Chapter 1: the Pain

“I am Alexander! I am Alexander! I am Alexander!”

Desperately Alexander fought the alien probe trying to control his mind. Instinctively, he fought back in the most elemental way, repeating his name over and over. It was a basic form of identification, but the more he fought the more a rising tide of pain engulfed him. The pain started in the hollows of his temples. From there it spread along his nerves, tunneled through his skull, and rode the subterranean rivers of his blood until finally it spilled into his cortex and flooded his thalamus, permeating every fiber of his being. A malignant surging force pushed aside every shred of self awareness leaving Alexander blind, deaf and frozen in the agonizing moment. He wanted to writhe, to kick, to scream, but he couldn’t move. A weight crushed him, as if he was under water too deep for his muscles to overcome, too deep for him to force air though his throat and too deep for him to concentrate on any thought but the pain.

As a helpless observer he watched the ephemeral glow of the pain grow in his mind’s eye. His brain became a fiery thing. The pain transformed each neuron into a tiny inferno as it sped like a sentient torrent of fire through the hemispheres of his mind. It advanced in its merciless search, ratcheting along every neural path, deeper and deeper into his psyche until his mind swelled, throbbing with an acerbic, delirious ringing of titanic bells. The pain entered the core of his memory, rushing through the gates, clutching and ripping at the tendrils of his thought. There it gathered, as if the pain found what it sought—it surrounded the citadel of his past. The assault trebled. He fell into a sucking whirlpool of anguish. Alexander’s fury rose in a last desperate rebellion against the mind rape of the pain.

Revulsion churned within his spirit; revulsion against a crime so horrific to his identity that the debilitating power of the pain dwindled noticeably. He fought. Yet even as he grasped for a way to combat the pain a lock turned, a door opened, and something within his being was now naked, open for inspection.

The gate to his memories burst, and a deluge of repressed events shrieked through his consciousness, exposed for all to see. They distracted his effort, and involuntarily he witnessed the images of his own existence.

There, along a lonely stretch of road, he watched himself, the victim of a kidnapping by strange frail beings with shark’s eyes. The eyes latched upon him; they were black as pits and devoid of feeling. The beings put him in a coffin-like prison. The interior glowed with a sickly hue. It was bare metal, comfortless, cold, with skeletal ribs dripping with condensation. There was no sound, no movement, no sensation of touch; his only companion was the pain. The coffin opened, and under a battery of bright lights he saw the operating table. He was looking up at the lights. The table was like a slab of ice. He couldn’t move. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw instruments, probes and equipment standing out in brutal relief. The frail beings bent silently over his naked form. Then there was the pain.

He was back on earth amidst the mind numbing normalcy of existence. Time marched on—years it seemed. Then events repeated themselves: a kidnapping, another coffin and the pain. They returned him again and normalcy settled in until the cycle began all over again: a kidnapping, and now—in the present—the ever-present pain.

Alexander reeled, screaming, “Oh God, not again!”

Anger replaced helplessness, and he focused on a single motor activity. With a battery of thoughts roused by fury, each more resolute, more insistent than the last, he attempted to open his eyes. His first try earned no result, but he felt the sensation of pain fade. A glimmer of gray light tingled his optic nerve. He redoubled his effort, feeling as if he lifted massive steel doors with his will, not the insignificant hoods of flesh that hid his sight. The gray turned green with areas of fuzzy light and dark patches. Two of the dark patches moved and grew. They were small and thin. Were they people; the captors of his memories? He concentrated on one of them, but his sight was inexplicably dim. Try as he might he could not resolve the shapes. Frustrated, he sent a command to his arm. A buzz of sensation ran through the limb. Ah! His nervous system was reacting to his commands! He reached for the shape.

It moved away suddenly, and the pain returned tenfold, overwhelming, incontestable. He cringed, expecting to collapse under the onslaught. His mind almost gave up, but his body automatically resisted the pain, tensing to weather the storm. The wave of pain passed and he remained conscious—though drained to the point of death.

Through narrowed eyes he watched two strange beings at work on him; at the moment he was unable to do anything about it.