by Aditya Kumar
Her mother did whatever she could do. She kept her safe and tried everything, so she could able to forget that unfortunate incident. But today her mother is no more with her. It made her vulnerable towards pain again. Her mother knew that her turn will come again too. So, she recorded many songs in her voice and gave it to the Emily to listen when she would be gone. That same tape, she was hearing when she was about to hit by a car.
On the other side, it was Mark who couldn't even remember, how he ended up alone on the street. How he survived yet, only he knows. He always hated his life. Among hating his life, no one knows when he started to like himself. He tried to find a peace and he got peace in history books. He started reading about people from earlier time… the time until then there was no invasion happened. He got a dream from those books and left his life to live in that fantasy. But he knows that life of some people is even harder than him.
He felt sympathy for Emily. At first it looked like sympathy, but it was not. It was something else. He started to feel something different in his metabolism whenever he encountered her. It was something new, mysterious and wonderful. He knew that there is no place and time for love and pleasure. It was kind of forbidden by them self to make them feel like lost. Today, they see dreams about death, and not about hope. Now, their only hope is death. Moreover, the thing is that they considered love as just inappropriate and unnecessary and he was kind of, in support for those thoughts until now. But it is like he fell in love with Emily. Everything is different now for him.
'How one moment of unexpected love can change one's life. How much important, this becomes for the one who tried to seek this for his whole life. In that moment, I learned that this is my world, a small one but as I always wanted. I can live for eternity in this moment. I decided that I will live for her now and whatever problem will come in path, I will face. I don't know what I did to get this… Do I still deserve this… my eye is filled with tears and this is the moment for which I can leave everything,' he talked to himself.
He is feeling like he is getting dragged to her. But he is happy even that his mind is forcing him to do something. Something that is against their necessity. 'But love makes us human. I always had the feeling that we are bridge among all the other thing. We put everything closer. We are more intelligent than others and it gives us some responsibility. We are different and better than others. But today, I realized that it is the love that makes us different and better,' Mark started to feel different.
He was always interested in history. He always liked to know that what sort of lives existed on Earth before first alien invasion. How people used to live then... What was their feeling and needs? What was their priority? What makes them proud? Luckily, they still have some book, through which Mark can explore ancient time, that he calls heaven. He used to read them since his childhood when he was alone. He always gets fascinated to know about their way of living. It gives him some time to live his own life in dream. But today, for a moment, that dream looked real.
He can still think about time when everyone was happy. When their whole planet was populated with human and different species. When there was full of greenery everywhere. When birds used to sing in their sweet voice and how the heart gets lost in a dream after listening the sound produced by flowing river water. How much beautiful, it was to see waterfall, river, sea, snow on mountains. That was a complete heaven.
It was also nice that how close people were then. How much mother cares for her child, like child is her own body part. How much she loves her babies. It was surprising for him to know that their love was un-quantifiable. There is no way to measure the amount of love. He used to think, how love can be selfless. Sometimes, it all used to look like a lie to him. How love can be so strong to defeat any trouble and if it is so, then why there is no place for love today. He used to think that how their race gets filled with so much hatred that they forgot how to use their most powerful weapon... Love. But he trusted on those books and in one sense he knew what love is, but today only, he felt its real power when Emily was there for him when he was losing trust in himself.
Love is the feeling that force us to combine our idea altogether into one... in wonderful way. Love makes us feel unstoppable fun even in the darkest time. It gives us hope and keeps us alive. It still is a complete mystery for him even having the most intelligent mind on Earth who can understand the technology that is used by Quaiak… but not the reason behind love. Love is simply like a universal truth without any cause, and just having the effect... a wonderful one.
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CHAPTER 7
Beginning of Wa
r
Mark, being a loner from his childhood… and as situation was going bad day by day… a spread fear everywhere from the land to sky… where nothing moves, and everything becomes standstill at one place… in one moment, he never had thought that he would ever be able to come close to anybody. He never thought that time would give him any kind of fortune. It was also not easy for him to adapt his new life… but he found peace in it… he found happiness, about which once he thought that it would never become his part. But now happiness may be his temporary part, but it was trying to stick with him… it was trying to tie him closer and tighter… hoping that one day, it would become permanent.
Only 5 days has passed by now, and he feels that she is his part now… just glue wasn’t that good to stick together always… so separated, but she will come to him… and both will sleep for the whole remaining moment inside the dream. He had already created his fantasy world… to live within, but now he feels that he doesn’t need that. His dream is now real.
His house isn’t far away from her. He just lives in the side of street… a house which looks broken from outside… where he spent all his life. He didn’t have any desire from his childhood… just wanted to survive. However, this tremendous fear may have grabbed desire of many people, but what it can do to the one who just wanted to survive… Whenever he didn’t get proper food, he cried without knowing that people have a lot of reason to cry… especially the reason is Quaiak. But, what a child could understand about the fear, when he had nothing to lose. But as he grew up, everything started getting clearer to him. He started learning the meaning of fear, when he saw others. That was when, he hid himself into history books and fantasy world.
But, today he felt himself so close to Emily, a girl whose father once used to be one of the richest one in that area. Her ancestor was a scientist, and he was one of those lead members, who fixed and recovered the nature… artificially, and that legacy continued until her father and he was the member of scientific family, whose purpose was to make everything almost same as natural. Everyone believed that they will fix everything, until the invasion of Quaiak… but that invasion changed everyone’s fortune. Today their dream has scattered far away… and no one cares about fulfilling this… actually, there is no need of that dream now.
Emily she was a little girl, when she lost a part of her world as her father was taken by them. But, her mother tried everything to raise her a tough girl… but that wound on her heart wouldn’t let that happen, and with passing day, she started getting dependent on her. But she had to lose her mother too one day, about which she never had thought. She never thought, how she will survive alone in this scarier world… and when time came around a month ago when they came for her mother. She lost her forever… and now she is forced to live alone. She had her 18th birthday, just 10 days ago and she was happy… until the moment, she remembered that her mother will not be there on her birthday. In those time, Emily realized with Mark being close to her, that she found some of her own. He is not any stranger to her now… a smile on her beautiful face clearly states that.
They started to meet daily. Mark found a peace in his heart, when she was close to him. He felt like after all those years of emptiness, he found someone in his life. He is not alone now. Emily is there for him. Every time he felt low and alone, she gave him confidence. He felt that he got his whol
e world in her arm. He doesn't know how she is feeling but he is completely attracted to her. It gave him new life, new hope and most importantly trust in himself that he can defeat Quaiak.
This is the time when Mark is getting ready to meet her. He is excited. But he sees a spaceship in sky. He first ignored, but he noticed that their ship is about to land nearby. He came outside. Being afraid, he used his far vision, only to see that this time, they had come for Emily. It was a heartbreaking moment for him. He knew that Emily has completed her 18 years, but what would be the odds that they would come for her. ‘Just after 10 days… do they know me? Is Emily in danger because of me,’ He thought.
Whatever could be the reason, but this time he couldn’t keep himself holding back… he can’t pretend that everything will be okay, when his whole world is about to be shattered throughout… again. He prepared himself and thought, now this is the time. He ran to them, but he was a little late. She was already in their spaceship. He was far away, but he saw her terrified face. It made him feel like there is no meaning to his powers if he can't save her.
On the other hand, it is very difficult to explain, what Emily is feeling right now. A flash of memories came in front of her eye recalling… what happened to her mother. She had seen, how her mother ended up, when returned on Earth. She baffled. She just got the hope to live because of Mark, and now she felt as if all the hope around her were shattering into pieces and falling on the ground. She didn't know about Mark's power and so, she felt helpless. But how she can easily accept, such a huge sour fate.
Now, what Mark can do to save her? Will he be able to make thing happen… about which he was afraid yet? Will he be able to save her? This is not the time for him to think of anything else. He used his energy blast on them. It went straight to them… like producing yellow colored energized beam with fragments of blue color, but until then they all were safely in their ship and their ship were using some sort of sufficiently strong shield that was strong enough against his attack. Now, he has no other option except to go before their ship. When all the doors get closed, then we do not think to choose the best path. In fact, we don't plan to find a path but only option remains is to break the door and make one.
He is ready to go into space. He has already gone there once, so he is not afraid. He passed through the atmosphere and he is into vast space. From previous experience, he knew that their location is not anywhere nearby. So, he concluded that they must be using some sort of disappearing and re-emerging mechanism. He didn’t want to lose them out of his sight. So, whatever would happen, he decided to stick with their ship. He pushed himself with all his force and went on the ship. This all was happening at very high speed, and with keeping their speed in mind, in Earth’s time frame, at most few minutes would have been passed. He landed on their moving ship. This was a large ship and had many advanced weapons, but their drones were inactive. They were so over confident that they didn’t even care to watch outside.
He did everything that he could do to enter in the ship, but nothing happened. Their shield was very strong and resistive against his energy blast. He had no any other options, but to go inside the ship. He closed his eyes to analyze the power within him and he found a way to do this. He just had to find the vibrating frequency of molecule of their ship. Once, he got the frequency, he started vibrating with same frequency and in next moment, he was inside the ship and ready to fight with his greatest enemies. But, before entering in their ship, he saw a mysterious passage in space and their ship was about to pass through them. But as ship reached close to that passage, he was inside the ship. What was that… he didn’t bother to think about that and not about that why their drones were inactive.
His primary mission was to rescue Emily. So, he needed to search for her. He used his X-ray vision to scan the whole ship. He felt about himself that he is a human but having all the features of an advanced robot. He scanned the ship and found 12 heat signatures including himself and Emily… so, there was 10 Quaiak on this ship. He went for all 11… scanned their faces from his position only and he found her. He saw her terrified. He analyzed the whole environment and went towards Emily, only to set himself in trap. He just gets trapped there with Emily. Seeing him there was a huge surprise for her.
She had a mixed emotion about him. She was shocked and felt like dreaming that he is there but next moment, he saw a tear of happiness coming from her eye. He wasn't sure of the reason behind this tear. As it might be because of the hope that he will save her now or is it because he is there for her in her dark moment. Moreover, it wasn't really time to decide the reason of that tear because it was like they both were trapped there, and it was like no one is there to help them.
She asked after a moment, “Hey! How you came here?”
“I guess… I was stalking on you,” Mark replied making a funny face.
She laughed on Mark’s reply, “From the day you saved me, I knew that you are hiding something. Why you hid about yourself?”
“I just wanted to protect you,” Mark said.
Emily baffled a little bit on his answer. “You can’t protect me by lying to me… by keeping me in dark. Do you even have any idea, how much scared I was, when they were taking me… my mind flashed me my mother’s memory… and… and I felt like there will nothing be left… in this… wo… world,” she started crying.
“Hey… Listen to me… see in my eye,” Mark said, “They can’t do anything to you. I will kill each one of them, before they even will try to hurt you. You are mine… and I will always keep you safe,” he continued after a bit, “I promise you… until I am alive, no one can hurt you. I don’t care what I will have to do, but I will do everything that would be necessary to protect you. Just trust me… can you?”
“Yes… Yes, I do,” Emily told having eye filled with tears, and for a moment she felt like she got everything that she ever could have.
And then, those aliens came to them. Mark can feel them laughing but Emily had no idea what they were doing, and she was still a little bit scared. As Emily was just like a game to those creatures. They seemed so much over-confident, but a little surprised as they were only expecting Emily there. They yet had no idea how he reached in their ship. But, they had not any problem as both Mark and Emily were trapped there… as Quaiak felt. That trap was similar to laser light, just that it was made up from a dwarf star.
But it wasn't actually a trap for Mark. He wanted to analyze everyone - their strength and weakness and he couldn't have gotten that much time anywhere else. So, he made them feel like, he was trapped inside dwarf star laser light. But One Quaiak suspected on Mark’s activity, “But, we took only her… how he reached on our ship. He can’t hide in the ship in that short moment. Their planet… these people are very inferior.” Their language was same, just his voice’s frequency was even more than 2 lac hertz. However, that wasn’t a problem for mark… he could listen them clearly.
“So, what do you want to say,” other Quaiak asked.
First one said, “Nothing for sure… but there is something wrong with him. He is not the one, as he looks like.”
“Come on… we are the king of this universe… and you are still talking like a small soldier,” and then everyone laughed.
“Maybe, he would be from any other planet,” First told again.
“But what’s wrong in checking once,” their chief Qepon told, “Also, we can’t take him to where we live… so, at least we should know something about him… before throwing him outside.”
“Alright… so how can we find that,” another Quaiak told.
“Show me the ship logs and the images taken by its camera,” Qepon ordered.
“Alright…”
They saw all the images taken by their camera. They got shocked on seeing his strength and ability. It was a lot to take in at once… they saw towards Mark… a fearless eye forced them to think… think deeply, and they came to the question, “Why our drones weren’t working,” everybody saw that Quaiak, when he
asked the question.
“Must have some kind of problem…” one told.
“No… no… no, I checked. That was working, before we left,” Qepon told. Then he turned towards Mark, “What did you do with drones?”
“Nothing,” Mark replied, “actually, I also wanted to know the same.”
“So, you will not tell simply,” Qepon told. Then he turned towards one of his own, whose name was Qan. He ordered Qan, “show him… what we do with those, who doesn’t follow our orders.”
Qan put his feet towards Mark. But even before Qan would have tried to punch him, Mark broke this laser trap as well as Emily's and they were in some other compartment of ship… also Qan got a heavy punch from Mark… breaking his nose. “Go… go and find him,” Qepon ordered everyone to go for Mark.
Mark couldn't have taken her into space in order to run away, as she was just a normal human. So, either he had to take this ship by killing everyone or needed some help from outside. As there were too many Quaiak, so he suspected if he can fight everyone alone. So, he pressed a button that he found there releasing a distress signal with a rescue message, thinking that if someone else would be out there, they may help them. And to his surprise, it was like his best day. He saw some people coming towards him in their fighter pods. Mark thought as they would be rebellion.
Those pods were spherical in shape and designed in the way so that only one person can sit in that at a time. Those were mainly designed for war time, and that was simple enough that it could only be used to fly in outer space. It wasn’t designed to land on any planet or sustain air pressure. They just had oxygen supply, steering wheel shaped something to give the direction of flying, an engine and an advanced gun. Some of them were also designed to launch a missile towards the target. They started attacking on Quaiak’s ship from all direction, but their shield was strong enough to be broken by these attacks. However, Quaiak were easily taking rebellion’s ships down by using ship’s weapon.