by Mara Frost
“Very good,” the giant General murmurs as he steps deeper into the cage until he entirely blocks the view of everyone else outside the enclosure. His eyes are now fully locked onto my chest as he licks his ugly fat lips hungrily.
I roll my eyes and fight the urge to lash out at him and claw out at his ugly alien face. Permanently scarring him would probably do very little to my cause of…surviving.
“Yes, yes, very good indeed,” he repeats. “I so enjoy the female form in all of its manifestations throughout the universe, and I do believe I am going to fully enjoy yours, human.”
My upper lip curls in open disgust, looking like a full on snarl.
“Well, I can’t say the same for you because I find you repulsive,” I reply dryly. I lift my chin high and I do nothing to hide my nakedness or my very obvious abhorrence for the man. Besides, from what I can tell, hiding my body will probably just encourage him – the little creepy pervert that he is.
My words don’t seem to faze him though. Completely focused on me, he takes another step towards me. And I don’t move. I refuse to back down. Now only a foot away, he smirks as he studies my face. I match his stare and remain completely focused on him as well, barely paying attention to the others around us…even though they seemed to be getting excited and causing a ruckus for some reason.
“For a lower life form you certainly are in no position to speak down to a General and High Lord of the Empire, HU-MAN,” he replies coolly. “Perhaps we need to put you in a different position to make you more respectful?”
I stiffen at the threat, but I don’t move. But it’s mostly because I’m panicking and can’t find the power to move my legs. Not wanting to show any sign of fear or weakness, I stand my ground and maintain the look of disgust painted on my face.
And that seems to do the trick a bit. He apparently is only used to people cowering around him. His bloated face starts to show signs of frustration and annoyance, which couldn’t make me happier.
“Female, you would do well to remember who –“
He didn’t get to finish his sentence.
One second his pissed off alien face is only inches away from me and then the next second he’s being thrown across the cage with a ridiculous look of surprise on his face. I freeze and blink in disbelief as I look down at the large General rolling around on the floor, apparently trying to right himself so he can look at his assailant.
I snap my head up and I’m greeted with carnage. My blood turns to ice as I see all the people strewn across the floor, either unconscious or cowering from the lone figure at the center of the room.
I look into his blood red eyes and I stop breathing. I don’t know if my heart has stopped entirely, but it might have.
It’s the bidder. The bidder from the auction – the one who was stuck in a bidding war with General Fatty and who…oh I don’t know…doesn’t have any fucking skin!
I shake my head slowly in disbelief. I look around the room quickly and see all the people on the floor, it has to be 9 or 10 people. My eyes hesitantly fall back on him and I find his bloody gaze still on me, penetrating and fearsome. His large cloaked shoulders rise and fall, clearly out of breath from his recent issue of ass-thrashing to everyone in the room.
“W-w…w…” I stop and take a shaky breath. His bloody and skinless face is scaring the shit out of me and it’s becoming a bit of a struggle for me to actually formulate words.
“W-what are y-you…doing here?” I ask, my voice trembling almost to a point beyond recognition.
He doesn’t reply. He only looks at me for a few seconds in silence before his eyes fall down my body, as if inspecting it, but once they land on my naked breasts he pauses for a creepy moment before coming back to my face.
I abruptly reach for my shirt and jumper and shield myself. A girl can’t very well let herself be killed brutally while her boobs are hanging out. How silly is that going to look?
It’s good to know that my sarcasm doesn’t disappear when I’m faced with death.
“You!!”
We both glance down at the corner and see the General scooting to the far corner of the cage and pointing at the assailant who just kicked his entourage’s ass.
“You!! You’re from the auction! What are you doing? I won her!!
The horrifying man glances down at the General and cocks his head to the side and studies him, as if the fat alien is a puzzling insect that he finds vaguely interesting. An insect that he’s about to step on.
I put my shirt back on and watch with fascinated horror as the large cloaked alien walks into the cage and moves towards the cowering General. He then picks him up by his collar, as if he weighs nothing, and brings him less than an inch away from his own bloody face. I can hear the General squeal and whimper in fear. My eyes widen and I wonder if I should look away.
Nope. I can’t do it.
The cloaked alien then unceremoniously throws the General across the cage and he slams against one of the charged sides of the cage and convulses from the shock. I silently celebrate as the alien screams out like a baby as a powerful shock goes through his fat body. How do you like that now, jerk-o?
The skinless alien then looks to me.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath. I raise my hands, trying to keep him away, but knowing damn well that my raised hands aren’t going to do squat when he decides to come at me.
“Okay, there’s no need to –“
I’m abruptly cut off before I even realize that I’m no longer on my feet. The terrifying alien leaps towards me so fast and is already on me that my brain doesn’t even have time to processes that I should probably try to run away. Instead, to my utter terror, I’m lifted into his arms and thrown over his shoulder as he walks us out of the cage.
“H-hey! Hey!!” I yell out hesitantly. I’m angry, but I’m also terrified, so my objections to be lifted and carried sound a bit awkward and half-hearted even to my own ears.
Once we’re out of the cage, he lowers me to the ground and my ass lands on the floor with an uncomfortable thunk. I scramble to my feet and watch as the scary alien turns his back to me to face the General, who’s still sitting in the cage. With one quick movement on the control panel, Skeletor locks the cage around the bumbling fat alien.
“What? What are you doing? What’s the meaning of this?!” the General yells out, his voice getting louder with each word.
The skinless alien ignores him completely and turns around to face me again. Lucky me.
“You!! You’re never going to get away with this! This…this is against auction rules! I’ll have you prosecuted by the Imperial Counsel!!” the blubbering General harrumphs in the cage.
No one is paying attention to him though. The skinless alien is looking at me and…coincidentally, I’m looking at the skinless alien. And I really don’t like doing that. Because he’s really really ugly.
“So, heh, this is weird, huh? I mean, I saw you bidding for me earlier and look…” I gesture to him awkwardly and force a smile. “You’re here! Totally weird coincidence, right?”
As I speak I slowly edge away from him and try to work my way towards the door. In my irrational mind I think that as long as I keep talking, the big bad bloody alien man isn’t going to do anything to me and I can try to make a run for it when he least expects it. Which is what I do.
How wrong I was. Sigh. Wouldn’t be the first time though.
Unfortunately, before I even make it two steps, Skeletor decides to bring out a massive gun and shoot me square in the chest. Surprisingly, I don’t feel pain, just shock. And then I collapse.
Everything looks weird and foggy and my brain feels like a brick. All I want to do is close my eyes and fall into death’s sweet no-aliens-allowed embrace, but I fight it as much as possible. In one final effort to fight against my impending death, I lift my heavy eyelids and see the bloody face of the alien staring down at me.
Is that face going to be the last thing I ever see? Ugh, he’s so ugly. He should wea
r a mask, I think to myself. I should probably tell him.
“Y-yooow…shou wear…uhh masss…”
And then I only see darkness.
Chapter 4
Dani
It wasn’t until I opened my eyes again that I realized that I was hanging off of someone’s shoulder – again. How do I keep finding myself on people’s shoulders? Even with my head feeling like a giant cotton ball, I’m still able to notice that my head is dangling and bobbing uncomfortably from side to side – and occasionally smacking against something hard, which I believe is the person who is currently carrying me.
I moan as my head jerks back and forth with each step. Unfortunately, I don’t have the power to look up or protest. All I can do is squint my eyes open and see some dark boots and hear the bustling noise around me.
I try to open my mouth and scream, but nothing comes out. Just a weird squeaky sound. It sounds like a mouse actually.
Where did the mouse come from? Did a mouse get abducted by aliens too?
And then everything goes dark again.
***
Dani
Ugh. Pain. Everywhere.
Actually, it’s not so much pain rather than just the most intense feeling of discomfort and exhaustion. It feels like an invisible force just up and punched my entire existence in the face.
I’m pretty certain that makes no sense at all, but that’s the only way I can describe the feeling of total crap that I’m experiencing right now. Although, I suppose ‘hung over’ could be another way of describing it.
I feel hung over. But it’s the worst kind of hang over because I didn’t actually get to enjoy being drunk. At least I don’t think I did? I moan as I cradle my heavy head and try to prop myself up. When did my head get so fat?
“The effects of the tranquilizer will subside very quickly.”
I jump at the low, grinding voice and instinctively open my eyes. Big mistake. The surrounding bright lights pierce my eyeballs like a knife going directly to my brain and I moan louder as I slam my eyes shut.
“Ugh…garrr…” I moan out loud, probably sounding like poor dying wildebeest on the African prairie.
“Give it a moment. Don’t force it or you will prolong the effects,” the ominous voice says firmly.
Yeah, easy for you to say. You’re not the one stuck in a strange place with a creepy-sounding stranger and a migraine from Hell, I think bitterly. I would have actually said that to him, but my headache wouldn’t allow me to move my mouth. Instead I just moan again and mumble inaudible words.
“Don’t be stubborn. Just take deep breaths,” the deep voice orders, with more than a hint of frustration. His voice then softens a bit and he adds, “Relax and it will pass.”
Realizing that I really don’t have many other options, I comply and proceed to try to take deep slow breaths. I fight the urge to open my eyes and go into panic mode-overdrive, instead I breathe slowly and try to focus on the tension and pain.
After only a few seconds of breathing, I start to feel my body relax and with it the pain starts to slip away. I feel my muscles relax and my head starts to clear, the cobwebs seem to dissolve almost instantly.
Once I feel like a half functioning person again, I begin to slowly open my eyes. Expecting to be hit with a blinding light, I squint my eyes and peak through my eyelids, but I quickly realize it’s not nearly as bright as I thought.
I dare to open them completely and my eyes almost instantly fall on the owner of the voice. The bloody, skinless, muscle face Skeletor man is sitting across from me, his face serious and terrifying.
I scramble blindly away from him, sliding along the floor. I never take my eyes off of him.
“Y-you!” I point at him and try to push further away from him. “Y-y-you!!”
With my mind stuck in a big painful haze, I had completely forgotten about what happened to me. I completely forgot about the lecherous General, but more importantly I completely forgot that Freddy Krueger’s nightmare kicked the lecherous General’s ass and then kidnapped me. Honestly, I thought he killed me when he shot me…but apparently not.
The giant figure stands up and takes a step towards me. I scream bloody murder as I think of all the horrible things he’s about to do to me. I raise my hands in protest and continue to slide along the floor until I hit a wall with a depressing thud.
“Please don’t hurt me! Please…please…don’t wear my skin!!” I cry out as I cower behind my raised arms, the fire and ‘spirit’ that everyone always talked about, suddenly gone. It’s funny how your fire can be extinguished so quickly when you’re so pathetically outmatched and you’re about to become a mask for someone.
That’s when you just roll over and cry.
The giant alien stops for a moment as his creepy “tendonned” brow furrows, almost as if in confusion.
“Wear your…?” he growls.
And then he looks down and catches a glance at his muscled and tendon-exposed hands and suddenly sniggers, as if amused by something. This just horrifies me more. He finds it funny that he doesn’t have skin and that I’m afraid that he’s going to wear mine.
Sick bastard.
I frantically look around the bare room that we’re in, trying to find a weapon of some kind, and notice that we’re on a shuttle. I quickly glance around and see something that looks like a blaster only a few feet away. I jump for it.
“No!” I hear the alien yell, but I ignore him and grab the blaster.
“Stay away!” I shout and point the blaster at him. He raises his hands and eyes my new weapon, but continues to take a slow step towards me.
“Stop!” I scream, my hands shaking as I point the weapon at him.
“Dani, stop…” the alien says with his terrifying gurgly voice, but with a strange hint of calmness.
Without realizing it, I lower the blaster just a little, completely caught off guard. He knows my name? How does he know my –
Before I can finish my thought, the bloody alien reaches for something on his chest and presses something that I can’t see.
“Hey! Stop that! What are you doing?!” I ask nervously, fear and panic taking over entirely.
He doesn’t answer though. Almost immediately a weird shimmer surrounds his entire body. I watch open-mouthed as the shimmer intensifies until I can no longer see him clearly – until I can again.
I drop the gun.
“Y-you,” I whisper, a knot forms in my throat as my whole body shakes. I’m trembling so bad that it almost feels like I’m convulsing. But I don’t even notice any of that. I just look ahead.
Big Blue says nothing. He only stands in front of me, his hands still up and outstretched from when I had the blaster pointing at him.
“You…” I cry out one more time, almost close to collapsing. Tears start to openly slide down my cheek as a wave of emotions crash through me – exhaustion…happiness…fear…relief…and something else. Something else that I don’t understand, but it’s the loudest emotion of them all.
“You…came back…” I whisper.
Maybe noticing that I was feeling weak and close to collapsing onto the floor? Maybe he just needed a hug after he beat up all those people on the planet? But he rushes towards me and wraps his arms around me. And I give in. I collapse completely into his arms.
And it feels so safe, so warm and so…good. I close my eyes and I feel myself letting go. I allow the fear and terror that I had bottled up inside of me to slip away. And I let my body relax as I sink further and further into his big embrace.
He doesn’t say anything. At first, he just stands there, stiff and stoic and unsure of how to handle me in his arms – it was like hugging a tree with arms – but soon I feel him relax. His arms tighten around me and I just…close my eyes.
I can smell his leathery but spicy scent and it all feels so good. Am I going to question why I’m so happy to see him and why it feels so damn good to be in his arms? Nope, not at all. I’m just going to chalk that up to pure excitement for b
eing alive and free. Well, relatively free.
Without realizing it, I press closer to his body, closing the little space that there is between us. And then I cry. I cry hard. And like a baby. I’m not usually a big crier. In fact, if one considers the fact that I haven’t really cried since I was abducted, some might actually think I’m emotionally numb.
Well, apparently I’m not numb. Because I’m having the cry of my life on Big Blue’s chest, and we’re talking about the hiccupping and snot running down your nose kind. And all that magic is happening on his chest.
Acting as if he’s afraid and unsure of how to handle me, he doesn’t move. He just stands frozen as I continue to wail into his arms. He’s so unfamiliar with humans and crying, for all he knows I might spontaneously explode in mere seconds. But he doesn’t move.
I don’t know how much time passes, but after I feel like I have no more tears to squeeze out of my eyes, I slowly raise my swollen tear-logged face and look up at him. He just looks down at me uncomfortably, but doesn’t remove his arms around me.
“Why did you do it?” I whisper, although it sounds more like a croak.
He matches my gaze, and for a moment he says nothing, as if searching for his words.
“It doesn’t matter why I came back. What’s important is that I did.”
At this I shake my head ‘no’.
“No, that’s not what I meant. Why did you leave me down there?” I ask, my voice heavy and accusing.
This catches him off guard. He wasn’t expecting that question. He was expecting me to be surprised that he came back for me, but he wasn’t expecting me to ask him why he left me there in the first place.
Oh well, too bad for him.
“You know why,” he says stiffly.
I shake my head again. “No.” I push away from him with a slight shove. “No. That’s not an answer. Why did you leave me there?” I repeat.
