Earth escape

Chapter 12

Max swore.

"Perfect" I said "Just perfect"

"Oh no. Now what?" asked Leah with a trembly voice.

Once again, we were in pitch blackness. We couldn't see a thing.

"Ughhh, not again" said Max, annoyed.

"Max!" I said "You brought more than one torch, didn't you? Look in your bag!"

He then checked, but after thirty seconds of rumaging and switching sounds in the darkness, he said:

"No, I can't find any. Strange, I thought I had brought some more with me. Maybe they fell out of the bag or something."

"Never mind." said Leah, let's just continue on our way."

I sighed. She was right. We would just have to move on.

***

Through the darkness we trudged. Walking, walking, walking  and walking for what seemed like an eternity. Goodness, Skêtior really was huge. It must have stretched out for kilometres. We didn't speak much, probably because we were so tired and depressed and scared. As expected, we would ocasionally trip or stumble in the darkness, but apart from that, there was barely a sound to be heard.

But we were at one point in our dark journey when all of a sudden, I heard a very faint noise. It was so soft I had to stop and listen to see if I had just imagined it. But no, it was still there, it was real.

"Hey" I said to the others "Do you hear that?"

"What?" asked Max.

We all stopped and listened in the unsettling silence. But there it was again, like a very soft but constant humming sound, far away in the mist.

"Oh yeah" said Max "What on earth could it be?"

I frowned, even though no-one could see me. "I'm not sure. Any ideas, Leah?"

There was no response.

"Leah?" I asked again.

"Yes, yes, I'm still here" she said.

"Are you ok?" I asked slowly, for I had heard a slight sense of uneasyness and fear in her answer. 

"Eeh... well, it's just that, eeh.."

"What?" asked Max sternly.

She then sighed "Fine, it's just that I heard from somewhere that the aliens can travel through Skêtior without being harmed or seen, and, well..."

"Oh no" I said "You're not serious, are you? Do you really think that..."

"Well, it was just a theory, and maybe it's nothing, but... but I'm scared, Ed. I'm really scared"

"Where did you hear that theory from?" asked Max. I noticed he was agitated.

"Commander John said it." answered Leah " And we all know that he isn't the type of person that tells lies or jokes, don't we?"

"Guys" I said "I think it's getting closer"

Sure enough, the noise was a lot louder, and the volume kept increasing. We could hear what sounded like shouts, engines and other sounds fill the air. They must have been only about five hundred meters away.

I gave a look full of terror towards Leah (at least where I thought she was). "We have to do something. NOW."

But suddenly, the shouts and wails got even louder, and then there was a thunder of galloping footsteps that sounded like they were coming straight for us!

"They smell us!" screamed Leah "Run for your lives!"

And we ran, faster than we had ever run before. The adrenaline was  really pumping through my body now. Leah was screaming.

"Oh, no, no , no!" she kept on saying.

"Don't stop!" shouted Max "And try to stick together!"

I was going to have a heartattack. Those monsters were only meters behind us! I could tell by the sound of their feet and the shouts of excitement. So this was how everybody died inside Skêtior. They would get lost in the mist without being able to see a thing, and then they would be eaten alive by aliens! 

The noises behind us got even louder.

I couldn't think straight. My heart felt like it was about to explode. I couldn't bear it anymore, and I was starting to get the feeling in my gut that my body was starting to slow down. I had tired myself out.

"What do we do?" I asked, terrified.

"I don't know, for goodness sake!" said Leah.

"Well, then think of something fast! Those aliens have almost caught us!"

"Oh, so I'm the one that has to save the day, then?" snapped Leah "Thanks Ed, that's very brave of you!"

I was about to fire an insult back at her when Max intervened.

"Hey!" he said "Stop it, you two. Look, the only way we can survive this is fighting them. Because, even if we do get out of Skêtior, they probably will just follow us out! I have brought a UZI with me, just in case anything like this was going to happen."

"Okay" I agreed to the plan "I've got my pistol. I suppose that's something." 

I took it out from by backpack quickly, and loaded it.

"Yeah, me too" said Leah.

"Right then" said Max "It seems like we all came prepared."

We all then came to a halt at what looked like a clearing in the mist. It was a strange sight, for when I looked up, I could see the night sky, full of stars. We dropped our backpacks and took positions for the attack.

"This place will have to do" said Max "Now remember: Whatever comes out into this clearing, we are going to stand our ground."

And so we sat there and waited. There were shouts all around us now, getting ever so closer. I heard Leah muttering something that sounded like a short prayer. I gripped my pistol even tighter.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a swarm of angry aliens came running straight for us, out into the clearing.

"Right" I said "Let's do this"