Chapter 1
An alien, imprisoned in an enemy stronghold on his home planet, is transported onto the US aircraft about to drop an Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima in World War II.
Duh'ji is in trouble. A thief who has been caught by the worst beings imaginable, the Ghuntans; extremely intelligent extra-terrestrials who specialise in all manners of scientific technologies, including those used in psychological torture. Duh'ji was warned about this when he was tasked with stealing their precious Yuntite jewels, and now he finds himself strapped to a contraption that has sent him hurtling across space (in his mind at least), and on to a strange looking ship about to drop a bomb called "Little Boy" on an unsuspecting population of beings.........the Ghuntans sent him to a savage place called EARTH.
A SHORT STORY:
Duh’ji felt like his brain was being mangled in between two rocks and then bludgeoned repeatedly. This sensation went on for what felt like forever. The pounding, unrelenting pain was non-stop, and although Duh’ji felt like just reaching his hands up, grabbing both sides of his head and pulling it down towards his torso, he knew he couldn’t.
The last thing he remembered was the restraints being tightened on each of his four arms, and then the dreaded Ghuntan helmet being lowered down over his large skull. And then darkness.
The faint light ahead of him began to grow brighter, which just intensified the pain he could feel in his head. He wanted to scream, but nothing came out. Instead, the bright light now turned into vibrant flashes of colour that zipped past his eyes at violent speeds. His whole body began to contort, the sensation of the flashes mixed with the brain-smashing pain was almost enough for him to give up all together. Then it stopped.
He looked down and finally felt like he could open his eyes. He forced each heavy eyelid open. The pain in his head had now completely disappeared, and he could actually feel cold against his feet. He stared at his feet, wriggling around each of his four clawed digits, before realising something.
“What is that?” he muttered to himself, as he strained his eyes to concentrate harder.
It was a cold, hard, lifeless material he was stood on, with a dark grey sheen to it. He finally found the strength to lift his head up further, something that seemed so simple but that, for whatever reason, Duh’ji had to strain to do. He concentrated hard, the image ahead of him still blurry, until his senses were well and truly woken by a flying fist that cannoned into the side of his head, sending him flying to the floor.
“You’re not supposed to be on this aircraft! This is the United States Military! We don’t take kindly to stowaways!” he screeched in a deep drawl, before aiming another powerful strike towards Duh’ji’s head.
Duh’ji through himself backwards, scrambling to get out of the way of the flailing limbs of this crazy being. The crazed creature came cartwheeling towards him again, before another, dressed in similar dark green garments, grappled him from behind, preventing him from inflicting another blow on the cowering Duh’ji.
“At ease Lieutenant! We’ll deal with him later! We got bigger fish to fry boy!” he said exuberantly, which brought a chorus of ‘Yeeha’s’ and woops from the other creatures positioned around the aircraft.
“Better watch your back boy! I ain’t lettin’ no Jap spy ruin this mission!” snapped the Lieutenant as he made his way back to where he had been sitting.
Duh’ji struggled to regain his breath, which was strange, as hehadfour lungs. He grasped at his chest, and finally realised that the limbs in front of him, that he was controlling, were not his.
“What are these?!” he said out loud, in a language he just realised he didn’t recognise.
His breathing became laboured, and his arms were flapping around in front of him as he began to panic. A pale hand stretched down from above and grabbed Duh’ji’s right arm.
“You gotta calm it down big guy. I dunno how you got on this plane, but you’re here now, so just keep your head down, kapeesh?” said the brown haired being sat above him.
Duh’ji nodded in appreciation, before straining his throat to see if he could replicate the voice that he had used moments ago.
“Where......where am I? Hhhh...how did I get hereee?” he uttered hesitantly.
The Private, whose name was Nelson, looked back at Duh’ji, and did not see the fierce gaze of a grizzled US army soldier looking back at him, nor the steely look of a spy planted here by Japanese forces. He saw the look of someone who was genuinely terrified to be there, someone who was shock.
“Dammmm boy, you really don’t know how you got on the most secretive mission in the history of the US Air-Force? Wow! You really messed up then aren’t ya?” he asked inquisitively, half chuckling as he did.
Duh’ji nodded again, as he noticed that the rest of the inhabitants of the roaring aircraft were staring at him intently, the expressions far less sympathetic than the one of Private Nelson.
“Well, I can’t help ya with how you got here. But as for where we are.” he paused before looking across at another soldier sat at a different station opposite him.
“Hey Dutch! Whereabouts are we about now anyways?” he yelled to the stern looking Captain.
Captain Theodore Van Kirk, or Dutch, as everyone knew him as, shot an annoyed glance across at the Private, without even bothering to look at the still cowering Duh’ji.
“Maybe you’d be better to do be doing your job instead of yammering on to that piece of shit!” barked the grizzled captain back across the room, before turning his back to them both.
“We’re 10 miles out from Hiroshima!” he snapped without looking back at Nelson, which brought a smirk from the Private.
“Hah! Knew he’d answer!” chuckled Nelson, as he looked back down at Duh’ji, expecting this answer would satisfy him.
Duh’ji was still none the wiser.Where was Hiroshima? What planet was he on? How had they managed to send him here? Why was he in another beings body? And what was that gigantic, hellish looking contraption sat at the centre of the aircraft?These were just a few of the thousand questions Duh’ji had spinning through his head, which caused his head to swell and shooting pains to return throughout his body.
“Ahhhhh, you like the look of that huh?” came another voice, sat next to Nelson, who had caught Duh’ji glancing at the contraption suspended in the middle of the aircraft.
The name on his uniform readJeppson, and he was taller and had darker hair than Private Nelson.
“Oh here he goes! Talkin’ like this bomb is his baby or somethin’!” quipped Nelson, which brough a swing of Jeppson’s boot into the Private’s midriff, which caused them both to laugh.
“Whattt is it?” Duh’ji muttered, having finally gotten to grips with this slippery language he found himself speaking.
He had managed to pull himself up into a seat too, like the rest of them.
“Well buddy, its official name is an Atomic Bomb, a weapon with enough explosive capability to wipe out an entire city in an instant!” he answered enthusiastically, with a look of pure elation on his face.
“But we just call it Little Boy.” Nelson interrupted.
Jeppson shot him a look of annoyance.
“What? It’s just weird how you’re like an Atomic groupie all of a sudden!” Nelson continued, before another figure screeched something from the front.
“3 MILES OUT! 3 MILES OUT! PREPARE TO DROP PAYLOADDDDD!” screeched the voice from the front of the aircraft.
Upon hearing these words, the majority of the soldiers around Duh’ji strapped themselves in tightly to their seats, and began preparation for something imminent. Nelson looked back at the small screen in front of him, and Dutch was issuing instructions to two more soldiers in front of him.
The only two soldiers out of their seats were Jeppson and another soldier, but one who looked far more important than Jeppson did, Duh’ji thought. He watched intently as Jeppson ran around the contraption, checking something on the other side, before sprinting back around to stand in front of the soldier.
“All clear Captain!” shouted Jeppson, saluting the captain before running back over to his seat.
“That’s Deak.” muttered Nelson quietly from behind Duh’ji. “That guys a freakin’ hero!”
“Its game time boys! HOORAH!” yelled Deak, which the entirety of the aircraft parroted loudly back, throwing their fists to the air.
The aircraft began to tilt slightly, just enough so Duh’ji could see the ground they were flying over. What he saw began to make him panic again. Down below, on this strange, alien planet he now found himself on, was not an army of enemy combatants, nor a military stronghold, as Duh’ji had suspected it would be when Jeppson had told him what this aircraft was carrying. What he was looking at, he believed, were houses. This was a civilian population they were flying over.
His breathing began to labour again, as he clutched at his chest.
“Nels......Nelson! Wh....whyyy are you attacking this place? You....’re not going to dropppp this bomb hereeee are you?” he asked, straining at each foreign word and its array of oral positions that it required to pronounce correctly.
Nelson looked down at him, with what could only be described as a look of shame on his face.
“I dunno what to tell you buddy. It’s not my call. And they say it could end the war for us.” he replied unconvincingly, and Duh’ji could tell he didn’t believe the last part.
Duh’ji lurched back again, to look out of the window he had been sat near. He could see the rows of buildings piercing the thin layer of cloud down below.
“But everyone ddddd.....down there? How ma.....any are yuuu.....you goingggg to killll?” he asked again, looking back over his shoulder at Nelson.
This time Nelson looked away, just as an ear splitting siren began to sound throughout the aircraft. Duh’ji clasped the sides of his head, and began writhing around on the floor, the pain in his head magnified by the horrible siren.
The bottom of the aircraft began to open, and Duh’ji, his head screeching in pain, could see the ground below now.
“Noo....nuu...noooooo! You c....ca.....can’t do this?” He pleaded with Nelson, and then Jeppson, who both ignored him, looking away.
Duh’ji began to pull the straps on his seat violently, in panic, in an attempt to get out. The siren continued to sound, and the pain only intensified inside of Duh’ji’s head as it did. His eyes widened as the bomb began to lower slowly.
He finally got the strap free, and fell to the ground. Before he realised what he was doing, he had ran round the other side of the plane, and was attempting to close the doors that he had seen Jeppson check moments before. Two soldiers quickly jumped from their seats, guns in hand, and threw themselves at Duh’ji, clattering him to the ground. The larger one of the two swung their fist into the side of Duh’ji’s head, which sent an explosion of pain billowing through his cranium, causing him to screech hysterically. He flapped his arms out in one final attempt to stop these mad creatures from dropping the weapon on these unsuspecting beings, but it was in vain.
Dutch, the fierce captain from before, slammed his boot against the side of Duh’ji’s face, pressing it down so hard that a thick, red substance began to drip from the side of his head. His vision began to go blurry, fading in and out of consciousness. Every so often, he would black out and see his real arms, all four of them, strapped to the contraption he was hooked up to back on his planet. He longed to be back where he was being held captive, but this fleshy, limp body he found himself in wouldn’t allow it, as he was dragged back over and strapped into his seat, this time with added restraints.
“Yo....youuuu cann’t dooooo......this. Th.....is isn’t wh.....at war is.....” he muttered incoherently, as the Captain that Jeppson had been talking to earlier walked over into view.
“Son, we are the goddam United States of America. We can do whatever we goddam like!” he barked, shoving Duh’ji’s head back like a rag doll.
Duh’ji looked over his shoulder, and down again at the beings below. The siren stopped, and in front of him, the horrifying weapon these beings had created dropped silently into the air. 100,000 screams began to reverberate through his head. He didn’t know where they were coming from. He heard every last one of them......until he woke up.
