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ten feet as the charge nearly doubled. The third attempt launched me back into the wall hard enough to leave some hefty bruises down my back and left burns on my hands and feet. I chose not to try a fourth time,” Ashaa explained.
      “Thank you for telling me,” Wendy said softly. “It was probably rude to ask but I just couldn’t stand not knowing.”
      To relieve the boredom, Holly started a game of worst date. They eventually decided Natalie was the winner after she told them during her one and only semester at college her date from the college’s student match app had picked her up in a stolen car, gotten into a police chase, had a high-speed accident that nearly killed them both and gotten her arrested until she could prove she just met him, all in the first hour of a first date and that didn’t even count the aftermath with her parents. They talked about favorite foods, movies, books and places. No one mentioned families it just hurt too much to go there. Then they napped for a while as there was nothing else to do. After they woke, Tabitha started teaching them some yoga to deal with the stiffness caused by the cramped conditions. She had been a part time instructor while in school she told them. 
      Two of the small aliens appeared again with another meal. Sienna had returned the pan earlier and they swapped it once more with a filled pan. Several of the women went to the tap and filled the water bottles. This time the small orange creature came out slowly from the corner and approached with its empty container. Taylor smiled and knelt with her hand out for the bottle. She handed the bottle to Holly who filled it and passed it back to her. Taylor returned the bottle.
      “My name is Taylor and I am a human, a Navajo,” she told the shy creature as she handed the bottle back. “You can sit with us if you like.”
      Just when Taylor decided it wouldn’t reply, “Am Zabysss.” The last syllable was sort of a hiss but Taylor smiled.
      “And what are your people called?” Taylor asked.
      “Am Xydrav,” Zabyss responded. Taylor rose slowly and she returned to the spot on the floor with Zabyss in tow. Taylor sat and then told the creature the names of all the women in the group and told them the creature’s name. Sienna offered it food which it took. Zabyss ate neatly and quietly with them.
      “You have a translator?” Sienna asked.
      “Yes.”
      “Do you know who or what these beings are? Or what’s happening?” Sienna asked of their new member.
      “Called Mirkndaks. Very secretive. Not social,” Zabyss spoke in whisper.
      “Do you know what’s happening?” Sienna asked again.
      “No. Many go before you come. Screams, terrible noises next. Then silence,” Zabyss told them. What Zabyss lacked in syntax she (?) made up for in meaning.
      Suddenly there was commotion at the door. Sienna and the others looked to see a group of about ten of the small green keepers at the door. They seemed to be viewing the occupants of each cell. The little green creatures strolled as though touring a zoo. Blanca suddenly began screaming and Sienna turned to see her pointing at one of the small green aliens toward the back of the group. He was chewing happily on a piece of bloody meat. The problem: the piece of meat had a male human hand attached to the end of it. Sienna thought she might faint.  Some of the blue beings had started to cry again in the other cell. The keepers seemed to be muttering amongst themselves but the translator in Sienna’s neck didn’t translate the strange noises into anything she could understand. But she got it, they were food. Zabyss scurried back to the corner. Sienna finally became aware of the colonel’s voice shouting from the other room.
      “What the hell is going on over there, Major? Respond now, damn it!”
      “Sir, they’re eating us.”
    “What the hell do you mean?” the general’s disbelieving voice asked.
      “Exactly what I said,