I lay still, trying not to twitch and give away my ploy. This would be my only chance.

I lay completely still, forcing a calm over myself. I stared at the backs of my eyelids intently, trying not to fall asleep. I slowly felt myself getting drowsy, and as my determination faltered, I started to watch the show my mind was playing me on the backs of my eyelids. The pictures were dark and undecipherable, almost not even there. I watched these flitting pictures with interest, allowing them to strengthen on my eyes.

I twitched back into wakefulness as the noises started to accompany the show. I didn't open my eyes, but I almost did, trying to force myself not to wake up. It was successful for a couple seconds, then I started to drift back into sleep. This time I tried to ignore the pictures and just see the dark shining red of the light through my eyelids.

I started to count as well. Just a simple series of numbers to keep yourself busy in your extreme boredom.

1, 2, 4, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, 192, 384, 768, 1536... Just double the numbers.

I got really far into that before I gave up. Maybe they weren't coming tonight? Or today. Or whatever it is right now. It's not like I've got a clock in here or anything, cuz if I did, life would seem so much more real, ya know? It's like, when you do stuff and have no idea how much time has passed, or lost track, then time either seems to speed by, or go nowhere. Like in school, when I forget to study for some test, the periods before it seem to speed by like nothing else as I try to study, while on a regular day you can look at the clock twice an eternity and only have a minute and a half pass by. I mean, what's up with that?

I realized I was watching my minds slide show again, but this time I didn't fight it. If they weren't coming, why keep myself up?

I seemed to slowly seep into the fluffy dark land of oblivion, listening to the mentally produced noises around my little world. I felt a stinging itch hit me uncomfortably for a moment, then found myself back at home, looking at the faces of people I knew in my kitchen. My small group of school friends, my mom, the landlord, even my teachers. They were all standing- well I think so, I'm actually not even sure that in the dream they were anything other than heads, but I assume they were standing- around the table solemnly, staring, pale faced and emotionless.

It creeped me out really. Or at least, it did creep me out.

Until all hell broke loose.

Suddenly the door splintered into oblivion, and two tall, skinny, four armed bug-like silhouettes drifted into the room. The figures from my other silvery dreams. Everyone in the room screamed. A piercing chord of fright from unopened mouths and expressionless faces. They flowed through the doorway, with me following almost like a cameraman, not able to interact with any of the actors. As we passed into what should have been the small living room, I suddenly found myself on a crowded street in downtown New York, watching the screens in times square as they blew out and a ship suddenly rounded the building, shooting into the crowd, killing randomly. People falling down, mutilated limbs bleeding rivers of hot sticky blood into the sewers, and coating the vision of my dream. I suddenly found the spilt blood sizzling and boiling, like acid. People were being hit by balls of heated plasma, ripping through flesh with pure energy, and hitting the next people in the crowd, burning pits into their flesh, fusing muscle and bone. The screaming. It seemed to consume everything. But not from fear. From pain. Suddenly it was a field. A field of burned and bloody bodies, swarming with flies and accented with moans of the dying. I drifted over the field, stopping over the line of my acquaintances, their unseeing eyes staring accusingly at me. I felt dread. Guilt. Fear.

Thats when I saw the bug-creatures. They were walking through the field of bodies as if through one of flowers. They would pick up a mutilated body, each worse than the last, laughing. I cringed from the disgusting scene, nauseated. Suddenly, the point of view changed, leaving me standing in the field. The creatures saw me, tossing the stiff dead body to the side and growling menacingly at me. I turned and tried to run, but my feet wouldn't move. I looked at the creatures, bounding on all six limbs after me, their long arms rippling and propelling them as well as their legs. I looked down as if in molasses, and saw them. The stiff, swollen, crackling joints on the hands of the mutilated, seeping skeletal hands of my friends, mom, and teachers gripping at me, keeping me in place. I yanked and pulled, but no matter what I did, the dead wouldn't let me go. Nothing I could do would allow me to get rid of their dead gazes, locked on me with an expressionless and accusing gaze. I turned through the thickness of the air and saw the creatures flinging themselves off piles of dead bodies, wiry muscles flexing and rippling as they pounced. There was nothing to do now but scream. And I tried. But nothing. Not a sound escaped my lips but another moan of the dead.

I jerked awake, soaked with sweat and panting hard. I was twitching and shaking insecurely. I jumped up and off the grey table, pacing around the room in circles. I completely ignored the bowl of slop at the end of the table. I was shaking with fear. How was I supposed to beat these things? They were invincible! They just took out all of New York and walked through fields of carnage like they were on a holiday! They murdered me and...

Wait a minute.

I was still alive. It was just a dream. None of that happened. I knew this.

But it didn't make it seem any less real.

I had more or less stopped shaking, and was slowly coming out of the hazy nightmare. I scratched my shoulder absentmindedly, and stopped walking as I looked sharply at my lower arm. I found a welt the size of a grape on it. It looked like either some massive zit, or a shot that had a freaking huge needle.

Judging my current situation, it was probably the shot.

I faintly remembered the sharp itching numbness, and the want to scratch it before I had gone completely out.

I perked up as I realized what that meant.

That meant I was awake when they gave it to me. Which means I can be awake when they come to get me.

I arrived at the coordinates shortly after receiving them. I was curious to see what Slippy had to show us, but I didn't want to get my hopes up in case It didn't lead us to Kevin.

I hopped out of my Arwing and walked to the already assembled rest of the team.

"Oh, come ON Slippy! Just show us the damned thing already!" Falco was fuming, his eyes almost seeming to pop out of his skull.

"Oh, there you are Fox!" Slippy happily exclaimed, ignoring Falco.

"Yup," I said wearily, "Now, what is it that you wanted to show us?" I asked.

Slippy suddenly turned solemn and nodded sharply, "Follow me."

We walked a few paces and stopped by a small metal device lying in the scorched dirt. It was circular and only a few inches across, four prongs sticking out of the top. We stood there a moment, not understanding what it was.

"So," Falco, of course, "What the hell is it?"

"Well," said Slippy slowly, "From what I can tell, it appears to be a holographic communal sender-receiver node."

Judging by the blank faces, nobody but Slippy understood what he said at all.

"So could you tell us what it is in simple terms?" I asked politely.

Slippy sighed heavily, "Come on guys! It's a communication device!"

There was a collective 'Oh' from us, and then another one when we realized what that meant. If they were sending messages to this device, we could use its receiver to trace where the sender's coordinates were. Thats where they would be holding Kevin.

I let my eyelids droop and close, humming some motivational songs to myself as I tried to keep myself awake enough not to fall asleep, but to seem like I was asleep. I had thought about it earlier and came to the conclusion that, if these aliens were experimenting on me, they must be studying me, and so they have to be monitoring my internal functions somehow. That meant that they could probably read my brain waves.

When I came to that conclusion after a long mental adventure, I wondered why they had taken me before I was actually asleep. In a few minutes, it clicked.

Brain waves.

You send out waves as your brain activity increases, and so as you go to sleep, your waves reach a certain level. As I had reached the state of near sleep, my brain activity was reduced enough that it fooled the machines that monitored me. That meant if I did the same thing again, I could make myself wake up before they stick me with the sedative.

And so here I was, laying on the table, trying not to actually feel asleep.

I felt the drowsiness of the day's non-activities start to get to me, making my eyes roll up in my skull slightly and my muscles to relax. I let my mind go and watched the projection on my eyelids passively, waiting as it got stronger and stronger. There was a low hiss from on above me, but I ignored it and kept up my sleeping charade.

I felt myself being lifted and cradled like a baby and the air softly passing my face. I peeked through my eyelids drowsily, and found myself traveling up through a hole in the ceiling. The cradling sensation slowly lulled me into a drowsy sleep state. I tried pushing myself out of being asleep, but it was like trying to talk through molasses. I just couldn't force myself to do anything.

My couscous mind started to panic, but it was so far gone that I only FELT an oozing, echo of it. I felt my mind push harder to wake me, but it wasn't doing anything, and then I felt a sharp stinging sensation in my left arm, forcing my body to connect with my mind.

I felt a sudden rush of panic and fear, forcing my adrenaline to flood my veins, but I also felt a kind of fluffy darkness in my veins. Something I could fall into and just let it all go. I considered it for a second, and as I felt the fluff start to cloud my mind, I grabbed the side of my cheek between my teeth and bit down hard, forcing the dark to recede as well as a little flow of blood to seep onto my tongue.

I opened my eyes slightly, peeking through my eyelashes, and almost freaked out. There was a whitish grey alien face above me. I forced my muscles to not do anything as I stared back at the creature, pretending not to be seeing anything. It was a mostly featureless face, smooth and kind of a rounded cone shape, kinda like an anteater, but it had no mouth and it's eyes were paneled like a fly's, but were the same off-white and almost flush with the rest of the creatures face.

I felt a shiver come on, but forced it back, knowing that any reaction whatsoever could give me away. I felt my fear and disgust force the sedative back, and allowed myself to close my eyes. I felt four solid limbs supporting me, so that meant that the creature had at least four arms, and judging by the steady swing back and fourth, two legs.

I stiffened a little as I was lain on a cool surface, another creature standing over me. I forced myself to relax and studied my captors. they were much different than any of the other aliens I had seen. They were in no way even close to being humanoid, with four arms, and another pair of tentacle-like appendages. Their bodies went from hips to a kind of solid gut, then went off as shoulders and arms, but above that, there was another little 'gut' before the next set of shoulders and arms. The tentacles (although they were more like really freaking skinny arms with a hell-of-a-lot of joints that ended in a kind of three-fingered hand) seemed to be coming from their backs, and twitched a lot, kind of like tails. They were both completely that ashy white-grey color, and seemed almost to shine dully.

I watched in amazement at the two creatures who seemed to be bickering above me. They were quite the specimens. One was obviously agitated, and it showed in the frequency it's tentacle things swished and twitched. The other one seemed to be trying to convince it of something, and was waving its limbs in what seemed to be motions as it spoke. Their language was fast, precise, and had a lot of clicks, snaps, and tone changes in it, and they were sounding up a storm.

I caught myself jerking awake, and knew I wouldn't last much longer. I glanced around the room frantically, trying to find an escape route. I hadn't really thought this far into my plan, I guess. I did, however see a panel that seemed to either be a clear substance like glass, or some kind of bubble or force field, and behind it was a group of the creatures, watching the two who were beside me noising it up.

Finally the aggressive one started to raise the volume of its sounds, (obviously yelling, but that would sound awkward for this kind of noise) and the other one raised its hands in surrender. I almost laughed, because it did the exact same thing I do as an 'alright, I surrender' motion, only with all of its upper limbs.

The aggressive one turned around and walked out of my field of vision. I was left looking at the other one, who made a quiet, sudden purring sound, and looked at me, seeming to meet my gaze. I almost stiffened, but caught myself and made myself keep looking at it. I had read somewhere that 80-90 percent of the time you think you are spotted, but the spotter doesn't look certain, they aren't, and if you stay still, they wont see you, so I was hoping like hell that it was true.

The creature didn't seem to notice my slightly open eyes, and as I looked into those nearly indiscernible eyes, I could almost swear it looked almost sad. It's tentacles were drooping slightly, and it made the purring noise again. I saw it straighten slightly and look up, above my head. I couldn't look cuz I would have to move, so I just hoped nothing bad was happening. I heard the noises of the creatures start up again, and felt a needle pierce my arm. It suddenly burned like liquid fire, and then seemed to freeze over, taking my consciousness with it.

I woke up with an aching throb everywhere, and just generally feeling like shit, and as I tried to sit up to restart my daily routine, I found that I was strapped down. It was kind of unnerving after all this time. Why now? What did they want that they couldn't already have gotten?

I suddenly had visions of them taking out my organs before my eyes, and possibly eating them. I thrashed against my bonds in terror, then stopped as I felt a tearing and piercing pain in basically every bone. I looked down at my body, and saw a needle in every large limb of my body. They were all attached to tubes of blue liquid things, and I realized that the throbbing was caused by the liquid slowly emptying into me.

I'll be the first to admit I started to cry a little. Not in fear though, in frustration. Now there was no way I'd get out, and this liquid may just be a kind of torture method, devised to make my veins and organs tear themselves apart due to too many fluids. I resolved that no matter how painful this may get, I wouldn't pass out, and I wouldn't beg.

I was like that for the better part of the day, and was really getting bored. I was still trying to convince myself that if I dozed off, it wouldn't be considered passing out since it wasn't from pain. I figured that sleeping was different and closed my eyes. I slowly drifted off, the fullness of my veins physically noticeable now.

I woke up feeling balloted and sensitive. The stuff from the tubes was gone, all in me now, and I was ready for a creature to walk in and start some kind of interrogation.

I was ready for a long time, then got hungry.

I realized I was hungry when my stomach basically transformed into a hawk and screeched at me. I struggled against my bonds again, not thrashing wildly because of the needles, but straining with all my might, trying to see if maybe one would give way. Nothing did.

After a few minutes, I relaxed and lay, still staring at the ceiling. I felt the burn in all of my muscles, and knew that if I ever got out of this, I would really need to work out again, cuz I was getting tired way too easily. I closed my eyes and lay there until I fell asleep again.

This time I woke up feeling refreshed and energized. I was still hungry as hell, but I felt like I had slept for a month, which for all I know, I could have. I sighed as I felt the bonds still on my body, and my good mood dropped immediately. I decided another attempt at breaking free would be worth it, and started pulling halfheartedly, knowing they wouldn't budge. Of course they didn't, but I heard a creaking, as if something was straining heavily.

I looked at the source of the noise, the bond on my left hand. I pulled again, curiously, and heard the creak. I yanked my hand up, and the rope-thingy just snapped. I looked at my hand in disbelief, and turned to my right hand, yanking it up too. This rope snapped just as easily. I pulled both my legs up as the same time, trying to break both at the same time, but instead of snapping my foot ropes, the one across my middle snapped and I ended up sitting up.

I reached down, grinning wildly at this new strength and reached down to tear the foot ropes off. They were just as easy as the other ones, and I grinned as they snapped under the pressure. I felt an indescribable bubbling sensation in my chest, and tore the needles out of me, throwing them at the wall across from me. They shattered loudly, leaving small scratches where they hit.

I spun myself on the table, hanging my feet over the edge and feeling the floor. I set my weight on my feet and stood up slowly, feeling the weight of my body on the bottoms of my feet. I felt bulgy, like something extra was filling me up, which is probably true, but I also felt light, like I could just jump up punch through walls, or do a quadruple backflip. Wanting to test this, I of course opted for a chance at escape as well.

I jumped up onto the table, just a streight up sanding-jump, and reached out of the ceiling, feeling every motion my body made like a butterfly's wing beat. Just smooth, fluid, and almost seeming delicate. I felt the ceiling for the hatch which I knew was there by now, and felt it, a smooth seam in the center of the lighted panel, and of course I was looking away, cuz it was bright.

I tugged and felt the panel give slightly, so I tugged harder, making it crack open a little, but that was it. I tugged and pulled for a long time, reveling at the feeling of my muscles tightening against my skin, almost making my skin feel too small. Soon enough though, I started getting really frustrated that I couldn't open it, or even look at it. I started jerking at it angrily, only making it worse when one hand slipped and the crack slammed shut on the other fingers.

I felt a fit of boiling rage boil up from somewhere in the back of my belly and yelled, slamming my clenched fist against the panel. Two things happen in that moment. The first was that the panel darkened, and the second was that I felt something give under my punch. I looked up, surprised, and saw that there was a set of knuckle shaped dents in the panel, which was now only half as bright as it was, making it possible to look at.

I felt giddy as reached up to try to tug the panel open again, but paused when I saw my hand. The knuckles were all split wide open, oozing blood, and two of my fingers were at funny angles. So thats what gave. I opened my hand, curious at the lack of pain, and saw my fingers slowly twitch upright, then with a loud CRUNCH, pop back into place, sending only a dull wave of pain to me.

I clenched and unclenched my hand for a little while, looking to make sure it was working right, and then realized that if I didn't cover it, it might just keep bleeding. I looked around for something to wrap it with, but I was still in an empty room. I panicked for a second, then realized, hey, I've got a shirt. I can use that. So I took off my shirt and ripped off a section to wrap around my knuckles.

After tying them up, I got back up and tugged at the panel, feeling it give a little bit more, and a little bit more. I felt a little stream of blood trickle down onto my wrist, but ignored it as I gave one last heave, causing the panel to give way. I let a feeling of triumph wash over me for a second, then forced it back as I put it in my minds eye that now I had to escape for good.

I hopped a little, and grabbed the ground of the floor above me, and heaved myself up. I looked around the empty room above me, just as big as my cell, but full of monitors displaying things, and strange letters, I glanced over them for a moment, then looked around for the door.

I found it, and started heading out, but just before leaving, something caught my eye. I looked at the monitor by the door. It had little graphs, and it was blinking red. All the stats were at zero. And the flashing red letters probably meant an alarm.

Shit.

I heard a commotion out in the hallway and felt a cold pit of fear sink into my stomach. I jumped out into the hallway, and sure enough, there were two of the creatures to my left. They both stopped when they saw me and we all... Well, I glared at them. I'm not sure what they were doing. They were just tall, pale, skinny, unreadable demons to me.

We all stood there, looking at each other silently, then the creature on the left raised one of the tentacle appendages and pointed it in my direction, screeching loudly. I'm not ashamed to say I turned and hauled ass outa there. I flew down the pale-grey corridors effortlessly. Everything was extremely tall and narrow, and the same color. The only reason I was able to tell where one wall ended and the next began was because of a dark-grey grid pattern covering every surface, only broken by the occasional monitor set into the wall.

The click clacking of the creatures noise-language behind me ceased, and all I could hear now was the air rushing past my ears and the sound of my breathing. I glanced over my shoulder, not hearing anything I wouldn't hear alone.

And there was an alien face right behind me.

I was wrong with my earlier assumption that they didn't have mouths. They had something much worse.

When I turned around, the alien's face, which I will say, still looked kind of like an ant-eater's, split open at the snout-part, and a whole octopus worth of tentacles came out, waving wildly in my direction. They were about the length of my middle finger, but were thin as a pencil and were barbed on the inside, leading to a dark hole in the center, filled with little rings of spikies that shifted back and forth, creating a grinding sensation, like a garbage disposal.

I will be the first to say that that face, along with four limbs and two tentacles stretched out towards me, made me scream. [No, of course not a girlie scream. What kind of intergalactic prisoner would he be if he screamed like a girl?] I pumped my legs as hard as I physically could, and took off, flying through the corridors, and hopefully leaving the creatures behind. After a minute of running, I looked back, and neither of them were in sight.

I slowed down, and allowed my shaking legs to rest a little bit, walking it off. I looked around and tried to find some way out. All I could see was that maddening pattern of grid. I looked down at my hand, and noted that the blood was drying on the shirt as a red with bluish specks in it. Why the hell my liver left it in my body, I have no idea.

I glanced up again and realized I was in another room like the one I had escaped from. Monitors everywhere, and a hexagonal panel in the center of the floor. I stepped on the panel, hoping maybe to open it, but nothing happened. I said 'open' but of course that didn't work, cuz I wasn't even using a language that was close. Then I decided to look at the monitor on the wall with a slider that went from a black hexagon to a white hexagon. I slid it open, and heard a small hiss from the middle of the room. I practically skipped over to the opening and peered down into the hole.

And a flying fuzzy brick hit me square in the face.

Not really a brick, I realized, as it started to punch and scratch me.

Astounding myself with my reflexes, I caught both scratching tools and held them up in the air. I was looking at a scruffy looking cat, black and white, who was glaring at me like he was looking at hell incarnate, his ears turned and flattened against his skull.

"Do you speak this language?" I whispered softly to him.

His head cocked a little and his eyes narrowed even further.

"Yeah," he said, not being quiet about it at all, "Why?"

"SHHH!" I hissed at him. "I just broke out and I'm trying to escape. I saw your... Well this room, and figured that there would be a prisoner here too, so I wanted to see if you wanted to help me escape."

The little cat, cuz I'm gonna judge him to be about nine to eleven, looked at me like I was crazy.

"Of course I want to escape. I'm a fucking prisoner, aren't I?" he stumbled uncomfortably over the f-word, and I grinned at his mild innocence display, dropping his wrists.

"Alright then, just follow me, keep your voice down, keep an eye out for an escape, and watch your language. You're still too young to be using those words." I whispered, smiling a little.

"Not until we find my sister." he whispered, crossing his arms and turning his ears back, his tail, which I had not noticed until now, swishing back and forth agitatedly.

"Kid, I don't know how much about this place you know, but I've been sprinting through this place for nearly five minu... A long time, and I still haven't found an end. I've probably passed a good number of holding cells, and we don't have the time to look through all of them for one person." I whispered quickly.

"No." he whispered back again, not moving.

"Oh, come on!" I whispered, exasperated, "We've got to..."

I heard a clicking start up behind me, and I saw the kids eyes widen. I knew I was in deep crap now. I spun around to face the closed faced creature, who's mouth split open and started motioning as it spoke; "You little lower creature and you young little lower creature," he said pointing at me and the kid with an upper arm, "are in near time going to hurt much as me and other upper superiors feed you to the /'oi~."

[I am going to use a /' for a clicking noise, a ~ for a popping sound]

It kept talking, but I freaked out and punched it in the face, grabbing the kids arm and yanking him after me as I hurdled past the alien and into the hallway again. I heard the alien make a faint velociraptor noise, and I ran dead into a wall of the creatures.

I was grabbed by two of them by the arms arms immobilizing them, and the third grabbed the kid and held him with it's tentacles. I struggled, but the things locked me down by using their other arms to grab me. I was greeted to the sight of the alien I punched being pulled out of the room by two of its comrades. It was being dragged, and it's face was partially caved in where I hit it. Something was oozing out of the caved in area, and I felt a curious feeling of sickening satisfaction as I realized that I may have killed it.

I looked down at my hand, and found that the knuckles were bleeding. Not as bad as the other hand, but they were definitely oozing some blue-flecked red of their own. I struggled fiercely, but having six limbs, the aliens had leverage over me, so not even my newly found brute strength could get me out. I stopped struggling as one of the creatures who was dragging his fallen comrade got right up in my face and stared at me. I glared right back at him... Her... It. I glared back at IT with hate.

We stayed there a moment then it finally spoke, it's snout thing splitting up and clacking back together right in front of me.

"You lower creature person have killed our over-walker leader. You two under-walkers will be feed to great /'oi~." It said, it's face forming the words awkwardly.

I spat in the creatures face and it jerked back slightly, making a squelching noise, then lashed back with one of its tentacle-tongue things, catching me on my jaw. The friction of the action forced my face to the side a little, and I could feel blood starting to well up from the stinging cut where the creature had sliced me with its tentacle-teeth. I bright my face level with the aliens, and glared defiantly at it, not allowing myself to show any weakness to this thing.

It stepped back and looked at the little kid.

"You. I see you in early time. You have blood-friend. She now also feed to great /'oi~."

It looked up and addressed the two creatures holding me, making a flurry of unrecognizable clicks, hisses, tone changes, and pops. The two holding me turned around and started marching me away. I looked back over my shoulder and saw the kid being carried wiggling back into his cell. I knew it wasn't going to get me anywhere to struggle, so I slumped down and allowed the things to carry me.

All I could do now was to wait and find out what this great /'oi~ thing was.

I'm sorry it's taking me forever to get this thing cranked out, but I lost interest at the beginning of the year, and never really started to get back into it from when I got my device back. Now, I am a little excited to see where this will go again, but first I've gotten more feedback on another story, and so I may halt this one for a while until I finish the other one, or at least only focus at one-at-a-time. Hopefully those of you who are interested will comment, because there is no better way to encourage a writer to write than to tell them how to improve, create suspense, or give ideas if they seem to be in a rut. Right now, I kinda got a glimmer of where it is going, but it may end up completely different when I get there. That first song I had said gave me the story idea? Yeah. I can't even remember what song it was anymore.

So anyway, please tell me how bad I'm doing so that I can get better!

Thank you,

DisturbedFire out.

I forgot to ask! Should I throw in a side romance thingy? It probably won't affect where the story goes, but I just thought I'd ask, just in case. Please tell me in comments or in a poll that I'm setting up in my profile.