The eight long tables served as a gathering place for students to eat crappy food and let off steam, but in the dark they stretched like rows in a graveyard, forever staining Nikki’s memories with nightmare fuel.

Several of their unit closed their eyes to the bodies, but Nikki knew they could see it behind their lids. She certainly could.

The entire time they absorbed the horrific sight, they held a collective breath. Their lungs forced them to breathe, reluctantly. Nikki wasn’t sure which smell hit her first. The sickly sweet scent of blood or the burnt discount food from this morning. Everyone pulled either their arm, hand, or shirt over their nose and mouth. They groaned and gasped.

John took too deep a breath, fell to his knees, and retched.

The sounds of another person vomiting cost Nikki her self-control. Though, unlike John, she found the nearest waste container, and lost her breakfast there.

Everything was too much. How could the invaders kill so many people? And how was Nikki spared but for the grace of Rayne?

“Jesus Christ,” Kyle murmured against his arm.

Rayne closed her eyes tight and held the back of her hand under her nose. At Nikki’s side, she coached, “Take small gulps of air.”

Too much.

It was all too much.

When Nikki looked up, Rayne recoiled but recovered quickly. “Nikki, you can’t afford a panic attack right now. Come back!”

{October 2004}

Nikki’s mental retreat paled compared to its usual splendor. The man of her dreams sat across from her puffy chair on his rock throne with a frown.

This bothered Nikki because he knew full well how the stern treatment from her parents unsettled her. She told him when he first appeared two years ago. Around the same time, she took an interest in a freshman girl with black hair and shocking blue eyes.

Nikki loved Rayne’s hair.

To the man in her dreams, she whined, “What is it?”

Nox sounded sullen as he said, “Your mind is elsewhere. It’s not here with me.”

True. Thoughts of Rayne were distracting Nikki.

Nox growled.

She stammered as she asked, “Wh-What’s wrong?”

Nox stood and rolled Nikki out of her chair, and the dreamscape rolled with her. She lay on a rough, earthen floor with a massive black fire beside her.

“Where are we?! You’ve never taken me here before!” Nikki’s voice trembled, and she tried to steady herself on her knees.

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“Silence!”

Nikki went stone still.

Nox stood before her, unveiled. An icy chill shot down her spine. Nikki closed her eyes. Her blond lashes laced tight.

Wake up. Just wake up. It’s a dream.

There was so much finality in Nox’s rich baritone as he said, “It is more than a dream, and you’ve always known that.”

Nikki’s eyes snapped open and locked onto the face she’d never seen until now. His long hair brushed against his forearms and ribs.

Terrified of pain, her voice carried an edge of desperation. “Will you hurt me?”

Nox knelt down in a motion so sudden it made her flinch, but he only brushed against her hair and cupped her face, saying, “Not I. Look into the fire. Look and see what you fear to know.”

Nikki trusted him. She did. He gave her advice on everything from what part-time job to get to what colleges she should apply to. She got into every one of them, and the job she worked qualified as valuable experience on those applications. Nikki needed to trust Nox.

Slowly, as if afraid to take her eyes off him, Nikki turned and looked into the blaze. The images she saw there took her breath away.

Rayne sat at the lunchroom table beside Nikki. They both looked content. But when Nikki looked away, Rayne peered at a table on the far side of the white-washed space. Sagan sat there searching the room. When she caught Rayne’s eyes they both exchanged a smile Nikki had never seen from either of them until now.

It glowed radiantly, and their eyes shone in equal brilliance. In love. They were in love. Before Nikki or Justin turned back and caught them, both girls glanced away. The moment ended as quickly as it started. Heart broken, Nikki wanted to squeeze her eyes shut and turn away.

But the images went on.

The next scene took place in this very cavern. Nikki recognized the rough dirt floor and the fire blazing away. Bare limbs peeked through the dancing of the black flames.

Nikki made out Nox’s bare backside. His long hair was swept aside. There was some motion, like he was moving. And then the sounds finally reached her.

Oh, it was those kinds of movements. Why would Nox share his sex life with Nikki? Such a terribly intimate scene. She opened her mouth to ask him, when the face of the woman appeared over his shoulder.

Dampness matted her black hair to her face. Pale skin beaded with sweat from the heat and exertion. Nikki need not see her eyes to guess their color.

The girl kissed Nox long and deep. Her satisfied moans echoed from across the vast chamber. Their kiss ended. Rayne’s eyes opened and looked right at Nikki, startling her.

Nikki shut her eyes tight. She couldn’t take much more.

When she opened them again, the latest scene choked a scream in her throat. Nikki laid face up, her mouth open in a never-ending scream, and her pale-blue eyes glazed over in death.

The initial horror subsided, and Nikki leaned closer to discern the cause of her future death. She was the same age as now. So, no comfort there. Bruises streaked her body. She glimpsed a terrible sight under her loose blouse and forced her eyes closed.

Nikki would die in agony. She gagged, and the fire took the image away. A small mercy.

“I don’t understand. Why did you show me those awful things?” Her voice was devoid of hope.

Nox said, “To protect you.”

Nikki glared at him. “Protect me?!”

He assured in a gentle, reasonable tone, “Every single image is avoidable. Do you want to know how?”

“Yes! Yes, of course!”

“Let Rayne go.”

“What?!” No. Nikki wasn’t about to do that. She loved Rayne. Although…

In that same reasonable tone, Nox said, “Let her go. She isn’t and won’t be faithful to you.”

“But I love her,” Nikki argued, her voice weak.

Nox shrugged. “She didn’t appear to reciprocate those feelings.”

Nikki said, “You don’t know. You know nothing about how relationships work!”

He offered, “I believe relationships are in actions like that smile shared between Rayne and Sagan. Or passionate like her efficacious liaison with me.”

Nikki wasn’t the most secure teenage girl to begin with. Add a realistic image of an interaction between two exes and a dash of crazy sex scene with a handsome alien King, and some doubt might worm its way in. “I don’t understand the third scene,” she whispered, defeated.

Nox said, “Simple. You avoid that end entirely if you avoid Rayne. You will never know that kind of pain.”

Ashamed of her weakness, Nikki hung her head.

Nox leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on her pale hair.

“I love her,” Nikki sniffled.

“We all do.”