THE DRYER

I smile, folding my laundry. Dryers hum all around me, filling the air with the warm scent of fabric softener and lint. We’re almost done with the first load. The comfort of this place surrounds me like a warm hug. I’ve always been able to zone out and breathe here. With my busy life, this is one place where I can relax in complete control.

“Wait a minute,” I say, gazing in the dryer. “Josh… did you put something red in our whites?” I yank hard on the dryer door watching pale pink clothes fall to the floor.

“Oh no,” Josh says. “I’ve been looking everywhere for that shirt. Ambrosia. My favorite shirt is pink now. “

His tone feels alien. I’m not sure how to react. He’s never messed up our laundry before. Just then a large shadow passes the window of the laundromat. I look outside. “What’s that,” I say. My mouth drops open.

Josh walks up beside me and looks out the window. His mouth is open now too. His breath fogs up the glass beside me. Huge grey disks float through the air while large grey beams focus on people, pulling them into the ship. Grey beings walk through the streets grabbing people and tossing them into bags.

“Hide,” Josh yells, grabbing my arm a little too tightly.

“Don’t touch me,” I whisper. Something just feels off about him today. He never mixed up our laundry before.

I scan the laundromat for a place to hide.

“Let’s hide behind the door,” he says. “They’ll never—”

“Wait,” I say. “Let’s both get into the dryer that is out of order. We’ll put the comforter on top of us. They’ll be less likely to find us here.”

This dryer has been broken for years. We climb in and put the blanket on top of us. At that moment, a loud blast vibrates through our eardrums. We listen as the glass from the front door crashes to the floor. Footsteps clank closer and closer to our dryer. The lip shakes, and the bottom of the dryer falls out. We fall weightless through a black tunnel.

A sharp jolt pulses through my body, and I black out as we hit the bottom. “Where are we,” I whisper with my eyes half closed.

“I don’t know,” Josh says leerily.

The rough edges of the lace from my comforter scratch my face. “We’re still in the dryer,” I say, pulling the comforter off of us. I look out and see the laundromat.

“But wait,” Josh says. “Something different is going on here.” We climb out of the dryer and our feet hit the cold, hard marble floor.

We’re greeted by a dark looming robot. “You have entered the Intergalactic Office of Investigation. Follow,” it says. “All decisions made here can corrupt or erase all life and consciousness in your universe. Proceed with caution.” Its words echo in my skull.

“Our emperor awaits.”

The floor beneath us disappears and we are swallowed into darkness. We fall through endless space until we reach an office with no floor or walls. At the center of the void sits a monstrous blue creature behind a desk. Black ooze drips from his sharp teeth and his gaze causes me to freeze.

“I assume you’ve come to beg me to end the invasion currently happening on your planet?” it asks. I catch his impatient and condescending tone. What will happen if we don’t answer correctly, I wonder.

My throat tenses. “Yes, it’s true,” I say.

“Normally, I enjoy a good invasion. But I owe your universe a favor so I’ll help you stop it this time.

“Here,” it says. “Take this orb. If you can set it in the ground before the aliens stop you, they will be forced to leave your planet. If they take it from you, the entire human race will be doomed.”

Josh reaches for it, but I snatch it first. I notice something dark in Josh’s eyes.

“You don’t trust me?” Josh asks.

“Not after what you did to our laundry.” I try to joke, but the truth is, he hasn’t been himself since the sky went dark.

“Let go,” Josh yells.

“No,” I say. “I got this”

“Now, you have the answers. I’ll send you back to the laundromat,” the emperor says smugly. “Don’t ever come back here…or else”.

We are immediately back in the dryer of our local laundromat, and we burst through the front doors. Screams fill the air as people are yanked from their homes.

I spot a strip of dirt between the sidewalk and the curb. I drop to my knees and start to dig with my hands, nails scraping rocks.

Josh is suddenly behind me, his grip on my wrist rough. “Give it to me.”

“What are you—”

His face twists, eyes black as the alien in the office. His voice drops to a deep growl. “You were never going to make it.”

Terror floods my veins. I wrench free, shoving the orb toward the dirt, but a small grey alien is already there. It reaches out, tiny fingers closing around mine. The orb is no longer mine.

I scream as the power of the orb slides through my body, wrapping itself tight around my heart.

Josh, or whatever has possessed his body, just smiles.

The last thing I hear before everything goes black is the alien’s voice in my mind: Welcome home.

When I open my eyes, I’m lying on the laundromat floor. Josh and two paramedics are crouched over me.

“You slipped and took a hard fall,” one says.

“Josh… did we leave the laundromat?”

“No,” he says softly. “We’ve been here the whole time.”

I sigh heavily as my body relaxes on the soft medical table. “You wouldn’t believe the dream I just had.” I look over at Josh and something in his smile sends a chill down my spine as the paramedics carry me off to the ambulance.

Tasha Jones hails from the mountains of Boone, North Carolina. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys yoga, meditation, and spending time in nature.