Page 26 of Marked
For moments here and there, I opened my eyes and saw red blinking lights. Jail bars. I thought it was a dream, a sordid dream of being held prisoner, so I’d turn over on the tiny little cot and fall back to sleep. I had zero concept of time. Five minutes could have passed, or five hours, or even five days. It was nothing but darkness. Just the never-ending flashes of red lights and bars holding me captive.
I tried to think, but my brain felt sluggish. My body felt like it was stuck in a pit of cement. Even just moving my fingers or blinking my eyes felt like too much work. Once, I tried counting the intermittent flashes but gave up after a count of three.
I couldn’t even remember my name.
I went back to sleep.
More darkness. More red lights. Nothingness.
I knew nothing else for so long that it didn’t even matter anymore.
Eventually, I started waking for longer periods of time. I could use my limbs a bit more each time I woke, but it still seemed to take forever for me just to bend a finger or scratch that itch on the top of my nose that had been bothering me for what felt like forever.
I tried opening and closing my eyes, but it still remained too dark for me to see much beyond the bars of the cage. When I finally felt like I had the strength, I pushed myself into a seated position and leaned against what felt like a cool metal wall. It was comforting, at least for a little bit.
I groaned and found out that I still had use of my voice. I called out, the sound weak at first. When I attempted speaking for a second time, I sounded much stronger and surer of myself.
“Is anyone there?” I asked.
No one answered.
I took stock of my limbs, finding that each of them still worked. I could roll my wrists, point my toes, and wiggle my fingers.
I felt something like joy, but it was muted under whatever was pumping through my veins. My core would pulse from time to time, but it mainly felt like jabs of pain rather than anything else. I couldn’t quite figure out what to make of that.
I had to be drugged; it was the only explanation.
Eventually I had enough energy to pull myself together and get off the cot. I stood there for a long moment, finding my balance as I wavered from side to side. Finally, I put one foot in front of the other and started to move.
My jail cell wasn’t very big, just large enough for me to stand up and walk around in a little square. There was a small container on the floor with something that looked like porridge, but my stomach turned just looking at it. I wasn’t hungry or desperate enough to eat that.
I couldn’t even go off my hunger to figure out if I had been sleeping for hours, days, weeks, or months.
My memory started coming back to me. Recollections came in rapid flashes. Faces. Sounds. Of home. Of Alaric.
I curled my arms around my chest. I missed him.
More time passed and the pieces started coming together.
I did realize that I was still clothed. I was wearing my jeans and t-shirt from the night when I’d returned to The Salty Dog, found Alaric, and got attacked by some kind of aliens called Ghengrills. I searched my little prison for a weapon, anything I could use really, but found nothing. They’d apparently taken my knife, and I couldn’t recall if I’d grabbed my phone in my hasty exit from the apartment. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t here anyway. With a sigh, I walked over to the bars of the cage and looked out. I blinked several times and looked around.
After several seconds of focusing, I started to make out shapes. There were large and small crates, some wooden, some metal, and others made of materials I could only guess at. It soon became apparent that I was in some sort of cargo hold.
I didn’t quite know what to do, but I didn’t really get to think about it before a strange, low buzzing noise cut through the silence.
Suddenly, a door slid open on the far side of the room, and I was blinded by a silvery white light. A series of long rectangular beams turned on overhead, and the room was illuminated entirely. I covered my eyes with the back of my hand and quickly retreated to my cot, which was the furthest point from the newly opened door. After being in the dark for so long, my eyes struggled to contend with the brightness and started to water. I blinked rapidly several times, and after about a minute, they finally began to adjust.
The same clicking sounds I’d heard the night I was taken echoed through the space.
Three tall Ghengrills walked in, only these were dressed in what looked like white lab coats. Scientists of some kind, by the looks of it. They talked amongst themselves, and one walked over to a white crate close to the door. It scanned a badge in front of the crate, and it popped open. Then it reached inside and grabbed a vial. It looked like medicine to me, but how was I to know?
I wondered if I was still on Earth or on an alien ship of some kind. Quite honestly, either one was possible at this point. My world had turned upside down, and I had no way of telling what was going on anymore.
Finally, the Ghengrills turned to me.
My upper lip rolled in their direction, and I quite literally wanted to hiss at them. Under the bright lights, their skin looked even more papery thin and translucent than I remembered. Their eyes were even more bulbous and yellow, but it was their mouths that I couldn’t tear my eyes away from. They had the thinnest lips I’d ever seen, so thin that it looked like they weren’t even there. They had no hair, just pale bald heads that were incredibly shiny. The complete image of them in the light was quite jarring.
Yup. Seven-foot-tall walking condoms with shark teeth.
