When she’d first gained consciousness, she’d tried to leave through that opening. Instead of walking into the hallway beyond, an invisible solid barrier had greeted her.
Whenever the aliens decided to give her what she assumed was food, they’d press some button on their belt and slide a tray through the seemingly empty air.
Jade had tried to get through the barrier every time they gave her food, but it seemed you could only penetrate it from the outside.
During the first few days aboard, Jade had refused to eat. At first, she’d been so petrified of what they’d do to her that in between bouts of sobbing and hysterically muttering to herself, she’d retched bile into her small, sleek toilet.
After deciding that dissolving into a weeping mess wouldn’t help her, she’d attempted to try and not think about her current situation and focus only on what she could achieve minute to minute.
Every time she felt the urge to truly take in her circumstances, she shut down her brain by bellowing any annoying repetitive song she could think of.
At present, she sat crossed-legged on the ground, staring absently at her tray of food and water that the aliens had shoved toward her earlier.
She smiled down at the pile of green slop on the tray. One of her only friends, Annie, a strict vegan, had once attempted to make her eat something that looked similar to this. She’d raved about the algae-based superfood relentlessly, but Jade, being the stubborn ass she was, had refused to try it.
Jade closed her eyes when they began to sting from unshed tears. She would never see Annie again.
Don’t think about that! Don’t think about that! Jade’s eyes flashed open and she began singing the chorus to an annoying 80’s power ballad.
One of the reptilian aliens walked in front of her cell and hissed at her aggressively. She backed into the corner of her small room and stopped singing aloud. Instead, she hummed the tune and glared at the creature.
Neither of the shiny green aliens had enjoyed her attempts to smother her feelings. Whenever she began singing, they’d rush over and hold her stare with their slitted eyes until she stopped.
She knew avoiding reality wasn’t the smartest or most mature idea in the long run. She knew that facing things head on was a much healthier approach, but Jade felt sure she was one thread away from snapping. She also knew, from experience, that pretending to be fearless and unaffected would help to keep her sane.
The creature made another low hiss over its shoulder, and the second creature came to join the first. One of the aliens used a long, pointed claw to motion to her full tray of green goo.
The more time she spent doing nothing but observing these aliens, the more she felt she could read their moods. When they were frustrated or possibly angry, as they were now, she’d noticed that their hissing became short, and spit flew off their tongues with each alien word.
Whenever they retrieved her full food tray, they’d use that harsh hiss, and their long, broad tails would flick back and forth.
It seems like they’re getting frustrated with my hunger strike, she thought as she watched them hiss back and forth while gesturing to her tray.
The slightly smaller of the two walked away. When it returned to her cell a moment later and she saw what it had retrieved, she felt the blood drain from her face. The creature was pointing to her food with one claw-tipped hand and held a long clear tube in the other. It raised the tube a little higher, and she understood the creature’s meaning. She could either eat on her own, or she could be force-fed.
The two lizard beings waited silently at her cell. The thought of being held down and force-fed through a tube made a jolt of fear run through her. Begrudgingly, she decided that keeping the aliens at bay was more important to her than possible food poisoning.
Tentatively she moved toward her tray and used her forefinger to scoop up a small amount of goo. Shutting her eyes, she took a bite. A cold sweat broke out over her skin, and she tried to keep her breathing even as she waited for some reaction. When her throat didn’t swell, she began to relax.
She let out a relieved exhalation when she saw the two aliens had left, apparently satisfied with her small bite of food.
Her stomach gave a pained rumble, and she polished off the rest of the goo. Although awful to look at, it didn’t taste too bad. It was sweet and surprisingly filling. The water, however, was stale and tasted metallic on her tongue.
Jade leaned back on her small scratchy cot and wondered for the thousandth time why she had been taken.
Apart from feeding her and occasionally walking by her cell to check on her, the aliens had left her alone.
What is the point of this? Jade thought again. Since she’d been conscious, they hadn’t touched her or experimented on her, but instead kept her fed and healthy. There must’ve been a reason for her abduction.
The possible reasons to abduct someone that kept running through her mind were terrifying. She knew one thing for sure, whatever they planned on doing to or with her would happen when they reached their destination.
How far could we have gone in a few days?
She snorted. Who was she kidding? Jade spent her life drawing gardens and shutting herself away from the world. Why the hell did she think she could logic out how far a spaceship might travel in a few days?
Suddenly Jade felt exhausted and beaten. She sat back on her bed against her cell wall. Eventually, the soft humming and vibration of the ship lulled her to sleep.
***
A
