Vernonica realized that she was inside a moving vehicle. The vibrations beneath her were subtle but enough for her to know that she was being taken somewhere. Her eyes were still covered, and her hands were incapable of movement due to the tightly tied-up rope around them.
At least her mouth worked, "Hello? Is somebody there?" She asked to no one in particular. In the worst-case scenario, her voice could summon that Pervert leader, but she wasn't thinking straight. Everything that had happened to her had left her absolutely drained. She put on a brave front and thought that her family's betrayal didn't hurt, but it was a lie she told to herself to keep her from completely losing her mind.
Her mother was a raging narcissist, her bio father bailed on her when things got difficult, her stepfather ignored her very existence, and her own fiancé betrayed her trust by fucking her sister. They were horrible people, but they were the only people that she called her own. As horrible as they are, they were the only ones she had. Now she had nothing. Except for a raging headache and a perverted holy leader who had made her his fraud God's so-called bride.
"You look so good tied up, Veronica'' The devil in her thoughts seemed to materialize in front of her. She felt the cloth around her eyes slipping, which made her squint at the sudden bright light, blurring her vision. A familiar silhouette wearing a pure white robe moved towards her.
Ver scooted back on instinct as the Holy leader's hand tried to reach her. No way in hell was she going to let him touch her. "Stay the fuck away from me!"
He raised his brows, "Feisty as ever." Then he chuckled, "That is why I like you. Amongst that crowd of sheep, you were the only one with a brain."
'What did that mean?' Ver frowned in confusion, but let him continue to talk, "It was very easy for me to take over your little town." He had a distant look on his face as he added, "All I had to do was a little mind-altering and introducing them to a made-up God, to get them to dance to my tunes"
As he finished talking, his eyes fell on Veronica's clueless face. He grinned, "You don't understand anything, do you?''
"Understand what?'' Ver asked, ''You are just rambling,'' She knew on the inside that he wasn't just rambling, but egged him on to talk more. The Holy leader was a man of ego and didn't like getting dismissed. At least as a means of proving himself, he will continue to say things that she would turn into information and use to escape from this place. That made her look at her surroundings. The place looked eerily similar to a hospital ward, but equally different. She was at the center while the walls seemed dome-shaped. Various buttons and display screens were embedded on the said walls; it looked like a spaceship from sci-fi movies.
"Where are we?'' She turned to him, "What is this place?''
The Holy leader shrugged at her questions like he wasn't the least bothered by it and said, "We are inside my spaceship."
Ver was flabbergasted. Was this creep reading her mind? "A spaceship?''
"You don't believe me," He stated, "Well, you will after this''
"Wait!'' Veronica wasn't sure what this madman would do to prove his notion as true. However, she felt like she would have never been ready for what she saw next.
The Holy leader raised both of his hands and closed his eyes. In the next moment, Ver saw him morphing and changing into something bizarre. His limbs turned crooked and bent while something like an antenna started to sprout out of his head. His face turned oval-shaped, and a thick layer of something green covered his entire body. The pair of his eyes turned to four, and they covered his entire face, leaving only a small space for the mouth to remain.
Veronica's eyes were as big as saucers as she watched this transformation. He....he turned into an insect. That was the only thing that flashed in her mind as she saw his ridiculously long limbs and their bent structure. He was a dark Green color with greyness in some places. He looked like what a hybrid praying mantis the size of a human would look like. It was terrifying.
"Do you believe me now?'' The insect asked in the Holy leader's voice. When he stepped forward, Ver snapped out of her stupor and let out a loud scream. She fought against her restraints, thrashing her legs enough to stand, She scrambled away from the creature.
A rough breath left her lungs as she stood in the corner in horror, "What are you?''
The insect moved its hands as though showing it off to her, "I'm what you call an alien."
"How do you talk like us? How do you know a human language?''
He rolled his two pairs of eyes in an eerie manner, "Our kind is far too developed than you earthlings. We have technology that makes it possible for us to communicate with every language registered in our database."
Ver didn't know what else to say. She was scared out of her mind, but she had to ask, "Where are you taking me?''
The insect answered, "I'm taking you back to my planet as a host to my emperor." Ver paled as he continued, "You will give birth to his majesty's young, and when you are done, you will become nourishment to the young and meet your end. The younglings of our kind eat their mother after they are born."
"What…?" She was hyperventilating by now, but he went on with his rant, "The females in our kind are rarely born, and whenever they do, their death comes with them breeding. Our benevolent Emperor didn't want this to continue and asked the intellectual ones to find a solution. And I was the one who came up with the idea of using beings other than us as a host to our younglings." He sounded so proud while he said that, ''I searched far and wide until I ended up on your earth. What can I say? Your planet was filled with abundance. Not only were there billions of you, but you, earthling females, were genetically compatible with our kind''
"When I informed of my findings, the emperor was ecstatic. He wanted to invade the Earth right away." Now the bristles around his mouth shook like he was annoyed, "But I knew that it was not that easy. We wouldn't be able to make negotiations, as your world is too scattered; there is not one supreme Lord ruling your world. Each country had different thoughts and views, and if it came down to using force, we are superior to you. Crushing your kind is not that difficult, but even that seemed disadvantageous to us''
He walked to her, making her flinch, "I mean, who in their right mind has that many nukes? I have travelled multiple solar systems, but never have I heard of a planet accommodating that many weapons which can destroy their own kind in the blink of an eye. If we attack, then I know you fickle humans will use those weapons to fight us, and in turn destroy the earth. We don't want that. We want you alive for breeding."
Ver felt sickened to her core. So was he saying that nukes that countries make to threaten each other were the only things stopping them from invading and enslaving the humans? She couldn't comprehend the irony; the weapon of mass destruction had saved the Earth.
The alien insect wernt on rambling. He sure liked to talk, "Then it was decided that we would infiltrate you from the inside. Some of you humans are very gullible, but the things that worked the most were religion and money. I, together with my other brothers, used random gods and money lending to brainwash and trap your kind. Slowly, we isolated some women...'' His eyes fell on her, "And took them as a ransom, God's brides, to my planet''
"And you, darling," The insect grinned, "Are one of my latest victims."
Veronica slid out of the rope holding her. Her constant struggle had loosened it enough for her to slip out.
"I will never become your victim, you insect bastard." Those words riled up the alien. He rushed to her at lightning speed while Ver tightened the rope around her palm and ducked down. His first punch didn't land on her as she rolled to the ground before encircling the rope around his legs and pulling it. The alien fell with a loud thud, which Ver took as a chance to run to what looked like a door. On the way, she felt him scratching her ankle but Ver ignored the pain.
She heard the alien behind her hissing loudly as she pounded the door to no avail.
"It is useless," The alien said, "You can never escape me''
Veronica looked at him defiantly. She had made up her mind, "If I can't escape, then I'll make sure that we both die right here. I will never let you take me to your vile planet." Without giving him time to react, she started pressing every button on the wall.
"Stop!'' The alien shouted, but Ver heard none of it. She continued to hit and press every button, pulled multiple levers on what seemed like a control panel, until the spaceship started to make a loud beeping sound.
"EMERGENCY DOCKING COMMENCING!'' The spaceship's console said, ''EMERGENCY DOCKING COMMENCING!''
Ver saw the alien panic, "I will kill you, Human!'' He sounded scared.
"PASSENGERS ADVISED TO ENTER THE CRYO CHAMBER FOR SAFETY'' That caught Ver's attention, and as she was near the console, Ver followed the sign on it and entered a small room hidden behind the control panel. The insect rushed to get in, but Ver hit the close button, locking herself in and the alien out just in time.
She looked at her surroundings as the alien pounded the door, demanding she open it. Ver sank to the floor with her head between her knees. The raging sound of an emergency landing was getting louder and louder until she heard a ginormous bang. Unconsciousness greeted her following that, and she blacked out.