TWO WEEKS AGO: IN SPACE
I opened my eyes and looked around. I wasn't at home and I definitely wasn't on the alien ship but everything felt so... off. The last thing I remember was taking a shower and then waking up back on that damned ship again. Then everything was darkness, until I woke up in that mental world and started wandering the ruins of that house I had made. Suddenly, I had bumped into Mars, who said he had been electrocuted or something and that's how he ended up melding with my mind again and then he said I was dead?
I blinked in confusion, looking around again in a panic. Where the hell was I?
"Come on, Mars, move him somewhere else." I heard someone groaning. "I'm so tired and there's only one bed."
"I'm not going to do anything until he's woken up. It's not fair to move him when he's been stuck in that tank for so long. Let me check on him."
The door swished open and I moved to look and see who it was. Why was my body so hard to work with? It felt like they were attached to weights... Upon seeing me looking at him, Mars smiled big and ran over to me, hugging me tightly.
"Oh my god! You're awake! You're alive!"
"You keep saying that..." I forced out.
Why the hell is it so hard to talk? To do anything ? Mars let me go and I flopped back onto the bed like a dead body. Mars frowned too.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know. I can barely do anything."
Mars thought for a second. "Oh, it's muscle atrophy."
"Muscle atrophy?"
"If we're going off what we know, when you were initially taken by the aliens it was about a year or so ago in the scheme of things. When you were um... taken back to the aliens, that was at least seven months ago... so... maybe two years? I'm not sure. The timeline is getting messed up-"
"Get to the point, Mars."
"If you've been up there all this time and they've been messing with your mind but not your body, then most likely you haven't exactly "moved" in almost two years."
I let that sink in for a second, not comprehending it.
"So I've been missing for two years?"
"Not... really... I mean..."
"Can you help me up then?" I growled.
Mars nodded and helped me sit up, I leaned on my knees, a headache forming as I looked at myself. Well, he wasn't wrong... I definitely lost muscle mass. I wasn't buff but I was healthy looking...
"What the hell happened to me? Other than being abducted, I thought I was home... I thought I went home and was... I don't understand."
"I don't either, Max. Maybe we can find some answers in the documents that Zylith sent to my email. She said that we should be able to find something about what happened to you somewhere. We just haven't had time to look at them. The other two are being cranky little hoes."
"Other two?"
"Dawaen and Kole... they got abducted too. Remember? We had this conversation in your dream world."
"Mars, I'm trying to process the fact that everyone thinks I'm dead . I can't remember much of anything at the moment." I said angrily. I sighed. "I'm sorry... I'm not trying to be bitter. It's just..."
"I know. Here, let me help you to the shower. I'm sure a hot shower will help you relax a little and I mean... you really need one. You smell like you soaked in BO."
"Do I stink that bad?"
"Yeah. I'm going to have to change the sheets. Come on."
He stood up and held out his hands to me. I grabbed them, my grip about as strong as a baby, and helped me from the elevated bed to the floor, my feet shooting pain through my nerves. I fumbled and he caught me.
"Take your time..."
I nodded and squeezed my hands on his arms, trying to gain some sort of balance on my own. I finally was able to stand and Mars grabbed the sheet from behind me, wrapping me in it.
"You're naked." He said. "I think there's some clothes in a closet somewhere. I'll set them out if I find them."
I nodded and he helped me out of the room.
We walked out into the open part of wherever I was and the lights blinded me. I put my hand over my face and Mars looked at me.
"You okay?"
"The lights..."
"Ah..."
"Are you talking to yourself-"
I looked up and saw someone I didn't think I'd ever see in front of me. He looked surprised and he also looked like complete shit.
"Hey, I know these aren't real Twizzlers, but I have to say these are halfway decent." I heard behind me.
Dawaen pointed to Mars and I and whoever was talking came around us. I looked up and found Kole. He gasped, dropping a plate of licorice and almost falling over his own feet as he tried to get away.
"Hi." I said, looking him in his hazel eyes.
He looked frightened and he damn well should be. I know I don't remember what happened after the shower when I supposedly died, but I remember the way that Kole let me get beaten to hell and back. I honestly wasn't even mad at Dawaen. He was a bully and I kind of expected something to happen but Kole...
"Hi..." he finally answered.
"If you're going to sleep in there then I would change the sheets." Mars said, starting to leave the room. "Whatever Max was kept it smells like the inside of a constipated colon as well as his own BO. So..."
"N-no... I'm good. Um... he can sleep in it if he wants..."
"You never change." Dawaen said with a roll of his eyes as he spun back around, putting his back to us.
I looked up and saw lines whipping past the large window in front of us.
"Where am I?" I asked.
"A shuttle, going home. Come on, you can scare Kole later." He turned me around but looked over his shoulder. "Max won't need the room for a while. He's going to have to do some exercise to get his strength back."
"What if I wanted to go back to bed?" I said.
"Max, come on, dude, do you really want to sleep after you've been sleeping for almost two years?"
I made a face but he made a valid point, even though I was tired. I think it was because I was moving and hadn't moved in a while. Mars helped me to the bathroom and leaned me up against the side of the standup shower, turning it on.
"Can you take it from here?"
"Yeah, I think I got it."
"Good... I missed you, Max."
"Yeah..."
He nodded and left the bathroom. I moved my way slowly to the opening to the shower and moved around the door, taking my time to make sure I didn't trip on the lip of the door. It hurt to try and keep myself from sliding on the slick floor of the shower but I inched towards the water. It was a little cold, so I moved the faucet to get it to warm up. I grabbed a rag that was in a little cubby and the bar of soap.
**********************
After I finished bathing, I felt much better and I opened the shower to find a towel and clothes. I began drying off and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My brown hair was long, longer than when I supposedly went home the first time. I made a face because I didn't like it. The rest of my body was pretty much the same as it had been when I was abducted, except for the new scars all over my stomach and torso area in general where it looked like they had tried to do all sorts of stuff to me. I frowned, not seeing any stretch marks... I remember- Oh... right, I wasn't really home. I don't know what the hell is going on... I dried myself off completely and then put the clothes on. They were casual clothes, sweat pants and a shirt, but they were comfy and it actually felt nice to wear underwear again.
I took the towel with me so that I could dry my flowing tresses. Mars was right, and I did feel a little better being able to be clean and it loosened up my muscles in a good way so that I could move around properly. My knee gave out and I grabbed the counter. Spoke too soon... I slowly made my way out of the bathroom and back to where everyone else was.
The door opened and I slowly made my way to where Dawaen and Mars were looking at what looked like Word documents on the screen in front of them.
"Do you see anything that talks about Max on Earth?"
"No. You keep asking me that and I tell you the same thing over and over again. Why am I even helping you?"
"Because there's nothing else to do and Zylith said that these documents contain the reason why Max wasn't Max."
"You think he's Max now? Dude, he's not Max. The one that died was Max."
"I don't think so. Zylith wouldn't have sent these to me if that were the case. She said, "These are for that doctor and his friend to look through to prove that Max is Max now." Why would she say that if the one that you beat up was the real Max?"
"Why would they send a fake human to Earth if they had to real thing up there?"
"What does Zylith have to do with all of this?"
Dawaen and Mars turned to me as Dawaen crossed his arms.
"Oh yeah, you don't know."
"Know what?"
"Do you feel better?" Mars asked.
"Yeah; cleaner and kind of relaxed... Stop avoiding my question."
"I'm not avoiding it... and uh... well, how do I explain it?"
"Zylith, the real one, got into a car crash right before the Fake Max was sent back to Earth or whatever. One of the aliens came to Earth and took over her almost braindead body and got stuck in it, technically becoming Zylith but not at the same time." Dawaen explained.
"What?"
"In better terms, while you were being experimented on, one of the aliens kind of fell in love with you. She was the one who suggested for you to go back home."
"But I never went home. As we have established, I've been on that stupid ship for almost two years."
"Well, however it happened, she was the one who said you'd do better back on Earth. So, as a punishment and a security measure, they sent her to Earth and she found Zylith's braindead body in the hospital. She decided to take over it, but it was kind of an experiment and she ended up stuck in it with some of Zylith's memories and stuff. It's really complicated..." Mars tried.
"What are you looking at?"
"The alien who took over Zylith was named Shil and she was helping the Doctor do experiments and stuff on you. She said that there is a part in these documents about the fact that you (right now) are the real Max and that whatever got sent to Earth was a fake... or something..."
"So far, it's a bunch of chemical compounds and stupid shit that doesn't make sense." Dawaen said, swirling back around to look at the documents.
"Those are called formulas, idiot." Mars grumbled and then looked at me. "You hungry? We have a replicator thing that Kasai helped make so the flavors aren't as bad as you'd think."
"Replicator? Huh?"
"Just come on." Mars said, getting up from his chair.
He walked by me and I followed him slowly to some sort of kitchen nook and he looked at me.
"What would you like to eat?"
I thought for a second. That was kind of a loaded question. I haven't really eaten in two years so... How do you pick?
"Something light for right now."
"PBJ?"
"Sure."
"One peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread cut in two triangles, with a side of... Doritos and a glass of milk." He turned back to me. "Right? I think that's how you liked your sandwiches..."
"Just PBJ... You remembered my sandwich preference?"
"Because you were so particular about it. Remember that one time we stayed up til four in the morning and we got the munchies? I said I was going to make a sandwich and you kept asking if I had this list of stuff and I was like 'are we going grocery shopping?' and you said that you liked eating PBJ in a particular way. All the components had to be there or it was not the same. I said you were a weirdo... Kole was there too, actually. He was high and he wanted a waffle horse."
"Oh yeah, that's why we were at your house. Kole was trying to keep himself from getting beaten up and they said that if he smoked the weed he caught these guys smoking, they would leave him alone."
"But they made him this huge joint and he got so high."
"We found him passed out in a trashcan."
Mars clapped. "I forgot about that! His ass was in the trashcan on the ground."
"He stunk so bad." I said with a laugh. "And you didn't want to take him to your house because he stunk but I said if my parents found him they'd make us stop hanging out. So we went to your house, put Kole on the floor and threw a blanket over him to keep the smell down until he floated back to Earth."
"But we still got in trouble because he reeked of weed and my parents thought that we had all gotten stoned."
I smiled, the memory a fun one, and Mars scooted over my meal.
"It's not the same as a real PBJ. The likeness is there but we were having a hard time with flavors. Kasai tried to help but I mean, when an alien race has no taste buds..."
"I think I'll be okay."
I reached for the sandwich and took a triangle. I bit into it and Mars was right, there was just a little something-something missing from it, but considering I hadn't eaten in months, it was the tastiest thing I'd eaten in a while.
"Why are you guys even up here in space? I know you told me in that dream-state but everything is kind of fuzzy. I don't really remember much from the dream."
"Well... it's a long story."
"We've got plenty of time." I said, motioning to the stars flying by us. "I think it had said it took two weeks at warp last time I did it, right?"
"Yeah."
"So, yeah, it'll be a long time."
"Where to begin?" Mars asked, leaning on the counter.
"I... guess when I supposedly died? How did that happen?"
but yay, max is bacck! but poor max, he can't move very well, he forgot what mars told him, and in all technicality, he's been gone for almost two years. basically, he was abducted for 3-4 months, supposedly came back and went through a 8-9 pregnancy, died, then 5 months later these guys got abducted, and it's been about the same amount of time (3-5 months) since they've been gone. So yeah... almost 2 whole years.ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ poor baby!