Taken by Amazon Aliens!

Alien abductions, everyone's heard the stories, right? Some attention-seeking moron in the middle of nowhere sees some spooky lights, gets sucked up into a flying saucer, then has various parts of his body probed and prodded by a bunch of skinny grey creeps. And rather than doing anything valuable or important with their so-called victim, they just drop them off conveniently unharmed and able to remember and tell everyone they know the story. Isn't it funny how those stories just kind of stopped happening as soon as everyone started carrying a smartphone with a camera in their pocket? Almost like no-one dared even make up those kind of stories anymore now because they knew just how stupid they'd look when they had no proof.

Callum Thompson didn't have time for any of that crap. In his first year studying astronomy at college, the eighteen year old was just way too busy trying to keep on top of the work to worry about stories of being from outer space visiting our world. Sure, when he was only slightly younger he'd been utterly fascinated by aliens, devouring every single book he could find about Unidentified Flying Objects and strange creatures from across the stars. Did they come in peace, he'd wondered avidly as he read the stories? Why were they studying us in the first place? If they could fly all that way and visit Earth already, why hadn't they made contact or told anyone they were here? It was a bit embarrassing to admit even to himself, but looking for an answer to those questions was part of why he'd ended up studying astronomy in the first place.

Now, just a few months later, he knew exactly how stupid he'd been. Space was way too big for that. Even if somewhere in some solar system millions of light years away there was a planet suited to life, and if, against all the odds, intelligent life had been born there and survived long enough to achieve space flight, it was almost impossibly unlikely that they'd ever notice humanity, or be able to reach us even if they did. His professor had told him as much with a sarcastic smile when he'd been stupid enough to raise his hand on the very first day of lectures and ask about aliens visiting Earth. The laughter from his classmates when he showed them all just how silly and childish had been by the far the most embarrassing moment of his life. He hadn't dared ask another question since, and spent every lecture sitting alone at the back of the theater hoping no-one would notice him. In fact, that was how he spent most of his time at college, period.

So, Callum was stuck here, a walking joke even among his fellow nerds without a single friend to his name. It wasn't supposed to be like this. College was supposed to be different, right? This was where even guys like him could find their place and start enjoying life after all the struggles of High School. Maybe even...get a girlfriend and lose his virginity if he was really lucky. Fat chance of that. If he ever even tried asking out one of the girls here she'd probably take one look at him and just laugh in his face anyway.

The young man knew he was hardly a prize catch for a college girl. Not only shy and nerdy, he was short too, and so slender his stepmother had told him several times she wouldn't mind him being carried off by a gust of wind. As if that wasn't a struggle enough, he had rather girly features too, large blue eyes, a small button nose covered in a spattering of freckles and full lips. His hair at least was blonde and sleek, a little too long now he hadn't bothered to have it cut in a while, but he'd always liked how it looked that way. Only, great hair was hardly what girls looked for her in the guys they wanted to date, right? And it hardly mattered anyway when everything else counted against him. What mature college girl would even want to give him a chance when he looked more like their younger brother...or sister even? No, it was utterly pointless even trying, just like it was pointless making friends after how he'd made himself the laughing stock of the college. And so the days dragged on, just going from lectures and classes to his lonely dorm-room, noticed by nobody and wondering why he even bothered trying at all.

Little did the young man know, he was being observed, rather closely in fact, by a certain visitor to his homeworld. And she found him rather interesting indeed, a suitable subject for her research into the inhabitants of this young and primitive world. Callum, it seemed, might be about to meet an alien rather sooner than he'd ever imagined.

Cover art by DavidVargo, source: https://www.deviantart.com/davidvargo/art/New-Amazon-386027690