Jake had been in Crawk for three days now, and he still hadn’t left his room. He hated it here.

His life in Schmingleton had been bad with those horrendous Teresons banging on his door, calling him names and tormenting him twenty-four hours of the day. What he wouldn’t give for that again.

Here people liked him, and wanted to talk to him. Apparently he was a war hero! Jake knew he was no hero, he hadn’t even known what he was doing. Jake just wanted them all to go away, which was exactly the opposite to what these horrendous aliens seemed to want.

But now, after three days in isolation, Jake was completely bored. He got up and went in search of something to do, or something he could use to kill himself.

This meant exploring his quarters. He assumed, from the size of his room, that they would be massive. Jake was right.

He turned left out of his room and made his way down a long corridor. There were lots of doors, some of which were open. Others opened and closed quickly as he walked past.

“He’s awake!” said the excited chatter.

It seemed that Jake had co-residents. He disliked this, and walked quickly onwards.

Something behind one of the open doors caught his eye, and he walked in to be greeted by a huge cinema room. Jake loved his films and he would definitely be returning here.

Firstly though, Jake had smelled something familiar and he trundled along the corridor like a wheelbarrow pushed by an overweight cheetah.

He passed rooms full of computers, sci-fi books, music systems, walls plastered with death metal posters and pictures of scantily clad women. Everything Jake wanted in the world seemed to be here in abundance.

Jake rounded the corner and his eyes caught up with his sense of smell. There, two doors down, was a fish and chip shop. Directly next to it was a Chinese takeaway, next to that was a greasy pizza shop, and next to that a dirty looking burger bar. Jake had an entire street of takeaways within a five minute walk. He must find out if they did delivery.

Delighted to find out that not only did they deliver, but also that all the food was free, Jake emerged with a large fish and chips, two battered sausages, a balti pie and a pickled egg.

The first open door back around the corner was decorated like the seaside. Jake wandered in and settled on a silken couch, striped like a deckchair. It wasn’t long before Jake had demolished his lunch and had fallen asleep curled up on the settee.

For the first time in days, Jake was quite relaxed. That changed quickly when he woke up to discover that the empty seaside room he had dozed off in, was now full of women.

One of these women was even sitting on the same couch as him.

Jake couldn’t remember the last time he had been in the company of a girl and his self-preservation instincts kicked in quickly. He scurried away from her as quickly as he could, tightening himself into a ball in the opposite corner of the settee. Jake hoped he was now invisible, but it appeared that his movement had only alerted them all to him.

The background chatter stopped and everyone looked at him.

“Jakey!” chorused the girls.

Jake tightened up, he could feel a panic attack coming on. The girl on the settee started to shuffle towards him.

That was it. Jake screamed, vomited on the carpet and ran out of the room.