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APRIL 8th, 2170
Mindoir

"I'm home!" Alexis called up the stairs as soon as she walked through the door. Tossing her backpack on the sofa, she bee lined straight toward the kitchen and grabbed a couple ice cubes out of the refrigerator. The walk home had been long and she was so thirsty. Popping the cubes into a glass, she filled it with water and was just about to touch the cup to her lips to taste the sweet relief of hydration on her parched throat, when her younger brother ran up behind her and shook her by the shoulders.

"Saved your life!" he yelled, as he steadied her on her feet again.

Before she could turn and yell at him, she was jolted from behind a second time, and then quickly steadied. "Saved you twice!"

She now had a huge water stain on the front of her shirt and a temper like blazing fire.

"Damnit! Eric! Neil!" The twins ran out of the kitchen and out the front door to escape their older sister's wrath. "Get back here! F –"

"No cussing in the house!" her mother shrieked from upstairs.

Alexis rolled her eyes and sighed. "Hi, mom," she called, dryly.

"And keep it down down there! Your grandpa's trying to sleep!"

"Yeah, you're one to talk." She muttered it quietly under her breath but –

"What'd you say?!"

"Uh… n-nothing, I didn't say anything!" How that woman always managed to hear her, she would never know.

"Uh huh! I better not catch you glowing blue when I come down there!"

Alexis looked down at her hands. Damn. She must've lit up when she was yelling at her brothers. "I'm not glowing!" she replied, squeezing her eyes tight to rein in 'the blue stuff' as her family liked to call it.

They weren't really sure how her mom had been exposed to Element Zero, but it must've been some one time, random mishap since neither the twins nor Mia showed any signs of biotic abilities and she'd started showing as soon as she hit her toddler years. Yep, she was just the freak of the family. She even looked different too, with her creepy green eyes and jet black hair. Everyone else in her family reaped the benefits of working out in the sun for extended periods of time: lightened roots. Working in the sun just made her head hot.

Alexis asked them constantly if she was adopted, especially after seeing that none of her siblings even kind of resembled her as they grew up, except for Danny, whose hair was just as black as hers, but they always reassured her she was a Shepard, through and through. They even showed her baby pictures so she would see that her hair had been lighter when she was younger, it just darkened as the years went by.

She'd turned to her grandfather for an explanation about the green eyes and he'd said there was no explanation for that. She was just a freak.

"And Alexis, if you forgot to invite that boyfriend of yours over for dinner I'll –"

"Oh, Claire, would you quit with all your fuss?" Alexis clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. "You keep yelling at your daughter to be quiet. You be quiet."

Her mother didn't answer. She could just see her snapping her mouth shut, eyes wide in shame. "Sorry, dad," she barely heard her mutter after a few minutes.

"Yeah, whatever." Her grandfather had pushed the button at the top of the staircase, replacing the stairs with a ramp. He wheeled himself down slowly, turning and heading for the kitchen when he reached the bottom. "Hey, shrimp," he said when he saw Alexis sitting at the table.

She'd fixed a sandwich while her mother had yelled at her. Like always, it was cut in half and she had an extra plate ready for him. She slid it over to him when he pulled up to the table.

"We still out of mayo?" he asked, grunting when she nodded. "I'll have to remind your mother to buy some more."

"Remind me to buy some more what?" Claire Shepard had followed her father down the stairs and now spoke at a more acceptable volume.

"We need more mayo," her father grunted, biting into his sandwich.

"Oh. How was your day, Alexis?"

"It was good. David says he'll be over at six thirty to help set the table."

"Alright," she smiled. She always commented on what a little gentleman her daughter's little boyfriend had grown up into and how she had such good taste and she was sure there were plenty of little bad boys at her little high school… Alexis had begged her to stop using the word 'little' so excessively.

She and David had grown up together, were practically attached at the hip. Dating had just seemed like the natural thing to do. He was one of the few people outside of the family that knew about her biotics. Other kids at school had maybe seen her hands glowing when the teacher shut the lights out in class. And there had been that one time she'd been really nervous for an in-class presentation. She hadn't flared but, apparently, her eyes had started glowing blue and it had spread down her neck to her shoulders before she got a hold of it.

Rumors had spread for about a week and the whole thing had been blown way out of proportion – did you hear how Alexis burst into flames? I heard she threw a desk across the room – but it had died down after a bit. Of course, people still referred to her as a freak behind her back. She honestly wouldn't mind if they said it to her face since she was so used to hearing it at home. She didn't really consider it an insult anymore.

Her parents told her they were sorry, they would get her implanted if they could afford it, at least so she could learn to control it. She always reassured them it was fine, she didn't mind. Some people avoided her, sure, but those that mattered didn't. And she'd gotten pretty good at controlling herself. Maybe she'd flare once when she didn't mean to but that would be once in a whole week. She was pretty proud of herself.

"Did you have any blue moments today?" her grandfather asked her. He'd finished his half of the sandwich.

"Not until I got home," she replied, rolling her eyes. "Eric and Neil."

He chuckled. "I don't know why they mess with you. We all know you can whoop 'em."

"I'm looking forward to it, too." And she was. The thought of shoving Neil's face into the dirt while holding Eric in a headlock with his arm twisted behind his back until he screamed 'uncle' always made her grin… In a loving, big sister kind of way.

"I bet you are." Grandpa Jo had an eyebrow raised at her as if he could see what she was imagining and was a little taken aback by her violence. She shrugged, handing him the other half of the sandwich. She'd decided she wasn't all that hungry.

"Where's Mia? I've got a lollipop in my backpack with her name written all over it." Alexis couldn't wait to see her face light up with joy when she handed it to her six-year-old sister.

"She's napping," Grandpa Jo replied. "We were supposed to nap together. I don't know how she sleeps through your mother's shrieking."

Claire had moved over to the sink and had the water running, cleaning the dishes, so she couldn't hear her father's remark. She could hear Alexis mumble under her breath all the way down a flight of stairs and in another room but she couldn't hear her father talking pretty plainly right over her shoulder. Alexis tried not to think too hard about that one.

"What about dad, where's he?"

Grandpa Jo didn't have a chance to answer as John Shepard walked through the front door at that moment, sweat and grease on his face, mud on his clothes and gloves on his hands.

"What happened to you?" Grandpa Jo asked, turning his nose up at him.

John glanced down at himself, frowning. "I was trying to fix the tractor. Not sure if I got her running or not. Danny's still out there."

Alexis' ears perked up. "Danny?" she asked. Her father ignored the question, instead sliding his grimy boots off his feet, striding over to his daughter and ruffling her hair.

"Hey, punk," he greeted her. "I thought I saw you walking home."

"Gross, dad, you're getting my hair dirty."

"Oops, sorry, kid," he chuckled. "Is David coming over tonight?"

She nodded, wiping the mud off her scalp.

"Good. Maybe I can talk him out of this military idea."

"He's dead set, dad, you won't be able to." Alexis hated to admit it, but David was determined to leave. He was sick of the colony and his stepdad and farming. He wanted to get out, get away, and see what the rest of the galaxy had to offer.

"He's turning eighteen soon, right?"

Another nod. "Two days."

"There's hope, then. I've got time."

"Dad two days will not be enough time," she laughed. "If you haven't been able to convince him in seventeen years, why would two days make a difference?"

"He's just a boy, Ali. Has no idea what he'd be getting into." His face grew dark, the lines of a frown etched around his mouth. "He just wants to be like his father but… enlisting with the Alliance is suicide."

He would've said more on the subject if Grandpa Jo hadn't been in the room. He'd been honorably discharged from service after losing both his legs in the First Contact War. Despite that fact, he never said his opinion about David's decision. The only time he showed any emotion about it at all was when he asked Alexis if she planned on following David when she was old enough and she'd told him she liked Mindoir, wanted to stay, and that David had his reasons for wanting to leave while she had none (except maybe the biotics, but she wasn't interested in the military and, according to the extranet, that's all people with abilities like hers were good for). Grandpa Jo had seemed pleased with her response, but it was hard to tell with him; he wasn't very easy to read.

John made his way over to his wife and kissed her. She told him he stank and they were now teasing each other, her mother splashing soapy water out of the sink trying to clean his overalls and her father saying it was 'the stench of a hardworking man'.

Alexis smirked a bit. She was glad she had parents that liked each other and liked to have fun. She knew David didn't get along with his stepdad and was pretty sure his mom didn't even get along with him. After his real father was KIA in First Contact, things were hard on his mom, working as the town nurse, raising David by herself and grieving her husband. She had married Dr. Childress more out of necessity than love. This led to David placing a greater reliance on John Shepard and Grandpa Jo as father figures in his life and determinedly pretending Dr. Childress becoming a part of his family had never happened, as stubbornly as he ignored his mother's stern disapproval of the Alliance.

"Hey, pops!" someone yelled from outside. "Guess whose sorry ass got this baby runnin'!"

John headed toward the door and watched as Danny brought his tractor around the corner, sputtering with life. "Well, I'll be d –"

"Don't you cuss in this house," his wife warned.

"Well, I'll be," he amended.

"You owe me, dad, you definitely owe me." Danny cut the engines and hopped out of the vehicle, his boots kicking up dirt as he landed.

"Owe you? Please. I taught you everything you know."

"Ha! You keep tellin' yourself that."

"Yeah, yeah," John grunted, looking away from his eldest son pointedly.

"Tell you what; I'll make it easy for you. Just give me a nice hot meal before I head home and we'll call it even. How's that sound?"

"I'm tellin' you, boy, I don't owe you nothin'."

"John!" his wife called from the kitchen. "Pull that stick out of your butt and let Danny stay for dinner! He's your own son, for cryin' out loud!"

Danny looked at his father triumphantly before he pushed past him into the house.

"Well, look what the cat drug in," Alexis smirked at her older brother. She'd leaped out of her chair and followed her dad to the front door as soon as she heard his voice.

"Aw, come on Ali; is that any way to greet your only older brother?" Danny held a hand to his heart, in mock pain. Pulling Alexis into a headlock, he gave her a vicious knuckle sandwich. "Long time no see, kid," he laughed as she elbowed him in the stomach.

"Whose fault is that?" she grunted, wriggling free from his hold and punching his arm. "I tried to come and visit you at the shop on Monday, but you weren't there.

"My hours changed," he replied, tenderly rubbing the spot she'd punched. "You should've messaged me. Damn, girl, that punch had some kick to it. You takin' steroids?"

"Ha ha. No. It's all this farm work dads got me doing. Now that I'm old enough, I've had to pick up your load and some of Eric and Neil's too since they're too young to do some of the heavy lifting."

"You're probably just going soft." Their father had come up behind his son and clapped him on the shoulder, making him grunt. "Sitting up in that little electronic shop of yours can't be doing your physique any good. You'd be surprised at what farm work can do for you."

Danny rolled his eyes at his father, turning away from him and heading towards the staircase. "Thanks but no thanks. That's why I left, remember?" He started trudging up the stairs slowly. "Now, where are those two little brothers of mine?"

John followed his son's progress with his eyes before turning and joining his wife in the kitchen.

"John," Alexis heard her mother hiss at him, "Why didn't you tell me he was coming over?"

"Didn't think it was important," he responded, softly. Judging by the rustle of his clothes, he'd shrugged, nonchalantly.

"Oh, of course it's not important to you," she spat. "You're the one that ran him off in the first place. What about the rest of us? You deprived me of my child, my father of his grandson, and the kids of their older brother."

"Look, Claire," he responded, his tone exasperated, "It's not just my fault. I'm not apologizing until he does. Besides, it's probably best that he's not around: he's a bad influence on the kids. The boy's too stubborn for his own good."

"Gee, I wonder where he gets that from," she spat, dryly. "Look in a mirror, why don't you?" John scoffed at his wife, waving her off. "Stop thinking of just yourself for five minutes – five seconds would be a miracle – swallow your pride and make up with him so I can have my son back."

Alexis watched her father walk out of the kitchen and out the front door, jamming a hat on his head. She heard her mother sigh heavily followed by the clink of dishes as she continued to cook. The only thing her parents ever disagreed on was Danny. He and her father had been at each other's throats constantly while he'd lived at the house. They fought about… whatever… mostly the fact that he didn't want to follow in the family business, he didn't want to be a farmer. He wanted to be a doctor. He wanted to join the Alliance and help patch up troops. Only she and David knew that though. Her grandfather's condition had something to do with it. It had been Danny who'd installed the ramp for him to get up and down the stairs and saved up his own money to buy a nicer wheelchair for him since the family couldn't afford it, feeding five kids and three adults and all. As soon as he'd turned eighteen, he'd packed up all his belongings and moved out to an apartment in the small capital city a few miles out from their farm on the countryside. As far as Alexis knew, the only reason he hadn't already enlisted was because he was waiting for David to be old enough so they could enlist together. That had been two years ago. It was only two days away now.

She sighed. "Looks like it's just you and me now, Grandpa Jo."

He smiled, pulling a pack of cards out of his jacket pocket and dealing her a hand for a game of war. "That's just fine, Ali," he replied. "That's just fine."

When John Shepard finally came back, David was with him.

"Hey, look what I found, wandering around outside," David said with a grin.

Claire looked up from wiping the table. "You're just in time for dinner."

Alexis walked out of the kitchen carrying the plates. "Hey," she said when she saw David.

"Hey." He kissed her on the cheek as she placed a plate in front of her father who'd already thrown himself into his seat at the head of the table. They locked eyes for a minute which was enough to communicate why her dad had been walking around aimlessly outside. Only Danny could put him in that kind of mood. David nodded understandingly before letting her return to setting the table.

"Boys," her mother called up the stairs while wheeling Grandpa Jo to the table, "it's time to eat!"

There was a cacophony of noise as the boys raced down the stairs, nearly knocking over the table as they used the momentum to slide into their chairs.

"Hey, settle down," their mother scolded. "Did you wash your hands?"

Eric and Neil reluctantly rose from the table to wash up. "Ha!"Danny called after them. "I win!"

"What's up, Danny," David grinned at him, clasping his hand across the table.

"Hey, Dave, how are you?"

Alexis didn't fight the twinge of jealousy she felt over the fact that her boyfriend got to spend more time with her brother than she did.

Just two days, she thought dejectedly.

"Alright, everybody, sit down," Claire ordered as she carried a glass dish of her famously delicious casserole out of the kitchen.

Everyone obeyed, Eric and Neil rushing to their seats, their eyes alight with hungry anticipation.

"Man, Ma," Danny breathed hungrily, "I'd forgotten how well you cook."

"Come around more often and I'll remind you," she grinned, plopping a hefty serving onto his plate. "I'll also remind you that, in this house, we say grace before we dig in." She smacked his hand decidedly before he could bring his spoon to his mouth.

The twins snickered. They continued this snickering all through grace, earning a harsh scolding from their mother. The dining room was alive with laughter and joy as everyone dug into their food, rolls, salt, pepper, and a pitcher of lemonade being passed around the table.

"Danny?" It was a tiny voice, but audible enough that everyone at the table stopped talking and turned. Mia was standing at the foot of the stairs, pigtails disheveled, teddy bear in hand, rubbing her eyes.

A wide grin spread across her older brother's face as he rose and strode over to her, lifting her off her feet and into his arms. "Hey, kiddo," he said.

"Wh-why, didn't you wake me up f-for dinner," she whimpered helplessly as he carried her over to the table, plopping her in his lap.

"You just looked so peaceful, I couldn't. Here, have some casserole." The sorrowful, dejected look on her face vanished as soon as she got a bite of the delicacy in her mouth. Her eyes lit up and she giggled with delight, which got everybody laughing at once, the noise in the room resuming.

"So, Daniel," Claire called across the table, "do you have a girlfriend, yet?"

He laughed around the food in his mouth. "Nope."

"Why not?"

"There's no need for one," he responded light heartedly. "Plus, I'm too busy trying to keep Alexis' good-for-nothin' boyfriend out of trouble."

"Now, hush," his mother chastised him, "David is not a troublemaker."

"Oh, you don't know the half of it," her son chuckled softly.

"Neil has a girlfriend!" Eric blurted loudly.

"Shut up, no I don't!" Neil kicked his twin brother under the table.

"You better not have no girlfriend, Neil," his mother scolded.

"What? How come? Alexis has a boyfriend and you want Danny to have a girl!"

"That's because they're older than you. You're twelve, for Pete's sake."

"Ma, I'm thirteen."

"Oh, big difference," David snickered.

"Shut up, David," Neil spat at him.

"Hey you settle down," Grandpa Jo piped in, shooting his grandson a stern look. "If your ma doesn't want you to have a girlfriend, you can't have a girlfriend, got that?"

"Yes, sir," he mumbled, pushing his casserole around his plate with his spoon in sad defeat.

At the head of the table, John just laughed. "So, Danny," everyone at the table turned and stared at him in surprise: this was the first he'd spoken since dinner had started. "How is everything at that little electronics shop of yours?"

"Its… It's good," he answered, tentatively, shoveling the last of the casserole into Mia's mouth.

"Yeah?" his father urged him on.

"Um… yeah. It's not so little anymore, though. My manager got a pretty good deal with one of the other colonies. They requested for him to set up shop out there. We just might have a chain." He smiled, proudly.

"Another shop, like, off planet?" Alexis asked.

"Yeah, off planet."

"Where?" his mother probed.

"We're not sure yet."

"Well, would he send you or one of his other employees?" it was Grandpa Jo this time.

"We already talked about it and he said since I'm one of the best he thinks he can really trust me to head up a prosperous business on another colony."

Alexis looked at David sitting to her right, unnecessarily focused on cleaning his plate.

"So you'd leave Mindoir?" John asked.

"It's a definite possibility, yes."

"What about the farm?"

Danny blinked. "What about it?"

"Here it comes," David mumbled, only loud enough for Alexis to hear.

His father scratched the back of his head in frustration. "Look, son," he said. "I've let you take your little detours and have your little fun with this mechanical stuff for a decent amount of time. But at some point you've got to settle down and start getting serious about what you want to do with your life."

The table was awkwardly silent; everyone's eyes shifting from the son to the father back to the son again.

"What if I am serious?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what if this is what I want to do with my life?" There was a pause, John Shepard's brow furrowing as he attempted to comprehend what his son was saying. "What then, dad?"

"You mean you're serious about this?"

Danny hesitated. "Well…"

"You mean you want to work in an electronics shop rather than on a farm."

"I… no. No, I don't."

"That's what I thought. So you'll take the farm, then?"

"No."

"Whadya mean 'no'." His voice rose in frustration.

"I mean no, pops. I don't want to work in an electronics shop for the rest of my life, you're right. But that doesn't mean I want to be a farmer, stuck on this god-forsaken rock of a colony for my whole life, no thank you."

"What do you want, then, huh? What are you going to do with yourself? You can't bum around for your whole life! You need to have purpose!"

"Bum around?! Is that what you think I do?! I've had a job since I was fifteen years old! I paid for my own food, I paid for the ramp on the stairs, I paid for Grandpa's wheelchair, I pay for my own apartment and you think that I'm a bum."

Mia stared up into her brother's face, watching his tan complexion fill with color the angrier he got. "Danny?" she questioned softly, in confusion, starting to cry.

"You've got no direction, son! You're a man with no purpose, no pride, and no passion! You can't be a Shepard, you can't possibly have my blood in your veins if that's the case!"

"John," his wife gasped in shock.

"Oh, so you disown me now! Fine! This has been a long time coming, anyway, may as well get it over with now. Say it, dad."

Alexis tilted her head to one side, a confused look making her brow furrow.

"What's wrong?" David whispered to her.

"Nothing," she muttered back, "I just thought I heard something."

"Say what, son?" her father continued.

"Tell me I'm not your son."

"Daniel," his father started.

"No, you just said there's no way I can be a Shepard because of how I live my life."

"Daniel," his mother attempted to calm him down.

"No, Ma, I want to hear him say it out loud. If I'm not a Shepard, I'm not his son. If I don't farm, I'm not his son. I'm not good enough, is what he's trying to tell me. Stop trying and say it clearly."

"Daniel," his father started, "just tell me what you want to do. If you're not going to work at the electronics shop forever and you're not going to farm, what are you going to do?"

"Do you hear that?" Alexis whispered to David.

"Hear what, babe?" he asked, his eyes fixed on Daniel as he opened his mouth to answer his father's question. "Here it comes," he murmured.

"I'm going to be a marine, dad."

David buried his face in his hands and groaned.

There was silence. The only sound was the strange ringing noise that had started to get louder and louder as her father and brother decked out. Alexis glanced around the table to see if anyone else heard it. If they did, they didn't show any signs. She shrugged it off, blocking the piercing sound out as best she could.

Everyone stared at her elder brother in shock.

"What?" Grandpa Jo finally broke the silence.

Danny sighed. "That's been the plan from the start," he admitted softly. "I enlisted yesterday. The only reason I waited this long is because I've been waiting for David to hit eighteen. Figured if we're both going to sign up, we may as well sign up together."

"Cool," Eric grinned at Neil across the table for an instant before receiving a withering look from his father.

"Daniel Allen Shepard," his mother started, her voice breaking, "why didn't you say something before now?"

"Because I knew how you all would react. You had a hard enough time just accepting the fact that I didn't want to farm, and that I was more interested in mechanics than crops. And after what happened with Grandpa Jo… I just knew you wouldn't accept it."

"So you kept it a secret all this time?" Claire was sobbing openly now, attempting to hide behind the sleeve of her shirt.

"Ma, don't cry, I just –"

"How could you?"

Daniel looked sharply at his father. "Dad, I –"

"Knowing everything the Alliance has put this family through, knowing how we all feel about this, you dare to show your face here and lie to us all?" His voice was low and menacing. Alexis had never heard him talk that way. She imagined her face mirrored the shocked fright on the faces of her younger siblings.

It didn't faze Daniel a bit. "You didn't really leave me with much choice, pops." His tone matched his father's exactly.

John Shepard exploded. "Don't you put the blame on me, boy!" he yelled, slamming his fist on the table and rising from his chair in anger.

Mia resumed crying, her loud sobs mingling with the softer whimpers of her mother's.

"It is your fault," Claire Shepard spoke, her voice choked.

"What?" her husband spat at her.

Rising from her own seat, she wheeled on her husband. "If you hadn't run him out of our house, if you'd just talked to him like a real human being, like your son, instead of always yelling and fighting and badgering and berating him, maybe he would have felt comfortable coming to us and telling us what he wanted! If you'd just let him be who he is!"

"This is not my fault!" he screamed at her, towering over her like a statue. "It's not my fault he's the hardest headed, stubborn ass – "

"Don't you cuss in my house!"

"Mom, dad," Alexis soothed, trying to get them to calm down over Mia's sobs. Eric and Neil cowered at the opposite end of the table, stunned.

Grandpa Jo's voice joined the yelling match. "If the both of you don't shut up and sit down right now, so help me, I'll toss you both out of this house and finish up the rest of this casserole myself."

Alexis looked at David who was sitting low in his chair like he wanted to melt through the floor. Couldn't he hear it? That incessant, piercing ringing: it was endless.

She clapped her hands over her ears at the same time something crashed through the window and onto the table, landing solidly in the casserole.

"What the hell –" Daniel started but was cut off when their grandfather yelled "Grenade!" and leapt out of his wheelchair on to the ground beneath the table.

Everything happened very quickly then, all chaos and noise.

It was a smoke grenade, filling the house with a thick white cloud that burned Alexis' eyes as she rose from her chair. A hand clasped her wrist and pulled her to the ground, shoving her underneath the table. She could hear the loud, reverberating sound of her father's shotgun as he fired off at… something. A body collapsed in a heap by the table and she thought she could make out four blank eyes staring into her. She wretched, nearly vomiting all over herself. She heard her little sister scream and Daniel's voice cry out "Mia!" before he groaned and something fell across two dining room chairs, pushing them out of place, before thudding to the ground. She looked to her left. Her Grandpa Jo lay very still next to her underneath the table.

"Grandpa," she whispered, before she noticed his eyes and how empty and staring they were. She started hyperventilating. Her father's shotgun went off again, once more, before it was followed by a dissatisfying click. Out of ammo.

"Claire!" she heard him scream. He lifted the chair that was by her hand. It connected with something before he fell to the ground in a fit of horrible coughs that ceased after the sound of a pistol rang through the air.

Alexis stifled her own coughs by covering her mouth. She was trembling in fear. Why was Grandpa Jo so still? Where was David? Was Daniel alright or was he…? Where was her mother? What had happened to Mia and Eric and Neil? What was going on?

A guttural sound like someone talking underwater broke into her thoughts. Her body tensed. And then there were flames. Her house was up in flames. She had to get out. Scrambling out from underneath the table, she saw her mother's limp body twisted inhumanely and covered in blood, a gaping hole in her stomach. Daniel was on the other side of the dining table, lifeless and still, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Half of her father's head was gone, his brains lying on the ground next to him. Were those his brains? She couldn't tell through the flames and the smoke. Where was David?

She called his name, her voice choked with smoke. "David?" she coughed. She had subconsciously crawled to the front door. And there he was, lying by it, trembling with blood streaming from his mouth. Where was his other leg? She looked around for it. Oh, there it was, over by the stairs.

"Ali," he coughed out, blood spurting from his mouth. "They… they… they got Mia and Eric… and Neil, too."

"What do you mean, David?" she asked, surprised at how even her voice sounded.

"T-t-took 'em and th-threw 'em in cages."

"Who?" She asked. Maybe if she got his leg and put it back on him, he'd stop bleeding and he'd be okay.

"I... don't know. You have… to get out… get out of here… Alexis. You… have to run… to live…" He pressed something into her hand.

"What about you?" She asked him.

He just smirked at her. And then his eyes went glassy. "David?" she asked him. Nothing. "David." Why didn't he answer her? "David!" she was screaming now, screaming over the crackle of the flames bursting around her. She grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him viciously, yelling his name over and over.

There was a loud creak as a support fell from the ceiling, blocking the front door. She had flung herself across David's lifeless body as if to protect him. Funny. Trying to protect a life that was already gone.

She looked up at the ceiling, leaping backward as another support fell, crushing David's body. She had to get out now. The way to the dining room window was blocked. The only escape was to go upstairs. Alexis staggered drunkenly to her feet, tripping over the other half of David's left leg as she made her way to the stairs. Quickly, she stumbled up the stairs and into her parent's room. The window, that was a way out. She made her way toward it, not even noticing the humanoid figure that blocked her path. It had its back to her, but wheeled on her and yelled in that strange guttural, underwater language. It readied the gun in its hand and fired three times. One bullet connected with her shoulder, the other whizzed by her neck and the last embedded itself in her stomach. Alexis screamed wildly, blue stuff pouring off of her in waves as she ran at the four-eyed murderer and tackled him out of the window.

They fell fast. It only had time to run something cold and sharp across her face, making her scream, before its back connected with the ground, knocking all the air from its body.

Alexis scrambled off of the thing and grabbed the gun it had discarded. It moaned in pain. Her hands shook as she aimed. She fired the last shot straight in to one of its eyes, its groans of pain ceasing instantly.

And then she ran.