EXTRACT FOR
Alien Abduction
(Kelly Addams)

How long she'd been alone in the darkness Julia couldn't say, it felt like days, but it's probably only a few hours she told herself. For a while she had remained still, not wanting to explore the room around her... if fumbling around by touch could really be called exploring. But after a while she decided that without something solid at her back she felt vulnerable, so on her hands and knees, one hand sweeping the floor ahead of her like a blind man's cane, she crawled forward. And I need to concentrate on going straight she warned herself, without a point of focus she could be crawling around in circles.

Well this room is smaller than I expected she thought as her fingertips brushed against the wall after barely a couple of seconds of crawling. Much smaller, and the wall is made of the same metal.

Turning she pressed her back against the solid security and stretched her legs out straight.

Where am I? She began to debate. The room was clearly sound proofed because she couldn't hear a single thing. Which is a confusion, because the air is fresh so it must be coming in from somewhere, and any opening would let sound in as well as the air. And how can anywhere be this dark? It just isn't natural.

Think logically she instructed. She was awake, so it wasn't a dream. I'm not at home, but I don't remember moving or being moved. So I must have been unconscious, and probably for quite a while. So I could be anywhere. Maybe I was doped, possibly some gas in the air. She didn't remember smelling anything unusual, but that was probably because the gas was odourless. And I definitely wasn't injected. Julia tended to react adversely to injections, the simplest of jabs would always swell, and I'm not swollen anywhere. And anyway, I would have remembered someone sneaking up and sticking me with a needle.

Deciding that she couldn't find the answer to Where, she decided to focus on Why? Why was she alone in the darkness, why had someone doped her and abducted her?

Because that is what has happened, I've been abducted... kidnapped!

But why? Her family, or what remained of it had no money. Her grandmother had the farm, and that was worth a great deal, but it wasn't liquid cash. So surely no one has taken me for ransom.

Money couldn't be the reason.

"Oh God No." she whispered as the only other explanation pushed its way into her mind, maybe her subconscious had been trying to protect her by keeping that scenario hidden, but now that she had begun to question the reason behind her abduction she couldn't avoid the dreadful possibility any longer.