3.1.
The nightmare would not end.
The questions did not stop.
She couldn’t breathe, the water was in her lungs, but she did not die.
It went on forever, until it finally ended.
~~~~~
Sarah awoke and screamed. She was naked beneath the sheets of an unfamiliar bed. She had no recollection of what had happened to her except that it was terrible and unending. But even as she tried to focus on it, to try to understand what had happened, what had been done to her, the memories slid out of her grasp like trying to cusp water in her hands.
The lights came on, and a soft voice spoke to her in High Yonohoan. The language was different from what she had learned interacting with the medical staff at the hospital on planet Totola, and subsequently on the Toormonda she had flown with a group of Yonohoan teenagers, but she could still understand it.
“Clothes have been provided. You may dress at your leisure, after you have recovered from the rain-scry. It is recommended to take some time to collect yourself. There is no shame in this room. Nobody is watching, nobody will listen. There is no shame in this room. When you are ready to return to life, proceed through the door. You have been found innocent and it is our duty to protect the innocent. Clothes have been provided. You may dress at your leisure, after you--”
The message repeated twice before she figured out how to acknowledge it by pressing a button on the speaker where the sound was coming from. She started to dress.
She broke down crying instead.
When she recovered, she continued to dress. She sat down upon the cot she’d awoken on and spent some time trying to remember.
She had been on a Toormonda ride, she remembered that. They had found something, and the military had become involved. They had cooperated, but she had been taken from the ship by a soldier. When she had grown afraid, the soldier had touched her and then --
And then the nightmare that she couldn’t remember.
But her body remembered. She trembled with what had been done to her. Some sort of violation which she could not recall. She was grateful that she could not recall it, but she still felt a sense of violation.
She remained in the room until she grew thirsty.
There may be no shame in this room, but there was also no water. And no toilet. She collected herself, and opened the door.
She stepped out into a hallway, and a hologram appeared. She had grown used to holograms since interacting with the Yonohoans, so she was not particularly surprised.
“Apologies for the trauma, Sarah from Earth. I assure you that we did not take the violation of your mental sanctity lightly. The high-inquisitor has deigned to apologize in person. Follow me.”
“What will happen if I do not?” She questioned.
“You will be returned to the Toormonda without your apology,” the hologram answered. “We will not harm you further. If you resist the attempts to return you to the Toormonda, you will be placed in stasis and returned to your Toormonda. We will not harm you further.”
She noticed that repetition seemed to be a thing with these people, but she acknowledged that the items being repeated were important ones.
“What happened to me?” she asked.
“The High-Inquisitor will explain with her apology,” the hologram said. “If you do not accept the apology you will be returned to your ship without an apology or an explanation.”
If she was being honest, she truly just wanted to go back to the Toormonda, where things made sense. But a part of her wanted – demanded – to know what had been done to her and why. So she followed the hologram.
She entered a room with an expansive table, perhaps thirty meters long by three meters. A woman was sitting at the head of the table. A woman with wrinkled skin and blue eyes. Grey hair, but not from age.
“You have recovered swiftly. The people of Earth are robust,” the woman said.
“Are you the High-Inquisitor?” Sarah asked.
“I am. My name is Yunono. I am the wife of Eodar in many of our incarnations, but not all. He has earned his eternal rest, but I did not walk into the light of the universe in order to rest. I did it to serve humanity. And so I serve once more.”
“I don’t understand,” Sarah said.
“I know. And that is for the best. I will not explain much, except that if you ask, I will tell you what was done to you,” Yunono said.
“What was it? I can’t remember, only that it was terrible and when I awoke I couldn’t stop shaking,” Sarah said.
“We call it a brain-scry. It is a deep level of interrogation. I apologize, it is normally used on suspected spies and informants. We prevent the brain from recalling it, but the body remembers no matter how we try to stop it. I am deeply sorry that it was used on you despite your innocence and our knowledge of your innocence,” Yunono explained.
“ Why was it done to me?” Sarah demanded.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Because you are from Earth. You presented tan opportunity for information about Earth which we could not pass up. Once more, I apologize, but I will not explain any further. You may strike me in anger if you wish. You may scream at me if you wish. Or you may simply request to go back to the ones whose company you arrived with.”
“What the fuck is going on? ” Sarah demanded.
“I will not explain further,” Yunono said. “For if I did, then innocent or not, I would not be able to allow you to return to your old life.”
A spasm of fear passed through Sarah. “But I may return as I am now?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then take me back to the Toormonda. I want to get the fuck out of here.”
“As you wish.”
The High Inquisitor waved her hand, and between one blink and the next Sarah was standing in the airlock of the Toormonda.
She collapsed and began to cry once more.
~~~~~~
The boy dribbled the basketball, waiting for his friends to get out of school. He didn’t go to school, not yet. He wanted to. Not for the mission. Not anymore. The mission wasn’t everything anymore.
He didn’t have to infiltrate society.
He didn’t have to worry about standing out.
He didn’t have objectives.
He just … he just was.
He had been born somewhere between one hundred and ninety thousand years ago.
He had lived for twelve years.
And he wanted to go to school because that is what twelve year old children did on Earth.
He shot at the basket. The ball bounced off the backboard and swished through the net. His friends would be home soon and he could play with them. He was looking forward to it.
The name his mother had given him was Eodar. She was a Yonohoan, back when that meant that she came from a primitive world where everyone must work together and struggle to survive with tools made from stone and wood.
The name that the Earthlings had given him was John Doe.
He chose to be John.
Eodar was dead. It was better that way. Bad things had happened to Eodar, and John still remembered them. John had been Eodar but he was John now. It was better that way.
But he still was all those things that he had been in the past.
He was just more than that now.
“Hey, John! How’s it hanging?” Tom asked, calling attention to himself. John snapped himself out of his own little world and turned to his friend, who was fourteen with black hair.
John’s own hair was short and white. His sloped forehead belayed his Yonohoan ancestry.
“Where’s your brother?” John asked.
“Who cares. Pass me the ball,” Tom said, and John did.
They played one on one for almost thirty minutes, working up a good sweat. They didn’t talk much. John didn’t talk much to anyone, and Tom sort of had a feeling that his friend preferred not to be overrun with conversation.
There was one thing that had been bothering him for a while, however.
When they stopped to rest, he finally worked up the courage to ask.
“John, you can call me stupid or crazy if you want,” Tom said. “But are you an alien?”
John stiffened. He had been dreading this moment. Before his nanite systems had been disabled, he had modified his appearance to better fit in. He couldn’t do that any longer, and his appearance had returned to his natural state, more or less.
He didn’t quite look like an Earth human. He looked like a Yonohoan human. And there was nothing he could do about it.
He could call Tom crazy or stupid, he knew. He could claim that he just had weird genes. But everyone knew how Yonohoans looked these days, and John looked Yonohoan.
“Yes,” he said at last. “I’m Yonohoan.”
“I knew it!” Tom declared. “What’s it like in space?”
“Dark and cold.”
“Well duh. What are you doing on Earth?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” John said.
Tom considered pressing, but decided not to. John lived with Doctor Nunes, and his parents had informed him to be extra sensitive around him. He decided to respect his friends privacy.
“I’m dying to know, so if you change your mind I’d love it if you told me,” Tom said, compromising with himself. “But whatever. Good game. I’m going to go shower.”
“Yeah, good game,” John agreed.
He returned to Olivia’s house. She was reading something. He stood at the door to the living room where she was sitting on the couch, holding the textbook in front of her.
“I told Tom that I’m Yonohoan,” he informed her.
She turned to him, understanding exactly how serious this was to him in an instant. “How did he take it?”
“He wanted to know what space is like,” John answered. “And I said I didn’t want to talk about it and then he went to shower.”
“Do you think it will be a problem?” Olivia asked him.
“I don’t know. He didn’t seem like he cared except that he thought it was cool. But I don’t think he realizes that I’m the one who blew up a city.”