Displaced

Chevelle - Ten

Paul arrived sometime shortly after the dishes were finished. The most I could tell was it was still daytime, probably close to eleven or something along those lines. When you don't have a clock of any kind to go by, it was really hard to figure out what was going on. My internal clock wasn't all too awesome. The most I could tell was when I was hungry and when I was tired.

We were just about to settle in and explore what was on the television when there was a knock on the door. Timber got up to answer.

"Hi, Paul," he mumbled and waved for the other guy to enter.

Paul looked between me and Lara. "Are you ready to see your new home?"

"Sounds great," Timber said with a lot more enthusiasm than I would have expected. Either he was geeking out over the whole being on a spaceship thing more than he had let on earlier, or he was using his acting skills. He winked at me, and I realized it was probably the latter. Pretend to be interested, comply, evaluate the situation, gain the Achlivans' trust, get the time to plan an escape.

I stood up and slapped a smile on my face as well. Albeit, I'm not a great actress, so pretending everything was fine wouldn't be all too believable. Somehow I was able to focus on the pros of the situation and tap into the abundant amounts of curiosity that I was dying of. Because I was on a spacecraft, and I wanted to know a whole lot more about it. Who wouldn't, right? If I thought about that and not about how I was brought there against my will, I could fake being excited a little better.

Instead of walking to the door, Paul went to the large glass window. "Each unit has a balcony," he explained. He then walked to the side of the window to what I thought was a light switch. Nope, it was the door to the balcony. As soon as he flipped the switch, the window glass slid into the wall. Pretty cool. Outside the window was a long platform made of metal that stretched out three feet and expanded three feet past the length of the window on each side. More glass surrounded the balcony. What I saw when I stepped out onto it took my breath away.

Green trees and grass were underneath me. And it was tiny, so that meant we were high up. I'd never been good at measuring, but I would say we were well over a hundred feet over the ground. Crazy, because how big was this ship exactly? It had to be huge, and if it was huge, why wasn't anyone on Earth throwing a fit about it yet? Or maybe they were and I just wasn't hearing anything about it. Wouldn't someone have noticed it before they conveniently came to take us away? Way too many questions came along with that possibility.

"Wow," Timber said breathlessly. "This is...wow."

"Would you like to take a walk in the garden?" Paul asked.

"Yes, definitely."

Paul looked at me. "You're the deciding factor."

I blinked. "What?"

"You decide. Are we going to the garden? Yes or no?"

"Oh, yeah, sure," I said.

To the left of us was another panel with a whole lot of buttons that had different colors on them. "The green one will take you down to the garden," Paul explained. "The blue one goes to the sky deck. I suppose you could say that is a place where a lot of people like to hang out. There are shops and restaurants up there, that kind of thing. The red button is the level for the children. Playgrounds, school, and everything else they'll need will be there."

"This is officially blowing my mind, and that's saying a lot because it was blown pretty bad yesterday too," I said.

"It takes some getting used to." Paul pressed the green button.

The glass slid closed on our window and then we were moving. I kid you not. The balcony could move and in more directions than just up and down. We went down, then left and down some more, avoiding other balconies and other people using this trippy elevator system. It went so fast too. Everything blurred past us and within seconds we were down on the ground.