The Final Frontier

At first, he thought he was dreaming in his drunken sleep…

It had been his birthday. He had turned thirty the night before, and to drink the misery of the departure of his twenties with his friends. Thirty meant that forty was soon to come. And with it would come the beginning of the decay of his body. The bones would get weaker, the muscles would soften (not that he was anywhere close to ripped), and he would find that he wouldn’t be able to eat the food he loved anymore without feeling sick. He was getting older, in other words, and each day he looked in the mirror from now on, he would think of nothing else but the fact that the youth inside him was leaving forever. His prime years were ending, and fast. Thoughts like these were hard to get rid of.

So, like many before him, Bradley Peterson turned to alcohol. Things may have turned out differently, he would think later on, if he had brought some friends with him. Perhaps…with other people…it wouldn’t have been him. But friends would offer sympathy, telling him that just because he was getting older didn’t mean that he couldn’t enjoy life. But Bradley didn’t want sympathy, nor did he want to hear bullshit about living life when you know your body will soon start falling apart. The simple fact was, you could never have the fun that you had when you were twenty ever again. The energy you had, the strength you had…all of that was gone. After that you lost energy, strength, and in several cases, your hair. As many had noted: it was all downhill from here.

The sorrows were hard, and so was the booze. Despite that, the former was still beating the latter. So Bradley drank more. He would not remember how it happened, but he got into a fight with a man a head taller than him, and got tossed out onto the street with a black eye, a torn t-shirt, and a bloody nose that stained his face and jeans. Staggering and limping slightly, Bradley attempted to make his way home. Within an hour of leaving the bar, he wound up in a park five miles from his apartment, and passed out on the grass, which had been freshly cut that afternoon.

He didn’t have any dreams. Nothing but a drunken , empty darkness ensued His brain seemed too tired and full of liquor to conjure up anything. It wasn’t until the bright light beyond his eyelids ruined the perfect shroud of black behind them. His first thought was the sun, shining through the bedroom window. The stiffness in his neck told him different, and the flesh of his cheek squelched against a smooth glassy surface. He hadn’t made it home…again, was his next thought. Wherever he was, it would be best to get moving before the cops showed up…

It wasn’t until he opened his eyes that he believed he was still dream for a little bit. The bright light was coming from a white tower that stood a distance from him. It was a bizarre looking structure, looking sort of like a crowbar that had been bent in three places into an “S”-like shape. It appeared to be some kind of over head light, because the tower cast light downwards, not frontwards or to the sides. The light it cast gleamed off the polished black floor that he was standing on.

Something fluttered towards the left, and Bradley looked towards it, his belief that he was dreaming then was confirmed. Across from the tower was a giant vat that of water, that held some sort of massive plants, that sort of looked like over grown flowers, but they weren’t flowers, of course. Flowers weren’t that big. Flowers weren’t translucent. And flowers didn’t have pods that glowed. Whatever they were, they were something that only the mind could produce when fast asleep.

Right in the center of the tower and the weird plants was something curious. They looked like Escape Pods he’d seen in some sci-fi movies. They were cylindrical tubes of blue glass, sitting in machines that had tubes sticking into “Pods”. There was something inside each of them. Judging by the shape of the figures…they could only be humans. Taking one step, Bradley leaned forward and looked closer from where he was.

Yep, there were people in there, alright. Strange people too. Only one of them seemed normal. One appeared to be in some white robes, another seemed to being wearing a suit of metal or something because the light from the tower gleamed off him, the normal one was wearing a pinstriped suit. A last one was wearing nothing, and appeared to have long, filthy hair. There were more, about seven in total in a line in front of him. The occupants of these pods were still. His first thought was that they were some kind of statues due to how they were unmoving in some kind of pose. Hell, the one in the metal appeared to be holding a sword over his head. Whoever had made these…

The ground suddenly shuddered, interrupting his thought process as he almost lost his balance. The sudden movement also caused something else. A miserable headache suddenly manifested in Bradley’s head, and this was strange. In dreams…he often didn’t….

The thoughts only last for less than a second before another shudder sent him to the ground, it being stronger than the first. This was followed very quickly by another quake, and then another, and soon Bradley was bouncing off the ground, his head crying out in agony from this sudden stimulation.

Finally…they stopped…abruptly.

“Well, well…” A voice spoke. “Finally awake, are we?”

A woman’s voice. Had to be. It was certainly not a man’s. But it was such a loud voice to. Not overwhelming…but it felt different. It felt…larger, somehow, but that didn’t make sense. It was probably from some intercom overhead, but it didn’t have a mechanical kind of sound like a voice does when it comes from…

More noise. Behind him. He whirled around. And that was when he thought it HAD to be a dream.

Taking a seat before him was indeed a woman. A very attractive woman, actually. Her hair was long and dark purple, her eyes a very light blue. Her face was clear and radiant, it looked youthful, vaguely reminding Bradley of why he had gone drinking last night. The woman seemed to have a good figure, as he could see some of her chest, her breasts were steep hills rising from what appeared to be a full body catsuit of some kind. Red lights dotted the suit she was wearing, connected by red stripes. Some of the lights were one her shoulder (front and back), on her arm right below her shoulder bone, and on the tips of her fingers, though these were smaller in circumference.

And finally, most notably, she was absolutely massive.

Bradley had not even the slightest guess at how big she was, but it had to be well over one hundred feet. He couldn’t see all of her, as the edge of his black floor ended right above her belly, hiding the lower half of her body. Her arms crossed, her forearms tucked under her breasts, which were bigger than some houses he’d seen. The fingers on her hands were bigger, not to mention thicker, than most trees he’d seen through-out life. A smile was on her face. Not a grin, her teeth were not showing, but an actually charming smile. But there was also a slyness to it. It was the smile of someone with something a little mischievous on their mind.

The motions that her body was making when he first turned were that of someone taking a seat. Her upper body was bent forward, her hips extend behind her, and then bringing herself down. A lock of her long hair actually swung towards him, but she brushed it back behind her. Her hair seemed long enough to reach the small of her back. The floor seemed to end right in front of her, which was sort of weird, because…

“I was beginning to think you were in a coma,” The woman said. Her voice was soft, sort of pleasant as well…but magnified too. “I was getting ready to toss you…”

Toss me…?

“Fuck, my head…” Bradley Peterson moaned to himself, his hands squeezing his throbbing temples. This was getting too weird. Ordinarily, a dream about a good-looking woman the size of the Washington Monument would be welcome. But, his headache was ruining it, plus, he had to wake up anyway. He had work in the morning, and he wasn’t sure if he had made it home. He sometimes didn’t…. “Alright, enough of this shit. I gotta get up now.” He began to turn away from the giant woman. She probably couldn’t hear him anyway, considering how much bigger she was and how far his mouth was from her ears. But, of course, this was a dream, and she must have heard him perfectly well, because her smile widened. She looked amused. “Well…nice to meet you, miss. Hope to see again. Hopefully next time, my head won’t be killing me and…”

Before he could comprehend that she was moving, her finger had already hit him right in the chest and stomach, flooring him with a simple tap.

“You’re not dreaming, my little Earthy.” The woman said, calmly. “I’m as real as the stars of the universe. There’s no simple escape from me, like waking up, for you.”

“Have to be…” Bradley groaned. His fall had not helped his head. “Just a few more minutes…had too much to drink…messed up dreams.”

“Oh really?” The woman asked, her smile widening further. Not her lips parted a bit, showing some of her teeth. They were white and vibrant. “Well, if you’re so sure…let me help you wake up.”

She lifted he hand again and this time brought the finger down on top of him and applied pressure. Bradley’s back cracked at once, and he hollered. His legs began kicking and he flailed his arms to move, but she had him pinned. The pressure got harder, and soon he couldn’t breath. In most nightmares, when something bad was happening to you, when it got as horrible as it was going to get, you woke up with a start. He was waiting for this to happen…it didn’t. The pain only grew, and grew and grew…

“LAY OFF!” Bradley screamed. “STOP! STOP! YOU’RE KILLING ME!”

Mercifully, the woman lifted her finger off, and the pressure was relieved. He rolled over and moaned in pain. When he managed to open his eyes, he saw her face hovering over him, her finger held just above him. Her charming smile never faltered.

“Do you understand now?” She asked him. “Or do you want me to try again? I can press harder, if you want, I was barely pushing you…”

“No!” Bradley yelled, maddeningly horrified by the mere thought. Barely pushing!? “No! Not again! Stay away from me! Help! HEEELP!” He cried out. In his painful state, what else could he do?

“Go ahead and cry for help, if it makes you feel better.” The woman said, lowering her finger. Away from him, thankfully. “But it won’t do you much good. You’re in my realm now, little Earthy. And you belong to me now.”

“You’re lying!” Bradley screamed desperately. “Help! Help! Someone! ANYONE!”

“I never lie,” The giant said softly. “What I say is always what I mean and honest. You’d do well to keep that in mind.”

“No!” Peterson stubbornly denied. “No! You’re lying! This isn’t happening! I’m passed out on someone’s lawn or somewhere, but I’m not here! Help! Someone wake me up!”

“Oo…pas-ah,” The woman said, shaking her head a little. She said more but it was unintelligible. She seemed to be speaking entire sentences to him, but none of it made sense.

“I don’t…” He tried to say. But he couldn’t finish. The fact that this might actually be real was beginning to dawn on him.

The woman cleared her throat. “Sorry...” She apologized. “I was speaking my native language. I sometimes drift back and forth accidentally.”

“Native languague…?” Bradley asked. “But you…you speak English!”

“Of course I speak English,” She replied. “It’s not my native tongue, of course, but I am perfectly fluent. I learn all of the languages you Earthies come up with. The important ones, anyway. It’s part of my job, after all.”

“Job…?” Bradley asked. Then he realized he didn’t care. “Fuck this shit…get me out of here! I don’t want to be here! Help! Please! SOMEONE! GET HELP!”

“You still don’t understand…” She said, again shaking her head. “Typical. Well then, let me show you something...”

Her hand extended towards him and he tried, in vain, to edge away from it. But no such chance. Her fingers closed on his left leg and she lifted him up with unholy ease. She rose from her chair (he now saw said chair) and got a fuller view of her towering body. He had been right about her figure. Her stomach was curved in a fine hourglass shape, her hips were wide and round, and her legs were long. Her suit really was full body, her boots were simply another part of the attire. A fragrance also surrounded her. It was pleasant, very nice actually, but he had no idea what it was.

She walked only a few steps, but it looked like it would have been a mile or two for Bradley should he have been on the floor. He looked around further and saw that the “room” he was in was much, much larger that he had ever thought. He had no idea where he was, but where ever it was, it was a place designed for her. He saw structures that could only be furniture. The room was mostly white. He tried to get a good look, but his “host” was moving…and holding him upside down.

Finally she stopped and extended her arm out. He looked forward and his eyes widened.

Even upside down, he recognized the dotted blackness outside the window that the woman held him to. Stars. The heavens. The atmosphere. Space. He had seen it all before, just like every other human being had when they glanced up at the night sky, the moon and the stars shining. Only this time, there was a noticeable difference. The moon was replaced by a bright blue and green planet…

“That’s…”

“That’s Earth, of course,” The woman finished for him. “Your little planet nestled in the Shexeth Sector…or, as you call it, the Milky Way.” Bradley felt himself turned and suddenly those bright, light blue eyes, bigger than manhole covers, were gazing at him. “You’re pretty disconnected from your fellow Earthies, you see. Like I said, I never lie. I was being honest when I said that crying for help wouldn’t do you much good. Nor when I said you belong to me now…”

“Who…ARE you?” Bradley managed to ask. The first few times had been scared squeaking.

“I’m Arell,” She answered. Though he couldn’t see it, he could hear her smile in her voice. Could see it in her eyes. He could see himself in those dark pupils as well. “And you are the newest addition to my collection. You don’t know this yet, but you’ll come to appreciate your good fortune in time. You’re a special addition, you see…”

“Addition? Collection?” Bradley repeated. “What…?”

“You saw my little friends over here already,” She said, walking back to where she had been sitting. As she approached it and began to lean over it, he saw that it was a desk of some sorts. The “tower” from earlier was just a simple table lamp from her perspective. She held him in front of the blue Pods he had seen earlier. The ones that he thought had contained statues… “I’ve gathered a number of you Earthies over the years. I have more, but these are some that I’m looking at currently.”

Bradley barely heard this. The people in front of him…they were frozen. He had seen cryogenically frozen people in sci-fi movies before, but now he was seeing it first hand. She had abducted people before, but that wasn’t the only thing…

“This…this man…” He pointed to the man in the metal. The one that had been holding a sword. It was yellowish armor. “He…looks like a Spartan!”

“It is a Spartan warrior, that’s correct.” Arell said, pleased. “From 543 B.C to be precise. He was training when I transported him here, which is why his stance is like that.”

“B.C…” Bradley echoed.

“B.C.” Arell nodded.

“That’s not possible…” Peterson sputtered. “None of this is possible!”

“Oh, it is,” Arell told him. “I have been watching your planet for a long time. I saw Rome rise and fall, I saw Columbus ‘discover’ America, I saw Hitler and the Holocaust, I saw the moon landing…I know the history of your planet better than any historian you could name. The knowledge I hold in my database and in my own mind some of you Earthies, I think, would happily kill for.”

“Earthies…” Bradley said. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“It’s my word for your people on Earth,” She said, raising an eyebrow. Her smile shined through her eyes again “Couldn’t figure that out for yourself?”

“I…” He tried.

“Oh, sure, there’s a more ‘official’ term back home,” Arell admitted. “But it’s a scientific word, and you wouldn’t understand it anyway. Plus, I actually like it better. Short and sweet and perfectly accurate.”

“Back home…” Bradley echoed. “You’re…an alien!? What do you want with me? Why did you shrink me!”

“Shrink you?” Arell asked, amused. “I didn’t shrink you. I just transported you here from the park you passed out in. You’re still you natural height…as am I.”

“You’re…I’m not…” He tried. “What ARE you!?”

Arell chuckled softly. “Me? I’m a human being, of course. Don’t you recognize one when you see one?” She drew him away so that he could see all of her face. She race a hand and motioned towards her face. “Two eyes, a nose, two ears, a mouth, two arms, two legs…it’s all there. Structurally, your kind and mine are practically identical. Our height, however, is a notable difference, though, isn’t it?”

“We’re…the same species?” Bradley asked.

“In a sense…” Arell said. “You Earthies are a sub-class of the human beings of Avakon, my home planet. Though you look like us…we’re very different.”

“Sub-class?” He asked, finding it amazing that he managed to actually feel offended despite everything.

“That’s right,” She nodded. “An inferior and primitive version of us, you might say. Nonetheless, you guys have fascinated us every since we discovered you. My people sent me here to observe you personally, and I have for many years.”

“What do you mean, ‘inferior’?” Bradley asked. “How are we any different? You said we were the same species!”

“No, I didn’t,” Arell said. “YOU said that. I said just partly agreed, thought you’re wrong in some ways.”

Arell reached down and pressed a finger on the desk she was sitting at. Suddenly, the blackness suddenly disappeared as a array of bright symbols and letters came to view. To Bradley, it looked like some sort of highly sophisticated computer interface (again, something he had seen in sci-fi movies), though everything was labeled in Arell’s native language, making it incomprehensible. She pressed a button on the interface and a compartment on the wall in front of her revealed itself, smoothly sliding open. What was inside made Bradley shiver.

A pen of human beings, or Earthies, as Arell said, were inside, all huddled together as the door slide down. The pen was made up what appeared to be some sort of wall of energy, which he could only assume was some sort of force field. Arell stood from her chair, leaned forward and reached in. There were screams almost at once, though the were distant and hard to make out. When her hand was withdrawn, it was closed lightly in a fist. Tapping the interface with her knuckles, the compartment closed again and she brought the fist near the other hand that held Bradley and opened it. Sitting in her palm was a man and a woman, dressed in street clothes. They seemed to be from Bradley’s time period. From the way they held each other, they were either lovers, married, or had gotten attached since being captured.

“From what I’ve gathered, “ Arell began. “Other than our height, we’re physically the same. That goes anatomy wise, as well. We have the same heart, the same stomach, the same sexes, everything. There are some minor deviations, for example, my appendix still serves a purpose, while yours does not. But, other than that…everything is there. You could take these two here, cut them open, and you’d find their structured exactly like ours. We don’t have any different organs or are missing any.”

The next then Bradley knew, the two people that Arell had plucked from her compartment were sliding off of her palm as she tilted it. They tried to grab onto her fingers, but the smooth suit offered nothing to grasp and they plummeted. Shocked, Bradley leaned forward in Arell’s grasp and saw that they were falling onto the seat of her chair. The woman then began to sit down.

“W-w-wait!” Bradley cried. “Stop!” Too late. Arell had already sat down right on top of the two people. “What are you doing!? Get up! You’re gonna kill them!”

The next thing he knew he was flying. Arell flicked him away like a used cigarette and he painfully hit the surface of the interface. He screamed.

“It can get real booooring up here,” Arell said, chuckling. “So…I sometimes have a little fun.” When Bradley managed to look towards, he saw that her gaze was directed down to her butt, where the two people were dying a most humiliating death. “This is my favorite thing to do to you Earthies. Every time I do it…I feel them squirming under me…trying get away, trying to get to freedom…always in vain, though. No one has ever survived, and all I’m doing is sitting down and relaxing.”

“And that’s what you’re going to do to me, isn’t it?” Bradley asked, as Arell stood up again. The deed was done, she had snuffed out the light of those poor people. Their bodies must have gotten stuck to Arell, because she brushed her bum off before sitting back down. “That’s why I’m here, right?”

“Not at all.” Arell said. “You’re here for a different reason.” She began typing something on the interface, and suddenly a 3-D image of Earth appeared on the screen. Indicators pointed to several locations on the globe, but because of Arell’s language, Bradley couldn’t read anything. “As I said, I’ve here to research you Earthies for my people. I’ve been doing it for years, and, to your credit, you guys are some of the more intelligent species we’ve discovered.”

“You’ve found other life!?” Bradley cried. He was discovering the answers to big questions in seconds. He felt incredibly overwhelmed.

“Sure,” Arell nodded. “But don’t get excited, most of what we’ve found are on the level of what you might call a caveman. And they’ve been like that for a long, even before we finally captured all of them. Fortunately, we’ve found nothing bigger than us, but back to the point. You guys look like us, and we were interested, which is why we’ve left you alone for so long. But, though you guys have advanced more than any other creature we’ve seen, you’re a danger to yourselves. I’ve seen that again and again and again. The reason that this is a concern is that I need you guys alive in order to study you. Yet, you Earthies have not managed to form complete altruistic relations and cooperations with yourselves, something the humans of Avakon strive for! From the day of our birth, we see ourselves as individuals, but part of a greater part of a goal that unites all of us. Similar to how cells band together to make a body, we band together under a common cause, and wars amongst ourselves is unheard of. We have transcended above such things and that is why we succeed where so many other species fail…including you Earthies. You’ve polluted your own planet to the brink of collapse, you’re over populating, and so much other concerns. But I think you Earthies are more interested in killing each other than facing these concerns. So, I’ve decided to take action…”

“What…what do you mean?” Bradley asked.

“I’m allowed a lot of flexibility in my work,” Arell explained. “As long as I get the results I need, I am free to do whatever I think is necessary.” She motioned to the interface. “The tech that I possess on this ship alone is light years ahead of even the most ‘advanced’ piece of hardware you Earthies have. We were perfecting space travel before you Earthies found out your own planet was round. There’s a reason why NASA has never discovered me, and won’t unless I want them to. This interface that your standing on, unbeknownst to the leaders of Earth, is the true command center of all of the computers on Earth. From here, I can disable, override, and otherwise turn off any network on the planet, effectively causing a global black out.”

“But…but,” Bradley sputtered. “Why!? Why would you do such a thing?”

“I’m glad you asked.” Before he could even hope to do something to avoid it, Arell’s right hand seized him again. She held him in her fingers in a tight grip.

“GRRRK!” Bradley choked as the pressure hit him.

“Tomorrow morning, your planet will belong to me,” Arell said, smiling at him. “You can’t handle it yourselves, so I’m going to for you. There will be nothing that any of the armies of the world will be able to do. All networks will be offline tomorrow, and that will disable the vast majority of their weapons. Anything else will do next to nothing against me. This suit I’m wearing does more than show off my curves.”

“EASE UP! EASE UP!” Bradley screamed. “YOU’RE CRUSHING ME!”

“Am I?” Arell asked, teasingly. She squeezed and Bradley hollored bloody murder for a bit before Arell finally dropped him back down onto the interface, where he landed in a heap. She chuckled softly. “I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”

“Wh….what….what do you need me for…?” He asked, weakly.

“Ah, that’s the real question, isn’t it?” She said, brushing a lock of her purple hair out of her eyes. I’ve kept a lot of Earthies here for research purposes, but despite the fact that I can speak their language, I’ve never actually personally interacted with one beyond just studying their physiology and anatomy, or just observing their behavior both on the planet and in here with each other. So, I decided to get on of you to keep personally as a way of getting to know you in a more…intimate way, so to speak.”

“You…you’re going to keep me…as a pet!?”

“Call it whatever you want.” Arell said. “Pet, test subject, personal property, it doesn’t matter. The bottom line is that you belong to ME.”

Bradley closed his eyes and began to shiver as Arell reached for him again…

(Here's a reference picture for Arell. It's one of Ochiko's drawings of a girl from Guilty Crown or some anime. It's kind of how I view Arell, though without those stupid cat ears) = http://i.imgur.com/qWUmrXg.jpg