The Performance

Chapter 4: The Chambers

We huddled together as a group and shuffled out of the room they were holding us in. We learned from the past groups mistake. Nobody ran.

Their weapons sizzled with the promise of pain and we bumped into each other, trying to rush in the direction they were herding us towards like sheep dogs.

Raven gripped my arm, refusing to let them separate us. I squinted as we stepped under the bright, fluorescent lights. Our group continued to move blindly forward, not wanting to get shocked.

I blinked the white spots from my vision as my eyes grew used to the light after being kept in the dark for so long.

Raven's nails dug into the skin on my arm, conveying her nerves. The group surged forward, drawing me closer to the center of the room. I shielded my eyes from the bright light on the ceiling and gasped as my vision cleared.

The women around me muttered their distaste. We were surrounded by muted, grey walls. The tiles underneath our feet matched the walls.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched one alien press a spot on the wall and a seamless door opened, allowing him entry. It closed after he stepped through and blended in perfectly with the wall.

A high pitched shriek turned my attention away from my new escape plan. One of the girl who was hiding towards the back of the pack was being dragged out by her hair.

She tried to twist out of their grasp without any success. We watched, frozen in fear as we waited to see what they would do to her. I glanced towards the sealed door and debated trying to escape while everyone was distracted by the scene in front of us. Chances were slim of getting far enough away to hide from them.

Raven surged forward, ready to fight for a stranger she didn't know. I grabbed her and pulled her back before she did anything that would make the aliens withhold the little generosity they were expressing. She bucked in my arms like a wild animal.

A woman near us cried openly. Her soft blond hair was a wild mess around her doe like features, giving her a crazed look. She was wearing a diner uniform with bright blues and yellows, something too cheerful for a place like this. Her identification pin said her name was Haven.

She turned towards me with wide eyes, "do you think we're gonna die?"

My lips thinned, "I don't know." I answered honestly.

The woman was dropped in the corner of the room, sprawling across the ground. Her chest expanded rapidly, fearing the worst.

Another yelp of fear sounded beside me. I spun with Raven still constrained in my arms. Another alien, or maybe the same one, had a firm grasp on Haven, the sweet girl who was scared of dying. They carried her limp, terrified body over to a specific part of the room.

"Oh, you fucker." Raven yelled, clawing her way out of my grip.

She ran at the alien who was coming back, probably for another girl. I don't know what she hoped to accomplish, but she certainly wasn't thinking clearly. The alien grabbed her outstretched hands and hauled her over to the first girl that was dragged out.

He dumped her on the floor and turned his back. Raven hurdled herself at his legs, toppling him over. As quick as lightning, he jammed his electrical weapon into her side. A sickening crackle of skin burning made everyone cower.

"Raven." I hissed, as her body twitched.

I stepped away from the group of woman. Someone tried to pull me back to safety, but I shrugged off their hold. The alien stopped torturing Raven and turned to me.

I stepped closer to him, calmly raising my arms in the universal gesture of surrendering. They clearly wanted us to move towards the back of the room. I wasn't going to make a fuss about it if it preventing another attack on Raven or another woman.

I crept past the alien and over to a spot beside Raven that he pointed to when he realized I would coroporate.

When he turned his back I crouched beside Raven. I gently lifted her shirt to peer at her wound. I was surprised when her ribcage appeared smooth and unblemished.

I pulled her shirt back in place and berated myself for assuming anything about them would be familiar. I had compared their weapons to a taser and assumed it would leave behind marks. For all I know she could have broken ribs or her heart might fail from the alien's technology. I knew nothing about them or their technology.

While I tried to rouse Raven, the other women followed my example and shakily went to certain spots around the room that the aliens had directed them towards.

The aliens chirped together in a huddle. I watched one of them press a section of the wall. A clear thin, glass wall punctured through the ceiling and quickly sealed itself to the floor. Separating us from the aliens on the outside.

The females crouched down, curling into themselves. A thick steam quickly filled the room, I covered my mouth with my shirt, doing the same with Raven and tried to hold my breathe for as long as I could.

I kept an eye on the others, especially the ones who didn't cover their mouths. After a few minutes ticked by, nobody dropped unconscious.

I pulled the fabric from my face. The steam smelt faintly of over fragranted flower. Was this their way of making us smell better? Why would they care what we smelled like?

The hissing noise cut off and the steam dispersed leaving us confused. When the air fully cleared and the barrier pulled back into the ceiling, I realized this was their form of bathing. Our hair was fresh without grease or knots. The thin layer of grim was cleared from our skin. Even my teeth felt cleaner.

We were herded into a different room through another hidden door. I clumsily flung Raven's arm over my shoulder and half dragged her into the next room.

This room had multiple slab of thick material that glimmered like light was reflecting off of it. In between each slab was a toilet of sorts. They looked to be made from the same material as the walls surrounding it.

The aliens seemed to chitter amongst themselves while letting us do our business. Five of us went first and the rest politely tuned away, giving them as much privacy as we could.

When it was my turn, I propped Raven against the shiny metal. I had to climb onto the toilet because of how high it was. As I dragged Raven out of the room, she just started to wake up, her head lulled around and her eyes blinked at me in an urgency that I didn't know how to respond to.

"It's ok, Raven. Everyone's fine. We're clean. That's all that happened."

I spoke to her in short, hushed sentences not wanting to draw attention to us especially after her attack.

They locked us back in our cages and we were met with inky darkness as they left with another group of ten.

A little shorter than my usual chapter lengths. Sorry for the delay with the chapters.