Neil had never had the displeasure of going to prison, though somehow, he knew what it was like. He imagined that it might be lonely, especially if there was no one to talk too. Also, life there must be monotonous, with all the same walls being all that you see all the time. It could drive you crazy after a while. So, who could blame someone for wanting to escape a place like that? Neil certainly couldn’t.
Coming up with an escape-plan is easy, it’s just the follow-through that’s the hard part. You wait for a tell, and as soon as the coast is clear, you take your shot. Neil could picture himself rushing across the field and bee-lining it for a giant barbed-wire fence. He would have to endure the pain if he wanted to make it out, and this made the climb up full of dreadful anticipation. It was vital not to get stuck on the wires, because if he did, there would never be another chance for him. Enduring the scraping metal across his flesh, he thought of how good it must feel to have finally made it over the last hurdle.
But as he saw the other Lavender drifting aimlessly before him, he realized that he knew nothing at all. It was as if he had finally made it over the wall, only to find that he had landed in yet another prison-yard. Approaching the edge of the dome, he leaned in closer for a better view. He wanted it to be a hallucination, and for his friends to ask him what he was so paranoid about. But, like most of his daydreams, that would never come to be.
If Neil had intended to make any astute observations about the other ship, then he would have been sorely disappointed. Its giant glass dome was facing theirs, like two bulls ready to charge. From the few times he had seen the Lavender from the outside, he could tell that it was an identical match. The long, black exterior jutted out and blended silently into the void. Faint light glistened through the massive dome, sending fragments of light cascading to nowhere in particular. He leaned closer, pressing his face absentmindedly into the glass. Despite this, he couldn’t make out anything that may be inside of it.
Like a sudden coughing fit, the boy in the tattered coat erupted into a bout of laughter. Only then did the rest of the group realize how silent they had been for the past few minutes. They jolted awake, with the wheezing coming from their friend sounding horse and painful.
“That just isn’t fair.” Neil said, with his chest heaving. “I thought that we were going home.”
Over in the pilot’s seat, Timothy was rubbing his head. He could still feel where the cold metal of the helmet had been, and he doubled checked to make sure it was still in its place above him. It hung there idly, like a sword attached to a string. He slipped out of the chair as quickly as he could, not wanting to seem panicked. However, this didn’t go unnoticed.
Sophia rushed to him, grabbing him by the shoulders with the force of a giant. “Are you okay? Did it hurt you?” She asked, her eyes wide and her voice panicked.
It wasn’t in his nature to lie, and in most scenarios, Timothy would have told his friend the truth. He would have explained how the machine shocked him, and how he felt like he was drowning in open air. But it was also in his nature to not want others to worry, which created a clash inside his brain. “Um…” He stuttered, like a printer running out of ink. “It wasn’t pleasant, but I’m quite alright. No need to worry about me.”
The girl breathed a sigh of relief, even though she barely believed him. He was alive, and that was all that mattered. “Jesus, that was… a lot.”
“You’re telling me?” Alex remarked, standing to his feet. He could still taste the bile lingering on the edges of his tongue, and he tried in vain to push it out of his mind. “But I don’t think the ride is over yet.”
Walking- or rather limping- over to his coat-clad friend, he took his turn staring through the window. After a good look at the Lavender, he switched his attention to the other, more pressing issue. A planet hovered before him, more gigantic than he thought possible. Though, perhaps it was of an average size, and it was just the closeness that made it seem so huge. Swirls of grey blue clouds coated the surface of it, obstructing the view of any land formation that might have been there. Occasionally, a flash erupted from beneath the overcast, becoming reminiscent of the lightning strikes on Earth. If you had been a space-traveling explorer, or a scientist looking to chart the universe, this would have been a glorious sight. However, Alex was very aware that he and his friends were none of those things. The only planet that they wanted to see was the one they came from, and this certainly wasn’t it. Their hearts would have sunk if they weren’t too busy rushing to their throats.
“Isn’t it weird?” Neil asked, his reflection in the glass. “An entire alien planet is right there, and the only thing we can think about is that damn ship?”
Alex turned to him. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
A glint flashed in his friend’s eye. “Alex, not even you are that good of a liar.” He shifted his weight on his feet as he took a step back. “What do we do?” He asked, his arms raising in an almost begging-like gesture. “What do we do about all of this?”
“I’m not sure we do anything.” Sophia said, coming over to join them. “If there’s people on that ship, then they’ll come to us. We’ll work it out from there.”
Neil scoffed, “we should be on our knees praying that there isn’t anyone over there. What do you think they’ll do when they see us? They won’t be happy that we stole their ship and took it for a joyride.”
“But we didn’t steal it, did we?” The question came from Timothy, who looked like a kid with his hand in the cookie-jar. “It was an accident.”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves; we have no way of knowing if there even is anyone on board that Lavender.” Alex observed. “When Neil first got here, it was completely empty. So, there’s a chance that is the case with the other one. Let’s not panic.”
There was a part of Timothy that wanted to mention the person that he had seen, but he bit his tongue. His friends were already so worried about this new situation, and he would hate to add to that. “Maybe this was what the noise was about?” He said, turning all eyes on him. “Maybe the distress call was from this other ship?”
“Speaking of which, has anyone else noticed that the beeping has stopped?” Neil asked, pointing a curved finger to where the flashing light had gone out. “Guess we’ve arrived.”
“Arrived where?” Sophia asked, walking over and giving the dimmed bulb a flick. “We clearly haven’t made it home.”
Neil rubbed his eyes like a tired toddler ready to sleep. “Isn’t it obvious? We followed the signal, not whatever last-minute instructions that Alex and Timothy tried to give it. If you haven’t noticed, we haven’t been driving this thing- it’s been driving us.”
Sophia was tired of his tone. “If you’re so pessimistic about it, then why did you suggest we fly it?”
He shrugged, “what else were we gonna do?”
Abruptly, Timothy found that he was lying on his face. Typically, a position like that was an action he did on his own accord. However, if he had made the choice to drop his chin hard on the ground, he had forgotten on impact. It wasn’t just him, either. The sounds of his friends toppling to the ground were alarming, but he felt a little relief knowing that he wasn’t the only one. Looking up, he saw that Neil had kept himself on his feet by grabbing onto the control panel. His other two friends had suffered a similar fate that he had, and were now laying in a heap on either side of him.
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“What’s going on?” Alex’s voice was a high-pitched whale. “Did something hit us?”
“Nothing hit us.” Neil replied with a disconcerting, guttural laugh. “It’s way worse.”
The Lavender 1 had started moving, but that much was obvious. The rumbling beneath the floor, the sudden shift in space, and the tumbling could attest to that. At first, the boy in the tattered coat had assumed that the planet was at fault. Maybe something gave out? Are we being pulled into the atmosphere? But then he saw that they weren’t alone in their predicament.
The other Lavender was moving too. But instead of going towards the planet, it was moving closer to them.
He watched hopelessly as it got closer and closer. There was a part of him that wanted to reach out and push it away, but he didn’t have that sort of power. Soon the giant dome blocked out the view of the planet behind it, being close enough to touch. He thought for sure that a collision was about to happen, and he braced himself beneath his giant coat. But, at the last moment, the vessels shifted. Like a shark swimming past, the ships passed each other by, just inches apart.
Timothy had managed to stand to his feet, but found himself on his face again as the Lavender shifted to a stop.
Now the two Lavenders were side-by-side, like a couple holding hands at a park. They could see, just out of the edge of the dome, that the back end of the other ship was just in sight. A loud and reverberating thud resounded in the walls. Again, the room shifted, but then came to a deafening halt.
After a pause, Sophia felt it was safe to stand. Reaching down, she helped Timothy to his feet. The boy seemed dazed, with his chin already turning purple. “What the hell is happening?” The girl asked.
“Something bad.” Neil said, with a twitch of his eye. “I don’t like this… no, no, this can’t be good. We should go… we should leave.”
“You want us to just fly away again?” Sophia asked. “Not happening.”
The boy groaned and covered his ears. “If you start having this argument again, I’m going to rip my own head off! We’re in danger! Don’t you see? If that ship moved, then there’s probably somebody on it!”
Alex looked worried as he straightened his tie. “Maybe we can talk to them?”
“Or maybe they’ll bite our heads off the moment they see us?” Neil waved off the sentiment that he knew was about to come. “Say I’m paranoid all you want, but can you tell me I’m wrong?”
“But this could be our chance to get some answers! Don’t you want that?”
“I want to live more.”
Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack, click.
The noise sounded like two pieces of metal being slowly and repeatedly rubbed together. It was like someone was sharpening a blade or striking a piece of flint. Somehow, it was loud enough to get through the two massive metal doors that guarded the entrance to the dome room. Needless to say, it was a tad bit alarming.
“If I hear one more fucking weird noise, I swear to god.” Sophia said, her lips curling.
“We should go.” Neil repeated, his haggard eyes darting to his blond friend.
“I’m sorry, but I think we should stay.” Timothy replied, hating to disappoint. “If that was a distress signal, they could need our help!”
“Timbo, you have a real heart of gold, but that’s not how the world works.” The boy leaned back on his heels, like he was preparing to run. “You can’t expect people to be nice to you, ‘cuz that’s never gonna work in your favor. Nine times out of ten, being nice gets you stabbed in the back. I know you want to help people, but we need to do the smart thing here. Which, if I need to say again, is getting as far away from here as we can go.”
“But what about the one time?” He asked, a frown on his lips. “If there’s a chance we could help someone, then shouldn’t we take it?”
“Okay, everybody shut up.” Sophia snapped, clapping her hands. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. If there is anyone on the other Lavender, we’re going to go speak with them. If they’re nice, then great- wonderful. If they aren’t, then I have a gun. If everything goes to shit, then we run back in here and try to fly away. Does anyone have any objections?”
Alex couldn’t help but notice that she looked at him on that last part. “No. But that’s a lot of ‘ifs.’”
“Am I the only one that’s not insane?” Neil cried.
“No one is forcing you to do anything, alright?” Sophia said, clearly agitated. “I don’t like this as much as you do, but we’ve got to do something! You can sit here and hide if you want, and we’ll go do the rest.”
“That’s not…” he stammered. “You’re gonna get yourselves killed.”
“Well then, you can cover your ears when you hear us scream.” Alex remarked. “Alternatively, you can come help us.”
“Help you with what? Dying?” He shook his head. “I’m good here, thank you.”
Hearing his answer, the others looked at each other. “Let’s go.” Sophia said softly, the disappointment in her voice stinging.
Together, the three of them made their way to the doors. Using her strength, the girl pulled on the handle slowly. Tension filled the air as it swung open, and if there were any pens in the area, you could’ve heard them drop.
Alex started to leave, but Sophia raised her hand to stop him. She reached down and pulled the Blazer out of the ring on her jacket. It was impossible not to notice the look that Timothy gave her as she passed through the entryway.
The minutes passed by as slow as you could imagine. The angle of the door didn’t allow anyone to peek out and see what was happening, so all they could do was wait. Occasionally, they heard something shuffle around, and they tensed.
“Is she alright? Should we check?” Timothy asked.
“No, let her handle this.” Alex was quick to reply.
Footsteps sounded down the corridor, approaching them slowly. They leant back, prepping themselves in case it wasn’t who they were expecting. Neil’s heart took a lap as a hand reached through the door, but judging by the long green sleeves, they had nothing to worry about. The hand motioned for them to follow, and so they did.
Suddenly, Neil found himself alone. He felt like everyone had gone crazy, which was new to him. Normally, it was the other way around. It couldn’t be more obvious to him that their plan was a bad one. Yes, let’s go investigate the strange noise in the dark. He thought. While we’re at it, let’s split up! Surely that’s the best way to survive.
But as he stood there in silence, he came to a realization. He imagined a world where he stayed in this room, but then they never returned. He pictured himself cowering in a corner, and withering away as he wondered what had happened. Sure, dying quickly and violently was bad, but dying alone and afraid was worse.
Neil took a step forward, but then jumped back. This is so stupid…
But, as he hesitated, he felt something warm in one of his inside coat pockets. Holy shit, the gas canister! The memory of his little theft from the abandoned store on the Ring flooded back to him. He hadn’t known what it did when he had taken it, but now his bad decision must be coming back to bite him. It’s gonna explode, isn’t it?
His hand whipped around inside his coat, searching every one of his many secret compartments with haste. Soon he produced a little grey cylinder that was just small enough to fit in his hand. However, it was noticeably not warm. Even more confused, he returned it and continued the search.
Feeling a warm patch, he reached inside a rather large pocket and pulled out something else that was familiar. It was the goggles that Tim had gotten him, which was quite odd, considering that this type of eyewear isn’t typically served hot. He reached his fingers over the impractically large lenses and felt them. Sure enough, this was the source of the sensation.
“Weird.” The boy muttered to himself.
He had the urge to toss them away, but then a more reasonable idea occurred. Carefully, he raised the goggles to his eyes and peered through. It alarmed him to see that the dome room appeared to be glowing, and he did a double take to make sure that a star hadn’t appeared outside. Finally, it made sense to him what the strange spectacles were for.
Night vision! He thought with delight. Guess my pocket did the trick, huh?
It startled Neil to feel a smile spread across his lips. He had figured something out, and that hadn’t happened before. So much of his time felt spent on not understanding that it made this small victory seem mountainous. Proudly, he wrapped the goggles around the top of his head. Maybe this is the beginning of finally understanding what is going on here? He wondered. Shut up, don’t jinx it.
A courage unknown to him filled his soul as he took a step forward. Then came another, then another, and then another- you could even say he was walking. He reached the door and slipped through, not even caring to check if it was safe. Bounding down the corridors, he checked each room and hall, until he finally found where his friends were standing.
But then all the courage, all the hope and bravery, vanished in an instant.
His friends were standing at the end of a pair of hallways that jutted off from the main corridor like a t. It was the same one that Jenny McClain had broken into only days before. He knew that, normally, this path only led to a dead-end. But this wasn’t a normal occasion, because instead of a blank wall, there was an entryway.
Neil saw that the entryway led to a room that was almost identical to the hall that they were standing in. It was uncanny, and nearly a perfect match. But if the other Lavender was attempting a perfect replica, there were some flaws. First of all, the lights on the floor were dimmer, barely producing any glow at all. He could feel the hair on his skin bristle as a draft of coldness came through. It was much colder than the air he had become used to, and he shivered even under his massive coat.
He saw Sophia turn and look at him, but he was unsure if she was happy to see him or not. “Neil, don’t tell anybody that I said this, but I think you might have been right.”