We both looked at the ground for a few seconds before I decided to break the silence that hung over us. "So how's the moon? You probably did at least something over there that doesn't involve getting taken."
Boingo shrugged, refusing to make eye contact with me. "It's alright. I got to go on some boring tours around the city. The food was good, though, and I guess the low gravity is fun to mess around with." He then turned his head upwards. "Entertainment was nice as well. It's good to see what they could do with that much control."
"Entertainment?"
Boingo nodded. "Yeah. During dinner, we would get to see some performers on a stage. It's mostly acrobatics, which is always fun to watch. I remember almost completely forgetting to eat my dinner, I was so mesmerized." His eyes rolled back in recollection.
"Oh, that sounds fun!" I began to think back myself; sure, there was great service but a show would have made the experience much more satisfying and memorable.
Before long, we began to fade. Or that's what I assumed from Boingo's growing transparency. I began to close my eyes and reach out to my physical body, waiting to be comforted by the soft fabrics that were the hotel's bed, but seconds still dragged on and nothing was happening.
Opening my eyes once more, I could still see that my limbs were completely opaque. Boingo had disappeared, however. I uneasily took a few steps in a random direction, suddenly thrown into an uneasy state.
"Hello?" A faint voice called out from somewhere in the hallway. If I had not been listening carefully, the sound would have slipped past my mind completely.
"Yes?" I squinted my eyes and readied for a response. "Who's there?"
"The..." the voice continued, now even softer than before. "Don't go..."
"What was that?" My throat vibrated as I almost shouted those words.
And then I was cut off by the usual process of being awoken. I began to feel my bedsheets wrap around me and my clothing became much softer. My eyelids were forced shut and all the light in the room was drained.
Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I began to think about the voice. Some parts of it sounded familiar, but I couldn't recall just what its source was. Slowly sitting up and pushing my covers away, I decided to think about it all while eating breakfast.
"Alright, I hope every one of you is ready to head out," Slith's voice boomed over the hotel lobby. A group of my classmates were gathered around him, much less eager to explore than they had been the day we arrived.
"Come," Day's voice rang out from behind me. Turning around, he had a friendly expression. "I'm sorry if you wanted to go, I just didn't want to risk it again."
I nodded. My teacher and I had arranged that we would instead read over a few pages of a textbook on the history of the civilization instead of having me be vulnerable to attacks outside of the comfort of the hotel. We split from the vast gathering of aliens to head up the elevator and into my room again for more tutoring.