Aras – Alien 111

Aras hates swans. I don’t know why, but she does it from the bottom of her heart. One day, she was wandering the streets of Wakusai and suddenly stood in front of a gallery door. The exhibition’s name was written in bold letters on the door: “Face your fears”. A sign beside the door said: “ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK – As soon as you enter the door, you also enter the world wide virtual world, so make sure you already have an account”. Aras was at odds with herself. Should she enter? It sounded pretty interesting. But actually, she didn’t have time. Suddenly she noticed that her hand was pushing down the door handle almost by itself. Aras opened the door and entered. Her curiosity was too strong. “Air! I need air. Why did I enter that stupid gallery? This is mental”, Aras thought panicky. Everything around her was black and wet. Opening her eyes, she found herself at the bottom of Lake Wato. She wore scuba gear, but her air supply showed only 2%. She would die if she didn’t get fresh air in the next three minutes. That’s not enough time to go back up, so Aras needed to find another solution. She was looking around but only saw a lot of different fish. Unfortunately, I can’t name them. I don’t know any fish names. Maybe one or two. I know the clownfish and the goldfish. But I digress. Thanks to my detour, Aras now has only 2 minutes left to find a way to get air. You may think: Why is the storyteller so calm and talks about fish and stuff when Aras is about to drown? Well, that is simple. I know she will survive. And you know that as well. The remaining question is how. Well, I will tell you. Panic rosed in her, and she noticed how it became more difficult for her to think clearly. “You have to pull yourself together, Aras,” she said to herself. “You have no choice”. That’s when she noticed the flashlight on her wetsuit. She turned on the light and – black, only more black. The light did not help her at all. But what was that? Far in front of her, she saw a reflection. Aras didn’t hesitate and swam towards the distant reflection. Only 1% of her air supply was left as she reached the shining object. Aras couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Was she hallucinating already? Right before she, in the middle of this lake, was a drain plug in the form of a swan. But Aras had no time to think. With her last breath of air, she reached the plug and pulled it. But instead of the water draining away, Aras dematerialized into data blocks and was sucked into the port. When Aras woke up, she found herself on the back of a giant swan. She gasped and suppressed a scream. She held her hands up and tried to touch the swan as little as possible, which resulted in her falling down the swan. Since the swan was giant, Aras fell for minutes until the swan grabbed her jacket and placed Aras back on its back. “Damn it, that stupid swan saved me. Do I have to like swans now?”