“I’m almost out of chi fam! What should I do?” Matt screamed in a panic.

“Run.” Drew mumbled.

“I’m not leaving you!”

“I’m dead already. Save yourself. Save the others,” he gasped.

“No.” Matt shook his head and bent down next to his friend. “I have an idea, but you aren’t gonna like it.”

Matt grabbed onto his wrist and heaved. Drew was slowly dragged away toward the swirling portal.

What are you doing? No! You have to run and save the others!

Drew was unable to speak as he mentally protested Matt’s actions. Step by step, Matt trudged toward the spatial distortion just a few feet away, his shield the only thing holding back the microwave assault. Without any chi, Drew’s domain had disappeared and left him unable to sense his environment.

Regardless, Matt suddenly lifted him from behind and with a grunt of effort, they both fell backwards into the portal.

Drew’s stomach dropped as they passed into the swirling spatial distortion, as if falling backward at a great height. However, unlike Earth, there was no wind resistance to slow his acceleration.

What’s happening? Where am I?

Without his domain, Drew strained his eyes to see into the darkness as he flailed his arms futilely. Every few seconds, he would pass through a dimly lit gaseous formation.

What’s lighting up the clouds? Everything else is pitch black. Do they glow on their own?

Regardless, it seemed to glow from within with some internal illumination. His body would fall backwards through it, and it would slowly disappear into the distance.

Drew’s acceleration increased. The few seconds between each dimly lit cloud morphed into a single second, then half a second. Drew’s world became a strobe light as he continued to fall at ever-increasing speeds.

Suddenly, his entire world lit up with a blur and the feeling of falling stopped. He could no longer decipher his surroundings, as ever-present light illuminated his vision. Drew had no clue how long he hung, what felt like motionless, in space.

Am I dead? Is this the light at the end of the tunnel?

He wished he could turn and see Matt. The second he had fallen backward into the portal, his entire body had locked up, and he could not even twitch an eyebrow. Thankful that his eyes had been open when he entered, he at least had something to look at while he lay frozen and unmoving.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Drew felt the sensation of falling return. However, this time, he felt as if he fell upwards, rather than down. The constant blur of light again began to flicker then strobe.

The intervals between the blinking began to slow.

At first, less than a second existed between the light and the dark. However, that turned into a second, then a few seconds. Finally, after his vision remained dark for multiple minutes, he felt his body impact something elastic behind him.

Suddenly, his vision returned.

Drew saw a cloudless night sky as he fell backwards onto Matt. Heat began to beat against his body and he was instantly drenched in sweat. The air was thick with humidity and stank like rotting plants.

He heard his friend grunt as his massive weight flattened the skinny twenty-one-year-old into the rocky ground below. However, despite knowing it had to be uncomfortable for his friend, Drew could not move.

His entire focus was on a celestial object above. It was something impossible, something out of a movie.

Am I dreaming?

A brown colored moon, at least three times the size of Earth’s, hung in the dark sky. Drew could not help but stare at it to try and make sense of what happened.

“Ugh…” Matt strained. “Get… off… me…!”

Then, something entered his vision that froze him in fear. His heart rate accelerated, and his entire body tensed as an all too familiar looking being looked down at him from above.

Drew stared into an alien’s enormous black eyes as it loomed above him. The face was bereft of emotion, and held only cold, detached curiosity. His entire body locked up as he was forced to stare at the face of his enemy, the aliens that had destroyed his world.

FOOLISH

A thought blasted into Drew’s mind. He could instantly tell that it was not his own. It was not just a word that was communicated, but a concept. Drew knew instantly that this being felt that he had made a massive mistake in traveling through the portal. Condescension and arrogance was instantly communicated through whatever link the being had established.

The world faded to black, and Drew knew no more.

----------------------------------------

Consciousness was slow to return.

When Drew’s mind finally began to function once more, he woke to extreme lethargy. His entire body ached and his head was fuzzy. It was a struggle to lift his hand to wipe away the sand from the corners of his eyes.

“Finally, you’re awake.” Matt breathed out a sigh of relief. “I’ve been goin’ crazy here with no one to talk to.”

“What happened?” Drew croaked, his throat dry.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Those alien bastards captured us is what happened!” Matt vented. “The second we fell out of that portal, your fat ass smothered me. It took everything I had to roll you off me. And when I did? I see a seven-foot tall alien, straight out of a movie. The last thing I remember was that scary bastard looking me straight in the eye, and then I passed out. I woke up here with a new collar around my neck and nothing’s happened since.”

Drew glanced over to his friend and noticed a thin metal band wrapped around Matt’s neck. It was silver and about an inch tall. The outside was covered in strange symbols that seemed to glow in the dim room.

Suddenly, he realized a light weight rested against his own neck. His hands immediately reached up and grasped onto the same band around his throat. The collar must have been only a single millimeter in width and weighed almost nothing. It was also unnaturally warm.

Drew wrapped his fingers beneath it and pulled.

Am I just that weak, or is it really that strong?

Despite being weakened from an empty core, even in his feeble state he should be able to crumple it like tin-foil. It seemed reality disagreed.

“Yeah, I tried to tear it off too.” Matt said when he noticed Drew struggling to remove it. “It’s gotta be some kind of magic or something.”

His arm shook as he struggled to hold it aloft. Finally, he let the limb flop back to the ground in defeat. Drew shifted his effort to a new goal, observing his environment.

He rolled onto his side and began to lever himself into an upright position. His muscles strained and shook, as he grunted in exertion. Matt, seemingly taking pity on him, strode toward him and helped him sit.

“Still weak from an empty core, huh?”

Drew nodded as his gaze began to examine the surrounding room. The smooth walls of their room were lined in a brown colored stone. The ceiling was at least twelve feet high and contained four soft glowing crystals at each corner that provided plenty of light for him to see. The walls were at least twenty feet by twenty feet and were made of the same strange stone as the ceiling and floor.

While it did not stink of rotten plants like outside the portal, their cell smelled musty with age. The humidity was also not as clingy and oppressive as before. For some reason, Drew felt lighter, as if he had reduced his weight with a gravity spell.

The room was austere with no decorations or windows. However, all along the stone structure were those same strange symbols he had observed on their collars. They were placed at even intervals and seemed to be connected by a thin line carved into the rock.

A wooden door was the only thing that stood out to his observation. It had at least four times as many symbols as the walls, which made it look almost decorative. Drew stared at the door so long that Matt decided to interrupt him.

“Yeah, I tried bustin’ through the door too. No matter how much I beat on it, it refused to budge. I even tried blastin’ it with chi.” Matt shook his head. “All I did was waste the little I got left.”

“Can you sense the other side of it with your domain?” Drew asked.

“Naw, it blocks that too.” Matt then frowned. “Wait, why’d you have to ask me? Isn’t your domain waaaay bigger than mine?”

Drew shook his head. “Not right now. With my core empty, I can barely stay awake and my domain is completely gone.”

“Chuegy…”

Drew sighed. “Yeah, I need to refill my core somehow.”

He felt along the rough stone floor, the only surface within his reach. Drew wanted to explore the entire room, but without any chi within his core, his body was too weak.

“Too bad we didn’t have time to take that triceratop’s core before the General screwed us.”

The mention of the army’s betrayal refocused what happened in his mind. His heart ached as visions of Gloria, Megan, and Dave’s deaths replayed in a never-ending loop. If that was not enough, he saw his daughter-in-law with her hands up in surrender, tears dripping down her distraught face. Javier was at her feet, either dead or unconscious.

Carol was right, I never should have trusted them.

Drew had been wary when they first began working together. However, over the months, he had developed a comradery with Captain Westbrook and his team. While he had always thought the Major projected a fake front, the others seemed like generally good people.

“I should’ve suspected something when Westbrook wasn’t there.” he mumbled.

“What’s that?”

“I said, I should have suspected a betrayal when Captain Westbrook wasn’t there.”

“Yeah, that seemed kinda sus.”

Drew snorted. “The major said he was suspended or something because of ‘behavioral issues’. I think that was code for not willing to betray a friend.”

“I don’t even know why that douche betrayed us in the first place. We were constantly helping him out. He coulda stayed quiet in the background, and we’d have never known he hated us.”

“I should’ve let Carol kill him like she wanted to from the beginning. If I had, Gloria, Dave, and Megan would still be alive.”

“I thought you said that woulda started a war?”

“Sure, but we could’ve just ran away and set up a base in New Mexico or something.” Drew wiped the tears from his eyes. “Snyder was right, I was a fool.”

They were both quiet for some time as Drew mentally flogged himself for his bad choices. Finally, Matt broke the silence.

“What do you think they’ll do with everyone else?” he asked in a small voice.

Drew was immediately grateful for the distraction from his morose thoughts. “I don’t know. He killed all of our fighters except for Carol. I just hope she got back to the bunker before they did.”

“I doubt it. The douche made it seem like they already sent in another team.”

“Thanks a lot, Matt.” he said sarcastically.

Matt seemed to realize that he had squashed a budding hope that Drew had formed. To make up for it, he tried to be optimistic. “Don’t worry. Knowing Carol, she probably killed everyone and rescued our friends. Right now, they’re probably cruising down the highway in an invisible van.”

“Do you actually think so, or are you just trying to make me feel better?”

“It could totally happen.” Matt said confidently. “Matter of fact, I’m way more worried about us than them right now. Where do you think we are?”

“I don’t know, it felt like we went through a worm-hole or something. I think we’re on the alien’s planet. Right after I fell through the portal, I saw a massive brown moon in the sky.” Drew cocked his head to the side. “Do you feel like you’re lighter?”

“For sure.”

“Good, then it’s not just me. I was afraid my empty core was making me feel weird. If we’re lighter, then the planet we’re on must be smaller. Or it could just have less mass, I suppose.”

“What if it’s a spell that’s making us lighter?”

Drew crinkled his brows in disbelief. “Seriously? What would be the point? That’s a massive drain on chi to what, make us more comfortable or something?”

Matt raised his hands in defense. “Hey! Don’t hate. You don’t know any better than me.”

“That’s true.” Drew admitted. “Although, I think the aliens want something from us.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because they put collars on us and put us in a jail cell. You don’t do that to someone you want dead.”

“Maybe they want to question us before they kill us.”

Drew stared, deadpan, at Matt.

“Sorry, you’re right, I gotta think more positive.”

A sudden noise from the door interrupted their conversation. Drew heard a latch slide open, and the door began to slowly swing inward. A thin, seven-foot tall alien creature was revealed behind it.

I guess we get to see what it wants.