Chapter One
Angie
It happened the night I went to see the pyramids. The sun had set, but there was plenty of light coming from the city behind me and the three beautiful pyramids before me. As I sat on the rocky slope, snuggled in my hoodie, more to make myself inconspicuous than anything, a ray of intense, white light rained from above and fell right on top of my head.
I looked up, and it blinded me.
The next thing I knew, I was being lifted off the ground.
And my reaction to being pulled up in the air, while I was unable to move or make a sound, wasn’t very useful but made sense. I fainted.
* * *
I was in and out of consciousness. I could hear voices around me, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Then I felt a jab in my skull, and another one in my neck. The more I struggled to stay awake, the more exhausted I felt. Until I couldn’t fight anymore, and I fainted again, or simply fell asleep.
What had I done to deserve this? I had been kidnapped. That much I figured out. Cairo was supposed to be safe enough for tourists, and I had taken all precautions. All I wanted was to admire the pyramids from a distance, see them one last time before I moved on to the next country on my list.
Maybe my parents were right. And my sister, and my uncle... and all my friends who’d told me not to do it. They’d begged me to not quit my job with the bank, and not spend all my savings on a trip around the world. They’d begged me to stay put. Get a hold of myself, go to therapy if I needed to, and not throw away a good job and a stable future just because I was going through a bit of a crisis.
I hadn’t listened to them. I needed a break, so I took it. I quit my job, packed my bags, and booked a flight to Italy. Venice was the first place on my list that I absolutely wanted to see. I visited Rome, too, then Paris, of course, and quite a bit of Spain. When I was done with Europe, Egypt was a must, and then I thought I’d be ready to fly even farther and spend a few weeks in Bali – the Island of the Gods.
What had I done to deserve this? All I wanted was to take a long vocation and find a way to reconnect with myself. Just for a few months, maybe a year, at most. And then, when I returned to the US, I hoped to return with a clear idea about what my purpose actually was. All I wanted was to discover and then rediscover myself.
What I got, instead, was... kidnapped.
If this was the end of me, was I okay with it? As if it mattered anymore... The things I’d achieved and the things I’d failed at...
They must’ve injected me with something strong, because the slumber I fell into was almost indistinguishable from death. Or from what I thought death felt like.
* * *
I opened my eyes, and my vision was blurry for a good minute. I blinked and tried to move, but the space I was in was so cramped that I couldn’t even lift my hand to touch my face. I saw white all around me, and a little transparent window through which I could see the sky. My first thought was, “Coffin!”. But even for a coffin, the box was too small. Maybe it wasn’t made for people like me – short, curvy women in their thirties, with boobs so big that they could barely hold their back straight, and hips so large that buying clothes in physical stores was an adventure with a sad ending.
A coffin, for sure. But as I looked around me, turning my head and craning my neck to try and see better, it looked quite modern. In fact, it looked like it was an advanced piece of technology. And then I remembered the bright light, the shadows of short, thin people, and their voices. And now this... Could it be that I’d been... not just kidnapped, but... abducted? By aliens?
I snorted at how ridiculous that sounded. Clearly, it was taking my brain a while to fully come back online.
I had to get out of here, though. I pressed my palms to the metallic surface and started to push. It didn’t budge. I grunted, then let out a scream of frustration, and pushed again. Nothing. Just as I was about to give up, I felt the coffin-like box move. It swayed from side to side, and I heard the squeak of metal rubbing on metal. And then, before I could guess what was going on, the box slid to one side and crashed to the ground. The metal door cracked just a tiny bit, and then I saw a shadow lean over and pull at it until it came off.
I blinked, suddenly blinded by the sun. The shadow moved closer, blocking the light, and I could finally open my eyes and see whom it belonged to. Well, it turned out the shadow belonged to a man. No. An alien.
He was tall, bulky, and his skin was dark green. I stared at him, and he stared at me. We were both in shock. Except my shock was mixed with fear, and his shock was mixed with anger. Or annoyance.
“Wh-what...” I croaked out. My throat was dry, and I found that speaking hurt.
“You’re human,” he said gravely. “A human on Reazus Prime. How?”
My eyes widened, and this time, I managed to let out a well-rounded “what”. Because... what in the hell?! How could I understand what he was saying?! For sure, he wasn’t speaking English.
He offered me his hand, and I took it. He seemed to be harmless enough. After all, he’d just opened the damn coffin when I couldn’t budge the lid, or the door, or whatever it was. He helped me to my feet, and I was so wobbly that I instantly collapsed. I looked at the white box and finally understood what it was – a pod. Then I looked around me and saw that my pod had landed right on top of a huge spaceship. Yes, a spaceship. I’d seen enough science fiction movies to recognize one.
So, that was why the green-skinned alien was angry. My pod had crashed right on top of his ship, and I could see it had caused some damage.
I looked up at him, and saw that he was still staring at me, maybe wondering if he should help me up again, or if, perhaps, I wasn’t capable of walking at all, and he was just wasting his time.
He looked human enough, in the sense that he had two legs, two arms, and one head. The color of his skin gave away the fact that he wasn’t human. And he was covered in tattoos! Or, at least, I thought that was what they were... Tribal drawings that covered his chest, back, and arms. They weren’t black, as tats usually were, but of a coppery red that complimented his dark green skin quite well, I had to admit.
He was ripped, too. Hard, taut muscles everywhere, and I didn’t mind it one bit that he wasn’t wearing a shirt.