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A nervous laugh bubbled up, despite my situation.
I cleared my throat and found my mouth dry.
“Five…”
I slowly opened my eyes again.
He was still there.
And so was the pod.
And the baying creatures in the other pods.
The large alien male slammed his fist to his chest before unfurling his fingers and making a strange motion. “Nice to meet you, Riley. I am Talan.”
I whimpered.
“Four…”
The creature knew my name!
How was that even possible!?
Oh yeah… I just said it outloud to myself…
The alien remained impassive, his golden eyes merely flickering in acknowledgment.
“Three…”
I desperately tried to recall how I ended up in this predicament and somehow, miraculously, I found my voice. “I-I know this i-is going to s-sound incredibly c-cliché, but the last thing I-I remember w-was walking my d-dog and then… d-darkness.”
He turned his head, studying me intently.
For a moment, our eyes locked, and I felt an inexplicable connection, a tether of understanding.
Or maybe it’s just the handcuffs playing tricks on me.
“Two…”
Talan, sensing my anxiety, offered a tentative squeeze with the hand that was cuffed to mine.
It was a surprisingly human gesture coming from someone so… inhuman.
“One…”
I took a deep breath, bracing myself against the pod’s walls.
I hadno ideawhat was going to happen when we got to “zero” but I knew it couldn’t be anything good.
The countdown ended, the clasps holding our pod in place released, and our shared pod launched into space.
The force was jarring and the sensation of speed, terrifying.
As the stars blurred around us, the journey to the unknown truly began.
* * *
The weightlessness of space caught me off guard.
