Enslaved By Grays In The Center Of The Earth (Part III)

David acquiesced. The pain subsided and he regained his focus. The previous image came back into his mind of following the Gray into the forest, only this time, David’s head was bowed. David stood up and followed the Gray outside. Just outside the door, the partially-feathered woman took a small cloth and tenderly wiped the blood off his face. The Gray swiveled its head at her and she immediately walked away.

David looked at his surroundings. He saw several other small huts like the one he just exited and also some larger wooden buildings. They looked like something out of an old Western. He half expected the sheriff to tell him that this town wasn’t big enough for both of them. In the middle of everything was a massive metal dome, pure silver, smooth as freshly-shaved skin. Multiple humanoid beings walked to and fro, none were human, but they all possessed human-like characteristics. No matter their size or shape, the all bowed their heads when they saw the Gray.

Looking up, David did not see the sky or the sun, instead he saw stalactites hanging from the cavern ceiling hundreds of feet above him. Each one sparkled, giving off just enough light to simulate a partially-cloudy day. Under him, the rocky ground was covered with moss to cushion his naked feet.

To the west, he saw the tops of oversized mushrooms, some were even thirty and forty feet tall. Their multi-colored tops reminded him of a bunch of lollipops at a candy store. It was toward these mushrooms that the Gray was taking David. They walked in silence, and after about twenty minutes, they reached the edge of the mushroom forest.

He looked in the other cardinal directions, and saw a sea of lava that constantly bubbled. It reminded David of a time he went to the southern tip of Florida and saw the ocean on several sides simultaneously. The brightness of the lava sea reflected against the stalactites to create the light illuminated the entire cavern.

At the edge of the forest, two beings in loincloths similar to David’s were wielding axes and felling the mushrooms like lumberjacks. When the Gray brought David up to them, they all stopped and stared at the newcomer. David stared back, for they looked as outlandish to him as he did to them. One had the body of a giant tarantula and the torso of man, like a centaur. Unlike a man, he had eight unblinking eyes. Noticeably, one of the spider legs was missing. The other person was more human-looking, but the limbs were far too long. Even his webbed fingers and toes were elongated, like that of a frog. A wide smile appeared on his head, the edges of his mouth nearly touching his ears. His tongue darted out and grabbed an insect on a nearby mushroom. Other than the loincloth, the uniting feature that both of them had was that they wore the metal collar. An image of David joining them entered his head and with that, the Gray left.

The man-spider handed David a spare axe and pointed at a nearby mushroom. He mimed swinging the axe against its stem.

“Gruug,” he said to David.

David took it and slowly shuffled over to the mushroom. He swung the axe and it bit into the stem of the mushroom with a satisfying THWACK.

“Gruug!” the man-spider said approvingly. David continued cutting the mushroom until it began to topple.

“Look out!” he yelled. The two did not understand a word of English, but they understood the tone of David’s voice and got out of the way as it fell. “I have got to learn how to talk all over again,” he muttered to himself.

As they worked throughout the day, the others spoke in a strange tongue that David had never heard before. It did not bear any resemblance to any surface language he had ever been exposed to. He seethed at the thought of many beings under the control of the Grays. The very thought of a one sentient being owning another one, made David’s skin crawl. Surely a united attack by everyone could overthrow this psychic slaver. So why hadn’t it happened yet?

After a few hours of chopping down mushrooms, the man-spider yelled a command and everyone stopped working. The man-spider spun webs around all of the fallen stalks and wove a harness that he attached to the frog-man, David, and finally himself.

The man-spider pointed back toward the silver dome and everyone began to haul the load over the mossy ground. It was slow going, even though the stalks were not as heavy as a tree of the same size, they were still not light. David let his mind wander as he pondered the bizarre situation he was in. Had he fallen into the center of the earth? Was there a whole society living just under the cities of humans?

His focus came back to him, when he tripped over the prostrate form of the frog-man, which tugged on his harness and knocked the wind out of him. David cursed from the pain and the man-spider stared at him with eight raised eyebrows. Then the man-spider began to yell at the frog-man, who just laid on the ground and croaked pitifully.

“Get up!” shouted David, as he pulled the frog-man up off the ground.

With David’s support, together they were able to get the procession going again. David’s muscles begged to stop, but he kept moving. Inch by inch, step by step, they got closer to the silver dome. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they reached the dome and stopped.

The man-spider came by and dissolved the webs binding the workers to the stalks. David was gently pulled back and the dome opened slightly. A giant claw, like that of an arcade machine that took all the quarters of a love-struck teen trying to get a teddy bear for his sweetheart, came out and collected the bundles. Then, just as suddenly as it opened, the dome closed up again and the surface was just as seamless as before.

After this spectacle, the slaves all went separate ways, back to different buildings. David stood by the dome for a moment, looking where to go. His heart sunk as he realized that he was trapped in this peninsula. He would get free of this, he promised himself. But first, where was he going to sleep?

Picture Credit: "Lake Cave" by thinkrorbot is licensed under CC by 2.0

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV