25

The cage was shaking. The rumbling noise was so loud it drowned out my thoughts. But at least I was having thoughts. My connection with the alien had been severed.

I heaved a sigh of relief and realized there was something heavy on my chest.

“AAAAAHH!”

It was the blob! It was slimed over my chest and it was quivering like a mound of pink jelly. I shoved at it, but my hands just sunk into its gooey self and it didn’t move.

I jerked my hands back and felt grateful when they came loose. At least the alien wasn’t sucking me in anymore.

The cage began to shake harder. The rumbling noise reverberated ominously, its vibration making shivery patterns in the mist outside the cage. I clutched the bars as the cage swayed, feeling my stomach clench under the weight of the alien blob.

I peered into the fog, trying to make out what was coming for me now. But even though the noise got louder every second, I couldn’t see a thing.

My mind bounced between fear of what the aliens had in store for me next and revulsion at the blob stuck on my chest. I had to get it off!

I pushed myself up to my knees, plucking my shirt away from my skin. The weight of the blob shifted, and nearly toppled me back to the floor of the cage. The thing was surprisingly heavy.

Holding on to the bars on either side of me, I leaned over and tried to shake it off. It drooped and bits of goo dripped off and fell through the bars. But the blob itself clung to me.

I was starting to feel panicky. My eyes darted between the swirling fog and the alien blob pulsing on my chest. The thundering noise was clattering closer through the murky fog. And I couldn’t scrape, shake, or shudder the alien blob off me.

What did it want? Was it changing me somehow? Seeping through my skin into my blood and my bones? I shuddered violently and the blob held tighter.

Or was it just trying to hold me down until whatever was making that noise could get me?

Both possibilities sounded horrible. A surge of terrified energy rushed through me and I staggered to my feet.

As I struggled up, a shape suddenly emerged out of the fog. I stared, unable to move.

It was a thing so strange and weird, I couldn’t have imagined it in a thousand years.