Parallels

Chapter Five: A Sense of Impending Disaster

"I have no idea, but I'm rearing and ready to find out," Bianca says, and well, I'm glad that she has such enthusiasm, but like hell if I do. Knowing how my luck has been during my time here on Earth (absolutely flocking scatty), I'm not entirely willing to share her enthusiasm, at least, not in that regard.

"That's great, Bianca," I say, nose twitching in a sudden flash of fear, "but I'm scared scatless, and as I was saying to Alaina earlier, we're not from here. Whose side would we take?"

"That's an interesting-," she begins, but before she can finish, the blue emergency lights on the wall flash, and we all start back in surprise. "What the hell was that?"

"I have no idea, but just why, why, why? do I get the feeling right in the pit of my stomach that whatever it is isn't going to be something that we want, eh?" I say, laughing nervously. "I mean, it's not as if we're in any danger, are we?"

As if to mock me, a loud boom sounds from overhead, and the lights flash and flicker once, then again, and finally settle back on, although their light doesn't seem quite as bright as just five seconds before.

"Um...," I say, feeling worry come creeping into the edges of my voice. "What the flock is going on? I didn't think that we were supposed to have a fire drill, but do hospitals even do that sort of thing?"

"No, I don't think so, Theo," Jenna says, tail swishing nervously behind her back. "At least, I don't think that that's what's going on, but-"

Another boom cuts us off, and once again, the lights flicker and flash. Unfortunately for us, they don't manage to remain on this time, and the room is dropped into a hazy blackness.

Thankfully for us, though, there's still the daylight that's coming in through the windows, although with most of the blinds down, it's kinda hard to tell what's going on. My natural vulpine curiosity is telling me that I should get up to find out, but I just tried that, and yeah, well, I'm not exactly aching to do it again, shall we say?

Pun completely intended, of course, but that changes nothing- I want to know what's going on...

"Jenna?" I ask, having noticed that as soon as the alarms sounded, her ears shot straight back.

Instead of responding, she looks straight at me, and I can see the fear in her eyes. "We're at war, Theo, and well, it looks like Terra has decided to offer the first blow."

"What's that supposed to mean, Jenna?" I ask, feeling fear come creeping into my voice, and before I can stop it, a shiver of fear runs up my spine, and with it, another spasm of pain in my ribs, smaller again this time- more like an ice pick through the ribs instead of a chainsaw.

Shaking the pain aside, I look at her, and I notice that the same fear that I feel in my stomach is much more evident on her face. "Are you alright?" I ash, although I know that it's a foolish question. Of course she's not alright, none of us are right now. We're all on the edge of our seats, as I've told the idiom goes. For most of us, that's quite literal- I can see that all of the other furred people in here are sitting forwards, and I can attest that, I for one, am terrified, and I thought that I was the one who was never afraid of anything.

Okay, on second thought, that's a lie, I'm terrified of quite a number of things, the whirling noises that are now coming from outside being one of them.

"Does anymammal have a clue as to what the flock's making that noise?" I ask, feeling a cold chill run along the back of my neck, making me shiver.

"You're asking me?" Isaac asks, incredulous. "How am I supposed to know when my brain doesn't want to think because it's about as terrified as can be? Granted, we do have night vision, and it's not that dark, but the whole 'I think we might be under attack by aliens' deal has kinda set me in an edge that's rather sharp and painful to sit on, yet at the same time, I have no flocking way to get off of it," he mutters, shaking his head sadly, tail curling around the bases of his legs in fear and self-protection.