by Zara Zenia
As I run up the stairs and reach my apartment door, I sense something wrong right away, and my heart feels still. There’s an eerie silence as I open the door. The table in the hallway is upturned, and there are clothes and cushions scattered all over the living room. Some of my books are lying torn and trampled on the floor. Allison is nowhere to be seen.
“Hey! Allison!”
I search through every room but she’s nowhere. Could she have left me? It doesn’t look that way. Some of her belongings are still strewn around the place. I can still smell her perfume in the air, so it can’t have been long since she left.
“Allison?” I call out one last time with the hope she’ll hear me and pop out of a closet.
I long to discover I have been the butt of a practical joke, but as I pick up my phone and call her, there’s no answer. I feel my skin grow cold. Something terrible has happened.
With no idea as to what to do and with my chest tightening with panic, I feel my heart race as I head back out the door. Maybe, just maybe, she headed back to the supermarket to meet me. Maybe nothing bad happened at all.
I cling to this thought the entire way back to the store with the greatest hope that I have everything mixed up in my head. The manager sees me running back inside.
“Just couldn’t keep away, huh?” he chuckles. “Or has Allison stood you up?”
“Have you seen her?” I shout.
“No! It was her day off today. Calm down, buddy. Why are you all worked up?”
He looks at the sweat on my forehead and the way my hands are trembling.
“What’s the matter? Has something happened?”
“I don’t know,” I gasp, taking a step backward. “I hope not,” and I run.
Dashing out the store, my eyes flicker all over the parking lot for signs of her. Thinking she has joined the ever-growing vigil, I push my way through the crowd, but there's no sign of her. For a brief second, I’m sure I smell her perfume, but then it’s gone. I must have imagined it.
Drifting away from the hordes of people, I walk through the parking lot. I’ve walked this way for so long that I’ve grown used to the shortcuts in the area. Heading to the back of the parking lot, I aim to make my way down the short alleyway that is shrouded by trees. Yet as I place one foot inside the alley, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I’m not alone. There’s the nearby sound of someone breathing. I can sense the heartbeats of at least three people, and there’s the smell of something not from this planet.
“Traitor!” someone yells, and I’m roughly grappled to the ground.
Palzu’s troops have me in a tight bind and are looking down at me angrily.
“You’re a traitor! A deserter!” one of them spits at me. “And now you’re coming with us.”
The next thing I notice is the side of my vision becoming blurry as I’m knocked over the head.
When I wake up, there’s a piercing pain in my head. I try to move, but I can’t. My legs are tied and my arms are tethered around my back.
“Benzen!”
A familiar voice comes from somewhere I can’t see.
“Benzen, can you hear me?”
It’s Allison’s voice!
“Allison?”
Turning my head, I begin to get my bearings. We’re inside one of Palzu’s shuttles. Allison is tied to a chair in front of me, the neon light from above flashing off her face. Her eyes are wide and pleading. Behind her, there are two troops with their guns aimed at her head. I’m filled with dread. The slightest movement will make them shoot. I know them too well, and they love to kill. I look her dead in the eye and silently mouth, “Everything’s going to be ok.”
But I don’t really believe it.
Chapter 16
Allison
“We are here under the orders of Palzu.”
There’s that name again, the one that makes Benzen rage. One of the troops is standing in front of him with a gun pointed at his head. I can’t bear to look. I saw what they did back at the mall. I know they’re capable of killing.
“Now that we have found you,” the troop growls as he crouches down beside Benzen. “You have two options.”
Benzen looks at him defiantly. Meanwhile, I’m too scared to look. With all the mental strength I can muster, I try to imagine myself back home in my apartment, where everything is safe and cozy. I’m aware my legs are trembling because I can hear my knees banging off the side of the chair.
One of the troops behind me gets irritated at the sound and kicks me in the shin. He’s wearing footwear I’ve never seen before, boots that are almost metallic but look like leather. As soon as his toe makes contact with me, I feel a searing pain down my leg. I scream out and Benzen looks over to me with a pained expression. I can tell he’s so sorry for us being in this position. It’s not his fault. He could have never guessed this would happen.
The troop beside him prods the barrel of his gun into the side of Benzen’s head. I can see the way his skin reddens as the cool steel digs into him.
“Your two options are very simple,” says the soldier. “Either you can join our cause, rid yourself of your traitor status and join us back on Orba...”
He pauses, looks around the room, and sees the other troops smirking before turning back to Benzen.
“I don’t need to tell you what the other option is.”
There’s an ominous silence in the room as a silent standoff takes place. They can sense Benzen won’t give in easily, but still, they're sure their threats will force him to fall in line. The silence seems to last forever. There’s a ringing in my ears, and I can hear my own breathing get louder the more I panic. At last, when I think Benzen will never speak, he turns his head, the barrel of the gun moving around to his forehead, and he whispers, “I won’t.”
The troops look shocked. They glance to one another, eyebrows raised and eyes wide. Clearly, they weren’t expecting such a response.
“What did you say?”
“I said I won’t.”
Benzen has that defiant fire in his eyes I recognize as he looks up to the troops. It makes my heart race so fast I feel as though it’ll beat out of my chest. Why would he say that? Surely they’ll kill him now! Remarkably, the soldier removes the gun from the side of his head and takes a step back.
“So it’s going to be like that, is it?”
He pulls up a chair and straddles it backward, looking right into Benzen’s eyes. He pulls out a knife from the side of his boot and begins to play with it menacingly, toying with it between his hands.
“Why…? Why would you not want to join our cause?”
He traces the blade down the side of Benzen’s face ever so gently.
“I mean…you are an Orban, aren’t you?”
Benzen nods.
“And yet here you are on Earth, defying Palzu’s regime.”
Silence.
Heavy breathing.
Nothing but a tense, fearful energy lingering in the air.
“You know that there is a most serious punishment for dissidents like you.”
Again, Benzen nods, but he keeps his eyes firmly on the soldier with an unwavering gaze. He looks fearless, but I know deep down, he’s just as scared as I am.
“I’ll ask you one more time, traitor. Will you join our cause? I’m being uncharacteristically generous here. I’m giving you another chance to do the right thing.”
“I won’t.”
The soldier can’t believe his ears.
“What was that?”
“I won’t join your cause.”
I can hear the fear in his voice as it quivers with his breath rapid as he speaks.
“I won’t join your cause because it isn’t what the Orban people want! It’s what Palzu wants. He is a ruthless dictator, one whose regime I refuse to live under.”
The troops are dumbfounded.
“Refuse?” the soldier cocks his head to the side.
“Yes! I refuse! He does not speak for the Orb
an race, only himself. He wants to split everyone up so that we are without friends, family, or community. He is trying to make us weak to the point of lacking all support so he can rule us with an iron fist. All he wants is the Orban race as slaves. Can’t you see that?”
The soldier flinches as if he’s been slapped in the face.
“Are you questioning me?” he narrows his eyes.
Benzen regards him cautiously for a moment before answering.
“Yes. I want to know why you think you aren’t being taken advantage of by Palzu like the others. Why do you think you’re so special?”
The soldier’s eyes are darting furiously around the room as his face grows redder and redder until he jumps from his chair. Kicking it across the room, he bellows, “How dare you question an honorable guard of the great Palzu?”
“You’re brainwashed!” Benzen yells as he struggles against his restraints. “Can’t you see that? He’s using you!”
“You deserve to die a slow and painful death.” The soldier stands still in front of him. “You are the most cowardly traitor I have witnessed.”
He pulls out the knife once again and brandishes it at Benzen, flashing it in front of his face.
“Please don’t hurt him!” I scream. “Please! He’s done nothing wrong.”
But the soldier doesn’t listen. He pulls his lips apart and smiles from ear to ear. It’s a maniacal grin, one that betrays the pleasure he takes in this. His movements are calculated as he plays with the blade. He raises it up high in front of Benzen. I see the reflection of his face on the cold steel. It’s twisted and sadistic. He’s enjoying the fear he’s inflicting on us, drawing it out for as long as possible until poor little Benzen gives in and tells him what he wants to hear. But he doesn’t. When Benzen opens his mouth I look away, petrified for his fate.
“You can’t scare me!” he yells in the soldier’s face. “I may be a traitor to you, but in the eyes of the Orban race, I’m a true hero.”
“You’re a deserter!”
“Yes, and I am free.”
The soldier doesn’t want to hear any more. He plunges the knife towards Benzen. Just when I think he’s going to penetrate Benzen’s body, he moves at the last minute. Slicing through the restraints he has finally freed his captive, but not for long.
“You’re coming with us.”
“Never!” Benzen tries to fight.
He manages to swing a single punch. It lands on the soldier’s face and draws a slight trickle of blood from his nose. I wonder where he learned to fight, I thought.
Enraged, the soldier orders the other troops over. They descend on Benzen, tackling him to the ground. As soon as he’s restrained once again, this time by the troops' heavy hands, they drag him away.
I watch in horror as he’s taken away from me. His shouts echo around the ship as he’s taken into the bowels of the shuttle. All I can do is cry. Looking around, I see I am alone with nothing but the stinging pain of my restraints to keep me company. My shin still throbs. I move my foot to see how badly I’m injured, and I’m pleased to see I can still move.
Benzen’s voice grows more and more distant until it seems like a faraway whisper in my mind. Will I ever see him again? The look on the soldiers’ faces tell me no. I weep quietly, my body exhausted. I know that soon, they'll come back for me, and I'm sure I will suffer a similar fate.
Yet the longer I wait, the more a thought ruminates in my head. If they wanted me dead, they would have killed me already, right? And if they’d killed Benzen, surely they would come back and finish the job. What use would I be without him?
There’s something bigger at play here? I’m a bargaining chip, nothing more, nothing less. But at least I am alive. With nothing left to do but think, I close my eyes and settle into the darkness of my thoughts.
***
When I wake up, I don’t know how much time has passed. It could have been ten minutes or ten hours. Judging by how weary and pained my body is, I assume it's been a little while. Looking down at my shin, I see a large bruise has begun to form, with the ankle becoming swollen. Meanwhile, my wrists, still tied behind my back, are in agony. The blood has pooled into my fingers, making them swollen and impossible to move. Still, despite it hurting more than I can say, I struggle to free myself.
It’s no use. Everything feels impossible. Have they forgotten about me? Will they ever return? Would I even want them to?
It’s odd, what comes to mind when you’re in a crisis. As the red light above me flashes in my face, it reminds me of the sun and the way it used to filter through the trees as we drove to the beach during summer. I remember my dad, his hands loosely gripping the steering wheel, a goofy smile on his face and his voice out of key as he sings along to Motown classics on the radio. My mom would be in the passenger seat, cringing at Dad’s voice but enjoying seeing him so happy. I imagine I’m right there with them with The Temptations on the radio and the sun flashing its warm rays against my skin.
I cling to this memory and pretend I’m nine years old once again. Soon, when the car stops, we’ll be at the beach, with the sound of the waves crashing before us. There’d be the smell of sunblock and ice cream all around, salt would cling to my hair, and children would be screaming as they fling water balloons at one another.
I wish so badly I was right there with my parents on either side of me, but when I open my eyes, I see it’s the neon light of the shuttle above me. The dream is shattered, my parents aren’t by my side, and I’m all alone.
A single tear rolls down my cheek and runs into my mouth. I let it rest on my lips, and I taste the salt, imagining it to be sea water. But it’s not. Staring straight ahead at the sealed doors, I wonder when I’ll see them open again and whether or not the person behind them will be coming to kill me.
Chapter 17
Allison
Time drags by slower than I could imagine. While working at the supermarket, I thought it was the most boring, depressing place on Earth, but I was wrong. Here, inside the extraterrestrial ship, all I can see is the metallic insides of the craft. Above me, the light is still flashing. It’s been going on for so long that it’s becoming a form of torture. I’ve figured it out—it flashes once every two and a half seconds. I’ve double-checked it, so I’m sure. I count the rhythm in my head as the red light illuminates my face. It’s becoming unbearable, the darkness mixed with the sordid neon light. I need outside. I need to be somewhere I recognize. I need to be with Benzen…
I can’t stay here forever and the longer I’m left to rot, the more I realize I’m responsible for getting out of here alive, and if that means I have to save Benzen too, then so be it. My mind races with ways I might escape. But no matter what I come up with, the first step is to deal with my restraints. It seems impossible as I struggle and pull at the tethers on my wrist. They’re made from a material I’ve never felt before, a fiber that simply does not exist on Earth. It’s strong like steel, but flexible and soft to the touch like silk. When I pull against it, it only tightens its grip. It’s like the CIA worked on developing Chinese finger traps for a hundred years and came up with this.
I don’t know how much time has passed when, rather suddenly, footsteps sound from behind the door. They’re determined and fast. They’re coming to get me. The doors glide open silently and in front of me stands two troops with a predatory glint in their eyes.
“You…” one of them says as he approaches, “you’re lucky you’ve lasted this long.”
I panic. I don’t know why, but I can feel that if I don’t stop them right now, in this very second, they’ll kill me on the spot. Thinking fast, I try to distract them.
“Wait!”
They ignore me and proceed to walk closer as they raise their guns.
“Don’t come any nearer or I’ll breathe on you.”
The words feel ridiculous as they tumble out my mouth. I don’t know where I’m going with this or what I’m going to say next, but it seems to work in making them uneasy. The
y stop in their tracks.
“You’ll breathe on us?” one of them laughs. “Then what?”
“The pathogens!”
“What?”
“They pathogens! They’ll kill you, you know.”
I have no idea what I’m saying. I assume I’m saying something vaguely scientific, but I’ve only ever heard of pathogens in a crime documentary once and have no clue as to what they are.
“What pathogens?”
The soldiers are now looking nervous and glance at one another as they shift from foot to foot. One of them looks more worried than the other and takes a step back, his eyes glued to my mouth as he does so.
“They’re a human virus,” I say with a cool demeanor, surprising myself. “If you come into contact with them, they’ll kill you.”
“Don’t listen to her,” the most confident soldier snarls. “She’s just trying to scare us.”
“I don’t know…” The other one hangs back. “How do we know?”
I listen as the two soldiers argue amongst themselves.
“If these 'pathogens'….” one of them flexes his fingers, “…can kill us, then how come they haven’t already? We were in the room with her earlier.”
“It takes exactly seven days!” I interrupt.
The look up, terrified.
“It’s true. It doesn’t kill you right away, but if you inhale the right amount, it’ll incubate in your system.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“And why would YOU randomly have these mysterious deadly pathogens in your breath?”
“Because I’m a human.” I nod to verify what I’m saying is the truth. “Yep, all humans have them, and because you’re extra-terrestrial, you’re more sensitive to them. You may have all the advanced weapons, these high-tech shuttles and the ability to travel through space, but my breath… It’ll eat you from the inside out.”
