A spaceship, of course. It certainly wasn't a sailing ship. With its weird, otherworldly noises, the pulsating hum, and just the fact that the inside was bigger than the outside meant that the ship was most likely alien. I mean, I could see the Air Force or the CIA making something like this at Area Fifty-One, but it certainly wouldn't look like a box. No, I'd picture something more like a flying saucer. Sleek, and aerodynamic. Made of brushed steel or maybe some other sort of high-tech alloy, not painted wood. This ship most definitely did not fit the profile for "Secret American Spaceship/Weapon."
But English lettering on the top? What was up with that? Maybe it was some sort of disguise or camouflage.
If it is supposed to camouflage the ship, they could have done a better job, I thought. I've never heard of a "Police Public Call Box."
So it was an alien ship. There was quite a lot of speculation going on about aliens nowadays. I'd heard on the news that some seriously strange things were happening in England. Homicidal Santa Clauses, a deadly Christmas star, the Titanic flying over Buckingham palace (that one had to be a hoax), rhinos that talked and drove cars, a disappearing hospital, and other things of that nature. Except it wasn't just in England. There had been sightings reported all over the world. Some of them even here in the States. But I wasn't going to believe in aliens unless one of them decided to land in my backyard.
While this box hadn't technically been in my backyard, it was close enough.
With a trembling breath, I stepped down off the coatrack and dragged it back to its original place, just to the left of the door. For first time, I really looked at the room, taking in everything. Before, I just regarded it as just an interesting painting, but now that I was standing inside it, I had to accept that this was a real, three-dimensional space. My initial estimate of the ceiling height held. The only thing that I really noticed that was different was that I could see three separate passages that led deeper into the ship. One was down on the floor where I was. The other two were up above the glass platform. There were simple, metal staircases leading to the upper two.
I took two sudden steps forward and latched onto the railing on the stairs to the glass platform in case the room started shaking again. Cautiously, I ascended the stairs. Not daring to release my white-knuckled grip, I took a good look at the console. It seemed to be divided into a number of flattened panels that went around the central column. Each panel, like I'd noticed before, was packed with knobs, switches, gears, and buttons of all sorts. There were even a few things that I couldn't even identify. Like a spinning orb that looked like a sea urchin, or a strange, convoluted piece of rotating metal piping. The panels themselves were made of some sort of clear plastic and covered in white circular markings.
While the setup of this alien control console/thing didn't really look threatening, what really unnerved me was that all the switches, levers, and even some of the buttons were moving all by themselves. Cautiously releasing the railing and tucking my arms in close to my chest, I circled all the way around the console. My movements were stiff as I proceeded step by slow step. I was just waiting for my abductors to jump out at me. But there was no one there. No one was touching the controls or hiding behind the far side of the console.
That unnerved me more than finding an actual alien would have.
A sudden mechanical whirling noise sent my heart into my throat. I whipped around, my eyes darting every which way, trying to find the source of the sound. It echoed off all the walls and didn't seem to come from any distinct direction. Cautiously, I eyed the passageway to the right of the entrance and took two hesitant steps toward it. Maybe the aliens were somewhere else in the ship? Just watching me to see what my reaction was.
I took a deep, deliberate breath to stop myself from hyperventilating.
"Hello?" I called uncertainly, voice shaking slightly. "Is anyone there?"
The steady tempo of the wheezing groan was my only answer.
"Hello?" I said again, a little louder. Slowly, I took hold of the railing and went up the stairs. A hexagonal hallway opened before me, splitting into two about fifteen feet from the entrance. The walls were a metallic silver and decorated with gold, grooved circles at regular intervals. If these hallway splits were regular, and they were all uniform like this, who knew where the owners of this ship could be? And, more importantly, how could I keep from getting lost if I ventured out of the room with the console?
"Hello?" My voice bounced hollowly off the walls. I could imagine it penetrating every corridor.
I stood in absolute silence after that, waiting for my abductors to emerge from the depths of the ship. My gaze shifted almost constantly between the two branching hallways. I licked my lips nervously, shifting my weight slightly. I yelped and started violently when I accidentally bumped into the hexagonal doorway. Closing my eyes, I tried to consciously control my breathing.
Natasha, you've got to calm down, I told myself. But who was I kidding? I was on an alien spaceship that was most definitely not on Earth anymore with potentially hostile aliens. No, most definitely hostile aliens. They'd kidnapped me, after all! Oh, God, what if they turned me into some kind of lab rat like in the movies? Not even the crew of the Enterprise D on Star Trek was free of that threat! I was an experiment, and they'd kill me in some horrific way and I'd never see my family again!
With my arms wrapped tightly around my chest, I realized that despite my best efforts, I'd begun hyperventilating. I felt lightheaded, and I was shaking uncontrollably. My pulse pounded in my ears, threatening to drown out the wheezing groan and the pulsating hum coming from the alien spacecraft.
I knew I had to break the cycle of my thoughts to get out of the panic attack. That was what my counselor always told me. But the fear was so strong that it was practically impossible to think rationally. Without conscious thought, I sank down into the fetal position, my back pressed against the wall of the hallway.
I had to get my breathing under control, or I might make myself pass out. I remembered the technique. Breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth. In, out. With a great deal of effort, I managed to stop hyperventilating, though my breathing was still shaky. I stuck to the rhythm religiously, keeping my eyes closed and pillowing my forehead on my knees.
You don't know for sure if the aliens are hostile, I told myself, even though my fear screamed that the aliens were for sure going to kill me. It might just be all a big misunderstanding! Those happened on Star Trek too. And it usually ended pretty well for both parties.
My breathing hitched.
But this is real life. Not an episode in a sci-fi television series.
I shook myself. Just because this is real life doesn't mean that this isn't just a simple misunderstanding. That's still a possibility.
You don't even know for sure if there even are any aliens on this ship!
My head jerked up at that. I really didn't know. I turned my head, looking down the hallway as I felt my shaking grow less violent. There wasn't any noise or anything that might indicate the presence of aliens on this ship. I looked back into the console room. There was nothing laying out on the car seat-like chairs or the console or anything like that. The place was neat and tidy. But perhaps I missed something.
Still trembling slightly, I rose to my feet and walked back down the steps. I circled the console again, studying it, the chairs, and what I could see through the floor. Dials and knobs turned on the console, but nothing obstructed the unaided motions of the controls. Below, I could see a lot of twisted wiring and many thick cables threaded through the supporting structure, but there were no work boots or any type of maintenance equipment that I could see lying around. I frowned, cocking my head and wondering. Maybe there really wasn't anyone on this ship besides me.
Although, that was almost creepier than the thought of it being populated by hidden and/or invisible aliens.
However…
I straightened up and looked back at the stairs leading to the branched hallway. They could be deeper in the ship. A renewed flash of fear raced through me at the thought of going away from this room, where the doors to the outside were. Of course, I couldn't get them open right now anyway, but what if that changed? Not to mention the fact that I could end up wandering around this ship for hours and get myself lost. I had no way to mark the places I'd been, and if the hallways were all identical then I was pretty much guaranteed to lose my way.
But if I didn't at least check, I would never know for sure, in addition to possibly missing out on a quick resolution to this problem. Especially if my presence on the ship was indeed a misunderstanding. I'd find the aliens, apologize, and they'd take me back home. The end.
Or I could be walking into a trap. Become a lab experiment and—
With immense effort, I cut off that thought before it could trigger another panic attack. I was nervous enough already.
Warily, I ascended the staircase once more and entered the hexagonal hallway. Reaching the split, I chose the right hand branch, mentally logging that in my mind. As long as I could vividly remember the turns I took, I should be able to get back to the console room. The hallway curved in a serpentine for a bit before splitting again. This time, I went left. Right, then left, I thought to myself, constructing a mental image of my path thus far. All along this hallway were doors. They were hexagonal, like the hallway, and reminded me of the doors on the Enterprise D. And like on the fictional galaxy-class starship, they opened automatically when I approached, sliding apart with a nearly inaudible hiss. Idly, I thought that these doors made the Star Trek doors seem obnoxiously loud.
What was in the rooms really didn't make much sense. The first door I tried, on the left side of the hallway, was full of strange objects piled up as high as the ceiling, which was a good forty feet high. I didn't dare go in that room for fear of disturbing something and bringing the whole pile down on top of me, but I did note that the pile was covered in a thick layer of dust, like it hadn't been disturbed in a very long time.
The door directly across from it opened to an unmistakable indoor tennis court. There were metal benches to sit on, towels and rackets hanging from hooks on the walls, and even lockers to put your stuff in. Nothing aside from the gear for the game was in there, though. Unlike the previous room, this one was conspicuously clean. That meant that it was either used or cleaned regularly. A sign that there just might be aliens hiding in here somewhere. But then, the console room hadn't been dusty either, even though it presented no obvious signs of habitation. Why the dusty room then? Maybe all the dust got dumped in there when the ship's self-cleaning systems activated? (If the ship did have self-cleaning systems, that is…)
I frowned at the dilemma, but knew that I didn't have enough evidence to make a concrete conclusion just yet.
The next door opened to a room that had something resembling a willow tree in it. That is, if willow trees were made of long black cables and grew huge, oval lightbulbs. This room I actually dared to enter, remembering that the door had been on the right side of the hallway. The bulbs were roughly the size of basketballs, and engraved with matching circular patterns. I reached out towards one of the bulbs to feel the texture, and the second my fingers brushed against its smooth surface, every single bulb flickered. A loud buzz filled the room, and I flinched at the sound, swiftly withdrawing my hand. I stayed frozen in place for several tense minutes. When nothing else happened, I made for the door and counted myself lucky.
I exhaled in relief as I stepped back out into the hallway, then yelped as I was thrown across to the other side of it as the ship lurched without warning. Looking across to the door I'd come out of, I scrambled to get my bearings, mentally flipping the image in my mind as I began sprinting back to the control room. Right at the first split, then left, I thought to myself. I stayed close to the wall as I ran, the ship pitching wildly around me. I struggled to keep my balance, slipping and leaning heavily on the wall. I nearly fell on my face a couple of times, just barely managing to catch myself before going down completely.
When I got back to the control room, I was pitched forward and fell towards the console, completely missing the steps. I landed hard on my left shoulder, and I had no doubt that I'd bruise from it. Briefly stunned, I tried to get my body to cooperate before I was catapulted into the ceiling or something. As the ship tilted violently yet again, I managed to grab hold of the console. Once I was sufficiently anchored, I braced and tried to ride out the turbulence. Like when the ship had taken off, there were several minutes with the floor bucking and rolling under my feet. The wheezing groan grew strained, and more pronounced the longer this went on.
Then, as suddenly and unexpectedly as it started, it stopped.
