Originally published on Three Bright Stars.

I go to the gym at least twice, and usually three times a week now. It’s enough of a habit that I feel okay telling you about it. I’m not about to quit any time soon, even though some of my gym co-members are odd and frightening. I have to tell you about one in particular.

To the casual eye, she is young, thin and blond. She has an unmatched dedication to the gym, and is always there when you arrive, and still there when you peel yourself out of the leg press and crawl off to the showers. She hangs on to the machines with cruel strength, works them in strange positions, and glistens from head to foot. Her concentration is magnificent. She must be, you expect, a specimen of physical perfection.

In time, you become accustomed to her presence. She only takes the elliptical machine marked “C.” She is always there, reliable. You call her Elliptical-C. You immerse yourself in your own workout, switch your iPod from Joss Whedon’s latest musical hit to Black Sabbath’s Sabotage, feel a surge of energy, and move past the 20 minute mark on your own elliptical machine.

Only when you achieve a certain level of physical exertion and mental focus do you begin to glimpse the truth of Elliptical-C. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice an anomaly. There is a strange convergence of details in your mind. They form up gently, but clearly, in your focused mental state.

Elliptical-C is not human. She is the Elliptical-C creature. She uses the elliptical C machine to send communications to her fellow creatures, who are trans-dimensional space creatures of immense age, intelligence, power, and malevolence.

The elliptical machines have two handles that move, and another two that are stationary. Elliptical-C uses all four handles simultaneously, and absently taps at the control panel with an entirely separate set of appendages.

In an uncharacteristic miscalculation, the elliptical machine Elliptical-C selected as her communications vehicle is restricted by the gym administration to 30 minutes per person per use. Elliptical-C uses nefarious tactics to maintain control of her communications vessel. She signs the machine out for 30 minutes starting 30 minutes from the time she starts on the machine, hogging it for a full hour at a time! Evil. She also uses the same hypno-prowess she uses to disguise her true alien appearance to force co-members to sign the machine out again, and again, and again.

The Elliptical-C creature’s goals and intentions are not for us to understand. It may be that humanity plays an unwitting role in some ancient trans-dimensional interstellar war, currently raging. Or it may be that Elliptical-C is an agent of an alliance of Elliptical-C creatures, gathering intelligence as her masters draw their plans against us.

I’d rather think that Elliptical-C is the only one of her kind on Earth, lost on a strange planet, compelled by circumstances to dwell in a world of fitness. She goes to the gym Earth day after Earth day, calling out to her fellow creatures, bleating not frantically, but persistently, unrelenting in her final hope that one day – one Earth day soon – her mate will arrive, and release her from the elliptical machine marked C.

And when her mate arrives, she will eat him like the praying mantas Elliptical-C monster that she really is.

Editor’s Pick by Fitarella: Liz is fluent in Klingon and lives on a planet far, far away with her Stepford husband and two genius babies.  Check her out at Three Bright Stars and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of her out-of-this-world articles.  She is giving away a free trip to Mars, so hurry up and go enter now! You can find the original post here.