The Performance

Chapter 3: The New Routine

As more people were dropped off by the aliens, the cages started to fill up. The cage directly to my left was still empty, the dark haired woman, Raven, was my closest neighbor.

Raven had woken up screaming. Everyone who had been here longer stayed silent, letting her come to terms with what had happened. When she had become more quiet, I softly spoke up.

She had yelped in fright, looking around for a ghost, before she made out my shadowy form. She leaned close, anxious for answers, "where are we? What happened? Who are you? Who are they?"

I swallowed thickly as I tried to explain as much as I could while also hushing her. "From what I can tell, we're on an aircraft or a ship or a storage container of sorts. The aliens who kidnapped us, kept us here in storage. I don't know who they are or why they are doing this to us." I took a deep breath. "My name is Talia."

Her thick head of hair shook around her as she shook her head in disbelief. Her whimpers were muffled under her hand as she tried to quiet herself. Once she managed to contain her raw emotions she turned back in my direction, "I'm Raven."

I smiled softly at her, knowing she couldn't see me. But, I got the strange feeling that she was smiling back. We formed a kinship automatically in these awful circumstances.

As time passed, we quietly whispered about our life, the aliens, and what would become of our future. We only shared small details like our favorite food, we never shared any information on family or friends. We were too paranoid of each other. I did learned that she was from Egypt. Which proved the man's theory of them moving across the planet correct.

As time went on, I had started to worry. Usually they brought people in on a schedule, they had a strict routine. Although, I had only been here for less than a day, I had taken notice to this.

When I slid across my enclosure to check with the man I had first talked too, he had shared my worries.

I shifted on the hard steel floor as my bladder demanded release and my hunger caught up to me. These aliens went through so much trouble to caught us, would they really starve us to death?

What worried me the most is how unpredictable they were. They weren't humans. They could have captured us to watch us slowly starve to death in our own filth if they refused us showers and toilets. I kept these fears to myself, not wanting to upset Raven even more.

Just as my bladder was about to burst, the doorway opened again, leaving a dull ringing in my ears. This time there were multiple of these species. They all looked identical to me as they walked down the row of cages and chirruped to one another.

Their long fingers pointed to each human behind the bars as they tried to scurry away with horrified or angry faces.

With the new lighting, I could see just how many cages were full. I made eye contact with the human diagonal to me as we both saw the same thing, only about half of tha cages were full.

They had a thin, long, rectangular piece of technology in their hands and seemed to be pressing something on there every so often as they moved through the room. Maybe this was their equivalent to an iPhone? If there were recording the people in their possession that meant they had plans for us.

They weren't going to kill us. At least not yet.

As they moved closer to me, I turned to Raven. In my head, I pictured her as an Egyptian goddess. Her olive, skin combined with her thick lashes and flawlessly textured hair made her look exactly like one.

She looked me up and down too, as if sizing me up and putting a face to her neighbor in the dark.

As the aliens stepped closer she moved to the front of the bars and grasped them firmly. She made direct eye contact with the tall creature, showing she wasn't afraid.