The lights came back on with a click, and I was once more able to see the room around me. The fans in the vents started again and I could feel the push of air. I hit the ground with enough force to bruise my tailbone and knew at once that this place once again had gravity of a sort.

I had no idea how long I had sat in the dark, huddled beneath this desk in silence. It could have been hours, or even days. My throat was dry and my chest burned from the carvings in my flesh.

One moment I had been driving home from work, a bottle of wine in the back seat. The next thing I knew I had woken up in some cell made of a strange dark material with thirteen others. Now I was huddled prey, wondering if it was monsters or aliens that would finish me off.

I slowly edged around the desk, checking around the corners for monsters in the room.

I would like to say it was clear, but much of the room was concealed from my sight. Each individual bed had curtains around it affording some level of privacy and each curtain blocked my view. I hid in a lit room from things I didn't even know of, staying in place perfectly still for hours on end.

Eventually, I concluded that I had to get up, my thirst from however many hours or days I had spent hiding in this room drove me in the way curiosity and the need for escape could not. I stood on shaking legs, and the sudden movement darkened my vision before I could catch myself and stabilize.

The room around me was empty as I crept barefoot and naked through the medical bay. White curtains broke up my line of sight, providing unknown crevices in which anything could be hiding. I had seen the way the thing that wore the alien’s skin twisted as it moved, an abominable horror wearing a meat suit that could never hope to properly contain the thing within.

The smell of blood drowned out the scent of cleaners that had been used to sterilize this room, though I had long since become blind to the overwhelming acrid taste in the air. I stepped carefully to avoid the shards of smashed objects that littered the floor, desperately avoiding cutting my feet on pieces of warped metal and shattered glass.

Many of the alien apparati were easily identifiable. It seemed there weren’t much better ways of injecting a fluid than a needle, and there weren’t many better ways of cutting through flesh than a scalpel or a saw. Though that did not mean I understood everything around me; for every bed or ipad-looking device, there would be a cylinder with blinking lights or a box without seams or imperfections that would leave me puzzled.

I bent over and grasped a scalpel, its handle fitting into my palm like an oversized pencil with a blade the size of my thumb. I did not know how it would protect me from a six and a half foot lizardman, but any blade was welcome in this alien dungeon. I crept forwards and eventually passed the partitioned beds and overturned tray tables, looking upon what might be closer to an office break room.

On one side of the room was a desk, and on the other was a row of cabinets and counters. The floor was stained with a plate of food that had smeared itself across the white tile. I did not recognize what could have gone into the bowl of thick porridge that had been upended, though for a moment I harbored the idea of picking bits of the crusted meal off of the floor.

I shook my head and looked to the sink, seeing a faucet that stuck out from the wall with a handle on top hanging over a large metallic basin. It was not a design I was familiar with, the distance between the faucet and the basin was longer than humans was preferred and the counter was uncomfortably tall. I raised my arms and twisted the knob, and water began streaming in front of me.

Cupping my hands, I brought the liquid to my parched throat and drank before repeating this motion. Eventually I abandoned civility, leaned my head forwards and began sucking the water from the tap itself.

When I reached my fill I leaned away, realizing that in my desperation I had completely neglected my surroundings.

If a predator was going to jump me it would wait until I was distracted, wouldn’t it?

My heart began pounding as I began once more surveying the alien craft around me. The walls and floors were bright white and splattered with impurities. The alien’s blood had hardened onto many of the surfaces in sickly dark green chunks.

Now that my thirst had been satisfied I turned towards the room around me, everything that hadn’t been nailed down had been upturned by the quakes and loss of gravity. Stray droplets of bodily fluids had found their way onto everything at this point.

I stepped away from the room, I could not stay in this place. It was too open, too exposed.

Everything was too bright. I felt safe while I was huddled into my corner, but looking at the same location from this angle revealed how easily I would be found if someone only walked halfway into the room. I needed to escape and find my way home.

If I stayed here either the monsters or the aliens would find me, sooner or later.

I needed to find some sort of escape pod, or a shuttle and fly back to Earth. To do that I had to leave this room, and to leave this room I risked walking straight into a pack of those lizard people.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Instead I stood paralyzed in front of the closed door. I could see the small button on the side, glowing to allow for easy access in dark environments. It would be so easy, just press the button and the door opens. I had seen this happen before, so I even knew what the glowing blue symbol meant.

I raised my hand before flinching and lowering it. I stepped back for a moment, turning to observe the room behind me to check for unknown threats. I felt exposed, like unseen eyes were upon me.

The fear and isolation overwhelmed me for a moment as tears began to erupt, it was so unfair. I had never done anything to deserve this. I stood sobbing until my throat began to ache. I could no longer hold it in, and the silence was broken by my muffled cries. The horror and blood of this evil place had finally pushed me beyond my limits and I began crying like a child.

But, like all emotions, these too dulled with time. However long I spent standing in the doorway racked with uncontrollable terror I did not know, but eventually I calmed to the point I was again making rational decisions. I wiped the tears away and stood, shoving my fist into the door’s control and peaking around the wall for monsters. Seeing nothing, I finally advanced into the hall.

My curiosity was met with more scenes of blood.

~

A tall, pink biped slowly inched down the hall, every step or two it would snap its gaze behind it. As if expecting something to be sneaking up from behind.

He wondered for a moment whether his visor was malfunctioning, because it did not register the species of this creature and gave him no proper languages to translate to for communication purposes. It was either that or…

“[Curse, another one falls.]” He said to his paler cellmate.

They glanced up immediately, suddenly drawn to the conversation as an escape from their monotonous prison. “[What?]”

“[Pink flesh-species in the hall. No register. Curse the falls.]” He answered, it was obvious that a new planet had been located. It was only a matter of time before its subjugation.

“[More worlds to fall? That is sub-suboptimal.]” His cellmate agreed. “[What verb does he partake?]”

“[Sneaking around. Creeping. Wandering most likely.]” He answered. The creature’s actions were clearly confused exploration, its head snapping was likely to prevent something from sneaking up behind.

“[They wander for their verb?]” the creature sat stunned before fitting out a single question, “[Why?]”

“[Because there are no guards or chains.]” They gestured to the lack of guards. “[Thus they wander, by creeping.]”

“[I want to see. Remove yourself.]”

His cellmate shoved him and began looking through the cell’s only window, before he shoved his cellmate out of the way. They had both been locked in this musty closet for the last two months with barely enough room to lay side by side with only a water faucet and toilet between them. This was perhaps the first change of scenery in months.

“[Pink and tall. Perhaps she is lifting designation?]” His cellmate offered.

“[She? Why the designation of she?]” He asked.

“[She clearly has eggs, envision the waist.]”

He nodded with a slight glance at the crotch, “[I see, very female. Two eggs.]”

“[Agree, but no guards still. When was our feeding cycle?]”

“[Too long, I hunger. They are off schedule.]”

“[Agree, no schedule. Why no schedule?]”

The human slowly crept down the hall, at their rate of travel it must have taken hours for them to get anywhere. As the creature neared their cell their cellmate rushed into the window on their door, slamming into it with a thunk.

“[Pink lady! Untrap us!]”

In response the biped shrieked at the top of her lungs and sprinted back down the hall and out of sight.

He grunted, “[Curse. You scared them away.]”

“[I agree. Curse. However, if the biped can activate the control, our verb will be wander.]”

He grunted, “[The biped looks barbarian. I do not agree. They will not activate control.]”

“[I will make biped agree, then they will activate control to open doors.]”

For a moment he contemplated saying something, but could not think of a better plan. He did not even fully believe leaving his cell was the best option, to become a wanderer and then be caught immediately after was a death sentence. It was not possible to remain proactively hidden while on a ship, there were cameras everywhere and the crew would all be actively searching in hope of a monetary reward.

But even then a primal part of him urged to escape this room, to wander without chains.

What if the human managed to open the cell doors? What if it wasn’t their fault they escaped, and all they did was wander around a bit? He would kill to stretch his legs, and surely they couldn’t execute the entire slave division if all of their doors came unlocked somehow.

“[Biped, to the opposite hall end.]” His pale cellmate pointed in the direction of the control room from his position in the door’s window. “[No- Other way biped. Opposite of that end.]”

“[Curse. Not work?]” He asked.

“[Not work. Very curse. She ran.]”

He snortled, of course she ran. His cellmate was a terrifying alien who made loud noises, what did he think would happen?

“[You will not be classified as scientist.]” He concluded in response to his partner’s plan.

“[Hold on answer. She returns.]”

He had to pause for a moment at the unexpected response. “[She returns?]”

“[She returns, she approaches. Our window is now used to see in!]”

“[Our window is used to see in?]” He looked towards the window and saw the alien peering down onto them, its pink face resembling his own gray mask somewhat. It was smooth, possessed ridges and relatively few openings. For whatever reason the top of this head was covered in thin wire like material.

“[How strange. Crash helmets share its head design.]” His cellmate quipped, before concluding. “[Designed for impact and not biting or venom. Its mouth is small, but what verb does the two holes and ridge in the middle perform?]”

“[Venom storage? It leaks clear fluid.]” He answered. “[And it grew eye shields. It shields its eyes.]”

The pink biped placed a delicate five fingered appendage onto the window, its palm supporting a criss cross of lines. He stared for a moment at the alien limb, five fingers. They were so thin and dainty, something that could be easily broken if stepped on.

He placed his own hand onto the glass, spreading his three thick fingers across from the pink biped’s hand. For a moment they held still, two prisoners, two slaves, two siblings in misfortune taken by an uncaring empire.

The human pulled their hand back and looked down at the creatures within this cell, a cell identical to the one they had been trapped in for weeks on end and despite himself felt a level of kinship for the strange alien.

“[I have a thought.]” He spoke to his pale roommate, then he traced a small pattern onto the window.

A circle with a line cutting it in half, the symbol for something opening.