THE SIMULATOR (unravel the alien abduction phenomenon)

The Simulator is a unique fiction based on the alien abduction phenomenon.

A savant unravels the UFO/alien abduction phenomenon.

Lewis is a math savant who sees the world in terms of equations and mathematics. Like most savants, he lacks emotions, feelings, and even the ability to interpret facial expressions. But that changes after a series of alien abductions, which leave him with an unexplained connection to a woman trapped in a dystopian world of rust and steel.

A fluke incident gives Lewis an opportunity to search for the woman imprisoned in the decaying alien ruins. He wants nothing more than to simply meet her and experience the basic social interactions that most people take for granted. Survival alone becomes an arduous task, but the real prize—a normal life together—would place them at odds with an obscure alien agenda… and exact a price that neither is willing to pay.

Approximately 107,000 Words


Here are the first 689 words:

CHAPTER 1 — ANOMALY

     A dark, dingy corridor of ancient steel marked a confining tunnel that disappeared into blackness. Its arched ceiling was trimmed with corroded castings, and here and there, mounds of rust stood as tombstones to what were once ornate adornments. Its battered walls were encrusted with large flakes of brownish-orange rust and occasionally marred by dark weeping stains from perpetual moisture. Decay from the ancient steel had settled to the floor over the eons and formed a thick carpet of corrosion, fungus, and fine bits of deteriorated metal.
     The passage was choked with a rotting stench masked only by damp mildew and a faint hint of human sweat. Footprints of the wayward and dammed were scattered across the fine debris on the floor and a human skeleton lay silently among them. Like all remains, it had been stripped of any clothing or possessions long ago.
     The corridor was as much a prison as it was a passage. Beyond the darkness, the prehistoric walls extended for miles into a long forgotten labyrinth cloaked in blackness and riddled with decay. The labyrinth was immense in size; a prison without guards, without walls, and without boundaries. It was an oblivion where resources were scarce and life expectancy was painfully short.
     The tomb-like silence of the ancient corridor was broken by the sound of bare feet beating against the debris of the floor. The sound grew as an exhausted, frightened woman emerged from the darkness at a dead run. She was completely naked, dirty, ill kempt, and ran like her life depended on it.
     The woman was only about five feet one and slightly emaciated at ninety-eight pounds. Her poor diet was evident by ribs visible beneath her skin. She had not yet lost her tan, which stopped at a swimsuit tan line to reveal her true skin color in areas that were once covered. It was a testament to a more hospitable world where she wore clothes, had a life, and planned for a future. The tan line also branded her as a newcomer to that hostile world, where the naive were often exploited.
     Tears streaked down her face as her terror-filled eyes focused on the darkness ahead. Above her right eye was a distinctive J-shaped scar that had apparently healed long ago and did little to detract from the soft features of her face. Her long black hair would have hung down to the middle of her back had it not been flowing behind her as she raced past the grinning skeleton. Aching and breathing heavily, she continued her desperate sprint into the darkness of the labyrinth.
     Many unfortunate souls had passed through that forbidding passage: politicians, homemakers, students, Nazi soldiers, Romans, Incans, Aztecs, Egyptian Pharos, Clovis People, and cave-dwelling Cro-Magnons. The dark history seen by those dirty walls goes even deeper; not only had the earliest modern humans passed this way, but also many Neanderthals, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and on back to the earliest evolutionary remnants of ancient humanity.
     A few wayward souls occasionally left their marks scratched in the walls on their way to eternity. One such mark was a crude image of a bird-like creature with a stick-man in its beak. There was also a collection of glyphs from a long forgotten language, several Egyptian texts, a warning in Spanish left by a Conquistador, and a phrase in English that read ‘Nature Has Rules’. It was a timeless place where a stone tool could be found next to a discarded cell phone, or a world leader could be found taking orders from a truck driver.
     Three men emerged from the darkness in pursuit of the woman with the J-shaped scar. One of the men was naked, another had nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, and the third wore a tattered woman’s nightie. They too were dirty and ill kempt, though they were hardly running at a sprint. There was no particular hurry—as long as they kept pushing. The three men were much better fed than the small famished woman and they could easily chase her down to exhaustion. It was a simple tactic—and painfully effective.

(end sample)


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