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It was dark. So dark.
As the lingering fuzziness of sleep slowly crept out of your head, that was the first thing you noticed.
The rustle of plastic against your lashes was all you felt when you tried to pry your eyelids apart. They felt so heavy, like you had indeed been sleeping for a very long time and for some unknown reason, abruptly fell out of unconsciousness.
In fact, your whole body felt that heaviness. Completely dead weight and useless. The most movement you could manage was a twitch of your fingers. Was this what sleep paralysis felt like? You’d never experienced it before but you figured it probably felt an awful lot like this.
When you swallowed, your throat ached- dry and sore- thanks to whatever was shoved down it.
You managed a whimper, barely audible around the thing in your mouth, and tried to pull your arms up to remove it. They didn’t respond like they were supposed to but you did manage to lift your hand this time. Progress.
Behind the seal of your eyelids, an alternating flashing light of blue and red seared your retinas and a low thrum whirred around you.
You were laying down in a bed of sorts, that much you did know, but seemed to be covered in some plastic sheet from your head to your toes.
What was happening?
The loud sound of a zipper followed and you were blasted by the frigid air of a room and bright, bright lights. Squeezing your eyes shut, you wiggled your body some more. You were starting to regain some feeling.
“Body movement detected. What is two plus two?”
A woman’s voice? Except it sounded wrong, too perfect. A computer?
You hummed behind the thing in your mouth.
“Incorrect. What is two plus two?”
You ignored the voice. A whir sounded, followed by a tug on the thing in your throat. The slow drag of the silicone against your esophagus had you gagging and choking around the intrusion. When it fell free, you were racked with violent coughs. For the first time in what felt like ages, you willed your lungs to work on your own. Chest heavy, choking and still regaining the feeling in your body, you really tried not to spiral. What had happened? Where were you? Who were you?
Your eyes slowly, painfully, began adjusting to the fluorescent lights enough to lift your heavy eyelids.
Shapes were a blur, and all you saw for several seconds was white. After a couple of blinks, a dark blob took form above your head, followed by a web of lines. Tile? A ceiling? It must’ve been.
“Eye movement detected. What is two plus two?”
Blinking your eyes again, you tried to clear them of the layer of film that coated the surface while a soft tune met your ears. It sort of sounded like a hum, a song maybe but there were no words and no distinct rhythm to it. Some clicking followed. Ever so gradually, your vision cleared.
You could see that what you’d thought was the oddly patterned tile of a ceiling was actually some kind of barrier above you. Clear like glass but held together with some sort of darker adhesive that created a geometric hodgepodge of triangles. Beyond the clear barrier, a normal looking white wall could be seen, along with the source of the glaring bright lights. You weren’t focused on the lights or walls for long.
On the other side of the glass right above where your chest lay, was a pile of… rocks?
Rough in texture, a mixture of browns with teal green spots and some leathery bands. It was unlike any pile of rocks you’d ever seen. When the rock moved, tilting this way and that, tapping part of itself against the clear barrier in three distinct taps with something that looked an awful lot like a finger, you realized that the pile of rocks was alive.
You tried to scream; tried to back away. Unfortunately, your raw and scratchy throat was barely able to make a squeak and your body remained prone.
The creature stood from where it had apparently been sitting down, revealing 5 rocky appendages attached to a larger rocky body. A stream of musical sounds erupted from it- somewhat whale like and mixed with trills like a bird. It was dancing, spinning in circles above you and waving its arms around. It didn’t have a face, not one that you could see anyway, so you weren’t sure what emotion it was feeling.
You’d been abducted by aliens?! Oh, God… had you been probed? You couldn’t remember. Hopefully you were unconscious for all of it if you were. In fact, you couldn’t remember much of anything- just your name and basic facts about yourself.
Your tormentor seemed to be talking to you; gesturing to you, to itself, to the room. Your chest heaved in fear. What was it going to do to you? Were more of its kind going to rush in and start conducting ruthless experiments? You could barely move, unable to defend yourself or run away. You would be completely at their mercy.
You pleaded for your body to move, barely able to find the strength in your arms to press against the mattress and push your body up. Doing so, you were able to get a good look at yourself. Tubes were everywhere. In you, on you- electrodes covered your major muscle groups and you were wearing some kind of skin colored, translucent plastic body suit.
What?!
The alien moved some more, walking back a step so you could see it better. It held up a hand (?) and held up one finger (?), repeating a two-noted sound. You shook your head and frantically moved your heavy head around to look for an escape route.
“I don’ kn’w wh’ y’re sayin’,” you coughed, your throat painfully dry and scratchy. Your words were barely words. “Wh’r ‘m I? G’ ‘way fr’m me.” You tried to look over the side of the bed to see how far of a fall it would be if you tried to roll off. You sort of felt drunk… or high… maybe both.
The rock seemed to get a little frantic, again holding up a finger and repeating the notes with more urgency this time. Was it telling you to wait? Well, you weren’t about to wait for some alien scientists to come in and cut you open.
Your head was pounding as you moved to sit up properly, vision swimming as blood rushed from your head for the first time in what felt like years. It didn’t help when your forehead knocked against the clear barrier that separated you from the rock with a loud thunk.
The alien made a sound of alarm and pawed at the glass next to your head like it was worried. You groaned and pressed a wavering hand onto the clear surface to avoid hitting your head again as you tried to get your legs to respond. They stayed limp and useless.
“C’mon,” you cried, pounding at your thighs with a fist. You felt like you were running out of time. If the alien was trying to get you to stay, that meant it probably notified the others that you were up and trying to flee. It did make you feel a little better that, for whatever reason, the creature stayed on its side of the barrier and didn’t venture into yours.
No time to ponder! Blinking rapidly to get rid of the stars in your vision, you moved to grasp your calves and physically lift them over the side of the bed but pounding footsteps rang through the room and you knew it was too late.
Tears sprang to your eyes as you looked in the direction of the sound, waiting for a hoard of aliens to charge at you to tie you back onto the bed. Instead, a single figure ran into the room from the depths of whatever facility you were in. And it was a man.
A normal looking, human man.
You instantly felt like you recognized him but couldn’t remember how or where. He was tall, wearing a tight t-shirt and what looked like the bottom half of a jumpsuit with the arms tied around his hips. Glasses sat over the bridge of his nose and his hair was damp and wild, like he’d just gotten out of a shower and ran a towel through it. If you weren’t terrified for your life, you would’ve ogled at him.
“You’re awake!” He smiled, a cheesy excited grin that had you momentarily forgetting why you were even scared of him in the first place. He approached your bedside in quick strides and gripped the edge. “I thought you were brain dead in there and the system was malfunctioning thinking you were still alive. I would’ve tried to wake you up earlier but didn’t want to risk any complications of pulling you out of your coma prematurely. So I just held out hope that you were ok in there and-” A disbelieving laugh. “-you were!”
He seemed so happy to see you, this man you maybe knew but didn’t remember. And… a coma? You’d been in a coma? Were you sick or something? Recovering from some horrible injury?
The guy must’ve noticed your racing mind because he nodded like he could read your thoughts. “It’s a lot in the beginning, but I promise your memories will come back with time. I’ll explain everything but I promise you’re safe here… er- I won’t hurt you at least. If that’s what you’re worried about. We can discuss our situation later but for now you need to take it slow and eat something.”
Now that he’d mentioned it, you did feel hungry. And he seemed trustworthy enough. You calmed just the tiniest bit. He noticed that too and suddenly rushed forward to fold you into a hug.
If your legs weren’t useless piles of mush, you would’ve kicked him. But when you felt him sigh, shaky and relieved, you stopped yourself from shoving him away. The way he held you, gripped at the back of your plastic bodysuit and tucked his face against your shoulder, had you wondering how horribly he needed this hug. From how tightly he was doing so, it was probably a lot.
You let him sit there for a while, let him breathe and feel the warmth of your skin under the plastic while you blinked away his hair that poked at your eye. You felt all sorts of awkward but let the stranger do his thing. Wondering how long this hug would last if you didn’t put an end to it, motion caught the corner of your eye.
The alien- you’d completely forgotten about it. Maybe it was a weird trick of your imagination after you’d been asleep for so long and the alien wasn’t real. It was probably some ceiling fan you’d mistaken for a- nope. It was still there. The rock alien, standing close by and, you supposed, watching this long, intimate hug with interest.
Fear kicking back in, you made a sound that sort of resembled a yelp and gripped at the man’s t-shirt. “There’s n’ alien-” you fell into a coughing fit, feeling as the man finally released you to press a comforting hand to your spine. He asked for water- asked a cluster of robot arms that you hadn’t even noticed in your panic- and a pouch was pressed into your palms.
He didn’t seem near as worried as he should be, looking perfectly at ease in the presence of the creature. While he helped you open the pouch and brought it to your mouth, he scowled at the alien.
“I told him not to put his tunnels above your bed like a creep but he didn’t want to hear it- he said I wasn’t watching you sleep well enough so he was going to take over. He’s been pretty concerned about you.”
You couldn’t decide what part of his sentence you wanted to mull over.
The man waved his hand at the alien who chirped something and balled one of its claws into a fist. “Sorry, I left the laptop in the cockpit. Don’t know what you’re saying.”
The alien spun in a circle and sat down again with a thump, looking agitated at the spectacled man’s words, a stream of chords spilling from him, some that sounded much harsher than others. Your head was truly spinning now.
“I tried to explain what coma’s are but I don’t think he really understands so he’s been pretty diligent at keeping an eye on you when we’re not busy. Rocky’s been watching you sleep to make sure you’re safe. It’s an Eridian thing, I’ll explain it later. He’s been very excited to meet you, by the way- has been ever since he realized there was another human here besides me. He’s interested to see how other humans compare.”
Eridian? Watching you… while you were unconscious? This man talked about this alien, Rocky apparently, like they were best friends. They bickered like best friends. Or an old married couple. You felt like you were going to puke.
“Enough about that, let me go get you some actual clothes. Can you move your legs?”
Right. You were sort of naked. “I-”
“Here, let me help.” The blonde tucked an arm under your knees and helped turn your body so your legs dangled off the edge. Your grip stayed steadfast on his shoulder. When he moved away from you, you didn’t let him go. He paused to look at you in surprise.
“Don’t leave me with…” You didn’t say his name, but you glanced at the thing in the glass tube.
“Oh-” The man blew out a laugh, “Rocky? He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He might run your toes over but other than that, he’s harmless. Don’t try to have a private conversation around him though, because he can and will eavesdrop. Give me two seconds, be right back!”
You had no choice but to let go of his shirt, watching helplessly as he hurried out, but not before turning over his shoulder to yell out, “My name’s Ryland by the way! If you don’t already remember!”
You didn’t.
As the sound of his footsteps faded, you warily turned to look at ‘Rocky’ who’d scooted closer to you again, perching right next to your head. He let out a sound, a coo, and rested a little claw against the barrier.
Tap tap tap. Then a thumbs down.
You had to give it to the guy, he was kind of cute now that you looked at him with a little less fear. Still cautious but… a little less guarded. And the thumbs down was kind of funny.
Rocky perked up and swayed back and forth with a chirp of definite happiness when you hesitantly gave him three taps back.