2. Where Am I
Chapter 2
Where Am I
Isabella
I sa awoke with a start. She blinked to clear her vision, yet still pitch black surrounded her. Her heart sped up along with her breathing as panic gripped her. She was in water, or maybe mud, since it was thick.
My pod is flooding! The muddy water had covered her arms and legs already. A few inches more and it would’ve totally covered her head.
She attempted to push the lid open, desperate to get out of the flooding capsule. Except, there was nothing above her besides cool air, no lid where it was supposed to be. Another wave of panic hit as Isa scrambled to feel around in the thick soupy water for the capsule—for anything at all. Beneath her was a smooth spongy surface that didn’t feel too different from the padding inside the pod, except there was nothing to her left or right, no sides to the capsule.
My pod is gone. The capsule offered a sense of security, a barrier, since she couldn’t see an inch in front of her face. But now it was gone. Oh god. Her heart thundered in her chest. And I’m floating in some sort of shallow pond or river. Or I could be lying in a ditch. But I have no freaking clue because I can’t see. She freaked out a little before shoving it down.
Isa pushed against the bottom to sit up, and groaned as her muscles protested. Even though she’d been strapped and molded into her pod it was obvious the crash had tossed her around like a ragdoll then ejected her.
Where is it?!
Anxiously she crawled forward a few feet, feeling around in the pitch-black void. There was nothing but the creepy thick water. She crawled to her left, gingerly reaching in front of her and then to the right, her breath nervously heaving out. Again, there was nothing but the shallow mud and spongy bottom. Unable to see, she was too afraid to venture far. God only knew where she was, on the pink planet at night was obvious, but that was it. The water might get deeper. There could be a drop-off. Who knew?
“Shit, shit, shit!” Isa murmured when she didn’t find her pod anywhere, and she reached the extent of her comfort zone. “Did it float away while I was unconscious?”
Isa’s mind spun, her breath coming out faster as this new crazy wrinkle set in. It was damn lucky she could breathe in this atmosphere, since she was sucking air in at a frantic pace. So, thankfully, she wasn’t dependent on her life pod for that. However, the capsule would have provided a bit of shelter, along with a survival kit that she was desperately going to need in the days to come.
“Oh god!” she sobbed, her future looking grimmer by the second. She was marooned on an alien planet without a damn thing.
Isa wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged herself tight. As she felt her bare arms and legs, it suddenly registered that her pod wasn’t the only thing missing.
Where are my clothes?! She tugged in a sharp, panicked breath.
At that exact moment something brushed against her shoulder. Isa screamed and scrambled a few feet away.
“Who’s there!” she shouted into the darkness.
Isa had already been trembling in fear from her dire predicament. Those tremors turned into all out convulsions. Her head swiveled back and forth, not that she could see anything. She was tempted to run, but in the dark she’d surely trip.
Why the hell isn’t there starlight or something to see by?
“Is someone there?” Her voice wavered as she called out.
The desire to curl into a ball was overwhelming, but if she was going to survive this alien world, she was going to have to summon every ounce of courage she possessed. Hesitantly, Isa reached into the darkness, feeling around for whatever touched her shoulder.
Please let it be a low hanging branch and not something that eats fingers.
At that horrible thought, she curled her fingers inward, letting her fist probe the darkness instead. On the news they said that Tellus didn’t have sentient life. Though that didn’t mean there wasn’t life at all. The planet had been compared to the Pliocene epoch on Earth, which meant predatory mammals, like saber-toothed tigers.
And here I am a chicken nugget huddling in the dark.
Isa froze when something simultaneously cupped her fist and her cheek. If there’d been anything in her bladder she would’ve peed right then and there. Then it registered that it was a five-fingered hand, and she breathed a sigh of relief. One of her fellow colonists found her.
“Thank the heavens! Are you okay?” Isa squeezed the hand on her cheek.
There was no reply and she feared her fellow colonist had been injured. Worried, she started feeling along the woman’s arm for injuries, while the woman continued to oddly hold her cheek and fist. She couldn’t blame the woman for holding on for dear life. If they were going to survive, they needed to stick together. Isa reached the woman’s bicep, and hadn’t found any injuries, but she noticed the woman wasn’t wearing a shirt, either.
Did one of the colonists steal our clothes?
Maybe some of the women had awoken before them, while it was still daylight, and robbed them. She assumed all the women were basically innocent like herself, Audre, Reina, and Elizabeth, but maybe there were actual convicts aboard the Manifest.
As these thoughts were going through her mind, a third hand landed on her hip, while another caressed her shoulder. Then what felt like an erect penis pressed against her lower back. Isa’s eyes widened in surprise. She wasn’t a virgin, but she’d only felt a penis once and that was ten years ago. She had to be mistaken. It was an elbow or something. Isa reached back and wrapped her hand around the bulbous crown.
That’s definitely not an elbow.
“Oh!” Isa sucked in a sharp breath and swiftly released the turgid bit of flesh.
They put men aboard the Manifest?! She hadn’t seen any lined up on the tarmac, but she was obviously wrong.
Isa was so stunned and confused, she had no clue what to think as more and more hands started caressing her, gently tugging on her shoulders, easing her back down into the pool of thick liquid.
This is crazy. Her confusion doubled at what was going on. Reflexively she covered her breasts and clenched her thighs shut.
Just as she was starting to panic about being ganged up on, a rational thought surfaced.
There’s no way all these hands can be touching me at the same time.
It just wasn’t physically possible for so many people to be crowded around and under her. And hands weren’t the only parts touching her. There were mouths and more erect cocks bumping against her. They grazed her ribs, arms, legs, belly, and everywhere in between. The bizarre writhing mass of disembodied parts was too absurd to be real.
And then there was the other logical reason this couldn’t be real. Even if her government lied and there were a ton of men aboard the Manifest, an orgy wasn’t the first thing they would do after crash landing.
I’m dreaming. The damage to the Manifest and this craziness are all in my mind.
She’d been freaking out when she was sealed into the stasis pod, so it was no wonder she was having strange dreams. If everything went according to plan, she’d be asleep for more than a hundred years. God only knew how many dreams she would have on this voyage. How many freaky things had she already dreamt?
“Fine,” Isa announced as she gave into the dream, letting go of her breasts and unclenching her legs.
One hand instantly palmed her left breast, massaging it until her nipple was a hard peak. Meanwhile, several pairs of hands eagerly spread her legs and began stroking her thighs, getting sinfully close to her labia. Now that she wasn’t scared for her life, pleasure started sparking from this body part and that, her heart pounding in her chest for an entirely different reason.
This is turning into a very good dream. She hadn’t had any of those since before she was arrested. I haven’t been touched for even longer than that, and certainly not by anyone who cared.
This was different. In this dream, she felt worshipped by the sea of men vying to touch and be close to her. No words were said, but it wasn’t necessary. There was a certain desperation to the press and grind of flesh, to the caresses, kisses, and licks. Yet no one was rough, and their touch wasn’t invasive. She arched toward the mass of hands with her legs spread, still they merely grazed her sensitive flesh, though she wanted more.
Sweet mother of God! Isa gasped at how erotic being fondled by dozens of hands was.
Where in the hell had her repressed mind come up with this? It certainly wasn’t from a teenage kiss and a ninety-second drunken deflowering. Neither of which were highly erotic. If they called her a whore before, what would they call her if they knew about this?
Oh, I don’t care.
She writhed, loving every tawdry bit of it. She was on a one-way mission to another planet that would assuredly kill her, so she wasn’t about to regret a damn naughty dream.
Just as she was relaxing into the dream, several lights turned on in the cavernous room. Instantly all movement around her ceased.
“Oh!” Isa barked as she too froze.
The pale lavender glow was subtle at first then grew. It was coming from a dozen crystal columns that lined the purple and gray marble walls. The room was so absurdly large it would fit her parents’ house plus the neighbors’ on either side. Besides the carvings, the walls were smooth, though the stalactites hanging from the vaulted ceiling revealed this wasn’t some ornately tiled room but a cave. Shockingly, there was no one around her. She lay all alone in a shallow pool that was roughly twenty feet across and filled with a purple gelatinous liquid. It was like a version of a sensory deprivation tank.
Isa bolted upright. Her mouth opened to ask where everyone went, when she recalled this was a dream. About the same time, there was a buzzing in her mind, and a deep scary growl echoed off the stone walls. The hair on the back of Isa’s neck stood on end, her panic returning. Dream or not, things had taken a freaky turn.
What in God’s name?! Her gaze swung to the right, searching the massive room.
As she looked for the source of the frightening sound, she got a strong impression she needed to leave. It was almost a command shouted in the back of her mind. She was about to scramble out of the bizarre shallow pool, when the viscous fluid all around her began to ripple and writhe. Isa froze, unable to move, not even to breathe. Her eyes widened in shock when heads and hands began to emerge from the pool, forming from the purple plasm. One after another, after another of the humanoid figures climbed out of the basin. There was a legion of the creatures, though it was hard to count them all with the way they blended in with each other and the stone walls.
I don’t think this is a dream. The figures and room were just too crisp, too tangible. Her dreams were never so vivid, not even when she was reliving real events. Yet how can this be reality? How?!
Isa started to hyperventilate as she focused on the amorphous mass forming right next to her, daring to take a better look at the creature. It was emerging from the last puddle of purple goo that remained in the shallow pool. Like the others, it turned into a humanoid figure with two arms, two legs, and glossy skin that matched the purple and gray striped marble walls. The striated marks created a pattern on its oval face that reminded her of war paint. The strange entity blinked at her. The gesture was reminiscent of the way a cat blinks when showing affection, but she was too preoccupied with its unusual eyes to notice. They were overly large, all-black, sideways teardrops, with the points extending toward the creature’s temples. No lashes framed its obsidian eyes, nor did it have brows or hair on its head. Above its thin-lipped broad mouth, it had just a hint of a nose. This was the thing nightmares were made of and altogether…
Alien! her mind screamed, filling in the blank.
Unexpectedly, the alien leaned in, where the others simply left the pool without bothering her.
I shouldn’t have made eye contact with it. She’d drawn its attention.
Isa stayed deathly still. Her thundering heart stuttered in her chest when the being opened its mouth, revealing its sharp teeth. They were like gleaming white needles all crowded together.
What’s it doing?! She panicked as the terrifying mouth came ever closer.
Isa trembled, desperate to get away, but feared if she moved it would tear her throat out. She braced herself as its lips made contact with her shoulder.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she stammered, barely above a whisper.
Tears slid down her cheeks as the being’s tongue peeked out, tasting her skin. Instead of instantly ripping into her, it sampled another spot a few inches over, and then again. At first, she thought he was trying to find just the right place to bite her, but it quickly became apparent that wasn’t the case at all.
He’s kissing me. Her eyes widened in shock.
At the same time it was tenderly kissing her, the being caressed her arm. He had the same number of fingers as her, thumb included, but his phalanges were pointed, his claws incorporated with his fingertips. Despite how violent his fingers appeared, she didn’t feel a hint of its claws. This gentle treatment was contrary to the way the entity looked, which was utterly frightening. Its genial treatment was hardly a balm to her frazzled nerves, given the surreal situation she found herself in.
What is going on?!
Shock warred with her fear as it sank in that this alien, along with its comrades, were the ones that had been touching and pleasuring her. Her gaze swung downward, landing on the alien’s hard cock, sticking straight out, pointing directly at her. Although it was a familiar shape, with a crown and a shaft, there was a lot going on with it.
“Oh!”
Isa quickly looked away from the alien’s penis, but she couldn’t unsee it. She hadn’t felt that many ridges, corded veins, and nubs in the dark, when she thought she was dreaming.
Oh god! This was more than she could handle, and that wasn’t a reference to his dick. Her reality was tipping on end.
Thankfully the purple entity backed out of the shallow pool and left the cavernous room along with his dozen companions. But before she could catch her breath and make sense of what was going on, three alien men pushed past the exiting crowd. The trio were the same monstrous species, but larger, more imposing. The alien on the left was the shortest of the three, though only by a few inches. What he lacked in height, he made up for with his broad shoulders and muscular build, like a boxer. The one on the right was taller than the boxer, with a wiry physique. The alien man in the center was the tallest of the trio, reaching seven feet or more. His build fell somewhere in between his two companions. They too were naked, and though they weren’t erect, their thick, long alien cocks were still daunting, swinging between their thighs as the trio strutted toward her. Their all-black eyes were intensely focused, assessing her. The trio possessed an air of dominance, making the other aliens look downright benign. Again, she had a strong urge to flee.
God help me!
This wasn’t a dream, this was a nightmare, though it was all too real. Tellus wasn’t supposed to be inhabited, but clearly that was wrong—very, very wrong.