Moon Rivals: A Mac & Cheese Odyssey

The first thing that I noticed when I woke up was that my body felt like it had been run over by a steamroller. It felt heavy, and even the slightest movements were very sharp and painful. My eyes were still closed shut, but I could tell that I was laying on my back. I tried to move my arms to check out some damage, but they wouldn’t budge. I wiggled them a bit, but they didn’t even take a centimeter of movement from their starting position. My head was in a vice on both sides, and it took me a moment to realize that there were two arms around my neck holding me down.

I tried to maneuver my hands towards whoever was gripping me so tightly, but my arms were blocked by what felt like another person’s legs.

I opened my eyes and looked at the floor of whatever room I was in. It was grey concrete with specks of black in it. I could hear machines beeping away somewhere near me and the sound of light footsteps running above me. As I turned my head to look upwards, I realized that I wasn’t alone on the floor as there was another body lying right next to me, facing in the same direction as mine. That body was wearing a light blue jumpsuit just like mine, except it had no helmet and no boots. We both had our helmets off, which meant we were either not supposed to have them on or they had been removed forcibly with violence

The sight of this other body brought some memories back into my mind. There was an explosion and then everything went dark...

I looked at myself again and realized that although we both had our helmets off, we had been restrained just like our heads – only our arms were held behind our backs instead of around our necks. Next to me lay Reid, also looking at himself and trying to figure out why he couldn’t move his arms or legs either. He recognized me too and smiled wide enough for his eyes to pop out of their sockets which made him look like a bloated corpse from a horror movie.

“Zack! You’re alive!” he said with enthusiasm that would have been endearing if the situation hadn’t been so dire. “What happened? Did you pass out too? How long have you been here? Where are we? Are we dead? What year is it? Who is president? Is this hell? Are you hungry? Can you smell something burning? Are we in space? Am I dreaming? Am I dead too? Where are our helmets? Where are our guns?! Am I fat?”

I didn’t answer any of his questions because I didn’t want him to know how little information I actually had about us being captured by aliens that apparently didn’t want us dead but did want us restrained. Instead, I decided to focus on the task at hand: escape without dying!

First thing was first: where were our weapons at if we weren’t supposed to be dead? There was only one logical explanation: someone wanted them for themselves. This left only one option: grab them before anyone else does!

I started by testing whether my arms could reach anything besides each other behind my back or if maybe Reid could grab something for me if he moved closer to me somehow. Unfortunately, neither seemed possible without breaking my spine in a hundred places or causing massive internal bleeding by moving around too much. If this had happened while we were still wearing our armor, there would probably be some kind of release mechanism that would allow us to get free once we signaled for help via radio or something else technological but since we weren’t able to use those anymore, there didn't seem like much hope left for us unless someone came along shortly after we escaped with knives and sliced us loose...

At least we could talk freely now without having to yell over each other as before; however this new found freedom also meant that Reid could ask more questions than ever before! His constant rambling made me consider putting all of his limbs into some kind of industrial strength vice until he shut up!

The first few minutes passed without any notable developments or discoveries about what was going on beyond what Reid already knew: we were trapped and unable to move without getting severely injured or perhaps dying from blood loss should someone not find us soon. It occurred to me that Reid might be hungry, and I wondered if he had brought any food with him.

“Reid! Have you got anything edible with you!? Anything at all!? Even if it tastes terrible, please let me know now so I can start eating it. Otherwise, I feel like I'm going insane slowly and painfully. If nothing is done, I'll die from starvation or madness, and the thought of having my remains eaten by corpse-eating worms which might be living in the ground under this room isn't pleasant. So, please hurry up before I start talking nonsense as well, okay? Thanks!"