Charles Ordeal - Part 3

There was tension everywhere, the air was heavy and the simple inhale and exhale became slightly difficult, just because of the presence of a cylindrical machine.

What was I going to do? I scrambled my brain looking for answers and the only viable solution I could put forward was this.

"Look, Franklin. We have to be very careful about this but I have a plan. When the machine goes to search in one of the rooms, we leave this place as silently as we can." I said.

"Ugh... Sure." He replied.

Franklin was still worse for wear but I could support him enough to try and escape this situation.

I peeked outside and the machine came out of the room it had entered. It started coming towards our direction, but it stopped abruptly.

It rolled back and went to the staircase, then it just left. It left! Why did it leave I wondered, but at this point, I doubt there was much use racking my brain over it. I relayed the information to Franklin.

"Hey Franklin. Thank your stars, the machine left." I said.

"Huh? What... Why?" Franklin asked.

"I don't know, but at least it's not here." I replied.

"Shouldn't we leave now?" He said.

"No. The machine might still be downstairs, let's wait it out for a while before I go check it out. I said.

"Yeah... You're right." He replied.

There was a brief silence afterwards, before Franklin broke it with a question.

"These things, where do you think they come from." He said.

"I don't know, nothing is making any sense right now." I replied.

'"why are they here [cough] [cough] and why are they consuming humans?" He asked, coughing in-between sentences.

"My answer stays the same, I don't know. These things just came out of the sky and started wreaking havoc everywhere, I wonder what they're trying to do, and their procedure for killing humans is extremely disturbing." I said.

"Yeah, from the inside out right, it is very disturbing." He said.

I wondered what it was the aliens found in us that they so willfully consumed without a care in the world. Hunting humans down and draining them, I wondered what it all meant.

I was with them that day, the ambulance that came back to the hospital just before those things made their way to that place. What I saw, the things I saw, I would never let it happen to me.

Those things, it was like they were keeping their victims alive during the whole extraction of organs thing. I saw everything happen, I saw it happen to multiple people, I'm never allowing that to happen to me.

As it punctured a human, I saw a liquid substance being secreted. I don't know why a human should still be screaming and writhing in pain when its organs are being detached from it, but that is what I saw happen.

These things have different perspectives on their massacre. Some of them went about doing their business and killing people normally, some sucked blood, but the worst by far, were those who consumed organs.

I suspect that the true aliens lie inside the machines, and they all have different ways by which they go about their work of extermination.

We watched from a safe distance that day, as the aliens went about and swept through the area, leaving nothing but dead bodies along their path. We watched until they had gotten far enough to not notice us take people into the ambulance.

Being the scientist that I am, I silently observed as all this was happening, watching carefully and analyzing the behavior of these creatures. I decided to share my findings with Franklin so I could get his opinion on the occurrences.

"Franklin." I called.

"Yes." He replied.

"What do you think about the draining of intestines from a human being or animal. Like, the draining of blood from the animal and simultaneous removal of its organs. Do you think anyone can stay alive to experience that?" I said.

"Maybe at the beginning of the procedure yes, but for a short while. Animals die when they lose more blood than that which is being pumped out, and organs which are compromised will also lead to internal bleeding which will accelerate the speed at which said animal loses its life." He said.

"Yeah, but what if there was something that kept them alive." I said.

"I doubt that you can keep something alive if it suffered that amount of damage, the animal would probably die of shock or something." He replied.

"Yeah, but what if there was something that Kept the brain active while all that was happening? What if they secreted something that kept their victims brain activity intact until the last moment, so it feels all the pain and experiences every ounce of pain until it's last breath?" I said.

"....."

"That would be quite the development, and quite the grievous experience for the poor creature." Franklin said after a brief silence, he probably thought about all the horrors that came with such an anomaly.

"The lifeforms inside those machines, I saw them secrete something like that, some liquid. That's the only explanation as to why someone would still be alive and struggling while his organs were being extracted." I said.

Silence once again filled the room as Franklin was probably thinking about himself being in that situation. I had no intention of letting him die though and I had every intention of leaving together with him as he was a vital piece of my plan.

"Don't worry." I said, Franklin shook a little as he looked at me, he was lost thinking about the fact that I could leave him but I tried to relieve him of that line of thinking.

"After everything we've been through together, every single chance I had to leave you behind, do you really think I'm going to let that thing get you now?" I said.

Franklin looked at me and a sort of comfort filled him as he was now somewhat assured of his safety. Then the footsteps came back.

It was more of a clicking sound than the sound of footsteps but either way, I knew what was coming towards us.

I peeked outside the room and I saw the arachnid creep into the passage, the creature inside it probably thirsty for blood. It looked towards a room and made its way towards it, the clicking of its metallic legs made evident with every step it took.

This was it, if we were going to escape, it had to be now. This was the perfect time and we had to take it. This, was do or die.