The Universal War

  Chapter 3: The Daring Escape

  Garion woke up to a very different welcome this time.

         “Get up!” a voice screamed.

         It was an odd voice, but at the same time threatening. So Garion did what he was told.

         Garion got up, and then fell down again. He was still confused on how he was supposed to move in this new body. The sliminess of it all, it was too much for him. He could barely stand on his own two feet, much less go to wherever this man wanted him to go. Based on his circumstances though, he would have to learn soon.

         Garion was then brought up by two bulky...aliens. He could feel it, their unearthly breathing, their soft body, their sliminess something like his. In the barely visible light, he could even manage some of their see-through, unearthly skin.

  When they brought him up, Garion looked at his surroundings. He was in some sort of prison cell. Just like Earth’s, except in Earth, their were cold, metal, and steel. Not electrically made bars with a shining blue light. The jail cells, being the only source of light in the room, gave Garion the ability to look back in his tormentors. However, when Garion looked back, he saw nothing propping him up, as if the beings were invisible. He started to question the soft body’s he even felt, thinking he was about to go insane. Garion still continued to hope this was all a dream.

  Looking forward, all he could make out was a dark hallway, seemingly deserted. The hallway didn’t even seem to be there. Everything just seemed to be some sort of shade of darkness, which gave the ominous effect of nothing being there at all. Still in a daze from the whole situation, Garion tried to look for any ways of escape.

         “The boss wants to see you.”

         Garion, somehow managing to walk, stumbled toward the edge of the cell doors, almost falling into the blue electric jail bars. He got up to realize that the “boss” was right in front of him; to be more specific, the dark figure that killed Harold and Dr. Evanston today.

         “It’s you,” Garion said, shock in his voice.

         “Well, someone catches on fast.”

         The figure grabbed Garion by his strings. Since they were attached to his body, he was in much pain.

         “STOP!!! PLEASE!!!” Garion screamed at the top of his lungs.

         “Actually, I’d rather not.”

         The figure pulled out some sort of blade, covered in a shadowy mist.

         “It’s time to finish what I should have done thousands of years ago!”

  “What have I ever done to you?”

  “You killed my family and banished me to the farthest reaches of space. It’s time I get my revenge once and for all, and summon forces past the TLS!”

         Garion didn’t know what to do. He was imprisoned on an alien spaceship with an alien wanting him dead. To make matters worse, he had just been given an entirely new body that he had no idea how to work. While Garion was still hoping this was all some sort of sick and twisted dream, he knew he still had to survive. So he tried to replicate.

         He closed his eyes, and focused. His tentacles started to shoot out of his hands, stretching towards the dark force slowly taking his life away. The next thing he knew the man, or shadow, was on the ground, the dark figure struggling to regain balance. Garion was shocked at the powers these tentacles held. He managed to stretch these things out and defeat his captor! He tried to contemplate how this could be even possible; how he could even manage to use this new body, to somehow stretch out his body parts and, not only that, use them as a weapon! Garion knew he didn’t have time to think, though, so he moved fast.

         “What the hell?!”

         The two alien bodyguards, reacting almost instantly, tried to grab onto Garion. He shoved them both to the ground, by repeating his newly learned hand trick.

         Both the guards fell to the ground, not with a thud, but with no noise at all. It was, again, as if they weren’t even there. Garion didn’t know what to do, and he knew he had to act fast.

         He looked around at the bodyguards. There had to be a key of some sort. He couldn’t see anything of notice around them. In general, he couldn’t see anything at all. Then, Garion had a crazy idea.

         The dark figure got up.

         “You’re dead meat you piece of....”

         But before the figure could finish his sentence, Garion grabbed him and threw him into the electric bars.

         “AAAHHHH!” it screamed.

         But Garion didn’t stop there.

         He then jumped through the gates with the dark figure, using him as a shield. He could feel the electricity rushing through his body, probably 10,000 volts, Nirem remembered from his math class. The electricity surged through him like a million bee stings piercing his body until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Garion still couldn’t believe that he went from a normal nerd in science class to fighting aliens in less then a day. He didn’t know what else to do, so Garion just kept on pushing, praying for his escape and freedom.

         They both fell through the gates, stinging with smoke. They were both panting heavily from the episode, neither of them able to get up. Garion knew he didn’t have the time to pant, though.

         He tried to get up, not realizing that, since he could barely move in this body, he immediately fell down.

         Now he thought he was dead. He kept panicking, wondering if there was any way out of here, anyway to get back to the life he used to live. He knew the first key to doing that though was getting off this strange place. He calmed down for a second and thought.

  “O.K.,” Garion thought to himself, “it seems like I’m in some sort of ship, that’s probably why I fell, since this ship is moving. I have to get out of here somehow. My guess is extra guards will be coming any minute to subdue me from the front of the ship, wherever that is. So based on my surroundings, the only escape would have to be....”

  Garion looked around, and, with the little source of light, couldn’t find any sort of escape. Then he saw it.

  To the right of his small cell, which now seems to be in some sort of confined space, was a door. It said, “IN CASE OF EMERGENCY’S, USE THIS AIRLOCK.”

  Garion started crawling toward the door, not caring if he could breath in space or not.

  “Aliens probably would be able too,” he thought and mostly hoped.

  Something then suddenly grabbed his leg.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” the dark figure said, still smoking from the jump through the electric bars.

         He pulled out his knife again, and this time managed to stab Garion in the leg. He didn’t feel a thing.

         Garion looked back and realized that the knife had gone right through his tentacles, seeming to simply fade between them. Garion felt nothing at all, the pain being absent as he started to realize the true power of this new body of his. He not only managed to use his tentacles on his hands as a weapon, but Garion also managed to deflect a knife attack! He was shocked by the composure of this new body of his, having the flexibility of a rubber band but density strong enough to knock someone to the ground. Garion though, knew he didn’t have time to marvel. He was running out of time. Garion still managed to look back at the knife, and a big grin came over his face.

         He lifted his leg from the knife, managed to stumble up, and ran for the door, the dark figure right behind him.

  “No!”

         The dark figure shot something in the ground, some sort of portal.  Inside the portal was nothing but darkness. He then shot the same portal at Garion. Not wanting to know what was inside, he jumped out of the way and shoved opened the airlock door.

  “NOOOO!”

  Garion jumped into the dark and infinite void of space, not knowing where he would go or how he would get there, but just happy to be away fro
m the hellhole he was once in. He turned around to look at it, then realized nothing was there, the only object visible was a shadow of the hovercraft that sucked him up back in Mars. You couldn’t even see any part of the ship. All you could see was a shadow, the same darkness and shyness of shadows on Earth. Whatever that ship was, he knew it would chase after him, and he knew, once it caught him, he would be dead. Garion tried to think if there was anything he could do with his newly found tentacles to avoid this untimely fate, anything he could do to avoid this ship. Then it literally hit him. In the face.

         The asteroid smacked right into him, and then, before a proper reaction could even be administered, the asteroid opened, Garion falling in. He fell inside the hollow asteroid, and felt the doors close. He looked around at his surroundings, and the first thing that he noticed, was the alien that tried to save Garion back at Mars, standing over him.

  The pain and shock finally hit him; this was all horribly real. All the action and danger that had just gone on during the past day have all been real. Garion was not only abducted by aliens, but now destined to become one. All the pain inside him, the new life he knew he would have to adapt to, the dead teacher and janitor, everything boiled up inside him, until he then started crying. He just stood there, in front of this alien and at least 10 more, crying like a little girl.