Chapter Text
Alessa marked her current predicament down to her own carelessness, though truth be told, in hindsight there wasn’t much she could have done to avoid it.
Maybe if she had downed a fifth cup of coffee that evening? Or set a more interesting essay topic, instead of ‘ analyse how one or more events had a powerful impact on a main character in The Crucible’ .
She might have been more awake if she had.
Instead, by eleven pm, driven almost to tears by the tedium of a dozen similarly phrased essays and the words swimming on the page, she had given up. Tossed in the towel. Slapped her laptop closed with a frustrated groan and ran her hands over her face, nudging her glasses up onto her forehead to dig the heels of her palms into her eyes.
She’d packed up her things, gathering papers into a haphazard pile before stuffing them in her bag alongside her laptop. She took a moment to pull the lime green scrunchie out of her hair, giving her curly brown locks a shake out before twisting them back up into a loose ponytail. Downing the cold dregs of her coffee she waved a hand goodbye at the barista behind the counter before heading out into the cool night air.
Her dusty old Toyota Corolla was across the carpark. In any other of the cities she’d lived in, she would normally feel apprehensive walking much further than the front door at this time of night. However this was a small town on the West Coast of New Zealand. Where rush hour was more than ten cars on the road and you couldn’t go for a five minute trip to the supermarket without seeing at least half a dozen people you knew. And this late, the place was like a ghost town. Barely a person in sight.
No, she had no problem walking across the dimly lit parking lot. What was to be Alessa’s eventual downfall however was her distinct lack of situational awareness due to the fatigue coursing through her, as well as her eternal clumsiness.
She had just got to her car and was tugging the keys from her bag. The corner of her rainbow lanyard had gotten caught on something , and with a grunt of frustration she had pulled just a tad too hard.
“Fuuuuuck,” she groaned, bending down with the grace of an eighty-year-old to fumble in the shadows for the keys that had fallen out of her grasp.
The few seconds it took for her to turn her gaze to the ground was all the time needed for her to miss the roiling purple mass in the space above her, and the revelation of a giant alien ship emerging from within. It made barely a noise as it cruised above her, sleek and predatory and barely visible against the moonless sky.
Alessa straightened, a triumphant smile on her face as she moved to put the key in the lock. A flash in the reflection of the window caught her eye and she paused, turning and craning her neck skyward.
“What the shit….”
The next few minutes played out as if in slow motion. Adrenaline spiked in Alessa, any previous tiredness gone as she stared up at the huge alien thing in the sky. It looked like a spaceship, but like nothing she’d ever heard about before, made of some sort of dark material, with-
‘Oh my god are those tentacles?!’
That was the only thought Alessa had time to process before one of said appendages lashed out, curling towards her at a lightning pace. She turned her head, feet moving on instinct towards the comforting light of the coffee shop. Her bag fell forgotten as she began a desperate dash towards the warm, yellow promise of safety across the lot.
One step. Then another. And another. A scream threatened to burst out of her, to alert someone, anyone, of what was happening. But it was cut off before it could begin as a hard mass collided with her middle, knocking the wind right out of her, leaving Alessa gasping for breath. The thing coiled around her middle, tightening its grasp and pulling her backwards.
Her instincts caught up with the fact that she was being abducted by aliens, finally sending her body into fight mode. Feet kicked out. Hands clawed at the thing at her waist, trying to find any purchase, any leverage to get it away.
All of it was to no avail, and Alessa felt the panic rising quickly now. A bubble of manic laughter threatened to leave her as she realised the ridiculousness of her situation.
‘I'm going to die. On an alien spaceship. Either that, or I’ve had a complete mental break.’
A bolt of pain shot through her midriff, cutting off her thoughts. The world around her moved into real-time again as she felt the burning of what felt like a thick needle pierce just above the small of her back. She immediately felt the effect of whatever it was that had been put into her.
Her limbs instantly felt heavy, sluggish. She tried to continue her struggle, to push back. But her arms no longer obeyed, a cold burning numbness causing them to hang limp. Her leg followed suit, and she could feel it creeping up her chest, her neck.
'What was I fighting again?' Even her thoughts were thick and bogged down, clouded by whatever drug was coursing through her. She could barely focus now, her eyes heavy, her mouth hanging slack.
The last thing she saw was the ground growing further and further away as she faded into unconsciousness.