by Anna Collins
I crawled into bed in Grandpa’s old room as the winter sun went down at around 6 pm. I’d never been so tired in my life, and sleep took me into its dreamless embrace.
***
It felt like I’d only slept for only a few hours when the light burned behind my closed eyelids. The sun seemed impossibly bright, and I was positive I had closed the heavy curtains. Well, it didn’t matter if it was daylight or not, I wasn’t getting out of bed yet and I decided just to go ahead bury my head under the covers until my body absolutely forced me to get up. I tried to pull the covers over my head, but then I noticed something else, I couldn’t move a muscle, I was completely paralyzed. I opened my eyes and was immediately blinded by a searing white light. I wasn’t in the cabin anymore! I closed my eyes tight against the glare of the light and attempted to calm the sudden panic that was raging inside of me.
First thing first, I had to figure out where I was. I needed to calm myself down and assess my situation rationally. For years, I’d practiced transcendental meditation to focus myself, especially during midterms and finals. I’d fallen out of practice since my divorce, but it was kind of like riding a bike, I simply found my center and concentrated on my mantra. 5 minutes passed, then 10 minutes. As I brought myself back to reality, my waking mind now laser focused, and I came to the conclusion that I had to be dreaming. Even though from a sensory perspective, I could feel, smell, hear, and taste everything that I had to be in some kind of waking dream brought on by ongoing emotional turmoil as well as my physical exhaustion from the previous days labor. The phenomena of the waking dream weren't unheard of, in fact, it was quite common.
As I convinced myself of this fact I opened my eyes again to the white, blinding light, and I came face-to-face with a gray man. His black eyes were impossibly huge and insect like. I saw myself reflected in those blacker-than-black eyes and I finally allowed myself to lose control and I began screaming. The gray man seemed to panic and seemed to begin running around me. Through my screams I could hear this odd ticking noise, it was as if this thing was trying to communicate with me. My voice began to crack from my screams, and I once again forced myself to calm down. The gray man continued to click at me and I stared at him with deep confusion.
“I … I can’t understand you. What are you saying?” I asked, my voice edging towards panic again.
The gray man stood over me, his head tilting left-to-right as if it was a curious dog and I had a treat in my hand. The gray man then reached behind his head and I heard and audible click, and his like air escaping from a balloon, and the gray man removed his head and revealed one of the most beautiful faces I’d ever seen. It was light blue, but it was absolutely gorgeous.
“Where is Dale Huggins?” The beautiful blue man asked, and then I passed out.
We all thought Grandpa was insane.
For years we thought he was, nothing more than an acid casualty and that his aliens were nothing more than vivid, reoccurring hallucinations.
For years, we forced antipsychotics down his throat and shook our heads, treating him like he was nothing more than a child with an overstimulated imagination.
But here I was, face-to-face with one of his gray men.
Make that one of his blue men. I suddenly remembered the painting from the last time we came to visit Grandpa and he showed me the true face of the gray men and how I thought painting was more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen.
And here I was sitting with the living, breathing version of that painting, and I was as naked as the day I was born. I would have been embarrassed, but the blue man was just as naked as I was, but he didn’t exhibit any of the obvious discomfort I was feeling. Of course, I didn’t exactly mind seeing him naked, because he was, well, in possession of the same exact thing that made blind to my ex-husbands obvious faults, but even more so.
I had come back to the land of the living just a few minutes earlier and the fog was lifting from my mind and I attempted to acclimate my surroundings. The first thing I notice was that I was completely naked and I felt myself flush bright red and I attempted to cover myself with my hands. It’s not that I’m embarrassed by my body, I’m perfectly comfortable with who I am and what I look like, but since the divorce I had kind of let myself go and I had abandoned my once near-religious work out routines and packed on a few extra pounds. The blue man noticed my discomfort and briefly disappeared from the blinding white room we were sitting in and then returned with a thin blanket for me to cover myself. He’d also put on a pair of what looked like spandex shorts. That was a shame.
“You’ll have to forgive me. Our transport system can only move living organic matter and your clothes were most likely left behind when I brought you here. I also forgot how … modest human beings can be.”
I squinted up at the blue man, pushing back my amazement and disbelief over my current situation and asked.
“Is there any way you could turn down the lights? The glare in here is killing me.”
The blue man made several swift motions with his hands and suddenly the lights dimmed, but we were still surrounded by a brilliant white which seemed to pulse as if it were a heartbeat.
“Where am I?” I asked, knowing full well what his answer would be.
“You are on my ship. Its name would be impossible to pronounce it your language, so I will simply call it ship.”
“It’s alive?”
“Yes, ship is organic. They are my home world and they help us travel between universes … But before I answer any more of your questions, please answer mine: Where is Dale Huggins?”
“My Grandpa died. He died almost over five years ago. I figured with you kidnapping him so much you would’ve known that.”
The blue man’s face became slack and sorrowful. It almost looked like he was going to cry.
“It has been quite some time since I was last near your planet. I was not aware he’d moved onto another universe. I’m sorry did not get to say goodbye to him. He was my friend.”
“Your friend?” I said at a near shout. I couldn’t help myself, this blue man, this alien had destroyed my uncle. He had cost him everything. “You kidnaped him for years. You literally drove him crazy. He lost everything that matters because of you!”
I was on my feet, in the blue man’s face, and shaking with anger.
“I… I did not mean to do this to him. But it was necessary because of the nature of our mission I had to wipe his memory when I returned him to earth. When I would bring him back to the ship, I would restore his memories. But once he was on earth, he would have been in too much danger if I allowed him to remember. Just as if I allowed you to remember, Amanda.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You … You kidnapped me, too?”
I wanted to smash his face in. I wanted to tear his eyes out with my fingernails. This man … this thing had been kidnapping me for god knows how long!
“No, Amanda, not me, but another of my brothers. He was your trainer, just as I was Dale’s trainer. You and I … We were something else.”
“We were what?” My mind couldn’t comprehend what I was hearing. What he was saying to me made absolutely no sense.
“Here,” He said as he gently tapped his finger against my forehead. “Let me show you.”
Suddenly my mind flooded with images of me as a young girl, maybe only 8-years-old, being comforted by my Grandpa as a bald blue man with a thick yellow beard stood over us, and a blue boy stood next to him looking at me with concern in his eyes. Then I am older, maybe 12, I am sparring with the bearded man, Grandpa is fighting against the blue boy. The blue boy is fast, almost faster than the eye can see and he easily brings Grandpa down. I do the same to the bearded blue man. Next, I am 16, the blue boy and I sit holding hands, he kisses me, his hands explore my body and I explore his. We are both shy, but we love one another. Next, it is me at 18, I hold the blue boy as he cries. I wipe away his tears with my fingers, I kiss them away, but I tell him that I’m sorry
, but I have to go away.
And just as suddenly, my mind snaps forward to now, my eyes fill with the boy who is now a man, D-Arin. HIs name is D-Arin and we’ve known each other since we were children. We’ve loved one another for just as long. As children, it was as brother and sister, but as we grew older, it became deeper. I pull D-Arin’s face to mine and I kiss his angelic lips. He is so familiar and wonderful, my soul swells with my love for him. I pull away so I can see his face, my fingers exploring it as if I was blind.
“After … After you said you were leaving, I couldn’t bear to return. That’s why I didn’t know that Dale had died …”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, kissing him again, pushing his skin hugging shorts down and letting them puddle around his ankles. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
I gently stroke his swollen member while kissing his chest, moving down to his stomach and then fall to my knees and take him into my mouth. His taste is heady and sweet, so unlike the taste of a human penis. He runs his fingers through my hair, gently pulling it and guiding his cock deeper down my throat. I gag and pull him from my mouth. He takes this brief moment to lie down on the floor of the ship next to me, kissing me and rubbing my swollen clit with his fingers. Bolts of electricity run up and down my back with his touch. He lays flat on the ground and motions for me to sit on his face. I swing my leg over him and he plunges his thick tongue into my labia and then begins to expertly lick my clit with the tip of his tongue.
I take him back into my mouth as I feel an orgasm building. He knows exactly how to touch me as if his brain is hard wired to my pleasure. As he licks, one of his wet fingers teases and explores my ass, and as he plunges the tip inside of me, my body explodes with my orgasm. My body thrashes and fills with fire. I push myself down hard against his mouth, his tongue sliding deeper inside of me, his finger continuing to plunge in and out of my behind. I erupt, my juices soaking his face, drowning him.
I’m still shaking as he pushes me off of him and he roughly puts me on my back. He positions my legs behind my ears, folding me in half, and plunges his cock deep inside of me. He pounds me with every ounce of his strength as if he’s trying to push his entire body inside of me. My moans echo through the hollow space of the ship, reverberating melodiously back at me. I stop D-Arin’s manic thrusting and pull him out of me and guide his slick penis to the rosebud of my ass, gently pushing it inside of me, motioning him with my eyes for him to go deeper. I cum almost immediately as he inserts his full size inside of me, and I keep coming as I feel his cock explode, his seed filling me to overflowing.
We laid cradled in each other's arms for what seemed like hours. I dozed restfully, my body humming with our love as he held me tight against his chest, his heart acting like a metronome.
It felt like it had been years since I was this happy, this content with my life. And it had been years, and all because something vital was missing from it. D-Arin was what was missing, and I was determined to never let him go again, no matter what.
Despite the comfort and well-being I was feeling, I knew that D-Arin had returned to earth for a reason. He’d come in search of my uncle because of what was coming to earth, or what was already here. And now that Dale was gone, I would be the one who would have to deal with whatever was here alongside D-Arin. As comfortable, content, and warm as I was in D-Arin’s arms, my blood was beginning to turn cold. I sat up and stroked D-Arin’s cheek, gently waking him out of his slumber.
“So tell me about the hunters?” I asked.
***
There’s a “secret” UFO document that has been making its way around the internet for the past decade called Project Blue Book. UFO conspiracies claim that Project Blue Book is a government document proving that the United States of America and aliens have been in contact with one another for decades (Ever since the “crash landing” of a UFO in Roswell, New Mexico back in 1947. But I’ll let you in on a little secret, the only thing that crashed in New Mexico in 1947 was a human-made nuclear-powered air craft. It did cause us to gain the attention of several alien races, but that’s about it.), and that all of the technological advances we’ve made during that time is because of technology was given to us by alien races in exchange for god knows what. Most conspiracists believe the US government agreed to let the aliens kidnap and experiment on a certain percentage of the population.
With my memories now restored, I can tell you in all honesty that this claim is completely false. In fact, although the government knows that aliens exist, they consider them to be a hostile force, and Project Blue Book is nothing more than a CIA created document. It’s something the intelligence community refers to as a false flag. It’s basically a counter-intelligence method to lull people into believing that aliens and UFO’s exist and they’re constantly buzzing around the earth, pulling people out of their beds with tractor beams and then sticking probes up their asses for some unknown reason. By planting these stories and documents, what the government is really accomplishing is distracting people from what they’re actually doing, which is typically developing high-speed air craft built with less than stable materials and laser-based weapons.
I know this seems a little overly complex, but there’s some serious logic to it. UFO people—and conspiracy people in general—are all very intelligent and obsessive human beings. They’re the types who most likely would’ve made great investigative journalists if they weren’t so obsessed with pop culture. So what the CIA does is they feed their obsessions so that the conspiracy nuts keep their noses out of what’s really going on.
The one thing Project Blue Book does get right—and it’s the one piece of truth the CIA purposely allowed into the book—is a glossary of known alien types that have visited earth over the decades. Almost every single one of these, with the exception of only a few, is completely accurate. D-Arin and his people are listed in it, although the gray men are also listed as a separate species, as well as another dozen non-hostile aliens who supposedly live among the human population. Once again, this is nothing but disinformation. Aliens have all evolved in different atmosphere types for the exception of D-Arin’s people and one other species. The rest need complex breathing apparatus in order to even step foot on earth.
But the other species that can withstand earth’s atmosphere can also withstand most other atmospheres. In fact, they’re essentially the alpha predator of the known galaxies, and they are universally feared because of their adaptability, ferocity, and their absolute need to kill. Nothing is known about the species, not even their home planet, but they are known as hunters. There has been a theory that’s floated around for years that hunters don’t have a home planet and are actually some form of biological weapon that was developed thousands of years ago by a now extinct species, and pods of them were placed on every inhabited planet in the known galaxies and would only be activated if the population of a particular planet became too large to support its native life forms. Think of it as forced Darwinism. But, of course, it’s only a theory.
The reality of the hunters is once they appear, they will obliterate anything in its path, like a tornado, but made up of claws and teeth. Typically, only one will appear, and you need to kill it as soon as possible because they reproduce asexually. Basically, if you ignore the problem for too long, a single hunter can become 100, and then 1000, and then 10,000. If they reach that kind of numbers, you might as well say bye-bye to your planet.
“So how many of them are there?” I asked as we stood in front of his 3-D heads-up display.
“So far I have only tracked one here in southwestern New Mexico.”
“The painted desert.”
“Yes.”
D-Arin’s people are more or less like the police for the known galaxies. They’re an extremely old race and universally treasured for their fairness, ingenuity, and adaptability. Theirs’s was the race who made first contact after America detonated the atomic bombs and crash landed the nuclear powered air craft. They came because th
ey wanted to make sure that we weren’t a threat to our neighboring planets or galaxies. Once they determined that we were only playing with our new found technology, they deemed the human race as a non-threat, but still kept an eye on us in case we ever became threatened by hunters. They also covertly recruited humans who they felt would be able to handle themselves against a hunter, and whose minds were adaptable to having their memories erased time and again. Because here’s another interesting fact about hunters: They can read minds, and the more native populations know about them, the more aggressive they became.
It was a double edge sword: Prepare certain members of the native population to defend their planet against a hunter, but wipe their memories clean of that training until they were absolutely needed, and then activate them.
I had now been fully activated and I was ready for whatever the hunters threw at us.
Of course, D-Arin wasn’t entirely convinced of my readiness and kept drilling me about weapons use and my combat training. I finally grew tired of his questions and tossed him over my shoulder and disarmed him of his synth blade. As I held it against his throat, I winked, kissed him, and then pulled him to his feet.
