But it was too late—I was being sucked into the swirling vortex in the mirror and I wasn’t nearly strong enough to stop myself.
My last memory was of hearing Princess Prissy yapping in the tub and thinking that Great Aunt Maizy was going to have a hell of a time getting the dog shit out of that expensive Vera Wang gown…
And then I was sucked into the mirror, away from Earth and out of my old life forever.
TWO
ELLI
When I opened my eyes and looked around, I realized three things. One—I was freezing cold. At first, I thought that was because I was sitting on an icy metal floor. But then I realized thing number two which was that I was completely naked. And then thing number three—I wasnotalone.
Standing over me were two beings—I say beings,notpeople because at that point both of them seemed completely alien. The first one was a dark blue worm thing with what seemed like about a hundred arms that ended in razor-sharp claws. It had googly eyes on long stalks that swiveled to survey me.
All that sounds scary and itwas,but at least the blue millipede-worm thing was only about three feet tall, which wasnotthe case for the second being looming over me.
The second being was the face I had seen in the mirror—the evil but civilized demon with the full-black eyes and a British accent. But what the mirror hadn’t shown me was howbighe was.
He was taller than a professional basketball player and bigger than a professional wrestler—in fact, if my estimate was right, he was at least nine feet or three meters tall.
What I’m trying to say is that he was a freaking giant—we’re talking Goliath from the Bible proportions. And yes, I was scared to death.
But as frightened as I was, I couldn’t help noticing that he was a well-dressed giant. He had on tight black trousers tucked into tall black boots so big I probably could have lived in one, like the Old Woman who lived in the Shoe. He was also wearing a crisp white shirt that looked to be made of some kind of linen. It had long sleeves, immaculate cuffs, and a rounded collar. It looked a little like something a businessman would wear on Earth, I thought numbly. Over the shirt the gray giant wore a kind of long maroon vest that hung down almost to his boots. But it seemed to be cut oddly and was only long on the sides and short in the back—from what I could see, anyway.
Enough about the gray giant’s fashion sense, though—he was still freaking huge and I was still freaking terrified.
“Who are you? Where am I? What do you want with me? Why am I here?”
The questions came pouring out of my mouth as I scrambled to my feet and started backing away, while trying to cover my goodies with my arms. They say you don’t know how you’re going to react to a life-threatening situation until you are actually in one. Will you freeze, fight, or flee? My response was apparently to play twenty questions.
The gray giant frowned down at me in apparent surprise.
“Oh, it speaks,” he remarked.
“Yes, Overlord!” replied the blue worm in the high, squeaky voice I had heard in the background through the bathroom mirror. “The humans, while primitive, do have the power of speech and communication—though they speak only through their mouths and not with their minds.”
“Of course they cannot communicate through thought,” the gray guy said dismissively. “They are, after all, the least evolved species in this galaxy. It’s the reason I chose to buy one in the first place.”
“Wait a minute, you can’t buy me—I’m not for sale!”I exclaimed. “And who says we’re primitive and un-evolved?”
“His Eminence the Overlord is correct,” the blue worm informed me. “You humans are, after all, the only sentient species in this galaxy that are unaware of the fact that other sentient species exist right under the strange sensory organs you call your ‘noses’. You are also the only species who know nothing of the Ancient Ones who seeded your world with their DNA in the first place and then locked it securely to keep your species pure.”
“Wait…Ancient Ones? Other species?” My mind was reeling.
“The Ancient Ones were beings who came before and scattered their DNA throughout this galaxy,” the blue worm lectured me. “They are the reason so many humanoid species exist. They also seeded your word with a translation virus, which is the only reason a primitive creature such as yourself is able to understand both me and his Eminence, the Overlord.”
“I amnotprimitive and neither are my people!” I exclaimed—I was definitely offended now.
“They certainly are,” the blue worm said. “Your people are the only sentient species in the galaxy without the ability to navigate space.”
“Hey, we do too navigate space!” I protested. At this point, I felt kind of like all of humanity was on trial and I was the one trying to defend them. “I mean, we have NASA and the International Space Station,” I pointed out. “That has to count forsomething.”
The worm made a dismissive motion with most of its hands.
“Primitive facilities. You have barely even explored your own natural satellite—though you have certainly managed to pollute the space around your planet quite excessively.”
“Natural satellite? You mean the moon?” I looked around myself at the dull silver walls and floor and ceiling. “Is that where we are now? Is this some kind of…of space station on the moon?”
“The Earthling makes a reasonable deduction,” the gray giant rumbled, looking at me thoughtfully. “Perhaps it isn’tquiteas unintelligent as I had imagined.”