The Disappearance of Cow Creek

The Dissapearance of Cow Creek

The hot sun sat bleakly in the sky, drying Aspen out as she walked along the cracked, dusty sidewalk of Cow Creek's historic district. Well, actually, the entirety of Cow Creek, being the miserable little dustbowl it was, could probably pass of as part of the historic district, especially since the newest building in town was likely at least 87 years old. I hate dead towns; especially ones in the Midwest. They're dry, boring, trashed, and full of closed minded, dirty old people. Aspen thought, passing by an old cabin that supposedly used to have something other than rodents living in it. And I hate the Midwest itself. Gah! Even the sweat oozing from the back of my neck is hot.

She arrived at a slightly-less disgusting old building that was tucked off a gravel road, surrounded by junk, and lifted up the doormat to find... no housekey.
And I cannot believe I have to stay in this miserable dump for a week in an overpriced, safety code defying excuse for an "Airbnb" that doesn't even have a key left out where I was told it would be. She rolled her eyes, sighed loudly, and started walking again in hopes of finding a cell phone signal somewhere.
Maybe there's one by the town square with that grange and tiny school..
Aspen turned in that direction when suddenly, a noxious fume filled her lungs, making her cough and gag in disgust.
What IS that???
She started to run in any direction that could possibly not be so intoxicating when her legs gave out underneath her, and she collapsed on the gravel road, feeling like she was melting with exhaustion and lethargy, but desperately needing to escape the toxic cloud.
Is this a heatstroke?
She gasped at the burning air as she felt her consciousness slipping away from her. Just as she faded out, she heard, in the distance, multiple explosions and then screaming people. Then everything went black.

Lights. Pain. Burning skin. Cold.

Screams. Pain. Pressure.

Silence. Pressure. Emptyness.

Aspen woke up, unable to see.
Where am I? Am I in a hospital? Where are my clothes?
Everything feels weird, and I feel like I'm under deep water. There seems to be tubes in my mouth, nose, and everywhere else tubes don't belong...

Am I on life support?

Suddenly, she heard a loud but muffled-sounding noise, and something wrapped around her waist. There was a sudden sucking sound and all at once she could open her eyes and was bombarded by bright light, and could feel tubes being removed from her body, which was stiff and weak, and more sucking noise and the water-pressure feeling was gone, and her hearing came in. Her eyes hurt and she couldn't see much, but could make out a huge shadow above her, and electric lights shining waaaay too brightly. She could hear many weird sounds, none of which she recognized. Then she could feel herself being quickly elevated, sort-of-dropped onto something soft, and everything was quiet again. Her eyes adjusted in the more reasonable light, and she could see she was in some sort of a pod, with solid walls, no door, and a mushy, jello-y floor.
I am definitely not in a hospital...
Then, the pod moved and one of the walls, which was actually clear, was uncovered, and she saw where she was.

I'm on a fricking alien spaceship..
Aspen had always been one for sci-fi, but this was a bit too much. Outside the window, she could see a huge room, filled with tons of unrecognizable technology, and rows, rows, rows, and more rows of people. In cylinders. Filled with a green jello-y stuff. Unmoving. And which a ton of tubes and cords attached to and going into them.

And then she noticed the aliens themselves. One would think she'd see them first, but well, she was in shock.
There were tons of oversized, freaky looking aliens moving around the room, operating machinery. And they were taking the cylinders, opening them, shoving their hands? Deep into the goo, grabbing the humans inside from around the middle, and pulling them out removing the tubes, and dumping them into more pods like the one she was in, which then slid into a clear section of the wall. Most of the people seemed to be awake for the whole process, but paralyzed from the goo and blinded by the light until they were dumped into a pod. And most of them looked a lot like scuzzy old folks, or younger inhabitants of Cow Creek; though there were even a few kids.

Me, and the entire miserable little town of Cow Creek have been abducted by aliens...

The shock finally wore off, and she screamed.