I stood up straight as the door opened, revealing the people standing outside the ship. They looked a lot like me, wearing similar clothing as the one I’d found inside the ship. I was suddenly aware I had no idea what to do or say. Whatever I had to say they wouldn’t understand me, I wouldn’t understand them. Instead I decided to simply stand there and smile, I figured they’d know what to do since they were sent to see me in the first place.

  They all started to approach, five in total. I held out my hand, hoping a handshake was a fairly universal thing, but as I held my hand out they simply walked past me and into the empty bay and began grabbing everything out of it.

  I frowned. They acted as though I didn’t even exist, which seemed kind of rude.

  “Uh, hello?” I said as I turned around. They all ignored me, but one was closer than the others so I reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

  “Excuse me uh… Sir?” I said, giving him a gentle shake.

  The white glowing of his eyes turned off as he looked up at me. I was a little taller than him but he appeared to have a bit of a bulkier build. After glancing up at the others I saw they all looked fairly buff compared to me, I guessed it may be because they worked in such high gravity.

  When his eyes went out, he had an expression of confusion, but when he looked at me he looked frustrated, annoyed. He waved his arm at me, gesturing for me to leave before his eyes went back to white, a blank expression coming over his face before he returned to work wiping down the surfaces of the interior of the small ship.

  I didn’t want to bother them any further so I decided to step out into the main area. It was huge, like nothing I’d ever seen before. The floors, walls and ceilings lined with metal, a cool glowing light coming from long strips highlighting the various shapes along the ceiling. As I turned and looked into the distance I could see a slow upward curve along the entire corridor.

  I saw another group attending to a different ship, I started to make my way over, my tail dragging on the ground as I tried to stay upright but as I walked I felt like I was getting heavier, my feet pressing hard into the floor, I had to take long deep breaths since each breath felt like a chore. I’d only made it a few feet when the outside of my vision turned black, I could only see what was directly in front of me.

  Just before I fell to the ground, I saw one of the other people ahead of me turn, acknowledging me and walking my way. Their eyes were glowing too.

  I opened my eyes, I was laying on the floor on my side, I had to have passed out. My arms, my legs, my head, my tail, everything felt like it was being sucked to the ground, I could barely fight it.

  I felt a hand grab my leg. I tried to say something but all that came out was a wheezing breath. The hand grabbed a bit harder and started pulling me toward a pair of doors.

  I tried to sit up but it was useless, I had to focus on my breathing just to stay conscious. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her, she looked about the same as me, but just like the others, she looked a lot stronger than me. I could see how toned her muscles were through the tight fitting clothes.

  “Please…” I managed to get out. I wanted to ask for her help but I could only get out the one word. She seemed to ignore me but continue to drag me toward a pair of doors.

  She hit a button and simply stood next to me. It gave me a chance to try to stand up again.

  I’d barely managed to get up on all fours when the door opened. The woman didn’t hesitate, her hand grabbing me under my arm and pushing me forward into the elevator. I fell to the ground an at unnaturally fast rate as I landed at the far side of the elevator. I was dazed, trying to get control of myself. I could see she’d hit a button inside the elevator, turned around and got out again, only turning around for a brief moment to look at me, her eyes continued to glow as the elevator doors shut.

  Thankfully the elevator started moving upward. I laid flat on my back, giving in to the extreme gravity as I simply tried to control my breathing. I’d never felt so weak in my life. I was always the strong one, always the one that could throw farther, jump higher, take a hard hit. I realized I was nothing compared to the people I’d just seen, they were a different breed entirely. The seemed completely unphased by the extreme gravity they worked in.

  I took a deep breath as I felt myself getting lighter, the gravity finally relinquishing its control over me as I slowly stood up, still quite a lot heavier than I was used to but it was at least manageable.

  Glancing around the elevator, I noticed an interesting screen above the doorway. It was a screen that showed a long line with a bunch of notches along its side. It looked like a subway map. A green dot represented the elevator, which was on the far left side of the line, moving toward the right. Everything on the left side was marked in a deep red color, a green color marked a small section along the middle and the rest of the dots were blue on the right. I wasn’t sure what they could all mean, but I noticed there was a panel of buttons to the right of the elevator door with a similar color pattern. Red for all the bottom buttons, a small strip of green buttons in the middle and all blue buttons toward the top. The topmost button was lit up a brighter blue color than the rest.

  Just before the elevator was about to pass from the red zone into the green zone it stopped. I stepped back as the doors opened up to reveal a small platform, it looked like a hallway with a marble like texture on the floor. Waiting on the other side were three others like me, two had glowing eyes, the third didn’t.

  I pressed my back to the wall as they all entered, turning around and facing the door as it closed and continued upward.

  I looked at them up and down, my eyes wide as I got to see another member of my species up close for the first time. At least, the first time without looking through a dirty window or under crushing gravity.

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  The one that didn’t have the glowing eyes looked like he was wearing much more casual clothing made of fabric in a style that I could only describe as ‘western’ in nature. He looked cool, but so did the others with their full body suits. I smiled as I saw their hands which looked just like mine, their tails that made them stand leaning a little forward like I did.

  I bit my lip as I realized the one without the glowing eyes had turned around and was looking at me, no doubt curious about why I’d been staring at him.

  He looked confused, turned around, hit a button that was closer to where the elevator was currently passing.

  I tried to smile at him but he just turned back to the doors, giving me a side eye as they opened and he quickly shuffled out, leaving me alone with the other two.

  I sighed as the elevator continued up, leaning against the back wall.

  “Great Tess, great introduction, you’re doing just… Great'' I said sarcastically. The other two didn’t respond.

  The elevator passed into the green section, one of the lights dimming as the other two got off, having never said a word or even acknowledged I was there, leaving me alone once more. I considered getting off to follow them but decided against it. Interestingly, I noticed the gravity around the green section was pretty close to what I was used to, if not just a little less.

  The elevator continued up, passing into the blue section as I continued to get lighter.

  It stopped again, the elevator doors opening to reveal two people standing on the other side in mid conversation. I froze, they weren’t like me, they were different. They stood about seven feet tall, their ankles were almost halfway up their leg, their knee near the top, their feet were covered by what looked like a thick glove, but it looked as though they had three large toes with talons at the end of each one.

  They both walked in, turning around to face the door as it closed. One of them glanced at me, but went right back to her conversation.

  As they stood in front of me I couldn’t help but look at them, how their hips were so high up, most of their height coming from their legs. They wore silky clothing that hung loose on their body. Their arms and head were exposed, showing what looked like black feathers. After noticing their feathers I looked up to see their mouths were giant beaks. They looked like birds, their main body similarly shaped to a human’s, they didn’t have a tail, their legs were extremely different, looking extremely thin. Their arms were covered in feathers up until their wrist where it changed over to scales.

  As the two talked I noticed their hands only had four fingers in total. Three at the end and a thumb.

  Their conversation stopped. I looked up from their hands to see they were both looking at me, just as the man from earlier had looked at me. They both looked confused.

  I smiled, holding up my hand to wave at them but they both opened their mouths, gazing at me. I’d only seen their faces for a moment but I recognized a very universal expression of disgusted surprise.

  I put my hand down, looking back and forth between the two of them. They laughed, said something to me that I didn’t understand, then the doors to the elevator opened and they were gone, leaving me alone once more.

  “What the heck was that…” I said under my breath.

  I didn’t have long to collect my thoughts when the elevator finally reached the top, the doors opening wide, nobody was on the other side this time, I’d finally reached my stop.

  I slowly got out to look around. It was fairly dark, a long corridor stretching in both directions with more elevators than I could count. The curve was much tighter than the place I’d seen at the bottom.

  The place looked almost like a subway terminal. Tiles lined the ground and the walls with sectioned off areas for lines, but there was nobody around.

  Light was pouring in from an opening up ahead with a stairwell leading up. Without anywhere else to go I decided to follow the light.

  The steps were a strange shape. Each one wasn’t very tall, but it took at least two footsteps to get to each one, they were spaced apart pretty far. I climbed the stairs, coming up on a large archway as a whole new scene unfolded before my eyes.

  It looked like an endless sea of white buildings, metallic trim lining all of them, their shapes were organic with large sweeping curves along every surface. Between the buildings were roadways, sidewalks, bridges over what appeared to be small parks. It was a city like I never could have imagined. It was beautiful and absolutely filled with life. There were people walking along the sidewalks, small roofless cars drove around the streets, pedestrians lining the bridges and pathways. It was almost entirely the bird people with only a few of my species in the streets. Not a single one lacked the glowing eyes. Where the birds were walking around, talking, sitting on benches, leaning over the railings and playing in the parks, the people that looked like me appeared to be working. They were carrying large bags, transporting things in little vehicles, and holding things for people.

  I stepped out of the doorway, my mouth open as I stared in awe as I looked up. The city curved upward until it completed a loop, the farthest part looking like it was at least two miles away. In the distance I could see large buildings, like skyscrapers reaching up toward the center of the ship, there were larger parks in the distance, huge lakes dotting its surface, in the center of the ship was what appeared to be a massive rod that stretched across its entire length. It was bright, pointed directly at the sun and took its light in, scattering it out in all directions.

  As I looked out toward the sun I saw earth come into view. It was confusing to see at first, looking like it was spinning around the rim of the massive windows at the far side of the ship but I quickly realized we were the ones spinning. The planet looked as though it was circling inward, moving ever closer to the sun. It began filling nearly half of the view from the windows when everything faded to red as the sun was obscured by the atmosphere, a moment later it started to dim, but the giant rod in the center of the ship seemed to turn on, shining down a different looking light than before. It was harsher, missing several frequencies and looked almost nothing like the pure white light from the sun. It immediately felt unnatural in comparison.

  I moved further out from the doorway, my eyes following the massive spire all the way to its base at the back of the ship.

  Just like I’d seen in the memory, halfway down the ship there was a giant metal ring that encircled the entire structure. I was in the front part of the ship where the cities and people lived, but in the back part I could see what looked like a forest, or a jungle. It looked like it was filled with trees and bushes, but the color of the plants were different. There was a lot of green, but also a lot of red and yellow along with what appeared to be giant mushrooms. On the forest side there were some large buildings that stretched almost entirely up to the center. They appeared to be lined with seats, all facing toward the giant windows in the front.

  I looked back to the streets. I was confused. I’d expected some sort of welcoming party, some kind of acknowledgement, but it was like nobody knew I was there, or at least they didn’t care. I scratched my head, trying to think of what I should do.

  I shrugged feeling like there wasn’t any point in standing around. I looked up along the side of the ship to see a massive lake and decided to just make my way over toward it.