Unknown
Wynnona
I stare out the window at the front of the ship right back at the void that feels like it's staring back at us.
"If the void is staring at you, make it uncomfortable." I say aloud after a minute of staring at the void, repeating what I'd muttered earlier.
"What?" Brett asks.
"Jake mentioned something about there being rules to this book, right?" I turn to look at the two. "I was talking with Athena earlier and she said that. I think it's one of the rules Jake mentioned." I explain further to them, trying to think of a way to make this void uncomfortable. An idea pops into my head when my eyes fall to Keya.
I start to frantically crawl under the control panel, looking for something I can attach my phone to. There is an old cord that will connect to my phone with a small iPod attached to it. I grab the skinny white cord and pull it out, the cord unwinding and reaching the seat in front of the panel. Unplugging the iPod, I plug in my phone and open it. There is this one extremely old song Keya loves. She breaks out into this ridiculous dance every time she hears it. I think it's called Walking on sunshine.
I find the song in my phone's music library and started to play it. The song comes through the speakers of the whole ship as the song starts to play. After years of living in the slums I managed to pirate all sorts of things. Shows, old books, music. Things aren't always in the best condition but it's worth it.
"Hell yes!" Keya shouts as she starts to jam out to the song, lip syncing the words. Brett starts to laugh and joins her. The two end up doing some strange, old dance to the song as I smile at them. When the song ends and I turn on the boosters to send us forward, there is no longer any resistance. I smile and kick us back into light speed.
The ship zooms forward, and it feels like it hits something, breaking through it like a hammer hitting glass. When I recover from the force of the hit, I look up to see nothing but darkness. Tiny white specks can be seen all around us but look like they are extremely far off in the distance.
"Where are we?" I ask aloud. Brett and Keya come to stand beside me, studying what's outside.
"I've got no idea." I tell them honestly. We are slowly floating farther and farther into the endless darkness when something hits the back of the ship, sending us flying in circles. I can't locate what it was, or see much, but when I try and get the boosters to work, they won't start up. The thing that hit us must have wrecked them when it hit us.
The white specks are moving. Whatever hit us was big, powerful. The hair over my right eye, the purple one, falls away as I run my hand through my hair. Now able to see out of both eyes I can spot an outline of what looks to be a giant space octopus. For lack of a better way to explain it. As the creature moves in the darkness, I spot a planet that was hidden behind one of its gigantic tentacles.
"Dayna, scan that planet and tell me if we can land there." I demand as I start to move as best I can with the main boosters on the back of the ship out of commission.
"The planet seems like Terran life will be able to survive on it. There are currently two other life forms there." Dayna tells me after a couple minutes.
"Hang on." I shout at Keya and Brett, making a beeline for the planet as fast as I can. In front of us is a large black tentacle with white spots all over it. The tentacle is swinging towards us, my instincts kick in and we move out of the way. I maneuver through the maze as best I can. We're slow but at least we can move. We are finally close enough to breach the plants atmosphere and land. The landing is nowhere near smooth, but I will say I tried.
"Fuck." I groan as I sit up, hands massaging my neck. I touch my forehead, feeling a cut and wetness dripping down my forehead. Looking up I see a wasteland of sand. I pull my jacket off, left in only my oversized tank top. This place is extremely hot.
I look around and find both Brett and Keya knocked out. I stand up and catch myself as I stumble. Checking on both of them I make sure they're okay before leaving them. I head for the back of the ship to check the damage that's been done. On the way I find a small room filled with different weapons. I don't want to seem hostile towards whatever other things are on this planet, but the safety of those two idiots comes first.
I enter the room and grab a gun that looks like Han Solo's from Star Wars and strap it to my right thigh. With it on I head out of the ship, hitting a button to make the back-hatch drop. When I get out, I see why the boosters aren't working. Both have been completely crushed, missing different pieces that were obviously torn off. They would need to be replaced. Talking in the distance pulls my attention away from the ship as I spot two people coming towards my ship.
One looks to be female. She has long white hair pulled back into a braid, grey skin, and has wider hips then I do. The guy beside her looks the same as her, grey skin, broad shoulders, and long rusty red hair pulled back into a ponytail.
"Ze, this is a bad idea." The male says in an accent I don't recognize as one from earth.
"Ro, it will be fine." She tells him with the same accent. "Besides, they probably need help." The guy looks defeated and sighs, turning to look forward. I now realize how close they have come. My feet kick up a bit of sand as I get into a defensive position, hand hovering over the gun on my thigh. The two look at me with their strange pupil-less eyes as fear stirs in them.
"Who are you?" I ask in a strong voice.
"You're a celestial, aren't you?" The girl asks, stepping forward. I flinch back at the title she's given me. Brett and Keya come running out to join me as the two study the three of us.
"I don't know what a celestial is." I explain, evaluating them as to how high of a threat they are. Star comes trotting off the ship and over to the twins. He rubs up against the leg of the girl, making her smile.
"Hello to you too pretty fox." She squats down to pet Star. Trust the fox. The words that woman told me echo in my head. My gut tells me to trust Star, so I go back to standing normally hands crossed over my chest.
"Who are you two?" Keya asks, fully interested in the two. The both of them look over at the three of us. Their eyes are beautiful. The whole iris looked like earth's moon, but they had no pupil. The whole iris was a silvery white the same as our moon.
"My name is Rochet Mech and this is my twin sister Zelanna." The guy introduces. "We are Mecharians."
"We saw your ship come crashing down here and thought we could help." Zelanna, the girl, says standings with Star in her arms. "Our ship is not getting in the air anytime soon. We can use some of her parts to fix yours if you'll take us with you." She giggles as Star licks her grey cheek. "Also, your fox is adorable." I can't help but smile at Star. Maybe he's more than just a simple fox. I think to myself as Rochet starts talking about the damages with me. Keya and Zelanna hit it off well as Brett goes with them to get parts.
"So, you have no idea what you are." Rochet asks me in a small voice. I led him into the ship to show him the controls for the ship.
"I've always been different, I just never cared to notice. I have little memory of my life before I got to earth." We head to the kitchen and I make something I think is tea.
"You three are Terrain?" He asks, eyes sparking with what I think is excitement.
"Is that what you call people from earth?" I ask back, coming over with a mug. He nods as he takes the cup and says thanks. We sit in silence for a couple minutes when a green light emits from my room. The light is a twist between green and red. I stand up to go and investigate. What if Athena is hurt? Is the first thought. The next is about what dangers could have gotten on. I find the book resting on my bed and grab it. The glowing starts to dim, and I open the book to the page glowing green. In her beautiful and elegant writing, the letters on the page read:
There are three to find.
What's that supposed to mean? Three what? Parts for the ship, people, food sources, planets?
"Is everything alright?" I hear Rochet ask from behind me. I close the book and hide it behind my back as I turn to him.
"Everything's fine." I tell him as I hear footsteps echo through the ship. Brett comes into the room and asks me to come join them. Rochet runs out of the ship to join his twin as Brett studies me.
"What'd the book say?" Brett asks me. I pull the book from its hiding place behind my back and place it in my bag, tossing it at Brett.
"Something about there being three to find." I explain. "But nothing more than that." Brett adjusts the straps on my bag a little and tosses it over his shoulders.
"I'm assuming I'm carrying this." He sighs. I give him a smile and pat his head. I won't mention how I must get on my tiptoes to reach the top of his head.
"Good pack mule." I joke, exiting the room. Brett and I leave the ship to join the two twins who were harvesting parts from their ship. It looked like the thing was in worse shape than my ship. Keya was talking to the both of them enthusiastically and the two listened to every word she said, pupil-less eyes shining with fascination. Brett smiles at his girlfriend from beside me. I study his smile and grab his arm, dragging us behind our ship out of the threes view.
"What are you doing?" He asks me.
"You want to propose to her, don't you?" I ask him, arms crossed. His face goes into one of shock as his body freezes.
"How?" Before he can continue his question and attempt at denying it, he sees my face and sighs in defeat. "Yes." I stop holding back my huge smile and jump on him. I hug him tightly and ignore the pang of jealousy in my chest.
"I'm happy for you." I tell him softly. I pull away from him and pull at the leather necklace around my neck. On it is a beautiful ring along with a million other trinkets I've gathered over the years. A slim silver band with different triangular designs all along it, each was covered with little diamond's and in the center of the design was a diamond shaped red jewel. On either side of that jewel was an olive shaped diamond. In the center was a red rose blossoming out with a diamond in the center of it. The ring was old and belonged to our papa. "And you should have papa's ring." I force a smile at him. Brett's smiling face falls as he watches me hand him the ring.
"I can't take that from you." He grabs my hand and wraps my fingers around the ring, holding my closed fist. "Papa wanted you to give it to the person you would one day fall in love with."
"Yeah, but we both know that will never happen." I tell him with a forced smile. "Besides, you can't give her Dad's ring." He smiles softly, his hand going to touch the matching leather band around his neck.
"Are you sure?" He asks.
"Yes." No. My forced smile stays in place as he takes the ring off the band and hands me his. In reality, I loved that ring. As a child I would sit and play with it as Papa read a book or did something else. There was one point I lost it under the couch in our old home. Dad came home to me crying because papa and I couldn't find it. Papa apologized a million times as did I. The ring was the only of its kind. Papa knew how much it meant to me, even when it wasn't mine. It was so pretty, and I wanted to give it to the person I would one day love.
What a naive child I was.
Brett wraps his arms around me and kisses my cheek.
"Thank you so much Wyatt." He tells me before jogging off to join the other three people. Jealousy is such a bad colour on me. I sigh, crossing my arms and leaning up against the ship. Too bad I'm jealous of the one thing I can never have.
"Don't be so sure." The sweet voice I have come to recognize as Athena's whispers to me. I shake my head as a soft smile pulls at my lips before I go to join the others. Once I get there, they greet me, and the two twins start to talk a mile a minute explaining how they were repairing the ship.
"What are you doing here?" A male voice asks from behind me. I turn to see two figures, one male the other female. The man is charging at me as I'm the closest to him. I register what's happening with enough time to block the others, tossing myself into the guy's path. I get ready to block his hit, but I'm too late by a second. His fist collides with my face as I fall to the ground.
I land face first into the sand, the irony taste of blood in my mouth.