Operation S.A.L.V.A.T.I.O.N.

Chapter 4

LOCATION, ERA, DATE, TIME

ALL UNKNOWN

The whirring of hydraulics brings Lantroupa back to the real world. Her head jerks painfully and she stares out the slowly lowering door with bleary eyes. All the white around her still throws off her senses, making it hard to judge distance, but as the gap of the door opens wider, she can make out a few other colors outside, mostly greys and creams but also some red. That is until a loud group of soldiers dressed in black clatter up the ramp and swarm her, effectively blocking her view of anything but their uniforms.

She's pushed harshly against the wall and a dark hood gets thrown over her face, the ends wrapped tightly around her throat and secured, partially blocking her airway and making her eyes sting as she fights with the fabric against her mouth and nose. Panic shoots up in her chest as she struggles to draw a decent breath. She tries pushing it down, not noticing that the metal band around her is being released. She hits the smooth ground with a hard thud and immediately scrambles to her hands and knees, clawing at her throat and blindly striking out at the guards. She hits something, which feels like a leg, but then receives a hard boot in the ribs in retaliation. 

An agonized grunt rips from her throat without her leave  and tears sting her eyes at the further loss of air. Her arms are forced behind her back and tied harshly together, as are her ankles. Then she's picked up and hauled off.

Although she's bound, she keeps struggling, moving every available muscle in an attempt to get free. Trying is better than nothing. She's rewarded by a slight grunt from one of the guards but their grip doesn't slip--if anything it gets tighter.

A frustrated groan escapes her lips. What little of the lighting she can see through the black fabric of the hood changes from a blinding white to a softer tone. She must be outside the belly of the ship. 

Lantroupa changes tactics, pausing her struggles and drawing deep breaths to recover, but it's still a fight. She waits for a few painfully long seconds before feeling the guards' grip on her limbs relax. 

Now!

She wrenches her shoulder up and to the side, effectively creating enough space between her hands to pull one of them free and jerking away from the guard at her shoulder at the same time. Her hand goes immediately to her throat, frantically tearing at the fabric and managing to get it loose. She rips the hood from her head in a scrambling flurry of limbs, hardly able to take in the scene around her. The guards, many of the same government aircraft parked on the smooth flooring, some white-coated people farther away. She tries gaining her feet but forgot they're still tied. 

Hopeless tears sting her eyes and run down her cheeks as she falls, the guards piling on top of her and pinning her down. Through her blurry vision, her gaze falls on a metal cage sitting outside one of the aircraft, in the middle of the white coats. And in the cage...

Her breath hitches as her eyes lock onto bright copper ones. They're hypnotizing, with something in their gaze that she can't place. They belong to a beautiful creature with feline form, dark undertone of its fur enveloped in a sickly green hue that moves and shimmers with every tremble. The creature lies on its side convulsing, eyes never blinking and never leaving hers.

Then as quickly as it came, the moment ends as the hood gets thrown back over her head. Just before she's swallowed in darkness once again, she sees the creature's eyes close.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

BASE STARDUST

A.D. 3267

March 22nd

0:19

Mathias wanders through his kitchen, heading to bed. He can't stop the thoughts that swirl through his brain, not letting him rest quite yet. The events of the hanger keep playing on repeat. 

The ship landing, the convulsing creature, the early package. 

It's a girl. The package is a girl, a mere child, a human.

He doesn't know why he was expecting any different. It's not like the government hasn't tried anything like this before, but still. Something didn't sit quite right with this whole thing. 

Mathias scrubs a frustrated hand over his face and huffs a quiet breath.

And then there was the struggle, one which she'd almost won surprisingly enough. He'd been impressed, then she got rid of the hood and her eyes...

Her eyes were the most beautiful yet terrifying thing he'd ever seen. Something about that violet color unnerved him. It wasn't that they were unnatural. With everything that had happened to Earth with all the experiments and crazy events, otherworldly eye colors were quite the norm. It was something else, something he couldn't explain and that terrified him. He was a very rational man but liked to understand and explain everything.

Something that couldn't be explained, at least to his own reasoning, threw him off.

He sighs again and slips under the comforter, closing his eyes and resorting to his military training to get himself to sleep by forcing his brain to shut down.

These were tomorrow's problems.

Hellloooooooo Dear Readers!!!!!!!!

So sorry for the late update, I had bad bouts of writer's don't-wanna-write-right-now lol. Ugh, the good life of an author, not always unicorns and rainbows I guess. But I got through it (somewhat). It's kinda short BUT.....

New characters will be introduced, we'll have a long time span between this chapter and the next and hopefully everything will all get more interesting very soon, because let's be honest, we're all just here for the emotional rollercoasters (and maybe a few of you for very descriptive and beautiful writing ;).

Anyways, enough of my rant, hopefully you enjoyed this (somewhat filler) chapter and I will go read now haha. Nothing like reading someone else's hard work to rest from yours.

Catch you all laters!!!!

LiethaS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!