Chapter Five - Saved by Bugs

  Humans! Humans? Like me, but not like me, but coming straight at me, these guys and gals had 6 spindly metal legs where two human legs should have been, and other robotic hardware hanging off of them too. The alien I knocked over had sounded some type of alarm and these things were the human catching squad or something? I didn't stop to count but I think there was about six of them, I just got up and bolted further in the mushroom forest but there was no shaking these machine people things as they climbed up the mushroom stalks and bounced from mushroom head to head with their robot legs they were much faster than me and they caught up with me in no time flat. I was surrounded and they slowly closed in on me, at that point I realised I wasn't going to be harmed probably because they were using us as slaves on their planet and so we were a probably valuable commodity. I knelt down as if to submit and I guess at that time thats what I was really doing but then i noticed the ground it was totally covered in mushroom type material too and it seemed soft. ''I wonder if this planet has rocks?'' I hadn't seen any yet but I thought they'd be under the mushy ground covering probably? Hopefully anyway because I now had a last ditch plan.

  Hit the robot people with a a rock, that was my brainwave of an idea, I didn't want to go back asleep for who knows how many years just to be turned into one of these monstrosities. I'd rather go down fighting, I didn't think I would get away but maybe I make them mad enough to put me into human jail before execution, a few more conversations with real people would be all I could ask for before being slain at this point, no high aspirations. I reached down and got my fingers into the ground as much as I  could, then as the gang was a bout three feet away I reefed on the mush ground as hard as I could. To my surprise it ripped up a lot more than I thought and I didn't even get a chance to look for a rock before thousands of beetles came gushing out of the tear in the ground and went straight for the robot people, they climbed up their legs and began sinking their fangs into the remaining human sections of these things, now I heard the first noises from the robot people and it was screams of agony as chunks of flesh were ripped from their bodies.

  I guess the bugs didn't see me behind the flap of ground so once again it was time to sprint into the forest, I did and I didn't stop for a long time until I was forced to, not by aliens, robot people or alien bugs but by a cliff. 

   

Chapter Four - Run

  ''Now is not the time time to play it safe'' I put the alien's finger on the oval and flinched backwards as a large oval hole appeared in the bubble. I took one step out and took a deep breath, dropped the hand and started running towards the end of the corridor as I ran i looked around a bit, there were dozens of bubbles placed on either side of the raised platform that I was running on and the roof was curved and white, it seemed all these operating room bubbles were in a bigger hospital bubble, I knew this meant as soon as i was out of here I was into the alien atmosphere and dead for sure but what the hell

  As I was reaching the ned of the corridor I remembered, the hand, how could I get out without my handy little friend? just as i finished that though the wall opened and I saw some poor lady on a gurney, one of those operating R2-D2s and one terrified looking alien coming towards me or me towards them anyway there was a big collision. As I hit the gurney it flipped and that poor lady went flying into the alien who was smashed into the operating robot I done know what happened too them next because I just got up and took off!   

  I didn't look back, I didn't look up or round, I just wanted to find cover, a hiding spot to catch my breath and work out my next move. The only thing in front of me was; mushrooms. Not like Earth mushrooms, giant space mushrooms, some fifty feet high and wide, all white, so these are alien forests I guessed. I headed for the nearest one and dived the last 10 feet as I was expecting to be vaporised at any minute from behind. I can breathe and that's very good, I finally realised. I'd better get some idea what I was dealing with then keep running or hiding maybe I can hollow out  a mushroom as a lair? That was a good idea it seems because as I peeked round the massive stalk back at the hospital dome, it was a mushroom, were all these mushrooms hospitals or offices or alien apartment blocks? I had no idea but I was about to see something much more disturbing. 

Chapter Three - Escape..?

So what? I can hear now? I lied there for a few minutes, then I felt  something in my spine that said ''Get up and run!'' sort like restless leg syndrome for the back but worse and I just sat upright and I felt great, like twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep great, it's actually just how I felt on the boat with Anna and Jeff right before the cylinder UFO appeared, refreshed and.....happy? Anyway, the next few seconds changed my mood pretty quickly. I was in a opaque bubble about 10 foot by 10 foot, I was sitting on a rectangular slab with a lattice of instruments and wires on each side of the table, I guess they disengaged and fold up as soon as the patient is awake or something. Just two other things in the room by the way, some R2-D2 looking machine and an alien with his head through the glass top of it! So I'm now awake after I don't know how long at that point, dozens of years I figure, and I'm in an alien ''hospital'' with a dead alien that I'm going to get the blame for, I don't know where I am, I don't even know if I'm on Earth still, I better get a plan fast.

  All of us here know what the aliens look like now but of course I didn't then so I was starting to freak out a bit when it's ''blood'' started to flow across the floor, it looked just like Aloe Vera juice I thought, only slightly cloudier, I can only suppose it tripped, accidents do happen. I thought of a three step plan, get out of the room, get out of the building, then, everything else happens, not a great plan.  One weird thing in a big list of weird things that day is that I had on a body suit of the same material the alien had on, ''That might help me blend in'' I thought, of course not.

  I slid off the slab at the end where there's no instruments or wires and stretched a bit, I don't know why? I never felt better physically in my life than that day. On the surface of the room I noticed an oval mark, obviously this was the door control, but no door. I can press a button, so I did, I expected something to whoosh back like Star Trek but nothing happened at all. Maybe it reads retinas I though so I put my eye up to it, nothing. Wrong finger! This needs an alien finger to make it work, I had a alien but I didn't want to take the chance on making any noise to get it over to the door. So I cut it's hand off with a piece of the glass from the machine it had fallen into, It's hide was pretty tough to slice through but with them having no bones it makes it easy after that. It was and is really gross I know but this is survival and I've had to do a lot more disgusting things since.

  I chose a finger randomly to do the pressing but just as I was about to place it on on the button and run like hell like a bolt I had the thought, ''I can breathe in here but can I breathe out there?''  

Chapter Two - Will force

  Sleeping but awake, always always awake. I could feel everything but could not see, smell or hear anything. It only seemed like a short time before I was aware I was still alive after being taken off the boat , but it easily could have been years. I can't really explain how it feels to feel medical procedures being performed on your body and not being able to move or cry out. After a while I looked forward to the ''visits'' from the ''Doctors'' as I called them, at least it meant I was still alive in some sort of way and not alone for an hour or two. In the time between visits I invented whole worlds in my head. I remember in one world I was a rock star, in another I was a professional football player but there were many different worlds and I moved between them sometimes staying for what seemed a few days, sometimes staying for years, but in everyone I had my family and friends around me. I knew it was pretty likely that some were gone but you always see interviews with hugely famous celebrities saying having good family family and friends keeps the grounded. I figured it might keep me sane. 

  Then for a long time I abandoned hope. I tried to go insane! I figured this existence might be more fun as a crazy person. But I couldn't, whatever crazy thoughts I tried to act out in my head to go insane didn't get me any closer to losing it, I always remained somewhat calm, which made me very confused. If I couldn't go insane then I could only see two options, returning to my made up worlds or mind power. I decided to do both. For stretches I would go to visit my dream worlds and relax with my friends and family, really having a nice time, I even dreamed up a wife and kids. Then after a ''visit'' I would switch myself into the superhero 'Mind Control Man', this was comparatively fun as I guessed I was being kept physically inactive by drugs or advanced alien technology of some type so I tried to use my mind powers to disrupt their machines or over power an alien nurse to stab the alien doctor or some other scenario resulting in me being set free. Maybe I was actually crazy at those times but It made me feel as though I was doing something. I set up a schedule where mind control practice was work and my career and dream worlds were for holidays and recharging my brain batteries.

  The longest gap between visits now came. I was really happy because it gave me a chance to work really hard on my mind powers skills I convinced myself. This visit wasn't much different to many I'd had before, it felt like checking my blood pressure, fiddling with tubes in my arms and legs, no messing around internally which was great because there was a lot less pain to deal with. So I'm straining as hard as possible to send barrage of mind waves at the piece of equipment that's keeping me under control that of course I can't see and that I don't even it exists when something cool happened, I heard a noise, was I mistaken did that alien just drop a glass? 

    

Chapter One - Birthday Surprise.

  December 14th is not traditionally any kind of special day but it's the most important day on the calender as far as I'm concerned, for three reasons, one, it's my birthday, two, it was the first day owning my own tuna trawler and three, it is the last day of my life, as I knew it anyway. Details about that morning are kind of sketchy because you don't tend to remember the totally mundane bits of your life. I know I got up, got dressed and had something to eat but I was busting so much to get down to the pier that I'll always regret that I never even went into my parents bedroom to say goodbye, but why would I? I was only going to take the boat out for a safety test run for an hour or two then come home for cake from Mom and a lecture from Dad about ''How I was risking my entire future on a dying industry...blah blah'', he did have some good points though, dropping out of college at 23 and laying down my college fund on a deposit for a fishing boat does seem crazy from the outside looking in but as we've all probably said before, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

  I had a surprise waiting for me down at the pier, my siblings. My sister Anna 19 and my brother Jeff 14 had woken up even before me to get me a birthday breakfast burrito from the 24 hour service station to try and bribe me to take them on the maiden voyage of the trawler. I said something like ''What do you you jerks want?'' joking around, and they said ''We're your crew for the day'' tentatively. I pretended to grudgingly let them come along, really I was glad for the company, even though I'd been on the seas all my life there was something unsettling about being out on the boat by myself today, like I was responsible or something, and that felt really weird. One thing I can picture clearly is the sky that morning, it was like a blanket of twinkle lights that the dawn extinguished one by one, there was not one cloud in the sky that morning and I thought '' Keep your eyes on the instruments you moron, you are supposed to be testing everything for safety'' but I couldn't stay focused and Anna and Jeff were chatting away so I eventually abandoned my clipboard and dropped anchor about 3 miles from Port Wesley.As I was watching the fishing fleet head out North to try their luck I remembered that tomorrow I was going to be doing the same, and with a 5 man crew! I felt a big wave of panic come over me for a few seconds, I guess it was because I was about to take the first step of becoming a grown up but then I thought ''There's cake ashore, cake will make it all better''. 

  We'd been out for about 90 minutes when I said to the kids we should probably head back, there wasn't going to be any work done today anyway. Ever since Anna had been diagnosed with epilepsy I have been worried that she might have a seizure when I'm the only adult around, even though everyone in the family has been trained how to deal with one and her medicines generally kept them at bay, I felt guilty I didn't enjoy spending time with my kid sister anymore but I guess that's nothing special for older brothers to feel. This is where this so far perfect day went more than little off track. Jeff was weighing anchor when he yelled ''Hey, an air balloon!'' he yelled, I said ''Whaaaat?''  I'd never seen an air balloon around Port Wesley before, actually I'd never seen one at all, except on television. But as I turned around you could not miss it, the only object in a clear blue cloudless sky. It seemed to be hovering just above the church steeple and it wasn't the traditional globe shaped balloons you might see, or like those weird shaped ones that's sometimes made for advertising, this was cylindrical and black and enormous!

  I was so naive then looking back now, I turned over the motor and went full speed towards the mouth of the marina, some dumb part of my brain thought it might be a birthday gift from the whole town and there might be a fair and buffet laid on when we got back something like; Happy Birthday, New Boat and Failed College Degree Day Ben, but that didn't seem really likely. I think Anna and Jeff knew something was wrong right from the start, they both stood at the bow of the boat just staring at the thing and not talking at all. In a second eight or ten glowing orbs sort of popped out of the balloon and slowly moved towards the ground. When you first see something like this you can't look away, you don't really believe it's happening you just stare silently, that's what us three were doing anyway and this wasn't going to be the first time I was struck dumb by the way. The kids both started screaming ''It's a UFO, it's a UFO'' I don't know exactly what I said but I tried to calm them down telling them it'll be alright. From the distance we were now we could see people gathering around one of the orbs that had landed by the pier, you could see them approach then disappear, approach then disappear in ones, twos and small groups. I cut the motor then because I don't mind telling you that I was terrified, this was all right out of movie that's been taken right out of science fiction novel. We just watched for about a minute people being eaten up by nothing, but continuing to approach the orb not running away or shooting it or anything!

  Jeff jolted out of out trance first and screamed at me ''We got to get back too Mom and Dad!'' I said ''We can't go in there now can we? We'll have to wait until those things go, Dad's got the shotgun, I'm sure they're fine''. Of course I knew they weren't fine, I knew deep down they were going to be killed or vaporised or whatever those things were doing too the people? But my big brother instincts had finally kicked in a little. All at once the orbs rose up from the town, quite quickly, I was so relieved I think I laughed nervously which made Anna look angrily at me so I chirped out ''Let's go home guys'', one by one each orb flew back too the black cylinder and disappeared within it bar for one. The orb that was landed near the pier came straight for us, the kids squealed and ran into the cabin and I wasn't far behind them, I tried to start the motor once but in about three seconds the orb was upon us already. It was silently floating in front of the cabin, not making a sound then I looked around and realised neither was Anna or Jeff or me! 

  And that's the last thing I can recall before waking up 200 or so years later.