I jump off the dashboard and swallow hard as I look around. Long dead screens are coming alive, showing a weird alien language. The ship is vibrating so hard that my edible flowers are vibrating off and falling to the floor.
Thoughts are racing through my head but it’s all happening so fast that I can’t process anything. I just stare at the yellow flower petals on the floor as my heart pounds and my throat burns.
What am I going to do?
I start to pace around the small ship furiously as panic sets in. I should get out in case the ship flies away but I can’t stay outside in the open valley by myself. I’ll be sliding through a T-Rex’s digestive tract by lunch time.
“Think, Mandy, think,” I curse myself, pulling a fistful of red hair until my scalp burns. But nothing is coming through. I’m too tired, too hungry, too fucking empty for this.
I wish Avery and Rolanda were here. They always knew what to do. I’m not as tough or smart as them. I belong in an artisanal coffee shop drinking pumpkin spiced lattes while I read the latest version of Vanity Fair. I don’t belong here. This is not my scene.
My mouth drops and my feet stop working when something catches my eye outside. Spaceships. Just like this one only more. Lots more.
They’re hovering in the sky like prophets of doom coming to take me away. I thought I had it bad here, but it will be infinitely worse if they take me. I saw the video of what Emperor Rsordan does to his love slaves. Tin Tom showed us the video. The terrified naked women were chained to the huge praying mantis-like creature. He chopped their heads off and impregnated their dead bodies with his larvae.
It was horrible.
And they’ve come to take me there.
Three ships slowly break away from the formation and sink to the ground, hissing as they land on extended legs. I’ve seen these ships before. One just like it abducted us from the movie theater a few weeks ago. I would recognize that purple electricity flowing around the bottom of it anywhere.
The ship in the middle is larger than the two flanking its sides. I wrap my arms around my belly, holding myself tight as the door of the ship on the left flies open.
It’s them.
I drop to my knees and crawl under the dashboard, already crying as I picture their beady eyes and terrifying faces.
“You can’t stay here,” I whisper to myself but it’s no use. I know I’m not going anywhere. I’m not running out of the spaceship and fleeing across the valley where they can shoot me down or a dinosaur can eat me up.
I’m just going to stay here under the dashboard with my eyes squeezed shut and my hands covering my ears, pretending that none of this is happening. Can you tell that my favorite animal is an ostrich?
I know it’s a terrible idea but I’m too terrified to move. My legs are trembling as the sound of my heartbeat thrashes around in my ears. The ship starts making beeping and grinding noises and I jump at every single one.
“You have to move, Mandy,” I whisper to myself but again, it’s not happening. I’m just going to hide here and pretend that the aliens have traveled millions of light years to find us but then aren’t going to bother to look under the dashboard.
The door slides open and I see four green praying mantis feet before I shut my eyes. I squeeze them closed and cover my ears with my sweaty palms as I hear clicking sounds from them talking to each other.
I’ve completely shut down mentally, retreating inward to shut out the terrifying outside world, and I have to say, I like it better in here.
But it all comes crashing back to reality as a claw squeezes my arm and rips me out of my hiding spot.
I fall to my knees, no longer able to ignore reality. I swallow hard as I slowly open my eyes and see the monsters standing before me. There are two of them standing there, tilting their disgusting heads as they watch me cowering on the floor.
They have two legs and two arms each but instead of hands, they have large yellow claws that are always opening and closing. They’re wearing black suits that cover their skinny bodies with some kind of gun-like weapons strapped to their narrow hips.
My chin trembles and my breaths turn raspy as I look up to their faces. Black beady eyes are sunken into their large heads. They each have two long antennae on the top of their heads that are constantly moving and poking the air as if they were alive.
They don’t open their mouths to talk. They speak in a vile, spine-tingling clicking sound that sends cold shivers of dread racing down my back.
If Rolanda was here she would rip through them easily. I wish she was here. A head ripping person would really come in handy right about now.
A bloodcurdling scream tears out of my throat as one of them grabs my arm again and pulls me outside. I kick and scream, thrashing around as my arm burns from his pinched claw.