The Yarian Chronicles: Second Life

Chapter 12

 I took a moment to compose myself. I went into the bathroom and splashed my face with some cold water to remove the puffiness under my eyes from the crying and took a deep breath. I could hear Xan knocking on the door.

"Come in!" I yelled behind me, as I took one more deep breath and dried my face.

Xan slipped in behind me, wrapping his arms around me and kissed me on my forehead.

"I'm sorry for being so callous. You have to understand though, you and V are my main concern."

"I know. I'm sorry for being unreasonable." I turned around and gave him a big hug. He held me tight against himself.

"I hope you don't mind hon, but we've really got to run. If we're going to make it back in time for your semi-girl's night tomorrow we have to go now."

"Go where?" I was extremely confused. The argument had turned me upside down.

"Well...first we have to go pick up your clothes.."

"Oh yeah! Kind of need those..."I interrupted looking down at my crumpled outfit.

"And we need to go make that international phone call we talked about last night."

"Wait. What?"

"You know, the phone call..." Xan stared right into my eyes.

Call home... you know? He added in his thoughts.

"Wait, that's actually possible? I thought you were joking. Why didn't you just say that in the first place? "

"You never know who's listening."

"Right, right. Evil aliens coming to kill us. How could I ever forget." I rolled my eyes dramatically.

Before I knew it all three of us were packed up in the car. We stopped quickly at my house to pick up my overnight bag. I looked tentatively outside, before I ran inside as fast as my legs would carry me. My bag was just inside by the front door. I peeked inside to make sure nothing was forgotten; toothbrush, underwear, clothes, book, phone charger. Everything was there.

The house was silent. Both my mom and dad had already left for work. There was a note on top of my bag, saying there was a birthday cake from the dinner in the fridge for us. My mom wanted me to take it, since I didn't get a piece the night before. I took the tinfoil wrapped cake, a few napkins, and some plastic forks and put it in a plastic grocery bag. I wrote a quick note thanking them for the clothes and cake, and assured them that we were safe.

We all piled back into the car and were on our way; to where I couldn't be sure. Xan took the highway going south, and drove straight for what seemed to be hours without stopping. I was in and out of consciousness. There was something about the lines on the highway that just seemed to mesmerize me. Verena was in the back seat, staring out into the distance as had become her norm in the past day. The scenery outside my window began to change from green acreages to a golden dusty desert, with an almost mars-like landscape. We drove down a road with large, what seemed like, craters on either side of us. We eventually stopped in front of a visitor's center.

"Ok ladies. We're here."

"Where exactly is here?" I asked.

"It's a Provincial Park. Don't you travel around this beautiful province of yours?"

"Yeah, just not here. And what exactly are we doing in a Provincial Park?"

"We're calling for reinforcements."

"Where exactly would we be calling them from? Is there some intergalactic phone booth here no one knows about or something?"

"Our ship of course."