When Earth Stopped Moving

Chapter 1 : COUNTDOWN / Part 10 : Determined

I felt a hand taking me ...my whole body was being dragged somewhere ... may be was I aspired to the hole just like Leilah...soon , I realized it was a hand ...An instant later , I could miraculously open my eyes. Everything happened very quickly .

I lost my perception of things and for a moment , I thought I just woke up in a normal day in our school. Therefore , when I took a look around me to discover I was inside of our cockpit , I naturally got caught off-guard . I also felt an unbearable pain in my leg. I would , however, have certainly been better if it was my leg only : My whole body seemed extremely tired as if I spent too much efforts some time earlier. My heart was beating so fast although I was only lying on a plane surface. When I tried to move my hands , I felt it weighed ten times more than usual. Though , it wasn't only my hand ...all of my body seemed to be stuck ...and It took me several minutes to realize I was wearing a spacesuit .

I thought no one was there next to me till I found my best friend looking at me , tears coming down his face. Unlike me , he wasn't wearing anything but normal clothes . The image of a total panicking Kyle eventually managed to wake me up.

-"Oh my god ...he said apparently having big difficulties to articulate...you're safe ...

And his head suddenly fell on my spacesuit. I could feel a sad mourning silence reigning in the cockpit room . A deep feeling of despair of which I still couldn't remember the reason.

I had to remember. Asking Kyle in such a state would do nothing but make the already messed up situation worse . I tried to search for hints around me but apart from some broken screens , but I couldn't notice anything .

-"I... , he said crying , I thought I lost you with her.

I was completely unable to assimilate anything in the beginning , thus , the complete , thus, the confusion I got when he said "her".
But I soon started remembering things. Referring to them by « things » was probably to avoid talking or even thinking about the last images I saw before I completely lost my consciousness.
The image of Leilah's dead body flying between the stars suddenly started to haunt my soul ... my heart restarted beating and just like the lightning splitting the sky , my mind suddenly brightened.

Every single thing abruptly hit my memory.

I remembered how we got shot by the spaceship for the second time ...how I was not fast enough to avoid it ... the flames devouring everything ... For once , the fact that my mind was clear and my ability to recall everything bothered me . I would have certainly preferred not to remember.

-"LEILAH ! I shouted panicking .

Kyle looked at me with eyes filled with tears ...staring at me silently , as if I committed a murder .

-"She's dead . He said with a cold-blooded tone making an unbelievable contrast with his tears.

The emotional as well as physical chock I got made it hard to believe that I was expecting this answer one second ago . My leg pain was perhaps , getting and worse and worse by the second , but still close to nothingness compare to this : a pain not even words could explain.
Just thinking that some time ago , we were sleeping with no responsability in our backs made me laugh at myself . We were living in peace , I had all of my comrades with me ... we were laughing and joking ... fighting over nothing , not expecting getting involved in such a hazard , thousands of Kilometers far from Earth...

But one day , we did get involved forcefully ... and during that one day , I started loosing my friends one by one . There were all dying in front of my eyes and the weakness I felt made the frustration rise unbearably. I didn't specifically know why , but Leilah's death had something special...from the beginning , she was the one who managed to save us from the dangers we faced . She saved us from getting hit by giant satellites and got our backs the whole time. She was the one to clarify everything that seemed strange...Now that she left , It was a feeling of intense vulnerability that I felt the most.
Soon , despair turned to rage and I started cursing everyone involved in this story , starting from Richard Hikes and Mr. Drauless to all the members of the IASRA or whatever their names were.
How would it help me ? I knew it wouldn't.