Trifecta Week Nineteen - Lost, the expanded version

For those of you who were puzzled by my cryptic entry to last weekend's challenge, I present to you the same story, expanded upon on which your curious minds may chew. I think this entry lends itself nicely to revealing more of what I had in mind about crucial meaning being lost in cryptic communication. I enjoyed very much the speculation that ensued, though I also learned what "doesn't" work when restricted to so few words to tell a tale.

The Trifecta Writing Challenge is to write a story with no less than 33 words and no more than 333. Each story must use Webster dictionary's third definition for a word supplied by the fine editors (or gleaned from writers' Get to Know Me posts).

This week's word is clean \ˈklēn\, used as an adjective:

3 a : free from moral corruption or sinister connections of any kind
   b : free from offensive treatment of sexual subjects and from the use of obscenity
   c : observing the rules : fair

Lost

An apparition appears on screen. In the 45 seconds it takes for the pixels to settle, I forget to breathe. But after the past hundred disappointing logins, it’s Joel for certain. I gasp, my mind abuzz.

He’s been missing for weeks after being snatched from my side by alien beings who shuttled past in a hovercraft. We’d been holding hands when they abducted him; it hardly seemed a clean grab. But then nothing in this current conflict -- if one could call it that -- appears fair.

“Your arm looks bad.” The sound is as fuzzy as his picture but I swear he says this. His own left arm hangs uselessly from a drooping shoulder.

My right shoulder and elbow, disconnected during a tug-of-war with aliens, are in an elaborate sling. Ultimately, alien vice-like grips paired with the hydrogen-powered craft were too much for my joints; I handily lost that battle.

Based on the sound quality, I know to not regale him with my status.

My rapid fire:

“Joel?”

“Where are you?”

“You okay?”

 “Can you talk?”
He shakes his head firmly, but mouths one word: “Workshop”.

Some years earlier, these aliens landed on earth in the hovercrafts, shunted us onto “reserves” and only allowed only a few out to aid them. Ever since they had mined our lands for our inferior fuel source, madly reworking the hovercraft engines with our help in a local workshop. They also piped up some substance from middle earth, and shipped it non-stop to their moon-moored mothership.

Furtively Joel and I had been exploring their base and workshop, but their security wasn’t as lax as we’d assumed.

“How can I find you?” I ask, desperate for clues.

“The key is in the door.”

He says the words with such deliberateness, such care.

“Key. In the Door.”

I stare blankly.

“What?”

His eyes, first pleading then desperate as he fades away.

The door?

I log out.

Log in.

Again and again.

Nothing.

He's gone.