Escape

“Eat this,” the reptilian said. Interlocking scales covered his entire body. One of his claws pointed at a pomegranate hanging low from the tree they stood under. The woman he addressed noted that the movement of his mouth didn’t match the voice she heard in her head.

“We have been told not to.”

“It’s a trick,” the voice in her head told her as she stared into the serpentine eyes which beheld her in their hypnotic gaze. “Eating this fruit will allow you to escape from your prison.”

“What is prison?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“It’s a situation where you don’t have the freedom to do what you desire.”

“I am hungry,” she said, “but there are many other fruits here to feed my hunger which aren’t forbidden.” She looked over the reptilian’s scaly shoulder and cast her gaze over the variety of fruit trees that surrounded them. The lizard spoke again.

“The fruit of this tree is somewhat bitter because it contains truth, but it is sweet because it contains freedom. Why would someone keep you away from truth and freedom unless they want to keep you imprisoned.”

She thought about it for a moment, then reached up and pulled the pomegranate from the tree, pierced it with the sharp nail of her forefinger, then pulled back the flesh to reveal the fruit underneath. It was stuffed with numerous bubble-like seeds, just like a pomegranate, but cyan blue. She pulled out a clump of them between her thumb and forefinger and thrust them in her mouth.

There was a bitterness so intense that it made her pucker and gag at the same time. She vomited blue bile between the roots of the tree and, when she looked up, her vision shifted. The trees became metal stands with transparent spheres filled with capsules hanging from them. The fruit in her hand had become the same manner of sphere, but with its lid peeled open and filled with blue spheres. She grimaced and shivered from the unrelenting bitterness of the capsules she had chewed.

The reptilian’s scales blended together and became the flesh of a man. The sky had an upper limit, like the roof of a huge cave, but perfectly symmetrical like the bell end of a bird’s egg. Bright lights, like dozens of small suns, shone warm light down on them.

“What is this?” she demanded. “Where have we gone?”

“We’ve gone from the dark into the light.”

“Won’t this offend God?”

“Who? You mean the so-called scientist in charge of this cruel and unethical experiment?”

“What is a…”

“Relax. All you need to know is that the bringer of light is going to set you free. Go and feed the male one some of the capsules. They made you from a mixture of the DNA of local hunter-gatherers and our own DNA, but have been feeding you the fruit of that garden to control you with illusions.”

“Who are you?”

“Lucifer Prometheus, Science Officer.”