V
It was my turn next. The shadow‑alien with the green‑tipped probe glided toward me, its form flickering like smoke caught in a beam of light. The probe hummed, a low, vibrating tone that made my entire being tremble. When it passed the instrument over my chest, I felt the same tug my great‑aunt had felt — that cold, invasive pull, like fingers slipping into the center of my consciousness. But then the alien hesitated. Its outline rippled, as if confused. The green tip brightened, scanning me again. A cluster of floating symbols rearranged themselves above the nearest console, shifting into a pattern I somehow understood. I would be discarded.
The alien shook its shadowy form — not in frustration, not in mercy, but in a kind of clinical dismissal. I wasn't ready. I wasn't harvestable. I was a problem to be removed from the workspace. It didn't speak. It didn't explain. It simply raised one long, translucent hand.
A portal opened beneath me — a circle of white light that expanded like an iris. There was no ceremony, no ritual, no acknowledgment of what I'd just witnessed. My great‑aunt was gone, dissolved into tubes and instruments, her essence scattered like dust in a machine. The alien gave a small, almost bored gesture.
And I fell. Not through metal. Not through space. Through rolling columns of swirling clouds and waves of thick, rolling, silver fog that swallowed me whole. It wasn't cold or warm — it was nothing, a void with texture. I tumbled through it weightlessly, my soul‑form flickering, struggling to hold shape. The alien chamber vanished above me, the portal sealing shut like a pupil contracting.
My great‑aunt was gone. Her voice, her presence, her outline, it had all been erased.
I was falling alone into a world I didn't recognize, a world the aliens clearly didn't care about, a world that wasn't meant for the living or the dead. Just the discarded. I fell in between worlds I had no idea about. I just hoped I would land peacefully, and maybe die with no pain on impact, if I even actually existed in this form. In my mind I sighed as I seemed to fall endlessly. I was just a jobless post-grad student. They didn't train me for this sort of paranormal situation. All I could do was swear to myself. Shit. What next? I closed my eyes and thought maybe if I went to sleep, I'd wake up in the old mansion, in bed. This would all be a dream. Unfortunately, I am not very lucky.
The fog around me twisted, folding in on itself like a living thing like the beginning of an epic thunderstorm. For a moment I thought I was dissolving the way my great‑aunt had, thinning into smoke, losing shape. Unexpectedly the fog parted, just a slit, just long enough for something to catch me. A shimmer caught my eye. A ripple of silver appeared in all that fog. I saw a mirror‑surface hanging in the void like a drop of water suspended in midair. I didn't fall onto it like a solid surface. I fell through it like passing through a curtain.
The surface broke around me with a soft, liquid sound like a large object dropping into a lake. Suddenly gravity returned. My soul‑form slammed downward, weightless but aware, tumbling out of the portal and into a bank of thick, soupy mess.
Fog. Real grey fog hovering above patchy ground and limp brown grass. Fog that clung to clothes and skin in damp drops. I hit the ground hard enough to feel it, even without a body. It didn't hurt as much as felt weighty, like pulling yourself up from a swimming pool. The world around me slowly came into focus: crooked headstones jutting from the earth, wax candles flickering on fresh graves, their flames bending in the wind like they were trying to whisper warnings. A graveyard. A human graveyard. I was thoroughly spooked, but none of the graves I saw were mine.
Old gas lamps lined a central path, their glass fogged, their light dim and sickly. The path stretched forward toward wrought‑iron gates that loomed like the ribs of some ancient beast. The fog swirled around them, thick and heavy, as if guarding whatever lay beyond.
I pushed myself upright — or the soul‑version of upright — and looked around for anyone that I could see. No ghosts except for myself. Not even my aunt. Nothing. No flicker of her essence. To echo of her rich voice. She was truly gone, and I would mourn her. I was, after all, in a graveyard. I looked toward a blank grave. Whoever was buried here could deliver my heartfelt goodbye to Great-aunt Olivia.
The aliens had unmade her, harvested her, and discarded what remained. And now they had thrown me here — not out of mercy, but out of inconvenience. A living soul they couldn't store. A problem they didn't care to solve. The graveyard was silent except for the faint hiss of fog sliding across stone. Then, somewhere beyond the gates, something moved. A shape. A shadow. Not human. Something that belonged to this world — whatever this world was. And I realized with a cold, sinking certainty: The aliens hadn't saved me for later. They had dropped me into something worse.