A woman with amnesia is trapped on an alien spacecraft.
A quick intake of air flooded her lungs like she was coming up from being underwater for too long. She blinked a few times letting her eyes adjust to the rigid burning light. Luna was in a room with featureless surfaces. There was no furniture. There wasn’t even a door. Her heart jumped to her throat as she looked through the small window into the vacuum of space.
She hyperventilated. Her vision got blurry. Luna stumbled backward until the wall was the only thing to keep her from falling. A hiss entered the room, and Luna darted her head around to see where the sound was coming from. She started taking deeper breaths. Her heart slowed. She was by no exaggeration calm, but at least her anxiety didn’t make her faint. As soon as she stood away from the wall, the hissing stopped.
She was alone dressed in what might have been a hospital gown made from a heavy metallic fabric Luna could not identify. She creeped to the window feeling her legs wobble with every footstep. She put her hands on the glass. It was unbearably cold, but Luna didn’t pull them away. She leaned in and looked down to see the clear a blue orb with the outline of Africa dead center.
She took a deep breath and stepped back from the window rubbing her hands together to warm them. She might have been dreaming or in some kind of compromised state. She thought about what she knew for sure. She knew her name was Luna, and she knew she was…what was she doing? Where was she before she found herself here? Her mind was like a blank sheet of white paper. There was nothing there. Luna tried to remember, and a spike of pain behind her eyes shocked her to her knees. Something was there. She just couldn’t access it. The only thing she could recall was a noise. A long sustained sound like from a movie maybe. The fuzzy memory from before made her tug at the hair behind her ears. She closed her eyes again, half in pain, half in trying to keep from going mad.
A whooshing from the wall made Luna jump. A rectangular doorway opened. What came through made her scream from the deepest part of her. It had four legs and two arms and was covered in fishlike scales that ranged in color from dark purple to muddy yellow. Its head was reptilian, snakelike with four eyes that looked Luna up and down and blinked simultaneously. It set down a tray of various vegetables. The snake creature made a gesture into its own mouth. It turned and scuttled from the room. Luna scooched away from the tray on her butt.
“You should eat.” A voice from nowhere said in the room. There were no speakers.
“Who are you? Why am I here?” Luna sobbed, pulling the heavy gown around her for protection and tugging her hair harder.
“You should eat.” The voice said again. It was clear and low.
“Who are you!?” She screamed. Another hiss sounded. Luna looked around frantically scratching at the walls where the snake creature exited. There were no indentations or lines where a door might have been, but Luna pounded on the walls and screamed until her voice cracked. The hissing kept on, and she scrambled for a way out. Her eyes drooped and Luna started to slow her panicked thrashing until she was too weak to stand. She slumped to the ground and saw the door whoosh open. Luna watched snake creature come in right before her eyes shut.
***
Flashes bombarded her. A group of people boarding a plane. Luna was one of them, but she was younger, just a girl. They were laughing. Another image of Luna with a woman. It was dark. They were dirty and hiding from something. The long low sound she almost remembered made her shake in terror. Then she was running. She could feel something right on her heels. She screamed.
She was back in the room with the window. A new tray of food was resting next to her on the floor. She was still in the heavy gown. Her left arm was sore near her shoulder. She reached up to rub it and felt a bandage that wasn’t there before. She blinked her eyes and rubbed her aching head. “What…” She started to say, and the world went upside down. She vomited. Luna felt like she was having a hundred hangovers all at once. She wiped her mouth with her wrist. And tried to speak again. “What did you do to me?” She slurred. The room was still spinning.
“You really should eat.” The voice from nowhere said. “We took tissue and blood samples from your major organs and systems: excretory, nervous, skeletal, reproductive…” The voice trailed off. Luna dropped her hands over her abdomen, and she worked hard to take a deep breath.
“What are you going to do with me?” Luna said, her stomach fluttering.
“We are trying to determine how healthy you and your species is.”
Luna opened her mouth to ask why but stopped realizing she might not want to hear the answer. She spied the tray of food with a side glance and her stomach growled. She didn’t want to show how tired and hungry she was. Luna had no idea how long she’d been there. She was famished. On the tray was fruit and slices of raw meat. The smell caught her, and she couldn’t resist. She greedily grabbed a piece of meat and chewed it. It was a familiar flavor, but when she tried to think of what it was, the pain spiked behind her eyes. There were apples and grapes on the tray too. She knew what those were, but the meat eluded her.
After several minutes of Luna gorging herself (Luna left the fruit alone) she used the bottom of her gown to wipe her mouth. The dizziness and queasy feelings were gone. “Why are you here?” She blurted out.
“We are trying to determine…”
“Yeah yeah.” Luna said dismissively. “But why?” She braced herself for the answer.
“We are a collection of planets looking for new food sources.”
Luna gulped. “Food sources?” She dropped the meat she was holding and backed away from the tray. She didn’t get an answer. Luna looked out the window to see Earth gently floating in space. She saw the outline of Europe. Something about it reminded her of…she reached into her mind for it and pain exploded in her head. She clenched her eyes shut and fell to the floor.
“Please. Try to relax. We want to make this as comfortable as possible.” The voice said. Luna had knowledge of a few things, and she remembered seeing a documentary about slaughtering animals and how keeping them as calm as possible before they were killed preserved the flavor of the meat. She cursed her captors, impotent to do anything about it. The hissing started again. Luna held her breath for as long as she could, but ultimately succumbed to the darkness.
***
She was chained to the wall. It was damp. She was covered with cuts. She pulled and tugged at the chains. She was older now. A woman. She was running. No. She was being chased. She felt the pain of the cuts. It was exquisite agony. Welcomed and ecstatic. They said they were trying to help her. She didn’t believe them. She never believed them. There was blood on her hands and in her mouth that wasn’t hers. She saw it in the night sky and raised her arms to embrace it.
Her eyes popped open, and Luna was back in the room under the window. Two snake creatures stood flanking the doorway. They made no move to her. “We have determined that you are fit for consumption. You are free of disease and a good primary food source.” Luna shook on the floor. She opened her mouth to speak. “Do not beg or weep.” One said, interrupting her. “It spoils you.” A forked tongue shot out like it was sniffing her.
Luna stood putting on as brave a face as she could. This was not only her end, but an end to everything she knew. And then she realized she didn’t know much. Whatever memories she had were suppressed. They advanced on her, and she turned her back to them. She looked out of the window into space. Earth sat on a sparkling black velvet backdrop like it was on display in a museum. If she focused, Luna could see satellites against the blue. She felt the scaly hands on her shoulders and cringed getting one last look at her home. Her eyes wandered up and like a punch in the face, everything flooded back to her. It was like a soothing wave washing away the pain behind her eyes when she saw it. The moon.
Looking at her namesake she remembered it all. She remembered her trip to Transylvania when she was a girl. She remembered hiding from the beast that killed her mother but left her alive. Luna remembered in detail exactly who and what she was. The meat the snakes gave her, she knew why she liked it. And she remembered the low sustained sound. Not just a sound, a howl.
Claws grew from her fingertips, and she slashed at one of the aliens without mercy. Its head fell to the ground with a thump. She grabbed the other by the neck. It pounded at her arm, but her horrific strength held fast. Her nose and mouth elongated, and coarse black hair sprouted all over her body. Pointed ears shot out from the sides of her wolflike head. “You’re wrong about one thing.” She snarled in an unnaturally horrible growl. “I have a disease. It’s called lycanthropy.” She licked her muzzle showing the snake creature her long white fangs and blood red tongue. “And make no mistake.” She dug her claws into its neck “It is fatal.” Luna tore the alien apart relishing the gore that sprayed over her unholy form.
She howled.