Polaris: Chapter 3

About 10 years before Vega received his tattoo, the beginning of life changing events of another character of this story were being set in motion. A couple solar systems away from the city of Polaris lay a human colony on a planet called Nestbula. On that planet, a peaceful blue sky could be seen above the countless urban and suburban hubs filled with people. If you did not know any better and had stepped foot on the planet for the first time, you could very likely confuse it with 21st century Earth. There the beginning of another's story happened in the city of Ginan.

"Irena! Time for school!"

A young preteen blonde girl lazily sat up from her bed rubbing her eyes.

"What already..." She whispered to herself. Quickly however the girl got dressed and went down to the kitchen of her apartment to get breakfast.

"So why are there odd crop formations on the Southern Continent?" A man on the TV in the room that the girl and her mother were eating breakfast in said.

"There are some that speculate this was in fact done by a species who possess tools beyond human comprehension."

"Mom, are aliens real?" The girl asked as she chewed her breakfast.

"I don't think so honey that's just a TV show," her mom replied.

"Yea but how do you explain the crop circles then."

The mom gave out a chuckle and gently patted the young girl's head.

"You watch too many TV shows. I'm sure our ancestors probably just wanted to be fashionable or something. Now hurry up and finish your cereal, you don't want to be late for school again."

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"Whatcha reading there?" a girl the same age as Irena said laying her hand down on the book Irena was reading to stare at her. School had just ended for the two girls and they were both hanging out on a bench behind the school.

"Ahhhh Freida! It's nothing," Irena said attempting to pull the book away from the other girl. She was too slow however as Freida had already grabbed the book from her.

"25 Strange Occurances in History That Cannot Be Explained," Frieda read running her finger along the title of the book.

"Girl... I swear this is why everyone in class thinks you're weird."

"Give it back give it back," Irena commanded snatching the book back from Frieda and holding it tightly, "So what! I'm interested in what I'm interested in. What's the big deal anyway?"

"Sigh... Well I suppose I can't stop you," Freida said. "You trying to go to the mall today though? We can totally get some new summer wear, maybe some tank tops. What do you say?"

"Nah I'm good" Irene said as she focused back onto her book.

"Suit yourself then," Freida said as she began to walk off, "One of these days though, you're going to have to think about more than just..."

"Holy crap what the hell is that!" A voice from near the school screamed interrupting Freida. As Freida and Irena turned around, they saw a group of boys one of which pointed a finger towards the western part of the sky. The two turned to where the boy pointed and there a gray plate like object appeared in the sky.

"You were saying?" Irena said smirking. Her friend however just stood there too awestruck by the sight in the sky to reply.

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"Multiple TNN cameras are on the scene right now and yes it is confirmed there is an unidentified grey plate like objects above the hills of Ginan. Currently government officials have plans to send helicopters to give us a closer look to see what the object potentially could be."

"See mom! I told you." Irena exclaimed with excitement, "Aliens are real and we're about to make contact!"

"Well it's not confirmed yet. For all we know it could just be some other nation's government testing out drones or something. Either way stay inside honey dad should be home soon."

"Ahhhhh but I want to see what's going on outsid..."

"Absolutely not," Irena's mom interrupted sternly, "Just let the government take care of it. Whatever the hell "it" is."

"Sighhh... fine," Irena said heading to her room. The sound of several helicopters could be heard from within the house exciting Irena.

"I knew they were real! Now I just got to wait to see exactly what they look like," Irena thought with glee. She looked out her window to the spot where the UFO was and sure enough several helicopters as well were heading towards it.

"Oh boy any time now we'll get footage." She thought to herself as she went on some news forums on her laptop, "Damn what a coincidence for them to just so happen be in Ginan... this is so exciting I gotta post this"

" Poggers Aliens!"

"The History Channel Guy was right!"

"This is what happens when Donald takes over"

"Here we go boys"

The live discussion forum on Irena's computer began to overflow with comments.

"I gotta capture this moment myself too and post it later," Irena thought to herself. She took out her phone and pointed it towards the multiple helicopters that were approaching the UFO. As she did so however, a change began to happen.

Suddenly, in the part of the sky where there was originally just one UFO, another one the exact same size appeared instantly right next to it. Then another one.... And another one.

"Holy..." Irena thought to herself as her video continued capturing the events.

The UFOs kept appearing one after another until they reached a total of about 15 outnumbering the number of helicopters that were drawing close.

"Booooommm Boooooom"

A loud booming sound could be heard from within Irena's house as the building began to shake. To Irena's great shock the helicopters near the UFOS had begun to explode and fall out of the sky.

"What... what the hell?!"

"Irena! We have to go"

The door of Irena's room suddenly opened as her mom screamed at her. After a brief moment of being stunned from shock, Irena quickly ran out of her room down the stairs.

"I've already contacted dad, let's drive away as far as we can!" Irena's mom screamed, "I don't know what the hell those things are but we need to just get out."

Irena nodded in agreement as she pressed the button of their garage to slowly open. As they got in their car to drive away and the garage door began to open fully however, they saw their pathway was blocked. Lodged right on their driveway appeared s a large grey plate like object.

"Out of the car back to the house!" Irena's mom screamed as the two quickly exited their car and sprinted. But before they could make it back, 2 green aliens had already started running towards them and managed to grab both of them.

"Mom nooooo! Stop Let go!" Irena pleaded as the aliens carried the two away towards their ship.

"Sighh... this should quiet you down." One of the aliens said taking out a spray from his pocket. As a warm mist covered the air in front of Irena, she drifted off into unconsciousness.

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"Where... where am I?"

When Irena awoke she looked up to realize she was in a room with a grey ceiling. She attempted to move but the effort was fruitless as around her limbs were some metal straps keeping her in a lying down position on a bed.

"She's awake, get the tablet ready." A voice next to Irena stated. Irene tried to let out a scream but her efforts were stopped there too as a thick layer of duct tape was attached to her mouth.

"Don't worry... You won't even remember this in a few minutes," the voice continued. A green alien came within vision of Irena and held up a tablet with his hand above Irena's face.

"And here we go," he said clicking on a button on the back of the tablet. Suddenly weird waves of blinking lights began to come out of the screen facing Irena putting her into a trance.

"Alright let's see, we'll give you the profile with the name "Aries" and we'll say you were born in the city of Izar," the alien exclaimed as he scrolled through different menu options on his side of the screen. Different colors started to filter into Irena's eyes as her head began to spin.

"Mmmmm mmmmmmmmmm," Irena cried desperately trying to say something. The way she started felt wasn't exactly painful but more of an unsettling feeling as tingling sensations began to spread across her body. After about a minute, Irena felt her eyes getting heavy. Before she knew it, they completely closed as she drifted back into unconsciousness.

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"It didn't work."

"What? What do you mean it didn't work. How's that possible?"

When Irena woke again she could hear the voices of two beings shouting.

"I don't know but the new memory implants didn't transfer at all. Maybe she has some sort of brain condition."

"Really?"

At the sound of the two voices, Irena once again tried to sit up and scream in another futile effort as she was still strapped down to the bed with duct tape over her mouth.

"Ahhhh... looks like you're awake."

An elder alien spoke walking up to Irena.

"What should we do, should we just kill her and use her for fuel?" The other alien said following right behind the older one.

"Hmmm... perhaps... or perhaps we give her a choice to be useful to us."

"Mmmmm Mmmmmmm," Irena muffled trying desperately again to let out a scream. Tears began filling her eyes.

"Ohhhh... don't cry now. We don't just kill recklessly you know. Not if you choose to follow everything we tell you to at least we won't" The older alien said. He reached out his hand and pulled the duct tape off of Irena's mouth.

"Who... who the hell are you?" Irena asked her voice trembling with terror.

"Hmm... you know usually there'd be no point to answering that question," the older alien exclaimed, "But you do seem to be an exception so I'll just make this brief. My name's Earl I'm a captain of the military of my species known as the Fetna. This here's my lieutenant Dale."

"Are you, are you two aliens?"

"That's a bit of an odd term, but yes, I suppose from your prospective that's what we would be."

"How... how do you know English?"

"How do we know English? Is that what you're asking? Ahahahaha" Earl said cracking up causing Dale to crack up as well.

"Oh silly human, you think you invented English? No no that's not called English, that's just called common speak, we gave your ancestors that language about 4000 years"

"What?"

"Ahhhh I do suppose from your perspective it's hard to believe. What did you call that planet of yours? Well it doesn't matter, we call it the Butterfly planet due to..."

"The Butterfly pattern left in the crop fields." Irena gasped finishing Earl's sentence.

"Well well well... we got a smart one here don't we. Might explain why your memory can't be wiped. Anyway yeah, due to the crop patterns we left behind millennials ago in the shape of a butterfly, we do in fact call your planet the butterfly planet though we do just tend to rename these places based on what the humans call them. And look how you've thrived! Building your own cities, your own countries, it really was a good investment on our part."

"Where... where's my family?"

"Your family? You want to see your family? Nooooooo problem! Bring them in here Dale."

"Sir I don't think,"

"We'll just wipe them again after, just want to demonstrate something to our little test subject here."

"Yes sir..." the Dale said leaving the room.

"You sure you want to see them right now though? I don't think you'll get what you expect. They don't even remember who you are after all."

"What? No let me just see my parents. Once they see my face I'm sure they'll recognize me."

The door opened again as Dale returned with Irena's parents strapped onto beds.

"Mom, Dad! It's me Irena?"

"Holy shit a human that looks just like me when I was younger!" Irena's mom said looking at Irena. "Did... did you just call me Mom?"

"That's not possible," Irena's dad interrupted, "You know how our city works, they took away our children at birth."

"What?" Irena looked stunned, "No No, we just got captured by aliens it's me your daughter Irena."

"I can agree we're captured by aliens but I can assure you I've never named a child before. Given how the city functions it's pretty believable there were aliens though." Irena's dad said.

"What!?!? Nooo nooooo," Irena cried as tears started forming in her eyes. "Don't you remember our time in Ginan?! You guys raised me there. And I was a bit of an alien conspiracy theorist but still I was your daughter. Don't both of you remember all the times we shared?

"I'm sorry but, I don't remember that," Irena's mom said coldly. She turned to Dale and Earl.

"Hey you said after this you'd just wipe our memories and we'd forget everything and return to our average day lives in Centaura right? Can we get on with it? I want to go back to my video games."

"Nooo Nooo stop we have to... we have to get out of here together!" Irena cried. It was useless however as Dale pulled Irena's parents away on their beds from her and back out the door.

"So yeah, as you can see we wipe everyone's memory straight clean and send them to our dome cities. Too bad we can't do that for you. It's a comfortable life there! You'll be able to enjoy all the entertainment luxuries to your heart's content until you die of old age. See we're not evil! We do what's profitable."

"No... that's messed up." Irena said turning to Earl, "you Fetnas erase everyone's identity changing who they were. How is that okay?"

"Who we are is a relative thing dear human, we change every day of our lives and are never truly the same." Earl laughed, "Well, you're just a human anyways, to us nothing more than livestock. I've just got a simple question for you little human though. It really is quite a simple situation we have here."

"What... what's that?"

"You're a smart girl. You've probably heard theories before of what we're capable of and now you're seeing it all first hand. So really the question I have for you is not of any philosophical value or anything you should think too hard about. All humans are really the same at the end of the day with only one question that really matters at the base level. And that question is... do you want to die?"

"Wha... what?" Irena muttered.

"No that's it, do you want to live or do you want to die? You're just livestock to us at the end of the day so either way it doesn't really matter."

"I I...I want to live of course."

"Good, then follow my orders until you die of old age and we won't kill you. In fact we'll place you into one of our dome cities. Really, is that so bad?"