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The lights in the cargo bay are bright now, and from my vantage point, I can see my fellow abductees slowly waking up. The walls dividing each of our cells are made of narrow metal bars placed in a grid-like pattern, and they’re situated so closely together that we can’t even stick a finger through the openings. Believe me, we’ve tried.
Across the room, I hear the whoosh of the door slide open and the rattle of the meal cart being pushed by one of the gray aliens.
Zaez is smaller than the other aliens. He’s at least a foot shorter with a skinny frame that is almost skeletal. He is also the only one of the gray aliens that has been remotely kind to us. Well, kind might be pushing it just a little.
The other aliens have left our care almost entirely up to Zaez. He brings our meals, cleans the cargo bay, and answers some of our questions. When he wants to, that is.
We’ve learned he basically does all the grunt work for the other aliens and he’s very low on the command structure. Because his status is low in their hierarchy, there are some questions he doesn’t have answers to and others he simply refuses to acknowledge.
According to Zaez, he and the other gray aliens are Zyfeliks from a planet called Zyfel. They are spindly gray beings about five feet tall with huge, bulbous heads and black eyes – basically, the real-life incarnation of those gray aliens in sci-fi movies. They have thin little holes on either side of their heads that I suspect are ears, two tiny openings in the center of their face for a nose, and a narrow slit for a mouth. Their language is a series of gurgles and whines, but because of the translator that somehow connects to my brain, I can understand them.
I’m not entirely sure how the translator works, and I try not to dwell on it too much because the reminder that alien tech is floating around inside my body freaks me out. And honestly, I already have too many other things to freak out about.
Zaez slowly moves across the floor, his large, unblinking eyes sweeping over each one of the cells as if he’s checking to make sure none of us have escaped. Huh, in our dreams.
He calls out a quiet greeting as he moves across the floor, “Good dawn.”
The other girls and I have kept ourselves busy during our time on board the spaceship by trying to observe everything we can, and we’ve managed to piece together a few other things.
Zyfelik society is very rich and obsessed with class distinctions. Very few Zyfeliks are born to poor families, but the ones who are are expected to work as servants for the rest of their lives. Zaez was born to a poor family, and this is his first job as a servant. There are a couple of other servants on board the ship, but Zaez is the youngest of them. Which is probably why he’s been given the job the Zyfeliks like the least – taking care of us.
Which is good news for us, since the other Zyfeliks have, for the most part, left us alone.
The few times a couple of the higher-ranking members of the crew came to the cargo bay, they stood around gawking at us like we were animals in a zoo and making comments about humans being dirty and stupid. Maybe that’s going to be our fate. A zoo full of humans.
At least with Zaez we don’t feel like we’re on display. I think it’s helped that we’ve tried to befriend him. Well, a couple of us.
Mara, who is a big fan of true crime, said we needed to try to get our abductors to see us as actual people instead of objects if we want any chance of escaping. I’m still not sure exactly where we could escape to since we’re in space, but that’s beside the point. I figure at the very least maybe we can get more information or better treatment.
So, I’ve tried to befriend Zaez. I chat with him sometimes when he has time, and little by little, he’s dropped quiet a bit of information. I even managed to convince him to search through our belongings that were brought on board and find the backpack Zoe was carrying when she was taken. Having the crayons and paper that were inside have really helped keep the little girl distracted from what’s going on.
I watch as Zaez heads to the cell furthest from me to begin passing out the day’s breakfast and my stomach chooses that moment to release a loud growl. Not that it’s going to be satisfied any time soon. Breakfast is always a thin porridge-like dish that weirdly has no taste at all. You would think that would make it easier to eat, but unfortunately that isn’t the case.
Our meal for lunch is always a small, hard brown thing that reminds me of a protein bar but tastes like sour fish. I vomited the first time I bit into it, but now, I’ve learned to hold my nose and chase it with plenty of water. Anything to keep my strength up. Supper is more of the porridge stuff, which I honestly prefer over the fishy protein bar.
I guess it could be worse, they could refuse to give us any food at all. Instead, they’re just slowly weakening us with small portions of really disgusting food.
In addition to Rose, Zoe, Mara, and Maddie, the other humans are Aria, Isabella, Crystal, Jayden, and Emily.
Jayden is only fourteen years old, the second youngest after Zoe. Isabella and Aria are both in their twenties – Aria was taken from her college campus and Isabella from her workplace’s parking lot. I think Emily said she was abducted while on vacation. Mara is close to my own age, while her sister, Maddie, is much younger.
I don’t know all that much about Crystal, but based on the drawl of her accent, I think she’s from somewhere in the south. Unlike some of the others, Crystal hasn’t been very talkative about herself. Not that I blame her, it’s not like this is a sleepover or summer camp.
We’ve figured out that most of us don’t have people we’re really close to in our lives or people who will miss us. Even Zoe and Jayden. Zoe is in the foster system and Jayden lives with a cousin who has five children of her own and barely remembers Jayden’s name most days.
Maybe that made us more attractive to the aliens and ripe targets to be taken. No one will miss us or make a big fuss about our disappearances. No one will make missing posters of us and plaster them everywhere or go on national tv to beg for our return.
As for me, my parents would have hounded every news station and police department they could to find me, but they’re both gone. Dad died in a car accident just after I graduated from college and my mom passed away from cancer years before that.
There’s no one to miss me. Not anymore.
Well, my colleagues probably noticed my absence when I didn’t show up for work. Cheryl, who sits – er, sat – at a desk next to me, may have even shed a tear or two. She always liked showing me pictures of her grandkids and her dog. But even she’ll forget about me over time. My landlord will miss me, but only when the rent doesn’t get paid.
Other than that, there’s no one. I’ll end up being just some story my colleagues tell about that woman they once knew who went missing. It’s a sad statement about my life, and I’ve had a hard time processing it.
Which brings me to my current existence – waiting for a small alien to make it to my end of the cargo bay and serve me a bowl of tasteless gray porridge. Zaez passes the small bowl and spoon through a narrow slot that opens just for that purpose, and quickly moves away. Usually, he stays around to do a little light cleaning of the room we’re in because apparently the Zyfeliks are obsessed with cleanliness and germs.
But today he only moves away a few steps before stopping and staring at me. I watch as the thin slit that is his mouth opens and closes a couple of times like he has something to say but can’t get it out.
