The Game of Undesirables

Chapter 4

I have to spend the next few days gaining my strength back from the surgery, mostly sleeping. I tend to wake up lying on Jay's lap a few times and scoot away, trying to not make the situation look awkward. Since the aliens forgot to give me pain medicine, I'm in more pain than I've ever been in in my life. I can feel the stitches in my skin, keeping the hole from where the bullet was pulled out closed. 

We never leave the room. They open a little flap in the door and scoot trays of food and water in daily. The food is always a white mash that looks like mashed potatoes with lumps of scrambled eggs mixed in them. We try to refuse it, but eventually we become so hungry we don't care. It tastes awful, always dry and leaving a bitter taste in my mouth, but it's all we have. It keeps us alive, at least.

A few weeks pass before I actually feel recovered. As I start to get better, we begin plotting ways to get out of here. We decide to look for the others first, avoiding as many aliens as possible, then fight them as a whole. I teach Jay and Olive everything I know about fighting, which is actually from years of experience. My mom put me in multiple self-defense classes after we were attacked and I haven't quit them since. It takes a few days for them to learn, but it's well worth it. By the time we're ready, we actually stand a fighting chance.

I look at Olive and Jay. "Are you guys ready?" The both nod. I turn to the door, which normally slides into the wall, and start pounding on it. When a few minutes pass and there's no answer, I start yelling at the top of my lungs and pounding even louder with my fists.

The door slides open, a single alien standing before us. It holds an electric staff in its hands, pointing it at us, and hisses something in it's language. I have no idea what it's saying to us. I grab the staff and jab the other side into it's ribs, then tug on it. The creature had such a tight grip on it that it flies forward, and I kick it's legs out from under it. It flies to the ground, the creature's head slamming against the floor, then it lies motionless. I turn to my companions. 

"Come on," I say.  We creep down the hallway, which curves like a giant circle. Rooms line both sides of the chrome walls. "So, where do we start first?"

Before they can respond, I hear a noise behind the door directly next to ours. It sounds like something in between a scream and a cry. I walk to it, startled when the door slides automatically. Four people are huddled inside, peering out at me. One of them, a girl, gets to her feet when she sees I'm not one of the aliens. I instantly recognize her from the news as one of the missing teens. She's Jennifer Crane.

"You . . . you're human?" She can hardly get the words out. 

I nod. "Yes. Come on, we're getting out of here." 

She steps forward, embracing me in a tight hug. "Thank you. Thank you so much." Before I have a chance to say anything, she turns to the others, and I recognize another one of the missing teens, a guy named Benjamin Thorne, and two teens I don't recognize, both girls. She helps them to their feet and turns back to me. "Are there any more of us?"

"We haven't checked all of the rooms yet," I say. I turn and open the door in the next room to the right, where there are three boys. I find the third missing teen, Michael Shuder. They look up at me, completely confused to see another human. 

"What's going on?" Michael says.

"We're getting out of here," I inform them. They smile at this, getting to their feet and following me out the doorway. 

"Michael!" Jennifer practically tackles him in a hug, tears falling. "Oh, I thought they killed you! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he says, kissing her. 

I turn to Jay and Olive, who stand watching all of the people who have been taken captive. In total, there's ten of us. So many of us will never be the same because of them. 

"We need to get moving," I say, turning back to the group of people, our own little army. "We have no idea how many of them are out there, but the only way to get there is to fight through them. We have to make our way to the front of the ship."

"What are we going to do then?" A boy asks. "None of us know how to fly a spaceship."

"That's why we'll need weapons. We'll get those from the aliens."

"How are we going to do that?" Benjamin questions. I open my mouth to answer, but I hear Olive squeak.

"Uhh . . . Aria?" 

I turn and see one of the blue creatures glaring at us, glowing eyes wide, sparking staff in hand. It bares its teeth and hisses, running at Olive. I step in front of her and kick the monster in the stomach, making it stumble backwards with a grunt. While it's off-balance I grab the staff and wrestle it from the creature, then shove the flashing end into it's chest, making it fall backwards and shriek. When I pull the stick back, the monster is motionless, and smoke is wafting from it's cloak. 

I take a second to catch my breath, then turn to their shocked faces. I focus my gaze on Benjamin. "Like that."

He clears his throat. "Thanks for the demonstration."

"I don't think I can do that." A girl peeks around from behind Benjamin, about a foot shorter than all of us. To my surprise, she's also younger than all of us. She only looks eleven or twelve. She has tan skin and dark brown hair, almost black. Her light blue eyes are like crystals, shining through the darkness. They're so pale, it's almost like I can see through them.

I step forward and hand her the staff. "You can have this, then. And stick with me." She smiles half-heartedly and nods. I look around again. "We need to go."

"What if we can't fight them, though?" Jennifer says. 

"We'll have to. It's the only way to get out of here. Just . . . try to stick together." I pause. "Let's go home."

I turn and head down the hall as quickly as I can while still being quiet. The little girl stays right behind me. This is it, I think. I'm ending this.