by Zara Zenia
I rolled my eyes and sighed dramatically. “Why can’t you have faith in me, Dad? Why do you ask me stupid questions like that? As if I would launch an aircraft to a different planet in the galaxy without first properly making sure it was up to speed and to code?”
“You’re right, son, I’m sorry. It’s just my nature to be protective, that’s all.” He glanced up at the moon.
“It’s fine, Dad.” I had shaken my head and kicked a pebble on the ground next to my foot. Our relationship would always have its awkward, strained moments.
“Why don’t you go and say goodnight to your mother?” he had suggested.
I’d glanced up at him. “That’s a fantastic idea, Dad.”
I wasn’t sure if he was sending me off because he honestly wanted me to go bid farewell to my mother or he just didn’t want to hold up a conversation with me anymore. Either way, I was grateful for the opportunity to slink off.
I had given him a hug, and then bid my mother a farewell too. I knew I would be jetting off and through the atmosphere early the next morning with a new dream on the horizon.
Now here I was, running on the beach on Earth and gearing up for the auction. It was amazing how quickly time passed.
My heart pounded in my chest with excited anticipation. I had been wishful thinking that once I was inside I would be able to find the perfect girl to bring home with me.
My imagination ran wild, thinking about how I would proudly display my future woman for all my friends and family to see. I was ready to gush over a new and beautiful mate.
We might not know each other’s faces yet, but soon we would be bound for life, an eternity to share together. It was amazing how life worked like that.
It was going to be hard to compete against the other Xicret men, but I had brought an exorbitant amount of cash with me just in case. I had every intention of outbidding every man in that place.
I wasn’t planning on going home empty handed, no matter what the cost. I was prepared to battle it out until I got what I wanted…the most beautiful girl in the entire auditorium.
Chapter Two
Lucy
I thought about how my rational mindset and my feisty spirit were going to be the only ways I was probably going to get out of this situation alive.
A girl can dream.
The cold, damp concrete ground in my cell was never going to get any softer or warmer.
The faded out fluorescent lights above me were never going cast anything more than their current dim glow that was beginning to give me a headache.
I never realized how much I needed the sunlight in my life until it was erased completely from my familiar, comfortable world.
The darkness was crawling over my physical state and was trying to capture me mentally as well, but I gripped onto the fire burning inside me, and held on for dear life.
“Dinner!” I heard the roar from my abductors that immediately made my skin crawl and sent shivers of paranoia bolting up my spine.
With a sharp clank, my metal dinner tray hit the ground. The force from which it fell caused the macaroni and cheese in the dish to bounce several inches in the air.
I was impressed when it landed right side up and in one piece. It probably was going to taste like rubber, anyway. It was a joke the way these aliens tried to replicate human food.
I closed my eyes so tightly that it hurt my eyelids. I huddled, my knees up to my chest and placed my head between my legs. I braced myself for the impending impact of a hostile encounter.
I didn’t want to look any of ‘The Bitches’ tonight. I wasn’t in the mood and every time I did have to look at them, I felt as if a tiny chunk of my soul was torn apart from my body.
I hated the fact that internally, they got inside of my head and wreaked havoc. I didn’t want them to see me broken.
‘The Bitches’ was the name I gave to the Xicret women who had taken me against my will. But I wasn’t the only one.
There were many others just like me, waiting in cold prison cells much like I was…waiting for their fates to be sealed.
I knew there were loads of other girls in there that were around my age, early twenties. I had turned twenty-one recently, and being abducted wasn’t exactly the way I had imagined soaring into adulthood.
The irony of my life was the fact that I should be celebrating with friends and family as I rounded another milestone.
Instead, there I sat, cold and dirty, starving to death while the Xicret bitches tried to collapse my spirit at any chance they could.
At any rate, I knew the other girls were there, I just couldn’t see them, or know where they were being kept.
I knew the drill by this point in the game. I had to wait in this cold dark cell until they transported me to what they called their infamous auction house. Nothing good ever happened there.
Not for the human girls, at least.
From there I’d be sold to a native Xicret man. I knew it would be some creepy, ugly huge blue guy from a different planet who apparently wasn’t good enough to get a girlfriend or a wife on his own planet, so he had to come to Earth to steal one.
That thought made me feel a little smug, but unless I found a way out of there, my fate was more or less sealed to be a slave in a marriage I had no interest in taking part of.
Tears stung my eyes, surprising me as I opened them again, and stared at the dinner tray and the food I refused to eat.
Hunger strikes were not normally my forte. My entire life I had been a comfort eater, shoveling food in my mouth to relieve external and internal stressors.
It was the only way I could cope in a situation that caused me anxiety. Now…well that was a different story. I didn’t want to eat anymore, especially if it meant the food was made by foreign abductors.
I just didn’t want to give ‘The Bitches’ the satisfaction of coming back to retrieve a clean plate from me.
That in itself gave me gratifying satisfaction that I was having difficulty achieving on my own in this empty, stark and lifeless cell.
Not to mention my stomach was in knots from the anxiety I felt every fucking waking moment. Even in the broken and disturbed fragmented sleep I somehow mustered to obtain, my nerves were a ball of frayed ends that I was sure could explode at any point in time.
The memory of the night I was abducted was still as fresh in my mind as a summer squash plucked straight from the garden.
Before this dank cellar had become my temporary home, my loving home was located in Greenwich, Connecticut, where the lawns were always green and cleanly manicured.
It was the kind of place where soccer moms trotted their toddlers and elementary school aged children around to music or dance class, gymnastics or swim lessons— all while sporting their Gucci sunglasses in their brand new Tahoe’s.
I knew all this because I had been a child of a mom who fit that description to a perfect tee, growing up in the lap of luxury and having anything I wanted.
To say I had been spoiled growing up would have been a significant understatement.
The only hand me down I ever got was my long blonde hair and blue eyes. That trait came directly from my mother. She had always told me she had dreamed of having a blonde haired blue eyed little girl, and her wish had come true.
Now that I was going to be sold like a slave to an alien planet auction house, my chances of birthing a blonde haired, blue eyed little girl of my own were slim to none.
My life and all the dreams and hopes I could ever wish to aspire to were fleeting out the window, being cast into the wind to never be completed.
The longer I sat there as a prisoner, the lower my chances were to ever be able to escape. My life was just a series of fleeting seconds, one after another.
To comfort myself, I continuously dug into my memory to recall fond times I had with my family. Sometimes though, less fond truths gnawed and found their way inside my screaming, swirling head of agony.
To my annoyance and disappointment, I did not get my m
other’s skinny gene. And I really had no business trying to squeeze my way into her skinny jeans, but at any rate I tried my very hardest to do so.
Don’t get me wrong. I was cute, smart and had a pretty face that was attractive to most guys I met. I even had a boyfriend, believe it or not.
My boyfriend didn’t love my curves, and I wasn’t particularly fond of them. He would always cuddle me close and say reassuring things like, “there’s more to love,” or, “more padding and cushion to lie against at night.”
He made me laugh and as I thought of him back home and wondered if he was missing my embrace, my eyes stung with fresh hot tears.
I hated being away from those I loved, and the fact that these Xicret aliens were ripping me apart from them, just added more anger and hostility to the fire currently spreading in my mind like wildfire through a forest.
I hastily wiped my salty, tears away and sniffed with bitter contempt. I needed to be strong. I couldn’t let my spirit die on account of these aliens trying to crush me.
I couldn’t be vulnerable in any situation while I was stuck in here wilting away like a sad, neglected flower that couldn’t bloom without constant affection.
The night I had been kidnapped was supposed to encompass celebration, excitement and be the symbol of new beginnings for not only me, but my friends and my boyfriend Fred.
I had just graduated from college with a degree in Elementary Education. At the time of my abduction, I had been searching for Kindergarten teaching jobs in Manhattan.
Manhattan was close enough to home that I could go and visit my friends and family any time I wanted.
The real reason I was job searching on the island in the city that never slept always brought a smile to my face, even now in this depressive state.
Proudly, my amazingly talented Fred was a baseball all-star on his way to becoming a Yankee. He was so talented that I couldn’t believe his athleticism and the scope of his profound abilities on the field.
He deserved to be a Yankee. He had worked ridiculously hard. He’d put in the hours of labor. The blood, sweat and tears were all there and accounted for.
I had known Fred since middle school. We hung out with the same crowd of friends, but we had never really shown interest in each other until high school.
My parents had thrown this ridiculously awesome, over the top Halloween party my freshman year of high school. Fred was a sophomore at the time.
Fred came to the party and I could still remember the sparks that flew as we realized how deep a connection we shared as we kissed under the willow tree overlooking the pool in my backyard.
From that moment on, we had been inseparable, aside from my cheerleading tournaments and his traveling baseball seasons.
On the night of the fateful party at our friend Julie’s house, the horizon held every gem and blessing we could ever think of, and we were ready for a great time out with some of our lifetime friends in Greenwich.
If I had only known at the time that by the end of the night, my world would be rocked and utterly turned upside down.
“I can’t believe you are going to get a signing deal with the Yankee’s, man! Congrats bro. That is seriously epic. You’ve always been the baseball savant. Your talent deserves the recognition.”
I remember Fred’s best friend Rob had stood up on a stool and announced the sensational news to everyone in the kitchen at the time.
We all had raised our shot glasses filled with vanilla vodka and cheered for Fred. I had been the proudest one of all. It was a great moment, a great feeling of pride for me.
I had gone outside to grab another bottle of vodka from the garage. The next thing I knew, I felt a searing pain on the back of my head. I was knocked off my feet, but not enough to go unconscious.
The last thing I saw before passing out was a dark hovering figure. The next morning I woke up and I was in the cell, abducted by the Xicret aliens.
Fred and I both grew up in a wealthy lavish lifestyle, and our parents had been friends even before we started dating.
After Fred and I had announced our couple hood, it had brought our parents even closer together which brought me enormous amounts of joy.
My mom had talked tirelessly about how we would get married and provide her with tons of little grandsons and granddaughters to spoil.
At the time, I’d merely rolled my eyes at my mom’s assumptions and told her to slow down, that Fred and I had only just started dating.
Now, I’d give anything to be wrapped up in Fred’s arms while we danced our first dance at the wedding that now, we would probably never have.
As more time had passed, I had been just waiting for Fred to pop the question. I was done with college, and we both had amazing career prospects on our radars.
Getting married would just be the next essential step to perfecting our lives and I was ready to take the leap with him and venture off into a fantastically rewarding career as a kindergarten teacher.
But now here I was, cold and hungry, but refusing to eat even a single bite of the alien’s food supply. I cursed every moment I sat down there.
Every time I woke up from a restless sleep, I prayed that all of this was really just a terrible nightmare and that I’d wake up cozy and snug next to Fred in our apartment bed.
An alien species from another planet had taken me away from my family, my friends, my boyfriend and everything comforting I had ever known.
I wanted to pound my fist through a wall, curse the universe and say ‘why me’ but I knew it wouldn’t do me any good.
I lay down on the soggy thin mattress in my cell, propped my arms up on my elbows. I had no pillow, so I had to use my arms to support my head.
I tried not to cry myself to sleep every night, but no matter what I did or how many head tricks I tried to give myself, the tears still flowed anyway no matter how diligently I tried to stop them. I was powerless to control my own emotions down there.
I was just nestling in for my nightly routine silent sob when I heard the chains to my cell rattle open. I sat up, my first instincts to protect myself coming ablaze.
“Who’s there?” I meant my voice to sound threatening, but it sounded flat and weak because it had been ages since I’d actually engaged in conversation with another person.
“It’s your time.” A blue Xicret woman charged into my room with a flashlight beaming straight through my eyes.
Her voice was cold, devoid of any feeling that I could connect to on a deeper level.
I winced in pain as I tried to adjust to the light. I held my hands up over my face defensively.
“Time for what?” I hissed, recoiling because I didn’t want her to touch me.
I shuddered at the thought of any of them laying their hands on me again.
“You’re going to be sold tonight.” The woman’s voice was as cold and dark as the room, no emotion involved. It was obvious that my future and wellbeing meant absolutely nothing to her.
I was just another number to her, set up for auction. She whistled and looked to the open gate of the cell. She tried to hold me down, but I was able to shimmy my way out of her taut grip. I ran as fast as I could to the cell door, but I was knocked off my feet again.
I looked up, startled to see what I had just barreled into. It was two more Xicret women, and I could see their distinctive black markings on, their blue skin.
I was no match for all of them at once; they were gigantic in size compared to humans, even as females.
I internally wondered if all the way in Greenwich Connecticut, if my parents could hear my shrieks and cries for help that pierced and erupted against the night sky.
That didn’t mean I didn’t give it every ounce of solid effort I had within my soul to try my absolute fucking hardest to fight them off.
They carried me down a dark hallway. I could see other cells and stopped my thrashing long enough to explore with my eyes. I was as angry as a hornet, sure. At the same time, I was curious and needed to find out what
I was up against.
I could see other girls around my age in other cages. Some of them rocked in corners, huddled up against themselves in a protective little ball.
Others walked up and wrapped their fingers around the cell doors to see what the commotion was about.
They stared at me and begged me to help free them, as if I had any choice of my own or power to do anything.
I was brought into a stark white room that appeared sterile and very clean. The room was equally as cold as my cell, but much brighter.
The women used all their effort to tear my clothes off of me as I resisted and fought against them with all the strength I contained within myself.
I was dirty and grimy, and as they forced me into a giant vat, I realized they were going to try to bathe me.
They probably wanted to make me appear at least remotely presentable for the men who would be at the auction house, ready to pay top dollar for the most beautiful girl in the room.
I didn’t try to fight as much as they washed me, because I had longed to be clean for countless days now. I didn’t admit it out loud, but the water, as cold as it was, was still refreshing.
The dirt caked on my skin fell off in the water like snow down an avalanche drift.
But as they dried me off and shoved me into a slutty outfit, the reality of everything that was happening hit me like a ton of bricks.
I was now at the end of my road. Escape was not even a possibility at this point.
I screamed as loud as I could, but to no avail. No one could hear me in this dungeon, at least not anyone who was ready and willing to rescue me. I had no one on my side, no one to fight for my vengeance.
I was filled with horror as I noticed one of the women bring out a huge needle from a drawer next to the basin where they bathed me. Shit. There was no way I was going to allow her to put that thing inside of me, anywhere.
She walked over to me and held the needle over me, almost to taunt me with it in a demeaning, scary way.
Immediately realizing what she was about to do with the needle, I yelped out like a squealing puppy. “I’m sorry, I’ll calm down. Please, don’t inject me with that fucking thing. Stop!”
