The Alien's Zookeeper

Chapter 1

1

TILLYI woke up to the familiar sound of a snoring rhino. Brie was known to be the loudest snorer in the entire zoo, but having spent countless nights in her enclosure, I was used to it. Her snoring had become almost a lullaby to me. It was a reassuring, primal sound that resonated deep within me. Nothing like the noise my ex had made in her sleep.

It was pitch black in Brie's stable. The lightbulb must have burned out while I was sleeping or maybe there was a power cut. Unlikely, but not unheard of. I should check on the other animals in case it wasn't just a faulty bulb. I sat up, placing my hands on the floor.

Wait a second...

This wasn't the hay-strewn concrete floor of her pen. My hands were touching cold, smooth metal. It didn't make any sense. How could the floor change while I was sleeping on it?

I reached out for Brie, her thick, leathery skin warm and familiar. Her breathing was steady and her snoring told me she was her usual noisy self. I didn't want to wake her. If she realised something had changed, she'd be very unhappy and an unhappy rhino was not something you wanted within an enclosed space. Brie trusted me, but there was always a chance of being accidentally crushed by two tonnes of odd-toed ungulate.

I pulled out my phone and turned on the torch. I was in a room about half the size as Brie's stable. My phone's light reflected on the metal walls, reaching up a lot higher than they should have. I couldn't spot a door nor any windows. Careful not to brush against Brie, I sneaked around her to check the other side of the room. Not a door in sight. How the flying monkey s**t had we even got in here? No, there was a bigger question that I was trying desperately to ignore: where were we?

The floor suddenly shook and I stumbled to my left, banging against the wall. Brie's snoring stopped and I froze, praying she'd fall asleep again. If this turned out to be a situation where I needed to defend myself, I'd wake her. I'd ridden her before - not that my boss would ever know that - and I could do it again, use her as a battering ram with horns that could gut whoever was playing a joke on us.

A tiny voice in my mind told me I was deceiving myself. This wasn't a joke. Nobody would simply move a two-tonne rhino and her keeper. It was impossible. But what did that leave me with? Had I died? Was this some kind of purgatory, an echo of my last moments of life? Maybe Brie had crushed me in my sleep. My colleagues had warned me of that, but I'd ignored them as always. Whenever one of my animals was sick, I couldn't stand being away from them, even if that meant spending a night on a cold stone floor.

I walked around the room, my hands sliding over the walls, looking for an indentation that could hide a door. Nothing. Panic was slowly creeping up on me. Until now, I'd kept a tight grip on my emotions, but I was starting to lose it. I was trapped. With a rhino. And I didn't know where.

A thought struck me and I pulled up the maps app on my phone, hoping the GPS would tell me where I was. No signal. No GPS. It couldn't locate me. That wasn't good. Maybe the walls were too thick. But without a signal, I couldn't call for help. I was on my own. Well, Brie was here, but she wouldn't be much use. I doubted even her horns could break through these metal walls.

"Hello?" I called out in a soft voice, hoping not to wake the rhino. "Can anyone hear me?"

Only silence met my words. A shiver ran down my back. I shouldn’t panic. There had to be a logical explanation for this. Maybe it was just a dream. Yes. That made more sense than purgatory or the other option... alien abduction.

I sat down, hugged my knees to my chest and tried to wake up from this nightmare.