He Comes in Peace

Skye paid no attention to the branches the whipped at her face and slashed across her arms and shoulders. Her shoes gripped the dirt and propelled her forward. Kartayon's name burst from her mouth again and again, each time egged on by his answer, just as joyous and excited as she was.

She was only vaguely aware that Elixyne's foosteps had faded away a little bit. But she did not care at all, only focused on seeing Kartayon again.

She imagined how she would barrel through a clearing and launch herself into his arms, possibly sending them tumbling backwards into a berry bush. And they would both laugh and laugh, so happy to see each other and be in each other's arms again.

Skye told herself she would not care at all if Kartayon said nothing about walking off on his own. She would be so happy to see him again that all past faults would be forgotten, and they would start anew like they had just met.

Her breath came in short bursts, and she called out his name again, fearing that she would get lost and not find him again.

"Skye? Here!" his voice shouted, nearer than Skye could have hoped.

"Kartayon?" She stopped in her tracks and listened hard. His voice came from her left, and she veered that way, now slowing to a walk, knowing that he was so close.

It was then that she noticed Elixyne had disappeared completely. She brushed the thought off, thinking that the female Quettle only wanted to give her and Kartayon a few brief minutes alone with each other.

She heard Kartayon's voice again, saying her name like he could not possibly be happier to see her.

She burst through a particularly nasty tangle of over-hanging branches and came upon a scene that snatched her breath away, and not in a good way.

Kartayon was strapped to a tree, a man from the ECI holding a silver steel needle to his shoulder, on an area right above his spikes. Kartayon was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Though he had transformed, his face was still the same. As Skye watched, frozen in horror for just a moment, he flickered in and out of his two forms. He was in a limbo between his alien self and his human form. The ECI stabbed the point of the needle straight between his shoulder blades and a violent spasm spread through Kartayon's body before he slumped down, unconscious.

It was this that gave Skye back her ability to speak. She screamed and was slammed onto the ground full force. She felt like her nose had broken, and felt blood flowing from her face. She struggled to raise her face from the ground, pain stabbing at her back where something had collided against her.

"Tay!" she screeched, yelling and fighting hysteria and the panic that rose in the form of tears from her throat and threatened to strangle her.

Kartayon could just as well be back on his own planet. Skye felt that dragging him back into consciousness was as impossible as hanging on to his space ship while it took off for Quetz.

She screamed again, screamed at Elixyne for not being here, screamed at Kartayon for walking off on his own and screamed at the ECI.

"Get that bitch to shut up," said the ECI member that had injected Kartayon.

Skye began to struggle harder than ever, and the weight released her for just a second. Skye rolled and the weight pinned her down again, and before she could get out another scream, the man stepped forward and slammed her head into the ground. A stab of blinding pain spread from her temple.

The last thing she saw before she blacked out was Kartayon, still strapped to his tree, a pool of silver spreading out under him.

-x-

Kartayon. Kartayon. Kartayon. Kartayon.

Skye slipped in and out of consciousness over the next half hour. She felt herself being stuffed into the back of a van. She felt the car swaying and bumping as if driving around a mountain with no trail. The swaying made the throbbing in her head worse than before. She feebly tried to raise her hand to touch her head, but found that her arms were bound tightly against her sides.

An ECI member seemed to notice her recovering from her unconsciousness, and promptly dropped a burlap bag over her head. Skye let herself fade back into oblivion.

When Skye came around again, she was thrown over the shoulder of someone and being lugged into a dark building like a sack of potatoes.

A quiet moan escaped her as dizziness made the world sway and bend like an illusion. She struggled to open her eyes and take in the scene before her.

The entire inside of the building was dark. Her eyes had trouble adjusting to her surroundings and her massive headache did not make things any better.

Left, right, straight, right, right.

The ECI worker seemed to meander around aimlessly. Skye was just beginning to wonder if this was just designed to confuse her so she could never make it out on her own, when they stopped.

A door was opened, and Skye was dumped on the floor before it slammed shut.

Even from her muddled state of mind, she heard the sliding of metal against metal as the door was locked from the outside.

She crawled forward, feeling around blindly. She went around the entire perimeter of the room very slowly, unable to function too quickly without making the cold, hard floor under her feet sway.

Skye sat against the wall with her legs bent. She dropped her head between her knees and breathed deeply. This was what you were supposed to do when you were dizzy, right?

After a few moments, she felt slightly better. She began to crawl forward again. She met with a tiny cot in the center of the room, a bedside table attached to the metal frame.

She heaved herself onto the thin mattress and reached out a hand to see if anything was on the table.

More cold metal. Her fingers traveled up and touched some thin wire, and then glass.

Light bulb.

Skye forced herself to search for the switch, but when she clicked it, she wished she hadn't.

The light blazed fiercely, illuminating the entire room. Her headache became a hundred times worse as the white light branded itself into her eyes.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she managed to turn it off again, but her reprieve only lasted a moment before the headache knocked against the insides of her skull. This time it was accompanied by the sick sense of foreboding.

What would happen within the next twenty-four hours? What would they do to her? What would they do to Kartayon?