beautiful, just like a human beautiful. She had a mild complexion with a noticeably clear and almost ceramic appearance to her skin. She was a brunette, and her hair was wound up in a silky cloth material. Her clothing was different and costly looking. It was rugged and dark, like gothic attire.
She reached out to my face and grabbed my lips. She held them firmly for a moment. Her hands were ridiculously hot. I could feel gears and wires turning within her fingers as she dug into my psyche.
“Speak human.” She demanded as she let go.
I scrambled for words. I honestly didn’t know what to say. I guess because I didn’t expect this gorgeous woman to speak English.
“What is your name?” She asked.
“Arlo,” I said.
“Your full name.”
“Arlo Tempest Crane.” I quickly inserted.
She then looked up and over my head. She gestured upwards, and my carriers lifted me from the floor. They sat me on an exceptionally clean and thoroughly sanitized surface. It was a cold table and way more comfortable than the ground below.
“I’ll take it from here!” yelled a gruesome and degraded voice.
The gorgeous woman and my carriers all walked away as a supreme silence grew. Even the noise from the machines silenced.
I still couldn't move. I felt somewhat paralyzed.
The drama and anticipation of the oncoming drove me mad. But I could only wait…
A fragment of time passed when another being came, slowly approaching my side. I hadn’t been filled with so much fear in my whole life. What I was witnessing should’ve killed the average human.
I didn’t want to believe it, but I had to.
This being seemed to be made of wood and or possibly ancient tree bark. His facial features were of human descent, and so was his skeletal frame. This wooden man was covered in tattoos, or maybe they were engravings of some kind. He was nearly naked except for the dingy loincloth that wrapped about his pelvic region. The biggest kicker of all (even though this man was predominantly composed of wood) was that this being had no legs or arms. The man had nothing to support or to hold up his body. He mysteriously and mind-bogglingly floated in the air, gracefully denouncing gravity.
I looked over and under the wooden man as much as I could for some type of explanation. I was hoping to see if there could be a form of assistance stemming from him. There was no way he was just floating like that. It had to be wires or some type of magnetic device.
He was extremely ugly, old, and just as horrifying as astonishing. But I continued to analyze the wooden man. He, in the same instance, scrutinized with my wandering eyes.
“Your globular organs do not deceive you,” said the wooden man.
“There is only more mystery to this comprehension. I am the beginning of all ends— the start of your humanity’s finish line. I am the physical etheric of several thousand overlapping realities. The god over gods’ reign.” He deeply addressed while floating closer towards me.
“…Are you Jesus? You’re Jesus, aren’t you?” I boomed with caution.
The wooden man dropped his wrinkly head and giggled.
“No… But he’s here, in the east wing. He and I are meeting for tea later.” He hissed, lifting his head in a terrorizing manner.
His black starry eyes were piercing like small daggers. But what the wooden man said next trumped every card in my deck.
“…Humanity…poor humanity. You have become a part of something so grand that it’ll make supreme beings look like scavengers, vagabonds. I know a deity whose job is to create suns for several microcosms.
Your poor humanity is in a toddler’s stage.
Every continuation, every universe, being, super or divine extraterrestrial response, decisions, and actions all stem from us. Every creation, TV show, belief system or book, fiction or nonfiction, graphic novel or comic has its place because of us.
Everything you have ever known answers to us on a mental scale that you may never grasp. At least not on this side of reality. But you, my friend… you have been elected by a group of important celestials. And I am their daddy.” He announced with a serious face.
I was totally outdone. All that I had ever learned ended abruptly. My mind opened like a bottle under pressure. It was then when I realized how vast space and its possibilities had become.
I was in big trouble.
Suddenly, an image projected itself into my head. The wooden man was there in my thoughts, standing just as he was. Only this time, he had arms and legs. He reached out to shake my hand. In return, I grasped his old wrinkly palm.
His grip was intense.
My hand was extending out, firmly shaking his invisible hand. This connection was so real, even though the man was a floating quadriplegic. Somehow, my imagination or conscious mind had vanquished my physical existence. And for that short moment, my thoughts became my actuality ̶ my world in realistic perception. How palpable could this be? This mental impression?
“I am Guitussami…but you can call me Colonel G,” he grumbled while firmly shaking my hand.
The journey through this massive spacecraft lasted forever.
Colonel G explained so much to me until I began to view my own skin’s solidarity from an entirely different aspect. By his terms, humanity was obsolete or too young in our technological advancements.
The most interesting story he shared; was how he lost his limbs. Plainly, Colonel G was so old that his archaic limbs became too heavy. One day, they simply fell from his body.
But Colonel G had access to all of his brain. He was so immersed in wisdom and knowledge that he understood reality. He knew how it all worked. He could’ve easily reattached his limbs just by telekinesis. But the ancient titan simply didn’t need them anymore. Now, his Layian telepathy completes the task that his limbs once did, with even greater ease. This explained the handshake and the weightless floating of his body.
The table and I had been following alongside the Colonel for the entire length of our trip. I had so many questions, but the Colonel was so many steps ahead of me. Before I could ask any thing, he would already be answering. The awesomeness of this conglomerate should’ve killed me several times over. Yet something sustained me. Indefinitely.
“We have a different plan for you.”
The Colonel expressed as he gracefully floated beside me and my hovering table.
I felt that the archaic being and I had begun to bond. I figured the quadriplegic as a friend.
“Now, the beings here are quite distinct and brash in spirit. Don’t expect this gentle nature. You will undergo a horrific experiment that will utterly change your entire chemical makeup from the inside out. And then, you will die.” He mumbled as we slowly floated to a very large mechanical door.
“I figured you wouldn’t mind the company of death since you were so eager to meet it. An odd being it is…” He acknowledged.
I looked at him strangely, for I was kind of glad, but I still wanted to know more.
We finally approached a massive door.
Colonel G hovered ahead as my table stopped a few feet away.
He floated over to a large device by the door.
Mechanical noises and computer-like voices emitting from the device.
Suddenly, the massive doors opened, and a bright light pierced through.
I laid behind Guitussami, watching closely as he peeped hesitantly over his shoulder.
“You are no more…” He whispered.
I shivered in fear as Colonel G floated to the side.
The suspended table and I, drifted slowly into the light.
“Wait! Wait a minute!” I screamed.
I glanced about as I floated by the Colonel and into the hallway.
“Hey!” I shouted.
Colonel G dropped his head as the tail end of the floating table finally passed.
I snatched my head back around to see a figure in the far distance of the hallway. Whatever it was, it was moving fast.
As the figure gained in perception, I saw that this was a doctor. He was in a long white lab coat, running right towards me. This doctor was old. He had very wild gray, almost snow-white hair— he sort of resembled Einstein. As a matter of fact, I think he was Einstein.
The doctor stopped--well, he slowed momentarily beside the floating table.
“I’ll be right with you,” he inserted as he dashed behind me.
“Heyyy! What the fuck!” I screamed while scuffling to get off the table.