I never liked Mondays to begin with, and being abducted definitely did not help change my mind on the matter.
It was 3am, and I was out picking up some chocolate ice cream from the nearest convenience store. Looking back, that was a stupid idea. My sleep deprived self must have checked the fridge for a nice cold snack only to find it empty and must have decided that I needed some. ASAP.
With the delicious treat swinging in my bag, my mind wandered off as my feet took me down the familiar path back home. I counted the hours of sleep I'll probably get that night before I reached the alleyway that I often use as a shortcut back to my apartment.
Without a second thought, I had turned into it and was almost halfway through before something wrapped around my left foot, sending me crashing onto the ground and my ice cream carton flying a few feet away.
Great. Absolutely spectacular. Mondays suck.
Annoyed, I sat up, ignoring my scraped hands to see what the fuck my foot had caught on.
"What the hell?"
There was a silver bracelet-like device locked onto my ankle, kind of like those ankle monitors on people under house arrest. It looked a lot more sleeker and high tech than those clunky things though. I frowned as a little green light flickered on and off.
That had better not be a bomb. I didn't want to touch it, afraid of accidentally setting it off. I looked around, eyes searching for where it could have shot out from.
My opinion of not touching it changed rather quickly when something sharp suddenly stabbed into my ankle. I yelped and started to pull on it, even going as far as bashing it with a chunk of fallen brick to get it off.
The brick broke. The last thing I remembered was staring down at the damn thing in dismay before everything went black.
I woke groggily, a thumping ache in my head. My eyes swam before they finally focused on the grey ceiling above me, and I became aware that I was lying on something hard and cold. I also became aware of my aching neck, which really did not appreciate the hard floor it had been resting on at an uncomfortable angle.
What the hell happened? Was I kidnapped or something? I finally stirred, pushing myself up with a soft grunt and rolled my neck, hearing that satisfying crack. As I sat up, my nose caught a whiff of a hospital-like scent. Clean, sterile, and full of chemicals.
Oh please tell me I have all my organs. I want none of that black market or human trafficking shit. I patted myself down, noticing everything in my pockets were gone. Well shit. Was I robbed and ditched at some random place then? But at least the ankle device was gone as well. More than a little confused, I waited for my eyes adjust to the darkness.
What. The. Fuck.
I decided then and there that Monday is my worst enemy.
I was sitting in what seemed like a glorified dog crate. The area seemed to be around 4ft by 4ft, and I soon realized I couldn't stand up fully. I was not a tall guy, mind you. I'm only 5'6, but the height of the crate barely lets me go fully upright even on my knees.
The metal bars surrounded me on all sides, except for the solid metal sheet serving as the floor of the cage. Looking up, I realized the grey ceiling I had been staring at when I woke up was actually the bottom of another crate stacked on top of mine. My assumption was reinforced from the deafening rattling above me as my new upstairs neighbor released a feral scream that almost popped my eardrums. It sounded like a damn panther.
Who the hell thought it was a good idea to keep a panther in here?
I watched as a few clumps of fur drifted down from above outside the bars of my cage. It did not sound happy, and honestly, I don't blame it.
I moved towards the door of the cage, trying to push or pull it open. It held tight. I felt around for a padlock or anything keeping the door shut, but all I found was a blank panel of some sort on the bottom left of the door. There was no keyhole or anything, just a smooth blank slab. Needless to say, I was thoroughly confused.
Giving up on the escaping idea I glanced at the two cages on each side of me, wondering with some trepidation who, or what, I'd find there. The cage to my left contained a motionless dark blob. I squinted, making out a somewhat toad-like outline, but it was far too big to be any kind of toad or frog. Parts of it glimmered from the dim light of the area, and I could tell that it was either very slimy or very wet.
I jumped when it shifted with a squishing noise, the low light catching on its red, goat-like eye before it released a bubbly drawn out squeal, much like that of a sad deflating balloon in water.
Icky. I shuffled away from it a bit, wondering if I had ended up in some mad scientists' lab or something. What the hell was that thing?
The creature on my right looked like the outline of normal dog lying down on its side, and in my relief of seeing something familiar that finally made sense, I called out to it softly without thinking.
"Hey buddy, you stuck here too?"
It raised it's head and looked at me, yellow eyes glinting. And then another head followed. And another. I froze, staring back at 3 pairs of baleful eyes observing me.
Ooo-kay then. Dog with three heads? Still better than the toad thing next door, right?
And then it fucking stood. Stood as in on six legs instead of four and what used to look like the outline of a normal body of a dog expanded into something much bigger as its extra limbs unfolded from underneath it. It stalked over with soft clicks from its nails, and I can now make out a rat like snout on each head.
Hell no. I quickly scooted my way back towards Sad Toad, my scrambling unfortunately disturbing my angry neighbor above, which in second thoughts, was probably not a panther. It screamed again, rattling it's cage so hard I felt mine shake as well.
A few returning calls of different creatures rang back outside my cage. Great. There were more of them.
At least it stopped Not Dog from coming any closer. All three heads cringed at the ear shattering scream, and it retreated to the back corner of its cage, laying down again but with its back turned towards me this time. I let out a breath I didn't realize I've been holding.
This whole thing felt like a fever dream, and for a brief moment I entertained the idea that it was, in fact, just a dream. That made me feel a little bit better. I huddled in the corner near Sad Toad's cage, glumly thinking about the ice cream I never got the chance to eat.
A bright light flicking on and the sudden cacophony of loud creature calls woke me up with a jolt. I heard Sir Screams upstairs eagerly join in. I shielded my face from the piercing light, tears welling up in my eyes every time I tried to peek out into the brightness.
Dammit, I must have fallen asleep. How long was I out? I blinked rapidly, wiping away the tears on my sleeves as my eyes adjusted to the sudden light.
Aw shit.
I had guessed there had to be more things in crates here, but I never expected for there to be... this many. Crates of different sizes were stacked on top of one another, reaching up to 4 crates a stack. There were different creatures in each cage, some containing multiples of one species and some containing only one creature.
There was one thing in common though. A lot of them looked nothing remotely like anything found on earth. And for the few creatures that do, their bodies and shapes seemed wrong and unearthly.
There was a sinking feeling in my stomach as the reality of my situation dawned in upon me. This was real. This was actually fucking happening. I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. I don't think I'm on earth anymore. Was I really snatched off the streets just to be displayed as a specimen in some kind of alien zoo?
As the din around me finally started to quiet down, the dynamic voices in an alien tongue caught my attention. I scooted my ass towards the door of my crate, peeking out to see what kind of abomination will greet my eyes next.
Two bipedal lizard-like aliens were a few crates away from mine. The redder one was pushing a cart full of containers and the other more orange hued one had a stack of bowls tucked under its arm.
They were fucking big. At least a foot taller than me standing at my full height. Covered head to toe in reptilian scales, their purple forked tongues flickered out every so often like snakes. I watched as they communicated with each other in that odd hissing language of theirs as they worked.
I had no idea what they were talking about, but there were a lot of frill movements involved. Seemingly done discussing something, Orange held up a clawed hand to a panel on the crate. The panel lit up a bluish green, then flashed before it clicked open. Must be some kind of fingerprint scanner, I concluded. No wonder why I hadn't seen anything holding the cage door shut.
Orange held out a bowl towards Red. Red stopped and scooped out something from the container and filled the bowl up. Orange pushed it in the open crate and filled another bowl with what I assumed was water before closing the door and moving on.
Were they... feeding us? My stomach growled, reminding me how hungry I was. Do they even know what humans eat?
I watched them warily as they came closer and closer, until they were at Sad Toad's cage. Sad Toad got a bowl of purple grub-like things. The chonky thing whistled, a tentacle-like tongue flicking out and curling around one of the wormy things before dragging it back into its mouth. I watched in disgust as a squirt of purple goo exploded outwards. At least Sad Toad seemed to be enjoying it, judging from its happy blurbs and splorps.
I flinched as the door of my own cage opened, and I instinctively pressed myself as far back as possible. I watched as Red filled my bowl up with brownish green pellets. It literally looked like dog food. And not the good kind either.
As soon as my water dish was filled, I expected them to close the door and leave. Orange seemed to have other plans in mind though. It... She? He? I honestly had no idea, so I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume its gender. His gender. He said something, voice a lot higher than his normal talk with Red. He continued talking to me, mixing in soft clicks and other various noises. It took me a few seconds before realizing what he was doing. Dude was baby talking me like I'm an animal.
"Piss off," I told him, my ego more than a little bruised.
Orange kept talking, then slowly reached a clawed hand towards me. My eyes widened, seeing those sharp things coming towards my face.
Oh hell no. Is he trying to pet me? With those sharp claws? I don't know about you, but I sure as hell didn't want to be accidentally scalped.
"Don't you fucking dare," I said quietly, my eyes fixed on those clawed hands.
He dared.
And so I bit the damn bastard.
I might have bitten down a lot harder than I planned. I thought since Orange was covered in scales, his hand would be a lot tougher. Turns out the scales on his hand were more leathery than hard.
Orange released a startled screech, yanking his hand out of my cage. I felt one of his claws glance off my face, followed by something warm running down my cheek. Guess he got me back.
He looked down at his appendage as a drop of purple liquid welled up and looked up back at me. I had no idea how lizard faces worked, but to me, he looked kind of shocked. Red exclaimed something, grabbing Orange's bleeding hand and inspecting it. Red's tail twitched.
"Yeah, fuck you," I said vehemently. I couldn't keep the smug look off my face as I spat out the purple blood. "Serves you right, bastards. Shouldn't have abducted me in the first place."
My smirk quickly vanished, however, as Red straightened up and looked right at me. His lips peeled back from his razor sharp teeth like he was smiling, but I knew that was definitely not the case.
I gulped. He's totally pissed.
Whoops.