* * *
Lana had no idea howlong she slept, and she couldn’t have guessed the amount of time if the prize for guessing correctly had been her freedom. Light poured through the door, across her face, and startled her awake. She struggled to sit up, remembering the bonds on her ankles and wrists only when they bit into her skin and deterred her from rising.
The light was bright and took several moments to adjust to what was before her: not one, but two of the enormous aliens. They stood in silence, their strange eyes fixed on her form.
Between her and the aliens, she noticed for the first time, was the source of the strange stripes she had noticed before: a virtual cage, the bars created by a distortion of matter where the forces of the bars was located. As she looked at them, they dissolved, and with their disappearance a strange hum that she had not noticed until its absence, disappeared.
The restraints on her ankles and wrists dissolved at the same time, but it took her longer to notice the lack of pressure. She shifted her weight as soon as she did, and scooted backward, folding her knees up to her chin and staring back at the silent, unreadable guards.
“Katalana Scott,” one of them said, after a lengthy pause. “You are to rise and follow us.”
A tremor of fear coursed through her body. “Where?” she croaked. Her throat was dry from disuse, and she was aware, upon speaking, of an incredible thirst.
The aliens exchanged glances. “You are to follow us.”
Lana scooted further back, shaking her head and pulling her limbs closer to her body. She was calculating, as she did so, her chances of escape: she was small and quick, and reckoned that she could dart between the aliens’ legs and into the light behind them, if she made the move suddenly enough.
But then, where to? She didn’t even know where she was.
Her eyes moved quickly as she thought, her mind racing. While she had intended to escape from her last captivity, it seemed she had only landed herself in a worse nightmare. She felt a pang of longing for the familiarity of her previous bondage, the sense that she knew what to expect, even the liquid contentment that she had begun to feel for her submission. Where was she now? Who would care for her?
Her eyes watered briefly.
And then, much as she had done when the crash, or whatever it had been, took place, she made a quick decision, and sprang forward, headed in the direction of the ragged triangle of light between the guards’ bodies.
It all happened very quickly; it almost seemed as if they moved apart for her to pass. She felt the heat of their muscular legs as she scrambled between them, her focus on the brightness outside the walls of her cell, her mind on only one thing: escape.
Nothing stopped her as she crossed the threshold of the door. She was moving fast now, but it was bright outside the confines of the cell, and her eyes squinted involuntarily. She flung her hands out to feel for something, anything: a wall, the floor, something.
Her flight was short. Her next step, only seconds, or perhaps just a full second later, her forward foot plunged into nothingness. Her eyes adjusted almost at the same time and took in the picture before her: she was outdoors, on a planet. Jagged rocks, trees, red foliage, a hazy sky. Her body was moving forward, but there was nothing beneath her feet. Her back foot, at the same time, lost its contact with the ground. Her stomach reported to her before her eyes took in the shifting scene before her, the downward smear of the rocks and trees; she was falling.
A scream began to leave her throat. It was mangled, dry, and horrified.
A dull, heavy object made contact against her chest. A flash of black and red, and the whole world spun again. Her back felt hot, the falling sensation was gone, her feet kicked at the air, and her scream was cut short by the pressure on her chest.
She went limp. She was pressed against the hot, smooth skin of one of the guards; the force holding her was a black and red arm, crushing her to his chest. Her head fell forward and her eyes looked down.
A sheer cliff of slate-colored rock plunged down, hundreds of feet, to a gash of vegetation, mostly red. Nausea gripped her chest, and she was sure she was going to faint.
The view of the depths slowly shifted out of sight, and her feet felt cool rock beneath them as they slowly lowered to the ground.
Without saying a word, the alien who was not gripping her moved in front of her, his bare back of muscle close to her face. The alien gripping her, who had saved her from the fall, left an arm around her, and his body remained at her back.
With no choice as their muscled bodies began to edge forward on the rock, Lana moved with them, her legs trembling, her throat closed in fear. She was shaking, but enclosed in the hot, hard strength of the two aliens, she knew she would not fall, and so she abandoned her struggle and walked meekly with them, her eyes closed, her cheek against the alien in front of her, his heart pounding slowly and steadily. She could see only glimpses of the ground beneath her, and the sensation of descent traveled to her feet from the ground. But nestled between the two aliens, who she had only moments ago attempted to flee from, she felt a strange calm coming over her, and her will to resist ebbed away.
They walked a short distance, while around her the sounds changed—noises, like those of a rowdy, human encampment, came to her from behind the wall of muscle, and the air became warm and humid. The sounds died away, and a shadow blocked the light from above.
The warm bodies cradling her moved away, leaving her unsteady on her feet, alone. She blinked, adjusting to the new light.
She was inside a building of some kind, but that was all she could have said about what kind of structure it was. The aliens stood on either side of her, their arms within a hair’s width of her own skin, so she didn’t dare to turn around. The reality of the crazed attempt she had just made began to fill her mind again, and her heart fluttered with the memory of fear while her eyes struggled to comprehend what she was seeing before her.
It was a sizeable room that looked like sleeping quarters; a large piece of furniture resembling a bed, covered in sumptuous fabrics and furs, took up most of the space. Plants, unlike any she had ever seen, with flowers of unimaginable colors and sizes, lined a high, rounded window with light streaming through it.
She stood, waiting for the aliens who had brought her there to give her an indication of what she should do, or a command, or a light push into the room. But nothing happened for such a long time that she finally decided to turn to the alien at her left, who had saved her from her fall. She looked at him imploringly, though she imagined he might not recognize the expression.
“Wh-what is this?” she asked finally. She was whispering.
“You are to remain here in these... temporary rooms... until the mating ceremonies begin,” the alien said woodenly.
