TAL

Chapter 2

The green screen dispersed as He grabbed onto my shirt and dragged me to my feet. I gave a pathetic cry of pain but He didn't seem to really care. To my delight He let go of my shirt and grabbed the back of my neck. "Much better, thanks." The shaking of my voice took away from the effect I intended for my words to have.

Ignoring my remark He pushed me forward towards what I now could clearly see was a craft of some sort. He glided His hand on the wall of the craft as we walked along the brim. Coming to a stop he tapped the wall lightly with the side of his fist, a moment passed and accompanied with the sound of air rushing out, a well hidden hatch opened up. My refusal to step in didn't give Him much trouble as he pushed me in effortlessly. He stepped in after me, the hatch seemed smaller for Him than it was for me. The inside of the craft lit up with the detection of our movement. If you've ever seen the inside of a sci fi spacecraft on tv or the movies I'd say those were pretty accurate to what the room I was standing in looked like. The hatch closed as He walked passed me like a big ball of frustration and walked up to a ladder that was recessed into the wall. He climbed up and growled something which I assumed was a command to follow. Still staring at all the flashing lights and no-nonsense design of the room I hesitantly followed my commander.

Reaching the top I was utterly in awe of the open space the craft provided. One singular curved window covered most of the wall and reached completely around the room. It was pretty empty except for two comfortable looking, white armed chairs. Commander Grumbles took a seat in one of them and started doing important looking things on the console with a lot of buttons flashing in front of him.

Great, two seats so we could enjoy the ride together!

I found the one part of the wall that wasn't covered in buttons or display screens and dutifully leaned against it crossing my arms to hold myself. There was an echoed beeping sound and a large laser-formed screen appeared in front of Him. On it, what I figured was a live stream of the same type of creature He was. The gear that one wore was a bit different, it looked more refined, dignified. A stern and questioning voice boomed out from built in speakers using the same language He spoke in. They exchanged a couple of angry lines before they both looked at me. Mr. "You're coming with me" had to search the room a little to find me, while I tried to become one with the wall in my meager attempt to escape. When I realized disappearing would be physically impossible I gave them a quick wave hoping that would be a good enough show of confidence to conceal my total lack of confidence.

The one I suspected was His superior, said his final words with a hint of relief and the screen dispersed. I think a few minutes passed in silence while he pushed some more buttons and I listened to all the different sounds the craft was emitting. It was like He was getting ready for lift off. Lift off? As in, lift into the air or... space? Am I going to space? Space?! I got sick at the word "space". I didn't want to hear it anymore. It made me feel queasy. No, there was no way we were going to... there. The lights turned off and for a split second the entire room was pitch black. Even the window disappeared. In the next second green bars of lights flashed up one by one overhead.

The lighting was different but I could see again, the window only showing in the front now. Anxiety knocked on my door as the reality of leaving my planet hit me. He turned around and his handy translator, that He conveniently only used once in awhile, flashed from his wrist. He spoke, "Sit down." He turned back again, continuing to not care about my fragile state of freaking out.

Sit down? Space? I feel sick. The S words were really starting to piss me off. But when the craft started to shake, I sat down. Oh did I sit down, I don't even remember how I got to that chair but I sat down in it. I looked for the seatbelt but came up short. Awh hell. I felt like throwing up. The calming voice of a lady who spoke in a language I didn't understand started to countdown. I'm going to throw up. I knew it was a countdown because you can always tell. Especially if you're sitting in a spacecraft that's getting ready for lift off. I'm going to throw up. I suddenly realized that the chair was holding me down. Like it had it's own gravitational pull. No wonder the seats didn't have seatbelts. This was way cooler. I could feel the craft lift off slowly and hover. I'm going to throw up, I'll throw up all over your fancy gravitational chair. I blinked and we were up in the air reaching the clouds. My mind went blank.

I watched as we breached several cloud layers, the beeping sounds fading away slowly. All I could hear was my heartbeat. Staring out the window I popped my ears several times. The sky was getting darker, or was the air getting thinner? Breath, just breath. I think we reached the ozone layer. Was the ozone layer inside or outside? Outside? Are we outside? We were, we were in space. I was in Space. I should take a picture, where's my phone? My phone! Does space have reception?

Wait... does space have wifi?