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Iwakewithastart, a jolt of panic coursing through me. I'm not in my bed. My body is bound, and I'm being carried like a sack of potatoes over someone's shoulder. A masked man. Fear grips me, then rage, and I struggle, but my movements are useless against the tight bindings.

"Let me go!" I scream, my voice muffled by the gag in my mouth. My heart pounds in my chest, a frantic rhythm of terror.

In my panicked thrashing, I catch a glimpse of Timothy. He's standing in the doorway, a smile playing on his lips. My heart sinks as I realize he's watching them take me away. My sister and other brother enter the room, see the commotion, raise their brows, but then roll their eyes and say nothing. They seem more content to converse with Timothy.

"Are you just going to let them take me? Help me!" I scream, but my voice is muffled by the gag, my words falling on deaf ears.

They ignore my pleas, their indifference cutting deeper than any blade. The front door swings open, and the cold night air hits my face. I'm dragged out, my screams swallowed by the darkness as the door slams shut behind me.

Tears blur my vision, the betrayal stinging worse than the ropes cutting into my skin. I'm thrown into a van, the door slamming shut with a finality that echoes through my soul. The engine roars to life, and the van lurches forward, carrying me away.

My mind races, trying to make sense of what's happening. Why would Timothy do this? What could he possibly gain from having me taken away? The questions whirl in my mind, but no answers come.

The van moves through the night, the vibration of the engine lulling me into a state of fearful resignation. I'm trapped, powerless to escape, and the only thing I can do is hope that somewhere, somehow, I'll find a way out of this nightmare.

I close my eyes, trying to shut out the reality of my situation, but the images of my siblings' cold indifference and Timothy's smile are burned into my mind. I've been betrayed by my own family, and the pain of that betrayal is more than I can bear.

The van comes to a stop, and the door slides open. Rough hands pull me out, and I'm dragged toward an unknown destination. The night is silent, the only sounds are my muffled cries and the footsteps of my captors.

I'm thrown into a small, dimly lit room, the door slamming shut behind me. The bindings are removed, and I collapse to the floor, my body aching from the rough treatment. The room is bare, with only a single chair and a small table. I crawl to the corner, curling into a ball as I try to make sense of what's happening.

The percentages don’t align.

Hours pass, or maybe minutes—it's hard to tell. The fear and uncertainty are overwhelming, and I can feel myself slipping into despair.

***

“Aliens,” I say, tasting the word. “Bugs,” I add, instantly knowing that word tastes like bile.

I sniff, remembering the new scent in my cell… but, no, it isn’t bile. I sniff again.

Or bug blood, either. I push down the surge of satisfaction. “Twelve bugs dead,” I sing-song.

I wait for the feeling of relief that usually bubbles up after enumerating, but nothing comes. No feeling of safety. No satisfaction. Numbers aren’t working on this damn ship.

One ship. Twelve dead aliens. Six by the throat. Three from pulling off enough limbs. Two from a crushed head chitin. One through the eyes.

But still… zero safety.

No satisfaction, I grumble internally.

Perhaps it is me having spent so long stuck with my own body and its variant smells and oozes in a confined space, but I am pretty sure there is something foul smelling about the cell I’m in. Something new, that is.

It's not an overpowering smell——and further, albeit demeaning, efforts to sniff myself have proven that I am not the culprit——so putting the smell out of my mind has become infinitely easier.

Well, that’s an exaggeration, the smell is still offensive to my nose but only about as uncomfortable as being stuck in a room with an undetectable source of rotten egg smell that just won’t go away.

Nothing too drastic, but it's the sort of scenario you could live with grudgingly.

Hmm. What could I live with un-grudgingly? Is that a word?

No.

“Doesn’t matter,” I chide.

Luckily I can still remember just about everything I’ve ever read, as much as it has served me well for the mind-wrecking periods of sound torture the bug-men have subjected me to. I can still hear the pinging echoing off the walls and my eye twitches at the memory.

Another one of my many woes since I got here.