Ascendance

16

"What do you think happened?" It was a female voice and I instantly recognized it as Jodi.

"No idea but the guards were freaked." It was Lydia talking.

"I hope the parents are ok." Miranda sighed.

"Guys?" I ask. I hear a stampede.

"Erika! Oh my god, is it really you?" Jodi asked.

"Yeah, it's me. Don't worry, we'll get you out of here." I grab the ring of keys and try to find that that matches the door. I find one and open the door. I'm greeted with a hug from the three of them. I hug back, trying to make myself stretch.

"Damn bitch, did you forget about me?" Kyra looks at Lydia. She pulls away from me and hugs her.

"I thought I'd never see you again." Lydia tells her. She then embraces our parents and starts crying with them.

"I'm sorry you had to find out this way, Erika." Miranda sighed. "We were hoping it would never come to this. And black is definitely your color, by the way."

"Thanks." I say, smiling.

"We should clear out. We don't know if there's any of those monsters around, still." My father says, looking around.

"Agreed." Kyra says. We leave the room together. I hear a shooting sound and I snap my head around. It's Karenina, bloodied, wearing a soaked bandage and holding her AR-15 close to her body.

"We need to get out of here. The Leader's looking for you." Karenina looks at us.

"We need to find the exit." I responded.

"I think I know where. Follow me." Karenina motions us to follow her. We follow her, sounding a stampede of angry elephants. I kind of hope the Leader doesn't have good hearing.

"Did you get hurt?" I asked Lydia. She shakes her head.

"They just threw bad food at us." She sighed. "I'm really going to need a shower after this."

"You're telling me. I smell like freaking turpentine and blood." I look around. I was hoping that we'd be able to escape without attracting the Leader's attention. That doesn't seem likely now that his lackeys are all dead. I hear what sounds like a phone going off in a room nearby. I peek in the room to see what looks like a projector image of a video call.

It was a pink and white alien that resembled the Leader but more slim.

"Akenath, answer the fricking phone!" She shouted. I hit the answer just to see if that would do anything.

"You're that Diaz girl!" She exclaimed. "What did you do to my ex husband?"

"Ex husband?" I looked at her funny. "He's still alive. I think."

"You should subdue him. We would like to have our leader back. " She looks at her hand which seems to have four fingers instead of five.

"Damn, y'all really love him, huh?" Kyra speaks.

"He's a national hero but he's been going off the deep end for a while now." She speaks very casually about it. I wonder if that's the reason they divorced.

"Did it have something to do with whatever happened in Area 51?" I asked her. Her eyes widened.

"How did you know about that?" She leaned into the screen.

"Well, he sent us coordinates with a video of him getting experimented on." Karenina looked at her.

"He was supposed to be going to a diplomatic mission with some of our kin on one of Neptune's moons. Someone either didn't check the ship or intentionally sabotaged it, he lost control and crash landed on Earth. They tortured and experimented on the poor guy. He eventually returned but he was not the same person." The alien woman speaks. "He could have violent dreams or nightmares, he would see traitors where there were none and he was suddenly interested in Earth. Way too interested for our comfort."

"Wow." I responded. "What's his plan now?"

"He did kill a decent chunk of Diaz's descendants. Seems like your ancestor had something to do with his torture." The alien girl responded. "He thought you were the last one and he wanted to kill you in front of him to spite him."

"Wow." I responded. No wonder he was after my family. He wanted me and probably found out about me from researching Lydia. Maybe. I don't know.

"Thank you." I told her. "For the information." She nods and hangs up the call. We continue out to the hall. I can hear the buzz of something nearby. We find a room with what looks like a super advanced camera, a chair and rope. My stomach churns at the thought of what this room was or will be used for.

We continue to a long hallway full of doorless rooms. They were filled with supplies, random furniture, bunks, and a few things that looked like parts of ships or airplanes.

"Someone's got a hoarding issue." My mother tried to joke.

"We should be about by the entrance." Karenina looked confused. "Or at least I thought I was."

"Maybe it's in one of the rooms." I told her. "We should split up into smaller groups to make it easier."

"Okay, Lexi, Zander and Ruth, look in the bunk rooms. Erika's parents and Lydia, look in the parts room. Miranda, Jodi, and Kyra look in the supply rooms. Brendan, Erika, and I will look in the furniture rooms. We split up accordingly. Brendan enters the room with us. I looked around the walls, feeling to see if I had found a secret door or something.

Karenina is looking too. Brendan is trying to move some chairs from the wall.

"Did you find anything?" Karenina asked him, walking to the spot.

"I think I did." Brendan was moving a chair and Karenina aided him. I heard a strange, wet noise. I turned and suddenly I was being dragged away. I screamed, trying to get what looked like a tentacle off of me. Shit, did the Leader find me? He did. Oh hell. Oh hell.