“All done,” the mother lifted the cotton, and the little girl ran off of the couch. Taylor followed her around as she climbed the stairs into her room.
This house was unsurprisingly an exact mirror image of the other one, which made sense because most of these house complexes were planned that way.
She did her regular, ‘I am a ghost and I will go through your door’ thing but this time instead of a quiet, dim-lit room, she found a bright blue one filled with stars on the walls, and planets hanging from the ceilings. The little girl herself was sitting up on her bed, with a rather large book titled, “Disney princesses.”
Taylor focused her gaze on the little girl. She looks really familiar, she thought.
The girl’s face distorted a bit, breaking Taylor’s concentration. She blinked a few times to make sure she was okay. She could have sworn she saw the girl’s face appear for just a few seconds.
Freaky, she thought.
She focused again, fixing her gaze on the little girl and wracking her brains to find out why she was so familiar.
Princesses, long hair, she thought.
The girl’s face slowly resurfaced like an image that was slowly coming into view. Locks of long golden hair flowed down her back like water from an opened dam. Taylor’s eyes widened, and her heart clenched. She knew who this was.
“Taylor? Come down for lunch!” the lady’s voice yelled from below.
She’d been looking at herself all along.
***
There was no mistaking it. The girl was her.
Taylor couldn’t believe it. Just what was going on?
The door banged open and her mother stood in the doorway, “You’ll starve if you don’t come down right now.”
Little Taylor peeked out of the book, “Five more minutes, please?” she made, what Taylor now realized, was a pretty bad puppy face.
“If you don’t come down to eat quickly then you’ll have less time to go play with him.”
“He’s sulking already.”
“This early in the day? The poor child has a tough life. Maybe you should go invite him over to have lunch with us.”
“I don’t think he’d like it very much.”
“Doesn’t hurt to try does it?” her mother smiled.
The little girl put her book down, “Fine, I’ll go. But I’m sure it isn’t going to help.”
An ear-cracking sound blasted through the air, shattering the windowpanes and shaking the cupboard drawers open. The pictures on the wall crashed to the floor one after the other, as though they were playing a ‘who can survive the longest’ game.
Little Taylor ran to the broken window, “MOM!” she threw her arms out the window. Taylor followed little Taylor’s tiny fingers towards the house right opposite.
At least it used to look like a house. Now it was just a splinter of wooden beams burning up in a huge red flame.
The mother rushed out, probably to call for help.
Taylor just stood by the window along with a stunned version of her past self. She was a ghost, there was nothing she could do to affect this world, a mere spectator to the events that took place.
A fast speck of brown caught her eye.
A young boy, probably fourteen or fifteen years old, ran towards the house, his brown hair blowing all over the place. She wanted to yell at him, tell him it was hopeless, that there was no way he was going to save any people trapped inside. But there was no way her trying to warn him would change anything. The boy jumped through the half collapsed doorway, and disappeared within the red flames and dusky smoke.
Taylor clenched her teeth and stared hard at the flames, hoping to see a shadow moving behind them. A minute passed, then two, then five. Still no sign of the older boy or the younger one.
The loud noise of a siren came to a stop as a fire truck screeched to halt right in front of the building. A swarm of men in fluorescent vests and heavy coats ran about, swiftly setting up the hose.
The water pump had just turned on, and another explosion set off inside the house, pieces of lit wood dancing about the flames in a tribal dance. The firemen scattered around completely confused. Some tried to avoid the rain of flaming debris, and others tried to put out what was left of the fire.
Taylor didn’t avert her gaze from the blast. Something about it seemed odd. The house exploded completely, not imploded. In most situations, structural damage or gas explosions would only implode, which meant this wasn’t an accidental explosion.
Someone had triggered it on purpose. And she had a hunch that that kid had something to do with it.
Little Taylor ran downstairs after the second blast and Taylor followed her down.
Her mother stood in the doorway and little Taylor hugged her tightly. The two of them just gazed at the fire as though they knew they couldn’t do anything either.
Taylor walked past them without as much as a glance at their faces.
Their lawn was black in places where the debris had landed, and the road was filled with the remains of burnt wooden splinters.
In the aftermath of the explosions, Taylor heard loud clanging sounds come from inside her own house. Her mother and little Taylor heard it as well, and ran inside.
Taylor followed them into the kitchen, and saw two bodies lying on the floor, with an armada of utensils and pans covering them.
She didn’t know if they were dead or alive until she saw one of the bodies move the metal pans from over it. A familiar brown haired kid popped his head up from under the pile.
“Carlos!” little Taylor hugged and almost instantly pulled away, yelling in pain.
“Yeah, my clothes might be a little too hot from the fire,” He smiled.
“You idiot,” she said.
Carlos? Taylor thought. This couldn’t be the Carlos she knew could it? Did they ever live that close to each other? She faintly recalled that his family had moved here, but she didn’t remember why.
Her mother pushed the pans off the other body and lifted it up in the air.
“He’s fine. No burns at all,” Carlos said. “Took the fire a while to get to his room. Anyway, why do you have so many pots and pans in here? We could have died if we were hit by a knife or something else.”
“We need a lot of pans to make pasta primavera,” Little Taylor said.
“Sure you do,” he laughed.
“I’ll get Q cleaned up,” her mom took the younger boy away.
Q, Taylor thought, Why does that name sound so familiar? She couldn’t recollect where she’d heard it before. She knew she recognized the name, she just didn’t get the context, and she was sure it had nothing to do with the alphabet.
TAYLOR WAKE UP!
A voice reverberated through the air, and the house shook violently. Little Taylor and Carlos kept about their conversation as though nothing were going on.
A loud crunch sounded behind her and she turned around to see the front of the house slowly break away. Running out seemed a pretty bad idea. She looked out the window.
The entire area around her seemed to be breaking apart. Large chunks of wood broke off from the houses and flew into the sky, disappearing in the glare of the sun. The roads cracked open and a wave of mud shot towards the debris-filled skies.
She tried to hide somewhere in the house and then saw that the place was gone. More than half of the place had disappeared, and the rest seemed eager to go away as well, plenty of planks floating away into the air.
There were no signs of any life left in her surroundings.
Her heart strained with each beat, and her hands turned clammy.
A piece of wood swung by her and slammed her into the wave of mud.
“That isn’t supposed to happen,” she mumbled.
And the world disappeared.
***
2-2
It had hardly been ten minutes since Taylor went into the coma when loud alarms started blaring.
“What’s going on?” Q asked.
Carlos turned to
the white haired man who was busy watching Taylor’s vitals fluctuate.
“Dr.Haze,” he said.
The man turned around, “Oh I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
Carlos sighed, “The alarms. What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure but if it were something serious then security would have notified us.”
“And if security itself has been compromised?”
“That’d be a big problem then. Yes indeed.”
Q noticed a small, fire-like speck behind the clear wall on the other side of the room. And then another, and another. Slowly the specks became larger and larger.
“I don’t think we need security to confirm what’s going on,” he pointed to the walls.
The ships had now come into clear view, and one by one, they flew past the glass. Carlos’ eyes widened. He seemed to know what those ships were.
“Get her out of the coma,” he told Dr.Haze and ran towards the wall.
He punched a button on the intercom system and talked into it.
“Calling all personnel, enemy has breached the main grounds. Around twenty level-B ships with twin platinum blasters and hydrogen-helium drive. Activate all anti-spacecraft measures.”
“Wouldn’t security already know what’s happening? They did sound the alarm didn’t they?” Q asked.
“Yes, computer systems are programmed to sound the alarms if a ship of at least Level-C warfare classification breaches the safety line. They’ll take longer to classify the ships, and that might ruin their chances,” he walked to Taylor’s side. “How long will it take to get her out of it?”
“Her brain waves aren’t very responsive which means she’s too far into it to be pulling her out so quickly.”
“If you don’t pull her out we’re all going to die.”
“The security can fend off the enemy, but if we pull her out of the coma we’re almost assuring she becomes affected mentally.”
“Dr.Haze, right now there are at least twenty Level-B ships out there, and a single Level-B is capable of destroying skyscrapers on its own. Do you think your security has a chance against twenty of them?”
Q watched quietly as the doctor sighed and placed his palm on one of the screens.
The screen scanned his fingerprints, and the metal arms surrounding Taylor retracted back in a moment.
Dr.Haze felt her hand, “No increased pulse, and no irregularities.”
“Does that mean she’s okay?” Q asked.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never pulled someone out of a coma this quickly.”
The loud sounds of gunfire against gunfire rang through the air. Red smoke and flashes of light illuminated the sky beyond the clear windows.
“The only thing between us and everything else is a clear glass.”
A loud crunch assaulted Q’s ears and the next thing he knew he was in a rainstorm of shredded glass.
A large pill shaped carrier had crashed into the room. A sturdy man back flipped from inside and landed perfectly on his feet.
His helmet hissed as he took it off, “Didn’t expect to see the kid here,” his deep voice said. A familiar disfigured smile greeted Q.
“Hello, lovebirds.”
***
When Taylor opened her eyes, she was certain she wasn’t anywhere close to reality. The biker she’d thrown earlier stood opposite Carlos and that boy called Q. She was pretty sure she was hallucinating until she saw the biker turn towards her and give her his disgusting smile one more time.
Reality is screwed up, she thought.
“Old man, you’re not going anywhere,” the biker glared behind Taylor.
“Elevesta,” she heard a word uttered from behind her.
The biker was struck down to the floor immediately, his breathing becoming more rapid and strained.
The white haired man walked to the biker, “You, Sir, need to stand down else I’ll be forced to-”
“ARRRGHH,” the biker charged into the man, plummeting into the wall and cracking it in the process. There was no question the man had been knocked unconscious.
Taylor clenched her fists, which was pretty hard to do because whatever had happened to her had made her muscles weak.
“Stand down,” Carlos said.
“Or what?” the biker smirked, “You’re going to take me out? NOT HAPPENING BUDDY.”
He charged at Carlos, who jumped out of the way in time. The biker crashed into the wall causing that whole section to collapse over him.
He turned to Taylor, “That probably gave us enough time to get you out of here. We need to go before this guy-”
“AAAAAARGH,” the debris from the collapse flew through the air, as though it had just been in an explosion, and in the center of it all stood the biker, his arms flexing in and out. Everyone watched in near horror as he slowly grew in size, almost doubling his height.
Carlos turned back towards him, his eyes showing a little more focus and concern this time.
“You,” he said. “What exactly are you?”
“I’m just a poor, widdle biker who’s about to knock your brains out,” he said and coolly strode towards Carlos, who was braced for action.
“Or,” the biker stopped. “I’d rather take out someone weaker.”
For a big guy he shifted his weight pretty quickly, and in a flash he was a few yards away from Taylor. She tried to move the muscles in her legs but she was still far too weak to get up.
“HERE I COME!” he yelled, bloodlust written all over his face.
She waited until the last second and rolled over, dropping hard to the floor.
The biker smashed into the machine, which surprisingly handled the blow with a mere dent.
The metal arms extended from the ceiling and in seconds had the biker sedated.
“You’re welcome,” the white-haired man walked towards them.
“Well done, Dr.Haze,” Carlos smiled.
“When you handle personality disorders as much as I do you’re prepared for a little brute force.”
“This guy wasn’t just brute force,” he said. “He’s a Corein giant. Never thought we’d meet one here.”
“But we saw him back on Earth,” Q said, his voice showing he was completely confused at what was going on.
Taylor couldn’t blame the kid. She didn’t regain her memories of the supposed times she’d spent with him, but sure could empathize with how he was feeling. The first time she’d been introduced to all this she’d been just as confused. She felt a small prick in her brain, and the pain escalated in seconds, making her feel like a knife was stabbing her head.
“Ahhhhh,” She clutched onto her head and flailed about on the floor.
Light and sound disappeared from all around her. All she could see was darkness, and all she could hear were the sounds of her own screams.
***
Q froze the moment the first screams came out of Taylor’s lips.
“Bring her here, boy,” Dr.Haze said. He lifted her up and lay her on the dented metal bed.
“What’s happening to her?”
“She’s going into a coma,” he said, activating his metal arm-bots to check up her vitals. “I told you her body wouldn’t be able to take post-coma stress.”
“Is it because she fell?”
“No, it wouldn’t be that simple,” he said. “She’s probably regaining memories of you, which would be ideal if she were in a coma, but regaining memories in a non-coma state puts too much pressure on her mind, and that leads to a Coma.”
“So she’s like that because she’s remembering things from before?” Q asked, a little hopefully. Maybe his Taylor would come back soon.
“Exactly, but the problem is, if she manages to go into a coma by herself it’s harder to bring her out.”
“Shouldn’t we be trying to prevent that then?” Q asked. He didn’t like that this doctor was talking so nonchalantly in what he considered to be quite a serious situation.
“If it only were so simple, my boy,
” he said. “All I can do now,” he snatched a syringe from a metal arm-bot and injected it into her arm “This will make her brain relax by sedating her. The rest, she’ll have to do on her own.”
Loud blasts from outside increased in frequency, the sounds louder now because of the cracked wall and broken windows.
“How long is she going to be like this?” Carlos asked.
“It might take weeks for her to come out of the coma, and that’s considering-”
Taylor coughed hard, and her eyes fluttered open.
“-or it could take five minutes. Either way.”
“Where am I?” Taylor asked.
“The healing center,” Q said. “S.P.A.C.E.”
“We need to get out of here,” Carlos strode towards them, “NOW.”
“What about this guy?” Dr.Haze poked the Corein giant in the arm.
“You’ve got him properly sedated haven’t you?” Carlos asked.
Dr.Haze nodded, and poked the guy in the arm again, “Sleeping like a baby.”
“Then he won’t be bothering us. Right now we need to figure out how we’re getting out of here. The security room has been compromised, and I have no idea how many more sections have been taken out.”
“Do we know if the hangar is unstable?” Taylor asked.
Q found it a bit surprising she was able to shift her thinking towards this so easily. But then again, the situation they were in needed everyone to focus on the problem at hand.
“Security didn’t know about the hangar’s stability, and I can’t see anything from up here either. But for now I’d say the hangar is our only choice.”
“I guess we know what to do then?” Q asked meekly.
Taylor smiled, “Yes we do.”
“Is your body feeling better?” Dr.Haze asked.
“Yeah, waaay better. What did you give me?”
“I just relieved your brain stress for the coma, and coincidentally it helps relieve pain too,” he said. “But honestly I didn’t think an Earth drug would work this well.”
“Wait. What kind of drug?”
The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5 Page 7
