A/N: This is my first foray into X-Files fanfiction. I'm only on Season 2 (I know, I'm about 20 years late to the party) so I don't think I have their voices and mannerisms down pat quite like I did with Castle and Beckett (suggestions welcome!) but nonetheless I had way too much fun with this. I own no copyright to X-Files or any characters therein. The "extras" and episode-specific characters are mine. Mulder, Scully, and Skinner certainly are not. Speaking of our heroes, they'll show up in Chapter Two, I promise.
Unnamed Island, Mediterranean Sea
300 miles off the coast of Greece
September 22nd, 1996
Lani Cho huddled in front of the fireplace in the small cabin that she and her team of Botany students had called home for the past six months, sketching a diagram of the tree that been felled by lightning the night before. The inner structure of the tree was like nothing she had ever seen before. Though the tree looked like a sturdy evergreen from the outside, the inside was a flaky, almost scaly texture. There were no rings, not even anything she would consider wood. The design almost reminded her of nested petals on a rose, but made of a substance she couldn't identify.
"How's it look under the microscope?" Lani asked her colleague, Melissa Edenbury.
"Weird," said Melissa. "Not very plantlike. Except that it's photosynthesizing."
"Still? And in this light?" Lani looked around the room, dimly light by the fire and the headlamp Melissa was wearing.
"Yeah. Actually faster now that it's dark."
"That's weird."
Lani felt a shiver go down her spine. She looked back and forth between Melissa and her other colleague Jackie and wondered if one of them was next.
"I know what you're thinking," said Melissa. "We can't think like that. Come on. Just finish your diagram and let's get some sleep."
Jackie stood up and checked the lock on the door. "I don't know how you can be so calm!" she said. "Two weeks ago there were five of us, now it's just us, and we still don't know who's taking them!"
Melissa rolled her eyes. "They have to be on the island somewhere, Jackie. If they're not at the inn, and if Spike didn't take them off the island, they're still here. No one's seen any other boats coming and going, and there's no way anyone would make it out of here in a little canoe."
"Just because they didn't make it doesn't mean they didn't try," said Lani.
"Relax. We'll find them."
Lani sighed and closed her notebook. "Yeah, but will we find them alive?"
"Lani!"
Lani threw her notebook on the floor and stormed into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her, then curled up under the blankets, crying into her knees.
Back in the living room, Melissa waved Jackie over to look in the microscope.
"What is it?"
Melissa jumped back as her slide shattered and her microscope fell off the table, smashing on the floor. "The cells... They grew."
"What the hell?"
Melissa was looking in awe at what was a nearly invisible sliver of plant fiber a few minutes ago. "I turned off the headlamp to see if they'd photosynthesize faster when it got even darker. I guess they did."
A dozen or so distinct plant scales lay on the table and the floor, pulsating as if electrically charged.
"That was in your Petri dish?"
"Under a slide. It was a millimeter thick, tops."
"I want it out of here."
"It's a plant, Jackie."
"It just broke your microscope!"
Melissa sighed, scooping the fragments into an empty bowl. "I guess I'll have to write the university for a new one. I'll call about it tomorrow."
"Can you just... set it on the porch?"
"Yeah, I guess. I don't want it to blow away or anything, but if it grows this fast it might break the whole cabin."
Jackie cracked a smile. "I hope not. I'm going to bed. I want to get in at least an hour's search tomorrow morning before we get started."
"Okay. I'll go with you."
"Night."
Jackie opened the bedroom door a crack, peeking through the opening to see if Lani was still awake.
"What was all that?" Lani asked.
Jackie shrugged and sat on the bottom bunk next to Lani. "There are some weird-ass plants on this island."
"I'm scared."
"Of the plants?"
"Of getting kidnapped."
Jackie twirled her hair. "You think that's what happened to Minh and Jessica?"
"What else?"
"I don't know. Let's get some sleep."
Jackie climbed the ladder to the top bunk and turned out the lamp. Lani pulled the blankets around her tightly and hugged her pillow.
Lani awoke after a fitful few hours of sleep, unsure at first of what had woken her. She squinted at the digital alarm clock, then peered around the room to see what had made the sound - if indeed it was a sound. At first she saw nothing, so she tiptoed out of bed, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, looking around. Everything seemed just like she left it. The window was closed, Melissa was sound asleep in the bunk on the other side of the room, and Jackie was tucked safely in the top bunk above her.
Probably just my imagination, Lani thought, crawling back into bed. ...but imagining what?
Just as she closed her eyes, a deafening high-pitched humming pierced her eardrums and rattled the bones in her scull. She covered her ears and curled up, trying to block out the sound, but it made no difference. She cried out, thinking surely her ears must be bleeding.
As quickly as it had begun, when Lani next opened her eyes, it was morning and everything seemed to be as it was. Melissa was still sleeping soundly across from her and Jackie-
Jackie was gone.