Corruption

An Inside Job

It was completely pitch black, cold, and the floor was hard and uncomfortable. After a moment, Nelson realized he wasn't breathing.
He awoke with a gasp. His throat was sore from being held in the air by Mari, that four eyed four armed extraterrestrial that had been following him around and giving him hell. He was in a completely grey room; grey walls, ceiling, and floor. A single, floating, glowing orb illuminated the room with a white light. There was no one or nothing else in the room except for his trusted blade, Nightmare. His heart sunk as began to recall all the events that took place beforehand. "Damn aliens fucked up my wedding..." he muttered. "I swear if they did anything to Anora...." "You won't do a thing," a familiar, deep, rough voice said cockily. The wall right in front of him, which had no visible door, suddenly - and silently - opened up, rising upward and seemingly disappearing into the ceiling. Mari walked in.
"Hello human," Mari said nonchalantly. "Mari." Nelson said coldly. "Don't worry," It said dismissively, "As a sign of good intent, I left the force field up so they might survive. We would like you to join us." "Hell of a way of showing it." "We were running out time. We're dangerously close to war up here. The Martians are starting to make concerning movements and we can't exactly wait around like we originally planned to. You know they're our natural enemies." "Why did you have to do all of this? You know I have some pretty serious beef with you. I'm not keen on working with you." Mari seemed confused, blinking each of its four green eyes individually. "You have beef? With me? You know we don't eat. And where? I didn't see you bring any food up here." Mari looked around the grey room. "Where is the beef, human?" "It's a figure of speech, dad." This came from a female voice approaching from outside the room. "Chapter 147 on human language, American English idioms." Mari seemed to chuckle. "Not the biggest fan of reading."
Nelson scoffed. So she finally decided to come out. "You know you gave yourself away." "Did I now?"
That was when Miranda finally entered the room. Nelson's jaw dropped. "Your expression doesn't seem to indicate that you knew," Miranda observed. "But....you.... you said... he... It... you said dad.... I have so many questions..." "I'll keep it short," Miranda said, "I lied." "Huh..?" Nelson stammered, in pure disbelief. "Why is that so hard to believe?" Miranda asked. "Humans lie every day." "B-b-But..." "B-b-b-but," Mari mocked him, chuckling. "Did that break your brain, human? You're half Urzuhg, come on. It's not that hard to wrap your head around." "Half what?" Nelson asked. "Look, let me break it down for you." Miranda said, crossing her arms. "Once I figured out you were the other hybrid, everything after that was to try to get on your good side and get you to come up here." "But you almost got killed.. by your... dad..?" Nelson scratched his head. "How does that work? And so like.. you faked and made... everything up..?" Mari yawned, seemingly bored. "I'll wait outside,"
It said to Miranda before leaving the room, the door shutting behind it.
"In short yes." Miranda replied. Nelson was still confused, and Miranda sighed and said, "Let's make a deal. I'll answer your questions, and you'll agree to help us. Deal?" "What about letting me go back down to Earth afterwards??" Miranda seemed a bit annoyed about something, but merely nodded. "Yea sure." Nelson frowned but didn't speak. So, he thought, Not only did she not seem genuine in her response, she's a liar. I'm not getting off this ship. He thought for a while more. But maybe if I play along for a while... maybe an opportunity will present itself... I can't think of any other way off this ship... plus I kinda wanna know what she has to say. "Fine. Deal," he merely said aloud. Miranda eyed him closely. "So yeah, that's my dad. Big shit. I hear shit about it all the time. All that shit I told you about the EED? Fake. My backstory? Horseshit. Everything was all a big 'ole lie. My dad knows how much force to use in order to not kill me. And you weren't... well you aren't strong enough to handle the power it would take to kill me so there was no concern. Just a few bruises. As to be expected in the military." "Damn." Nelson said. "You made ALL that up huh? You're quite good. Even had me convinced you had a crush on me and everything. I figured people didn't make fun of your looks. I mean people are mean and that I get but there's nothing to make fun of." Miranda hinted at an amused smile. "That a compliment?" "No." He said with a cold frown. "Well allot of species do make fun of me in space, the humans never really did too much, but humans are considered pretty ugly looking by Urzuhg in particular, though most species agree. There are of course rare cases where they don't think humans are entirely disgusting though, as I'm sure you can imagine. That's why I'm here. Besides that, you aren't the ugliest human around yourself either. You would almost be cute..." She stopped herself for a moment, then continued, "But don't flatter yourself. Everyone is gonna call you ugly up here so get used to it." "Imma pretend you didn't just make that comment after crashing my fucking wedding," Nelson said, trying to remain calm at the thought of what had just happened. "And Samuel is dead too. You realize he was my best friend? Not a good way to form an alliance." "Didn't mean to kill Samuel," Miranda said, her face expressionless. "I didn't personally have anything against him. His death was actually an accident." "Let's not talk about that," Nelson said, shaking his head and holding back tears. "What's an Urzuhg?" He asked quietly. "It's what we call ourselves. They call themselves humans on earth, and we call ourselves Urzuhg." Nelson remained silent after that. "Is that all?" Miranda asked. "One more thing," Nelson asked, "So you just up and left after the invasion?" "No, I'm still going back and forth," she replied. "Why? You already got me up here." "I don't care," Miranda shrugged, "And shit. Cause it's fun? Cause I enjoy it? Who knows." Nelson raised a concerned eyebrow. She's fucking psychotic, He thought. "Lovely," he merely said.
"Yup," She said nonchalantly. "So, all of that shit outta the way, I imagine you would like to see the rest of the ship? Surely you don't want to stay in this room." He wasn't going to admit it, but he had always wanted to see the inside of an actually extraterrestrial spaceship. At least his time up here would be somewhat interesting until he was able to get free somehow. He just needed to find an opening, an opportunity. "Sure," was all he said aloud. He grabbed Nightmare and followed her. When they got outside, they were in some sort of room with holes in the ceiling, with again no visible wall. The were more floating glowing orbs in this room as well. He imagined they functioned as lamps did, as sources of illumination.
"Might wanna hold your breath, human," Mari told him. "It's going to decontaminate us of all that Earth filth." No sooner had Mari said that, a green gas began spraying into the room. It made him cough and gag. Mari was completely unaffected, and Miranda's eyes watered but she was otherwise fine, other than looking a bit uncomfortable. Once the smoke cleared the wall in front of them opened up to reveal the rest of the ship. "By the way, human," Mari said curiously, "Since we're going to be working together now, maybe you can help me out." Nelson eyed him reluctantly. "I don't get this cursing thing you humans do. I hear fuck has multiple meanings, Damn does too, and hell as well, to name a few. Like they can both be used like 'what the fuck', and 'what the hell,'" "Very true," Miranda commented. "I overheard some humans say they were going to fuck each other. Could they also have said they're going to hell each other? What does that even mean? Why fuck someone when you can hell them?" Nelson stared blankly at him, but said nothing. Is he going to ask me stupid questions the entire time? He thought to himself. "Too soon?" Mari asked. Nelson nodded before following them to see the rest of the UFO.