“Ouucch!”, Derek yelled, “that was damn rough” he said angrily as he tried to wipe some dust off his already dirty pants. Grant stood up from the fall rather slowly and looked around like someone who had just washed up after a shipwreck.

The room was once filled with filing cabinets, but their remains were all that could be seen. The explosion had torn them into shreds. Metal, drywall and paper littered everywhere with a single, unconventional door that led to the empty hallway.

“That door sure looks like the gate to hell and there’s no way I’m going through that thi….”, Derek was blabbing away till the gunmen arrived and he seemed to be startled as they jumped into the room in quick succession. Grant was quite relieved, being quite sure Derek would have gone on and on with his blabbing had the gunmen not stepped in. “Step through the door and go right”, Map ordered.

They walked the length of the room and pushed open the door to reveal a white hallway, bare of decorations. The grouped walked the empty halls for about twenty minutes taking seemingly random turns at intervals. One of the gunmen, Map, would call out “right” or “left” whenever they encountered a fork, passing any number of unmarked doors which seemed to be determined by Map's map. Apart from the directional orders issued by Map, the walk was mostly silent until about ten minutes down the line when Duffel quickly halted them

“Stop! Listen quietly, I think we’ve got company. It’s like I can hear some folks on the other side of the wall”, he said in a hushed tone, so low that his group could barely make out what he said. After listening for a few seconds, they all nudged on without saying anything. It had been a false alarm, or maybe not.

Duffel was quiet for the rest of the journey, all he could do was picture himself with lots of alien technology and handing them over to the billionaire, Errol Musk, while shaking hands and receiving cartoonishly large bags of money. Somehow Map was absent in his thought, he had hatched a plan to do away with him when they get what they need to exchange for the three billion dollars.

Grant, too, was silent throughout the walk and was so sure the it would end up being futile - as alien technology doesn’t exist. He just wondered how they’d find their way back out of this hole and if Area 51 would still exist after this raid; because if this was the end of Area 51, then it was the end of his janitorial job which was both good and bad news.

His thoughts were rudely interrupted by the words “Hol' up! We’re home!” After what seemed like an endless and futile walk, they had arrived at their destination. The supposed hub of alien technology.

“Dammit! Did the lab-nerd play us?”, Duffel asked. “I mean why the hell does this door not have a lock? If this room contains half as much as he said, then it should be protected with tens of locks”, he continued.

“Well think about it”, Map cut in “with the number of explosives it took to get down here, there’s probably no reason putting up a lock at this point”, Map explained, gesturing at Duffel to calm his nerves.

Grant and Derek just looked on quite unperturbed by their conversation. “Wel….”, Duffel was trying to say something as he pushed the door open to reveal the brightly colored interior. At first glance it seemed like a museum of some sort or an art showroom. He stopped in his tracks and gleefully exclaimed, “Whoa! Cool!”

Derek and Grant just stared past and Map impulsively rushed to the door and pushed Duffel inside to have a view of the aesthetically pleasing room. Moving closer, they realized these were no mere piece of artworks or a storeroom for ordinary pieces of history. The room was filled with extraterrestrial technology.

“It seems the aliens once visited us down here and left some souvenirs”, Map said, speaking in a loud voice.

“But Trumph and his cohorts have decided to hoard them all”, Duffel added, savoring the magnificence of the materials.

Their beauty resonated through the entire room and one could feel the warmth they produced, giving off an out-of-earth presence. The brightly colored, mostly greenish ornaments with different shapes and sizes filled the cabinets in the room. But there sat a most outstanding orb in the middle, the size of a basketball, bright green with incoherent markings on it. Then an inscription was placed on it, and it read: “IF YOU ARE READING THIS, PLEASE DON’T TOUCH THE ORB!”.

This instruction seemed to have a counter effect as it drew more attention to it and sparked the curiosity to handle it. By now they had crowded around the pedestal on which it stood with so much interest, each wanting to have a feel but quite unsure of the consequence.

“Guess this is goodbye”, Map said as he pulled back and pointed his gun at Grant whose entire attention had been prior fixed on the orb. Duffel did the same but was focused on Derek. It seemed to be the end.

“No sense getting the police involved in this and letting you guys go will be equivalent to calling the cops, go stand over there so your blood doesn’t spill on my three billion dollar trophies”, Duffel, who had seemed more serious minded throughout their walk, said sarcastically.

Grant and Derek moved aside and stood with their hands on their head and their eyes closed. Expecting to hear a loud sound and feel a sharp prick within the next few seconds. And yeah! They did hear a loud sound, but it wasn’t the sound of bullets leaving the guns of their captors, it was a small horde of invaders that had burst into the room. The weebs and otakus must have overrun the base and found the blast hole!

Screaming, hooting and hollering, they seemed to be extremely fascinated by the alien technology in the room and were savoring them rowdily. Meanwhile, the abrupt ambush caught the gunmen off guard. Derek quickly tackled his gunman and they both went to the ground and started brawling, each man earnestly struggling for his own life because there’s no telling what whoever got a grip of the gun would do with it.

At this time, more of the invaders were flooding the room and Grant seized the opportunity to quickly shove his gunman aside, putting the invaders between them. Right after this move, he knew he had made a mistake; he had shoved Map towards the door and now he was stuck in the room and in the midst of some unruly folks.

Despite the inscription on the orb, the invaders all rushed to get a hold of it. Pushing and struggling to view and touch the revered orb on the pedestal, slamming into each other so roughly that one would think they were untamed beasts. And in a bid to get to the orb, they accidentally rolled it off the pedestal and it fell and broke with a hissing sound - and not into pieces like your regular glass.

It broke into what seemed to be a hole in the universe. The result was cataclysmic. Wisps of black vapor and flashing sparks filled the room. And suddenly, a gravitational pull seemed to emanate from within the orb and began to pull in everything in the room.

The horde was caught off guard and most of them were sucked into the remains of the orb along with anything in the room that was not fastened to the walls or shelves. Grant quickly held on to a shelf to avoid being sucked in and he made the right move because the pull was not strong enough to absorb anything firmly bound to the wall.

Screams of the helpless horde filled the air and their blood littered the room as they were mysteriously sucked towards the small portal that had formed – smashing each other with their own mass. Then the ball of people and objects compressed tighter and tighter until a dull, powerful thudding sound was heard, and they disappeared in a blinding-bright flash of purple light, leaving the four initial occupants of the room.

“I just hope this ends soon” Grant muttered, freaking out already. “Being a lowlife janitor is way better than this expedition, but fuck it! As soon as this is over, I’m quitting, to avoid such drama in the future. Fuck the secret clearance”, he was cussing at no one in particular as he tried to keep a firm grip.

Then he looked around for a solution and his eyes caught Derek holding on to one of the gunmen, Duffel, who was in-turn holding on to a shelf. With Duffel wriggling his body to break Derek's grip, Derek reached out for the shelf to get a hold for himself.

“I’d be better off without this mofo trying to kill me”, he thought to himself while racing his hands across the shelf for any object that would do away with his captor. He found a flask hung on the shelf and thought to smash Duffel’s head and hands with it, so he would lose his grip on the shelf and get pulled in by the suction force, whatever it is.

But it wasn’t to be, Derek’s arm was halted mid-air. The other gunman, Map, who had been standing close to the door and away from the pull of the orb, fired a shot at Derek just when he was about to strike Duffel.

The bullet hit and shattered the flask in his hand, splattering its contents on Derek and his assailant, before striking him in the chest. Then, almost immediately, their skin began to steam and bubble, probably as a result of the flask's contents that spilled on them.

Watching his skin heat up and bubble was not a fun experience and he tried to react to the situation, when he accidentally let go of the shelf. As he was pulled toward the orb, he collided against Duffel who in-turn lost his grip and they both got sucked into the light.

Seeing the bright purple light associated by the ‘whoomph' sound that led to the disappearance of Derek and the gunman really freaked Grant out. He didn’t like Derek at all, he was a sure pain in the ass and he barely knew him, but they were basically in the same boat and escaping the situation would have been way easier if he had someone to work with. As they say two heads are better than one. More appropriately he now felt he’d be unable to leave this hole should he survive this mess. The uncertainty of where the portal might lead further freaked him out.

“Sorry man, I can’t just assume you’ll fall into that over-sized trash compactor, and there’s no way I’m pulling you out of here so you could just go to the police”, the final gunman said in a stern and serious tone, switching Grant's thoughts from pondering over Derek's new location to worrying about his own survival.

“So, I’ve gotta finish this off”, he finished. Grant held on to the shelf tighter, thinking about the right words he could say to this hardhearted gunman to spare his life. Then suddenly, the current from the portal started pulling much harder, spreading to the ends of the room and reaching for Map.

Freaked out, he quickly pulled himself out of the room into the hallway, cussing at Grant and blind firing into the room till he ran out of bullets. All the while, Grant closed his eyes and held on to the shelf firmer than ever. “I've not been to church in a while, but if you’re listening God, please don’t let me go to hell” he muttered with conviction, quite sure he was going to die.

But he didn’t die just yet. All the shots had miraculously missed him. When the gunshots had died down and Map’s cussing began to sound distant, he heaved a sigh of relief. “I just gotta figure out a way to leave this cursed place before I di….”, his words were cut short by a crinkling noise from the shelf, then he felt a shake. The bullets had destroyed a portion of the shelf he was currently holding on to.

“Oh, fuck m- “, and with the help of the constantly pulling force from the portal, the shelf broke off, throwing Grant free and putting him at the mercy of the portal's powerful current.

While Grant was being pulled into the portal, a green vial loosened from the field and hit him on the head. He felt a sharp burning sensation before losing consciousness.

With the characteristic bright, purple, light and ‘whoomph' sound, Grant disappeared into oblivion.