The lights in the room turned on, but John was still lying in bed, tired. He felt like he slept for only five to six hours so he decided to sleep a little more. John was disappointed that he had no dreams because dreams were god for people suffering from amnesia. They were a good way to jog someone’s memory. He fell asleep for a while. He was awoken by the noise from opening the small door made. Again, a metal tray was pushed into his room.
John was hungry, his stomach was rumbling. He didn’t eat anything yesterday, but with food like yesterday, he feared that he also wouldn’t eat anything today. He lifted his head to look at the metal tray, expecting the two bowls again, but instead of the bowls, there was a light brown brick in the middle and dried fruit on the side. ‘So breakfast is different from dinner. That’s good to know. Let’s see if this tastes any better than the stuff from yesterday.’
John got up and sat on the floor in front of the tray. He examined the light brown brick from all sides and ate one of the dried fruits. ‘Ok, the fruits are a bit bitter, but at least they are edible.’ He took a bite from the brick, it didn’t taste as horrible as the stuff from the bowl, it tasted like it was made from different ground nuts and walnuts. There were no other flavors so John ate it together with the dried fruit, looking suspiciously at the glass, on the tray, full of red liquid. He smelled the red liquid but couldn’t recognize the smell. He tried a sip and instantly spit it out. The red liquid tasted like rotten tomatoes filtered through dirty socks. It was a good thing he had a bathroom and water.
After breakfast, John noticed a small camera in a corner of the room, so he started jumping and waving his arms saying. “Is anyone there? Can I talk to a biological being? I think we got on the wrong foot. Can you let me out? I didn’t do anything and there’s nothing to do here.” John stopped for a second to see if someone will answer him but he got no response. “Ok. If you don’t want to let me out then please don’t give me the reddish gelatin-like liquid to eat, please.”
With nothing to do and still feeling tired, John lay down on the bed and fell asleep. He was awoken by his stomach rumbling. He looked at the floor by the small door but there was no metal tray. It occurred to him that he had no way to tell time. Although if he had, there would be no point. He didn’t know the alien’s day cycle. Earth day cycle was twenty-four hours, but to these aliens, it could be anything. He hoped that their cycle was close to Earth’s because he was starving.
‘He got in the shower and saw a green and a red button and a lever that turned left and right. There were alien symbols on each side of the lever but he didn’t understand them. If this was anything like sonic showers on human spaceships the lever adjusted the temperature of the sonic wave. If you turn the lever left, the sonic wave was warmer, if you turn it right, it was colder. With that logic in mind, John turned the lever halfway to the left and pressed the green button. What followed could only be described as a scream of someone whose tooth was pulled out alive.
John quickly turned the lever all the way to the left thinking that the sonic wave will warm him. That was a huge mistake. The sonic wave was so hot that it burnt the top layer of his skin. When he got out of the shower, he looked like a sausage that walked off a grill. Pissed, he went over to the sink, pulled the lever to the left, and cooled his face with the cold water.
Jon entered the room and tried to find a less painful position to sit on the bed so he could get dressed. He grabbed his shirt and put one arm into a sleeve. He let out a quiet whine as tears started to form in the corners oh his eyes. He went back to the bathroom and took two towels with the intention to put them on the bed and try to lay like that until the pain stopped.
As he finished putting towels onto the bed, he heard the door to his room open. Outside the door was a machine, waist-high, and a robot behind it. The machine entered the room and the robot closed the door. The machine moved forward, not caring that John was looking at it confused and asking. “What are you? What are you doing here?“ The machine stopped a few paces away from John and extended a red tube towards him. The tube stopped and at the end of it, like a hand fan, a platform unfolded.
John looked at the platform and then at the machine and asked. “You want me to stand on that?” The machine started making gibberish noises. ”Why?” He asked and the machine made more of those noises in that gibberish language as if it was answering him. ‘So it’s talking but in an alien language.’ John thought. “I’ll step on it but if that’s a scale I can already tell you I’m not fat, I just have denser bones.” The machine answered in the gibberish language again, but this time faster like it was unpainted so John stepped onto the platform.
In a split second, an oval-shaped bubble surrounded John and another tube came out of the machine and attached itself to the bubble. “Hey? What is this?” John asked and got an answer in that gibberish language the machine spoke. A lukewarm liquid started to fill up the oval-shaped bubble he was in and John started banging on the inside of the bubble yelling. “Hey! Stop it! I can’t breathe underwater! You’re going to kill me! Stop the water!” But the machine ignored him. The water was filling up the bubble quickly, As John was banging at the bubble sides with his arms, legs and elbows, trying to break free, the bubble was already full of water to his waist.
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Nothing John did, not yelling and begging the machine to stop, did anything to stop the bubble from filling up with water. When the water reached his neck, he took a deep breath. After a few seconds, the water filled the bubble completely. John could hear the muffled sound of the machine talking in the gibberish language but couldn’t understand it. A few bubbles of air escaped his mouth, so he put his right hand over it. As he did that, he saw the top layer of the skin on his hand peel away piece by piece and he screamed, losing all the air in his lungs. He started to panic because without air he will die, so once again he started banging on the sides of the bubble. Looking at his arms, he saw that the top layer of the skin was peeling all over his body, revealing healthy skin underneath. For a few moments, he forgot that he had no air and was shocked when he realized that he could breathe normally.
When all of his damaged skin was fixed, the machine drained the water from the bubble, the bubble disappeared, the platform folded back and was pulled back into the machine. The machine said something in the gibberish language, the door opened and it left. John was left sitting in the middle of the room, naked and wet. At least he didn’t look like a fried sausage anymore. “Now I have to take another shower. Damn it.” He said.
This time he was really careful while taking a shower and when he was done a metal tray was on the floor in front of the door. ‘Finally, I’m starving.’ John thought and sat in front of the tray. On the tray, there was a small bowl containing a yellowish clear liquid that smelled like a herbal tea, a plate with a big piece of some kind of fruit and a few smaller ones, a plate of greens that reminded him of a salad and a weird black cube. The cube didn’t look edible so he left it for now. The yellowish liquid was a herbal tea and the rest of the lunch was edible, it just lacked spices. It wasn’t even salted.
With his belly, full John turned his attention to the black cube. He picked it up and sat on the bed looking it over. It looked like some kind of a puzzle cube. The cube was the size of a rubrics cube, its sides were smooth and all the sides were black except for one. One side had a small white square in the middle. ‘This is probably a test of my intelligence. They give this to their children to solve and they are giving it to me. If I can’t solve it they are going to think I’m stupid.’ John thought. For a few hours, he tried to solve the puzzle, but couldn’t. That just made him frustrated. He looked at the camera and said. “I’m hoping you’re laughing your buts off now. Can you at least give me a hint where to start?” But he didn’t get an answer.
“God damn puzzle cube. I’m not going to let you beat me.” John said. He knew there had to be a reason why the white square was in the center of one of the sides. He tried pushing it, pulling it, pushing the opposite side of it but nothing he did had any impact on the white square. “Hmmm… I know that the white square has to mean something. But what?” John said aloud, raised the cube towards the ceiling light and saw that it was slightly see-through. He saw machinery inside it that connected the middle square of each side of the cube in a specific way.
John pushed the white square and the machinery for the underside unlocked. He pressed the middle square of the underside and it that unlocked the backside middle square. Pressing the squares in the order they were unlocking John finally unlocked the cube, he solved the puzzle. The cube occupied his mind that he didn’t realize how much time had passed. The small door opened and a metal tray was pushed into his room. There was no bowl with the red gelatin this time. John looked at the camera and said. “Thank you.” The dinner was edible and he even got a sweet candy-like treat. John looked at the camera and said. “I know I solved the puzzle, but I’m not a dog. I don’t need treats.”
For the next few weeks, the aliens kept him in the room and gave him puzzles to solve. Each puzzle was more difficult than the last one. It took time, because some were more intuitive than others, but he solved them all. One day the doors to John’s room opened, the machine came into his room again and started to speak the gibberish language again. “How do you not understand me? I don’t know what you’re saying.” John said.
The machine came closer to John and he said. “Keep away from me. You see I’m healthy. There’s nothing wrong with me so keep your tentacles away from me.” As he said that, the machine scanned him with a beam. A small compartment opened on the side of the machine and the machine injected him with something with a gun-like needle injector. “What did I just tell you. Keep away from me or I’ll shove you where the sun doesn’t shine.” The world around John started to spin, he was losing balance and could barely stand up straight. “You bastard! What did you...” Was all that he managed to say before he lost consciousness.
John woke up, shackled, while two robots were pushing him through corridors. They entered a massive hall. If John wasn’t heavily drugged, he would appreciate all the beautiful sculptures, the ornaments decorating the walls and the magnificent chandelier depicting different animals holding glowing crystals. In the center of the room on an elevated platform were six chares. One stood alone and the others were facing it. The robots put John in the chair opposite the five chairs and attached his shackles to it.