The sun was an arctic blue overhead as I lay on what appeared to be a dull orange shrub. I closed my eyes for a moment, completely disoriented. A park, I’d been in a park. I thought, pressing my wrist against my temple. Something had pulled at me, crushed me into somewhere dark. Then I’d been thrust into the sky, falling.

Where am I?

I turned my head away from the blinding blue sun, blinking away the spots in my vision. The land around me was rather flat, orange shrubbery dotted it, with certain structures on the plants that glowed blue. Most were no higher than my shin, trees were scarce, with strangely ordered branches twisting around a main trunk along with that same blue structure. The wounds I got from my fall appeared superficial, but some prodding revealed a sharp pain in my side, likely a cracked rib.

Amongst these surreal surroundings, animals began to appear, pulling themselves from the shrubbery and even some from carefully concealed burrows, I saw some six limbed creatures (sextupeds?) bearing an exoskeleton while possessing a body shape reminiscent to that of a rabbit, with two long ears a curled body along with two forelimbs that had developed three grasping fingers, its head possessing mandibles and two large round brown eyes with pupils shaped like the symbol of infinity. Another resembled a dragonfly with its second pair of wings moved further back. Most had a metallic sheen to their exoskeleton, and I noted few furry creatures and no large animals, at least not close by.

I stared warily at the creatures, their gaze rested on me as well, unblinking eyes following my every movement. I hope civilization exists, I thought, eyes scanning the horizon. A patch of light at some far side away from the sun caught my attention, drawing me in its direction. The rabbit-like creatures scurried away as I moved, hopefully that meant they weren’t interested in me as food.

Walking in the direction of the light I hoped that civilizations here weren’t as bloodthirsty or dispassionate as they tended to appear on TV. It occurred to me that in this case I’m the alien, and likely the invader, I supposed that I should instead hope that they didn’t possess the same entertainment I did.

The sun began to set and a cool breeze started up, causing me to hasten my pace, if the ecosystem was anything like my own night would bring some very deadly predators. The monotonous walking and uncomfortably cool air led me not to notice the group of creatures heading my way until they were directly in front of me. I froze up for a moment upon seeing them, about my size and in a group, the creatures had exoskeletons with that same metallic sheen. They were bipedal quadrupeds, but their legs seemed to branch at the shin area, creating a large “foot”, if it could be called that, each branch had a single digit that grasped the ground, and their hands possessed four digits, a pair of which sat opposite the other.

I recoiled backwards, and one of the creatures, holding what appeared to be a gun, took aim at me. A bolt of burning material shot through my leg, and another hit me with what can only be described as a stun baton, I lost consciousness amid the stench of singeing skin.

I woke to find myself strapped onto some kind of makeshift operating table, without the leverage to move anything. A soft whirring sound caught my attention and I caught sight of multiple mechanical arms swivelling up to me. Blades and other unfamiliar implements were located on the arms. It began to stick needles into me… then the blades came alive.

The details… escape me.

My first clear, unaddled memory after that was cold darkness, apparently they’d put me back together after… or during. Sanity eluded me, nothing but a blur of thoughts and incomprehensible gibberish. I avoided the memory afterwards, unwilling to open myself to that ever again. For a while after I stabilized I simply stared around the pitch black. There was nothing, no light, no sound beyond my breathing, no smell beyond blood and waste, nothing to feel but the cold metal against my skin.

I began to hallucinate, dark spiders roamed everywhere across my body, and I could feel their legs even on my back, blending into the cold metal. I could feel them. I screamed when the blades returned, relived memories I’d just buried, only to remember later that it was over, that I was whole. A door appeared, taunting me with the sounds of winds through leaves, the smell of grass and flowers, and the thought of home. Sensory deprivation symptoms, nothing you see is real, I rationalized desperately, it didn’t help, and you can’t go home… Through it all, I was bound, left with nothing to distract myself, just an overwhelming sense of impotence. Then they returned.

This time there was no cutting, no more slicing me apart and holding things open. This time a needle went straight for my skull, it glinted like a star in the light, and plunged itself right between my eyebrows. My vision blurred and nausea assaulted me as I strained against my bonds, a cold feeling accompanying it from inside my skull. I lost consciousness soon after that.

My nausea didn’t withdraw when I awoke later, light piercing behind my eyelids. I opened them slowly, letting the world settle into focus.

Something feels wrong.

Wind blew across my face, and colour bled into my sight. Orange, cold arctic blue, faint blue grey and reddish brown. One of my hands clumsily shielded my eyes from the light, before I begun staring at it instead. I could move, I was free! I roughly pushed myself up with both my hands, a lopsided grin spreading across my face.

“Can you hear me?” A voice shook me from my quiet celebration. Oddly, it was a chittering sound with clicks, whistles and screeches, but I intuitively understood it, meaning blossoming in my brain, it was almost like telepathy rather than talking. A sense of dread filled me, and I turned to face the chitinous creature that now sat on a nearby rock. I became aware of the fact that I intuitively knew the universal body structure of the creature before me, as well as various other things, like what made up their shells, what they ate, how they ate, and data on sexual reproduction. The latter was disturbingly detailed and detailed disturbingly, they were dimorphic, but not entirely similar in structure to us.

My first impulse was to run, but I was too weak to do so and would likely fall if I tried, as it was I could barely hold myself upright. Besides, all evidence now pointed to him saving me, or I died and the afterlife is locally oriented. I grimaced, having gone on for so long, I could no longer deny the possibility that all this was real, and not just some fevered dream. He stared at me all this while, I realized that as a creature accustomed to verbal communication and strong gestures would likely be unable to read facial expressions, considering the lack of such for them. I hesitated for a moment, wondering how I would communicate, before it gestured with what would pass for hands in a broad sweep. “Just talk, I’ll understand eventually.”

So I did, my tongue lead in my mouth and difficult to manipulate. I spoke of myself first, who I was, where I was from, school, idly wondering if this was whatever god’s demented answer to my fervent wish not to go to school, a childish naïve old wish. I turned to my current situation but soon more pressing matters rose to mind. “What happened to me?” At that, the creature raised his hand, gladii they called it, and began to speak.

“Not everything is coherent or comprehensible, but I think I can provide answers to some of your questions.” I sensed hesitation in the alien’s speech.

“Please.” I said, my voice cracking somewhat. The alien tensed, his eyes studied me intently, and he began his tale.

The alien was a researcher, and had apparently been recruited in to test a form of nanotech quantum supercomputers, the original goal was to create a supercomputer that would reside in one of their soldier’s skulls, improving the soldier’s mental capacity and acuity. Originally they were not in charge of me, but due to a “happy coincidence”, my brain was found to be similar to their own, and suspended in liquid like their own, and since my captors had already learned as much as they needed from me, like body structure and reaction to chemicals, I was “donated” for their use, the process for insertion of the nanomachines was at the time invariably lethal, so I was to be a test subject a step up from whatever non-sentient wildlife this planet had.

Many had gotten squeamish at the idea of using a live, sentient, and obviously unwilling test subject. However, refusing was not an option. As I understood the situation, their government were desperate for a breakthrough on this tech, and if they were incapable of doing “what had to be done”, they would be “replaced”. The research group I had been used by was apparently handpicked to be the most amoral group of scientists on the planet. Fortunately, they weren’t the brightest, and so unless there was a good reason they couldn’t simply take over any project.

Their hesitation however, caused them to be scrutinized, and those who once held me were then interspersed among the group, owing ostensibly to their knowledge on my anatomy. This limited available choices, as their supervision was ubiquitous. So they collaborated on their off time, working themselves to the bone to either perfect the procedure to prevent my death, but trick them into thinking I had died, or use a different method that didn’t use the nanomachines. Of course, it was impossible to truly perfect it, or they would have done so a long time ago, the effects would have been debilitating, had they not applied other means to preserve me.

Using the nanomachines also presented a separate problem, as the nanomachines were non-recoverable. This was apparently due to the delicate nature of the devices themselves. The problem arises as they are difficult to mass-produce, and using them on me would not yield useful data if I was being influenced through other means, which would be necessary for me to survive this. I didn’t particularly care for how my life was being weighed against useful data, but considering that they were desperate, I might understand.

Ultimately, their hands were forced by the scrutiny of the amoral. Some of the details are hard to explain, others went straight over my head. The end result is that my body is altered, I now have nanomachines in my body that repaired damage done during the procedure, and apparently some alterations to my blood to compensate for the increased energy consumption. Unfortunately, my brain suffered something akin to minor hydrocephalus. Bottom line, I heal faster, but my stamina is lower unless the healing nanomachines deactivate, whereupon I’ll be above average, my coordination skills have also gone out a window.

The latter was easier to notice, moving myself felt strange, as though my body didn’t remember how, even though my brain recalled how I used to move normally. I wiggled my fingers slightly as I continued to listen. My “corpse” had apparently then been casually disposed of outside the city for the animals. It was then I realized I lay beside a large number of corpses, and my sense of smell had only just begun to notice the alien blood and flesh.

Carrion, many creatures I had never seen before, and could not imagine, carapaces were common, though some seemed to be lightly fur covered. All were unequivocally dead however, some cut open while others looked like they’d died of poison. I was handed a sheet of stiff paper, along with a change of clothes, tailored to my form. The paper explained that I was to find shelter with a friend of theirs, who had apparently decided to become a hermit or something, the word didn’t quite translate. Then I heard a sentence from the creature that stopped me colder than the thought of a kill switch in my brain.

“There’s an artificial intelligence in the computer in your skull, I’d like to have feedback on it. We didn’t have time to train it.”

There’s an AI in my brain with me?! Horror wrote itself across my features.

[What’s wrong? Can’t I help?] An earnest yet genderless “voice” sounded in my head.

Damn.