Fire…

The heat was almost unbearable and made his skin feel like it was melting… the smoke smothering him to the point where he could barely breathe… the crackling of the flames was so loud it felt as though it would damage his eardrums…

But much louder than that were the screams coming from the burning people.

"RALLEN!" That scream was filled with such pain that it almost made him rush blindly into the flames, had it not been for the next shout.

"RUN! Run while you still have a chance!"

As much as he wanted to aid them, his instincts would not allow him to as he ran toward where he knew the door should be. He could see it up ahead as he blindly rushed for it, but before he could reach out to open it, it vanished…

His hands touched only the wall, he was already burning hot from the fire behind him, very nearly burning his hands through his gloves. As panic began to cloud his mind, he did the thing one should never do in such a situation…

He looked back… only to see his family being burned alive…

They cried and screamed his name until they were no more than the fires of hell themselves.

Now the flames started getting closer, seeking new prey like a predator. He couldn't move as the panic now overruled his mind, his hands blindly searching behind him for the door that was not there… But his efforts were wasted as the flames suddenly spread out to surround him, trapping him as they rose above him like a wave about to crash.

The fire sprang forward like a viper pouncing its prey… he screamed as it engulfed him…

"AAAAAH!"

Rallen woke with a start at the sound of his own scream, panting for breath as his eyes darted back and forth, searching for the flames that had been about to eat him up. When he saw none of the flames, felt none of the heat, he sighed in relief and dropped back down.

It was only a dream…

However, a second after that thought had passed, he blinked once and looked more closely at his surroundings.

'Wait… where am I, and why am I in a hospital bed?

After a few drowsy moments of thinking, Rallen remembered what had happened; he and Jeena had been on a regular patrol mission around Nanairo when something had smashed headlong into their ship.

Speaking of his partner…

As he looked to hos side, he noticed Jeena sleeping in the same bed as he was ('When did this happen?' he wondered to himself). They both had their arms around the other, so they were basically hugging each other, though he had no idea how that had happened, or who had even put them in a hospital bed together. Wasn't that unethical?

Just then, Jeena stirred and sleepily blinked her eyes.

"Ugh… Rallen…?" she groaned out, looking over at her partner.

"Yeah, Jeena?" he replied.

"…What happened…?"

*Flashback!

Patrolling is never realy entertaining for anyone, especially when you're out in space for WAY too many days in a row with only one other person. It was even less so when your partner happened to be a bit of a hothead and very impatient.

"Geez… Jeena, are we done yet? Tonight's macaroni night and I don't want to miss it," Rallen said, keeping the ship on course while using one hand to pet Komainu.

Jeena rolled her eyes and replied with: "It's always macaroni, Rallen. Can't you think of something other than your stomach?"

As if it had heard the question, Rallen's stomach chose that moment to rumble in protest. "I guess not," Rallen chuckled out. His partner merely rolled her eyes again.

"There's supposedly something lurking in this sector and we need to make sure that it, whatever it is, is no threat to us or the rest of Nanairo," Jeena explained with a touch of annoyance in her voice. They'd gone through this same kind of conversation many times before, and it was starting to get on her nerves a bit.

"Well, I'm sure it can wait until after dinner, right?"

But no sooner had Rallen made the offer than the alarms blared loudly only seconds before something huge slammed into their ship from the side, knocking both of them out of their seats and slamming into the wall, Komainu was sent sprawling across the floor with a whine of surprise.

"Urgh… I guess not!" Jeena shot back from her position on the wall just before the ship was hit again and sent them flat on the ground. Rallen grumbled something that Jeena didn't quite catch, but she didn't question what he'd said, as they were a bit too busy climbing their way back to the cockpit as the ship continued to twist around because of whatever was slamming into it.

Komainu was whining because he was having quite a bit of trouble with following, Rallen recalled the small Spectrobe back into the Prizmod.

The moment they made it to the cockpit again, whatever had smashed into their ship latched onto the windows in front of them, revealing a large shadowy creature that almost made Rallen's heart stop. He recognized it for what it was almost instantly, but he refused to believe it.

"Wait, a shadow? Could it be… nah, they disappeared after we killed Him," he said, quickly retaking the controls to avoid crashing into some nearby asteroid. "But then, what is that?"

Jeena also recognized it easily, though she couldn't believe it any more than Rallen. "Rallen! It's a Krawl!"

"You want me to believe that thing is a Krawl? No freaking way!"

Despite what Rallen said, he obviously didn't doubt Jeena; he just didn't want to admit it to himself yet. When the Krawl started banging on the window, gradually cracking it from the force, Rallen had little choice but to believe that it really was a Krawl.

"Jeena, shoot it!"

"No can do, Rallen," Jeena said slowly and with a touch of dread in her voice.

"WHAT! WHY?"

"The weapon system's offline… this thing must have targeted the guns when it hit us."

"So… what, we're defenseless?" Rallen asked even as another crack appeared in the window.

"Yeah, basically…" Jeena said, before she promptly ripped open a small glass casing and slammed her fist down on the red button under it.

After nodding to Rallen, the two ran back toward the escape pods. As much as Rallen wanted to stay and fight, in their current situation, there was no way to possibly win against this Krawl (even though Rallen still couldn't fully believe that it was one).

Just as they closed the pods after climbing into them, the Krawl broke through the window, the oxygen in the room was sucked out as it leaped through. But before the Krawl could reach their pods, the two officers were launched out into space, leaving the Krawl to screech after them in rage.

After that, Rallen had passed out…

"Oh…"

As his memory returned in full, Rallen remembered that the two of them had woken up the night before with some sleeping troubles. And in the end, Jeena had ended up moving to Rallen's bed to sleep. After that, they'd dozed off almost instantly.

For a moment, nothing was said and neither of the two moved, until they glanced at each other for a moment, and realized just how close they were. It took them a few seconds before they inched forward slowly…

This story has three possible continuations. Though this chapter similar to the beginning of a story on the FanFiction website, the follow-ups won't be. Each version of the next chapter will be for a different audience. One for children, one for young adults, and the last one for those people out there who are just that much of a nerd.