“WHEN THE BRIGHT LIGHTS CAME FOR ME, I WAS UNPREPARED”

I was snatched from sleep as an impossible hand, was it a hand? Whatever it was, it clamped like a vice around my face and muffled my shouts. Dazed from sleep, lost in a dream, only to wake into a nightmare. I struggled and fought, panicking wildly. “How had they gotten through my defenses?” I thought to myself. “Who are these men?”

The flashing lights caused me to squint. A shadow materialized into some kind of freak attached to the arm. I saw more shadows now, more grasping limbs. My bed sheets had been ripped off and they were pinning me down. Something had each one of my limbs and struggle as I might, they would not release me. There were no weak points, no let-up of their power over me. They had me dead to rights and the more I struggled, the tighter they clamped. My pulse quickened as realization dawned. No, these were not men. They were something else entirely. My struggles and attempts to shout intensified. “God no! Please! This isn’t happening! Are they… no it cannot be!” My thoughts cascaded into madness and with another supreme effort I tried to free myself again, only to pause as a kind of humming filled the air, a vibration that caused me to remember my training.

“Stop! Evaluate, and then act. Whatever you do, don’t panic.” Fine words to live by, fine words I had taught many a soldier. It seemed like they would be fine words to die by as well. My consciousness began to fade and my last thoughts were of spidery bipedal bodies with large ovoid heads, tear shaped compound eyes and thin purple lips. There was no humanity in those faces.

My name is Colonel Petros Arkansas (ret.) and I was abducted in the Year 2025. It was a clean abduction as far as abductions go. No alarms, no strange sounds, only the lights and humming, which I later learned was their form of communication. They had me before I even knew they were there. Perhaps in my youth I would have had a chance, but hobbled by retirement, a lack of mental preparedness and a few glasses of scotch the night before left me completely at their mercy.

I awoke in a stark washed-out room. Nothing in my field of view besides the walls and ceiling. Light seemed to emanate from the very walls themselves. Chill vapors surrounded my naked form. I was on a type of gurney, with restraints, but besides those sensations I could not move at all. I could tell my muscles to bunch, to struggle, but the message wasn’t getting through.

A head loomed into my view and it was a good thing I was immobile because I really wanted to back the fuck away from it. It was very definitely alien. The tear-shaped compound eyes reflected my fear strained face in all its facets and I gulped audibly. Then I heard the voice. It was a mechanical voice. Something a computer would intone. “Petros Arkansas” it stated and I flinched as if struck. How did it know my name? How did it know English? How did it talk without moving its lips?

The creature moved slightly as if getting comfortable. A dentist ready to drill a cavity riddled tooth. I panicked and felt urine trickle around my scrotum. I hated dentists. It was completely humiliating. I was one of the finest soldiers in the world, trained to withstand worse torments than someone saying my name. But that was just it. This wasn’t someone. This was an it. No amount of training could prepare anyone for this. I began to hyperventilate. My heart throbbing faster and faster as adrenaline flooded my senses.

Fear I could deal with, I had spent decades making fear work for me, with me, and through me. I could channel it into targeted aggression and deadly consequences. However, this was so far off the radar that I had no response, no coping mechanism. I gurgled a response. The sound loud in the quiet humming room. It was the best I could do as my tongue refused to obey me. “Don’t use your voice, use your mind.” The disembodied voice echoed within my head. I strained and said “FUuurgggh llluu!” as loudly as I could. My defiance barriers were up. I needed a win.

The electric shock that ratcheted through my body was completely unexpected. It ripped through me and I felt every single nerve come alive at once. My body arched, my breath wheezed and my restraints strained. The shock put Tasers to shame and I could smell my own excrement. Panting with relief as it subsided I heard the voice again.

“Try again Petros, but use your mind.”

Defiance is in the heart of every soldier. It allows us to stand when others fall. It gives us purpose to exist. I screamed as loudly as I could through my treacherous unresponsive lips “Fuuurgggh eewww!”

The shock this time, wasn’t so bad. Perhaps I was becoming conditioned. Perhaps it just felt less intense because my nerves were still recovering from the previous shock. Whatever the reason, I mercifully blacked out.

A while later I awoke, cracking my eyes to see if I was alone, but it seemed only a short time had passed and the creature was still there. I tried to play possum, but then that voice reverberated inside my head.

“Do we really need to go down the route of unpleasantness again?” it said still looming large in my vision. Its weird purple lips never moved. This creature was really using telepathy to talk to me.

“I am known as Grant by your kind and yes I am using a form of nerve impulse telepathy to communicate with you. We find shock therapy brings humans to a receptive frame of mind quickly. I trust you won’t need another example?” The voice seemed almost eager. Challenging. I quickly shook my head. It seemed to relax.

“Good, now to forestall unnecessary questions let me say this. I am an Alien, yes. Humans call us Absinth and we have selected you.” It paused to let that sink in, then continued,

“In order that we can communicate effectively we have devised this form of communication to expedite matters. Where we come from and how we got here are not important, although to you they may seem the most important questions to ask. To alleviate that query let me say we come from a distant part of the Universe and a place you humans are unlikely to discover anytime soon. How we got here is equally unimportant. The fact is, we are here, and have been observing humanity for a long time. Many hundreds of years in fact. We remain undetected and travel about without the slightest worry that we will be discovered. Your technology has a long way to go.”

“So now let me reiterate, it matters not. The reason we have you here is for testing. You will either pass or fail. It is my job to ensure you have the best chance to pass. You have been selected based on a great deal of profiling. Nod if you are following me so far?” I nodded vigorously.

“Good, now I would ask you to respond to me with your mind. Think your thoughts at me.”

I complied and blurted “What are you doing to me?”

It was all I could get out before white noise and static hissed through my thoughts. I flinched and then tried again.

“I am hungry, do you have any food?” It was a deflection and standard operating procedure for any captive trained as I was. Gain as much nutrition as possible as soon as possible. You never know when you will get the chance to escape and besides I was quite hungry, I must have been here for quite some time already. The response was unexpected.

Not only did my stomach grumble to support the request, but Grant turned his head to the side and moved from my field of view. Then I heard a metallic noise, something clicked and a robotic arm moved into view. It hovered as if to get its bearings then moved again. It stopped roughly over my sternum. I began to get a bad feeling. The bad feeling was compounded as a large needle, easily the dimensions of a half dollar coin, began to lower, then adjust, and then lower some more. It was aiming for my stomach region and I couldn’t do a thing about it.

I couldn’t scream or flinch or do anything much, but internally I was screaming and when it pierced my flesh I tensed. It was excruciating. What the hell! All I wanted was some food, not stomach surgery!

As the pain subsided, I felt a gentle tugging on the needle that had inserted itself, and a feeling of satiation washed over me and through me. It felt wonderful. I closed my eyes in bliss and noticed a light shining through my lids. It went from amber to green. I wanted to say more, to discuss more with my captor, but the supply of sustenance drove me into the dark halls of blissful sleep. It was a short-lived reprieve.

I opened my eyes a short while later to find Grants’ head hovering above me again. The insect eyes were impossible to gauge, so I just assumed I was the focus of his attention.

“You are content?” he asked inside my mind. It really was weird knowing he was speaking to me via telepathy. I kept looking at his alien grey mottled face. The reflective sheen on his skin giving me the impression he was slimy to the touch. The two slits where his nose should be flared from time to time, so I assumed they had the same function as a nose. I began to gather phlegm in my mouth, wondering if I could spit onto him.

Almost choking, I realized I didn’t have the muscle control and relaxed the effort. At least mentally I was spitting at him. That would have to do for now. He seemed to notice that I relaxed slightly and his voice began anew in my head.

“Good Petros. Acceptance is part of the process. The sooner you accept your predicament, the sooner we can get to your training.”

I complied of course, I had no other choice. Internally I planted a seed deep down that a chance would come to free myself and then I would get even. I knew this was how all slavery and subjugation starts. At first, one accepts the scraps, then becomes thankful for them, and then accepts more until eventually you become so used to the new environment that everything seems normal.

I swore to myself right then that I would never let that happen. That no matter how satisfied I was with my new overlord's treatment, I would never ever stop looking for a way to be free. These thoughts and more were swirling in my head as I closed my eyes and sought refuge in sleep.