Dear journal,

****. My. Life.

I'll start with what happened right before my life decided that I wasn't getting enough excitement. It was 2:00 in the morning, the bar had just closed . . . at least for me, so I was making my not-too-steady way towards home. I think I made a wrong turn somewhere, unless the way from the bar to my house had suddenly decided to include a dark alley. There was a bright light. I blacked out.

I woke up strapped to a gurney. At least, that's what I would have preferred it to be in hindsight. Nurses usually look a little better than what was at my bedside, and I've seen some nurses with quite a bit of personality. Rather, waiting to wish me a happy good morning, was a creature straight out of science fiction. It was about three feet tall, papery skin the color of ash, a bulbous, elongated head far too large for its thin body, and large amber eyes the size of golf-balls. Just to make my well-wisher that much more comforting, its eyes didn't appear to have any pupils.

Given the circumstances, I was somewhat discombobulated as to my current location and as to the nature of my visitor, so I politely asked him to explain. What came out of my mouth may have sounded more like "What the **** are you, where the hell am I, and why am I strapped down," but I don't think he understood what I said. I quickly stifled those last two questions as he raised an odd looking syringe and stuck it in my arm. I hadn't finished my uncomplimentary statement about the circumstances of his birth before I was out again.

I swear I don't pass out this often on most days. I really wished I hadn't passed out that last time because I opened my eyes to the bars of a cage. Upon surveying my surroundings, I found I was in a kennel with quite a few other creatures which, if the little grey Yoda hadn't been enough, were evidence that I had been abducted by aliens. It wasn't long before I realized that I was being studied, along with the rest of the animals in the other cages. At first I had hoped they were sentient. Then I saw one of the other inmates ignore his perfectly acceptable daily nutrient supplement in favor of his feces. My aspirations for the other inmates died in similarly disgusting fashions. The other thing that told me that I was different from the rest of the creatures was my cage. All of their cages appeared relatively simple to open, or even break. I was reasonably sure that most of the cages wouldn't have been able to hold a sufficiently determined chihuahua. My cage, on the other hand, was fort Knox without all the gold. Aside from the traditional vertical bars, there were thick horizontal supports, braced by a mesh, encased in a glass box. I was flattered that they thought I warranted such high security, but I doubted it was necessary.

They apparently did not share my opinions, and every time they decided to take me out for testing, they gassed my box with something that put my lights out like a two by four, except without the bruise. That was my life for the next two weeks or so. I can't say exactly how long, since I couldn't see the sun, and I didn't have my watch or any of the other things I'd had in my pockets. By the second week I wasn't looking too good. That, coupled with the fact that I was gassed unconscious every two sleeping periods, made my mood something south of sour. By that time I was starting to be able to recognize the different xenos by height and build.

I counted seven different aliens who would come into the room and either gas my box or do something to one of the other animals, and from the aliens behavior, I could see they were all jerks. All but one. The others seemed to enjoy inflicting pain, or at least didn't feel bad about it, but the shortest (I called him Stumpy) seemed to try to create as little discomfort as possible. If, on the rare occasion, one of the animals had to be put down and he had to do it, Stumpy always seemed sad as he injected the blue syringe of death (my name for it again) into the doomed creature, petting it as it faded away.

That's why I was slightly more than alarmed when, at the beginning of the third week, he entered the room with the blue syringe of death in his hands and started walking towards my box. He hit the button and gas began to leak into my chamber. This time, I didn't take it sitting down. I actually stood up and started attacking the bars with more energy then I'd shown for a while. Stumpy seemed stunned by my sudden outburst, as I'd never been this frantic before. Maybe it was because my heart was trying to escape the body it thought would not need its services much longer. Maybe there was less gas, but I wasn't knocked unconscious, only paralyzed. Waiting until he was sure that I wasn't able to move, Stumpy opened my chamber door, and knelt by my head. I tried to move, but wasn't even able to lift a finger as he inserted the needle into my neck. The lights faded.

I didn't die. Shocker, I know, since I'm writing this, but when I woke up, my body felt like the static from an old TV and I was, once again, on a gurney. The only difference, though, was that the alien by my bedside wasn't a meter tall and grey, but towered over me to something to the tune of four meters, had four legs, two arms, light blue skin stripped with a darker blue, and was making frantic clicking noises to another one. As I looked around, I saw there were quite a few of these new aliens by my bedside, all intent upon the heated clicking battle between the first two. These others were somewhat shorter than the two who were arguing, and also appeared less . . . developed. Or maybe they were more developed, I don't know how these things age. With what happened next, though, I would have given up a bath and some good food to have known what they were saying.

"I want that thing off my ship this instant!" Tnnxz shout-clicked. "We don't know what happened on that Corti ship, and I say it's best not to borrow trouble when you don't have to." He had been in favor of giving the doomed ship a wide berth, but Xkkrk, his favorite mating partner and second in command, though she liked to forget that at opportune moments, had thought differently.

"That ship was transmitting a distress beacon, venting atmosphere, and well on its way to complete hull failure." shouted Xkkrk. "We're the only ship out here for light-years, but you would have had us act as though we hadn't heard it? If we'd done that we might as well have murdered them ourselves!"

Tnnxz snorted. "They didn't need any help in that regard. Do you honestly mean to tell me you think the crew of that science vessel died by naturally tearing their own limbs off and bashing in their own skulls? I don't think a one of them was fully intact, and that's just the ones you could recognize as having once been alive. The others were just smears, if the records about there being a full crew of seven were to be believed. What do you think did that? The animals who were all in their cages, or the one, living, breathing, uneviscerated abomination on that ship?"

"You think this killed them?" Xkkrk motioned toward the strange creature on the ship's one medical bed. She had to admit one thing, it was rather strange to look at. Its pink, squishy skin was covered in a sparse black fur, except for its head, which seemed to be compensating for the rest of the body in the hair department. It was short, somewhat less than half her height, yet it looked dense. She suspected it was stronger than its size suggested, but not so strong as to be able to turn the crew of a Corti zoological vessel into a pulp. "It may have been breathing when we found it, but it wasn't doing much else. Do you think it slaughtered the crew, then fell asleep in a ship which was leaking atmosphere? It's been awake since you started yelling," Tnnxz jumped and quickly looked at the creature in alarm, but she kept going, "and it hasn't moved a muscle. If it were going to attack us it would have done it by now."

"It's a dumb beast, it didn't know the ship was compromised. And it was right next to that headless body holding an empty RotGut syringe."

"Oh, so aside from being able to turn a Corti crew into a fine mist, it's now able to survive a bio-engineered pathogen able to kill every known organism in a few seconds. Next you'll be telling me it can make you last longer than a few [minutes] next time we're alone together." The comment obviously stung him, but Xkkrk could see he knew she was right. The children, who had been listening intently to the conversation, could also see that she had won. Xkkrk could see the youngest, Vtv, was about to ask the same question he had when they'd first found the creature.

"So." He clicked, "Can we keep him?"

Dear Journal,

I'm a xeno dog.

Believe it or not, that hasn't helped my self-esteem issues. Good thing I don't have any. I came to the revelation slowly. After the two blue-giraffes (I'm rather proud of that name) finished up their spitting argument, one of the underdeveloped ones, which I'm now sure are children, clicked a few times. Apparently it was a sentence, because the larger two looked at him, then, despite the fact that it was just a bunch of clicks, one of the adults, a female I think, delivered what was unmistakeably a mother's lecture. The little one jumped up and down in his excitement, not listening to a click she was saying. Eventually she finished up, and it seemed as though something had been decided. Everyone vacated the room, except for the smallest one, who I quickly named Dinklage (not my best, but I was rushed). He moved closer, and I suddenly began to wonder what these creatures ate. They looked harmless enough, but then so had the grey Yodas.

Dinklage looked down at me, and once again I tried to move my limbs. Their only response was to twitch my smallest finger. Thanks guys. I needn't have worried though, because Dinklage suddenly scampered out of the room with the all the grace of a dying gazelle, where I was left to contemplate my immobility and the nature of my position. By this time I was pretty sure I was in space. I hadn't seen a window, but unless the Men in Black films had been documentaries, I doubted I was still on Earth. It was a shame, too, since no one would be looking after my house.

I didn't have much time to ponder my ruined estates, because Dinklage explosively burst back into the room, holding what looked like a speckled blue and yellow palm frond, which he promptly shoved unceremoniously into my face. I looked at him, hoping for some explanation, but his only response was to shove it further. We sat in that position for awhile, myself, lying prone upon the bed, palm frond in my face, child blue-giraffe looking at me expectantly. After about a minute of that he deflated, then turned and flailed out of the room again, returning a minute later with what looked like a black and rotting fungus. The newest plant specimen was also displayed for my inspection. Unfortunately the fungus smelled about as revolting as it looked. This process was repeated several times. After I was shown a lovely flower the color of bird shit, Dinklage, who had been growing increasingly frustrated with the proceedings, snorted like a horse, and seemed to wither in defeat. He shuffled out of the room, and I was finally left in peace.

Vtv, shoulders slumped in defeat, sulked onto the bridge. Xkkrk, who had been worried this would happen, turned sympathetically towards him. "He won't eat any of the things I gave him," Vtv mumbled. "He even turned down the aged zrrks, and even Yxrrq will eat those. Why doesn't he like any of our food?"

"Maybe he just wasn't all that hungry. Maybe he was scared of you. Just think of what you look like to him. He's so much smaller than you. You loom over him. He just has to warm up to you. Why don't you go into his room and play a game of warrens with Piiqrrt. Maybe if the creature gets used to seeing you he'll trust you enough to let you feed him." Xkkrk smiled as Vtv, presented with a new course of action, regained his excitement and tore out of the room, the picture of a youth with too many things to do.

My peace was once again disturbed as Dinklage walked purposefully back into my room, followed by another child carrying what looked like a small metal clam. This new blue-giraffe was significantly larger than Dink, and I doubted the extra bulk was muscle. Both he and Dink sat on the floor with the clam in between them, and as the new child sat, his excess weight bounced, confirming my suspicions and earning him the christening of Jiggles. Jiggles opened the clam, and a holographic projection of what was unmistakeably a game board leapt into existence between them. It was a grid of hexagons, with different colored pieces on the two of the opposite sides, closest to the players. Dink seemed to have an unfair advantage over Jiggles, though, because his side had well over twenty pieces while Jiggles only seemed to have three.

It didn't seem to make much of a difference. Within minutes of the game's start, Dink's body language began to tell of a losing battle, which was confirmed by the quickly diminishing number of his pieces. Seemingly at random, certain hexagons on the playing field would glow brighter than the rest, then dim several turns later, for reasons I couldn't understand. Neither the glowing hexes, nor the greater number of pieces saved Dink. After only seven minutes of game play, all his pieces had been systematically removed from the board. The game was reset, yet this time Dink had the three pieces, while Jiggles had the army. I soon realized that the player with three pieces had to capture all the pieces of the other players before the other player was able to reach one of the glowing hexagons with one of his pieces. The glowing hexagons seemed to appear only in positions that were difficult for the defensive player to reach, and soon I was engrossed in the game, trying to parse out any remaining rules. Jiggles won most of the games, which allowed me to see how the game could be won by both sides.

It wasn't the most complex of games, but it did include a strategy. After five or so games, I began to see the flaws in Dink's strategy, and decided he wasn't the brightest blue-giraffe I'd ever seen. Jiggles wasn't even that good. I wished more than ever that I could speak to him, if for no other reason than to yell at him in frustration. His pieces were once again eliminated, and the game began again. I couldn't let him lose this one. I struggled against my paralysis, and managed to shift my arm until it fell off the bed, hanging limply by the side of the bed. My movement drew their attention. Dink sprang to his feet and excitedly scampered out of the room. He returned with the speckled palm frond from before, eagerly introducing it to my face.

"Get your leaf out of m-" I didn't manage to finish my sentence though, as with the opening of my mouth, he surged forward with the frond and managed to poke it past my lips. I tried to spit it out, but he kept attempting to feed it to me. That's when it dawned on me that that was what he was trying to do. With that realization came the second, significantly more profound realization. They thought I was an animal! They didn't realize that I was sentient. And what was even worse, I couldn't tell them. My speech would sound like so much grunting and unintelligible nonsense as their clicking. They didn't use the same numeric system, so I couldn't show them my powers of abstract reasoning through math, which, admittedly, were extremely lacking. I was an unthinking brute, and what was even worse, I had been given to Dink for him to take care of. I was Dink's new puppy, and he was trying to find out what I ate. Well, I was famished. Don't bite the hand that feeds you, which seemed to take on a greater significance in my new situation. I just wished that hand wasn't blue, or striped, or belonged to a giraffe child. It would have to suffice.

Armed with this knowledge, I took a bite from the tip of the leaf. I don't know what palm fronds taste like, but they probably would have tasted better. I spat out the bitter leaf, but this only seemed to make Dink happier. He bolted from the room, and returned with the rotten mushroom. I wasn't about to let that get anywhere near my tongue, and I firmly closed my lips against the melting brown mush. The next leaf he brought tasted like romaine lettuce, so I ate the whole thing. It only seemed to increase my hunger. Dink seemed overjoyed and next brought me a container slightly larger than a shoebox full of those leaves. I would have objected to his feeding me if I'd been able to move my arms, but decided that food was good enough. He seemed surprised when I finished off the box of leaves, but dutifully brought me another, which I polished off like the last one. He began to look concerned as I worked my way through the third and fourth containers. What can I say, salad isn't really something to fill a guy up.

Half way through the fifth helping my hunger was finally sated. Dink seemed to take the box away with relief, and returned with a small glass of water. After the salad I was even thirstier than I had been, and downed the water in a gulp. "You don't happen to have anything stronger than water, do you? Or maybe just a larger glass?" He didn't answer, obviously, and brought me another glass. I downed eight of those pitiful little things before I was quenched. Full for the first time in weeks, I contentedly closed my eyes for a nap, and Dink, thankfully, left me alone.

"How'd the game with Piiqrrt go?" Xkkrk asked as Vtv walked into her quarters

"I lost, but that's ok. Piiqrrt almost beat Fttfk last [week], and he's the best warrens player in the entire sector! Oh, I also found out what he eats." Announced Vtv, not needing to specify whom "he" was.

"Excellent. See, he just had to get used to you. What does he like?"

"He really likes Cqcq leaves. Really likes them. Really, REALLY likes them. He ate four and a half storage containers worth."

"Four and a half STORAGE CONTAINERS?! That's enough to feed a grown Vzk'tk for a week! Why did you feed him so many?"

"I just kept feeding him until he stopped eating."

"Vtv, you know better than that. Some animals don't know when to stop eating, they'll just keep going if you let them. You'll have to limit him to half a bowl a day. If you keep feeding it a weeks worth of rations, the hydroponics bay won't be able to produce enough to feed the rest of us."

"But I hate Cqcq leaves."

"Not everyone hates them, and they're one of the best sources of energy we have on board. How the creature managed to down four and a half containers of those leaves is beyond me. Did you give him something to drink?"

"Yeah, he drank [32 ounces] of water."

"And he didn't drown?"

"Come to think of it, he did close his eyes after the last cup, but I think he was sleeping."

"Well, You've done a good job of taking care of him. I'm proud of you." Vtv perked up with the compliment, and strutted proudly out of the room. Xkkrk wasn't as pleased though. She quickly sought out Tnnxz and told him of Vtv's discovery.

"Four and a half containers!? And [32 ounces]?! I don't care if the thing didn't know when to stop eating, that's impossible. It's so small, how could its stomach even hold that much? Does food just dissolve in it?" He clicked with a snort, scoffing at such a ridiculous notion. Not for the first time Xkkrk wished Tnnxz was wealthy enough to afford a proper biomedical scanner so she could see inside this creature, but wishes were all she had.

"What if that's actually how much it needs to eat and drink in order to live? We can't lose a week's worth or rations every day. We have enough water, but I think Vtv was exaggerating. Even if this thing really did eat four and half containers, it couldn't possibly manage [32 ounces] of something as dense as water."

"But if it truly eats that much, we can't keep it."

"Where would we put it? There aren't any planets below a level 12 within a week of travel, and we might as well kill it ourselves than put it on a deathworld."

"We'd put it down. We'd have to. There'd be no other choice."

"If it comes to that, then I feel sorry for Vtv, he's so happy with it."

"He'll have to become used to loss eventually. Has he even named it yet?"

"Yes. After he saw how much it liked Cqcq leaves, he called it Cqcq'trtr."

"Cqcq'[eater]? Does he have an imagination?"

"He was proud of it, so I suggest you don't mock his choice."

"Fine, but if it lives up to its namesake, it'll be a shame Vtv named it at all."

Dear Journal,

I destroy xeno familial relationships.

Oh, and I might be going crazy.

After two sleeping periods - I've stopped even trying to keep track of the days - my body had finally decided to end its extended vacation, and start responding to my commands. I felt weak, probably because the only thing I'd been fed so far was fucking salad, but I was able to get out of the unnecessarily high bed. I'm only 175 centimeters tall, so I was going to have to get used to an environment where the next sentient being closest to my height was almost a meter taller than me. The gravity on the ship was noticeably weaker than what I was used to, which only confirmed my earlier suspicions about being on a ship, but it also helped with the short drop from the bed.

Once I decided that I was able to walk without much trouble, I jumped back onto my bed and waited for Dink to show up with my meal. That's the other reason I think I'm feeling weak. Last sleeping period he only gave me one meal, if it could be called that. He only gave me half of one of those large shoe boxes, and then started to take it away. I tried to use my newly liberated arms to keep him from taking it, but they were still unbelievably sluggish in responding, and he managed to snatch it away in time. "Whoa there Dink, I wasn't finished there. You can't expect me to be full after a ninth of a serving of lettuce! I'm not a rabbit, damn it. I'm a grown man and I need my lettuce! Or better yet, do you have some meat? I'd love some meat if you have any." I told you I was going crazy. Three weeks of hearing nothing but chitters from the grey Yoda's and clicks from the blue-giraffes is bound to make a guy start talking to himself, if for no other reason than to hear something he understands.

Dink apparently hadn't been impressed by my outburst, and he had clicked reproachfully. If he had gotten a newspaper and tried to swat me with it I wouldn't have been half surprised, but thankfully he didn't know how to properly train a pet. Good thing too, since there was only so much I was willing to endure in order to get food and water. I waited for what seemed an hour, but was probably only about 10 minutes before Dink entered my room with two of those shot glasses filled with water and a shoebox of lettuce. "Oh great, I was hoping for lettuce again. Nothing sets my mouth a-watering like a good crisp piece of lettuce. You even brought me a few gulps of water, just how I like it. You know me so well" I had decided since they couldn't understand me, I might as well make the best of my situation and lace everything I said with sarcasm. Despite the repetition, I decided to eat the lettuce. It was the same box he had used yesterday, and there was no reason to try and snatch it out of his hands, since there was only half of it left. I drank every last drop of water from the two glasses, holding the second one out with a pleading gesture.

Maybe he understood, maybe he didn't. It didn't matter either way, as he merely clicked something at me and started retreating back to the door. "Fine then, I'll just find my own lettuce and water." I muttered at his retreating back. I waited a few minutes after he had left, then jumped back down from the bed, and walked over to the door. It had an oddly shaped but easily recognizable door handle mechanism, and, when tested, wasn't locked. After all, who bothers locking their dog into a room? Luckily, I had two things dogs don't have. Brains and thumbs. Grinning mischievously, I jumped at the handle which was about 25 centimeters above my head. To my astonishment, my jump carried me past easy reach of the handle and peaked when I was approximately a meter off the ground. Even in my weakened state, I was still able to jump ridiculously high in this lowered gravity. Adjusting for my new found basketball skills, I hopped, turned the handle, and began to explore my new home.

"Are you sure I can't give him more food?" whined Vtv. "He really seems to be hungry. He keeps looking at the box like he wished there was more in it."

"Absolutely not," snapped Tnnxz. Vtv had known it was a mistake to go to Tnnxz with this question. He still seemed to think Cqcq'trtr had killed all those scientists on that ship [three days] ago, as if he could. He barely even moved. Vtv didn't want to say it, but he was definitely feeling the excitement of owning a pet starting to fade, especially such a lazy pet. He was hoping that if he could get him more food, maybe he'd show a little more life. After all, he had certainly started moving more since that first day with the five storage containers, although feeding himself and trying to grab the container away from Vtv was not a significantly large improvement. Still, Vtv had been impressed with Cqcq'trtr's speed as he had grabbed at the box. Vtv almost hadn't gotten it away in time. "If you start feeding it more food, it will begin to feel entitled to it and then we'll have it eating us out of house and hull. I'll not have our resources drained because you don't know when to say 'no'."

Vtv should have just waited until Xkkrk had woken up so he could have asked her the question. At least she recognized that Cqcq'trtr was a "he" and not an "it". Tnnxz's comlink beeped, signaling an incoming call. "What is it?" he huff-clicked, annoyed.

Strrk, one of the gardeners in the hydroponics bay, could be heard on the other side of the comlink. "Sorry to bother you Tnnxz, but that thing we brought onto the ship a few days ago - what does the kid call it?"

"Cqcq'trtr!" shouted Vtv into his father's receptor before Tnnxz could say anything. He glared at Vtv, but didn't contradict him.

"Right. Well, you gave him the right name, kid. He's in the hydroponics bay with us right now, and it looks like he's aiming to eat every Cqcq leaf we have. He's already stripped three whole plants, and is half way through his fourth. He's been making these weird groaning and spitting sounds the whole time too. What do you want us to do? He looks pretty determined, and I don't want to touch him, he's filthy."

"Just don't let it leave," growled Tnnxz, looking murderous. "I'll be right there." He sprang from his favorite chair, left his quarters, and stalked towards the aft of the ship, where the hydroponics bay was located. Vtv knew what kind of temper Tnnxz could have when provoked, and knew he harbored no love for Cqcq'trtr. Sometimes Vtv wondered if Tnnxz even liked him. Vtv quickly ran to Xkkrk's quarters. He didn't care if he had to wake her up, she was the only one who seemed to defend Cqcq'trtr, if only for his sake.