There were whispers drifting around the arena like a giant, intergalactic game of Telephone. Apparently, they were orbiting the alien planet already—though no one had a clue what the place was actually called. Sloane wished there were windows or something so she could get a look. She was literally in outer space, for Christ’s sake. She’d kill just to see what that even looked like.

  If social media still existed, that would’ve been her first post. That, and maybe a picture of her gnarly leg—which still throbbed like hell. Instead, all she had the pleasure of staring at was graphite-gray walls and a sea of stinky, beat-up humans.

  And that was when it hit her—not in some dramatic, cinematic way. Not with swelling music or a slow, dawning gasp. Just a quiet, nauseating realization curling low in her gut. She wasn’t on Earth anymore. There was no Earth sky above her. No familiar gravity of routine waiting when she “got back.” Her life as she knew it wasn’t paused. It wasn’t on hold.

  It was over.

  There would be no returning to normal. No slipping back into her old habits, her old bed, her old name said by people she cared about. Whatever this was—arena, orbit, alien planet with no name—this was the beginning of something else. Something that required entirely new rules, new instincts, new versions of herself. The kind of adjustments you don’t ease into. The kind that scrape you raw.

  And yet—

  Under the dread, beneath the bone-deep exhaustion and the pain screaming up her leg, there was something else. A spark. A wild, reckless thrill.

  She was in space. Actually in space.

  The terror of it pressed against the exhilaration until she couldn’t tell which one was winning. She felt like she should be grieving. Should be sobbing for everything she’d lost. But she was too tired for grief. Too wrung out. Her brain felt wrapped in cotton, like this had to be a hallucination brought on by shock or blood loss or some elaborate mental break.

  Maybe none of this was real.

  And if it wasn’t real… maybe she didn’t have to mourn it. Maybe she could just experience it. Let herself be awed. Let herself be the girl who always wondered what was out there and finally, impossibly, got her answer.

  If her leg didn’t hurt like a bitch, she might’ve even enjoyed it.

  If the rumor was true, no one seemed in a rush to head toward the exits. The only moving line was the one for the bathroom, which, by the way, was absolutely absurd. Thank God for dehydration—Sloane did not have the patience for that nonsense. She swore the lines at Disney for the good rollercoasters were shorter. This thing wrapped around the arena twice.

  After another hour of listening to stomachs growling, people complaining about said stomachs, and the occasional groan of someone still healing, she noticed the alien beings start pulling groups of about five hundred at a time. Where they were being taken? She had no idea. Sloane just waited for the next round of Telephone to reach her corner.

  At least they were keeping things organized. She had to give them that. Everything moved like a well-oiled conveyor belt of terrified humans, soldiers pointing and directing people with efficiency. Lucky for her, Sloane wouldn’t have to wait long to be called. Since her group boarded the mothership last, they’d be among the first dumped back out.

  Which meant all the super-punctual people who showed up at the ass-crack of dawn? Yeah… dead last.

  Sucks to suck, she snickered internally.

  Okay, don’t be mean, Sloane. Karma exists; she scolded herself.

  It was going to take forever for the beings to process everyone. Days, probably—and that was assuming no one caused a scene and things went smoothly. Which felt optimistic at best. There would be people who refused, who pushed back. There always were.

  Sloane was surprised by how willing she felt. Maybe it was because she was ready to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. A change of position, a different vantage point—she could figure things out once she had that. Not that she had any real idea what waited on the other side of all this.

  Still, her group waited another two hours before their turn came. A minor delay, really, compared to what the rest of the humans were facing.

  When she finally stood, every bruised and abused inch of her body screamed. Her lower back throbbed, her joints crackled, and her skin felt like it wanted to detach and file a complaint. Sure, she could blame the hours-long sit, but she was twenty-nine, not fifteen, and her body had been through it recently. Things her teenage self might’ve bounced back from. Now? Not so much.

  After making sure she hadn’t left a vital organ behind on the seat, she bent down to grab her blood-filled boot and sock—gross, but what was she supposed to do? Leave it as a parting gift? She slipped her hand inside the boot like it was radioactive, then began her hobble—half barefoot—falling into line behind a row of people who looked vaguely familiar from the first aircraft.

  The man in front of her gave her a full-on stink eye for carrying her boot like it was a biohazard. Sloane glared right back and shook the boot at him, threatening to shove it in his face if he kept staring. He turned around instantly—half shocked, half speechless.

  Good. Mind your own business.

  Their group marched through brightly lit white hallways that were so blinding at first that everyone collectively winced. Hard to adjust to actual light when you’ve basically been rotting in a cave for hours. They took several turns—none of which Sloane could recognize even if her life depended on it. Lost wasn’t even the right word. She had no sense of where the hell they were. At least they took an elevator up a few levels, which she considered a personal blessing. Anything to avoid stairs right now.

  Eventually, they entered what looked like another holding area, big enough to cram all five hundred of them inside.

  Fantastic. Another room to stand around in.

  The room was white. White floors, white walls, all of it too clean and too smooth to feel real. It was very state-of-the-art, very futuristic, like it had been designed by someone who’d never actually seen how dirty people can be. There were holographic screens lit up in places, floating at odd angles, displaying words and sentences that shifted every few seconds. None of it meant anything to her.

  It reminded her of an airport TSA line—sterile, efficient, and quietly stressful, like you were always doing something wrong but no one would tell you what it was. Which felt on par with her entire experience so far. In fact, no one was telling them anything. Sloane, along with everyone else on the ship, had more questions than answers. Even she was starting to feel the frustration creep in.

  Were they just supposed to do as they were told, never knowing the consequences? It felt like signing a contract without reading the fine print. Something was wrong. It all felt wrong.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Medics lined the front, already working through people. One by one, the line inched forward at the pace of a dying snail. Maybe it would take an hour, maybe longer—it all depended on whatever this “process” was. Sloane glanced down at her leg and sighed. If she had to stand here much longer, she was going to lose her mind.

  To distract herself, she started observing. The medics were all female, all humanoid—minus the unsettling perfection and their glowing eyes. Every one of them wore a white tunic and carried a small silver device that looked suspiciously like a futuristic USB stick. That had to be what took blood. They pressed it to each person’s arm, and from the looks of it, nobody flinched.

  Sloane had a needle phobia, so the lack of screaming or panic was a relief.

  Where was this kind of technology back home?

  She would've gone to the doctor way more often if blood draws were that easy. Honestly, the more she watched these beings work, the more embarrassed she became about being human.

  We really thought we were advanced? Compared to this? Please.

  Each station had what looked like a computer screen—but “screen” wasn’t quite right. It was a hologram they could touch and swipe like it was nothing. Even the keyboard floated in the air, and with a flick of the wrist, a new panel appeared where the medic entered more data. The language on the display was nothing she recognized—letters and symbols completely foreign to anything she’d ever seen.

  It still bothered her that they wanted everyone’s blood. Sloane kept trying to rationalize it—maybe they were using it to track down relatives, or cure deadly diseases like cancer. That was what that intimidating angel said at the arena—they want to help.

  But honestly? Tracking made the most sense. This all felt like one massive system designed to catalog humans, to keep tabs on every single one of them. The exact kind of thing people on Earth used to scream about—Big Brother, government conspiracies, microchips and control. And yet, here they were, lining up to be logged and coded.

  And they were… okay with it. Or at least this group was. No one was really arguing. No one was making a scene. They looked scared, sure—but it also looked like they’d accepted there was no way out of this. No leverage. No alternatives.

  If this was the price of surviving another day, they’d pay it.

  She had to give the aliens credit, though. It was smart. Efficient. There was no way anyone could get away with murder now—not when they had everyone’s DNA in neat little files.Brilliant, actually. Creepy, but brilliant.

  “Next, please!” A woman’s voice sang, snapping Sloane out of her trance like someone had just clapped in her face.

  She hobbled over to the open station, scanning the medics for any sign of Melora, but no luck. Looked like Melora was needed in some other mysterious corner of the ship. Sloane had to admit; she liked her presence.

  “Name, age, and location of origin,” the medic said, her voice sweet like honey. Once again, the poor female had to rip Sloane out of whatever mental black hole she kept falling into. Either she was too distracted, or her brain cells were firing whenever they felt like it—definitely not on command.

  Sloane blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

  The medic smiled patiently. “Name, age, and location of origin.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry. Sloane de la Croix, twenty-nine, Seattle, Washington.”

  The medic’s fingers flew over the holographic keyboard like feathers on air—elegant, fast, and impressively graceful. She swiped through screens until she found whatever alien form she needed.

  Another female stepped in and guided Sloane into a chair beside the typist—finally. Relief washed over her like a wave. Even after sitting for so many hours, the chair felt heavenly. She had been putting all her weight on her good leg for so long that even her hip was starting to hurt. Perfect. Now she really sounded like an old person. And she was not old, damn it.

  The second medic pulled out a small contraption that was definitely meant to collect blood. She offered Sloane an empathetic smile.

  “May I take a look at your arm?”

  You can look all you want, but we both know that’s not all you’re planning on doing, Sloane wanted to snap back. But instead, she nodded, shrugged off her jacket, and offered her arm like a resigned sacrifice.

  The medic gently pushed up Sloane’s sleeve and pressed the USB-looking device to her forearm. A sharp pinch snapped through her skin.

  “Ow!”

  Okay—maybe Sloane exaggerated. A little.

  The medic’s smile turned sympathetic. “Sometimes it’s easier if I don’t give any warning.” She pulled Sloane’s sleeve back down, the motion soft and practiced. “All done!”

  She leaned over to the typing medic and retrieved a sleek white-and-silver band from her. Then she turned back to Sloane.

  “Here is your bracelet. Don’t lose it. All your information is stored in this. It will allow you to find your friends or family members—and for them to find you. You can also use it to communicate with others on the base. Everything will be explained once you land on Pantor. Healthwise, you look great! You’ll do periodic health checkups like everyone else. It will be scheduled for you and you will get a reminder.”

  Great? She begged to differ. She felt far from great.

  Pantor. So that was the name of the alien planet. She’d been expecting something more… complicated. Galactic. Mythic. Instead, she got Pantor. Fine. Sure.

  Sloane eyed the bracelet before sliding the new tracking device onto her wrist with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner accepting an ankle monitor. Call it what it is, right?

  But her family was in New York. Did the aliens go there? Were any of their evac teams sent that far? Was anyone from there? Sloane’s mind launched into a sprint she couldn’t stop. Could there be a chance that her parents were still alive?

  Once again, the angelic voice pulled her out of the spiral.

  “You’ll follow this group out once you’re ready,” the medic explained gently. “They’ll bring you to the ship that will take you off The Exodus and down to Pantor, your final destination. Someone there will show you where you’ll be staying. You can take a shower, find something to eat, and—most importantly—rest.”

  Sloane took it for what it was: a polite way of saying okay sweetheart, time to move along, we’ve got a line.

  She nodded and pushed herself off the chair. Clearly this wasn’t the place to ask questions. Her boot and bare foot hit the ground with a heavy thump, pain shooting up her leg. She winced, exhausted down to the bone and so tired of hurting.

  She made a mental note of the mothership’s name—The Exodus. She tucked that information away like everything else she’d scraped together since this nightmare began. She wasn’t sure what she’d ever use it for, but survival mode hadn’t turned off yet, and her brain was hoarding every detail like it might become a weapon.

  The aliens were genuinely kind, almost too kind. Though Sloane wasn’t sure if she should even be calling them aliens anymore—technically she was the alien now, standing on their turf. Still, the softness in their voices, the gentleness in their movements, the way they treated everyone with care—it all buzzed around in her head like a warning.

  Was it a ruse? A pre-massacre comfort tactic? Make the humans feel safe, calm, and grateful right before the slaughter? It was a dark thought, but not an impossible one.

  But if they wanted them dead, wouldn’t they have done it already? Why the effort? Why relocate them, catalog them, shuttle them around like precious cargo unless there was another motive entirely?

  Slavery?

  Maybe that was the play. Make everyone so comfortable, so relieved to be alive, they wouldn’t even notice the chains slipping around their wrists. And honestly, wasn’t that what life already was on Earth? Eat, sleep, work, rinse, repeat. Paycheck to bills. Freedom wrapped in bureaucracy and called the American Dream. Humans were already withering away in slow motion. So really, what would be the difference?

  Sloane limped toward the new line forming ahead, absently turning her wrist to inspect the bracelet they’d slapped on her. It was sleek and white, the surface smooth like polished stone, and a faint hologram flickered to life whenever she glanced at it. Numbers glowed across the display. 1111. Of course.

  She almost laughed. Angel numbers meaning manifestation. Alignment with the universe. She definitely hadn’t manifested this. The universe had a really sick sense of humor.

  Sloane felt eyes burning a hole straight through the side of her head. Great. She squeezed her eyes shut, silently praying it wasn’t the man and woman she had—for better or worse—abandoned. It was hard not to feel a bit guilty.

  She turned her head left. Nope. Worse.

  A soldier in black stood there, the same color the higher-ups wore. And he was watching her. Inspecting her, actually, like she was some pristine specimen he couldn’t wait to dissect.

  If she didn’t know better, she’d swear it was the same male she’d encountered back on Earth. She had nothing but mannerisms to go on—the helmets hid everything—but something about the way he held himself felt familiar.

  What was his deal? Did he have a thing for humans? The question twisted into something darker the longer it sat with her. Maybe it wasn’t personal at all. Maybe he was sizing her up the same way he’d been assessing the other women, cataloging them with quiet intent rather than interest.

  The thought turned her stomach. Ideas she didn’t want to name crept in anyway—breeding, ownership, control. Slavery disguised as something orderly and civilized. The possibility made her nauseous, and she had to swallow it down.

  She was no supermodel. She had a good body—on normal days—but no one would guess that from the state she was in right now. She did love her hair, though. She’d never dyed it; a natural auburn that fell down her back, catching reds and browns whenever sunlight hit it just right. Her eyes, unfortunately, were mud brown, but the freckles dusting her nose made them almost endearing.

  She’d call herself average. Average, but attractive enough that men bought her drinks at bars. This wasn’t that. This attention felt deliberate, measured. He wasn’t looking at her with curiosity or desire, but like someone weighing a decision. And that was what made her feel sick.

  The line buzzed with chatter, everyone grumbling about their conditions and fears, per usual. Sloane just rolled her eyes. She could add her own list of grievances—but who would even listen?

  She glanced back and saw the soldier in black speaking with the medic she had just left. If only she could understand their language. They were flipping through records—Sloane could see it on the screen—and she would bet money they were looking for hers.

  Why? Why did she suddenly feel the need to protect herself even more fiercely than she had on Earth?