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Chapter One
TORI
Bullshit.
Absolute bullshit.
Bullshit was my mother’s favorite curse word, and she said it often—several times a day when we were back on the farm, rarely in its literal context.It usually began with several utterings an hour during milking in the morning because Mom’s cows were as stubborn as her.
Feeling the farm life hadn’t been for me, I moved to the city as soon as I could afford it.But that old saying about being able to take thegirl from the country but not the country from the girlwas apparently true.I hadn’t made many close friends either because I constantly felt out of place.
Or maybe it’s because I’d generally made myself unlikeable to people.
“This is bullshit!”
My mother’s favorite word was now mine too and was screamed from my lungs with as much force as I could muster, among other choice words, as I was dragged from my home.
I’d gotten out of bed to use the bathroom and didn’t even get a chance to wash my hands before I was knocked to the floor from the force of a blast which, while it was strong enough to throw me from my feet, was silent apart from the clatter of the roof tiles hitting the floor before they shattered.I should have run, but curiosity got the better of me, and I stepped out of the small bathroom and under the brand-new circular hole in my apartment ceiling and looked up.
And found myself staring into a white light.
A handful of things came to my mind about what it could be in that instant, and none of them weregoodoptions.I ran, but it was too little too late and got caught in an invisible beam.I was being dragged from my home, clinging to any surface I could latch onto along the way.None of it made a difference, and the sound of every item on my dressing table hitting the floor added to my screams as I desperately tried to cling to the anchor.I gripped so hard onto the edge of the hole in the ceiling as I swooped through it I thought I was going to break my fingernails clean off before I was eventually forced to let go.
Once in the open, I didn’t fight the upside-down freefall and simply yelled, “Well, this is fuckingbullshit,”as I tumbled through the night air and was taken aboard a fucking alien spacecraft.The shutter closed beneath my feet before I was dumped unceremoniously onto the ice-cold floor.My robe was thick, but it was not enough to stop my teeth from chattering even as I pulled it tighter around me.The cold was so intense my bare feet felt like they were burning on the floor, and I hopped from foot to foot, muttering obscenities and looking around for a way out or someone I could yell at to answer some of my more pressing questions.
Like,what the fuck was this fucking bullshit?
Did aliens understand swearing?
If not, I’m sure they’d understand a swift punch to their alien faces.
There was silence, the kind of silence that echoes around an empty space and feels like it’s pressing against your eardrums.The sound of my light steps as I bounced from foot to foot, scanning the ceiling and the walls for any means of escape or a weapon, bounced off the smooth walls and came back to me magnified.After a quiet whoosh, I froze, and my spine stiffened before I found the strength to turn around.A door had slid open, appearing in an otherwise unmarked wall, and a group of people stood at the door.
No, not people.
Biting into the fleshy part of my hand, I tried to curtail my terror.Terror that rushed into every pore along with the stinging cold of the spaceship.Terror I had been able to deny with indignant rage until the moment I laid eyes on the beings who had taken me.
Because they made it real.
These couldn’t be people.They weren’t like any people I’d ever seen.They were small with wide bodies, pear-shaped and ending on short, stumpy legs and large, flat feet.They were wearing space suits, but when one of them looked directly at me, I saw an eye through the window on its helmet.Just one eye, almost as large as its entire head, a sickly yellowish-green color, like it was sticky and infected.My stomach churned, and I wanted to retch, but what I didn’t want to do was turn my back on the aliens as they approached me.I backed against the far wall, but they kept coming, seemingly unconcerned with my fear.Small hands that felt like rubber suckers grabbed my arms and pulled.I leaned away from their grip, hoping my weight alone would be enough to stop them from moving me because God knows I couldn’t get much grip on this floor with no shoes.
My efforts meant nothing, and the aliens pulled until I was almost yanked off my feet before I relented and stilled, gritting my teeth and walking alongside them as we exited the room.The second we crossed the threshold, I began fighting anew, more space meaning more area to swing, but they simply had more of them hold my arms still, and kicking did nothing but lift me off the floor momentarily.
“Get off me, you swine.”I fought them the entire way and was still fighting them when the door from the room we had left slid shut behind me with the same quiet whoosh.As we moved down a short hallway, sterile and plain, a white so bright it looked like the light was coming from the walls themselves, I continued to fight.My arms were beginning to hurt from the constant yanking against their sticky grip by the time we entered a larger room, but I didn’t stop pulling against them, and when I took the briefest moment to look around, my jaw dropped.
A flat slab of whatever metal the ship was made of floated in the middle of the room, and I was pushed toward it.When they tried to make me lie down on the table, I screamed again, letting go a string of obscenities, some of which I’m not even sure were real words as I fought.When they got a single strap around my wrist, I knew it was over, and as they pulled and tightened the restraint, I was forced to move closer to the table, now swiping out with only one free arm.It was only a matter of time before other straps were attached to my ankles, thighs, and upper arms.Bit by bit, I was forced to lie and was held still against the cold table, shivering and crying.There was no stopping the tears at this point, and honestly, I’m surprised I managed to hold them back this long.If not for the throbbing pain in my arm and the stinging of my bare feet, I could have perhaps told myself this was a nightmare, and if I closed my eyes tight enough, I would wake up at home.
But no.
As I turned my head to the side, another tremble shuddered through my body as my cheek pressed against the cold metal, torn between wanting to see what was in store for me and looking away and pretending it wasn’t happening.One of the aliens approached with a white instrument, maybe seven inches long.“Please,” I whispered.Since screaming and yelling did nothing, maybe they would stop if I tried talking to them.“Please don’t hurt me.Just leave me alone.I want to go home.”
It was ironic now that the only place I wanted to be was home since I’d done nothing but complain about it to myself, as I had no one else to complain to or who really paid attention.As a hairdresser, I was chatty, but people only wanted to talk about themselves.They didn’t come to the salon to hear my problems about how hopelessly single I was or my trust issues.They didn’t want to hear about my mother losing her mind to dementia and my subsequent guilt for leaving her to run the farm on her own so long before she was diagnosed.I’d convinced myself she somehow would’ve been okay if only I’d stayed longer.The doctors could tell me otherwise all they wanted, but in my mind, I didn’t do enough.I’d abandoned her in pursuit of my selfish desires to find somethingmore,realizing too late that true happiness was in simplicity.Now, she was in a nursing home in the country because she hated the city, and I couldn’t get out to see her very often.The nurses assured me she was happy, even if she didn’t know who they were.
Or who I was when I visited.
I was lonely, and I didn’t realize how lonely until I could no longer talk to my mom.
The tears came faster when I realized she wouldn’t miss me because she didn’t remember me.
