StarPyre

each back, a familiar white thread hanging between their points.
I searched the room for the discarded white bindings that my cellmates had shredded off my body when they found me. Gathered against the wall was a pile of the same shimmering material the Vhalxt weaved on their hind legs.
They were the ones who had abducted me. After all, I’d woken up trapped in their webbing, like a fly waiting to be eaten.
I closed my eyes, trying to will myself away from all this horror, even though deep down inside, I knew that was a lost cause. This was my new reality, which was quickly turning into my greatest nightmare. My body shuddered uncontrollably, and ice poured through my veins as I imagined becoming a meal to the Vhalxt.
I didn’t want to die. Not here, not now, and never because of a fucking spider.
Was this my punishment for crushing all their tiny kin who’d ever tried to sneak up on me? That was their fault for trying to attack me in my own home.
Karma had returned to bite me in the ass. I chuckled—or rather, I tried to chuckle, but it came out more like a pathetic sob-cry as a waterfall of tears soaked the blanket protecting me.
My sobbing must have distracted me from the spider captors’ retreat, because the next thing I knew, two sets of arms wrapped around me. Auro and Luwyn started chanting my name in soothing tones; the only way they knew how to comfort me.
“Tori,” said the male I wanted to ignore, his honeyed voice sounding too sweet to my ears.
I opened my eyes, pulling off my blanket hood as I faced the sapphire male. His demeanor was subdued, almost defeated, with his wings drooping behind him.
A feeling of impending doom clawed at me, ripping through the fragile comfort the males who embraced me provided and cutting through my attempt at a security blanket. I knew my dependence on this silver fabric was the emotional equivalent of a child hiding from the monster under their bed. No matter how durable the cloth was, nothing could protect me from the teeth and claws of the nightmare threatening to come for me. Just because I refused to meet its eyes, didn’t mean it didn’t exist.
I’d fallen from the top of the food chain to the bottom in just a few days. How my three males had reacted to the newcomers spoke volumes. When the telepathic alien had warned me to settle down, or else I’d be forcefully sedated, I’d realized that they couldn’t protect themselves, much less me.
This was too much.
How had I gone from fantasizing about sex with elves and aliens to being abducted by monsters? I was an ordinary woman. Sure, I could’ve partied less and focused on my studies more, but I’d never gotten in trouble with the law. Was I a criminal for loving to flirt and fuck? No. I didn’t deserve this horrible fate.
Regardless of my past, I was now stuck in an alien prison with three attractive males, waiting for whatever the jailors had planned for us. I could be the Queen of England, and these aliens wouldn’t give two fucks. We were probably long gone from Earth by now anyway.
I needed to come to terms with the fact that everything I’d once known was gone. I’d become dependent on the three males within these walls to help me survive. I felt like a fly trapped in a spiderweb, just waiting for the predators to come and eat me.
I watched as the sapphire male walked to the wall where the Vhalxt had entered and picked up a black metallic basket. It reminded me of old milk bottle containers that milkmen had once used to deliver milk door-to-door. He grabbed an object from the alien milk basket and passed it to me. Curious, I accepted his offering eagerly as he passed the two other males a similar object.
Whatever he’d handed me was ugly. The small object was about half the size of a brick and mossy black, like the color of mold growing between the cracks in a shower. I rolled it in my hand to examine its stone-like texture. Tentatively, I sniffed it and instantly gagged at the rancid smell.
“Tori?” Auro asked.
“Hmm?” I coughed into my hand as I glanced at him.
He stared at me with one eyebrow raised and a corner of his mouth twitching. I looked around at the other two males. Luwyn mirrored Auro’s amused expression. Their leader bit the corner of his brick, as the sound of grinding stones filled the room.
There was no way this rock qualified as food! I needed a mortar and pestle to crush the block into something I would be capable of biting into. I didn’t want to consider where I’d get a filling if I cracked a tooth while lost in space.
“Tori. Yes,” Luwyn said, biting into his own ration bar and dramatically chewing a chunk. Clearly, he was trying to show me it was safe to eat.
Safe for them, maybe. I unconsciously flinched each time they chewed, imagining how it would feel for my teeth to process the so-called food.
Sighing, their leader swiped the bar from my hand and walked over to the corner shower, his wings bristling with each step. He activated the flow and placed the bar underneath the steaming water, letting droplets run down his hand.
Satisfied with the bar’s texture, he smiled, turned off the shower, and returned the now soaked bar to me. “Tori. Yes.”
I opened my mouth to protest but decided against it. He didn’t have to help me. Perhaps this was his attempt at making amends. Perhaps, since I’d slept with his two cellmates, he now thought of me as his responsibility. I didn’t know. He’d helped Auro and Luwyn defend me from the spider aliens; I was sure of that. He must find some part of me worth trying to protect.
That was how the universe worked. This male wouldn’t waste time or resources on