Rim of the world with you

-17-

After Dariush ran away, Gabriel walked up to me.
"What did he want?" I looked over at him. Dariush said 'if I die'. Technically he's still alive so I don't need to kiss him right now.
"Nothing" I said playing with the straps of my bag. He noticed and looked over at them.
"What do you have in there? You always have it on you." He asked. I took off my bag and knelt on one knee, he joined me. I opened my bag and showed him that I only have my sketchbook, pencils, paints, clothes for everyone and survival stuff.
"Not much but I always take my sketchbook with me everywhere I go." I replied. He looked over at me.
"Can I see what you drew?" He asked. I hesitated, I've never shown anyone other than my mother the things I've draw. When she died I just kept it in secret, do I want Gabriel to be the first one after my mom?
" it's alright you don't have to if you don't want to." He said after a moments hesitation,
"It's fine... here" I gave him my sketchbook. He sat down crossed legged and started flipping through the book. He stopped at one in particular, the rough sketch I made at the hill beside the camp. He looked over at me then back at the picture.

"Can you teach me how to draw?" He asked. I laughed and replied.
"When we get out of this shitty situation and save the world, sure. I'll teach you how to draw." We smiled at each other. Gabriel opened his mouth while his face became shy as he was about to say something. Before he could say anything, Alex yelled out,
"I see him!" I looked over at Gabriel and smiled apologetically. I grabbed my sketchbook and putting it in my bag running over to where Alex and Zhen are.

We watched as Dariush slowly made his way to the car and walked in the left side of the car. After that we waited in suspense, suddenly the music started blasting out of the car and the alien moved a little bit.
"DARIUSH! HURRY UP!" We watched for one more minute how he climbed out of the car and held up the key. I started cheering at jumping up and down but noticed that the alien was moving.
"BEHIND YOU!" But he didn't move, we watched as he just kept yelling that he got it. Suddenly the alien scratched Dariush in the stomach and fell back trying to reach for him. Dariush climbed into the car and I started running down to go get him.
"Let's go!" I ran to go get him and helped him up.
H
"Are you okay? That cut looks terrible" Gabriel said,
"I'm okay, I'm all right. Let's just get this key to JPL"
"At least you're not dead" I looked on the bright side,
"Wow thanks Rowan"
"You're welcome Dari-dick"
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Walking along the thing I was walking next to Dariush.
"So you didn't kiss him" he spoke first,
"What?" I looked at him,
"You're also walking beside me and not him."
"What about it? You're injured"
"About it is that you're not walking next to him" I shook my head at him,
"Whatever dude" he was still looking at me,
"What?"
"Go to him! Jheez woman!" He pushed me forward to Gabriel,

"Hey"
"Oh hi, you done talking to Dariush now?"
"Dude were just friends plus he almost died" I pointed out, he looked down.
"Right" there was a pause,
"We were on the bridge and you were going to tell me something" he looked at me and opened his mouth.... and closed it looking forward,
"It was nothing"
"You sure?"

"Yo! Look! Look! JPL!" He said instead, running forward. Wow. Real ladies man this one. But is it supposed to hurt this much?
"Let's go!" We started running to the actual JPL avoiding the debris.
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"Man, this place got hit hard," Gabriel said,
"So did my heart" I said under my breath but Gabriel looked at me and frowned.
"The building is destroyed! Nobody can survive that!" As Dariush said this, the radio that Zhen was holding started beeping in Morse code.
"He's still here, Dr. Fielding's still here! This way" she started running towards the building.
"If we get out of this alive NASA's paying for my therapy!"
"If we get out of this alive NASA's paying for my college tuition!" We said running inside of JPL.
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"Oh wow, they're testing plasma rockets." Alex said. I looked over at him,
"Don't those things burn hotter than the surface of the sun?" He nodded at me.
"Look guys, all we gotta do is get this key to Dr. Fielding then you two can look at all the nerd porn you want." Dariush said sassing us.
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"Dr. Fielding! Dr. Fielding!"
"We have the key sir!"
"Dr. Fielding we have the key!" We spread out along the control room looking for him.
"Dr. Fielding!?"
"Over here" Zhen calls out to us. Why not himself? We ran over to where she was, only to find Dr. Fielding dead on his chair with blood dripping down his arm onto the Morse code thing. Gabriel checked his pulse, what does he expect? Look at him. Gabriel pulled back slowly.

"He's dead, guys" he said solemnly.
"Fuck" I whispered crossing my arms and looking down at the bruises.
"But how?" Alex asked. That's when the blood started dripping the the beeper and Zhen's radio was going off, why'd I have to be right?
"Shoot!" Dariush said as he hit the computer.
"We've failed" Alex said.
"It's over" Dariush said. We all walked past the dead guy and into a little circle.
"I mean... let's be honest guys. Who do we think we are?" We paused.
"Nerd" Alex said,
"Criminal" Gabriel said,
"Orphan" Zhen said,
"A joke" Dariush said, then they all looked at me. I was still staring at my bruises when I responded,
"A toy" Gabriel reaches over and grabbed my hand. And we stopped talking as a way of acknowledging that we were all going to die.

A/N
We're almost done guys!
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