Abigail could hear them behind her as she ran. The alien’s footsteps sounded close, but, certain she had a good head start, she didn’t look back. Being on a new planet was something she had only dreamed of three days earlier. How dumb she’d been, thinking Earth was the only thing that mattered, the only place with life! Three days earlier, she would have never believed aliens would take her. The stories of abductions, space travel, and the deals humans made with other planets had always seemed outside her realm of things to worry about.

She’d awakened after midnight, a faint buzzing in her room. She thought she was dreaming, as the whole room was glowing with a soft white light. Her apartment was in a busy part of town so it wasn’t unusual to wake up to a car’s headlights pointed toward her window. These looked strange, though, and she felt compelled to get out of bed. Shielding her eyes, she went to her window to see what could be causing such a thing.

The street was bathed in the same light. She couldn’t see where it came from.

Abigail would come to regret her decision to go outside and investigate If she could go back in time she would have just stayed in bed. The light brightened as she made her way onto the porch. Suddenly, she was being lifted into the air towards a large metal object. Making out exactly what it looked like was difficult, and from then until they’d made their emergency stop, most of it was a blur.

Now, she was running from them on a planet far from home. It was pitch black and she was running by feeling alone. The woods were thick, almost alive with a need to put a stop to her forward momentum. A branch cracked her across the forehead, another slapped her hard across the mouth. A sound of pain she didn’t recognize escaped from her. She felt the blood running into her eyes, spit the metallic taste from her mouth, and kept moving forward. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

The woods seemed to stretch in front of her forever. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark and a moon started to peek out from behind clouds she hadn’t realized were there. The fact that there was oxygen to breathe on this planet was surprising to her when she first fled. She’d hesitated, thinking the air might kill her before she made it very far. Now, as she took in deep breaths, she could tell it wasn’t the same oxygen she breathed on Earth. Somehow this was denser, it didn’t feel the same when she took it in. However, her head didn’t hurt and she wasn’t getting weaker, so she assumed it was working the way it should.

Another few branches slapped her before she tumbled out of the woods. Pitching forward, she came to a steep hill and found herself rolling down it uncontrollably. As she rolled, she imagined a large pit at the bottom, waiting to swallow her up. This was how she died. She knew it. Her last few minutes on Earth passed in her mind. She’d argued with a guy and tripped in front of her apartment while several people looked on. It wasn’t her best day.

When she came to a stop, she was afraid to open her eyes. Where could she be? One eye and then the other fluttered open and she realized she was simply at the bottom of the hill. Her whole body ached, blood still ran down her face, but she was very much alive. The grass of the hill was itchy and she fought the urge to scratch all over her body.

Another hill stretched up in front of her. She was going to have to climb. Abigail wasn’t sure she had enough energy to make it up, so she walked along the bottom hoping to find the way around it.

A shrill screech cut the air, almost like a cricket being strangled. She froze, expecting the source of that ungodly shriek to come over the hill at any moment. She waited, and finally, after what seemed like forever, her heart settled.  The noise didn’t seem to be getting any louder. She hoped that meant the creature was stuck to one place. Not sure how long she’d been standing in one spot, she started her climb.

After walking for what seemed like miles, she came to the conclusion the hill wasn’t going to end. It was up or nowhere. She inched up the hill and almost fell back down a couple of times. There wasn’t a tree or branch to hold onto, making it difficult to get any momentum. When she finally made it to the top, she rolled onto her back, gasping. She’d never been very active on Earth and now she regretted it.

CrossFit Carrie, as she lovingly referred to her workout-addicted friend, would have beat up all the aliens and taken over the ship. Abigail could barely make it up a hill. Once her breathing had returned to normal, she rolled over and could just make out the outline of flowers nearby.

She moved into it, the petals tickling her legs. She’d been abducted wearing a pair of short leggings and a large white shirt. Now her shirt was covered in dirt and whatever disgusting goo the aliens had on their ship. When they’d allowed her to redress after an extensive shower with what could only be described as a giant garden hose, her clothes were laying on a tray of different goo, goo that was clearly a part of their next experiment. When she'd fled, she'd managed to grab her purse, and the contents were the only thing she now had to her name. A wallet with worthless money, lipstick, a cell phone that didn't work, and a lighter for her occasional party cigarette. How she wished she was a Girl Scout type who'd carried survival supplies.

Back on her abductor's ship, the English translator they wore made the clicks of the other aliens come out in words she could understand. She understood from that little box that they were going to let her rest and then start the procedure. At the time, she thought sarcastically, “Oh how nice to let me rest.”  Now she thought her “rest” may have saved her from having a much worse time. The ship going down had been unplanned and she took advantage of it. Whatever they were planning to do with the goo had to be worse than what she would face on the outside.

The flowers made Abigail happy. She realized she was laughing and tears streamed down her face. She felt a love for them and herself. It was a bizarre feeling because she knew she wasn’t feeling good at all. It had to be the flowers. She had a sudden urge to get down and roll around in them.

She refrained, and moved faster through them. She was reminded beautiful flowers could be poisonous. Maybe these flowers were doing something to her.

Hurrying through the flowers, she happened upon a large body of water. There was a small boat on the shore with a single paddle. The water wasn’t wide but it did look deep. She crawled into the boat and picked up a box that wouldn’t open to peer beneath it. It wasn’t clear to her what she was looking for. Other people were a long shot on a planet she wasn’t familiar with. Maybe she would find shelter and food and then a way to get back to Earth.

She actually laughed out loud. Even if she found a way, she didn’t have a clue how to fly a ship or use an alien communication device.

Rowing the boat did nothing to help her sore muscles feel better. She tried stroking slowly to not aggravate them so much. When it didn’t work, she went faster to try and get across quickly so she could rest her arms.

“You, you there.”

Someone was yelling at her. Ducking down, she tried to row without being seen.

“You took my boat!”

She looked towards the shore now and saw a man standing there with his arms in the air, waving at her. Was it a man? On second glance, she realized he was glowing.

“I’ll push it back across when I’m done.” She yelled at him, knowing the solution she offered probably wouldn’t work.

To her horror, she saw he’d gotten into the water and was swimming towards her. She tried to row faster, not wanting to panic. When she made it to the side, she leapt from the boat and took off running.

He chased her, she could hear his footsteps. “You don’t want to go that way, ma’am.”

The hell she didn’t. As much distance as she could put between him and her was what she needed. She gasped when an arm wrapped around her waist and stopped her from running.  She fought for him to let her go, but he was far too strong.