The Disappearance of Cow Creek

Flight

I sat still for a long time, listening to the quiet humming of the ship's engine and the aliens' voices drifting through the walls, not sure what to think. I had managed to push apart the thick cardboard walls of the first cage, so I was only confined to the larger metal wire crate that the box had been locked inside. I looked around the section of the small ship I was in. It was a bit cold, dark, and everything was white of silver colored metal. There were numerous other cages, empty ones, on shelves in the walls, as well as some unrecognizable equipment hanging up. I pulled up the towel that had been in the cardboard cage, and wrapped myself in it. It felt nice to have something covering my back. I paced around the cage, then stopped at the door. It's not locked. There was nothing keeping the door shut except for a latch. I couldn't reach around the plate behind it with just my arm, but with the towel...
I climbed up the bars to the latch and fed the towel through, then looked at the latch. It was a simple bar that had to be pulled to one side. I folded the towel in half to make a loop of sorts, clung tightly to the bars, and swung my arm towards the latch. The towel brushed the metal and then slid off. My arms were starting to burn. I threw the towel again, and again missed. Third time's the charm.. I held my breath, threw, and missed. Guess not. Ugh. Once more.. I threw. The towel hit the latch and caught. Yes! I carefully pulled, the latch slowly sliding towards me. It was remarkably similar to a dog kennel latch from earth, but spring loaded. I heard the click of the door being released, and I tied the towel to the bars so that it wouldn't spring back.
"eep!"
The door swung out, with me clinging to it. I looked down and saw the floor far - too far - below me. Slowly, I inched back towards the cage on my trembling legs, then hopped off the door and back into the safety of the solid cage. I looked over the edge and saw there was a shelf below me. If I tie the towel to the bars, I have less far to drop down to there. From the shelf below me, I could drop to the floor. I sighed, and slowly climbed back up onto the free-swinging door. It swayed with each painstaking movement I made toward the towel tied to the latch. Breathe in. If I fell from here I'd surely break something. I won't fall, the bars are secure. My hands were slick with cold sweat; I could slip. I looked up and the towel was an arm's length away. I shuffled across the bars and grabbed it. The latch sprang back as I released it - Clang! - the vibration shook the door and suddenly it swung back towards the cage. Clunk! The door whacked against the face of the cage and threw me off the bars, where I landed on the cardboard laying in the cage, towel gripped tightly in my hands. I exhaled a breath I had been holding. The door was still open, because the latch had engaged before the door shut. I got up slowly, and moved to the door again. I pushed it away so it swung out of my way, then tied the towel to a bar on the floor of the cage. I yanked the knot hard, praying it wouldn't slip, then threw the other end over the edge. The towel, being alien -hand towel- sized, would give me about seven feet less drop height. I shuddered, and clambered onto the towel. Here goes nothing. I let go of the cage, and slid down the towel. "Ack!" Before I knew it, my feet were dangling in the cold air. I gripped the towel hard enough to damage my hands, and came to a stop. The empty shelf was in front of me, and the floor still loomed uncomfortably far below. I swung my legs, and swayed on the towel. C'mon... I kicked my legs foreword and back, building up momentum, swinging back and forth, then let go. "Ah!" I fell through the air, my breath catching in my throat. Whumph! I hit the shelf and rolled.
I'm okay. I'm okay! I sat up, and crawled to the edge of this shelf. The floor was maybe twelve feet below me. Do I want to fall that far?
Do I have a choice now?
I rubbed my feet and ankles to warm them up in anticipation. If I hang from my hands, the fall is more like seven feet.. I inched over to the edge, the adrenaline already tingling at my hands and feet. I swung my legs over the edge, and slowly scraped my way down to hanging with only my armpits and arms holding me from the shelf. My breath hitched in my throat, and I shut my eyes, and dropped.
Thunk.
I hit the ground and rolled, pain coursing in between the small bones of my feet, where I absorbed too much of the impact. My shoulder ground into the floor where I rolled on it, and I came to a stop.
I'm down.
I looked up at the door of my cage swinging many feet above me, then flipped myself over to look around. The cold floor did nothing good for my generally strained and chilled physical state, so I stood up. From the floor, I didn't have many more options than I did in the cage, but I began walking around, checking out what was in the cupboards and corners nontheless. I would've tried to open the back doors and escape, but they were much too heavy, and we were flying. Being alone with a bunch of freaky aliens sounded miserable enough, but I'd take that over plummeting to my death from a few thousand feet up.

The cupboards did not contain much of interest, though I did find some odd looking tools and a stockpile of large towels. They were otherwise empty. Maybe if I hide in one, when we land, I can sneak out and flee. I thought about it, but then realized I would almost certainly be caught, and I didn't want to make any of the aliens mad. Even if I was just an animal to them, who knows what sorts of punishment their standards of "humane treatment" entailed. I decided to grab a few of the towels and wrap up in a corner, where I could be found quickly and hopefully, without angering anything.

Bundled up in the corner, I felt relatively safe, even though it was anything but, the dim lighting and security of the nearby walls and being enveloped in towels was comforting. I lay down and drifted into my head, thoughts of what lay ahead whirling around in my brain.

...

I woke with a start, unable to see due to a towel covering my head. I heard a click and the sound of a door opening, and the alien voices talking back and forth. I frantically scrambled around until my head was out from underneath the towel, and looked around. From my nook in the corner, I could see two aliens, one outside the ship, where I could see it was now nighttime, and the other walking towards the cage I had been put in. I shrunk into the towels a bit more and debated whether or not pretending to be asleep when it inevitably found me.

The alien approached the cage and then stopped mid-step when it saw that the door was unlatched. It made a noise, a panicked one, and jumped forward to frantically paw through the cardboard and towel heaped in the cage. Upon realizing my absence, it called something to the other alien, who quickly shut the door to the back of the ship. I suppose they realize I must be somewhere in here and don't want me to escape.
The alien started checking the spaces around the back of the cage, and then started looking in the corners. It took seconds to find me, and upon seeing me in my huddle, made a pleased noise and bent to scoop me up, but then stopped itself. I stared. It stared. Then it turned to the cupboard with the other towels and grabbed a large one. What the heck are you doing?
The alien held the huge towel folded in half, and approached me. This was a bit intimidating. I stiffened up, then the alien quickly threw the towel over me and scooped me up in the mess. The towel was over my head and couldn't see anything. I tensed in its hands, waiting for whatever was going to happen to me. Defying my expectations, it didn't strike me or shake me violently or anything, it just put me back in the cage and re-latched the door. I squirmed our from the mess of towels. The alien looked at me, and made a long exhale.
You too?
Then it pulled the cage off the shelf and carried me out the door. I jumped to my feet as we left the ship and started walking with the other alien. We were heading for a large building, though I think this was the back of it, since the doors were disproportionately small compared to the size of the place. Then again, what would I know about alien design and architecture? We walked up to one door, and one of the aliens put a small metal item up next to a screen on the wall. It made a noise, and the door unlocked. Kinda like a keycard scanner. We walked through the door and into a dim, empty hallway. There was a shiny floor and the air smelled strange, and there was a constant noise, like of some sort of fan in the distance. We took a number of turns and then entered a room through another door. I could see a thick glass wall, and behind it a mess of shapes, but it was too dark to tell what they were. The room was rather plain, and had a large closet in one end and a rolling cart in the other. And the glass wall took up the whole face of the wall furthest from me. It had a double-door set into it.
I highly doubted I was going to be put in a supply closet or on a cart. The ominous glass barrier was the only other thing here. What is all that behind the wall?
The alien carried me into the double doors, and a gust of fresh air hit me. It grew more intense as we went though the second set of doors. I looked around, and realized that all the dark shapes behind the glass were plants.
The alien carried me about ten feet into the brush, and set the cage down. It then opened the cage door, tipped me out onto the moss below me, and walked back out through the double doors with the empty cage.