Chapter 2
I was coughing on my hands and knees. A slimy puddle spread out underneath me. I heaved and realized that I was vomiting and something was coming out of me.
I was cold.
Then there was a sharp pinch on my ass.
I screamed and lurched forward, slipping across a grated metal floor, cutting small slices into my palms and knees. I scrambled in the slime to see Arnina face down on the floor next to me.
One of those reptaliens was standing over me. It had a completely different outfit on than the ones before. This one was wearing a long tunic twisted across it, like ribbons on a wrapped-up maypole. It was looking at a small device in its hand.
I felt the sickening sensation of something sliding off of my skin. I looked to the other side to see another one of those lizard jerks holding something that vaguely resembled my shirt, if my shirt had spent one hundred years soaking in pickling juice.
I pushed myself up to my feet, the metal floor digging into one of the soft pads of my feet, barely softened by my exposed sock.
I glanced down. I still had one boot on, but my foot squished inside of it like it was filled with Jell-O.
The outside of the boot dripped with the same salmon pink liquid that was sliding off my skin.
The alien holding the sodden remains of my T-shirt reached for me again.
I tried to lurch away. My body felt like the entire thing had fallen asleep.
Pins and needles shot through my muscles as they didn't quite respond the way I was expecting.
The next thing I knew, the alien was holding tattered pieces of jean fabric.
My pants.
I was naked.
That sucked, but whatever. I’d been in public with barely more than my birthday suit on before. The main thing that I had an issue with in this situation was that I didn’t choose to flash my bits.
I took a step back as the alien moved towards me.
I glanced around, looking for the door. The room I was in had changed dramatically.
There were long rows of pods that I had been pushed into, but instead of being hooked into slushy, biological-looking walls, the room was now sleek and sterile.
The walls looked like concrete, and the floors had metal grating.
Viscous liquid dripped off of me, falling through the empty spaces between the metal.
I continued to step backward away from the reptalien.
I looked past the reptalien to see another one of them holding a hose and blasting a very naked Arnina with it as she coughed and choked on the floor.
I checked behind me and saw a curved open archway with glowing lights running up and down the edges.
I glanced back over at my friend.
The alien moved towards me, hissing softly.
This time, I didn't turn back.
This was now the point to save myself, and help her out after I had more than just one rotting boot on.
I turned to run out through the doorway. Unfortunately for me, the floor outside of the large room was still metal, but now it was smooth and sleek - perfectly slippery to my goo-coated foot.
I went down with a hard, wet slap of naked flesh against the metal surface. I tried to put my hands under me, and they slipped in for a moment.
One of the aliens came through the door and reached for me.
It stepped in the puddle and slipped as well.
Now both of us were on the floor. I managed to push a little further away and staggered to my feet, balancing myself despite the fact that they were sliding all over the place like I was on ice.
I slipped and slid down the middle hallway, careening through another door and straight into the back of one of the lizard aliens. As it stumbled forward, I came face-to-face with a large screen filled with the image of someone entirely different.
His eyes went wide as he stared at me.
For a moment I was lost in the flecks of forest green in his gaze.
There was a shock to my heart, a recognition of another soul, somewhere in space or time, that saw me.
His eyes didn't hold the coldness of my captors.
His eyes held the cognizance that I was another person who deserved to be treated with respect for my humanity.
Those thoughts flashed through my mind, but they were followed soon after by a wave of doubt.
How could he respect my humanity?
He was an alien.
One that looked like an elf with feline features.
He had a thick mane of fur so black it unbalanced the contrast of the colors around him.
It cascaded from his head and down the back of his neck, melting into shorter, soft fur that ran along the sides of his shoulders.
An ornate tunic covered his shoulders, and the fabric over his chest pulled tightly enough to show the extreme muscle definition.
Emerald eyes cast back at me, and he tilted his head to the side, one of his long, pointed, elven, feline ears flicking backward, a small tuft of fur on the tip elongating the motion.
He was breathtakingly handsome.
His beauty was so stunning it made me angry to see his face on a screen.
Why couldn't this devastatingly good-looking male have picked me up off the beach instead of these lizard jerks?
A rough hand wrapped around my bicep.
I spun, swinging wide and hard as I turned to try to punch that creature that had grabbed me. The sudden motion made me slip, and I went sprawling down, crashing into the limbs of the alien who had me.
Then several of them were on me, their hands grasping me as I struggled and screamed. One of them threw its weight on top of me, pinning my legs to the ground and putting painful pressure on my knee.
A beautiful sound floated through the screen.
It was overlaid by a series of hisses and other noises that sounded more like the lizard aliens that were grappling with me.
Then, suddenly, they released me.
I slipped and slid back up to my feet, glaring at the couple of aliens that were now standing, separated a good distance away from me.
The attractive male on the video screen sang again, and I glanced over at him to see him doing a little wiggle like he was a cabaret dancer in a show-stopping number.
He was doing a whole dance routine.
I didn't know what I expected, but it wasn't that.
The hisses, clicks, and other sounds repeated after his song and dance number, overlaying it slightly again. One of the reptaliens responded.
They were having a conversation.
Did these guys let me go because he told them to?
The inuyasha wannabe alien on the screen made several wiggling gestures with his hands, similar to jazz hands, and several hisses came out from the screen as well.
I repeated the gesture.
His eyes snapped back to me, and I did it again.
His ears moved backward, flattening against his skull.
He sang out something else, his eyes holding mine as they burned with an unspoken promise I didn’t understand, and then the screen went black.
I turned to the alien closest to me and planted my hands on my hips.
"I guess you guys have to now treat me with…" I started.
The alien balled its hand into a fist and swung it toward my face.
Pain exploded in my cheekbone, and I went back down to the ground, my feet slipping out from under me again. A foot caught my side, knocking me the rest of the way down, expelling the breath from my lungs, and I curled up my forearms against my temples, my hands covering the back of my head.
Blows rained down on me.
All I felt was pain until I felt nothing.