by SJ Davis
“Faith,” I said as I rolled my eyes.
She grinned and opened one of her bars. She sniffed it, and then smiled at Grayson. “So how is it going here? I mean, I am sure it is totally different than what you are used to.”
Grayson grinned and glanced at me, then back to her.“Not so much. I mean, you would be surprised how similar our two races are.”
She laughed too loud and hard, it was annoying. I sighed and took another bite of my bar. I was not so much hungry, as just trying to speed up, and get done eating.
Suddenly, I felt them all breathing behind me. My entire squadron was huddled up and listening to Grayson as he spoke.
“Really?” I asked as I dropped my bar on my tray.
Grayson laughed and stood up, so did Faith, and I remained seated.
“So…on my planet…” he started to say, and they all climbed onto the table.
I was pushed to the edge, and then stood up. I shook my head and glanced at Grayson, nodding to him as he continued telling them about his home world, and what had happened to it — just as he had told me. I walked to the exit as my mother stopped in the large hallway and glanced into the mess hall. She saw Grayson speaking as my Dolls listened to his every word.
“He is quite intriguing,” she said.
I stopped and glanced back at him. “I guess,” I said. I was lying, but she did not need to know how I was feeling.
“Well, I have something I need to discuss with you.”
I stared at her as she simply walked on, forcing me to follow. We stepped into the situation room, and I looked around at the rows of communicators at their stations. A huge digital map of the Earth floated in the air in the center of the room with white and red ships on it. It rotated ever so slowly, and I saw clusters of ships. The enemy was mostly to the North Pole, with smaller fleets spread out on the planet to keep us busy. I walked up the banister, looking down at the rows of communicators at their stations, and then upward. We had so many, and yet, we still had not won the war.
Mother turned to me and looked me over. She reached out and touched my thick blonde braid that lay on my shoulder. It was strange to feel any compassion from her in public, she never did that, and it unnerved me to a certain degree.
“How are you feeling, Hope?” she asked me.
I narrowed my eyes, and she grinned, letting my braid fall.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her as she turned and placed both of her hands on the round metal banister.
She stared at the map of the world and then closed her eyes. Then she turned to me. “He must go back.”
I gripped the banister and turned to her as she refused to look at me. “What?”
“He needs to return to his people.”
“I don’t… I mean, why? I don’t understand, Mother. You told me to train him, and I have told him everything this past month. Told him of strategy, and how we fight… Sending him back would be a death sentence for him.”
She turned to me and touched my face. “No, it will be a death sentence for the enemy.”
I stepped back from her and looked her over. “What do you mean?” I said as her expression remained calm. I looked around the room, and suddenly realized that she had brought me into a public place for a reason. She had hoped to stop me from making a scene.
“What has always needed to be done, Hope.”
“No…no.” I said. I stepped back from her as the truth started to become clear.
“It took some time, but I was able to mutate the virus. I placed it in his food, and he is infected, Hope. He has to leave. He is a carrier now, and although it will not harm us, it will kill him and every one of his kind.”
I stumbled as I moved back from her, reaching out to steady myself with the banister. “How… Why? Why would you do this?”
She stepped towards me. “He is a gift, a new hope for us.”
“He was… He was a new hope for me,” I said before I realized it.
My mother tilted her head and reached out towards me. “Hope, you must understand, he is not a pet you can keep, he is the enemy. He is death, and he will end this war, once and for all. You must do your sworn duty to me, to the Paper Dolls, to this world, and return him to his people, so that he can fulfill his destiny.”
“His destiny was to be here with us.”
She stared me down as the realization started to settle into her heart. “You feel love for him, this is natural. But, Hope, I have taken his DNA. We can make males now. We can populate this world and go on forever.”
“You are a monster, Mother. You are as bad as his father is. It is not up to you who lives and who dies!”
“You need to shed the self-righteous attitude, Hope. You have killed many of his kind in battle. Do not act as if your hands are clean.”
“I was defending us, in something I believed in. I was not a part of a genocide.”
“You have no understanding of war.”
“I never want to again,” I said as I turned and ran.
She yelled out to me as I fled from the room. She waved a hand to two guards and they dashed out after me. I ran as fast as could, sound and time becoming blurred with my own tears.
How could I be so stupid to have trusted her? I almost slid past the entrance to the mess hall and stopped to see Grayson was still speaking to his adoring crowd. I stood there with my eyes wide, skin pale, and chest rising and falling faster than it ever had.
“Grayson, I need you to come with me…now,” I said loudly as I glanced behind me and saw the guards closing in. “Now!” I screamed, and my voice echoed in the hall.
He ran towards me. I reached out, grabbed his hand, and pulled him along with me. We ran down the large hall towards the bay where my fighter sat dormant. He looked at me, and glanced behind us as the guards yelled out for us to stop.
“I take it your mother is no longer my friend,” he said to me, but I refused to speak.
I was upset and needed to focus. If I did not get him away from there, I was sure she would simply send him back, dead or alive, and infect his people with him. I had to get him away from there, from her, and keep him away from his people.
We ran into the bay, and I spotted my fighter. I tried to pull us towards it, but he jerked me along with him to the left, and we ran down to his own. He pushed me upward as the guards entered the bay and raised their weapons, training them on Grayson. He stopped and turned to face them as they slowed about twenty-feet out from his position. He raised his hands slowly as they continued to yell at him to get down on his knees, raise his hands over his head, and surrender.
I held onto the ladder as tightly as I could. They did not bother with me. I was not the prize, he was. He was the one true weapon my mother had created after years of trying to figure out how to destroy the enemy. I knew that all of her hatred for them was now inside of Grayson.
“Down, now!” one of the guards screamed at him.
He started to lower, and as he did, I noticed a strange glow in his hands. At first, it was a pale light, then it started to pulsate, and finally, it brightened. The light became almost as blinding as the sun, as he slammed his palms into the floor. A pulse ran along it, and once it reached the two guards, they became frozen in time, sparks of lights tracing around them. He stood up as I stared at them in horror.
“What the hell?” I said to him as he grinned.
“I have a lot of energy stored in my body, we all do.”
“I see that.”
The sound of yelling and more footsteps reached us from down the large hall towards the bay. “We have to go, now,” I said to him as I climbed up the ladder and immediately took my place in the co-pilot’s seat.
Grayson climbed in after me, and the glass materialized above our heads. He started up his fighter, and we lifted, hovering a few feet from the bay floor. He turned the ship,
and armed it as my mother ran in. She stopped, the wind from the fighter pushing back on her and the Paper Dolls who gathered behind her. He narrowed his eyes as I reached up and touched his shoulder. His weapons directly aimed at all of them.
“Please…please don’t.” I pleaded.
He hesitated, and then turned the ship. We flew out of the bay and into the open sky, hitting a speed I had never seen before as Grayson took us as far away from my home, and that of my deceptive mother, as he could.
***
We flew for hours. It seemed as if he would never stop, and was perhaps working it all out in his mind, as was I. We had been pawns in a war that we never started, and should have never been a part of. My unexpected feelings for him had not made me weak, and the Hope I had been just a month and a half prior had changed to one that better suited the name that I’d been given. Oddly enough, a name that my father had chosen for me.
I’d had no idea that my mother was so hateful. I had known she wanted peace, and for the war to end, but to do something so sinister when Grayson had come to her with a white flag in hand was despicable. I wanted to hate her, I wanted to shed anything in myself that remotely reminded me of being her daughter, but I would forever be hers, just as Grayson was his father’s son. We could not kill off where we came from, but we could control where we were headed.
We landed in the deep caverns in Colorado. They had once served for shelter, but once the water had run dry, the Grand Canyon had been abandoned. We slowly descended deeper and deeper into the Earth, until the light was dim and the temperature was cooler. I had always enjoyed the sunlight and the fresh air, once we had emerged and began to fight back, but for the first time in forever, I was happy to be hidden away from it all — deep underground and with Grayson at my side.
The ship landed, and I watched as the glass dissolved above us. It was then that I heard Grayson cough. I undid my straps and stood up, tapping him on the shoulder, and he turned to smile at me. I was so glad to see that. I was afraid it had begun…the sickness that my mother had given to him.
He stood up after undoing his own harness and stepped over the edge of the ship. He climbed down, but stopped as he held a hand out to me. I took it, this time not in desperation to pull him along, but to accept his kindness and willingness to help me descend. He stepped off, and then to the side, placing his hands on my sides and lifting me with little to no effort from the side of the fighter. He lowered me slowly as I stared into his eyes.
He looked tired, and I could not blame him. The spark I had seen in him the past month as we had bonded was almost extinguished, as was my own. My mother had effectively tried to ruin any hopes of peace. He held me there, and I leaned into his chest, resting my ear against it and listening to his heartbeat. It sounded just like my own.
I closed my eyes and whispered to him, “I am so sorry,”
He pulled me closer and held me there. He lifted one hand and placed it on the back of my head, and I leaned back, staring up into his red eyes, not so foreign or distrusted now. He looked me over, finally settling his eyes onto my lips.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked.
My heart fluttered in my chest. Of course, he could kiss me. I knew what kissing was, but I had never done it before. All Paper Dolls knew about kissing, we had gossiped as we’d grown up — as all girls do. In fact, we had practiced kissing on each other…or many had. I had not. I don’t know why, perhaps I did have hope that someday I would kiss someone who meant to me what my mother meant to my father.
I nodded as he leaned in, his soft lips pressing against my own. A tiny moan rolled up in the back of my throat, unexpected, but welcoming. His arms tightened around me, and my heartbeat sped up, as did his own. I sank into him, reaching up, and placing my arms around his neck. His kisses became more passionate, until finally, his lips parted my own and his tongue slipped inside my mouth. It caught me off guard, but the pleasure of it outweighed the fear of not knowing what would happen next.
We started to lower to the ground as he reached between us and unzipped my white Paper Doll flight jumper. Once he had it open, his hand slipped inside and cupped my right breast as his hungry kisses continued on.
His seduction was an easy one, seeing that I had never been with anyone before, let alone a male. My natural lust started to take over — something centuries old and instilled in any being. I unzipped his jumper as he slid mine over my shoulders, keeping his tongue inside my mouth. I knew we were both upset, so I had no intention of stopping unless he wanted to.
I stood up and pulled my jumper off, standing there in my underwear and bra. He looked up at me and leaned forward. His hands rested on my hips, and his soft lips gently kissed my flat stomach. My muscles contracted, and he grinned as he continued to kiss my skin.
I reached down and placed my hand under his chin, and he rose, once again towering over me. He lifted me up into his arms and carried me to the edge of a natural spring. One that had bubbled up on its own, with clean water, crystal clear in nature, and warm to the touch. He stepped into it, walking until the water was up to his hips and set me down, it felt so good against my skin, as good as he felt against me.
I reached behind me and undid my bra, taking it off and letting it float to the bottom of the spring at our feet. I covered myself until he gently touched my hands, and I moved them, okay with him looking at my body. Something I never thought about before, but with him, I wanted him to see me, every part of me. In that moment, all I could think of was love.
He stepped up and wrapped his arms around me, and I stared up into his red eyes and wanted him more than I have ever wanted anything before.
“Are you sure?” he said very quietly.
I nodded to him, and he leaned in. As his kisses became harder, his passion ignited, as did my own. He pulled us out into deeper water, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. I felt him guide himself into me, and my head fell back, half with pleasure and a bit of pain. I welcomed it, and it became easier as he pulled me onto him, and back out. My mouth opened and he watched my expression, his own that of passion and willingness to please me. He kissed me, his moaning becoming louder and louder as he thrust forward, and back again. I moved my hips, rotating them until we created a rhythm that I could not break.
The first orgasm rose quickly, starting between my legs, spreading out to my thighs, and racing along my stomach. I cried out as he held me as tightly as he could and felt me tighten on his hardened cock. I had never experienced anything like it, but as soon as it disappeared, I could think of nothing but making it happen again.
I slid down from him and moved back to the rocky shoreline. I stepped out of the water and turned back, the little bit of light that found its way into the cavern glistening on my skin and making me look as if I may be sparkling.
He slowly walked towards me and as he rose from the water, I could see his body, hard and toned, abs rolling down his stomach and ending at a perfectly shaped V. It led to his cock, which was still erect and large. I could feel a humming between my legs. I wanted him back inside of me.
“You are so beautiful, Hope.”
I sighed as he stepped up to me and we lowered to the rock below us, where we made love well into the night until sleep overtook us.
***
The weeks that followed were pure bliss, Grayson seemed okay, although my fear of him becoming sick started to invade my dreams. I would wake up in a sweat and crying out. I always played it off as nightmares of war, but they were actually nightmares of losing him — the one thing I felt compelled to protect above all others.
He gathered food, and we ate as he had his whole life. I found being a vegetarian was not as bad as I thought it would be. Then, one night, he started to cough, and it did not go away. Instead, it got worse, and we both tried to ignore what it was, but my greatest fear had come to be. The virus had finally taken a hold of him, and my thoughts raced, trying
to think of what I could possibly do to stop it.
I dipped some material in the water and walked back to him as he lay in the makeshift bed we had constructed for ourselves in the cavern. I leaned in and touched his brow, careful not to wake him. I sat down and placed the back of my hand to his cheek, feeling the fever. It was rising, and he was burning up, it would not be long. I had not tended to the men dying when the virus started to kill them off one by one, but I knew that the end would be violent and he would suffer, as had every male before him.
He opened his eyes and looked at me. I smiled, or tried to. The happiness I had once felt was being eaten alive by his sickness — a cruel twist of fate. I mean, after a few weeks, I thought perhaps he was immune, perhaps he would not get sick, but I had been fooling myself.
“I forgive her,” he said.
I started to cry, and he reached up and touched my cheek, wiping away the tears. I shook my head and placed my hand onto his.
“If we had not come here, this would have never happened. It was my father’s fault, and you cannot outrun your lineage, Hope.”
I bit my bottom lip and stared at him. I touched his hair and moved it from his forehead. His skin shimmered in the dull light in the cavern.
“This was not our doing. It was their war, not ours.”
He grinned at me and started to cough. A little bit of blood stained his teeth and I wiped his forehead with the damp cloth, trying to ignore it.
I watched him until he fell asleep that night, and when I awakened he was not in the bed. I stood up in a panic and turned to see him at his fighter. He had placed his jumper back on and was holding onto the ladder. I called out to him and ran as fast as I could as he started to climb. In his weakened state, I had no idea how he managed it, but by the time I reached the fighter and started to climb, he’d activated the glass bubble above him. I slammed my fists against it as he looked at me.
“Grayson, please…. Please open this up. I can come with you. I can…please do not leave me.”
His eyes had started to fade. The red was paler, as was his skin. He reached up and placed his hand against the glass, against my own with a barrier between us. One he had sealed.
