by Tom Coleman
“What—" Annie began to say, but the screen flickered and changed again. The following image was of another child, a girl a few years older than the boy. Her eyes were dark and unwavering as she stared at Annie.
She had been smiling when she first appeared on the screen, but the longer Annie looked at her, the more visibly upset the girl became. Her white teeth disappeared behind her lips, and her lips began to tremble.
Gasping, Annie watched as the girl’s gaze flickered to something behind Annie, something Annie could not see.
The girl’s mouth grew long, and wide with screams as flames suddenly appeared, licking her skin. The girl was burning to death before her eyes. Sobbing silently, Annie tried to close her eyes, she tried to jerk her head away, but she couldn’t.
The invisible force, ever cruel, held her steadily in place.
The screen shifted, and a montage of images came and went with sickening frequency. All children, all in various states of death or dying. Annie cried for each of them, she cried for her own nonexistent child, she cried for herself.
“Stop this, please I beg you”, she sobbed and blubbered in her mind.
“I can’t do this anymore, just let me die. JUST LET ME DIE.”
She dry heaved as the thought left her mind because she knew she meant it.
With a soft click, the television shifted to one last image.
Annie recoiled. The creature on the screen was different than the creatures she had seen up to that point, but it was just as grotesque. Its skin was as pale as a human’s but weathered like her abductors. The creature’s eyes were wide and black, as impenetrable as the ocean is in the middle of the night.
But it had hair.
Soft, slightly wavy brown hair, the color of milk chocolate. Just like Annie’s had been when she was a little girl.
The creature blinked and smiled at her.
Annie’s flesh broke out into goosebumps, and she dry-heaved again. Every fiber of her body, of her being, was telling her the same intuitive thing… the creature on the screen looked like her because it had been made from her.
DNA from Annie’s body mixed with one of the grey beings that walked amongst her.
“Is this…?” she began to whisper.
She couldn’t get the words to come out, she couldn’t fully comprehend what she was seeing.
Yes, the creature said in her mind.
We have been experimenting with cross-breeding for two hundred years now. Genetically speaking, you were a viable candidate. Our efforts have proved worthwhile, with you.
Annie wept, absorbing the creature’s words inside her head.
It couldn’t be, and yet… and yet…
She knew the words to be true. She felt it in the deepest recesses of her gut, in the finest sinews of her heart.
She had a child.
Annie sat, strapped to the device, for what felt like an eternity. She opened her mouth, and closed it again, gasping uncomprehendingly, like a fish out of water. She stared at the screen, at her own child, taking in the shape of its eyes, the contours of its cheekbones.
She could not tell the gender of the child, but it did not matter to her. It had never mattered to her. Still, mixed within all her joy was a complete lack of understanding.
“Why?” she whispered out loud.
“Why me? Why...us?”
The creature beside her tilted his head to one side--a gesture so human-like, it made Annie shiver.
We have been studying your species for a long time, the creature said, its unearthly voice echoed all around in her head.
“Our planet is coming to the end of its natural lifecycle. We have been in search of a new home, and your planet--Earth, as we know you humans call it--has the right chemical compounds for our species to survive.
The words, so casually communicated to her, filled her with absolute dread.
“What… What are you saying?” she murmured, eyes wide. “You’re going to invade Earth? Take over?”
No, the creature said in her mind. The timbre of the inhuman voice was anything but soothing.
We have no intention of destroying the human race. We will breed with you and create a new species to inhabit your planet. It has already begun.
You are the first.
The creature pointed a long, gray finger at the screen.
Turning quickly in her seat, Annie bent her body in half and vomited on the cool, metal floor of the ship.
***
The sound of a lawnmower made Annie jolt awake.
She sat up, and blinked against the harshness of the sun, beaming down on her at a sharp angle from the east. Her poppy nightgown was damp from the dewy grass beneath her. Traces of puke clung to the light fabric.
Blinking, Annie realized she was in a large, open field.
All around her neighbors began their chores for the day, clambering into their cars to go to work, or tending to their lawns, and fields. She saw the robin’s egg blue of her house half a mile down the road.
Shaking, Annie slowly got to her feet and began to shuffle slowly home. Every part of her body ached, but she ignored it all.
Every time she had been abducted, she thought about the torture she went through the previous night, which triggered a strange mixture of emotions the following morning: fear, hope, and relief.
But this time was different. This time she didn’t remember anything. Why was she laying on the field and how did she get there?
Although she didn’t understand anything, she had weird flashbacks. A portrait of her child kept popping into her head. But that must have been a flashback from her dream because the child didn’t look human.
(Inspired by stories from people who claim to have been abducted by extraterrestrial beings)
AGATHA
I first met Agatha when we were in college. There was a minor subject that I needed to retake, so I was added to her class.
I really can’t explain what it was that drove my attention towards Agatha at first. I would frequently sit in the back row since I wasn’t a part of their usual block, and I would often find myself staring at her red hair. There were times when she would glance back at me, as if she knew I was looking at her, but I would always avert my eyes and pretend I was looking at something else.
I was never shy towards girls, or towards anybody for that matter, but there was something about her that was mysteriously intriguing.
She was not easy to approach. Despite the fact that she was remarkably attractive, I never saw any guy try to hook up with her. Although I never saw her hang out with anyone outside of class, she was nice to everyone. Agatha was a very reserved individual who was often alone, but her unusual personality was wrapped in a fairly pleasant demeanor. It was a perfect way to blend in while staying away from any unwanted attention. I saw right through her social mask, and I was captivated by her.
When the next semester came around, I had finished my subject and was back on the fixed schedule of my block. I couldn’t see her as often as I did before, and my attention was filled with other things as well. I didn’t really think about her much; not until something unfortunate happened.
A sudden explosion happened in a laboratory at our school – everyone in the building heard it. By the time I arrived, the building was already engulfed in fire. There were eight students still in the lab, and one of them was Agatha.
The door was jammed from the inside, and the students were trapped. The strongest and largest of the maintenance crew and faculty members tried to break the door open, but they failed. Every fire extinguisher in school was used in the attempt to put out the fire. They blasted them through the railed windows until the cans were emptied, but the fire just kept on going.
Despite the school’s order to immediately evacuate the area, a lot of students gathered around, including me. It was a horrific scene to witness. We could hear the students screaming in agony as they were being consumed by the fire. I saw how the fl
ames burned through their clothes, their hair and their flesh. I saw how they slowly suffered, how their guttural, desperate screams took the very last of their breaths as their friends and teachers cried in vain.
The firefighters arrived, but it was too late. They brought heavy tools and forced their way through the door. The stench of burnt flesh brimmed through the air as the thick smoke covered our sight.
And there she was. Amongst the charred bodies of the other students, Agatha was lying unconscious on the floor. All the witnesses were baffled when we saw her. The burnt bodies were hardly recognizable, and the lab was destroyed, yet Agatha was completely unharmed.
She was immediately taken to the hospital, and the school temporarily closed down due to the accident. A couple of days later, I decided to pay her a visit. Agatha was a little surprised when I showed up.
“Why did you come?” she said to me with a detached tone.
“I wasn’t expecting any students to visit me.”
“I just want to see how you are doing.” I said.
I started to think that it was a bad idea to come, until I noticed the gifts on the table. They were all from the faculty members; but there was not a single gift from her classmates. Apparently, some of the students were questioning how she survived. I couldn’t blame them; I was wondering about it as well. So, I bluntly asked,
“What exactly happened?”
She looked at me, and then looked out the window as she responded.
“I don’t know. I can’t remember what happened. I wasn’t even aware that there was a fire. We were doing an experiment in the lab because we failed the previous test. It was a make-up class. The next thing I knew, I was here.”
It seemed that Agatha blacked out before the fire even started. I wanted to ask her more questions about the matter, but it was pointless – she couldn’t recall any of it.
No other visitors came, so I decided to stay by her side the entire day. It was the very first time that we had spent some time together. I didn’t expect that this tragic accident would be the way for me to see her close once again, and it was so wrong to be thankful for this horrendous tragedy. But in some strange way, I was happy that I finally had this chance.
When the school resumed classes, Agatha and I started spending more time together. Through some of my friends, I heard how her miraculous survival had sparked unpleasant rumors.
“I heard the class was having an argument in the lab before it exploded,” one of my friends told me.
“They were failing the experiment, and Agatha was upset about it.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I lashed out, “Everybody is pissed during chemistry class. You suck at it, so you should know.”
He backed away and told me to relax.
Some of Agatha’s classmates were blaming her for what happened, while the others went even further and said that she was unharmed because she was a child of the devil.
“So, are you dating the daughter of Satan?” another asshole of a friend asked me sarcastically.
“She should watch her back, bro. This is a Catholic school, and you know how these Jesus freaks are.”
My friend was actually right. The religious individuals bothered Agatha the most ever since she returned to school. They were assertive in their claims, and Agatha couldn’t do anything about it. She wanted to just leave them be, but I insisted on reporting the matter to the school authorities. Instead of doing something about the bullying, the authorities just asked the same question that was bothering everyone at this point.
How did Agatha survive?
I suggested Agatha transfer to another school with me. The harassment was getting out of hand, and it was too much for a person who had just been through a tragic accident. So, we did.
Once we had transferred to a different academy, things turned out well. Agatha seemed to have changed somehow. She had become friendlier and more open about her feelings towards me. We spent most of our time together. Needless to say, I had fallen in love with her, and she loved me back.
When we decided to go with our classmates to the beach, I discovered that Agatha didn’t know how to swim. Oddly enough, she had never been to the beach, or even swam in a pool. I felt guilty for laughing when she told me the reason why. She was deeply traumatized because her mother died by drowning in a lake. I thought that she should overcome her fear. I said that she would be fine as long as I was around, but then I let her down.
She went to the water with some friends while the rest of us were having a couple of beers on the shore. They said that they would teach her how to swim, and she was quite cheerful about it. Everything was fine until one of them suddenly called us for help. Apparently, Agatha had lost consciousness the moment she submerged. I immediately jumped into the water and pulled her out.
Her skin was pale, and her lips were turning purple as if she had just died right there and then. I was genuinely afraid. I was about to burst into tears when she regained consciousness and hugged me tightly. She tried to comfort me when she saw how devastated I was.
“I’m okay. Don’t cry. I’ll be alright.”
“What happened to you, Agatha?” one of our friends asked. “You had us extremely worried.”
“I don’t know. It’s like I was suffocating suddenly. I felt weak, and then I blacked out.” She replied.
I thought thoroughly about what happened, but I just couldn’t make any sense out of it. She survived, totally unscathed, the fire that killed seven people, yet she almost died within mere seconds of being in the water.
Just when we were finally moving past the mystery of her reserved personality, something even more peculiar about Agatha was beginning to bother me.
In order to forget what had happened at the beach, I decided to take her to the carnival nearby. Little did I know, something horrifying was about to happen again.
Aside from it being Agatha’s first time going to the beach, it was also her first time seeing a carnival. I was beginning to think that she had been kept in the shadows by her parents.
She was like a curious child; easily pleased by carnival games, trying every food she saw, riding any ride she liked. I was amused by her reactions, and I was glad that I had brought her there.
After wandering around and having fun for hours, we came across the booth of a self-proclaimed fortune teller. Just for laughs and giggles, we decided to go inside the small cubicle covered by thick, dark curtains printed with glittering occult symbols and stars.
“How can I help you?” said a voice coming from behind another curtain, as we sat in front of a table with a glass sphere placed at the center.
“We wish to know our future, O Great One,” I replied with humor as Agatha and I tried to hold in our laughter.
“Oh, I most certainly could help you.”
An old lady in a black dress and a violet shawl stepped out from behind the curtain.
For some reason, right at the very moment that she saw us there, she glared at Agatha in a very strange and unwelcoming manner.
However, she kept on moving along, and sat in front of her orb.
“I will start by reading your palms,” she said.
As Agatha held out her hand, the fortune teller avoided making eye contact. When she looked at her palm, I saw how her expression suddenly changed. It looked as if she had seen something quite unpleasant.
It was starting to get awkward, so I broke the silence and asked,
“So, what do you see in her future?”
Our cheerful vibe was smothered by the eerie tension that had enveloped this very small, enclosed space. It all became uncomfortably serious.
“Something is clouding my mind, I couldn’t see it clearly,” said the fortune teller with a shaky tone.
She was obviously bothered by something, and she was trying to hide it from us.
“I will call forth some spirits to guide me. I shall see what lies ahead of you through their wisdom.”
Apparently, she sti
ll decided to go on with the performance. She lit a candle and held up some kind of talisman against her forehead and, eyes closed, began to chant in a weird, ancient-sounding language.
As her voice intensified, the flame on the candle started to flicker rapidly. A few minutes later, she turned towards Agatha and slowly opened her eyes. As she stared at her, Agatha became profoundly terrified. Her eyes widened as the fortune teller kept on chanting. I turned my head to Agatha to see what was scaring her, but I saw nothing.
Within just a few seconds, things turned from weird to hellish. A small, insignificant flickering flame from the candle suddenly burst and caught the fortune teller’s shawl. I immediately grabbed it and tried to put it out, but the fire was already crawling up her dress. She stood up and screamed in pain as the flames reached her face, and then the fire caught the curtains.
Agatha tried to reach for her so she could help. But as she stretched her hands to her, the fortune teller recoiled even further and yelled,
“Get away from me!”
Agatha kept on reaching for her, but she kept stepping back until she was wrapped by the burning curtain behind her. I had no choice but to grab Agatha and drag her out. In seconds, the entire booth was burning, with the fortune teller inside it.
When it was finally extinguished by the carnival workers, it was too late. A person died in a fire, in the presence of Agatha, once again.
We were called by the local police officers to ask us what had happened. After hearing the story, they concluded that it had just been an accident. I wanted to believe what they said, but there were too many unanswered questions in my head. After the incident, Agatha didn’t utter a single word until we were back home.