Chapter 2

  “What’s happening?!” I gasp. “What’s happening?!”

  I was no longer in my room. I was inside a cubicle-sized glass jar. Gingerly, I reach out with a finger and touch the surface. Cold to the touch – *CRACK!*

  I flinch as a massive crack splits across it. When nothing else happens, I take a minute to glance around. It’s a big room, lit by warm, incandescent lights high up near the ceiling. The walls look old and earthy, with irregular bumps here and there that make me think of anthills. Like the glass case I was in, the room appeared circular. I could tell because of the bright, metallic lining that ran along the inner edge of the ceiling. Tubes and wires guide my eyes down to an array of wall-mounted tables full of strange looking equipment. I notice that the wall all across the lower level of the room is actually proper wall; pristine white slabs that gloss like porcelain.

  If you had told me this was an outpost in Mars, it would have been a stretch, but I might have believed you.

  I squint. Is that a microscope, or some kind of microphone?

  What about that? An… abacus, or… what the hell is it?

  And that? A water cooler, or just a fancy tank? And a… A computer!

  I finally recognize something. The computer is just a large monitor, like an Apple desktop sort of thing. It keeps flashing with some message. That can’t be good.

  My memory jolts and I suddenly remember where I was a moment ago. I saw space! Stars had flown by me like the Millenium Falcon travelling at lightspeed.

  Another blob of light had appeared next to me the next moment, and though we only spent a fraction of a millisecond next to each other, I had seen it in its entirety. It was a being.

  It had looked at me with the widest, ugliest, and at the same time most angelic smile… if that makes any sense. It had looked like a man, and in the tiny nanosecond we spent next to one another, no words were spoken but everything had been said.

  That thing had done something to me. Something not right.

  I panic.

  It had killed me! I am dead!

  …

  Aren’t I?

  Before I get a chance to rationalize things, there is a loud noise behind me, and I turn to it. Loud thumps are coming from a man-sized cubicle on the wall, not very different from my own, only difference being that the glass is not see-through, but like the ones used in showers or washroom windows.

  Smoke is seeping through a slit running along its center and tiny ventilator holes on its top. More thumping, and then the slit widens as retracting doors slide open. Something comes out, coughing and flailing wildly at the smoke.

  I’m in too much shock to be scared. Right now, I just want to know what the fuck is going on. Is this a dream? If so, it’s the most realistic one I’ve ever had.

  I finally notice that I’m completely naked. I’m still fat as ever, but my skin looks golden almost, like it’s glowing all around, from my perky man-boobs to my pecker, to my feet.

  Why do I feel so light?

  “Nou nou nou nou nou...” The smoking figure pulls away from the smoke, revealing it to be a man. He is looking at his arms like he’s looking for a cockroach or something, then he stares at his hands and holds them up to the ceiling. He’s on the shorter side and thinly framed. Long, jet-black spiky hair wildly covers his head. The fashion sense is odd but familiar, very retro 80s or 90s; a khaki button-up shirt tucked into a pair of seriously faded jeans.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  He reaches for a pair of glasses on his face and shakily holds them to eye-level moments before letting them drop to the ground with an audible crack of the lenses. Suddenly, he screams in agony, drops to his knees, and starts sobbing and wailing like a toddler. All the meantime, he keeps sorrowfully moaning in an impossibly fucked up language. Just hearing it makes me feel dizzy.

  I think of asking him what all this means, but seeing how unhinged he appears, I get the feeling that just maybe, it wasn’t such a good time.

  He’s scary, if I’m honest.

  Less than a minute into the sobbing, something dropping from the ceiling catches my eye and I almost yell out in shock when I see an impossibly sized tarantula… thing… floating straight down towards the mourning man. Does it look venomous? You bet!

  Bright, furry yellow covers most of its bulbous and gangly body, with teal blue patterns and tufts growing thickly from its rear. Everything about it screams death.

  “Watch out!” I finally say.

  The man’s sobbing stops immediately and slowly turns his head towards me. He looks Asian. Chinese or Japanese.

  I point frantically above him. “Watch out!” I repeat, louder this time.

  It’s too late. The alien tarantula is spreading its front legs, its mandibles flexing open and closed, and the man looks to be in no hurry. He looks up at his doom and just as soon looks back down, deciding to meet his death in his wallowing state.

  My upper lip curls in disgust and I bring my hands to my face as I prepare to watch a gruesome sight. I clench my jaws and crinkle my nose as the tarantula taps the man’s head with a gangly leg. It stays there, hanging from its web, an inch above the Asian man.

  Its size is ridiculous. This has to be a dream. That thing is almost half his size! And as if ridiculous wasn’t enough, the man lifts his own hand and taps the tarantula’s head like some pet dog!

  He again speaks that dizzy and unrecognizable language, then snaps back to me as if he just remembered that I was there. Rubbing his eyes and standing up, he dusts his shirt off and walks to me with an increasingly wild look in his eyes. When he is only a few meters away, he rushes over and smacks his hands against the glass jar.

  “Ah! H-hey!” I cover my groin with my hands, going red with embarrassment.

  The man is insane, rushing around the jar and cupping his hands on the glass to peer from every possible angle while muttering in that dizzying language.

  “Hey!” I yell out angrily, kicking at the glass.

  *CRACK!*

  Another crack splits across the glass, and the man staggers back, shooting me a look of complete surprise. I’m surprised myself. Do I have superstrength? He coughs emphatically, clearing his throat.

  “Don’t tell me…” Slowly, he takes a couple of steps towards me. “Amerikan?”

  His Japanese accent is thick, but there’s no doubt about it, he just spoke English.

  “I’m not American, no!” I reply, a bit louder than intended, but being questioned by a stranger whilst butt-naked has made me slightly irritable.

  The Japanese man’s mouth hangs open as he smiles, then he rushes over across the room, to my left, where a larger monitor and what looks to be computer mainframes which I hadn’t noticed before are installed close to the wall. He picks up what looks like a keyboard and mouse from the ground and begins typing away. Soon, the monitor loads some data which is too far for me to read.

  He scrolls through the page, giving me a single astounded look halfway through. I keep checking on that yellow monster of a spider, which is calmly crawling towards the man. The more I look at it, the more familiar it appears. I’ve seen this thing somewhere…

  “Where am I?” I say impatiently. “Excuse me?”

  The man holds out and waves a hand to silence me as he reads the monitor. Eventually, he turns.

  “Ba-ru-to?” he asks, “lo-miiw?”

  “Bartholomew! Yes!” I reply instantly at the butchered sound of my name. “What’s going on?”

  The man hits a big red button on the wall by the mainframes.

  *BOFF!*

  The glass jar around me begins lifting, and the first thing I feel is the cold air of the room. Scratch that, it’s freezing! The Japanese man walks over to his shattered glasses and calmly puts them on. The look over his eyes is dark, no longer so animated.

  Once my glass cell is completely over me, it stops ascending and the humming of gears comes to a stop as it locks in place.

  “You are Baruto-kun?” the man mutters somberly.

  “Bart, yeah.” I shiver at the cold. “Why am I naked? What is this place!”

  With a war cry, he rushes over, baring his teeth, and I yell out in fear.

  “Kuso Yaro!!!” he screams, jabbing at the rolls of fat around my ribs. “Ayy!!” he pulls back, giving me another bewildered look. “Nani mono da?!”

  I’m panting in fear, or the onset of hypothermia. Why am I so fucking cold?!

  “What are you?” the man says, looking disgusted. He has put the hand he jabbed me with under his armpit, as if touching me had hurt.

  “Who… are you…” My voice is getting weaker. The cold is sapping all my strength. My hands are up in the sorriest excuse of a fighting stance, but it’s taking everything just to stay up.

  When the man doesn’t reply but looks on as if he’s looking at a strange bug, the corners of my vision darken, and my panting becomes gasping.

  I fall to one knee and groan. Then flop down to the cold metallic floor beneath me.

  I can barely see anymore, but the figure of the man looms over me, and soon after, the yellow, alien tarantula joins his side.

  “Where is my star, Amerikan!”

  That’s the last thing I hear before I fall unconscious.

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