Dance or Die: a Fanfiction

Chapter 2 - The Warehouse

Blurry dark gray and white streaks were all Derek could see as he very slowly came to in a mysterious building. He heard voices, the voices of the aliens that had held him as their hostage, so he guessed, just moments before he had the most terrifying experience of his life. The dark of unconsciousness seemed to only last for five minutes, at the most. Stirring slightly, as he was momentarily paralyzed, he could only see blobs of color and light. Moving his head was more like flopping sideways onto the hard floor, causing minor pain to shoot up the right temple and a barely audible whimper. The rest of his body felt almost numb and was still immobile, but he could feel that he still had his favorite black and blue jacket on, as he had it on prior to the events, but not his winter coat. Blinking cleared his vision up, where he saw his arm outstretched before him. He tried to move his fingers, curling them slightly but painfully so. Giving up on movement for now, he focused his slowly improving vision on the four figures moving about several meters away.

The alien men, he supposed they were, were surprisingly carefree individuals. They looked to be having a bit of fun amongst themselves, one in a red shirt flinging balls of orange energy at a wall and catching them as they boomeranged back to him. The other one who was further away, in a blue striped jacket, was simply standing watching the one in the red shirt's antics.

The voice of the one he first met, now dressed in a tank top and odd white pants with a glimmering bright red coat at his feet, was talking to the sturdy-looking one in a hooded red jacket, who had maybe been the one who glowed white, just a couple meters away. The man made a remark, its voice male as well, a touch more effeminate than expected, then playfully shoved at the man with the longer black hair. They laughed and pushed at each other for a few seconds before falling back into conversation.

Derek was beginning to feel lonesome as he watched the four. He tried moving his hand again, this time with noticeably less pain and more ease. He tapped on the hard ground with his fingers to draw attention, to no avail. With much effort from his limp yet tingling arm, he slapped his hand on the floor, making a loud clapping noise that startled the two nearby. As they rushed over to him, he groaned a call for help.

"You alright? Need help getting up?" the one with the long black hair answered concernedly. Derek mumbled a 'yes,' and the two others pulled him up. He could still barely stand, but the feeling was gradually coming back into his body. The two let him stand freely for a second, but his weak legs couldn't support him yet. The one he met first put his arm around his shoulder as a brace. A pair of very human-like dark brown eyes looked into his own blue eyes with an air of caring. Derek peered around the place they were in, which looked like a small warehouse.

"Uh, Derek was your name, right?" he said. Derek nodded and he continued, "I am really, honestly sorry for what happened earlier. That wasn't planned, and we're sorry we almost killed you."

"S'okay... Whass your name?" Derek slurred lethargically.

"Oh yeah! I can't believe I've been around you for about... four hours and I never told you my name, or anyone else's. Well, you were knocked out for the majority of that time..."

'Four hours!' Derek thought, 'That thing that happened earlier must've really put me out of it.'

"Well... my name is Siron. Sounds weird to someone from Earth, doesn't it?"

"...Yeah." After saying this, the sturdy one, also black haired like Siron but had it cut shorter, interrupted.

"My name's Tephe, but I think your name is kinda cool," He smiled at Derek warmly.

"Come on Derek," urged Siron, "the others'll want to know you a little."

He learned that the skinnier one of the four, the one associated with orange, is called Najat, and the biggest one associated with turquoise is called Rulefe. Najat was a little aloof at first, but was a kind person on the inside. Rulefe was the quietest, but was open to talks. He also learned that three of them, Siron, Tephe, and Rulefe, are brothers. By this time Derek didn't need help to walk or stand.

They explained the whole story of how they came to Earth, and that they meant no harm in the first place. Back on their home in Arroth-Nil, there was a "space race" to find resourceful planets to beat a rivaling province and prove superiority. The four were all required to be part of the invasion of Earth, the most promising planet out there, but they did not wish to do anything. They rebelled and were punished, however they didn't mention the punishment at all while telling this to Derek. They returned to Arroth-Nil, were sub-sequentially brainwashed into a four-man mission, and embarked to Earth.

"So anyways, we came here partially because we were tricked and partly because we just wanted out of that province. The Nillites over in our province were crazy. One time they even tried to put Rulefe here in a prison or a 'haffk,' I don't know what that's called in your language, just because of the color of energy he produced, I think you Earth guys would call it... bio-radiation?" Tephe concluded. Derek was enthralled with the entire story.

"Isn't a haffk in English a mental institute?" Siron asked. Tephe gave a look of realization and thanked his brother.

"How about you, Derek? Enough about us, let's hear about you," Najat said in his smooth voice.

Derek, lost for words on his own story, told the four about how his mom and dad met, a native Swede and an American exchange student, both in college. They fell in love, but his dad had to go back to America to finish college. After a couple years of communicating by letters, his father gained a double citizenship in Sweden and the two got married. A year later, they had Derek and raised him on their two languages. When he turned 16, the small family went to America, to his father's hometown around Atlanta, Georgia. Later on in life, Derek decided he wanted to be a radio programmer and how to build and run radios. He told them how he got to work with the Norwegian scientist Sven Kragness, and how he ended up in the hut on Svalbard.

"The people in Atlanta, I noticed, spoke with an accent that sounds like--" he paused, wondering how to explain it to aliens, with what he assumed was only a general knowledge of Earth, "Like a really slow British accent or something. You guys kinda sound like them, believe it or not," he finished. The four snickered at that comment, as if they were not believing him.

"Speaking of voices and stuff, yours sounds a little different than it did before," Siron observed, "I don't know how to describe it, but the radiation thing probably affected that."

Derek realized he was right, but didn't make much of it.

"Also, we looked around in that hut, and found this note in a box that we don't know what it says, can you read it?" said Tephe, taking a small pale yellow post it note out of his jacket pocket and handing it to him.

He knew it was in Norwegian and remembered the gist of what was written, but he couldn't make out what it was saying. A sudden feeling of dread overcame him as he realized he had lost his entire knowledge of the languages he had known for so long, other than English.

"I-I don't know but it was something about aliens and a radio transmission, I can't read the words anymore," he said, tucking the note in his own jacket. Siron raised an eyebrow at his comment.

"How much did our hits affect you?" he said in a manner of curiosity. Derek stuttered for a moment and strode away from them, trying to keep his head clear of paranoid thoughts. Siron stepped closer to him. "...Are you alright?"

Derek didn't know how to answer, so he vigorously flailed his arms in a violent shrug. Unexpectedly, a couple short bursts of pure blue radiative energy cracked like fireworks from his hands and were absorbed back to him a second later. That small event filled the warehouse with silence, as he turned nervously towards the other four, who looked on in disbelief.

"Wow," Siron gaped, "I guess you've been transformed a little."