2. ZOE

Ididn't know then that the aliens who had attacked Earth and abducted me were called Cryons, nor did I care. In pain and feeling miserable, I leaned against a wall as best as I could with my arms tied behind my back.

In another corner, three captives were arguing over something I didn't care about. In order to care, you had to have hope, and I had none.

Two weeks had passed since the Cryon's initial attack, and I had thought myself so clever to have made it this long. Hiding in my neighbor's stocked basement, I could have made it for months, years even. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one Aidan had bragged to about his end-of-the-world stocks. And even though Aidan didn't seem to have made it, some of his coworkers had. Five of them. All men.

Generously, they gave me a choice, put out or get out. I picked get out and lasted all but eight hours on the streets before the Cryons took me.

Initially, they held me inside a capsule with other captives until it was full, then they brought us here to a larger spaceship. Held in cells. None of us knew where they planned to take us or what they were going to do to us. Guesses and speculations ran rampant throughout the multitude of prisoners, who ranged from infants to a man in his nineties. We made up a collection of men and women of all races in all conditions, from healthy to broken limbs or even deep wounds.

With our bound arms, there wasn't much we could do for one another. I watched two men tend to a woman with a nasty gash on her shoulder. One held his back to her and tried with his bound hands to press a dirty piece of cloth against the wound to stop the bleeding while the other gave instructions.

"Can you help me?" A woman approached me timidly. I knew what she wanted.

"I need help too," I resigned myself with a sigh.

"Good, do you want to go first?"

I wasn't ready yet to pee in front of hundreds of eyes, but what choice did I have? I could choose to piss in my pants or squat over the hole in the floor. Sitting in my soiled clothes for however how long appealed to me even less.

"I'll help you first," I said, positioning myself so my back was turned to her. I lowered myself enough for my hands to reach the hem of her skirt. I lifted it and tucked it into her cleavage like I had seen others do. Next came her panties. That was a bit trickier, but eventually, I managed to get them down to her ankles.

We had already moved to one of the holes in the ground meant for this purpose, and I kept my back to her, spreading my legs to give her as much cover as possible. Not that it mattered. The cell walls were all translucent. Anybody from the cell next to us or across could watch. Most didn't. But we were all humans, and there had always been a lot of assholes in our species. Unfortunately, the assholes had been picked up by the aliens along with everybody else.

I heard the familiar sound of tinkling, which made my bladder throb even more.

"I'm done," she said, hopping up and down a bit to air-dry, I supposed. Contorting myself again, I managed to get her panties up and her skirt down.

My turn was more complicated because I wore sensible survivalist clothing, which included tight jeans.

She didn't say anything, only grunted and groaned until she had worked my pants and panties down. Next, it was my turn to figure out how complicated it really was to squat down with my pants and panties around my ankle and my arms bound behind my back. The very idea of collapsing right on top of that filthy hole was daunting. The hole was smothered in feces since none of our aims was very good and it wasn't very wide.

Closing my eyes, I concentrated on my breathing and released my bladder while keeping my balance even though I swayed some. But I managed to get most of it down the hole, and the lady helped me get dressed.

"Thank you." We wryly smiled at each other. What else was there to say? You want to be my pissing partner?

We retreated into opposite corners, and I stared at the troughs in front of the cell. One was filled with water, the other with some kind of slop. I wasn't that hungry yet to try the slop. Thanks to Aidan, I had been fed much better during Armageddon than the others, whose clothes were all loose-fitting. But I was sure that at some point, I would succumb to it. Just like the man kneeling in front of the water trough.

Earlier, a woman had tipped over and fallen face down into it. The thing was deeper than it looked, and it took us a moment to realize she was actually drowning before two men in uniform rushed over and pulled her out with a lot of grunting and groaning and their backs turned to her.

She was dead by the time they pulled her out. Nobody performed CPR, and I wasn't sure if the reason was that it would have been nearly impossible with our bound hands or because her suffering was behind her. Reviving her, even if it had been possible, seemed just as cruel.

Eventually the Cryons removed her body.

Yeah, I wasn't too eager to drink or eat.

Suddenly, the floor underneath me tilted, accompanied by a screeching sound, as if metal was hitting metal. I flipped over against the wall.

Others were thrown against me, and for a terrifying moment, I thought that this was it. This was how I would die. Crushed to death by other people.

But then the ship tilted again, and we flew against the other wall. It was my turn to be thrown against my fellow prisoners. Moans and groans rang out as people kicked and shuffled, trying to get out of this human pileup. A foot hit me in the face so hard, I saw stars before my mouth filled with blood.

Coughing, I kicked against a man to right myself. Thankfully, the tipping left and right stopped, but my nose gushed blood.

"Tilt your head back," one of the men in uniform who had tried to save the woman from drowning in the water trough advised. I wasn't sure about it. After all, the last person he had tried to help died, but a faint memory of seeing people in movies do as he suggested made me change my mind.

I nearly chocked as I swallowed more blood, until, eventually, it slowed. Just in time for me to catch sight of several Cryons entering the hall separating our cells with blasters in hand. Had they come to kill us?

Their blasters, however, were leveled at the direction from which they came. Dots of light burst from the blasters like colored bullets. A shriek went through our ranks as we took in how frantic the Cryons appeared to be. What could possibly frighten them this much? Them! The ones who had conquered our planet within days?

More blaster fire broke out, this time coming from the other side of the entryway. Not wildly shot, but precise, in intervals. One after the other, the Cryons fell where they stood.

And then he came into view, and my breath stopped.

He was a monster of a man, his six-and-a-half-foot tall body was encased in a dark gray uniform. Tightly snug against his flesh, it showed off colossal muscles. Long black hair was held back by the nape of his neck. In one hand, he held some kind of shield that deflected the Cryons' blaster shots, and in the other, he held a similar weapon. This was no man. This was a titan—a god.

My stomach fluttered until I realized he wasn't really a man. At least not a human one. His skin was a mix of silver and gray, and his eyes reminded me of those of a shark. Deep set black orbs. Emotionless as he killed one Cryon after another.

When it was done, he turned to face us.