"Minashi, look over there! Did you see it? That's a huge UFO! My god! It's coming in this direction. Did you get it in your camera? Can you believe this?! We are looking at a real UFO!"
Lily, is that you? Lily where are you? Lily!.... LILY!!!
"Was that a dream? No, I heard her voice." I opened my eyes in confusion.
I was sitting on a chair with my head lying on a bed. My neck was hurting. I raised my head and looked around. Chithak was looking at me. I had been sleeping on his bed! That was embarrassing. I faked a smile and stood up immediately. In his hands was my phone.
"How did you get that? That is my phone!" I cried grabbing my phone from his hands.
He had been watching my saved videos. I quickly checked the date and the time. It was the 15th of July. That means I had been trapped here for about 5 days. I tried calling my mum even though I knew it was useless. It told me that there was no service in the area right before the battery died.
The small hope that was lighted in my heart vanished in a quick second. Chithak handed over me a box. Inside it was my belongings, my bag, books, purse, water bottle, and a bar of chocolate. I couldn't control my tears. The tears that I had been hiding started falling with no end. I shut my mouth close using both my hands so that I won't make a lot of noise. But I couldn't stop myself from crying. Seeing me crying Chithak held my hands and said "sorry".
"Did I hear him right?" I looked at him puzzled.
"Sorry," he repeated.
"Does he know my language or do they have the same word in their language too?" I was dumbstruck.
I sat on the chair and asked him, "Do you know my language?"
He took a little time and replied, "you language…. I learn".
"You are learning our language? But how?"
He didn't understand what I said. But he took something like a tab and showed me a lot of videos taken from the earth. The videos were categorized into different folders and under each folder videos of a particular person were saved. I scrolled down and watched several video clips. After scrolling down for about fifteen minutes I found the folder in which Lily's videos were saved. I opened it and watched all of them. It had videos taken since our mid-semester exams. That means they had been looking at us observing, for about three months.
In every video, I was next to Lily. I was Lily's friend since grade 3. But we became best friends when we were in grade 7. From that day onwards we did everything together. More than a friend she was a sister to me.
Among the videos was the video clip where I pushed Lily from the light beam. That was the last time I saw her. Chithak paused the video and asked me "why?"
"Because she is my best friend" I replied.
He looked at me for some time and said, "friend?"
Then I asked him back "why did you do that? Why did you bring all these people from my planet?"
Though he didn't reply, his eyes told me that he understood what I asked him.
I was taken back to the room where I stayed previously and as usual they locked the door. I was devastated. After everything I had done, they just locked me back in that room.
"At least I have my things with me this time", I tried to make up my mind.
It only took less than five days for that spaceship to make earth out of its sight. I had no idea how long it will take for it took to return to their destination. All I could do was wake up when I feel like it, eat their horrible food, and go back to sleep when I felt sleepy. They didn't even let me have a bath whenever wanted. Once I had a bath, it took ages for the next time.
There were a million times when I wanted to rip the packet of my chocolate open and eat up the whole thing. But I strictly controlled myself to save it up in case of an emergency.
I went almost crazy while staying inside that room. There was no one to talk to. Even Chithak didn't come to see me again. Every day was a repetition of the day before.
My never-ending cycle stopped one day when Chithak came back and took me back to the hall where other people were kept. But this time they were not sleeping inside the glass boxes. They were wide awake.
I could see that all of them were terrified. Some were crying. Some of them were running here and there trying to find a door to escape.
I Turned back to Chithak and asked him, "why did you bring me here? What do you want me to do?"
"Tell, we good, no afraid" he demured'
I couldn't help but laugh sarcastically. "They were kidnapped forcefully by you and were trapped inside a glass box for months, and you want me to tell them that you people are good souls so that they don't have to be afraid! I mean, does that even make sense?"
I was disappointed. I sighed and said, "So that's why you woke me up earlier than the others huh?"
I walked closer to Chithak and said, "If you want, Do it yourself".
I went back to the room and slammed the door myself. "How am I supposed to tell them that they are good people and not to be afraid of them when I didn't even know what they were planning to do to us? I can't lie".
At the same time, something like an announcement was made. That was the first time I heard an announcement inside the ship. I felt small turbulence as well.
"Don't tell me that this is another emergency! How am I supposed to ask for their help after storming out of there a few seconds ago!"|