CHAPTER 1
Rommie lay on a small bed in a bare hospital room. The new mole she’d ignored had been pre-cancerous and then cancerous. When she finally realized something was wrong, it was too late. And now, her time on Earth was almost up. But when Rommie thought about her life, she didn’t feel strong regret about leaving it.
There’s not much for me to live for in this world, she told herself. I tried so hard to fit in, but I never quite succeeded. My children gave me something to live for, but they’re grown up now with their own lives. Yes, now is the right time for me to die.
She turned to look at her two adult children at the side of her bed and smiled. Rommie felt so tired! Unbelievably tired. She closed her eyes and drifted away.
After an unknown period of nothingness, Rommie found herself standing barefoot in a strange misted landscape. She turned in a circle and stared. Grayish twisted trees surrounded her on all sides and blended into blackness at the edge of her vision. She looked down and saw a mix of rocks, rotten branches, and other unknown substances in the process of sinking into the mushy ground she stood on.
Is this the afterlife? she wondered. It’s nothing like I ever imagined.
Rommie took a deep breath, and hot sticky air that carried the rank smell of decay burned her nose and throat. She bent over and gagged. From that position, she looked down and noticed that her feet were no longer visible, and they felt uncomfortably warm.
A small noise broke the still silence and grew louder: alternating suction sounds and thumps. Rommie stood up straight and peered through the mist in the direction of the noise.
The dim yellowish glow of a humanlike form emerged through the murky darkness. Rommie’s breath caught in her throat when the creature got close enough for her to make out that although this massive form had arms, legs, and chest, it was no human. Just a human-shaped body covered in sickly yellowish skin – puckered and shiny like snakeskin.
From snake-shaped eyes on the curved sides of a snouted face, orange light beamed through the dimness. Their spotlights focused unwavering on Rommie’s frozen form.
The monster stopped several feet away from her. Close enough for Rommie to clearly see the bulging but sharply defined muscles on every visible part of its body. Only the loins were wrapped beneath a twisted cloth.
Empty hands rose and clenched. Glaring eyes narrowed, and Rommie read their clear intent. Terror froze her body and even her thoughts. But someone spoke – a voice that seemed to come from inside her head.
“Will you agree to fight in the battle to save our galaxy?” asked the voice.
Through her cold fear, Rommie almost felt like laughing. There was no doubt as to who would win that fight. And her loss would almost certainly be unpleasant.
While she thought about it, both the voice in her head and the monster in front of her seemed to wait on her decision. The creature hadn’t moved, but Rommie noticed that it was sinking into the murk at slightly a faster rate than she was.
“Is there a choice?” she asked finally, not out loud but in her mind.
“Yes,” said the voice. “You can die your natural death on Earth if you prefer.”
Now Rommie considered the two choices: a painless death on Earth, or an extremely painful death here – wherever this place was.
“Well?” the voice asked with a touch of impatience.
Rommie hated pain, but she suddenly realized that if there was a choice, she didn’t want to die just yet.
“OK. I’ll fight,” she said.
She felt a sudden absence in her mind as if something that had been there was now gone. The creature in front of her snarled and crouched down deeper in the mushy substance that covered the bottom half of its calves.
Then it flew out and up toward Rommie. A spray of viscous liquid and harder objects rose in its wake and splattered against her skin. Widespread sharp-clawed hands reached for her throat.
And then there was nothing again.
CHAPTER 2
Some unknown time later, Rommie’s consciousness stirred. She opened her eyes and did not see the familiar drab white squares of the hospital ceiling. Instead, a pattern in shades of amber swirled slowly above her head. She knew she wasn’t in the hospital bed, but she felt firm softness under her body.
Rommie lifted her head and stared down at herself. A soft beige blanket that hadn’t been on the hospital bed covered her from the neck down. No tubes seemed to be sticking out of her arms. And there was no medical equipment anywhere in sight.
Where am I? she wondered.
But a growing sense of disconnection from reality made it hard to come up with any answers to that question.
Feeling more energetic than she had in ages added to Rommie’s confused mental state. Restlessness drove her to push the blanket down and sit up. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and looked around.
What she saw didn’t make things any clearer. She was inside a bubble-like room. It was rounded but not evenly colored. Instead, changing colors flowed across curved surfaces.
Rommie’s head swam, and she swayed. She closed her eyes and gripped the edges of the bed to keep her balance.
A deep breath pulled fresh cool air with a slight chemical small into her lungs, and the dizziness passed. Then Rommie opened her eyes and stared at the strange room again. There were no corners or edges except where the flat floor met the wall, which curved seamlessly to the top.
Rommie tilted her head back and looked up again at the slow-moving kaleidoscopic pattern she’d first opened her eyes to.
Wow! So there really is an afterlife! she thought. But it’s nothing like I expected. I can’t even tell if it’s good or bad. Well, I guess I’ll find out.
***
A melodious chime sounded, and Rommie turned to face the direction it came from. On the side of the rounded wall, a glowing red spot appeared, brightened, and blossomed. In the center of the redness, a small hole opened and grew. Rommie stared at what was behind the quickly growing opening.
Two humanlike forms stood there. First Rommie saw their torsos, arms, and legs, dressed in dark gray, close-fitting bodysuits. Then the hole widened, and she saw their heads.
Rommie gasped out loud, and the two strange beings walked in. They didn’t look anything like the angels or devils she’d expected. But if they were people, they weren’t human beings.
Their thin bodies were topped by more triangular then human-shaped heads. And the visible skin on their faces and hands was lime green – one in a darker shade than the other. Two sets of large slanted eyes stared down at Rommie from expressionless faces with un-humanly sharp jutting bones, small pointy noses, small mouths, and pointed chins.
Aliens? Rommie wondered. There are aliens in the afterlife? Or have I been abducted by aliens?
She was shocked and frightened but not terrified.
I’m already dead after all, she reminded herself.
From the body contours that showed beneath their form-fitting bodysuits, the two humanoids appeared to be a male and a female. Both had the same short hairstyle, but the male’s hair was pale blue, and the female’s was much darker blue.
They walked into the room side by side, taking steps in perfect unison. Each one’s left foot and then right foot lifted at the exact same time to the exact same height. Both kept their arms loosely down at their sides. Their ankle-high boots made small taps as they placed each foot down on the floor. Rommie looked down and saw that it was slightly shiny like plastic or rubber.
She looked up at the two strange faces when they stopped directly in front of her. Both stared back down unblinking into her eyes with their own enormous slightly bulging eyes. Rommie stared back without speaking. After a while, the silence became more uncomfortable than her numbed fear.
“Greetings,” they finally said at the same time in soft clear voices that seemed to echo inside Rommie’s head.
“Hello,” said Rommie. “Where am I? Am I dead?”
The corners of the two pairs of large slanted eyes turned up, but the small mouths didn’t move until the female opened hers to speak.
“No. You are alive,” she said. “I am Eurk, and this is Bwaaa.”
Eurk gestured at her companion with a wave of a thin six-fingered hand.
“We are from the Untimo solar system. Welcome to our planet,” said Bwaaa.
Rommie’s mouth opened, but she was too shocked to say anything for a few moments. The two aliens waited in silence, continuing to stare at her but without making any further movement.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Wait a minute! This can’t be real, Rommie thought. Am I in some strange hell where I keep imaging things?
“But I had to die!” Rommie insisted. “I had stage 4 cancer, and I was in the hospital bed dying. Then everything went dark. There’s no way I could have survived.”
That realization chilled her inside and out. Rommie hugged herself and rubbed her bare arms. Now she noticed that they felt different. Softer and smoother. She looked down and saw that her arms looked different too. The lines, wrinkles, and age spots were all gone. Unlike her familiar somewhat leathery skin, these arms and hands were those of a very young woman. And she noticed that the body she was hugging was much slimmer than it had been for a few decades.
Rommie lifted a hand closer and stared at it with wide eyes, suddenly able to see fine hairs and other details she hadn’t seen for decades even with her glasses on. Then she looked back up at the two yellow-green beings in front of her.
“Tell me the truth. What’s going on here? I know this body isn’t mine!” she insisted. “Are you claiming that you put me into a new body?”
“But you did survive. Yes, you were terminal, but we removed you from Earth before your body died. We restored your health and youth and left an exact match for your body in its place. That one died, but you’re still alive in your original body,” said Bwaaa.
There was no mirror in the room, but Rommie got busy staring at the parts of her she could see and feeling the smooth skin on her face and everywhere else on her body.
“That’s impossible!” she said, denying the evidence of her eyes and hands.
“It’s quite easy, actually,” said Eurk. “I can show you how we did it. I have to warn you that it might be traumatic, but some people want to see.”
“Yes, please show me,” said Rommie. “Maybe it will all feel more real to me if I see what happened.”
“Very well then. I will. Please close your eyes. You can see better that way,” said Eurk.
That didn’t make sense, but Rommie closed her eyes anyway. The room’s bright but soft lighting glowed through her closed eyelids. Then it didn’t. Complete blackness filled her vision.
***
When a scene replaced the blackness behind her eyes, Rommie jolted, but she kept her eyes closed. She recognized the utilitarian low-budget hospital room she’d just been in. Her familiar older body lay on the small bed with an IV tube and monitor cuff attached to one arm. Her eyes were closed, and she was asleep or unconscious.
The clunky heart monitor next to the bed displayed the bad news about her heart and lung function. As further evidence that the end was near, her adult children sat in the two small plastic chairs against the wall. Both of their eyes were red.
An unexpected stab of burning pain went through Rommie’s chest.
They really do care about me! she thought. Even though they haven’t acted like they did since they were kids.
“It’s her fault she’s dying this young,” said Rommie’s beautiful daughter Preet, sounding angry. “She wouldn’t take care of herself. She should have got regular checkups, but she never did.”
“It’s no use getting mad at her now,” said her more practical son Ben. “Anyway, she’s sleeping now, and her vitals look steady. Let’s go get some lunch and come back.”
They both got up and left the room. As soon as the door closed behind them, the scene that Rommie watched in her mind panned over to the window. The shut panes and the blinds that covered them seemed to disintegrate in a cloud of dissolving atoms.
Rommie saw gray-clad legs through the now open space. Then Eurk squatted down and dropped into the room and then turned back toward the window. Bwaaa squatted there holding a body in his arms. An unmoving but very familiar body dressed in a hospital gown.
Eurk reached out, and Bwaaa transferred the body of Rommie’s clone into her arms. Then Bwaaa dropped in. He walked to the bed where Rommie’s real body lay and made some adjustments to the machines that monitored her life functions. After a nod at Eurk, he made fast work of removing all the tubes that were stuck in various parts Rommie’s body.
Bwaaa lifted Rommie off the bed and held her while Eurk laid Rommie’s clone in her place. She reconnected all the tubes and adjusted the medical machines. In fast fluid motion, Eurk slipped back out the window. Bwaaa handed the real Rommie out to her and then jumped out too. As soon as they were both out of the room, a cloud of atoms reversed the disintegration of the window and blinds, and they were back – looking exactly like they had before.
The view of the scene inside Rommie’s head shifted to outside the window. Bwaaa and Eurk, with Rommie held between them, appeared to be floating in the air. When they began to rapidly rise straight up, it looked as if they were inside a bubble that stayed smooth and firm against the air it flowed through.
The bubble rose faster, shooting miles above the Earth, and the scene panned out. Then the small circle hit the stratosphere and disappeared.
Rommie’s view jerked back into the hospital room. The door opened, and her children walked back in. They sat down and looked at Rommie’s replacement. A few seconds later, the heartline on the life support monitor went flat and began to make a long, loud beep sound.
***
Back in the room with the aliens, Rommie opened her eyes. They were wet with tears, and she began to cry harder. She wasn’t sure if she was crying for herself or her children. But witnessing that death scene had been hard. Even if she hadn’t really died.
While she sobbed, the aliens stood silent and motionless in front of her. Rommie was strongly aware of their presence. Normally, she would have been embarrassed to display so much emotion in front of strangers. But she realized that she didn’t really care what they thought about her as the tears kept coming.
Several minutes later, Rommie stopped crying. She lifted an arm and wiped her damp face on the sleeve of the loose gown the aliens had dressed her in.
“Would you like some time alone?” Eurk asked, after Rommie had cried out most of the overpowering grief that had filled her. “We have many important things to explain and discuss with you, but we can come back later.”
“No,” Rommie answered her. “I don’t want to be alone right now. Before I left Earth, I accepted that I was dying and made my peace with it. I knew my children had their own lives and would be OK. I’ve spent enough time wallowing in misery, and I don’t want to do that anymore. So please don’t leave me alone, or I’ll sit here thinking about my death and getting depressed about it again.”
“Very well,” said Bwaaa. “We’ll get started then.”
Neither moved from their position standing in front of her, but Eurk began to talk.
“We brought you to our planet in the manner you just saw. Do you have any questions or want to see how we created your body double or regenerated your original? Sometimes people ask to see that.”
Rommie’s mouth and throat were dry from crying.
“Yes, I have questions,” she croaked out. “But can I have a glass of water first?”
“Of course,” said Bwaaa. “Since you asked, I’ll show you how to get food, refreshment, and elimination utilities in your room. Are you able to get up and step this way?”
He gestured toward the blank wall on the other side of the circular room. Rommie stood up from the bed on legs that were surprisingly firm. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. She walked about twenty paces across the room and stood next to the upward-curving wall.
“Picture what you want in your mind and place your hand on the wall,” said Eurk. “You’re new at it, so it will be easier if you close your eyes.”
This suggestion sounded ridiculous, but Rommie tried it anyway. She placed her hand on the wall. It was smooth and slightly warm. And it seemed to vibrate under her touch. She imagined a glass of water. Nothing happened.
“We don’t have that type of beverage container here,” said Bwaaa. “You need to imagine yourself drinking the water or another beverage you desire.”
Rommie was very thirsty and wondered if she’d ever get anything to drink.
Maybe I really am in hell after all, she thought.
But she tried again. With her hand still on the smooth curved wall, she imagined drinking her favorite Earth beverage—a low-sugar flavored and dyed drink enhanced with vitamins. The wall dissolved around her hand, and a small rounded container pressed against her palm.
“Take it,” said Eurk.
Rommie grasped the bulb with her fingers and pulled it toward her mouth, but she didn’t drink yet. She stared down at what looked and felt like a soft plastic cup filled with orange liquid.
Bwaaa sniffed. “That drink is quite unhealthy, but you may drink it this time. We’ll teach you how to create beverages that nourish your body and appeal to your taste buds.”
Rommie felt somewhat annoyed by those words, but her thirst was uncomfortable. She lifted the cup to her mouth and took a sip. It tasted exactly like her favorite VitaBev. She took some bigger gulps. The aliens waited unmoving until she drank the entire cup.
They seemed to have unlimited patience, she thought.
“To dispose of the cup, just hand it back into the wall,” said Eurk when Rommie finished drinking.
“What do you mean?” Rommie asked.
Eurk demonstrated by reaching a hand to the wall. Instead of being stopped by its hard surface, her hand went all the way through up to the wrist.
Rommie imitated her and reached out her hand that held the cup as if she was going to push it against the wall. Her hand went inside too. She kept hold of the cup, but she felt it disintegrate inside her hand. Then she pulled her hand out and stared at her empty palm.
Now Rommie was starting to feel disoriented and somewhat dizzy.
“I think I need to sit back down,” she said.
“Ah yes, culture shock,” said Bwaaa. “It’s quite common, of course. You may return to your seat on the bed, but please don’t lay down. There’s still much to discuss, and time is of the essence.”
***
Rommie resented the implication that she needed his permission to sit, but she turned and walked back to the bed. She sat down and stared at the aliens and wasn’t quite able to keep from frowning.
“Yes. I still have questions. What’s going on here? Is there time for you to explain that?” Rommie couldn’t keep the irritation out of her voice.
“Time is relative,” said Eurk. “There’s always time if it’s needed. But it benefits us all to move as fast as we can with the entire galaxy at stake.”
“The entire galaxy? What do you mean?” Rommie was more confused than ever now.
“You’ve jumped ahead too far, Eurk,” Bwaaa said.
Eurk lowered her face and stared at the floor.
“I’m sorry. Her angry question about time disrupted my calm and rational thought processes,” said Eurk.
She lifted her eyes and spoke to Rommie. “I apologize for my emotional reaction to your reaction.”
“Sure,” said Rommie, trying to be polite.
“Quite understandable,” said Bwaaa.
He reached a six-fingered hand and lifted Eurk’s chin back up.
Maybe it’s understandable to them, Rommie thought.
Bwaaa turned his sharp lime green face toward Rommie and spoke.
“Yes, the galaxy we share is danger. That’s why you’re here,” said Bwaaa. “But we’ll explain that in its turn. For now, we’ll start from the beginning and follow our usual orientation method. You said you had questions about our process of moving your body to our planet?”
Rommie tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling while she thought about those questions. But now they didn’t seem as urgent as finding out why she was on this planet and, preposterously, expected to save the galaxy.
Even though she was sitting down, her head seemed to be spinning. Or maybe that was caused by the slowly changing kaleidoscope pattern displayed on top of the rounded room. She looked back down and focused her eyes on the two aliens in front of her.
“Can you just tell me everything, and then I’ll ask all my questions after that?” she asked.
“As you wish,” said Eurk. “But feel free to ask any questions you might have as we go along.”
She smiled at Rommie.
“Thank you,” said Rommie.
She waited for them to start. The two aliens took positions next to the bed on either side of Rommie. Now all three of them faced the far wall. Rommie felt somewhat uncomfortable at being surrounded by aliens. But she remembered that she’d already been much closer to them. They’d carried her body against their own bodies—at least according to the vision she’d seen in her mind.
I guess this is no big deal compared to that, she told herself.
The kaleidoscope image on the ceiling spread down to cover the entire wall in front of her, distracting her from those thoughts. Then it darkened and turned black.
“We need to display a vast amount of data. So we’ll project it on the wall instead of in your mind,” said Eurk. “It’s much less work for us.”
“Sure,” said Rommie.
“We’ll start at the beginning,” said Bwaaa.
A 3D image of the entire Milky Way galaxy appeared on the blackness.
“Because we brought you here, you know that our species has developed interspace travel. Many species in our galaxy have the same ability,” said Bwaaa.
Rommie’s mouth opened of its own accord. In surprise or maybe to ask a question.
“We won’t tell you exactly how space travel works right now. That would take many hours, and time is critical,” Bwaaa continued, as if reading her mind. “To be brief, by using the principles of computer programming, we’re able to program our minds to alter the atomic structure of space. Then we’re able to send our bodies through it to other planets. We can also network our programming platform into the minds of other humanoids in order to take them along with us. It takes two active minds to create the bridge to passive another mind, of course.”