cornflakes are good

Part Twenty-Three

Warning: This part mentions violence and definite death

[At Mars]

The lonely Mars alien sipped their tea and sighed. They were ever-so-lonely. If only their grandchildren would visit them sometime. But that would never happen. Suddenly there was a loud whirring sound. That sound. . . It was so familiar. . . They hadn't heard it in such a long time. Could it really be their dear cousin?

"Cousin, Mars alien," the Pluto alien said.

"Cousin!" the Mars alien said joyfully. "How's everything?"

"Bad," the Pluto alien responded. His cousin frowned. "Our family on Pluto has been captured by humans. I need you to take this. . . human. . . thing. . ." He looked at Child. ". . . And take care of her as I save my family. Do you mind?"

"Not at all, anything to save my cousins," the Mars alien responded.

"Thank you dear cousin, I don't know what I'd do without you," the Pluto alien responded. He gave Child to the Mars alien and flew away.

The Mars alien inspected Child closely. "Hm. . . Interesting. . . A human. I've seen some of your pretty little machines, but not an actual person. You look. . . More different than I thought you'd be."

"Shut up and let go of me," Child said. "You're like. Really. Really. Ugly."

"Gasp, rude," the Mars alien said and frowned. "Whatever. All I need to do is keep you safe until my cousin returns and takes you away."

"Hmph. Whatever. It'll only be a matter of time 'til Karen and Rat come save me," Child responded. Then she let out an annoying, high-pitched scream.

"GAAH!!" the Mars alien yelped. "DISGUSTING BRAT!" 

Karen floated down and smacked the Mars alien across the face. Rat followed and punched them in the stomach.

"OW! OUCHIE!" the poor Mars alien screamed. "GRR!" They reached into their gelatinous body and pulled out a special-edition laser gun.

Child realized what was happening. "WAIT! KAREN! RAT! WATCH OUT!"

But it was too late. The Mars alien blasted Karen with the laser gun.

Karen gasped as red water poured from her shoulder. Her eyelids drooped and her eyes went to the back of her head. She collapsed and floated away into endless space.

"NO! KAREN-CHAN!" Rat screamed. He swam in the air toward her body.

Once the Mars alien was certain both of them would not come back to bother them again, they turned back to Child. "Nice try, but now there's no knight in shining armor for you, little girl."

Child frowned and said, "Oh well. . ." She thought of Sophia, Another Child, and Other Child. "Whatever you do to me, it'll probably be nothing I haven't already gotten used to."

Then the Mars alien looked into Child's eyes. They looked. . . Sad. What had this child been through? They looked more. The kid was imprisoned, possibly. Either that or she ate a hot dog not too long ago. The Mars alien was not as good at reading eyes as the rest of his family was. But the most logical finding in her eyes that the Mars alien found was that she had been imprisoned by gay sea monsters for all her life. It sounded tragic. The Mars alien almost felt bad. . . That is, until Child smacked them across the face.

"OW! WHAT THE—"

And Child swam away into space.