Extraterrestrial Moors

Prologue 1

I look around me in disbelief, how could this happen? But even more important, how the hell am I still here? I'm confused and disoriented. Monday, nothing good ever happens on Monday and this is a prime example.

The scene is as it should be, but it's wrong, all wrong. It's silent, the silence is deafening. No dogs, birds or even insects. No cars or people, it's all silent. When the wind starts blowing it brings me relief because it means that I'm not deaf. But then that relief turns to terror, if I'm not deaf then why are there no sounds other than the wind blowing?

I go into the scarily empty buildings. Nothing, not even bodies. Relief that I won't be surrounded by dead and decaying bodies makes it way felt. But the wind now freezes the sweat soaked clothing to my body. Where is every living thing?

The cars remain as they were left. It is just like every living thing just vanished. Why wasn't I taken with the others then? I'd rather be dead than the only living thing left on Earth. But I smile bitterly and realize it won't be long before I join the ranks of dead. I couldn't make a plant stay alive to save my life, and that's exactly what it will come down to. The stores might have food that will help at least for a bit.

Overwhelmed I fall to the ground on my knees, the pain from my knees nothing compared to the pain that shoots through me. I find my eyes clouding over with darkness. I don't feel it when my head hits the pavement.

I wake up on in a strange house. I sit up on the bed. Everything starts rushing back to me. If I was alone how the hell did I end up in some strangers bed?

My knees and my head both decide in that moment to make their unhappy states known to me. The pain is such that it brings me to tears.

"You woke up sooner than I thought. I apologize for not being here, Maha." The stranger says as he enters the room carrying a glass and in his other hand a bottle of water. He hands me the bottle of water and offers me the glass. I shake my head, I don't need a glass, call me uncivilized.

He smiles then hands me the pills he was also holding, "Ibuprofen for the knees and likely the killer headache you're probably sporting." He holds out the medicine but since I've never seen this man before I don't take the pills. How the hell did he know my name? I wasn't carrying any ID.

The man's smile slips, he sighs and sets the pills down by my side. "You must have a lot of questions. I will answer what I can, but first you need to take the medicine. Your head hit the ground fairly hard." Indeed when I focus away from the man and gently probe at where my head hurts the worse it comes away sticky.

I didn't need to look to realize that it was blood. The man continues all the while staring at me just as much as I was staring at him. I look away long enough to pick up the pills. If he had wanted to hurt me he could've before now and there is absolutely no one to stop him. No one. 

That thought brings tears to my eyes that the pain didn't. The fact that there is someone else at my side now, doesn't really bring me any peace.

I take the pills and wipe my tears after swallowing some of the water. I look back at the stranger, "Who are you? How do you know my name?"

"With all that's happened and those are the first questions you ask me?" The stranger smiles at me once more.

"I was sent to find you, so I was told your name. My name is Rafe, well Rafael, but Rafe for short."

I don't return the smile, "That tells me your name but it doesn't tell me who you are. And who the hell sent you to find me?"

Now the stranger, no Rafe loses his smile. "You weren't killed like the others. We don't know why they didn't kill you. We thought it was an error when we found a life reading here on Earth. We wanted to know why they didn't kill you. Why you, alone of over six billion humans and innumerable other life forms, was spared. Or left to die a slow death as it were, depending on how you look at it."

"What do you mean?" I ask pulling my knees up to my chin and ignoring the pain that engenders.

"Every living thing that breathes oxygen on this planet is gone. Vaporized unless they've figured out a way to carry that many living objects in a ship smaller than one of the aircraft carriers that roamed the oceans. All except you." Rafe says not being unkind but not being kind either.

"Where am I and just who are you Rafe? And who is this 'they' you keep talking about?"

"They are they. Aliens? Magical creations? Fey? Mythological creatures? We don't know. We don't know why they do what they do. Or why they don't do something," Rafe stops as I starting laughing so hard I start crying.

I feel as if I'm going to be hysterical any second, but I can't stop myself. I can see that he is getting offended. I don't care, not anymore. He's just told me that everything I've ever known is gone or changed beyond belief.

He comes over to me and I don't even react as he injects me with something. I feel the hysteria slipping away and the black encompassing me once more.

This time when I wake up I find myself in some type of infirmary, but nothing like I've ever seen before. There's a slight feel of a vibration, like there's a machine in operation, a powerful one at that.

A door opens but I don't look, I no longer care. My family and friends, everything I've ever known is gone. I'm not on Earth anymore, I figured that much out on my own. 

"I always come after you've already awakened." The familiar voice of Rafe intrudes on my thoughts, but I don't turn to the man.

"I know it's a lot to take in, but I need you to think real hard. Why would 'they' leave you alive, Maha?"

"To make my life a living hell? I was just an ordinary girl going about my life until this nightmare started. So what now, Rafe? I sure as hell don't have any answers for you, will you kill me and put me out of my misery? Maybe in death I'll be able to find my friends and family." I say all this without looking at Rafe. He still hasn't told me who he is. Even if I knew the answers he was looking for his lack of respect towards me would guarantee that I wouldn't answer him.

"Death is always the easy way Maha. Is that what you do, take the easy way?" Rafe pushes me, but I don't answer him. I no longer cared.