Fly Me to the Moon

Chapter One

"Fly me to the moon.....Jupiter and Mars...In other words, baby, kiss me!" You sang along quietly with Frank Sinatra through your Mp3 player.

You were walking back to your apartment from one of the night classes at the local college. It was dark and you were alone, but the city you lived in was known for being relatively safe, and although your music was somewhat loud, you were always alert of your surroundings. The area you were in was mostly industrial, and not many people lived nearby. Safe, right? It always had been before.

"Astronomy 101" was the class that had just ended. The stars... Oh the stars! You loved them to no end. It was infinitely fascinating, and when you saw Astronomy 101 as one of the offered classes, you couldn't help but sign up. Learning about the stars and the universe just really did it for you.

Your light mood changed when felt a chill on the back of your neck, as if someone was watching you. You turned around but couldn't see anyone. Quickly, you took out your earbuds and tucked them into your messenger bag. You didn't dismiss yourself and your instincts, but you did tell yourself to calm down a little. Your hands had been shaking slightly, and your breathing had become a bit rapid, and in case there was actually something wrong, you wanted to be relaxed and prepared for an emergency.

The word 'emergency' was a tiny bit of an understatement.

Multiple bright lights suddenly flared around you and something loudly hummed over your head. At first you thought it was a helicopter, but it was much too large, and it didn't sound like it had any blades. And why would a helicopter have more than one light trained on you?

Your body began to move itself, and you were trying to run away, but the large hovering whatever-it-was just followed. To your horror, you tripped and sprawled face-first into the hard asphalt, scraping your palms and cheek. You tried to scramble up, but a blueish-white beam of light began to surround you.

The light temporarily blinded you, and you felt yourself rising from the Earth. You tried to move, but found your whole body paralyzed, and if you weren't panicked before, you were definitely panicking now. You couldn't scream, or call for help. For the first time in your grown-up life, you were completely and utterly helpless.

This only happened in movies. You couldn't be abducted. There was no such thing as UFOs...right? You were the only person in your Astronomy 101 class who didn't believe in UFOs or those types of stupid conspiracy theories. However, that didn't mean you didn't believe in alien life. If there was no such thing as UFOs, what was going on right now? You repeated the question to yourself several times.

You felt yourself being yanked upwards by someone (or something) strong, and before your eyes could adjust to the different lighting and you could take advantage of being un-paralyzed, you felt something sharp being stabbed into your stomach followed by an excruciating pain throughout your body.

Then, everything went blank.

When you came to, you were sprawled on a cold floor on your stomach. You felt groggy, and when you tried to push yourself up, you felt a lot of pain in the place your stomach was stabbed, or whatever they'd done to you. How long had you been out? When you finally were able to sit up, you realized you were in some sort of large cage or cell. The floor and back wall were bare metal.

The cage you were in was surrounded by cargo and crates, and in front of the cage was a table and you noticed that your messenger bag was hanging on a hook on the wall. Your hand flew to your side where your bag usually was. A couple of your possessions were laid out on the table, including your Mp3 player, your pocket knife, and a couple sanitary pads, which had been opened. You could only wonder why they might have wanted to open them.