Displaced

Chevelle - Fifty-Seven

"Please, be careful down there," Timber said softly, opening up the door to the Pit. He didn't approve, I could see it in the way he frowned so deeply. Not once did he bother to argue. He shifted Monique in his arms. "If you're not here by dark, I'm going in after you. We'll be up here hanging out, waiting."

"I don't anticipate being gone that long, relax." I squeezed his forearm. "Thank you. This means a lot to me. Everything you do does."

He rolled his eyes and shifted his weight between his two feet. Had I succeeded in embarrassing him? Finally, a taste of his own medicine. "I'll see you in a little while then. We're going to stargaze, huh, Vance?"

"Yeah!" The little boy was busy jumping on all of the cobblestones in the road.

Timber nodded. "Good luck."

I would be needing it. I walked through the door. It closed behind me with a loud groan and thud. I stopped. Before me was a massive stairwell going down at least one-hundred feet. The length of the wall of apartments, I assumed. Swallowing, I urged myself forward. I hated heights. If I stayed focused on the steps in front of me, I wouldn't have to worry so much about how high up I actually was.

Just go. Don't think about it. Move. I barreled down those stairs. Climbing up them again would suck, but I'd committed to this adventure. It was going to happen. By the time I'd reached the bottom, I had sung ten songs in my head and made myself dizzy from going down in circles.

I made it down. That accomplishment alone earned me a moment to rest, possibly a cookie, too – a big one. Ahead of me was a metal arch. Security? Not sure what else it could be. This scared me more than the staircase of doom. Because on the inside of the security office, next to the arch, was an Achlivan.

I'd never seen an Achlivan before, not clear and up close. There had been one during the initial attack at the mall, but in my panic, my glance at him had been brief. I'm almost positive I had seen some hovering above us during our wait on the mall floor as well. Those had been female, but again, it was dark. There wasn't much to see. My first good look at an Achlivan and I just about screamed.

He was so...big. Tall, lanky, and with pale blue skin and enormous purple eyes. An alien. A real life alien. His large eyes narrowed once he got sight of me.

"Why are you here?" he barked.

"I-I came from the Surface to find one of my friends."

He stood, towering over me. A small, black box-like device in his hands. It could have been a tazer, or for all I knew, he was about to incinerate me on the spot. When he ran the device over my body, I tensed, quivered, winced, and prayed that this wouldn't be my end.

The object glowed a vibrant blue, and the alien shook his head. "Why do you want to come down here, Surface dweller? You have been given paradise."

"I know, and I'm grateful for that," I said, hoping I came across as sincere. Hard to feel grateful over being kidnapped. I took in a deep breath and continued. "Like I said before, I am coming down to see a friend of mine. He's very important to me."

"Name?"

"Chevelle."

"Your friend's name. I know yours."

Wow, Brandi wasn't kidding when she said they'd give me grief. "Oh, his name is Wicken."

"Your pass." He held out a bright blue bracelet.

I put it on. "Thanks."

"When it turns orange, you need to leave. You won't have much time."

"Okay." No instructions on how to find him, or any indication of how much time we'd get together. Nothing. The Achlivan went back to acting as though I didn't exist.