Home in the Space Beyond

Chapter 1

My head was aching when I woke up. The pounding in my temple felt really weird, like i could feel the blood pumping in my head, and also my ears felt off, like i couldn't quite hear right. Worse was how dizzy I felt the moment my eyes opened. But none of that mattered as much as what my eyes saw. Bars. Bright blue bars. And in front of me three scared looking women all huddled up together like bunnies or puppies or something. That's exactly what they made me think of with my mind all hazy and hard to think with.

I didn't know what was going on but looking around and seeing that I was completely enclosed with these women in some sort of container made of a weird blue, shining, metal looking material was not a good sign. The bars were seamless, and curved up over our heads and then back down again. The floor we were all sitting on seemed to be made of something different as it was a dingy white color that was see through, and under that looked like actual silver colored metal floors. It wasn't a large area we were in, maybe 5 feet by 5 feet and just over that height wise, but we could barely stand up as long as no one was over 5'7 or so. The others didn't look like they were. Actually, two of them seemed to be teenagers, maybe 14 or 15 and pretty short, and the other looked more like 20. The younger two looked alike. Maybe they were related. The other had vibrant and curly red hair and fair skin with the stereotypical freckles, and didn't look anything like them with their much darker skin and their thick and gorgeous black hair that reached far down their backs. They were all very pretty, but looked very scared. And some of them had minor bruises, scuffs, small marks here or there that made it seem like they had been through something. Probably the same something that had happened to me now that I thought about it.

But I was still having trouble in the thinking department. My head really hurt and looking all around and trying desperately to remember how I got here wasn't helping. I wanted to say something, ask what was happening, but i felt really dizzy and instead put my head in my hands and took a few deep breaths and heard myself make a very quiet moan of discomfort. This was not a good thing, whatever was going on. Good things don't begin by waking up with memory problems, in pain, in what I was suddenly aware was a cage. I was in a cage. I looked up at that, wincing with the sudden movement, and looked across again at the pile of girls. The older one, the redhead, made eye contact this time. I went to open my mouth but she shook her head and made the universal keep it quiet sign with a finger to her lips. I figured she knew more than I did at this point, and could probably think more clearly so I kept my mouth shut and continued to observe.

The room was really bright, even though I couldn't see any visible signs of light fixtures above me. It was just lit up somehow. I noticed now that I felt a little less dizzy that ours wasn't the only cage. Next to us, with maybe three feet separating our cage from theirs, was a cage of teen boys. There were four of them. The youngest only looked 12 or 13. The older one with blonde hair could actually be early 20's but it was hard to know for sure. He could be 18 for all I knew. They looked pretty scared as well but only two were huddled together. The others all were awkwardly trying to stay in their own space in the small cage.

Further over on the far side of the room was a larger cage. Not any taller but maybe three times as wide, and it held a lot of people. Maybe twenty or twenty five. They were all men and women of various ages, from middle aged, to one guy who looked like maybe 60. There were more men than women, and most of the women seemed to be sticking together on the right side in the corner. Some of the people looked like they had just come from work, in polos or business suits. Others were in jeans and tshirts or even a nightgown for one poor woman who kept crying and wouldn't look at anyone.

A couple of the younger men in the big cage looked like they had been in a fight. They had black eyes or cut lips, blood here and there. It didn't look like any of them were seriously injured, but it did freak me out even more. How had they gotten hurt? How had I?

I also realized, as I looked at the three cages, that we seemed to be split up by age. The youngest looking the room were in my cage and the small one next to us. I wondered why, and also why they split us younger ones up by gender. I could also see that a few in the big cage didn't look much older than I did, but they were taller, larger. So maybe that made them think they were older? Or maybe they really were older and just looked young?

Just then the wall on the far left seemed to split open, like a sliding hidden door was there. It opened all the way to the ceiling, creating a very tall doorway that was six feet or so wide. And through the doorway came what I can only assume are aliens. They were tall. So tall. And slimy looking. Weirdly green and blue colored, and honestly their skin looked a bit like a cross between jello and a lizard, but they were massive like mma fighters. No, much much larger, now that they were all the way in the room. They loomed over the cages, lingering on the large one with the few men who were bloodied up. One of them snarled at those men and the men kept their gazes down.

These aliens had three arms, which was weird enough. Even stranger was the stinger looking tail they had. It was nimble like a monkey's but curved and dangerous looking at the tip, like a scorpion. Overall they gave me the creeps, and not just because they were suddenly proof that aliens existed. They gave off this weird vibe, like they were not safe. They growled again, just the alien in the front, and all the humans in the big cage backed away. Two of the bars vanished, and the aliens began putting bowls of something inside, before quickly doing whatever they did to make the bars reappear.

My head was starting to hurt even worse, and i was feeling more dizzy even than when I had first woken up. I felt vulnerable, and scared, and a little blurry. Like none of this was quite real and I was looking at it all from far away through a telescope. I scooted back further from where those aliens were, and groaned a little involuntarily. For some reason seeing them brought up a memory. Just of that tail, the end of it, seeing it coming towards me, a sharp quick pain, like a papercut, and then passing out. I couldn't remember more than that but I put my head in my hands, realizing I was remembering some encounter with one of these creatures. Maybe remembering when they got me? And brought me to wherever this was?

I whined softly without meaning to and sighed. My head just kept pounding and I felt like I might throw up. Everything was so off. I just felt sick and lightheaded. I heard a gasp from one of the other girls in my cage and looked up. Right above me was one of those creepy alien things. I didn't make a sound, just froze as it looked right at me. Out of the corner of my eye I could barely make out more of these things bringing bowls to the boys in the cage next door. Part of the bars right above my head vanished and I saw the alien lean right over me and start reaching down. Despite my head, I scrambled back, but he (she? They? It?) caught me and pulled me right out in one quick movement. I made this embarrassing squeaky noise and started to panic and fight, but they growled again, loud and right in my face, and i gulped and went stiff. I was so scared, and in so much pain, and confused, and just hoping nothing painful was about to happen. I started to cry a little, and looked back down at the girls in the cage below me. They looked terrified and were locked on to watching whatever this thing was going to do to me.

It held me tight, too tight, with two big hands, and used that third arm (convenient i muttered to myself in a slightly hysterical voice) to quickly pull out some weird looking metal thing and wave it up and down over my head, my eyes tracking it the whole way, flinching as it came close, but otherwise not reacting. I just felt so frozen and trapped. I didn't know what to do. The alien grunted after looking at whatever the thing was and put it away, back in a pocket or wherever it had grabbed it from. It then used the same hand to pull out a very small square thing, that looked a bit like one of those patches people use to help quit smoking. He reached quickly and plopped it right on my neck, behind my head. I made another embarrassing whine at that. But before I could do anything else, the alien lowered me back in, and I noticed that other aliens were bringing us bowls. I went to reach behind my head to feel what was there and take it off, but the alien who had grabbed me let out an even louder snarl than before and I quickly dropped my hand. He stared at me a moment longer. And then, as quickly as they had come, they all left, the bars were back up, and we were left a bit stunned and in silence.

I saw that the bowls had some biscuit looking things in them, but some had what looked like water. I thought about trying it, as I was a little hungry. And the girls had all grabbed a piece and were hesitantly biting into it. But as I went to scoot closer, I suddenly noticed my head was hurting a lot less. And I felt much less dizzy. But I was also very tired. And, somewhat against my will, I stopped heading towards the other girls and the food, and curled into a tight ball on the floor of the cage, my arm under my head, and closed my eyes. I could hear soft sounds for a few more seconds, human sounds of chewing, sighing, even quiet crying, and then I was asleep.