Article: 178432 of talk.bizarre From: page@clydesdale.cs.odu.edu (d.) Newsgroups: talk.bizarre Subject: That Alien Feeling Date: 1 Dec 1994 07:33:56 GMT Organization: Old Dominion University CS Dept. Lines: 66 Message-ID: <3bju94$6mm@xanth.cs.odu.edu> Status: O Part of his shoulder had been blown off by the gun the shouting creature had shot at him, and the pain was unendurable. Stumbling through the alien forest, he came upon a small shack. There were some sort of guard creatures out front. He paused, first from caution, then from curiosity. They were half dog, half turtle it seemed. Doggie feet, doggie legs, doggie head, doggie tail, turtle shell. He would have laughed from the strangeness of it all if the day hadn't gone so badly already. Ok, Greg had been an alien. Ok, Greg had captured him and brought him to this alien planet in a flying saucer. Ok, some betentacled thing was getting its kicks hunting him down with some sort of acid spitting gun. This had all sunk in as he had run through the strangely earth-like forest. But these dog-turtles, these durtles! "Mnerw Mnerw Mnerw," one commented. "Mnerw Mnerw Mnerw," the other added in a higher pitched voice. There didn't seem to be much more to do, he just walked up and brushed past them. He entered the shack and they didn't even move a muscle, only looked at him curiously with soft brown doggy eyes. He sighed out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and looked around. Round shack, rising up into an open cone point. The walls were all covered with cabinets made of some dark wood. A large crystalline tree dominated the center of the room, catching the light from the skylight in an amazing way. He had turned to begin searching the cabinets for something to treat his shoulder with when something touched him on the shoulder. He turned to find the crystal tree looming above him, grasping him gracefully with those clear branches and lifting him into the air. Screaming all the while, it carried him away from the cabinets and then something sharp pricked him in the neck... When he woke he felt rather good, actually. It took him a moment to realize he was lying in the center of the shack staring up through the skylight at the night stars. While clambering to his feet he realized his shoulder no longer hurt. He looked over at it and nearly threw up. Where there once had been a half-melted hole in his shoulder there was now a pulsing slimy baseball-sized glob. It seemed to have a small opening facing towards his head, looking uncomfortably like a mouth. A touch at his shoulder. He turned to view the crystalline tree again, which gracefully moved its branches in an odd dance before him. "He says you owe him 15 triskids," the mouth on his shoulder told him matter-of-factly. When he recovered from his faint, he found that nothing else seemed to surprise him anymore. d. -- Truth, tears and tirades. page@cs.odu.edu