Excerpt 1: The abduction scene

“Wait—I’m sorry. Abigail, I didn’t mean that. Please don’t go.”

Abigail froze in her tracks, but it had nothing to do with Harris’s plea. An unearthly shriek had erupted, ricocheting endlessly around the room, and all the warmth had instantly drained from her body.

“What is that?” she asked, ice surging through her veins.

Harris looked like he had seen a ghost. “I have no idea, but it’s coming from—”

With a deafening crack, four dark spheres shot out from underneath the bed and slammed into the corners of the room. Abigail watched, petrified, as the spheres oozed apart, spreading to cover the walls in a thick layer of disgusting sludge.

“You’re seeing this, right?” she said, voice trembling.

Harris nodded slowly, and Miss Biscuits started howling.

The ghastly sound reached a new ear-piercing level as the sludge began crackling with unstable amethyst purple energy.

“We need to get out of here!” Abigail shouted. She dashed for the window, but the light glittering across its surface flared violently in response, and she recoiled, backing away slowly.

The shriek was becoming unbearable. Abigail could hardly hear herself think, let alone process what was happening.

“This way!” shouted Harris as he lunged for the bedroom door, but the pulsing glow surrounding the handle suddenly sparked, jumping eagerly to his outstretched hand.

Amethyst purple light rippled through Harris’s entire body, shining beneath his skin. Abigail watched in horror as an unnatural smile slowly twisted across his face.

“Harris?” she said cautiously.

Harris’s head swiveled toward Abigail and his morbid grin twisted into fear. The amethyst purple light erupted out of his skin, contorting him backwards into a jagged arch. His body was suddenly blasted onto the ceiling, held there for a moment by an invisible force before dropping sharply to the ground, the impact kicking up a cloud of dust from the hardwood.

“Harris!” Abigail screamed, rushing to his motionless body. This was a nightmare. Everywhere she looked the amethyst purple light was encroaching—over the ceiling, across the walls, and covering the floor, inching right for them. Abigail scrambled to grab Harris under his arms and used every ounce of her strength to drag him onto the bed, only just avoiding the energy as it engulfed the remainder of the room’s surfaces.

“Harris, wake up!” she shouted as she checked for a pulse.

“Abby!?” came a muffled cry.

She strained to see Taylor pounding outside the window, an uncharacteristically horrified expression on his face through the amethyst-colored glare. He took a step back and then charged, but the barrier flared the moment his shoulder made contact, and he was repelled away in a shower of shattered glass.

Abigail’s eyes darted around the room, her fear mounting as the shrieking hit yet another plateau. Blood pounded in her ears. “Harris, wake up. Please wake up!” she pleaded, her voice barely audible over the howling of Miss Biscuits and everything else.

The sludgy spheres had re-formed in the corners of the ceiling and they were pulsing erratically. They seemed to be the source of whatever was happening—what was happening?!—perhaps they could be shut down somehow… But how? Abigail grabbed Harris’s hand, hopelessly begging him to wake up, and her fingers made contact with a ripple of raised skin—the scar.

Abigail’s gaze snapped to the samurai sword hanging on the wall. Scrambling to her feet, she ripped it from its mount and unsheathed it. The gleaming blade appeared as sharp as it had all those years ago.

“Abby! Abby! What are you doing?!” Taylor’s voice cut through the chaos. He was back on his feet just outside the shattered window. He was holding up a small metallic object that Abigail couldn’t quite make out through the amethyst refraction. She didn’t have time for this. The high-pitched shriek was growing more and more deafening, the amethyst-colored light burning ever more severely. Instinctively, she knew it was now or never. She had to disrupt whatever was happening.

She frantically scanned the spheres, her entire body shaking. Though she had no clue this would work, the one in the corner by the door seemed like her best shot. “You can do this,” she said to herself, but she didn’t remotely believe it. Gathering all her strength, she sprinted towards the edge of the bed, leaping into the air with the hilt held firmly in her grasp. With a loud clang, the sword sliced through the sphere, miraculously penetrating the energy barrier and lodging in the wall.

As gravity pulled Abigail toward the floor, time seemed to slow, and she watched the damaged sphere start to skitter in and out of reality, spewing sparks in all directions like it was about to explode. The blinding amethyst light and eardrum-bursting shriek reached their crescendos just before Abigail hit the ground.

She felt a surge of pure agony, and then, there was nothing.

Excerpt 2: Abigail’s first Encounter with an alien up close. 

She faced the doorway and braced herself for the unknown, but before she could reach for the blinking access panel, the door slid open by itself. Abigail froze. As she stared out into the shadowy corridor, it was impossible to ignore the tiny hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. She instinctively knew she was being watched. Then she heard it: a barely perceptible rhythm slipping through the silence. The sound of something breathing. “I—I know you’re there,” she stammered.

The murky air in front of her swirled and folded in on itself, contorting until it finally revealed the female half of the warriors that lived in the very room Abigail was standing in. Amethyst energy dissipated from a biomechanical device wrapped around the lurking alien’s wrist as she lifted a finger and smiled, bile dripping down her chin.

Abigail slowly backed away. “Wow… You are… hideous… I don’t like shaming other girls’ looks, but I mean… you’re just so fugly,” she said, voice quivering as terror stole through her. “Sorry, I say stupid things when I’m nervous.”

The monstrous alien stepped into the room and brushed her hand against the access panel. The door slid shut, sealing them inside.

Abigail tightened her grip on the katana. She frantically scanned for an escape route, but found none. She was trapped, and the further the grinning alien backed her into its den, the more trapped she would become.

“Um… I really liked your bleeding dress…” she offered desperately, her voice faltering again. The alien’s throat was covered in thick scar tissue and Abigail wondered if she was even capable of responding. “I’m into fashion too, as you can tell from my outfit. I call it Slumber Couture.”

The alien stopped and grinned wider still. A two-pronged metallic dagger surrounded by glowing golden energy sprung violently from the device on her wrist.

Abigail gulped. “Teagan didn’t like my style either and you remind me of her—”

Without warning, the alien pounced, furiously swinging the crackling weapon at Abigail. Abigail ducked, the blade passing inches above her head, and in one fluid, instinctive motion, she countered with a back-handed sword slash across the creature’s midsection.

Amethyst blood spattered the walls and the hulking warrior doubled over, a putrid odor filling the room.

Abigail’s heart jackhammered against her ribs. She nervously tried to adopt the attack stance her father taught her long ago, but her damaged ankle made it impossible. “I’m sorry. That was an accident. Really,” she said, trembling as she watched her adversary straighten, a trail of glowing amethyst oozing from the alien’s abdomen, the same grin on her pale face. “It’s been a really long time since I’ve been in a fight,” Abigail said quietly. “Can we not do this?”

The warrior attacked again, roaring with unbridled ferocity. Abigail swung her sword to parry, but the energy-wrapped dagger sliced clean through her blade and burrowed deep into her shoulder. Searing spots of agony danced across Abigail’s vision, but a clawed grip around her throat cut short her shriek of pain. The creature lifted Abigail and tossed her like a rag doll, the dagger tearing out of her body as she hurtled through the air.

Landing on the massive bed at the far side of the room, Abigail gasped for oxygen, but her lungs refused to fill. Through a fit of coughs, she looked up just in time to see the alien charging in for the kill, and her eyes widened.

Abigail frantically jerked her knees to her chest, catching her assailant in the bleeding torso with both feet at the last second. The alien gasped in pain and the dagger halted inches from Abigail’s throat. Abigail desperately searched for something to use as a weapon as her attacker forced the blade towards her flesh. The pressure on her mangled ankle coupled with the flaming torment in her shoulder made it impossible to think straight. Then she spotted it: the swirling sculpture that had nearly taken her eye out earlier.

The alien let loose another roar, the tip of the dagger puncturing the surface of Abigail’s skin. Abigail was left with no choice. Ignoring the agony, she gathered all her remaining strength, screamed, and thrust her legs forward with all her might.

The impact was perfect, the force sending the alien staggering across the room, stumbling out of control towards the sculpture… SNIKT!

The sound of the substance’s suddenly solidifying spikes tearing through armor and tissue was so horrible it made Abigail wince. She collapsed on the bed and caught her breath, pain throbbing across her body. Overwhelming guilt rose through her. Did I really just kill someone? She shut her watery eyes and tried to absorb the silence around her, but it was tragically short-lived. A ghastly gurgling sound prompted Abigail to sit up and face the consequences of her actions.

The hulking warrior was arched over backwards, gruesomely impaled on the sculpture, a bubbling trail of amethyst blood trickling from her mouth, and yet that grin, that horrible grin, was still plastered on her face.

“I’m sorry,” Abigail said as the events of their chaotic battle replayed in her mind. She had no choice. The alien would have killed her. “I’m really sorry.”

With her last ounce of strength, the alien raised a hand, almost in salute, before letting it fall onto her biomechanical wrist device. A web of glowing amethyst veins shot up the slick walls, and a deafening cry echoed from deep within the ship.

“What did you just do?!” Abigail shouted, but her voice was barely audible over the growing commotion.

The dying warrior took her last breath and her arm dropped to her side, the biomechanical device disengaging and clattering to the floor.

A panicked realization washed over Abigail: This was an alarm—and that meant reinforcements.