Kate
Iwake to the hushed sounds of someone moving inside my cell. Diluted sounds of metal slowly grinding against metal and gears locking, softly clicking into place. I remain still, eyes closed. I don’t dare move a single muscle.
Whatever or whoever it is seems to be doing something on the opposite wall from where I’m lying.
“You are awake,” a deep mechanical voice utters.
I lay still and silent, listening. Waiting.
A whir and hum and two muted steps creak closer.
“You are awake,” the voice repeats, closer now.
“No, I’m not,” I shout, opening my eyes into narrow slits. Thethingis a little darker than a shadow, hovering over me.
“You are awake,” it says once again, this time lower and almost questioning.
The cell is bathed in darkness and the creature’s black shape slowly moves back, busying itself once again with something on the other side of this tin cell.
A dim light gradually pulses from somewhere on the walls. The source of the light can’t be seen, and yet the walls glow slowly warm and radiant, increasing in brightness. It happens so imperceptibly and as naturally as a real sunrise.
When the cell is fully lit, I bolt upright on the small bunk. “How long have I been asleep?” I ask in a dry gravelly whisper. Without a window or the ground, I can’t guess the time. I touch my feet to the floor quickly, my body still cocooned in the heavy wool blanket.
I’m instantly lightheaded and the steel floor is pulling me down. I lean back heavily against the edge of the bunk, trying to steady myself, but the pull of the floor is winning this small gravitational war.
I slip noiselessly down. My heart drums awkwardly, I feel it in my neck pulsing and racing, then thudding slugglishly slow. I feel drugged. My muscles smart and my lungs ache, they feel hollow, empty.
The asshole turns around and stands watching me.
I take a slow deep breath in, trying to gather strength, then I lift my eyes toward his. I can’t read the creature’s features, but I know he can tell mine. And right now, I know his thermal imaging screen is probably sounding alarms about my state of health as the room spins wildly around me.
“Your body is getting acclimated to being on board,” he states, turning his head and pressing a few more buttons and levers on the wall. I try to watch the things his fingers touch but I keep having to blink my eyelids hard and focus on breathing so as to not, like, drop dead or whatever.
“The General wants you dressed for feeding,” it says, pointing its silver tipped digits toward a metal pile of limbs on a shelf in the wall.
“The General?” I laugh, wickedly, getting my bearings back. “GeneralRuneis here?”
The creature stills. “General Pious,” it says, just above a whisper.
“Pious is not the general,” I snort, pulling myself up to stand, angry and weak.
“General Pious is—”
“A dick?” I interrupt.
His head tilts at a comedic angle.
“An asshole? A shithead? An arrogant self-serving dick-juggling thunder cunt?”
His arms slam down to his sides and his entire body stiffens.
“Your real general… General Rune, told me your people have never seen flesh before. Not even their own. Take off your mask.”
“That’s an impossibility. There are airborne pathogens that would decimate our population and—”
“You really believe that?” I ask, stepping closer.
“General Rune was expired in this way. The footage was made available.”
