chapter 1

(Robin) the first chapter

Hi, my name is Robin Birk, a perfectly uninteresting 18 year old and because of this, naturally, forces were set in motion to make me more interesting. I am a drifter, my whole life I have drifted through life. There has never been a purpose to my drifting, just a general sense of indifference to all that happens to me. I have never had anything or anyone that holds my attention; but that all changed the day I met her. But I guess I am getting ahead of myself. The end of my drifting life began at four AM, six months ago. I was enjoying a late night stroll through my town when it happened, the beginning of the events that would change my life forever. 

 

 My stroll had brought me over the fence of the local swimming pool where I was skipping stones when the sky suddenly erupted with a greenish radiance that made the noonday sun pale in comparison. I was quite startled by this turn of events as you can imagine, and fell into the pool. The pool was then immersed by an even brighter light, if that’s possible, I then watched my right arm disintegrate. “hey give that back!’ I shouted with my left hand clenched in a fist and thrust at the sky, a useless gesture that resulted in me losing buoyancy and sinking below the surface of the water. My other arm and both of my legs disintegrated next, for some reason all I could think of at that point was some guy named Bob I had met a few nights ago. Then everything went white, quite the opposite from the black I was expecting.

  I awoke very angry, because as far as I knew someone had run off with my extremities and I had grown somewhat attached to them. The first thing I noticed upon my return to a conscious state was the fact that I was no longer under water, the second was that my arms and legs had been returned to me, in more or less the same condition they were in when they were taken. The most unsettling was the loss of my clothing, well not all of my clothing, I still had my left sock, I was unsure how I should feel about this random tidbit of information I had uncovered, but decided to make a note of it incase it held some importance later on. With my arms back in my sphere of influence I figured it would be a simple matter to sit up and look around, but said simple task was hindered by the fact I was floating and had no way of knowing which way was up as everything was still painfully white and I could not see anything but myself and the sock that floated halfway off my foot. 

 What happened next was kind of a let down after all the build up that had been developing. A smallish purple man appeared on the wall next to me, although I guess considering the angle he was at, the wall was more likely the floor. Being I was floating and seemed unable to maneuver in any way I simply twisted to look at him. The little alien then bowed to me, which looked quite odd from the position I was floating at, and said something I will never forget: “taco stands smell of apple paper”. Or at least that is what I heard; I found out later that he had actually said “welcome chosen one” or something along those lines. Without warning the alien shouted some indescribable gibberish and then stole my sock and vanished. This lead to an interesting sensation, the rest of me was quite warm, but my left foot was suddenly very cold.

  I pondered the sensation for what felt like an hour, but my attention was abruptly diverted from my foot to the three small aliens that had appeared on the ceiling. The inconsistent dimensions of the area I was floating in was starting to make me very cross, and I informed the aliens of this quite pointedly. Ignoring this, the aliens moved onto what they found to be more important. “Please forgive my subordinates rudeness earlier; clothes are a blasphemy to his religion”. The middle alien explained while all three aliens bowed in unison. “Well they're not for mine, so give them back.” I informed them while covering myself. The middle alien looked quite guilty when he told me that my clothes had been destroyed because they had a chemical on them that was extremely harmful to their race, and was forced to protect his crew while going against the comfort of the chosen one. “Was it the chlorine?” I asked with genuine interest, completely oblivious to the fact that I was floating naked talking to upside down aliens in the middle of a white void.  “Are you referring to the corrosive substance that was accompanying the “dreaded substance” in that nearly fatal chemical bath we saved you from?” The middle alien asked with a terribly puzzled while also somewhat concerned and slightly proud tone. The aliens question surprised me to the extent that I temporarily lost speech function making me look as if I were a fish lying on the deck of a boat gasping for air. For you see the realization of the exact composition of the “dreaded substance” had hit me like a fully loaded tractor-trailer sliding down Mount Everest.  “Your “dreaded substance” is water?” I asked incredulously.  “Yes I believe that is what the people of your planet have labeled “the dreaded substance”.” The middle alien stated with a nod after a slight pause. Upon the aliens confirmation of my inquiry my shocked disbelief returned resulting in a sizeable, not to mention, gauche silence.
 

Unexpectedly the end to our capacious awkwardness was derived from the near subzero temperatures my left foot had achieved not to mention the lovely purple color it had claimed as it’s new pigmentation. Noting this I asked, with my index finger held up partially, “considering you destroyed my wet clothes could you kindly provide me with new clothes, and perhaps thaw out my foot as well?” When the aliens nodded in an affirmative, I then added one more, quick request; “also could you possibly return me to my domicile?” the aliens bowed deeply, an action I was beginning to associate with guilt and negative responses, and then informed me that they had barely been able to save me and make their escape before the Draconian quarantine order was put into effect, and that returning me to Earth would be quite impossible.  

 Oddly enough my only thought on this turn of events was that I would be late for work. Derailing that train of thought, I again turned to face my diminutive alien captors and informed them of my desire to be in a relatively vertical position on a horizontal plane of which the dimensions would stay constant. The middle alien nodded then pressed a button which had appeared above his head resulting in my unexpected but predictably rapid descent to what I assumed was the floor. After my short introduction with the floor, which had a texture I could only describe as peach flesh covered in sandpaper, I regained the precarious balance on my limbs and glanced around in hopes of seeing a color, other then white, any color.
“Please follow us so you may dress yourself”. The middle alien said as soon as I had regained some sense of normalcy in my balance. Once the aliens started walking I had no choice but to draggle along behind them, seeing as they only came up to my waist. Curiously the ceilings seemed to be high enough for me to walk without slouching, not that I could see the ceiling, I gathered this factoid because I had yet to hit my head on any low flying ceilings. “We are almost there” the alien to the left of me assured me, but considering the only indication that we were moving at all was that we were walking, the area around us remained completely white with a bit of fog, this lead me to believe that this whole series of events was just an elaborate ploy to get me to exercise.  “Here we are, Chosen one”. The aliens said in unison. I stood there quite confused as all I saw in front of me was the same white fogginess I had been walking through for the past ten minutes. I stood pondering this until one of the aliens tapped my right thigh and pointed behind me. Boxes, thousands of boxes right behind me, extending backwards till they vanished, like the warehouse in “Raiders of the lost ark”. I was awe struck, that is where we had just come from.
 My left foot reminded me of my priorities, so I pried the nearest crate open. Upset by what I found I pried another crate open then another. Finally after at least two dozen crates I turned to the aliens and politely inquired as to if there were any crates with guys’ clothes. The aliens seemed confused by this and informed me that all of the clothes in the crates were picked out by the alien on my left because they were very well liked by the people of my world. “Yes, but only worn by the females”, I pointed out. This caused the alien on my left to turn lovely deep maroon in what I guess was embarrassment. The middle alien bowed to me and informed me that he had an eloquent solution that would make everyone happy, the bow made me nervous but I did not stop him from solving this because of my pesky paranoia. A large red button appeared above the middle alien, he then bowed again and pushed the button.
 

The already bright room flashed with an even brighter light then my left foot suddenly felt as if it was on fire, the rest of my body followed suit seconds later. I then stubbed my toe, fell over backwards, and everything went green, this made me wonder if I would ever pass out with the proper background color. When I regain situational awareness I discovered exactly what the aliens solution was, a solution I personally disapproved of and did not think lived up to his promise of mutual satisfaction, I expressed my opinion on the subject to him immediately. “While I see how turning me into a girl is a viable option I would rather if you looked into a method that does not involve altering my physiology”. I braced myself when I saw the middle alien bow again, “I deeply apologies I was not aware you would disapprove and I am also ashamed to admit that we will not be able to reverse the process without it killing you”. The middle alien informed me with an utterly bleak desolate expression. “Figures” I uttered with a huge sigh.

My left foot once again yanked me from my depressed state and informed me that it was cold again. “Guess I should get dressed”. I had managed to figure out the intricacies of feminine under garments when the middle alien tapped on my thigh and bowed, my spirits had risen slightly when I found a pair of pants among millions of skirts, normally they would not have fit me but with my new body, the body of a athletic teenage girl, they looked like they would fit, but when the alien bowed my spirits plummeted to monumental depths. “As per the prophecy we must give you a ship and leave you to your destiny, all of your clothes will be loaded onto your ship of course. Please follow me”. Now putting pants on when trying to follow a 3 foot tall purple man is no easy task, made a great deal more difficult by the fact that they were girls pants and not nearly baggy enough to allow for such an exercise. By the time the alien had stopped, at another white location devoid of any features, I had managed to get completely dressed except for the shirt I was pulling over my head.

 “Here is your ship”. The alien I had been following, said with great disinterest, it seemed that he did not much care for the ship design. At first all I saw was the same boring white emptiness but the fog, that seemed to permeate the ship, cleared revealing a massive ship. I would describe the ship except, despite being completely black, it seemed to blend almost completely into the white background, making it hard to distinguish anything about it other then it was very large. My plan to stand there in awe was spoiled by the small extraterrestrial as he practically shoved me into the ship, oddly enough without once making contact with me, explaining as he forced me toward the ship that all the clothes had been loaded as well as all the food I would need. I asked him why the hurry? He informed me that in order to avoid breaching a treaty with some other race that their ship must leave the area within two minutes, but my ship was allowed to stay, so I was being made to part ways with them. “You can’t leave me floating around in that ship. I don’t even know how to fly that thing”. I pointed out, while standing just inside the hatch of my new ship, in hopes the alien would send someone with me at the very least. It still boggles my mind, how such a little alien could throw such a large hard cover manual with enough force to knock me unconscious, it also started to concern me about the frequency of the head injuries I was receiving.
My unconscious state was lavender this time, quite soothing actually, and when I regained cognitive faculties I discovered that the alien ship was long gone, I was all alone and my right foot was cold this time.

I found out later that those little purple aliens saw in a different spectrum of light then any other race and their ships are actually very brightly colored from their perspective, they often complained that no other race had ever once complimented their beautiful interior decorating.
During my exploration of my new ship I discovered a few disturbing facts that would cause some difficulties with my general comfort and survival, the first being that there was not a single drop of water on board, full line of dehydrated food, but no water. Not only that, but the shower seemed to extrude some sort of pink goo, assuming that it was in fact a shower and not a toaster or something. To complete the trifecta of rotten happenstance the user manual for the ship, that the alien had hit me with, was written entirely in Chinese. Based on this information I decided to push all the buttons on the bridge until I figured out how to work the ship, then I would venture to the nearest planet or whatever to get water. This desire for water was greatly intensified by eating the Habanera peppers; I had thought to be raisins, on the way to the bridge.

Once I had reached the bridge I made a discovery that aided, greatly in easing my anxiety about my continued survival, the little aliens had installed a helpful AI who spoke excellent English. The AI also seemed to be accidentally sarcastic. My suspicions in regard to this was confirmed when I discovered the concept of sarcasm was not present in the AI’s databanks.
   I spent the next several days being instructed on how to pilot my new ship and in the general use of the facilities onboard. Turns out that the pink goo thing was in fact the shower, not quite as invigorating as a normal shower but it did give me a pleasant cherry blossom smell and seemed to brush my hair for me.

 A few days after the AI had finished instructing me, it informed me that a freighter we had happened upon wanted to know if we would like to trade with them. Upon learning that I had been given a bank account, with what was apparently galactic currency, I asked to AI to negotiate a trade for some water and directions to the nearest place to buy more. Two hours later we parted ways with the kind freighter, two weeks worth of water heavier and with directions to go left, then straight passed two lights, and a space station would be on our right, “can’t miss it” the trader had told us. Not quite the type of directions I had been expecting but the AI seemed happy with them so I guess they were good. So for the first time in my life I was actually excited about what might happen tomorrow, though I do hope my head will be spared from further “excitement”.