...Tuesday

Keith Greers was going out of his mind.

Not only was he unaware of where he was falling, but he was falling. That realization in itself is always more terrifying than whatever destination you might reach. Keith wanted terribly to open his eyes.

"Maybe if I could see where I was headed, I could think of a way of..." his voice trailed off; he could not part his eyelids.

The young man told himself repeatedly how simple it was, yet for something so childishly easy, he could not even bring himself to look at where he was heading. He nearly choked at his own feebleness.

"So this is how it ends, huh?" Keith despaired, "I'm gonna get taken out by fate in the most one-sided of deaths?!"

Then, Keith smiled, now actually content with this.

"Oh well, it's not like I didn't do all I wanted, right? What's the point in fighting anyway, no one can survive a fall like this, right? Right?" Keith asked no one. Predictably, no one answered. Keith bit his lip; it seems that even now the young man cannot convince himself to give up. He clenched his fists tightly.

"Fine, then I won't let this fall take me," Keith announced. "I've never stepped down from anyone who I knew was wrong, especially fate-- hell, there is no such thing as fate; I'm living proof of that! Wherever I end up, I SWEAR I'LL GET THERE BREATHING!" he yelled.

Then, grinning, Keith calmed down, and braced his body for impact just as he felt himself falling faster.

"Here it comes..." Keith whispered, expecting his body to flatten any moment. Then he abruptly stopped.

Stillness...

Keith was too overcome with anxiety to even notice he had already stopped falling. He heard quiet, steady breathing and tried to will himself to calm down once again. It was only when the breathing continued that Keith realized he had come to a halt.

"Well, I guess I'm still alive," Keith thought, "because I can say so." When he had calmed down a bit more, he started to try to make sense of where he was at that moment.

"Let's see… for starters," he began, "I'm alive-- which is good. Next, I'm lying down on a firm, cold surface, so I'm probably indoors somewhere. Third..."

Keith nearly yelped when he finally realized it.

"Something else is in this room, and its breathing, no sleeping," he finished. He decided it best to gain his bearings on his feet, so he rose to stand, when he came to realize that his eyes were still closed. He slowly opened them, but soon gasped to find out that he still saw only darkness.

"Oh God!" Keith whimpered, "I'm blind! I gotta get outta here before that other thing wakes up! But how… where are the doors? How can I even find them?! How will I ever open up my own restaurant now?!" The pressure in the back of Keith's mind had now completely taken over as fear, and he actually found himself beginning to cry. Suddenly disgusted with his lack of self-control, Keith pulled himself together.

"That's enough! I already said I'd get here alive, so getting out shouldn't be a problem." Keith defiantly thought. "And besides, if whatever in here is sleeping, then maybe the light is just turned out!" The young man nodded, agreeing with his own logic.

"First things first, I need to try and figure out where this thing is," he whispered. He slowly got up to stand, then froze. He listened for the breathing, which he identified as towards his left. Slowly, Keith took a few steps backwards away from it, bumping his back against what he surmised to be a wall.

"All right!" Keith yipped. "Now how did that trick work again? Oh yeah, 'Walk with your left hand against a wall, and you'll eventually find a door.'"

Following his own advice, Keith turned to his right, to keep his left hand against the wall. Then, he shuffled slowly along, until he came to a corner.

"Almost there," he thought. "Now to just make sure to keep quiet, and I should be out in no--whoa!"

Keith cursed as his right leg caught a huge, heavy bump in the floor. Keith tried desperately to regain his balance, but it was too late, he had tripped on his bag and was falling. Instinctively, Keith put both hands in front of him as fell. He had hoped to catch himself with his hands and was preparing to hit the floor hard. The fall was surprisingly short-lived.

"At least I didn't land too hard," Keith thought.

He froze, when he noticed what he landed on was higher than the floor. In addition, it seemed covered with a type of light fabric, like cotton but smoother. Not wanting to dwell on details, Keith pushed up on his palms but could not grip the smooth fabric. He shifted his hands trying to rise at the same time, but his leg was still caught on the bag. Slowly, Keith used his hands again to try to push himself up, this time he reached a little too far and felt something different beneath the fabric. He moved his hand across this new lump. At first, he noticed it was firm, yet with some give as stretched his hand across it, moving slowly in one direction to try to figure out what it was.

Then, the texture of this new material changed drastically. It was suddenly softer, Keith realized, much softer, with a strange, almost jelly-like resistance to its rounded shape.

His mind suddenly broke down. At that moment, Keith swore he could taste his heart as it leapt into his throat...

"Oh, Dear God," was all he could whisper, as he finally put two and two together.

He quickly flashed back all the way to the 7th grade. He and Ian were invited to the Nichols twins' birthday party. Although he could not fully remember everything that happened there, what he immediately recalled was the rousing game of Truth or Dare, when, spurred on by a challenge from Erik Johansen, Keith turned to Crystal Nichols, the same Crystal Nichols from earlier in the story.

And with some unexpected help from Erik, Keith formally "introduced" himself to the grouchy brunette, or at least to her developing breasts. Keith then gulped again as he noted the similarities of the experiences between then and now. Other than the size, he figured everything was just about the same. Well, at least now he determined the gender of the room's inhabitant.

Keith was so busy reminiscing, however, that it took him a few seconds to realize something horrible-- the breathing had stopped. His heart nearly followed suit. Keith slowly reached behind him with a free hand to grab his bag when…

Click!

... Tuesday

In less than an instant, the room was flooded with pure, painful white light. Keith quickly shut his eyes, as the sudden luminescence was too bright to take in so quickly after moving around with his eyes open in pitch-black darkness. When his eyes did not sting so much, which took a few seconds, he lifted his head to look around the room. He saw it was well furnished, with abundant clues as to the personality of the owner. There were many pictures, some flowers, and the window was shut, meaning this person obviously valued their sleep.

It was no surprise to Keith that someone lived here... and when the bed shifted, he turned and found out who that someone was.

Again the young man froze. Slowly, he brought his focus back to the bed. He now saw with terrifying clarity that his other hand was indeed firmly cupping a soft, familiar protrusion of the female anatomy. Keith then turned to his left. His bewildered gaze was met first by two strikingly dark gems. The duo of purple orbs was as wide as Keith's own eyes were, huge and unmoving as the mind they belonged to tried making sense of the situation.

In the brief moment that Keith had, he nearly drowned in the impossibly perfect features of Barnette Orangello.

Keith, unlike every other man on board, was not raised on Tarak, so he could really identify with the Mejerran's sense of beauty and truly appreciate it. And even for Earth standards, this round-faced angel was a goddess in Keith's eyes. Her cheekbones were set evenly, giving a sense of symmetry to her face he had not seen on Earth. Barnette's skin was a bit paler than he was used to seeing in most girls (although given the situation, Keith later reasoned some of that to be understandable). However, what held Keith's amazement of this girl the longest was how smooth her skin was. It was as though the air around her had never marred her youth.

Try as he might, Keith could not figure out the age of this girl.

Of course, thanks to three generations of clever genetic engineering amongst already beautiful women, most Mejerrans Barnette's age are all considerably attractive, because they lack all male characteristics that normally would have been passed on from father to daughter. Hence, although Keith did not know it at the time, he was looking at quite possibly the purest example of feminine beauty in the history of humanity.

Keith almost mistook Barnette for a statue, because of the quiet power that her eyes alone forced on him. He was so fixed by Barnette's gaze that her slightly mussed hair only further helped to frame her angelic face-- Keith didn't even notice the most shockingly obvious thing about it: namely being it was dark green.

However, he had stared too long. In another instant, a ripple of realization flashed across that same face as her gaze turned from bewilderment to anger. Now was Keith's time to react.

"Caught with my hand in the cookie jar," Keith thoughtHe mentally chuckled at the analogy, and suddenly remembered that he was still copping a feel off of this girl.

Keith slowly released the semi-solid protrusion from his grasp...

Just then, in a pale, greenish haze of motion, the weight on the bed shifted suddenly as Barnette rolled left to the nightstand where, in an instant, she grabbed a live-ammo Smith and Wesson revolver from the table and quickly whirled around in the Weaver stance. She then shifted her aim left as the intruder, now with a bag slung over his shoulder, was furiously tapping the buttons on her sliding door access keypad, hoping for a reaction.

She decided as she aimed to give him one he was not expecting.

Keith was doing everything he could to get the damn keypad to do something with the door, when he heard a small sliding click. Then the next second, the wall section next to him erupted in a small explosion thanks to the gun's large caliber Magnum rounds.

He froze.

"What do I do now?" he thought, as he slowly raised his hands up. He was planning to reassure the girl of his helplessness in words, when Barnette cut him off with the same acidic tone she had perfected over the years.

"Don't move..." she hissed. Keith complied. He gulped in astonishment at the amount of venom that just those two words contained.

"Damn, that's unbelievable! I guess looks really can be deceiving," he thought. "No way am I gonna just stand here like this! I gotta think of a plan."

Keith thought back to Crystal, and how Ian had cowered before her voice alone. The voice he heard just then was at least 200 times more dangerous; and Keith did not want to think of what she was capable of actually doing to him. He had to think of something, and fast. Then he looked at the hole in the wall and examined the tremendous damage the revolver had already demonstrated.

"If one shot from her could do this to a solid wall…" he thought.With Keith's back still to Barnette, a small grin lit up his face as a plan quickly came together.

Barnette, meanwhile, was still trying figure out what to do next. A full 30 seconds had already passed and yet still no one came to investigate the gunshot.

She looked over at her alarm and found out why. The cutesy, purple box displayed a clear red statement of 3:23 AM. She knew from experience that even the night crew would have been groggy at this hour.

"But what now?," Barnette wondered. She had held people at gunpoint before, but the situation was completely against her to call for aid. The only way of getting help would be to open all communication channels from a call unit outside her room.

"Wait a minute," the Dread pilot thought. "It is just one person, and a male at that…If Hibiki and the others are any indication, then he shouldn't be too much of a problem, even if he tries to put up a fight."

She then gave the boy a quick once-over evaluation she normally saved for those who annoyed her.

"Hmm… well, for starters, he's short, easily shorter than I am, so I automatically have a height and leverage advantage on him. Next, his heaving shoulders mean he's tired. Third, he's a male, about Hibiki's build so he must be equal in strength with that weakling. Then, of course, he knows I'm armed, and I know he's not."

Barnette considered any other characteristics of the boy in an instant. Then, confident of her chances of subduing him, she decided to prove her capabilities without the help of the crew. While he was being "evaluated," Keith had time to go over his plan again. Then, oddly, after a few more seconds passed, he wondered what was taking this girl so long in making her next move.

"She knows her way around with that thing, so what's she waiting for?" Keith thought.

Then, previous fight experience gave him an answer.

"If help was gonna arrive for her, it would have gotten here by now, right? So that can only mean one of three things:

1.) She's the only person in this place.

2.) If there are others, then they must all still be asleep-- since she was too, and they must not have heard the gunshot.

3.) This girl has been sizing me up and thinks she can take me by herself-- so she's decided she doesn't need to call for help."

Keith relished at the chance of it being option three. It would not be the first time he was judged in such a way. Due to his obvious lack of height, many of Keith's opponents pinned him as a pushover who only talks big, but could not back up his talk to save his life-- which of course made it easier for Keith when the time came to make them pay for their arrogance. If the plan went well, then this girl would end up paying, just like so many others.

Barnette on the other hand, had made up her mind. Stepping off the bed, she moved to within a few feet of her captive.

"That's it," thought Keith, "just a little bit closer, miss; my arms aren't exactly long, ya know."

When he was sure she was in his arm's reach, Keith thought it best to determine her height. He could suddenly feel the heat of the gun's last blast on the back of his neck.

"That's odd, she's close enough, why not aim for the back of the head?" He figured an answer. "Oh, I see. She must have pretty average arms then. Let's see, that would place her height around 5' 4" then," Keith reasoned. "Just a bit taller than me, but not by much-- all the easier for me, miss."

Then Keith shook his head grinning at another fact that dawned on him.

"That still wouldn't explain her boobs, though," Keith chuckled, remembering then how his hand could not even begin to cover the sheer surface area of Barnette's large breast. He almost laughed, when the girl in question made her presence known to him again.

3:25 AM Tuesday

"Don't be stupid enough try anything brave!" Barnette commanded.

Keith remained silent, deciding it best to leave the girl guessing as to whether or not he could even speak. Again, the daggers in Barnette's words astonished him. Even with the gun barrel only inches from his skull, a shiver still shot through his spine due to her voice.

"All right, this is how it's gonna go," she started. "I'm gonna tie your hands; so you're gonna bring them behind you to let me tie them, okay? You make this easy, and maybe you'll live to see another day." With that, the girl looked around for something to bind the young man's hands.

Keith scoffed his disgust at her plan. "Oh my God, are you serious? That's your plan to restrain me, huh? Damn, miss, you must have made that up just now."

Darting her head quickly around the room, Barnette saw what she needed around the man's waist. Keith was reading her like a book.

"Go on," Keith thought, "Look around all you want, just please ask for my belt... then again, she couldn't be that predictable, right?"

Barnette then proved even Keith wrong by commanding him to remove his belt with one hand, while the other still clutched his bag. Keith did as he was told; cursing himself as he just revealed that he too understood English.

"Oh well, this can still work..." he thought. Keith held out the belt in his left hand out to his side. It was time for phase two of the escape plan. Barnette grinned at how scared this boy seemed to be. It had been a long time since she had threatened anyone with physical harm, so this was a refreshing experience.

"All right," Barnette began, "Now hand me the belt, drop the bag, and put your hands behind your back!" she ordered. The young man did not even move. Confused, Barnette repeated herself, an uncommon occurrence for the Dread pilot.

"I said, hand me the belt, drop the bag, and put your hands behind your back!" Still there was no response. Barnette gritted her teeth at the idea of losing control and raised the gun to Keith's head, cocking the hammer back sharply. Keith on the other hand was smiling now. He could not believe how easily and quickly he had gotten under her skin.

"Play dumb for 10 seconds, and she's already this mad? This is too easy… now it's up to her to begin phase 3; that's it miss, you're doing everything according to plan."

Barnette was suddenly very angry. No one on board the Nirvana, no woman and surprisingly no man had ever upset her this much.

"Not even Hibiki's big mouth, Meia's impatience, or even Dita's reluctance has ever gotten me this annoyed. But this male, this savage peon has the guts to ignore me? I don't think so."

Then, she set Keith's plan in motion by laying a forceful hand on his shoulder to try to take the belt by force.

"Perfect," Keith actually said out loud. He no longer cared if she heard, the next few seconds would move too quickly. He then performed one of the most basic turnaround hammerlocks he learned when he was 11.

He ducked down quickly as he dropped the bag from his right hand, grabbed Barnette's left hand off his shoulder, and then sidestepped behind her twisting her left arm against her back with his left hand. Then, in an instant, he sidestepped again to her right side, ducking underneath her gun arm, as he, in one motion, both swept her ankles from beneath her, and flipped her backwards to the ground-- while retrieving the gun from her grasp. It was a simple, textbook maneuver leaving Keith standing in front of the door, while Barnette briefly favored her wrist in a sitting position. Keith grinned at how well the move went.

"Now to bust outta this room," Keith thought.

He raised the gun to the keypad, when he heard a faint, turning click behind him. He turned around and the instant Keith saw Barnette's right arm raise up a smaller pistol, he shifted his weight to his right, sidestepped against the bed, just feeling the heat of the bullet blaze across his face, actually leaving a burn scar on his left cheek as it went by and into the wall behind him.

He did not have time to notice.

Rolling off the bed towards the door, he pulled the sheet off it, and then flung it at the wide-eyed girl still sitting down, draping it over her. Barnette fired wildly as the sheet closed in around her, charring small holes through it and leaving dark craters on the ceiling. By the time she finally emerged from the sheet, she seethed with rage to see her room empty, and a brightly lit rectangle of light outlining where a closed door was. In its entryway lay her revolver with its cylinder exposed, the remaining rounds scattered closely nearby.

Keith only needed the pistol to shoot the keypad, which he left as a sparking, smoking mess. The boy was gone, leaving Barnette in an eerie stillness...

1.) another one down... i'll try and get all reformatted chapters back online today.

2.) well... looking familiar, or have I been gone too long?