 nothing on Earth like it.
She tried to wipe her eyes clean but only smeared the viscous fluids further, making the sting worse. The stench burned the inside of her nose like sulfur fumes. Her high-pitched sobs drowned in the screams closing in around her.
All at once they grabbed her, tough and leathery limbs tightening around her ankle, her elbow, her thigh. They held down her wrists and braced her abdomen. Something slid around her neck and threatened to crush her windpipe.
Then everything started pulling.
She thrashed and contorted as hard as she could, but they held fast. She fought to breathe, but her throat was clamped shut. Panic seized Alexandra as their grip tightened and their pull built to an unbearable degree. They were trying to tear her apart.
The need to get away overwhelmed her. The sense of powerlessness roused a memory, and with the memory everything came crashing back—the anguish, the loathing, the shame and humiliation. Long-healed scars tore wide open, and a voice cried inside her mind, instinctive, outraged, desperate.
Anger blazed in her chest. Once more she could see their faces, twisted with hatred, shrouded in the despair of the hopeless. Their hands, holding her down, stifling her screams. And the stink, that rancid mixture of mud and dank sweat, lust, human filth. She’d been frail, back then. Scrawny, malnourished, far too young.
The anger fed on the memory of their touch, their eyes, their stench, and it all went up in flames, consumed by Alexandra’s unbound rage. A feral scream made its way through her constricted throat as her arm broke free through sheer brute force. Unable to open her eyes, she saw everything unfold in her mind.
Her hand grabbed at whatever was around her neck, and pulled, and tore the appendage off its owner. Her legs kicked savagely, her foot smashing into another of the creatures and sending it flying away in a gooey mess. She writhed in their grasp, flailing limbs fighting desperately against the monsters’ pull.
They let go. Immediately she sprung to her feet and swung her arm backwards at another of her captors. It sliced effortlessly through its midsection like a well-honed scythe, splitting the beast in two. Her arm continued its unwavering arc, inertia spinning her around to face the next creature.
She screamed as she threw her whole body into a wide hook. Her clenched fist made contact, broke through body tissue and tore a gaping hole in the thing’s side. The monster uttered a gut-wrenching gargle, staggered, and hit the ground with a spattering thud.
The rest of them fled in terror. Their incoherent shrieks faded in the distance.
Her eyes remained squeezed shut, the burn from the blinding grime slowly subsiding. She’d felt a sense of detachment in her frenzy, as though watching herself in an out-of-body experience. Now Alexandra saw herself standing there, dark skin covered in muck, muscles tense, chest heaving. Her clothes were drenched in the same disgusting substance, small bits of whatever these things were still clinging to the fabric. She was terribly disappointed to see her favorite sweatpants ruined beyond repair.
At that moment she still nurtured a small glimmer of hope. Maybe she would open her eyes to find herself in her moonlit bedroom, sheets damp with sweat and the air filled with Aaron’s snoring. She would nudge him gently, he’d turn onto his side, and she’d go back to sleep, never to remember this awful nightmare.
Alexandra clung to this hope, even as she felt the creatures’ vile juices dripping from her hands, the sting of the gravel under her naked feet, the ache of blooming welts on her limbs.
Her eyelids could finally part to a squint. After a moment of painful blinking, her vision came into focus.
She stared at the mangled corpses and yellowish sludge scattered all over the large hallway in which she stood. The unnatural color of their fluids looked more like vomit than blood. Lumps of body parts, innards and unidentifiable chunks of flesh added to the image, all mixing in unsightly mounds. Rather than the result of her desperate battle for survival, the area looked more like the aftermath of some massive monster’s sickly hangover.
Alexandra stared, struggling to make sense of what had just happened. She glanced at her hands, at the bodies, at the hallway and her own blood, unable to stop looking from one horror to the next.
You know what these things are, Alex.
She took a step back. Her eyes surveyed the alien environment with new-found dread. The nascent realization sent a chill through her skin.
You know what happened to you, what this means.
She shook her head, lips trembling. The ground spun beneath her feet as the inescapable truth sunk in.
She staggered back a few more steps, shaky hands seeking purchase. Without even noticing she bumped against one of the pillars that lined the hall.
Alexandra fell to her knees and hugged her arms to her abdomen, breath short and ragged. Deep, mournful sobs seized her throat. Her chest felt as if gripped by unseen fists.
She squeezed her eyes shut and wept for as long as tears would flow.
∞The monster was a leg-less torso with broad shoulders and a multitude of tentacles for arms. It effortlessly swam through the air.
Long, thick and leathery, the tentacles sprouted from shoulders to waist without much regard for symmetry. More of them lazily rotated and twisted beneath the monster’s generous girth, partially concealing its most alien feature: a bulbous spherical gland that pulsed with faint bursts of light.
Its face was close to non-existent. The head bulged out in a mound at the top of the torso, with a series of vertical slits at the bottom that looked like gills and a wobbly row of translucent protrusions where a hairline would be expected. They might have been eyes, although there were about fifteen of them, arranged loosely across its forehead.
The creature halted its slow advance shortly after being sighted. Before Aaron could decide whether to say something or run for dear life, the monster spoke in a deeply apprehensive tone.
The fleshy knobs on its head changed in luminescence and color as it spoke, while a subtle hum wrapped around the words, as if carrying them where they needed to go. Light and sound somehow translated into Aaron’s language.
The monster’s manifest deference did not escape him.
 Be Dominant. Make it count.
“Uhh,” Aaron said.
The creature took a moment to evaluate the situation. It floated a bit closer, and the shiny gland beneath the tangle of shifting appendages brightened faintly as it moved, yet cast no shadows in the process. The alien raised some of its tentacles in what Aaron interpreted as a placating gesture.
“Have I offended, sir? If so, it was not my intent. I shall use an alternative route, with your leave.” The colors were more subdued, unambiguously timid. The ever-shifting hum conveyed bashfulness. Aaron had no idea how he inferred these things.
He realized that the creature was about to turn around and leave.
The alien stopped turning at once, giving Aaron its full attention. It appeared wary of what the human might say.
The creature simply stared back at him for a few moments, visibly confused. Its lack of actual eyes made the experience particularly unnerving.
More eyeless staring.
 He wouldn’t have stayed drunk in the afterlife.
Or maybe he would, what the heck do I know anymore?
The monster’s confusion gradually bloomed into understanding. It approached Aaron swiftly, tentacles fluttering.
For a moment Aaron thought he was about to be smothered by this octopus-monster-thing. He retreated a few steps, his back getting uncomfortably close to the wall.
“Boundless luck, I knew I’d sensed a Human integration, I knew it!” The monster-thing laughed with its weird lights and hums, then displayed a combination of colors that Aaron recognized as an affable grin. It became the default background after every prismatic shift.
“I know you have many questions, sir. To answer one of them, my name is Queg.  If I follow procedure carefully and bring you to the safety of your people without causing you harm, the reward will be quite handsome. If I fail to do so, however, I can smother my gravity gland goodbye.
“I must be careful, you understand. There are certain things that I must let you know, and certain things that I must leave for you to discuss with the nearest Human link. I urge you not to be afraid of me. I’ve been made aware that you may perceive me as grotesque, but my intentions are far from hostile. I am a friend, you can trust me. In truth, it is in my best interest to keep you safe from all harm. There are those misguided enough to antagonize your kind, but I am not one of them.
The creature continued its speech for a good while, unaware or uncaring of Aaron’s blank stare.
“This is freakin’ nuts,” he finally said in a dismayed mutter.
The alien interrupted its chatter mid-sentence. Aaron could have sworn that he