I stumble and try to find the way I entered, but there's no clear path forward. I step through the thick leaves, weaving in and out of orchids and vine. I walk until the women are out of view, and the air is silent once more.
My breath is calm, but tears roll down my cheeks. I sniff and suck in my lip. I try to stop shaking. I can take a lot of things, but seeing the women is difficult.
As I hit the trees, I slow and turn my night vision on. The trees are giants, meant to guard over the jungle. Their branches span out into the skyline, allowing alpha rebels of all sorts to hide.
"They could be anywhere," I whisper.
And suddenly, I get it. I understand why it's so fucking silent.
They are here. They are watching me. I am not the one hunting them.
They are hunting me.
I can sense them. Smell them. They are cloaked and somehow resistant to heat analysis. I can't imagine how they designed the technology, but I've heard they’ve stepped up their game.
Suddenly, I hear Clara's breath crackle into my ear. "We've got visuals," Clara says. "Snipers have the go-ahead to take them out."
I wait for the sound of rifle shots to crack into the sky. I wait, but all I hear is thunder.
And then, silence.
"Clara," I whisper. "Where are they?"
I listen as Clara's fingers rapidly type against her command dash. Her breathing becomes noticeably audible and strained.
"Clara, what the fuck," I curse. "Am I in trouble, or not?"
"I...I... they're not responding. I've lost both visual and audio," she says. "Anna, you need to go. Forget the women. Get the hell out of there."
I start to back up, but I don't know which direction to run.
The sound of mud popping underneath large feet startles me. My senses do not betray me. The sound keeps coming my way. It grows and brings a current of wind.
Someone is running toward me. The training simulations didn't prepare me for this. I tense up and pray they pass, but they never let up.
I feel a hand wrap around my shoulders. Feel someone's breath against my ear. Hear a deep growl resonate and tickle my eardrum.
And then I feel the kick that throws me onto the ground. It knocks the wind right out of me. Whatever monster is behind me mounts my back and growls. A deep purr from the back of his throat causes my throat to shut.
"I'll kill you if you scream," he says. “I’ll uproot your spine and turn you into a pile of skin.”
My response is shallow. “Please...”
Shock electrifies the system. Panic. As I come to my senses, a piercing sensation hits the back of my neck. A needle. The fluid drains into my muscle, and my body sucks it up like a dry sponge.
Oh, God. No...
How many times do victims say those words before they are murdered?
My vision turns hazy. His hands are all over me, feeling out every curve, and sniffing violently. He presses his nostrils against my temple and hums a soft tune before laughing.
"Please, don't hurt me," I cry.
Grunting, he pulls away from me and takes off his cloak, so I can see him for who he really is.
A monster. The savage alien slave trader I couldn't stop from killing me. He looks at me like a human might stare at an ant.
He clenches his fist around my hair, pulls back, and thunders. "Human."
"Y-yes, I'm--"
This can't be how it ends. Clara will find me. My team will hunt them down.
This can't be how it ends.
Right?
His face is a mask of dominance. Tribal tattoos cover his body. His torso towers over me, rippling muscles as hard as stone. Fabric covers the lower side of his face, but I can see a faint scar behind it.
"You've made a big mistake," he says.
Another alien appears from the shadows. "What are you waiting for? Take the bitch. Shackle her and fuck her brains out."
My captor huffs loudly. "Grab the rest of the women. I want time with this one."
When he looks at me, it feels like he's looking right through me, to the center of my brain. My vision wavers, and it soon becomes difficult to focus.
"Am I dying?" I ask.
He smacks my face and grips my cheek. His hand is as big as two of my faces. "Your cunt needs to be numbered and processed," he says.
My breath is getting shallow. "No..."
He shakes me awake. His voice is a horrifying low growl. "Once entered into our system, you will be given a suitable owner."
"I can't... I need to... turn around... my team will... be waiting for me...Clara..."
"Curious little pussy cat… It's out of my control," he says.
He holds up a metal ear notcher, the same they use on newborn livestock. He slides the notch around the corner of my ear and, before I can react, he clamps down.
"Marking in place," he says.
He picks me up, but I have turned inert. I try to move my limbs, but my body won't register my brain's commands. Soon, the drug he administered will knock me out for good.
And then I'll be his.
"Hush," he mutters. "It'll all be over soon enough.”
The aliens laugh. He shackles my wrists and tosses me over his shoulders like a caveman.
He says, "Don't worry. We'll get you to where you need to be."
Anna
This place is worse than I imagined.
Inside the transport boat, the women shove together. The younger ones hold on to the bars around the windows, idly staring as we wind down the lazy jungle river.
The floor is dirty. The stench is horrendous. Many of the women can’t stop coughing, and there are some that refuse to quit crying. It’s enough to make someone crazy.
As a human, I never saw the outside world. I never thought it was this bad. I knew what was going on. We all did. But none of us had ever seen it firsthand. Sure, there were stories from top command. But that was it.
Now, I’m living the nightmare I thought we could end. God, I was so fucking naive.
My wrists burn as my skin frays against the rusted metal chains. I lift them and glance at the ring of dried blood. In reality, blood is all over my body.
I raise my hands higher and slowly feel the notched hole of my ear. That really happened. They marked me as one of their prisoners.
That wasn’t a nightmare…
An alien guard sits in the cabin, monitoring every woman in sight. He holds an electric shock prod firmly in his hands, twisting it on and off for fun. A wide grin reveals his sharp, black teeth. Saliva falls from his lips.
"A human," he chuckles. "Little military bitch. Not so tough without your friends."
I'm the only human in sight. Earth Federation is miles away.
I'm so fucked.
Outside, I can see the occasional alien settlement. They are refugee cities that the government gave up on long ago. I'm as far from my base as I have ever been.
For the most part, the injection has worn off. The shock, too. The fear is still present, but I am not yet desperate. I think I can still find a way out if I keep my cool.
My first attempt at escape is to try and reason with a guard, to tell him what federal law he has broken. "You have kidnapped a junior officer of the—"
The guard lunges forward and forces the prod onto the front of my chest. As a wave of electricity rattles my sternum, I fall to the floor in deep spasms.
"We've got a talker here," he growls. “Don’t like talkers.”
I jerk back against one of the alien women. To my surprise, she pushes me forward, causing a chain of women to fall with me. The room breaks out with disorder.
With glee, the guard shocks me repeatedly until I lurch forward and vomit over my hands.
I’ve never been this indecent. Never been treated like I was a pile of filth. I always tried my best to work hard with efficiency. I was ethical. What did following the rules ever get me?
"I'm not trying to talk back," I pant. "I swear. I can hardly breathe."
One alien woman looks desperately at the guard. "Look at her eyes. They are yellow. She has the Xygo fever," she says.
The guard smacks her. He sends her body crashing into the metal bars of the window.
I sit back and blink, stunned. You can catch Xygo fever by making contact with an alien, but I was immunized. All military personnel are given the injection upon the point of entry.
The guard looks at me intently. “Hm,” he groans, his nostrils. “Must have been in the syringe they gave her. A mutation, maybe.”
My heart pounds. It feels cold inside my chest. If what they say is true, my chromosomes will degenerate. I'll slowly lose all neurological function. My God, if I don't get medical treatment soon, I will die a slow and painful death.
The alien captives aren't against me, but they're not on my side either. As I sit back and feel the boat rock, I realize I have no one left to protect me. Maybe I had no one in the first place, but my team made the illusion of security feel real.
Now, half of them are surely dead. The other half will search for me, I think. But even with Earth Federation bases scattered across the planet, their reach only goes so far.
The aliens aren’t trustworthy. The local municipalities will be hard to look through. By the time they get the approval to search for me, I’ll be too far away.
They will lose me.
The smell in here is unbearable, and the air is thin. At this point, all of the women are huddled near the window to get a breath in. As the boat stops, we all run toward the exit.
Outside, alien guards bang on the exterior of the ships to herd us into the center of the dock. I scramble to get out, tripping onto the muddy null near the river.
The water reflects orange as one guard sets flame to the torches around the area. More and more women line up to be processed.
"Single file! Orderly fashion,” a guard calls out, yanking me out of the mud.
I can’t blend in with the alien women. My skin is far too fare. The guards make jokes about me. "This one looks decadent."
"Oh, she's a clean one."
The guard's scaly nostrils widen. He opens his mouth and inhales loudly, tongue extending into the humid air. "Clean, indeed."
I only get one short glimpse of the dock. There are at least ten different boats, with more of them coming in. There has to be hundreds of women. Thousands must come in monthly. It’s a systematic betrayal of Earth Federation’s goal of peace and stability.
It's all out in the open.
I'm hurried away by monstrous beings in masks, pushed into a long underpass tunnel that leads into a massive storage building. Here, women of all breeds stand. There are no humans in sight. Most of the women are alien races I have never seen during my time at the base.
Inside the warehouse, adjustable tripods prop up blinding lights to shine at us. I wince and force my hands over my eyes, spreading my fingers to see where to walk. More women push against me, and I stumble before catching eyes with another guard.
“Cutie-pie. Can’t hide from me. I see you,” he hisses.
There are guards posted in every corner. They have built a second level barricade for more to watch from above.
Every so often, a guard points and whistles at an alien captive. They sweep the cat-called women into a back room. This happens multiple times.
A guard with a slithery accent screams, "Move, move, move!"
Bangs on a metal table. Points his rifle at women before laughing like a wild animal. Clara was right. They are all savages. As far as I’m concerned, they need to be hunted.
I'm careful enough to evade the guards, but they have us corralled. No matter how hard I push through the crowd, there's no way to circumvent the current. With my hands chained, there's not much I can do except go with the motions. I am one of the many now.
"No shoving," one guard says. "You are scared, but there is no need for any worry, puppets. They'll put you where you need to be. Everyone will get sorted."
"Where are they taking us?" I ask.
A woman jabs my ribs. "Keep your mouth shut, or you'll get put to auction," she says.
I swallow, though my mouth is dry and sticky. "Auction?" I ask. "But I am from the Earth Federation. I cannot be bought or sold."
Even I know better than that. It’s called cognitive dissonance. Sometimes the brain believes what it has to believe to survive.
"It's better if they put you to work. That way, you get paid. You live a life you can find pride in. Unfortunately, you look sickly. Maybe it’s better if you get tossed to auction," the woman whispers. "A rich donor could save your life if he buys you up."
Another woman barely lifts her head as she says, "But once they sell you, you're his for life. It's the law. With a work permit, you can eventually find a new job. It’s hard to say which fate is better."
"The law," I choke. “None of these laws help me get back home.”
I thought I was the law...
The other alien shakes her head. "You're lucky. You're a human. You'll have people looking for you. Maybe your soldiers will raid your area, and you'll find a way to escape. Most of us have no one to rely on anymore."
“All killed,” another says. “Our villages wrecked because of your lot.”
I turn frantic. The air suddenly feels hot and muggy. It weighs me down as I try to make sense of what is happening to me.
"I don't know what this is about," I say. “Why am I here? Oh, God, why?”
I’m screaming the words and everyone is staring at me.
A guard whistles and points in my direction. I freeze and put my head down. Another guard pushes through the crowd. He grabs me by the neck, forces me toward the back room.
"No," I whisper, voice turning hoarse. "I don't want to go in there. You can’t sell my body. You can’t!"
They don’t have to say anything to let me know the truth. They can do anything they want. Out here, they have all the power.
A black door opens. They push me inside, and I'm face to face with another alien. This one has green and glowing eyes, much like the one I first met. His throat is heavily scarred, and when he speaks, his voice sounds like shards of glass have been permanently lodged inside his vocal cords.
"Take off your clothes," he says.
The guards cut my chains with bolt cutters. I can't control my breathing. They push my timid body forward. Cameras watch my every move.
Another alien, much older, sits at a table in the back of the room, taking notes. His green skin sags and emits a foul odor.
"Let me go, and my team will show you mercy," I say.
The massive alien walks forward, lifting a fist into the air. He swings it down, hitting my cheek. I collapse onto the cement floor.
My elbows hit near a small pool of blood on the ground. It’s someone else’s blood.
"Shouldn't talk," he growls. "Strip and play nice or we will end your suffering with death.”
I crawl and nurse my hand over the growing welt around my cheek. My jaw trembles as the pain solidifies into a massive migraine.
I do what he asks. I take off every article of clothing, but I stop at my panties when I notice an embarrassing stain of wetness dampen the center. It grows as I start to urinate.
I’ve never been more mortified in my life.
"Look at what you’ve done. We’ll have to mop up your mess," he growls. "Do not anger me any more than you already have. All of your clothes must come off."
With great shame, I unhook my bra. I slide my panties down to my ankles, and I lower my head in submission. "Anything else?" I ask.
"On your knees. Legs together," he says.
I position my body in the prayer position, knowing full well that I'm very far away from any church. I close my eyes and tremble. I’d beg if I knew it would do any good.
His fingers trickle down my back toward my ass as he takes my measurements.
"Perfect figure. We should send her in for breeding as soon as possible," he says.
The elderly alien s
itting nods his head and moans with approval. "Could receive five offspring from her if the alphas aim for it," he says.
The man nods and looks back at me. He whips out a camera and takes a few pictures. Each click sends shockwaves of panic.
I close my eyes again. "I want to see your eyes, lady," he says.
He forces my eyes open with his meaty fingers. He holds a wand in front of my vision. A red light flashes and scans my retinae. When it processes the data, it makes an unpleasant noise.
The computer speaks: "Synthetic additions detected."
The alien clicks his tongue and shakes his head. "Bad girl. You have made synthetic additions to your eyesight. Camera sight for Earth Federation, right? Well, easy fix. All we have to do is open you up and take out your eye."
"No, wait. I am a junior officer of the Earth Federation. You do not have the right to—"
The alien grips my skull. With his one free hand, he holds a set of tweezers in front of my eyes, clamping it a few times. He brings the sharp edge close to my pupil.
I kick and drag my heel against the floor. I howl like a weak and wounded animal. "Don't you dare!" I cry.
His arm coils around my neck like an anaconda. "Hold still," he says.
"G-G-Get away from me," I beg.
I spit. I do everything humanely possible to reason with him. There's no stopping these monsters from torturing me.
He inserts the edge into the white of my eyes, popping out the membrane. To get to my eye transplant, he rotates his wrist and digs in further until I feel the suction give way.
It's just a pull and a pop, and the center of the eye comes right out.
There's a reason they put us to sleep before installing them. It's the worst sensation imaginable.
I foam at the mouth, shaking from pain. A gurgled mess of protests leaves my throat, but it only spurs worse treatment. Dry heaving, I clench my fists against my chest and curl up into a ball. I can feel an extreme emptiness inside my socket.
His breath weighs hot against my face as he promptly tosses the transplant to the floor. He holds out his hand for the guard to give him a new one.
"Pretty eyes," he says.
Motionless, I lay against the cool concrete. For the moment, I'm blind in that eye. Drool collects near the side of my mouth.
Alien Mate: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance Page 2