And this time, there would be no hope of escape. He wouldn’t take any chances.
I would be trapped there forever.
Just when that sense of terror washed over me, the world turned fuzzy and faded to black.
I jolted awake in what felt like an instant later. It really was like falling asleep.
I coughed and sputtered but it wasn’t as bad as last time. Was my body getting used to it? Or had I only been in there a much shorter length of time?
Some of the other passengers reacted worse than I had. They threw up into bags they took into the pods with them. I guess they were frequent freezers.
I swung my legs out from the pod but I wasn’t ready to stand up just yet. I took a moment to gather myself. Once I felt like I wouldn’t hurl the moment I stood up, I unlocked the cabinet and put my clothes back on.
I followed the other passengers as they left the ship. It was much like passing through a regular airport after that. Instead of passports, the officials scanned our eyes. Those without eyes got their armpits read, for some reason.
Then we joined the luggage collection area. It wasn’t a carousel. Tunnels rolled down from the ceiling and placed the luggage right in front of the travelers, who didn’t even break their stride. The fancier travelers had floating luggage.
My bag was small enough to carry and didn’t even have wheels. The S’mauggai alien skin design was getting some appreciative looks from the elites, although I thought it was a hideous-looking thing.
I emerged from the spaceport and breathed my first lungful of totally free air on a brand-new planet.
I felt revitalized. Renewed. Ready to face the world.
I had escaped Asshole.
And I had no idea what I was supposed to do next.
I wandered through the streets as the sun rose on a beautiful day. I suffered a bad case of deja vu when the sun rose again. Two sets of shadows moved across the tarmac from the twin stars in the sky. One was much larger and brighter, the other more distant.
I took a seat at a bench and hugged my bag to my chest. Maybe running away hadn’t been the best idea after all. I mean, at least I had a roof over my head. I should have prepared more. I should have figured out what I wanted to do before I just went out and ran like that.
My breaths came in panicked bursts and I could hardly breathe.
Stay calm! I told myself. Everything will work out fine!
But I was lost in space. I didn’t know where I was—beyond the fact I was on a very alien planet—and I had no idea what I was meant to do next.
I didn’t know anyone.
I was an abductee.
I was going to die.
I can’t do this.
Take it easy!
I should go to a police station and tell them I was abducted. I didn’t need to tell them anything about Master. Maybe they arranged free trips back to homeworlds for people like me?
Or maybe they kept a database of missing slaves and returned them to their masters when they were discovered.
“I will find you,” Asshole had said.
He sounded so sure, so confident. Would he feel that certain if the system wasn’t rigged in his favor?
This world looked so normal, so similar to Earth that it was hard to think I wasn’t abroad in a foreign country.
That’s it, I decided. I wasn’t on an alien world an unthinkable distance from home. I was in a foreign country. I needed to make money to buy a ticket and return home.
That’s all.
I needed to get money. I had nothing right now, except the few credits the kind worker at the spaceport had left me. She said I would be hungry when I arrived and they wouldn’t provide me with food, so I ought to grab something as soon as I could.
I clutched my fancy designer S’mauggai bag close and crossed the street to an alien diner. A noise rang above the door. It wasn’t a bell or even an electronic sound. It was a high-pitched whine that Dracula used to make in old movies.
“Take a seat,” a buxom Titan waitress said.
She collected two plates of food from the front counter and carried them over to a pair of customers waiting at a corner booth. I couldn’t help but notice some of the food was still moving.
I slid into a booth and got comfortable. I was inside. It felt a little safer in here than outside.
It was like a Denny’s, only everything seemed a little… off. The coffee was a thick sludge that barely moved when you tilted it sideways. The food screamed when the customers speared it with their forks.
Little things like that.
The waitress handed me a menu. I peered at each moving image. Everything was gelatinous and writhed on the page. I didn’t think I could eat anything there… until I reached a very familiar-looking meal. I couldn’t believe my luck.
“I’ll have the fried breakfast, please,” I said.
“Are you sure you want that?” the waitress said. “It’s a bit risky at this time in the morning.”
“Isn’t that bacon?” I said.
“Yes.”
“And that’s toast? And eggs?”
“It is.”
I dug out the remaining credits I had and dumped them on the table.
“Do I have enough?” I said.
The waitress glanced at the credits and nodded.
“You do,” she said.
“Then I’ll have it, thanks.”
“All right,” the waitress said, jotting down my order and collecting my menu. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She yelled the order at the chef, which made me wonder why she even bothered to scribble it down in the first place.
“Excuse me,” I said to the waitress as she tucked the notepad and pencil away. “I just arrived in town and I was wondering how I should
