Unsettling Stories

My Last Abduction

They come for me in broad daylight.

Over the last few years, they had removed nine toes, 12 teeth, one finger, and three feet of my large intestine. There are no scars.

They leave no other evidence. They take what they want and leave me with less and less each time. Every visit diminishes me.

People can't see them. Dogs can, though. Cats, too. Maybe birds. They'll howl or hiss or fly away, but that won't deter the visit. From what I've learned, nothing will.

My right thumb was taken four days ago. I was walking to the supermarket when I felt the telltale prickles of static electricity cascading down the back of my head and neck. Pigeons in the area began to screech.

The sense of weightlessness I'd grown to know and dread swept over me, and as I was lifted into the clear sky, I saw my replacement continue his walk. He always continues exactly where I'd left off.

The people walking behind me didn't notice a thing.

I know the long pull skyward is an illusion; perhaps even one for my benefit. That they can instantaneously place my replacement is proof of some kind of teleportation capability, but perhaps the sensation of travel is their way of easing my mind.

If so, it's a strange way of doing it. Moments later, I'll feel the agony of every incision and every amputation as their machines work. Despite their best efforts, I am not, and never again will be, at ease.

After my first abduction, I was deposited where my replacement had been. The physical transition was seamless, but the mental and emotional ones were not.

For those sitting in the room with me, I went from laughing at a joke to shrieking and pulling off my shoes and socks to reveal my missing pinky toe. It was my abductors' first souvenir.

At the hospital, my checkup yielded no issues. None whatsoever, in fact. I appeared to be in perfect physical health, save for the missing toe.

I was unsurprised when they wouldn't believe what I claimed had happened to me. I was kept overnight for observation, then given a prescription for anti-anxiety medication and discharged.

I've been back to the hospital over a dozen times since. The doctors began to realize something was happening. They noticed the perfect, seamless amputations and extractions of parts of me that previous x-rays showed were quite present at the time of the scans.

The medical professionals were at a complete loss.

As I mentioned, four days ago, my right thumb was taken. I didn't go to the hospital after I was deposited back into the kitchen of my home.

Three days ago, I lost my left hand. I was deposited back into my shower. The stump below my wrist was clean, white, and smooth. I did not go to the hospital.

Two days ago, my penis and testicles were excised. The agony of their amputation was exquisite, hideous, and profound. The pain disappeared when I was returned. I immediately went to the hospital, where I remain.

The head of the hospital made many, many calls. No more than a few hours later, I was visited at my bedside by people in black suits. They made me sign documents that I'm invalidating as I type this.

Before dawn this morning, I was taken again. It was the first time I was abducted at night. It was also the first time I saw the faces of my abductors.

To attempt to explain the sheer, incomprehensible horror of their appearance would only blunt the reality of their form.

No words exist in any human language to describe the feeling that laying my eyes upon them had evoked. The word "incomprehensible" dwarfs the word "horror," and I'd never felt so frightened in my life.

Not until mere hours ago.

When I was returned, I knew nothing had been taken. The machines that had stolen so much of me had not been used. Something new had been employed. Something worse. Something alive.

I was swapped with my replacement and found myself where I'd been beforehand: my hospital bed. I began to scream with a force that caused blood vessels in my eyes to burst. Before anyone could arrive, I started to feel what had been done to me.

They didn't question my demand that they scan me. They didn't even hesitate. And when it was over, no one spoke. No one even looked at me. Their eyes were glued to the screens. Two pairs of them began to leak tears down horrified faces. That was all the confirmation I needed.

I'm typing this with the laptop I'd been given to compose my last will and testament. But I have nothing to give and no one to give it to. This is more important.

Please realize that during my most recent abduction, I saw many, many other people who had been taken. People of all ages and races from what appeared to be all over the world. And they were all undergoing the same procedure.

I don't know how much longer I have. By the looks on the faces of the hospital officials and doctors who saw the scans, I can't imagine it's very long.

Right now, if thousands of people around the world are experiencing what I am, things will get very bad, very soon. While I wasn't given the opportunity to see the scans, I have all the evidence I need.

All six pairs of clawed legs are scratching at my abdomen from the inside. I can see my skin rising and falling as the pressure against it grows and what's inside gets stronger.

No one, aside from doctors, hospital officials, and suited men, remains in the hospital. Everyone else has been evacuated.

Believe my account or choose to ignore it. It's entirely your choice. I won't be around for whatever happens next, but you will. Right now, I feel more of me being taken as teeth inside me are beginning to chew.

It's going to happen soon, and something tells me it's going to all go very quickly from there. Spots of blood are seeping through the sheet covering my belly.

Please be ready.

~ Max