It's 2 am, one quiet, ordinary summer night. You are sleeping obliviously in the comfort of your bed, when suddenly a bright, white light shines penetratingly through the blinds of your window. You flinch and squint, disoriented and confused as the light, accompanied by a deep thrumming noise, more felt than heard, startles you awake. A jumble of confused thoughts run through your tired brain - is it morning already? Did you forget to turn the TV off? Is someone driving a truck at your window? You're about to reach for your alarm clock to check the time, squinting, when a sudden realization hits you - you can see your alarm clock THROUGH your hand. The light from your window is penetrating through every part of your body, while the vibrations of the thrumming noise are permeating deep into your bones, and your flesh is gradually becoming more and more transparent.
You start to feel weightless, and to your disbelief, your blanket falls through your body, as you start to hover over your bed. You must be dreaming, right? The light is getting brighter and brighter, until it's impossible to keep your eyes open, until even with your eyelids squeezed shut, all you can see is cold, intense white light, until you finally lose consciousness.
When you next wake up, even more dazed and groggy than before, you're only dimly aware of three things - you're lying on a hard, flat surface, your body and particularly your mouth feel strange and abnormal, and apart from something hard and rigid around your neck, you're completely naked. Your body feels cold and exposed, even more so than normal nakedness could explain, but your mouth feels inexplicably numb, smooth and oddly slimy somehow. Slowly, you manage to sit up, and reach up to rub your head - but when you do so, you find that you are, for some reason, completely bald. There's not even a trace of stubble, your hair has been entirely removed. This strange realization jolts you awake a bit more, and when you open your eyes and examine the rest of your body, you find that the same is true; every trace of hair on your head, face and body has been completely eliminated. Even your finger and toenails are gone.
Looking around reveals that you're not alone - there are several other people here, both men and women, mostly curled up on the floor or sitting with their knees hugged to their chests. All of them appear to have had the same treatment as you, they've all got solid-looking collars around their necks and they're all completely hairless. Some meet your gaze with a terrified look on their faces, others have their heads down and backs to you - and some just stare blankly into space with an empty, haunted expression. You all seem to be in some kind of room or enclosure, with uniform, faintly glowing blue walls. It's when you try to say something to them that you finally figure out what's wrong with your mouth. You're completely unable to articulate a single word, the only noises you can make are indistinct, inhuman-sounding grunts and moans. It feels like all of your teeth have been removed. You're about to run your tongue over your empty gums to verify that fact, but the realization hits you with a shock - you have no tongue now, either.
The rest of the people in captivity with you turn their heads away sadly. They all look like they've lost all hope and given up. But a vein of anger runs through your fear - you've got to find out where you are, who did this to you, and if there's any possibility of escape. But when you stand up and focus on the walls of this enclosure, you're in for another shock. When you get close to them, you can see that the walls don't appear to be entirely solid - they're composed of what looks like some sort of shimmering blue energy, somehow, and are more or less transparent depending on the angle you look through them. Beyond those walls, however, is like nothing you've ever seen.
It looks in many ways similar to a busy, bustling marketplace. But the beings working, occupying the stalls and milling around in this strange, futuristic market are a huge assortment of bizarre, alien creatures. And worst of all, there seems to be one of these aliens - a tall creature with ten sets of limbs, at least six eyes and a long proboscis for a mouth - standing on some kind of platform next to your enclosure, gesturing with its two pairs of arms, while other aliens stop and stare inwards at you.
When you focus on the alien standing on the platform, it's as though a voice fades into your consciousness - you can't hear him, the walls seem to block all sound, but somehow you get the sense that he's speaking all the same. There seems to be a small box clipped to the exoskeleton on the side of what you suppose is his neck, with a small indicator that appears to light up whenever you can 'hear' him - and looking around the crowd, devices similar to this seem to be common, particularly amongst aliens with mouths that don't look like they would be capable of speech... or in some cases, no visible mouths at all. You suppose it must be some type of communicator that somehow transmits speech directly into someone else's mind - and this bug is obviously 'speaking' to anyone even slightly listening.
“-just picked up fresh, prime unaltered Terrans ready to be repurposed! Known throughout the supercluster as some of the most malleable of creatures, they can be easily reshaped and transformed for whatever your needs may be! Work drones, livestock, pets, soldiers, sex slaves, anything you could need all in one convenient package! One transformation of choice is free with purchase!”
Faced with the prospect of what's about to happen to you, you're overcome by panic and anger. You bash your fists uselessly into the walls - they may look immaterial, but they absorb your blows like they were nothing. Trying to press your hands against the walls is futile, too - you get a strange sensation of tingling, static-like pins and needles across your palms, but the forcefield-like walls don't give even a millimeter. You sob and try to shout at the crowds of aliens, but they don't give any indication that they can hear you through the barrier, and even if they could, your lack of teeth and a tongue turns your every word into nothing but animalistic howling. As if to rub salt in the wound, an alien that looks like a cross between a bird and a squid pauses to ask a question you can't hear to the auctioneer, which he answers with his salesmans' pitch.
“Of course, madam, all our stock is from a primitive planet, incapable of even lightspeed travel. While they can be clever animals, and fairly easily trained to perform any necessary functions, they can barely be considered sentient. Our operations are closely monitored to be perfectly humane and ethical.” The concerned bird-squid creature seems satisfied with this explanation, and moves on to another stall. You try to wave your arms, and shake your head no, he's lying - but if these are gestures that have any meaning to these aliens, none of them give any sign of understanding. To them, you're obviously nothing but a mindless animal.
You can only stare dumbly as crowds of bizarre creatures walk past, some stopping to stare at you and the other humans in the same way someone might examine a dog at a pet store, or a pig or cow at a county fair - or, you realize, as your stomach turns with horror when a fat reptilian alien with a maw full of innumerable concentric circles of razor-sharp teeth peers with interest into your cage, like a steak at a butcher shop.
It's unbelievable, completely impossible, and you desperately want to believe you're still dreaming. But the situation is undeniable - you've been abducted by aliens, and now you're on some outer space auction block, about to be turned into whatever your new owner desires. And you suddenly realize that maybe standing up, waving your arms and drawing attention to yourself might not be the best idea, as an alien points you out to the auctioneer, who cheerfully presses a button on a device similar to a remote control. Before you can even react, an electric shock jolts through your collar, knocking you unconscious once again.