Them

Part One: The Night

Diary Entry: Saturday June 10

My eyes burst open. I lie still for a couple of minutes

I’m staring at the ceiling. Sweating, I know that I am not alone. I can feel eyes on me. They are in the room. Something is in the room. I’m now unable to move. I can’t even turn my head. I can’t look down. I feel the sheet start to pull down. I’m sure that this is it. The sheet is almost all way off now, trying to scream but no sound comes out. The silence is deafening. The sheet is gone now and suddenly I’m able to move. It’s light outside the window… What just happened?

Where is he? Was it a he? How did it get in here? What was it? Looking around swiftly I don’t see anything or anyone. Setting up slowly on the bed I realize that my sheet is in the floor on the end of the bed. I don’t understand. There is nothing here.

My body is still sweaty. How did it become light so fast? My door is open. I never sleep with my door open. Getting up I almost fall, I can barely walk. I’m really weak and my legs are wobbly. I walk over to the closet, just clothes. How did… whatever that was disappear so fast? I’m incredibly thirsty. I walk down the hallway to the bathroom and get a big drink of water. While in the bathroom I see the bathroom window is slightly open. It’s never even been opened. It’s so high up on the wall and so bright that I can’t see outside. Why would it be open now? Going about my business, I begin getting ready for work. Taking a shower feels exceptional, the most refreshing shower I’ve ever taken. I continue getting ready I get dressed and grab my phone from the night stand.

I was so disoriented when I got up I forgot to check it. “22 missed calls” 22?! You have got to be kidding! Wait, it says that it’s Saturday but that’s impossible. It’s Friday, I went to bed Thursday night and that means that today is Friday. Thinking back, I didn’t hear my alarm go off. I looked at the clock on the table and it read 7:35 so I just thought it was normal. Walking into the living room and turning on my laptop… “Holy crap!” I exclaim as I realize it is, in fact, Saturday. The missed calls on my phone are work, friends from work, and other friends. All the calls stopped at 12:30 PM. I don’t know what is going on. I don’t understand what happened.

No one is at work on Saturday so I can’t call there. Hopefully they will believe me, or at least not fire me. It’s hard to wrap your head around. Who would believe it? Not as hard as what happened next though.

Once I realized that I might as well get on with my day I got dressed and was going to head out and maybe catch a movie. I walked to the door and it wouldn’t open. It’s like it was locked. It shouldn’t be able to lock from inside. The doorknob is one of those that if it is locked, turning the knob unlocks it. After multiple failed attempts, I decided to look out the peep hole. What was outside was not the outside of my house. What should have been my front yard, street, and neighborhood was a six-foot-wide gunmetal gray colored hallway. It was shiny. Very shiny, the extremely clean and polished kind of shiny.

Where was I? Where was my house? How did I get here? These are questions that I am writing down in my journal because I don’t have the answer to them. I am going to keep track of these and hopefully when I get out of here, wherever here is, I will have a record of what happened. Or if I don’t make it… maybe someone will find this.

***

Part Two: The Bag

Diary entry: Sunday June 11

There is a strange thumping noise coming from, well it seems like all around me. I can’t pinpoint where it is. I haven’t heard anything else other than that. My alarm went off at 9 AM. It was Sunday morning; I know that because it is the alarm I turn off every Sunday when I choose not to go to church. My mom would be so disappointed in me. I couldn’t make it today though, obviously. I haven’t slept, I’m afraid to sleep. I know that someone was in here. It’s not a coincidence that I seen someone in my room and wake up two days later.

I heard something that came from nowhere. It’s a dragging noise outside the door. Okay, that was strange. There was what appeared to be a little old woman or man dragging a duffel bag down the hallway. I can’t be real sure as she was wearing a hood and I couldn’t see any features on the body. I watched as much as I could and he, or she, disappeared out of view. I heard the dragging noise for about another 30 seconds then it was gone. I did hear what I’m pretty sure was a door open and shut down the hall, a hundred feet maybe. That was the last I heard for a few hours until I fell asleep.

There was a loud banging noise and then screaming. The screaming was so loud it was deafening. Was it screaming? I ran to the door and tried the knob, of course it didn’t open. I looked out and I could see the featureless thing from before, this time I mean featureless. There was no face although I could see clearly where it should be. Just smooth skin, no hair, no nose, no mouth. The only thing it had was tiny little slits where the eyes should be. It was dragging a bad down the hallway again. The screaming was coming from inside the bag! I yelled from inside the room for it to let go of whoever was inside the bag. I yelled and yelled but is sounded hollow. I was too frightened to even scream. It occurred to me that I haven’t used my voice in probably four days. It was hoarse.

The thing was out of sight but I could still hear the screaming. It was definitely a female voice doing the screaming. That was easy to make out. As for what that thing was, I have no idea. Now I really don’t know where I am. How I got here. What’s going on… Maybe this is just a dream and my alarm clock will wake me up for work on Thursday morning. I know it’s not true. Something was forcefully dragging a woman down the hall in a duffel bag. I’m going to die down here, or up here or wherever here is. I’m so exhausted but I don’t want to sleep. I may not have a choice though. My eyes are going to close sooner or later.

I’ve decided to lay down to sleep. I checked my entire room though before. I had to know that there was nothing here. I shut all the doors and windows. I’ve put flower all over the floors of the house. If anything comes in, then I will know. If I get up and sleepwalk then I will know. If I even I have a mouse I will know. I know there is no one inside my house, but I have no idea what is outside. As I get ready to lay down to rest, I do NOT feel alone.

***

Part Three: The Warehouse

Diary Entry: Monday June 12

Okay, so I was awakened by a loud banging noise outside the door. So many banging noises. So loud. I ran to the door to find it unlocked. Looking out the peephole, there was nothing outside. The floor caught my eye, I forgot about the flour. There were footprints that were clearly mine, barefoot. There was something else though. If I had looked before I walked through it, I could have seen it more clearly. It was a small print. It looked almost human except more circular in shape. Anyway, after seeing that, I was definitely freaked and wanted out.

I walked back to door and peered outside. There was nothing. What was that sound? My stomach was turning. I was so nervous it was making me sick. The hallway had strange smell. It almost smelled like a hospital, but there was something else there that I couldn’t quite place. Venturing down the hall I stopped at another room. It had to have been the room that the thing went into earlier. It was the only door around. Just then I noticed that the hallway looked endless in both directions. Just lights, walls, and floor as far as I could see. I tried to open the door but it was locked. I had no choice so I continued walking toward the hopeful end or the hallway. After about ten minutes I came across another door, this one on the right side of the hallway. It looked like it had some sort of writing on it, but I couldn’t read it, it was some kind of foreign language. I took a deep breath and entered.

The inside of that room was not what I expected. There were shelves, crates, and boxes as far as I could see, this was a warehouse. Human trafficking, that has to be what is going on here, I thought. I think I was wrong. What happened in that warehouse makes me think something is very… very wrong with this place. I was walking through there when I heard a sound, the sound of a duffel bag being drug across the floor. Ducking behind a shelf and shielding myself with crates, I seen it clearly and close. There were two of them. I didn’t even see the second one until I was staring right at it. The lack of eyes caused it not to be able to see me. The way it was moving its head, surveying the area. It was using some other kind of sense. Smell maybe? If it was smell I’m sure it would have smelled me as I haven’t showered in days. Sound maybe? I can’t see any ears on it, so that’s an unknown. Somehow though, it knew something was amiss.

There was a screeching sound and then there were two more. All dragging bags behind them. I was stuck, then in one the bags there was movement. Then there was screaming. They all left the warehouse dragging their bags behind them, I was safe. After a few minutes, that seemed like an eternity, I left the comfy confines of my fort and ventured a little further in. There were more and more of these crates the further in I went. I decided that I had to get one of these open to see what was inside. Trying to pry it open with my hands didn’t work so I needed to find something to open it with. Looking in the immediate area I didn’t see anything. Walking over a little way there was a shelf that looked to be broken and part of the metal bar was hanging from the bottom. A little pulling on it and it came right off. Now back to the crate, I wedged the makeshift pry bar in lid and yanked. The first one didn’t work but the second time did and I fell flat on my ass. Dusting myself off, not that there was any in here, I stood up and looked inside the crate.

It was a woman. She was alive but unconscious. I shouted at her to try to wake her up. That was a bad move. I then found out that those things do go by sound. Within seconds I heard screeching sounds coming from the ceiling. They were up there the entire time. I was relatively quiet until I found her in that crate. They must have been sleeping or nesting up there. I tore through the aisles trying to find the exit. I had wandered so far in that I didn’t know if I was even going the right way. I ran right into one. A big one. That’s the last thing I remember. The next thing a know I woke up here in my room, late Monday night. The flour is cleaned up from the floor so I don’t know if anything has been in here since I left. There is a growing feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something is more wrong than I even thought. I don’t know what these things are. Whatever that was that I ran into was not one of the normal ones that I’ve seen. I am going to sit here for a while and feel sick. I want out of here. I want to be back home. I feel like I am going to throw up. Someone… anyone… please help me…

***

Part Four: The Room

Diary Entry: Tuesday June 13

It’s 3 AM… I can’t sleep. I’ve thrown up so many times. I’m so scared. I want to go home. I heard someone, another woman I assume, being dragged down the hall. Where do they take them? What do they do with them? This will be a short entry. I am writing this down because it helps. It makes it feel less real, like a book. I dozed off for a few minutes. I seen them in my dream, or was it even a dream? They were in my room. Going through everything. I couldn’t move. It was like the last time I seen one in my room. Except it wasn’t the same one. In my dream, it was the ones that drag women down the hallway. The one I seen, the first night was different, taller and slenderer. I couldn’t see a face but, the eyes, they were so white I could see them in the dark. They glistened in the light.

In my dream, after they went through everything in here, they began chanting some weird language, they put their hands underneath me. Just their fingertips and I began floating. It reminded me of the levitating game I played as a child. It never worked then, but it worked now. I was floating in the air. I couldn’t move. I could only turn my head. I see their featureless faces. The slits where eyes should be. I’m sure they could hear my heart beating like a drum.

I was in the air, floating on a cloud of terror. Suddenly I fell and crashed through the bed and landed in a dark room. I could see nothing, the walls seemed so far away… or were there any walls? Was there anything in this room? I could hear the sound of heavy footsteps. I had no idea where they were. The sound was echoing all over so it was hard to pinpoint it. There were low voices, it sounded like those same things. It must have been them roaming around. I was walking in a straight line with my hand out, feeling for something. Hoping all I found was a wall. Blindly stumbling, I found something. It wasn’t a wall, but it wasn’t one of those things either. It felt like a woman. I heard a low crying sound. She was difficult to hear; the sound was muffled.

A light burst on and flooded the place with light. I could see clearly now; it was a woman. The woman from the warehouse. Her mouth had been sewn shut. No wonder I couldn’t hear her. Her hands and feet were bound also… oh my God. She was pregnant! What kind of monsters would do that to a woman? Abduct a pregnant woman! They were probably experimenting on her. All of this went through my head in about a second. I tried to get the ropes off her. I couldn’t get them, they were too thick and tight. I had to find something in here. I turned and looked around and finally seen the room I was in. We weren’t the only women in here.

There was a least a dozen, all unconscious. I heard the sound of a door opening, I could see it, about fifty feet away. It was my only chance. I ran toward the door, when suddenly something grabbed me as I ran through it. I was hit in the face by something hard… that’s the last thing I remember before I woke up here in my bed. What makes me wonder if it was a dream…? I have a swollen blackened eye. The same one I was hit by the mysterious hand, or weapon. Whatever it was, it left a mark. I have to get out of here. First, I have to find a way to the room. I must save the other women. I can’t leave them here with these things. Especially not the pregnant woman. I will save her and her baby.

***

Part Five: The Questions

Diary entry: Wednesday June 14

Watching. Listening. Waiting. The silence has been deafening. Sitting here staring at the door. It’s been 24 hours since I woke up in my room. The more I think about it, the more I know that it wasn’t a dream. Someone or something is abducting woman. Pregnant women. Some are pregnant at least and they are all kept in that one place. What are they doing to them? This place is so big that can’t be it. That’s just one direction from here.

I have to go the other way. I have to find out why the women are here. I have to find out why who these people… no, who these things are and what they want with us. There has to be a reason, surely they aren’t just abducting women for fun… or is it just women? Are there men here too? The thought hadn’t occurred before. I had only seen two others and it was women? What if there is a whole other area here where they keep men? This could be some sort of prison.

I am going now, I have to get out of here and go find out what might be the other direction. If not a way out maybe there is someone else in one of these rooms. Someone that can help. If I could find someone, anyone, we could help out the others. Everyone that is in that warehouse. Every person that is confined to big wooden crates.

Wait... what was that noise? There’s something or someone outside the door.

***

Part Six: The Leader

Diary Entry: Friday June 23 ... maybe

I don’t even know where to begin. The things I have seen and learned since my last entry. I now know why we are here. I know who they are. I know what they are doing and I know that I will never go home again. Let me start from nine days ago…

I heard someone outside my door. I got up to go and see what it was. Before I could even make it there though, the entire room dissolved around me. What was once my house was now just a big shiny metallic room. It looked like the hall outside. It wasn’t real, none of it. The door blasted open and there he was. The same being that I had seen in my room was now standing in front of me. The hood was down and I could see that it had no face. Not that it was missing, there was nothing there. Just imagine the darkest black ever and it was darker than that. It was like a black hole.

I ran at him and he put his hand (or whatever it was) out and I just stopped. I couldn’t move. One of the little ones came into the room, bag in hand. All I could think was that this was it. I was going to be shoved inside one of those crates and left to die, but I was so wrong.

I could feel myself being dragged down the hallway. I was fighting even though I knew it was pointless. When we stopped, the big one reached into the bag and pulled me out. He was so strong. There was no need in fighting them, it was pointless. I was thrown on to a bed, although it was really just a cold steel table. I was strapped down and that’s when it spoke to me, it wasn’t in a language I knew, yet I understood everything it said.

Their people were dying out and they needed more of them. The females in their race are… gone. They have been searching for a strong female race to breed into making more of them. They do not reproduce in the same way we do though. They are interdimensional beings; they are nothing like us. We would view them as magical. They have been dying out for a millennia and have finally found the right race, in the right time, in the right dimension.

I didn’t fully understand at first, so I thought I would still be able escape and to return home. I really couldn’t have been more wrong. He put me out with a wave of the hand. I dreamt of being back at home. I was with an old boyfriend, a boyfriend that had died two years earlier. It was the greatest time I have ever had. I was so happy in that dream.

When I awoke I couldn’t remember anything. I was still strapped down; my body was numb and looking down I could see I had no clothes on. They had done something to me. I felt different. Remembering what I was told, they had found a race to bare their children, my heart sank. I knew what they had done. I was pregnant with one of them.

Just then an unexpected thing happened. My old boyfriend Jake, the same from my dream, walked into the room. I couldn’t believe my eyes; how did he get here? Well the answer was soon given, as when he spoke it was not his voice.

“We noticed from your dreams that this form pleases you.” Not his voice but it spoke English to me. “We do not want you to feel scared while you are here. You are helping to extend the life of an entire race.”

***

Part Seven: The Truth

Diary Entry: Sunday December 16... at least it would have been

I’m never going home.

I spoke to “Jake” for hours that night. This place is a big alien clinic. While their race has been going extinct for a millennium, they have been trying to find a cure for even longer. They have been traveling through, not just space, but time.

Time passes differently where I am now, that being nowhere near Earth. Nowhere near home. This place had been conducting experiments on multiple species for centuries. The different ones that are here, like the small ones, are “failed” experiments on different races from throughout the galaxy. It was when they thought that all hope was lost that they found… us.

They have been taking us for at least five thousand years. Ever since they helped us build the ancient pyramids. We drew them on the wall of our structures to worship them as gods. They helped us, we help them. We just didn’t know exactly what that entailed. There ships come to take us and we are never seen again. Back then, our ancient ancestors didn’t know where they were sending their people. Now we see it as abductions but we just didn’t know what it was.

I am now at their planet, where they impregnate us, somehow. I don’t quite get it yet. I can never leave here though because there is no way to get back. They are so far away that it takes hundreds of years to travel here. I was taken on June 10, 2017 and it is now, according to how long it takes to travel to their planet, it would be the year 2400. I have no family or home to go back to. I am truly alone in the universe.

They sent thousands of ships when they discovered compatible DNA, to take hundreds of thousands of us to procreate. They are rebuilding their race that had dwindled down to only hundreds by the time they found us. The warehouse is where they keep the failures. The ones that didn’t work out. They dump some other failures on nearby planets in this system.

I still don’t know how it all works but I do know that in the time I’ve been here I have seen many of them and the ones that come from us look different. They look more human that the ones that took me. The original race, the masters, keep a close eye on the ones that are made. Jake says they are afraid that there will be a revolt. That they will feel too human and side with the captives instead of the masters.

The masters will soon die out as there are only dozens left. Soon it will be only the humans and the half humans. I don’t know how long it will take for them to die out. All I care about right now is Jake and our baby.