AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was relieved Nighteko agreed with my deal. I put everything on the table to meet and convince him. If he hadn’t agreed… I didn’t know what I would have done.
Actually, yes I did. His crew would have come in and forced me back in the pod. This time with added security. Then I would be sold to the alien master who’d bought me.
The thought of being bought and sold like that made me feel sick to my stomach. It concerned me somebody still might.
It all depended on me helping Nighteko grow strong.
Nighteko.
It was a shock to discover he was none other than the guy I approached that night at the bar. It was no coincidence. He was on the lookout for women to abduct.
And I’d handed us over to him.
It was all my fault.
And now here I was, chopping vegetables on a spaceship hurtling through the galaxy at unimaginable speeds, cooking a meal for my abductors.
You just couldn’t make this up.
I thought about my friends. Where were they now? Were they awake? Were they on some distant planet having adventures? Had any of them managed to find their way home yet? Did any of them blame me for what happened?
If I’d never approached Nighteko, none of this would ever have happened.
And I would never have found myself in a pod in the loading bay of a smuggler’s ship…
I bolted awake and smacked my head against something a few inches above me. I jolted back and raised my arms instinctively to protect myself. When nothing attacked, I opened my eyes.
My vision was blurry. I could only make out what appeared to be a grey cloud above me.
I had no concept of who I was, where I was, and most of all, what I was doing there.
I might have been born right at that moment.
I felt at the ceiling of my world. I was contained inside somewhere, enclosed beneath thick fabric I sensed I could not break. Cold air whispered from a crack forming on one side. I scrabbled at it with my fingers, still barely able to see, as the thick grey clouds floated to one side.
The gap grew wider and I pressed my lips to it. I sucked in that cool fresh air. I still had no idea where I was but, with my heart pulsing, beating a hectic rhythm in my chest, I did know one thing…
I had to get out of there.
Right now.
As the crack widened, I became aware of a soft whirring sound. It was the ceiling shifting away from me. Some sort of machine, I thought.
A machine was something I knew, something familiar, and I clung to that thought.
Once the gap was wide enough, I slipped my arm and leg through, then my chest and head. I landed on the floor on my hands and knees. My vision was still blurry and unclear, but not with grey, but dark shades of black and brown. The white clouds that’d shifted above me were not clouds at all, but some sort of shell.
It thumped into place and echoed around the room. It was large, wherever I was. Now my wits came back to me and I focused on my surroundings. I wouldn’t run, not yet. I had no idea where I would even run to.
My vision cleared with each blink until I could see normally. I was in a large room with boxes glowing with intense white light along one side.
No, not boxes. Pods.
The word came naturally to me now. I stood up and saw that the thing I’d come out of was one of these many pods.
I felt at my clothes. A gown, something hospital patients wore.
Or mental patients.
