Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 47529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
“You think you can drug me down? You think you can put me out with a spray?” She pops up out of the bed, hands on hips, and glares at me with those furious dark eyes. “You better open this cage and let me go home, alien, or you are going to regret it.”
“I can’t open it. It’s not safe for you. I can give you another dose of sedative, or you can take a nap of your own accord. But you are not coming out of there until we are back on Euphoria.”
She draws her foot back and kicks the door hard enough to make the entire pod shudder. Fortunately, the other inhabitants are deep in slumber and do not stir. She can throw all the tantrums she likes in there.
My newest human acquisition is absolutely beside herself with rage. She begins to threaten me at the top of her lungs, her shouts muted by the thick walls of her translucent prison.
“I’m going to fuck your shit up, alien. I’m going to burn your world to the fucking ground if you take me there.”
I can understand her anger, though I would have thought she’d manage a little more in the way of gratitude. If I had not swept her up when I did, she would have been seriously hurt. I know that one gallant action does not make me any less of a predator stalking their failing world, but I hope to become a rescuer to those I do save.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You are safe.”
“Fuck you.”
I draw a phrase from the depths of human history, the only possible response in this situation. She deserves discipline, and she will get it, but for now, while she is in transit, she can stay in her pod.
“Alrighty then.”
3
Jen
Wind blows past me and my ridiculous fucking tutu as I huddle in the back of the crate to stay out of the elements as much as is possible, cursing Arkan and his interference in my life. Thanks to his punishment, sitting down is almost impossible, so I find myself crouched and braced in a very undignified position as we wind our way through the idyllic old city, and to my very great excitement, into the countryside.
I smell wild air, scented with unfamiliar flowers. I see trees and fields passing on either side of a very bumpy and poorly maintained dirt road. I have to brace myself over a divot or two in particular, before he slows down, realizing that his precious cargo is being rattled about in the back like a rock in a tin can.
He’ll regret this. He’ll regret everything.
He turns off what barely passes for a road, down a long and winding driveway. It is bordered by verdant trees and rutted with the passage of many vehicles. The world smells different here. There is earth, dirt, plant detritus, animal things. It is an alien smell, but it is also one that hits somewhere deep in my core because this is the smell from which we all came. I was born in the city. I’ve never touched grass before, but seeing the bright bloom of it fills me with hope of a kind that feels alien to me.
I should be mad as hell. I am mad as hell. But I’m something else too, now. I’m curious, and my lungs are full of the kind of air that plants just got done excreting and it feels like there’s this buzzing, blooming existence happening all around me and in me, and maybe I’m a part of it.
Never thought I’d feel at home on an alien world, not even a little bit. The truck jolts again and I just narrowly stop my head from hitting the top of the crate as we come to a halt at what has to be Arkan’s house. The vehicle is parked away from the house, so my view is mostly of the path along which we just came.
Arkan gets out and walks around to the crate to check on me.
“Fuck off,” I say, assuring him that all is well with me.
He exhales slightly impatiently and walks over to the gate we just came through, shutting it firmly. From what I can see, there is quite a tall fence around the entirety of the property made of a rock and cement situation. Almost looks like some of the old Earth buildings. Kind of charming. Am I starting to not hate every second of this experience? I hope not. I don’t want to become tame. I’ve seen too many tame humans, and they make me sick with the way they follow their owners around.
I remember the first time I met another owned human. It was two days ago. My owner wanted to show off his new purchase at a fancy alien gathering of some kind. A birthday party, maybe. I don’t know exactly because nobody told me.