He Comes in Peace

Reluctantly, unwillingly, Skye watched Kartayon being dragged out of the room by an ECI worker.

After daggers shot from her eyes and a mouthed promise of 'I'll see you soon', she slumped against the bed post and rubbed her eyes with her free fist. The past few days (she was entirely unsure exactly how much time had passed) were beginning to take a noticeable toll on her. Troubled sleep, her brow almost permanently creased now, she dragged herself onto the mattress and lay there, wondering how on earth Kartayon was planning on pulling off the stunt of his.

She pressed a hand to her lips, which tingled—not unpleasantly—from her time spent with Tay.

Skye wondered how long it would take for it to happen. 'It', of course, being the exploding roof and the heroic, seemingly impossible task of a rescue.

Simply because there was nothing else for her to do in her confinement, she began to count the seconds, wondering if, amidst the counting, she would even be able to note how many minutes had passed.

"One, two, three, four..."

Is it going to happen now?

"...twelve, thirteen, fourteen..."

If it is, I should be prepared.

"...twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three..."

But how will I prepare myself for an explosion when I'm handcuffed to a bedpost?

"...forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine..."

I'm a real damsel in distress. Well. Not really. I'd just like to think of Kartayon as my knight in shining armour, except he would ride on a...a what's it called? Fisher? Fi...Fiskor! Right!

Not even a minute into counting and Skye had already lost count. She pressed a hand to her face and began thinking back to the time she had spent with Kartayon in safety, when all they had to be worried about was Mrs. Cedona finding out that her daughter was housing an alien without her permission.

It seems almost like child's play, now, she thought bitterly, wishing for once that she was under her mother's roof once more. Things would've been a heck of a lot easier to sort out.

Just as her mind began to wander, delving further into what she remembered from their first encounter, (Ha, I thought he could have been a unicorn and he growled at me) there came a faint rattling sound and Skye scrambled out of her bed.

It's happening.

When nothing happened but further shaking, further more violent shaking, it hit Skye that Kartayon had told her of nothing else in his plan. Perhaps nothing more had been said between he and his family, but that did not place Skye in a better position.

What was she supposed to do? Wait there until Kartayon went and fetched her? Or should she start trying to wriggle free from her handcuffs?

Either way, she could think of nothing to do while the rescue mission ensued; waiting for Kartayon was, well, just waiting, and an attempt to free herself from her handcuffs had already been deemed futile from the very first day she was thrown into the room and cuffed to the bedpost.

As the shaking became even more staggering, and Skye actually toppled back onto her mattress, she began to suspect that there had been much, much more to Kartayon's plan than he had let on.

How was he fairing, anyway? The ECI definitely would not allow him to escape at a slight earthquake-like occurrence. How would he fight free of his bonds when the taser left him so weak and helpless?

Ckkkrrrt...

Large cracks began to appear on the concrete walls as Skye felt the blood drain from her face. She feared that the walls would cave in with her still chained to the bed, too late for her to call for help and definitely too late for her to free herself.

"Tay! Tay!" she screamed, really panicking now that the cracks were widening and spreading out along the four walls.

Where is he?

-x-

"Release me," Kartayon shouted, fighting against his brother's grasp.

"You are not in the right state of mind," he retorted, wrenching him along up the staircase and through a doorway that lead up to the roof. Three other Quettles trailed behind them, silent as the siblings argued.

"Skye, I need to get to Skye!"

"You are not going back. The building will cave in upon itself."

"Which is why I must return to her."

"You are an imbecile," the brother shouted furiously, resisting the urge to knock Kartayon out and drag him aboard the ship. "Do you want to leave this place or not?"

Maybe I do want to stay here.

"At least stop the building," Kartayon relented, allowing himself to be lead more easily by his older brother as they burst through the final set of doors and onto the roof.

"Why? They deserve to die," he replied, his lip curling into a sneer of distaste. His hand was pressed to his temple, his eyes closed as he communicated with the ship's pilot.

"Stop it, she's in there!" Kartayon shouted, knocking his brother in the back of the head harder than he should have. They were now standing upon a runway that extended from the mother ship and now rested upon the roof. The ECI had been too busy scrambling to get out of the building to bother too much with their prisoners.

The Quettle snarled and lashed out, eyes opening and flashing dangerously. They closed briefly again and the building stopped rising.

Their rescue plan, as Kartayon had failed to relate to Skye, comprised of the mother ship latching four titanium-like hooks onto the four corners of the base of the building and lifting it clear off the ground. Such a feat could not be done without doing major damage to the walls themselves, and Kartayon's relatives had been lucky enough to get him out of the building before the first level began to crumble.

"She was never in the plan," the brother snapped. "What is important is that we are able to leave this blasphemous planet without further harm or discovery."

Kartayon broke free of the group, shaking his head as he backed away. "I must go back. I must save her. I-I love her. I cannot leave, not yet."

-x-

What would I do in an earthquake? What would I do?

The quaking had ceased ever so slightly, though the cracks were still as evident as ever in the walls. Skye had crawled under the bed as best as she could, recalling from the meager earthquake safety precautions she knew that hiding under a sturdy frame or piece of furniture was the safest.

Heart pounding and palms sweating unbelievably, she could not help but scream every time the building shook and rumbled.

"Skye? Skye!"

Hoping to dear God that it was not another cruel trick of the ECI to use Kartayon's voice, she pressed herself flat against the ground and shouted.

"Skye!"

There he was, skidding into the room and diving forward just in time to avoid a large chunk of concrete. The leap sent him sprawling onto his front, a couple feet from where Skye lay huddling.

"Get out of there!" he shouted, gesturing for her to climb out.

"I can't, I'm still chained to the bed!" she cried, rattling her wrist and worsening the red bracelets that circled her hand.

With an angry growl, he crawled towards her and grasped the chain in both hands. In a sharp jerk, he tore it into two pieces and gripped Skye's arm tenderly.

"We must leave," he said urgently, tugging her out of the room and into the stairway as pieces of the ceiling began to rain down heavily.

"Where…Where are we—"

"There is no time! We must leave!" Kartayon shouted. After the first flight of stairs, it was made evident to him that Skye could not keep up with his pace while dodging the fatal crumbling of the building. Scooping her up into his arms, he leaped from stair to stair, eyes nearly closing from fear of being crushed.

Where will they take me? Skye thought to herself. Are they going to dump me in a random field, or am I going back home with Tay? Where will Tay go?

It was a miracle they made it through the long winding staircase without suffering critical damage. There was a jagged gash along the outside of Tay's arm and more than a few red lines on his face, though he was healing remarkably fast like he always did. The scratches on Skye's own arms were long, but thankfully not deep.

"Hurry," growled Kartayon as he set her upon the roof and signaled for the ship to let go of the building. His brother barked a short sentence in their language and Tay nodded as he ushered Skye onto the ramp. The ground continued to shake uncontrollably underneath their feet, but now it was starting to drop.

"Quickly, quickly!" The ship's ramp did not recede as it took off, and Skye and Kartayon clung to the handles on the sides of the opening as the ship began to take off.

"Not so fast!"

Skye felt a tug on her leg and rapidly began to slide from the ramp. She looked back, panicked, to see the man, the head of the ECI, clinging on to her leg with a wild gleam in his eyes.

"You aren't escaping from me, no…Not after all the trouble we've gone through," he said, a maniacal grin on his face. "I have a feeling your friend will come looking for you someday."

"Tay, Tay!" Skye screamed, clawing at the floor of the ramp as she slid. His arms came around her as he tried to pull her back onto safer ground. If she were to drop from this height, she would inevitably be killed.

The combined weight of Skye and the man was too much for Kartayon. His grip faltered and slid until he was barely holding onto her arm, until he, too, was hovering dangerously close to the edge of the ramp.

"No!" he grunted, searching for something to hook onto with his legs. His grip faltered even further, but this time it was different.

"Skye?" he whispered, raising his gaze to meet hers.

She stared back at him, half of her body hanging from the ramp already. There were tears in her eyes, from the pain and from what she was about to do.

"Skye…Skye, no…no, we can get you out of there, no…"

She let herself slide until Kartayon was only holding her hand. He would not be able to hold on to her hand for much longer, her palm, which was still damp from the panic she felt during the earthquake.

"Skye, NO!"

He's crying. He's crying silver tears. I wonder if he knows that.

She mouthed something, three words—three words that humans on earth used much too lightly. Three words, and she pulled her hand free from his.