by Safa Shaqsy
“I don’t know, you tell me,” she said.
“Being an alien,” I uttered and laughed, “get it? Because their job is to abduct people?” She shook her head, “No,” she disagreed.
I stopped laughing, “Oh, just forget it,” I said.
She shrugged and got back to eating and watching people. “I wish my parents were here,” she confessed. “Your parents are alive?” I said with shock. She nodded, “They’re in the city.”
“But why did you leave them behind?” I wondered. “I kind of had to,” She replied.
“What could possibly have made you leave them behind? They’re your parents,” I reasoned.
She banged her fist on the table and my tray vibrated. “Because they didn’t believe me, okay?” she snapped and twisted her jaws, “They thought I was crazy and almost sent me to an asylum, so I ran away. They almost gave me up, don’t you understand?” she bashed and her eyes glimmered with sorrow and hatred. She shook her head and got up from her chair, “I don’t want to see them,” she said and walked out of the exit.
“Hey” someone called behind me. I turned to see Jarrett standing behind me and beckoning for me to follow him. I got up and looked at his brown eyes,
“What do you want from me?”
“Let’s get out. We need to talk,” he said.
We walked in the hallway to the outside again, to the fresh air. We passed the gardens and the building and sat on the green grass, away from the crowd. We were alone and sat side by side and gazed at the sky.
“You know when my parents were alive…” he started, “they gave me this,” and he handed me a rock just like the one we found and was taken from us when we were abducted by the Exo.
I took the rock and examined it, “Where did they get it?” I asked. He shrugged, “I don’t know, but they kept this at home, so I would believe them when they said that the predators were coming to get us,” he explained.
This rock had the same marks as were on the one we found. Maybe professor Suzanne was right, they were trying to communicate with us.
“I think they were right,” I acknowledged. “There was a crime near our city’s borders. One farmer is dead. He was murdered by a predator. I think they’re about to attack the city.”
He turned to look at me in admiration, “I think that too,” he confessed. For a moment, we held our gaze into the field. “What were your parents like?” he asked.
That surprised me because I hadn’t mentioned to him that my parents had passed away. “They were very kind and understanding. They used to spoil me a lot because I was their only daughter. I remember when they used to sing me a lullaby when I was a little girl and they used to tell me before I went to sleep that if I only believed that I could be anything, then I would be. I could be anything I wanted to be,” I explicated.
He smiled. “They sound like good parents,” he said. “They were,” I retorted, “I miss them.”
I hadn’t talked about my parents with anyone and I hadn’t really expressed what I felt inside. Jarrett looked like a person who was easy to talk to. I’m not sure if it was because we were both orphans or something else that brought us together. He looked so calm gazing at the people in the distance.
“What about you? What were your parents like?” I asked. He snickered, “Hard,” he responded, “but they had good intentions and raised me well. They used to teach me how to kill predators when I was younger, just in case we were attacked by aliens. They had strong opinions about predators and they thought our city was going to be attacked. They didn’t sing me a lullaby like your parents did with you, but they fed me well and kept me safe.”
“Do you miss them?” I questioned.
“Everyday,” he said. “When I’m awake and when I’m sleeping. I dream about them.” I moved my hand to comfort him by placing my hand on his shoulder, but I didn’t. I hesitated and pulled my hand back.
“When I miss my parents, I watch their video of their speeches about aliens,” I confessed. “I always think I would feel better, but I just feel more pain. I just don’t understand.” My heart ached and my cheeks felt wet with tears. I couldn’t hold it anymore. I couldn’t hide what I was feeling inside. And with a total stranger.
“My parents used to say, if there’s no pain then there’s no joy. You have to feel pain to feel joy,” he uttered and smiled lightly. “They also said that If I didn’t wake up early for breakfast, then it was my loss and they’d eat it up.”
I wiped my cheeks with my hand and giggled.
“There you go. You look pretty when you smile,” he complemented. We stayed there smiling and turned to gaze at the sky. The sky had light purple clouds and the sun was shining. I wondered why he kept gazing at the sky.
“What’s up there?” I asked.
“Nature,” he simply answered. “It makes me think.” We sat there, losing time.
Chapter Eighteen
Curiosity is the birth of technology. I woke up at three in the morning and tiptoed my way out of the bedroom that I shared with other people. I already was in my dark night clothes and met with Andie and Kraig in the hallway. The bedroom door shut behind me. They both wore dark cloth as well and they looked more like spies who were undercover. I had the pass card that Kat used to carry around with her that she kept under her pillow while she was asleep. I watched her when she went to bed and tucked the card under her pillow. It wasn’t very hard to discover where she was hiding it.
“Ready?” Andie whispered.
Kraig and I nodded.
We walked down the stairs through the passage way and to the outside gardens from the last door in the building. The planet’s glow casted light on the field and gardens with a hint of grey. The place was empty and silent as we walked to the other doorway to inside where the offices were located.
“So where is the archive located?” Kraig asked in a hush. “I don’t know,” I retorted.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Kraig bashed. “I’ve never been to the archives before,” I defended. “So now what?” Kraig questioned.
“Now we look for a sign with ARCHIVES written on it?” I suggested.
Andie snorted, “Good point,” he declared. We passed many office doors until we reached one big metal door with a sign, ARCHIVES, written on it. We stopped in front of the door.
We glanced at each other with hesitation.
“Are you going to open the door or what?” Kraig pointed out.
“Here goes nothing,” I said and swiped the card over the door screen and the door slid open.
We stepped into the archive room, where we saw many tiny blocks stuck into the walls.
“They must be the lockers that hold chips,” I mentioned.
There was a desk with a chair and a screen on the desk that was placed in the corner of the room. “How do we get that file?” Andie questioned. I sat on the chair and swiped the card on the screen and the screen went on. “It’s all in here,” I responded. “The file?” Andie confirmed.
“No, the key to open those lockers,” I said. I pressed a few buttons on the screen and figured out how to open the lockers. There was a file named Experiment Exo Number One. I opened the file and a locker on the wall popped open.
Kraig went and pulled the locker out and checked what’s inside. He took a chip from the locker and came to me. “You think this is the file you’re looking for?” he asked.
I took the chip from him and inserted it in the monitor under the screen. “Let’s check if it’s the one,” I stated. We watched the video on the screen with my father in it talking about his experiment and one Exo was in a glass cage pounding on it, trying to get out. I paused the video and took the chip and hid it in my pocket.
“I think we got it,” I said.
“Okay, we need to get out before anyone knows we’re here,” Andie warned. “Andie, relax, no one is awake,” I comforted. “No, we need to get out,” Andie insisted.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine,” I said.
&nbs
p; I got up and we got to the door, but we heard footsteps approaching the archive and we froze. “Crap!” Andie cursed, “Someone knows we’re here.” I shushed him. The door beeped then slid open and a person was standing at the door. I couldn’t see his face from the darkness of the hallway.
“We are busted,” Kraig announced. When the person got closer, his face was brightened by the archive light. It was Jarrett holding an eaten apple. Our shoulders tensed.
“What are you guys doing here?” Jarrett casually asked while he chewed.
We looked at each other for an explanation. “Uh, we were sleep walking,” Kraig defended.
Andie twisted his face in embarrassment by Kraig’s lie.
“Really?” Jarrett said, “So you think I’m that dumb?” “Actually, we were looking for a chip that has my parents’ files on it,” I confessed.
Kraig poked my arm with his elbow, “Don’t tell him,” he shushed me.
Jarrett looked at me with understanding. “How did you get the card?”
“I got it from under Kat’s pillow,” I said.
“You aren’t going to tell on us, are you?” Kraig asked Jarrett.
Jarrett pursed his lips giving a thought to it, and taking another bite of his apple replied, “No, don’t worry. I won’t tell on you.”
Andie looked like he didn’t believe Jarrett. “Do you really think he wouldn’t tell on us?” Andie wondered. “Andie, I trust Jarrett and I know he wouldn’t,” I insisted. “How can you trust him? We stayed here for two days only. We don’t know anything about most of the people who live here,” Andie said.
“Well, I trust him,” I said.
Andie snorted, “Whatever,” and shook his head.
Jarrett raised his palms in the air, one holding the apple and said, “Hey, I’m not the enemy here. You should trust me, because I don’t usually lie.”
“Usually?” Kraig questioned.
“Guys, please. Let’s talk about this somewhere else. For now, we need to get out of here,” I suggested. We got out of the archives and the door shut behind us. We were in the dark hallway as we walked to the main door to the outside.
“How did you find us?” Kraig asked. Jarrett shrugged, “I was in one of the gardens and saw you guys sneaking in,” he confessed. “Besides, I was starving.”
Kraig punched Andie’s arm, “I told you to watch our back,” he warned.
“I didn’t see him,” Andie defended. “How was I to know that he was hiding here?” “I wasn’t hiding,” Jarrett defended and threw the apple in the trash bin. We got in the building and walked to our rooms. Jarrett stopped in the doorway,
“Well, see you later guys,” he said in a hush, careful not to wake anyone up. Kraig nodded to Jarrett and walked in the room with Andie. Before I stepped inside, he grabbed my hand and I turned to look at him.
“What do you say we meet later at the Empty Park?” he suggested. Is that what it was called? The Empty Park? I wasn’t comfortable of how close he was trying to be with me. But I had the curiosity to see how things would go.
“Okay, see you later,” I confirmed. A smile a crooked smile, “Okay,” he said and almost tripped when he walked away backwards and disappeared in the darkness of the corridor.
In the morning, we walked into Dr. Harris’s office so he could operate on Kraig. Kraig seemed a bit nervous when he entered the small operating room in Harris’s office. It was two hours until Harris got out of the operating room and he was followed by Kraig with his wrist bandaged and bleeding. Andie and I got up from our chairs and hurried to Kraig.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, don’t worry,” Kraig comforted. “Harris wants to show you something. Something very interesting.” Harris showed us the metal that was inside Kraig’s wrist, inside the jar he was holding with many threads floating with the liquid. It was weird looking. I never saw anything like it in my life.
“This was inside Kraig’s wrist?” Andie asked as he grimaced in disgust. “What you see here is the threads that were connected to his blood vessels and nerves that was constantly growing and was feeding on his body. If we had waited, it would have been very difficult to remove it,” Harris explained.
“What do you mean it was feeding on his body?” I pointed out.
“It means it was feeding on his flesh, like digging its threads further into his flesh,” he explained. If the threads were constantly growing in our wrist, that meant that we had to remove them in no time. Every second that passed, the things inside of us were growing.
“What about Andie’s implant? What about mine?” I said as I freaked out.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to remove them,” Harris said, “I just need more time to study this implant.” “No!” I refused. “We need them removed now. We don’t have any time to spare. This thing is growing inside us.”
Harris flinched and raised his palm to calm me down, “Do not get scared, alright? I’ll operate on you two later. Just let me study this thing up close. I mean what if getting it out can harm you? I can’t risk that,” he explained his concern.
I tried to calm myself down by breathing in, “Okay, one hour. That’s it,” I said.
His shoulders fell as he let out a breath, “Good. I expect you two here after one hour.”
We got out of the office and walked to the outside gardens.
Andie patted on Kraig’s shoulder, “Good to have you back,” he said.
“I know. I heard you two crying over me. So dramatic,” Kraig teased.
I shook my head and smiled, “We did cry. It was very hysterical,” I teased back.
They both chuckled. Jarrett was standing on the grass area, and he waved with both his arms up, signaling for me to go and to meet up with him.
“Uh, your crush is calling for you,” Kraig teased and winked at me. “He’s not!” I refused and punched his arm. He winced, “Easy,” and he rubbed on his arm.
Andie shook his head in disappointment, “What did I tell you about talking to Jarrett?” he warned. “If you want Jarrett not to tell on us, you better be close to him. It’s not a good idea to make him despise you,” I explained.
Kraig grinned, “She’s right. And she got you,” he declared.
Andie crossed his arms over his chest and sighed, “Go,” he said. I tried to stop myself from smiling and walked up to where Jarrett was standing. While he was under the sun, his wavy brown hair which was a little over his ears, turned honey brown.
He smiled. “Ready?” he asked.
I got confused “Ready for what?” I asked.
He didn’t answer and instead offered me his hand to grab. I held his hand and he escorted me towards the main gate of the building from the side passageway that was filled with flowers and grass. At the main gate, he talked to the guards and they let us out of the building walls. He got in a car and beckoned for me to sit in the passenger seat.
“Get in,” he said.
I got in and buckled up.
He drove the car away from the building and into the
Gone Desert. My hair was ruffled by the wind and the sun rays heated up my face and arms. Luckily, the Gone was empty. We hadn’t encountered any aliens on the way. I wondered how he got by the guards so easily.
“How did you do that?” I wondered.
“Do what?” he asked.
“Pass by the guards,” I answered.
“Oh, I have my ways,” he said and winked at me.
I got my shoes off and leaned my arm out the open window. After what felt like half an hour, we approached a land with weird alien trees and grass. There were water ponds and giant boulders and the air was humid. I straightened in my seat to see the view.
“Are you sure you know where we’re heading?” I said.
“Yeah, sure,” he answered.
Then we stayed silent for minutes as we gazed at the trees.
“This is one of my favourite places,” he explained, “actually it’s the only favourite place I have.”
“These are the Noretasies. They say they bring luck,” he explained.
I took the purple moving flowers and I was going to sniff it when Jarrett stopped me.
“Don’t sniff it. It can paralyze you with its gas,” he warned.
I tossed the flowers on the ground out of fear. He walked to the lake edge and gazed at the stream on the other side. He picked out a rock and tossed it over the water and it created multiple ripples on the surface.
I strode closer to where he stood and asked, “So how did you find this place?” He shrugged. “Well, I saw this area on a map that Burl has. He uses that map whenever we discover a new area. Every area we discover goes on the map, so we can search for more aliens,” he explained.
Why would they discover more lands? Do they hunt aliens like we do? That explains why they found us in the Gone Desert, almost defeated by aliens. But why would they accept us so easily to their community? It seemed too good to be true. My mom always warned me about being careful of people who treated you so well so easily and they seem too good to be true and that they might be frauds. I got nervous when I remembered that I trusted Jarrett too quickly perhaps. I should be more careful with whom I’m dealing with. But my heart says otherwise.
“Why do you search for aliens?” I asked. He tossed another rock over the surface and looked at me, “We still do experiments on aliens in our labs,” he answered.
“You do?” I said.
“How’s that even possible? I thought Dean stopped all experiments.” He looked a bit skeptical about telling me what was really going on in that building. “It didn’t stop” he said, “But no one should know about this. This is supposed to stay confidential.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” I comforted. We sat down next to each other and stared at the water streaming on the lake. “I usually come here to think. It calms me down when I watch the water.” he stated. “Do you have a favourite place?”