Prisoner Father

“Stop!” Bryan remembered hearing Denise screaming at a prison guard before he fell unconscious. Denise’s screaming stopped when Bryan heard two gunshots. He also heard how a gunshot silenced Denise’s baby before he blacked out.

Bryan tried to stop the prison guard from shooting Denise and her daughter. He fought the prison guard who was bigger than a WWE wrestler, even after getting punched in his stomach. Bryan knocked the prison guard off his feet a few times, but a right hook to his face was the only thing that shut him down. When Bryan woke up, he found himself strapped to a passenger seat inside a transport space vehicle. The vehicle that Bryan was riding in was the same spherical spacecraft that Bryan remembered being inside of on the night of his abduction.

The small craft had the same oval unibody-shaped chassis. There was a large holographic navigation screen that took up the entire dashboard. On one side of the screen, Bryan could see a readout of the craft’s engine temperature.

On the other side of the screen, it displayed the outside temperature, and a map showing the vehicle’s location in space and the name of the star system it was traveling through. Bryan knew he was being transported somewhere. The first thing he assumed was that he was being transported to a Boneseeker Man. Bryan remembered what Denise told him about Princess Death Row feeding prisoners to Boneseeker Men who produced her narcotic supply.

Bryan knew a Boneseeker Man would kill him. He didn’t want to be food for the off-world predator. When Bryan’s vision cleared up, he could see that he not only had a seatbelt harness around his waist, but he had seatbelt straps across his chest and arms.

Bryan felt like someone strapped him down to a mental hospital bed made to look like the passenger seat of a spacecraft. His mind was in so much turmoil that he couldn’t enjoy the beauty of the landscape of stars shining through the spacecraft’s windshield. Bryan felt like he lost everything. He lost his wife, his son, and now his cellmate and her daughter.

Bryan never thought his life would turn out this way. All he could think about was the night he was abducted. He thought about how he stood on the sidewalk that night waiting for his Lyft driver and seeing a tall man walking across the street toward him wearing a black hoodie and blue jeans.

Bryan put his hands up, begging for his life. When the man came closer, that’s when Bryan grabbed the man’s gun. He wrestled with the gunman for a minute before he saw an enormous brilliant flash of light.

The next thing Bryan remembered was waking up to see that someone strapped him down inside a spacecraft like the one he was in now. Every night Bryan regretted calling for a Lyft driver. He regretted not asking his wife to pick him up from work that night.

Bryan missed his wife and his son. He would dream about kissing his wife’s lips and holding his son in his arms. Sometimes Bryan would have hallucinations of his wife and son. A few nights ago, he saw them standing in his prison cell after he awoke from a restless sleep.

There were many nights where Bryan would see his wife and son standing over him in his prison cell. He would always hope that the hallucinations of his wife and child were real. Bryan missed Amy’s scent and he missed her beautiful neck.

He missed laying against his wife’s breasts and feeling her petite hand massaging his scalp. Bryan missed his wife’s laughter and her brutal honesty. He missed her cooking and how she could cook the best omelets.

The thing that Bryan missed the most about his wife was her loving and forgiving nature. He even missed the arguments he had with his wife. He missed her fiery personality and how her sexy British accent made her curse words sound more colorful. Bryan missed being able to tell his wife he loved her. He missed telling her how beautiful she was.

Bryan thought about his little boy and how he missed holding him. He missed playing video games with his son. He thought about the last enjoyable moment he had with his son. He could still feel his son in his arms while standing on the beach shoreline. He could hear his little boy’s laughter from being chased down the beach by his father. Bryan saw himself pursuing his son with a super-soaker water blaster. It would be a game of who could spray their opponent with the most water. Bryan remembered his son winning the game. He remembered his son chasing him down in his little swim trunks and a tank top with his super-soaker water gun clutched between his pint-sized fingers. Bryan had to surrender to his son, and he fell to his knees after his little boy drenched him in the face with water. Bryan didn’t completely surrender. He chuckled as he snatched his son’s water blaster away before lifting his little boy into his arms and tickling him. He could still hear the ocean breeze carrying his little boy’s laughter and cheers. There were other moments that Bryan wanted to relive with his son.

Bryan missed buying his son toys and the latest video games. He missed spoiling Omar, and he loved how his wife was the disciplinarian. Bryan would buy his son anything he wanted. He loved his little boy, and the day he wanted to relive the most was the day he held his son for the first time as an infant. Bryan remembered the little gurgling sound Omar made while looking up at him. He remembered the divine ecstatic feeling coming over him while holding this little bundle of joy in his arms.

Bryan thought about how he would try to feed Omar his vegetable baby food and how Omar would spit the peas and carrots back out of his mouth, causing his father to laugh at the pure disgust on his baby’s face.

Bryan knew he would never see his little boy or his wife again. Since he knew this, it made it a little easier for him to accept the possibility of being killed by a Boneseeker Man. But Bryan didn’t want to think about his death. He broke down in tears while staring out through the spacecraft’s windshield. The stars were beautiful and Bryan tried to take in the array of distant stars that covered the deep vastness of space. He knew the stars would be the last sight he would ever see.

Bryan kept trying to think about his wife and son and not about being killed. He could still taste the blood in his mouth from being punched and then kicked in his face by a prison guard. The blood in Bryan’s mouth was now becoming intermingled with his tears. He couldn’t stop thinking about what his cellmate told him. Denise told him about how a Boneseeker Man killed her husband. She told him that a woman she worked for, who called herself Princess Death Row, killed her husband by feeding him to the Boneseeker Man, which was an extraterrestrial predator. Denise also told Bryan that he would die soon and that his body would be converted into a drug called Lotus-9.

“I watched her kill babies of all ages,” Denise explained to Bryan. “It wasn’t just adults. I witnessed her kill a teenage mom and her six-month-old baby. She didn’t discriminate. That’s why they call her The Mother of Death. She uses death as a foundation to support her drug operations.” Denise paused for a minute, releasing a sigh of disgust. “Boneseeker Men help produce the narcotic she sells. Once a Boneseeker Man consumes a human body, he produces a chemical. This chemical is extracted from the creature’s body and converted into a drug called Lotus-9. It’s like a narcotic, but it’s a little more potent and very expensive. The price for one ounce is four grand,” Denise explained, looking at the lost expression on Bryan’s face.

Bryan remembered how he laughed uncomfortably through his deep voice as he tried to wrap his mind around what Denise told him. He fell into a brief state of shock, which he could only deal with through a disbelieving chuckle. It sounded like Denise told him about the plot of a sci-fi horror movie. Bryan’s mind struggled to accept that what Denise told him was real.

“I can’t believe no one told you,” Denise said while looking at Bryan with pity. “A Boneseeker Man is gonna kill us. We’re gonna be his dinner. That’s the reason we’re prisoners on this f#cking ship. We have to die so that Princess Death Row can produce more of her narcotics.” Denise watched as the uncomfortable smile that Bryan had on his face vanished.

“So a Boneseeker Man is gonna kill me?” Bryan remembered asking Denise. He kept expecting his cellmate to crack a smile before telling him she was joking.

“Yes, that’s the reason you’re here, sweetheart! Princess Death Row didn’t tell you that after she abducted you?” Denise said to Bryan at a rapid pace, and she could see the blood draining from his face. “Every prisoner on this ship is gonna die. Watching my husband get eaten alive by one of these things was like being in hell with the Devil. I couldn’t look away because Princess Death Row told her men to chain me to a wall, and they pried my eyes open with metal prongs so I couldn’t blink.” Denise relived the moment while explaining what happened to her. “She thought about killing me at first, but she killed my husband instead.”

Denise’s words echoed through Bryan’s mind. He reflected on everything she told him.

Headaches would always set in when Bryan would cry. The pounding inside his head would cause more tears to develop in his eyes. Closing his eyes and praying was the only way he could stop his tears and his headache. The last thing Bryan saw before shutting his eyes was a floating city that looked like Chicago surrounded by a ring nebula.

Bryan couldn’t tell for sure if it was a floating city he saw through the spacecraft’s windshield or a massive starship vessel that looked like something he’d seen in Star Wars. Whether it was a floating city or a starship vessel, Bryan didn’t care. He just kept his eyes closed, while praying.