Young Writers Society

Avery and Jasmine clambered through the doorway at the back of the ship's cabin and found themselves in a small cramped closet of sorts. Despite the terrible darkness, it was clear that Jason hadn't cleaned the room since he first acquired the ship – whenever that may have been. Cardboard boxes piled up to the ceiling and served as a second layer of wall right on top of the original walls. Dust filled the air and coated the floor, leaving Avery wondering if Jason even owned a broom. He doubted it.

“Neat,” Jasmine said. Avery wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic about the state of the room, or if she had an odd affinity for dust. He decided not to respond and stepped towards the middle of the room. Jasmine felt at the walls around the door, searching for a light switch. Finding one and pressing it promptly, she cast the tight room into a glaring cube of light.

Avery scanned the boxes as Jasmine came to his side and looked about as well. Suddenly the light switched off. The two turned to face the switch.

“Must be defective,” Jasmine stated, stepping up to it and pressing it again. She watched it sharply as she slowly returned to the center of the room.

“Where d'you think he went?” she asked, turning to Avery. He shrugged and approached the wall opposite the light switch. Boxes completely covered this wall. He surveyed them carefully, squinting at their dusty labels.

The light flickered a moment, then went out again. Avery spun on his heel and glared at the light switch. Jasmine switched it on. The two watched it carefully. As they did so, the thick shadows in a corner near the switch seemed to move. Jasmine gasped and gripped her gun. Avery stepped across the room and held his gun up, aiming it at the offending corner.

In all honesty, Avery had never shot a gun in his life and was feeling quite nervous. He knew that you had to pull the trigger to fire it, clearly, but that was with Earth guns. He had no idea how different these alien guns could be.

“Who's there?” he demanded, hoping to sound intimidating. Instead, his voice cracked. Flushing in painful embarrassment, he cleared his throat and tried again. “Who's there?”

The shadows moved again and Avery's mind raced with what sort of alien horror could be hiding there. Shadows definitely weren't something he wanted to mess with, but here he was.

His arms began to shake slightly and his knuckles had gone white around the gun's handle. Lessening his grip and adjusting his stance, he demanded an answer from the corner again. There was no reply, so he resorted to a nervous cough before allowing a stiff silence to fall over the room.

Suddenly, a pink hand poked out from the darkness. Avery's eyes widened as he dramatically turned his aim on the hand. He was starting to break a sweat and felt his cheeks grow red as his brain reminded him of his voice cracking a moment ago.

The hand slowly inched across the wall, making its way to the light switch. Whatever creature hid in the shadows didn't have an arm quite long enough to reach the switch on its own, so they had to lean out from the corner a few inches. Luckily, this brought their face into view.

Avery let his gun arm drop to his side as he let out an exasperated sound.

“Really?” he said. The pink face stared at him blankly, wearing an expression that Avery thought resembled a guilty squirrel. The hand, arm, and face kept leaning further and further out of the shadows, trying to reach the light switch.

“Honestly?” Avery asked, crossing his arms. Jasmine remained silent, but Avery didn't turn away from the corner. Still leaning out of the corner, the pink figure suddenly stumbled and fell to the floor, releasing a giant cloud of dust into the air. He fell into a coughing fit as Avery looked down at him, tapping a foot and frowning.

“Jason, what were you--”

“Avery, behind you!” the man on the floor exclaimed, leaping to his feet and grabbing Avery's gun. He quickly shoved Avery to the floor and shot two blasts at the ceiling.

“What're you doing?” Avery cried, scrambling to his feet. “You'll rip a whole in the—” He froze as he found that there already was a hole in the ceiling. On the floor directly below it was a black, steaming, rubbery-looking thing.

“What's that?” he asked.

“A bad guy,” Jason said.

“A bad guy?” Avery repeated.

“Yeah,” Jason said.

“Okay,” Avery said, looking away from the thing and surveying the room. Just then he realized why he hadn't been backed up in his confrontation of the corner.

“Where's Jasmine?” he asked worriedly.

“Well,” Jason replied, staring up at the large hole above him. “A squid got her.”

“What?” Avery asked, perplexed.

“A squid,” Jason said slowly. “Got her.”

“What do you mean 'a squid got her'?” Avery asked. Jason pointed down at the charred ball, then up to the hole with his gun hand.

“Squid. Grabbed her. Took her up there.” he explained.

“A squid?” Avery prompted.

“Got her.” Jason nodded.

“There are squids in space?” Avery asked slowly.

“Not exactly squids,” Jason replied. “Technically they're Cephalods. Pirates from Neptune.” He began pacing the room, stopping a moment to check each wall. “Originally, at least. Doesn't mean we're close to Neptune,” he added at the look on Avery's face. “We're way off, nowhere near Neptune.”

“Then what're they doing out here?” Avery asked.

“Well everyone evacuated Neptune when some crazy dolphins started falling from the sky or something,” Jason said. “The Cephalods hate fish, ironically. I don't blame them, by the way.” He poked a box and licked the dust off his finger, then cringed. “Anyway, everyone originally from Neptune just tried to get as far away from there as possible, so there you go.” He pointed back to the hole. “We get that 'cause of some stinking dolphins. D'you know how much that's gonna cost me--”

Avery shut Jason's voice out there and grabbed a large box that was lying around, not being used as the cardboard walls of the room. Shoving it beneath the hole, he climbed atop it and poked his head through the ripped ceiling.

Glancing around, he found his head in a large cargo bay. There were big steel crates organized in various places around the hold and even a small ship – the first spaceship-like ship he'd seen, because Jason's silver can really wasn't what came to mind when he thought of aliens and space travel.

Situated around the ship was a small group of what appeared to be anthropomorphic squids; Cephalods, he guessed. Most of their bodies were made up of tentacles, four of which served as legs, the other four serving as arms, and two extras that wrapped around their “necks” like slimy scarves. The rest of their bodies were tall, pointy squid heads – just what you'd expect of an anthropomorphic squid person from Neptune.

At that moment, Jason decided to pop up on the box beside Avery and peek into the hold.

“Oh, damn,” he muttered.

“What?” Avery asked.

“They aren't usually those colors,” Jason replied. The Cephalods in the bay varied between orange, blue, and a blue-green shade. Avery thought the blue and blue-green might be typical of a squid, though, personally, he imagined a pinker color might suit them better.

“What are they usually, then?” he asked Jason.

“A pinker color,” Jason replied. Avery blinked.

“I think that'd suit them better,” he said.

“Me too,” Jason agreed. They nodded and continued watching the Cephalods mill about the ship. As the moved around, Jasmine soon came into view. Avery nearly yelped, but he caught his tongue and glanced at Jason.

“They've got Jasmine.”

“Told you so,” Jason said.

“What do we do?” Avery asked.

“I mean, we could leave her,” Jason suggested. Avery gave him a stern look.“Okay, okay, we'll save her. Just gimme a second.” Jason poked his head into the dusty room and came back up with Avery's laser gun in hand.

“What're you gonna do with that?” Avery asked. “Those guys outnumber us.”

“Avery,” Jason said. “Do you not remember the other pirates we saved Jasmine from? They outnumbered us too. Believe me, I'm sure we can take a few squid pirates.” Before Avery could retort, Jason tossed himself into the cargo bay and charged at the group surrounding the ship.

“Oh no,” Avery mumbled. Jason bellowed out a war cry, sounding like some sort of desperate bird during mating season. Not only did his cry sound bad, but his plan was rubbish too.

The Cephalods heard him, spotted him, and shot him with an alien laser baton of some kind. Jason seized mid-charge and crashed to the shiny silver floor, halfway between the Cephalods and the hole that Avery hid in. A couple of Cephalods departed from their group to retrieve him. They dragged him unceremoniously back to the ship and dropped him beside Jasmine, letting his face smash into the floor again. Two more of the squid troops soon walked back the same way and pulled a struggling Avery out of the dusty junk closet he'd retreated to.

They tossed him beside Jason, shouting at him in a language he'd never heard. Avery eyed their laser batons and decided it would be safest to stay down. Shifting his view to his right, he saw an unconscious, twitching Jason drooling all over the shiny floor. Beside Jason stood Jasmine, keeping still and staring straight ahead.

The Cephalods approached Avery again and started shouting in his face. The poor man had no idea what they were saying and he tried to translate that to them, but he didn't know how to. A large orange Cepalod with a name tag that read “Billie” pulled him to his feet and waved a baton in his face. Billie spit a lot and Avery winced.

Jasmine spoke up then, talking quickly. “Avery, brace yourself.”

“What? Why?” he started asking, when suddenly Billie whacked him in the head with a big purple stick. Avery's vision split in two, blurred like tarnished photo, and spun around in his head.

“What the--?” he blurted, holding his head and swaying in place.

“Now can you hear me?” Billie shouted. Avery blinked and shook his head to clear his vision. “No?” Billie cried, raising the purple stick above his head. “We can fix that!”

Jasmine leaped between the two, holding her hands up.

“No, no, it's fine. He can understand you!” she said. “That's just how, uh... How he says yes.” Billie squinted at her, then squinted over her shoulder at Avery.

“Weirdo,” he said, turning away and lining up with the other Cephalods. Jasmine faced Avery and nodded, giving him a concerned look.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Er, not really,” he replied. “Why'd they hit me?”

“It's a translator stick,” Jasmine explained. “They whack you with that and you can understand other languages temporarily.”

“Really? Why don't they try something less painful?”

“Well, they don't exactly care about our well-being.”

“What do they want?” Avery asked.

“Jason's ship,” Jasmine stated.

“Oh, that's not all, my dear!" a cheery voice cried. A bright purple Cephalod wearing a golden ring around his head was standing behind Jasmine. He was taller than the rest, towering far above his captors, and had a beard made up of tiny tentacles beneath the beak on his face.

“Well what else do you want?” Jasmine queried, sounding relatively disgusted.

“Well,” the squid man said, stretching out the word. “I'm looking for a bride, my dear!”