The holding cell into which Andora was thrust could not have been more than five feet tall and three feet wide, not enough to contain his now expanded frame. A small drain hole in the corner was the only form of latrine available to him. Wafting from it, the smell of feces irritated his nose. He shuffled his feet impatiently, rattling the chains to a tune playing in his head.
The door of his cell creaked open. Guards waiting outside roughly threw a blanket over his head and shoved him towards what he assumed was his execution. An odorless liquid was dunked over him, his vision blurred, and he fell asleep. When he woke, he was chained to a chair. Opposite him sat a throne, at least he assumed it to be a throne. Between them was a table on which various pieces of papers and stamps were placed. Oh, wait. Maybe it’s an office. The feeling of uneasiness he had had since being taken from his cell eased somewhat. Definitely they do not intend to execute in a office, he thought.
Looking around, he saw two guards standing at attention about ten paces away. He smiled. This was too easy. First, he needed to destroy the chains binding him to the chair without the guards noticing. He struggled desperately in his seat. Stop standing there, he frustratedly thought at his guards, Leave me alone! Unsurprisingly, they made no moves for the door. He cursed silently under his breath. This was not going well at all.
A deep voice boomed across the hall, “Your human emotions show through your skin, agent.”
Startled, Andora looked towards the source of the voice. A ghost, larger than any he had ever seen before, followed by a large entourage crossed towards him. They had entered through a door he had not noticed before. When the big man had seated himself comfortably in the throne, Andora’s chair was carried closer to the table.
The deep voice came again. “You probably do not know of me, transformed human. I am D’Let, Chief of the Yellow Sector of the Telours.”
A hollow feeling began to form inside Andora. They were a whole species, having even a name. “What has happened to my human body, then?” He asked impertinently.
D’Let just smiled and motioned to one of the guards standing behind Andora. “Release the transformed human.”
The guard came forward with measured steps and unlocked the chains that held Andora before returning to stand near the door. Andora slowly placed his hands onto the table, inching his left towards one of the heavy stamps.
“So human, you make a request that is easily complied with.” He motioned towards his back.
Andora threw up his hands, “NO, NO... I didn’t ask to see my old body.”
D’Let somehow misinterpreted him. “You don’t want to see your nobody? Fascinating. Do you even have somebody?”
Andora blew his nostrils in exasperation, but remained silent. D’Let turned round and said something in a language Andora had never heard before. It sounded like a series of clicks. He resigned himself to the idea that someday he would learn to speak that language. He could, however, guess what the order was. Walking across the hall, a puny telour disappeared through the doors.
“Where did he go?” Andora asked guardedly.
Sinisterly, D’Let replied, “He went to collect your... friends.”
“Friends?!” Andora spat, “Who is my friend? Friends stick together even though they may be fried!”
The wall directly in front of Andora whined open. Ten figures came forward into the hall. Three human figures were not chained, Andora recognized himself, Mark, and Maria. Matthew was chained, as were four telours. He easily figured that they were transformed humans.
Five chairs descended from the roof. The chained telours and Matthew were seated before being relieved of their chains. D’Let smiled, “I suppose you know them?”
Andora nodded numbly, finally understanding. The three humans took positions behind the throne, displacing those who had been there. “You will be integrated into our culture and become one of us,” D’Let declared.
“Never!” One of the transformed humans sitting next to him spat. “We will never become one with savages!”
Andora recognized Maria in the female voice. D’Let sternly stared her down. “Your human emotions will be suppressed. It is not conductive to civilization. You will learn to accept your positions among us. Perhaps in a hundred years time, you may return to the surface in some other human body, these,” waving his hands behind him, “will have been destroyed by that time. If you do not accept, you will be destroyed!”
Andora sagged in his chair, he liked neither choice. A hundred years, how could I survive such agony. I refuse to die at the hands of some savage. With as much calm as he could muster, he proposed a third alternative. “Fifty yea--”
Here he was interrupted by D’Let, “Never will I negotiate. You have only two choices, do or do not.”
Andora felt he had to do something now. Tapping Maria with his foot, he threw a stealthy wink at D’Let. She nodded in understanding and passed the message on to Mark. Mark had a much harder time understanding, forcing Andora to steal time for them. “If we do not accept, we will go back to the prison, am I right?”
D’Let definitely had not noticed, Andora thought, “Yes, you will go back to where you came from. All of you.”
“The same place? We could hardly fit into one small cell, we need larger quarters.”
D’Let smiled enigmatically, “Accept your fate, you will be given much larger quarters.”
Andora let out a long-suffering sigh, “How long did you say we have to--” Maria tapped his foot, “Ah, yes I forgot. Um... What did I forget? Oh, yes, I remember now.”
He held up an open palm, “Five hundred? No.” He pulled in his thumb, “Four? No. Three?” He pulled in two fingers, “Wait, two, yes, no.” He held up a finger, “Um One? Go!”
He jumped up and dived for D’Let. At the same time, his two fellow conspirators jumped for the stamps on the table. Using them as missiles, they doubled-over the two nearest telours. By this time, Andora had D’Let’s throat in a grip of iron. He locked his talons together, choking life from the Chief.
The other telours slowly backed away, and Andora relaxed his hold on D’Let’s neck, removing a knife from the telour’s clothes at the same time. He held the knife to his neck and ordered the surrounding retinue to disarm themselves and gather at the farther end of the hall.
As Maria and Mark proceeded to gather up the weapons, Andora turned to the throne and held the blade menacingly, “Now, Chief, let us discuss terms anew.”
Half-an-hour later, the trio found themselves in the conscious-transferring room. Both Matthews followed, as they were to be condensed into one body, the other was to be discarded. Andora arranged it such that the others were to change bodies before himself, as he doubted the honesty of the telours. After the others had changed, he handed over D’Let to Mark while he himself changed.
When he awoke in his original body, he saw the weapon Mark held to D’Let’s throat sink in, and so did his heart. An unnecessary waste, Mark, how are we to find our way out now? Slapping his hand over a sleep gun, Andora screamed to his companions to flee. They did not hear, or at any rate, did not heed, him, opening fire on the entourage gathered in the room. Within a few seconds, everyone but themselves had imploded, and were now on the floor, in millions of pieces.
Andora shook his head at the destruction and led the way out the door. “They self destructed, you did not destroy them.” The monotone came over to his ears. Damn it, do they have spirits too? “Get out of my mind!” He shouted, shaking it to emphasize his point. They left him, for now.
Turning down an alley which they hoped would lead to the surface, they heard the unmistakable hiss of a door closing behind them. “Damn it, Mark, why did we not see that?”
Mark shook his head, he was confused. At what? Andora thought his head would explode, and he finally understood. “Poison gas!” He screamed and breathed his last.
The End.....
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