Chapter Text
Ezra wished he could be home right now.
Really he wished he could be anywhere on Earth right now. If he was on Earth he would at least have a way to get home.
Unfortunately, Ezra is not on Earth. He isn’t even in the solar system. To be completely honest he has no idea where exactly he is. What he does know is that he’s in space and aliens are real.
Yeah, aliens are real.
In most other scenarios Ezra would be ecstatic. Aliens! Real aliens! This changes everything people know about space! There’s life outside of earth! Even better, there's intelligent life!
But as it stands, Ezra is not happy right now. Because as cool as it is, Ezra is not learning about aliens existing in the comfort of his home, from some science conference on TV. No, Ezra is currently stuck on an alien planet, in a cell. Well, more of a cage really. If cages were made of weirdly strong see through material. It doesn’t break. Trust him, he tried. But all of that doesn’t really make things better.
At least they’re not experimenting on him. He guessed it could have been worse. So far he has just been stuck in a cage and passed from ship to ship, until he ended up in what he guesses is an alien pet store.
There are other cages around him, with different alien animals. Aliens have their own pets. And shops where you can buy them. It would be fascinating if he wasn’t also in a cage, probably waiting to be sold as a pet.
One thing they don’t tell you about being abducted by aliens is how boring it is. Ezra has been stuck in this pet store for a month, or at least he thinks that’s how long it’s been. It’s kinda hard to keep track with no watch or windows. Windows wouldn’t really help that much, alien planet and all.
For the most part he was just sitting in his cage, observing all the alien animals in the cages around him. There’s really nothing else to do. An orange alien, who seems to be covered in some sort of slime and is probably the owner of the shop, comes and feeds him some weird purple meat two times a day. He didn’t eat it at first, like come on it was purple! But eventually he got too hungry and tried it. For mystery alien meat it wasn’t that bad. Tasted kinda like orangey spicy chicken but with the texture of gummies. He didn’t really like it, but he also didn’t have any other options except to starve.
The slimy orange alien - who he decided to just call Orange - sometimes brings other aliens to look around the back rooms of the shop where Ezra’s cage resided.
Ezra has a feeling that he and all the animals in the back are not completely legal to sell. When Orange first brought Ezra to the shop they passed through the front of the store and it looked like a normal pet store. Well an alien pet store but still nothing really seemed that strange. The back where Ezra was however… looked really shady. Combined with the fact that Orange always brought the other aliens in and constantly watched them made Ezra think that yeah, there’s probably some illegal trading going on.
Not that it matters much to Ezra, as he is stuck in a cage. He really hates that cage. He hates everything about this situation to be honest. How could he not? He was definitely not made for this.
Right now Ezra’s sitting in the middle in his box cage and trying to figure out a way to get out of this situation, for what feels like the hundred time. If he could he would probably be pacing back and forth across the cage, but the damn thing is barely big enough to take a full step, not to mention multiple.
He’s sitting there, contempleting his miserable situation when Orange comes in, followed closely by an alien who looks like a combination of a lizard and a very fluffy green monkey. It also had four arms, fun.
Most of the time when Orange brings aliens to look around the back they gawk at Ezra for a while, until he comes towards them and they get scared. Even Orange doesn’t come too close when feeding him. Ezra does not know why but he takes full advantage of it. It’s the least they deserve after putting him in a cage surrounded by alien animals. Normal earth dogs are bad enough but alien dogs? No thank you.
Orange shows Lizard-Monkey around the back, talking in his weird language. Ezra tried to decipher and learn some of the words but Orange only speaks when he brings others to the back, not when he comes to feed him.
Lizard-Monkey seems to be looking around when suddenly his eyes zero in on Ezra. He lets out a sound that Ezra can only describe as a squeal squick then quickly runs forward and splats his face against Ezra’s cage. It startled Ezra so much he backed up and hit his head against the back of his cage.
“Owww” hissed Ezra as he massaged his throbbing head. “Ugh, stupid cage, why does this always happen?” Well, because it’s so god damn small but that’s beside the point.
When Ezra focused back on the Lizard-Monkey alien he saw its face was still glued to the side of Ezra’s cage. It was doing what was probably an alien version of babbling at a cute animal.
Okay, so this one thinks he’s cute. A new reaction but Ezra could probably deal with it.
“Hey, can you… stop staring” Yep, amazing job Ezra, really convincing, like they can even understand you.
Lizard-Monkey just starts cooing at him again, then turns to Orange and starts talking to him. They seem to be discussing something about Ezra, as Lizard-Monkey keeps turning and pointing at him.
That makes Ezra anxious. Lizard-Monkey seems really interested in him. Does he want to buy him?
While Ezra doesn’t like the cage and the idea of spending the rest of his life here, he kinda grew used to it. There’s a routine. Ezra wakes up, stares at the animals around him. Orange comes to feed him. Ezra tries to occupy himself by moving around a little, so his muscles don’t deteriorate too much. Orange feeds him again and sometimes brings other aliens to look around. Ezra stares at the animals around him once more, then tries to fall asleep. Rinse and repeat.
He doesn’t know what to expect with being with a different alien and he also isn’t too happy with the idea of being a pet.
Then, out of nowhere, Lizard-Monkey punches Orange in the face. They were just talking and then BAM, Orange got its face punched. Ezra lets out a startled sound.
Orange falls to the ground from the impact, letting out a hiss. Lizard-Monkey leans over Orange, taps on its face with his hand and then punches Orange again. And again. He seems satisfied with his punching after that and straightens up.
“Okay, okay, the aliens are punching each other now, that’s fine, everything's fine” Ezra mutters, trying to reasure himself. He then realises his mistake as Lizard-Monkey turns back to him.
Shit, is he gonna get punched now? No, there’s weird alien glass between them, he’s fine. But what if Lizard-Monkey can open the cage? He hopes it can’t. He does not want to get punched.
But Lizard-Monkey just croaks something at him and takes out a black square. He taps his fingers (huh, he only has four on each hand) against it a couple times when suddenly a new voice comes out of it.
Oh, it must be the space equivalent of a phone. Or some sort of communicator. That’s actually pretty cool.
Okay, Lizard-Monkey is just talking to the space phone now. Very loudly may he add.
Well at least he stopped paying attention to Ezra. He was not enjoying being watched. Or squealed at.
After some time, Ezra realized it finally got quiet. Lizard-Monkey stopped talking.
He turned his head to look at the alien again. He was now standing in the middle of the room, fiddling with the space phone. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, takes out some sort of face mask and puts it on.
Ezra was trying to figure out what it was for when Lizard-Monkey took out another thing. It was a metal sphere, looking like it would fit perfectly in Ezra's palm. The alien clicked the sphere and then dropped it to the ground.
Ezra wondered what that was about when the orb started hissing. Then a purple gas started to come out of it.
Oh shit.
Oh shit, no.
Ezra knew that gas.
Ezra hated that gas.
It was some sort of sleeping gas but worse. It made him dizzy, it made him nauseous, it made his throat hurt, it made his lungs hurt, it made all his air ways hurt.
The aliens used it when they transported him between places. It knocked him out for who knows how long, but his mouth was always so dry after he woke up so he assumed it was long.
And now they’re using it again.
Ezra tried to get away from the gas but his cage was too small. The gas already began to seep into it. He tried to cover his mouth but it was no use.
He breathed and it all began to hurt. His vision started swinging and he felt like he was gonna throw up. His head started spinning and he was sure that if he wasn’t already sitting he would have fallen down.
It was getting much harder to keep his eyes open. With the last of his strength he lifted up his head and looked at Lizard-Monkey. He was really blurry.
The last thing he saw was two new shapes bursting into the room. Then he promptly passed out.