Rainy and lazy day outside, thought i could publish this in just minutes. Still not the owner of movie rights.
CHAPTER 11. TIME TO LEAVE
Wally's movements are slow that day. Normally he could shovel and compact several cubes in just a minute, but his depression makes minutes seem like hours as he finishes his first trash cube in 10 minutes of lazy scooping; but he just stops, feeling like there is no energy or spirit within himself to carry out his duties. Even Hal sensed his master's unrest.
He pulls out one of his zippo lighters from his front pocket, and flicks it on just like Eve showed him.
Wally just stares at the tiny little flame, thinking about her as memories of that evening ran through his mind. It was the only time he had interacted with another human being, a lovely woman no less; the few minutes he spent with her was the most eventful and happiest in his life. In the mere 10 minutes of just being with Eve compared to the three decades of his entire life of surviving on Earth, he felt truly alive.
He remembers seeing her face, an image of a girl that could strike so much affection into him to make him feel immeasurable love for her. He remembers her blue eyes looking at him when he talked for the very first time, something he thought he would never get to do or need to. He remembers how her warmth felt upclose, the finer details of her soft skin made him ache to hold her or ate least feel her touch, but as close as he got, it felt like a world apart.
He remembered her laugh; it sounded sweeter than the soft tune of It only Takes A Moment, and he loved making her laugh as much as he loved Eve herself. Then he thought of the moment he tried to hold her hand, how he came so close to feeling the warmth of his love run through her and from her to him.
But he cowered away at the last second, just because he was afraid Eve didn't feel the same to him and would mean certain death if he dared try.
He thinks of the way she is now: cold, lifeless, and unresponsive; maybe lost completely.
"What if she never wakes up?"
The question resounds in his mind. And now realizes, though she was there physically, Wally feels more alone than ever. He felt like he left without the world, without life, without a reason for a life; and without her…
An earthquake resounds through the city. He snaps back into reality, but was so lost he can't figure out what's happening until he notices that the accelerating wind blew the lighter's flame out. But he knew something was out of place. Earthquakes don't cause such strong winds.
A familiar roaring sound echoes from somewhere, "a building collapsing? Is that whats casuing all this?" He wonders.
Hal barked at the light emerged from the sky, Wally sees where it's actually originating. It's just In the same direction of his home, and up in the sky. He saw the light of rocket engines; Eve's ship has returned.
His mind immediately alerted of what that meant.
"NO!" he stood up.
Wally has never run faster in his life. Even faster than at times when his life was endangered by sandstorms, falling towers, floods, or any emergency for that matter that involved his own safety. No, he was running because she was in trouble. He had almost forgotten about Hal, whose struggling to keep up. It's a few kilometers back home through a maze of trash dunes and towers, his insides ache from the running; but he must go on, he must get to her.
His worst fears were confirmed as the giant recon ship that Eve has arrived on has landed next to the bridge of his home. He's almost there, but the rocket's side has opened up a cargo bay, facing his truck, and Eve is still out there.
"EVAH!"
A twinge of fear came over him as he saw a robotic arm reach out and grab Eve's cryopod, retracting into the cargo bay; she is leaving, no, being taken away from him.
"EVAH!" he screamed, almost out of breath from running as fast as he can.
Wally will not sit back and lose her forever. He'll be damned if she leaves he will be left to rot for the rest of his life here. No! For he was going to get to her, tell her that he loves her and wants to spend a lifetime with her. Even if it takes forever to free her or if it even takes his own life; he will spend at least another second with her.
Wally eventually figured he knew what he must do, he must get onboard.
But Hal has caught up to him, only does he realize that Hal was with him and he can't go to who-knows-where.
"Whoa!" he stops Hal in his tracks, shoeing him up the ramp of the truck.
"Stay!" he forcefully tells Hal. He seems to understand as he sits down.
The sound of the ships engine systems getting prepped for firing snaps Wally into a panicked hurry; he pays no mind to what he has on him or what he's leaving behind, but Eve's ship will launch any minute.
He heads back outside, sprinting after Eve, but he almost runs over the edge of the bridge when he tries to grab onto Eve's pod. The pod has retracted into the ship, and Wally realizes that there is only one way to get on. He's goanna have to jump to get in the ship. It's a 100 meter (390ft) drop to the dried up Hudson riverbed, and to a certain death.
The cargo bay doors begin closing; Wally is mentally and physically racing against tremendous odds.
Wally has no time to contemplate! He runs to the other edge, and boosts his speed with all his energy as he sprints like a mad man, and jumps with all his might!…
…he barely makes it! An 20 foot leap of faith; he landed in the cargo hold as the bay doors sealed shut behind him, the locks click in place with a hissing sound, the ship is pressurized for lift off.
He twisted his ankle as he hit the deck hard. He winces at the pain but pushes it to the back of his mind as he tries to find Eve.
"Evah!" he cries out to her.
He clamps onto a ladder as he tries to steadily climb to the higher decks, getting to where Eve's pod is stored. The pain in his foot is worsened as he tries to climb with a foot moving freely on its joint, causing him to slip on his bad leg every step he takes with it, but Wally presses onward determined to get to Eve's pod.
A series of whirling sounds ring in his ears as the ship's ignition systems and fuel-supplying turbopumps power up. Wally didn't have time to better secure himself as a powerful deafening blast resounds throughout the hull of the ship and Wally's body in such a ungodly trembling way he never thought possible.
The rocket boosters have ignited.
Wally could only cling tightly to the support ladder for dear life as the ship lifts off. He screams in terror as the g-forces rack onto his body and at the realization that he was on a flying rocket ship, about to go to the infinite unknown that he knew thought he would ever get to be in his life…
Instead of spending the first day without hope of reawakening Eve ever again in his life, now he was about to go fly into space.
…
Back on the ground, Hal cowers for cover as a column of smoke, dust, and heat span in all directions as the rocket engines ignite in a continuous earth-shaking roar of fire.
A pillar of white hot flames from the three main engines and a exhaust cloud trail stretches into the sky as the reconnaissance ship rises clear off the ground and into the sky, slowly rolling on it's longitudinal axis to aim for it's correct trajectory and accelerating to great speed. Shortly before going supersonic a cone-shaped visible moisture shockwave forms around the hull of the ship; moments later, an ungodly crack of thunder resonates throughout the sky as the ARV breaks the sound barrier. Slowly, the recon ship arches its very visible trajectory to the east as it flies higher and higher, into the direction of the Earth's rotation to get some gravitational assistance to reach orbit; and by then the sound of its might engines fall into faint whispers of rumbling in the sky.
All was quiet again as Hal comes out of cover from a collapsed freeway sign to see the curved arch of smoke the rose all the way to the stratosphere fading in the wind, and he looks higher to watch the now tiny moving speck of the rocket and his master disappear into invisible pinpricks and fly away into the heavens. If Hal wasn't mistaken, he thought he heard Wally's screams that were almost as loud as the rocket engines, even as both fade out as the ship leaves the atmosphere.
Watched alot of NASA achieve shots of Apollo, STS, and Ares launches to get the feel of early stage spaceflight, it's has given me good ideas for the next chapter too.