'Sacmis' (formerly 'Alien Abduction')

Chapter 7: Irvn

Gemma stared back at the Stranger with a look of open hostility.

"OK, I'm listening," she said. "It'd better be good."

“I have to warn you,” he said, “you may find much of it hard to believe.”

“Try me,” she said.

“My name is Irvn," he pronounced this ‘Eer-van,’ “and you must have noticed that I look…different.”

“You should see some of the kids I have to teach,” she replied.

He laughed.

“I don’t look like other men, because I’m not from your world. Not from Earth, that is. But I am nevertheless ‘human’ in almost every way that matters.”

“That’s a new one on me,” she interrupted, “I suppose you say that to all the girls?”

He smiled and, despite herself, she thought it suited him. 

“As I said, we are currently on what you would call a ‘spaceship’ in stationary orbit on the dark side of the moon and therefore not visible from Earth.  And, as you would put it, I'm an Alien. Though of course, I don’t think of myself that way.”

“Rubbish - ” she said, “Aliens are little green men with multiple arms and eyes on stalks.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” he said drily.

Her eyes were drawn again to the spectacular view outside the window. If it was artificially created, it was incredibly well done. There was a real sense of perspective, of 3-dimensionality - without the glasses they handed out at the movies.

She turned back to face him. He certainly looked like no man she'd ever met. While his body shape looked normal and she'd very occasionally met men as tall, it was his face - and especially his eyes - that marked him as different. Nobody on Earth, so far as she was aware, looked quite like that. Could he be telling the truth? Was it all really as he said? If this was a hoax, it was an elaborate one.

"Put aside whether or not I believe your story," she said "but what I do know to be true - beyond a shadow of a doubt - is that I have been abducted and you are holding me here against my will. So I have just two questions - ," listening to herself she realised she'd slipped into schoolteacher mode, as if she were back in class, addressing her testosterone-fuelled adolescents, "One - why? Two - when are you going to let me go?"

“The first question is easy to answer," he said, " though you may have difficulty believing it.” Then a harder tone entered his voice as he added “The answer to your second question may be…problematic.”

"You sound exactly like a politician," she snapped back. " - which probably proves you really are an Alien."

© Adriana Nicolas 2014