Chapter 11: Alone

" Let me ask you a question Who will give you love? And will you give into those feelings for return?"

A popular question that everyone in Antarctica used to ask, many people believed in breeding and loving each other, except for him. He just use to be the adventurous, daring type of penguin, he never stopped kept on going and found something he really fell in love with.

A flamethrower that the humans left behind, on an abandoned cargo ship. Just off the Antarctic sea you could always find an ice cave in which you could sit all day and watch the grey fading ships start to melt away in the sea. He loved seeing the ships go by and so did his one best friend, Akilina, a female gentoo penguin who got transferred from a zoo in Russia to the wild, in everyones eyes she was the most wonderful and beautiful penguin in all of Antarctica. Except for him, she was a friend and they had all the best time playing with each other, hours of adventuring was the best thing Akilina could ever as for.

" Are you sure this is safe?" Akilina asked as the climbed up a huge ice mountain, they were getting close towards the human observatory, and she was getting nervous, however she knew she was safe in his flippers.

" Uh Huh" Rico grunted, he kept his balance on the usually slippery ice ledge, they did just have a blizzard and they must have climbed this mountain about a million times. They wanted to go to their lookout point, days like today usually had a bunch of ships bringing cargo for the scientists. They made it just as about a blizzard starting to spring out of no where.

" Rico, I'm worried we should head back" Akilina whimpered, she looked at Rico's unchanging expression, he wondered over to his ice block and sat down. He shook his head and Akilina walked and plopped down beside him.

Akilina didn't do much during the snow storm, except put her head on Rico's chest, much to his disliking. He grunted in anger and Akilina put her head up, together they watched the storm blow past and found the occasional ship coming out of nowhere, heading towards the observatory. Akilina started to get a little chilly.

" You know I heard that a lot of penguins get sent there to get experiments done on them, I'm scared cause I might be going soon myself" Akilina whimpered to herself, she was hoping that Rico would actually feel upset for her for once, she hadn't really said much about him of had very much dialogue with him either.

" Grr" Rico covered his ears with his flippers and waddled towards the mouth of the cave, the snow was starting to just fall down gently, Rico could see the barbwired fences and huge grey cement buildings with huge search lights dancing around the place, to Rico it seemed like a prison. He leaned closer hoping to get a good look.

" RICO WATCH OUT!" Akilina screamed out, Rico turned to see what was wrong but instead his foot slipped and he started to fall towards the ocean. Akilina waddled as fast as she could towards Rico but he already fell leaving a splash in the water. Akilina held onto her mermaid's purse necklace and started to almost fall into the water, she paused and looked to see Rico starting to float towards the observatories.

" No not there" Akilina finally cried out, she stared towards the building as Rico just touched shore and the searchlight seemed to find him, with a heart in her mouth Akilina started to slid down the mountain, she kept getting hit by rocks that jagged out of the slope, with tears in her eyes and with blood starting to poke through her belly flippers, she still made it till she felt herself start to hit the foamy cold waters.

Akilina poked her head upside the surface and saw Rico's body being illuminated by the searchlight, in the distance she could see humans coming out with face masks and big burrly coats, they stepped out of the gates and took Rico, Akilina stepped back a bit so she wouldn't be taken away, she hid behind a big rock that was being hit by waves, Akilina got hit a couple of times in the face but kept her tear and sea water stricken eyes on Rico. Right now Rico's body was being taken into the building, as soon as the humans brought him inside the gates and closed it, she knew it was too late. Akilina swam close to the shore and pressed herself against the gate.

" Rico......Rico......Rico" Being lost in her paranoria of her friend being put through vigorius tests, she felt as if she were to blame, if she hadn't been so worried about Rico saying some out of pity this never would have happened. Akilina slumped beside the gate and wondered about what was going on with her friend.

"О Боже мой, пусть Рико будет хорошо! пожалуйста"

" That's 29 beats per minute" A voice arose from Rico's subconscious.

" A little low ain't it? Oh well you should take a look at this x-ray of his stomach, it's huge for a penguin of his size"

Rico opened up his eyes, all he could was a blinding light that looked as bright as the sun, as well he was strapped to an operating table, a doctor with a pair glasses looked right at Rico.

" Your awake now I see" The doctor came over to Rico and tried to put his hand on his head, instead Rico snapped his beak towards the doctor, retracting the doctor put his hand back towards him.

" Don't worry little fellow were going to fix that over sized stomach of yours" The doctor said as the other one came behind the gurney and pushed him through the huge grey door and into a poorly lightened hallway.

Rico was then put into a new room one with more blinding sun lights then before. It was covered with doctors walking the floors and each one had face masks covering there mouths, they ordered Rico to be moved over into the lights, being pushed and trying to escape but it never worked, Rico was still as a rock as a doctor poked him with a needle. Screaming in pain Rico could feel himself start to drift off.

It was pure dark, just Rico standing in a black abyss. He heard sounds of people whispering but no one was present, he turned around in a circle for a couple of times, by the 5th time he wasn't alone. When he turned to the front he saw Akilina standing, more floating and drifting in front of him, her topaz colored eyes bore into his soul and she had a serious face on her.

" Rico can I ask you a question?" Her voice unusually serious, no hint of laughter or humor was present in her speech.

Rico nodded his head.

" Who will you love? And if someone makes the first step will you give them the love in return or reject it completely?" Akilina asked very solemnly.

" Huh?" was all Rico say, he was confused by why Akilina even asked this question, instead he stared at her and nodded.

" I see that's wonderful" Akilina came closer to Rico, the tips of their noses touched but their lips were still inches apart, Akilina's topaz eyes were staring into Rico's ocean blue ones, she had her flippers around his shoulders and she just gazed at him, no one moved but just stared at each other, finally Akilina whispered in Rico's ear.

" Wake up, somethings gone wrong"

Rico jolted upright, still strapped down on the operation table, he glanced around and found him in a different room now. There were no doctors walking loosely the room was pure quiet and empty, it made Rico really anxious to get out of the building, outside of the glass window beside him he saw two human silhouettes and heard them talking.

" Doctor what should we do? We put him in the wrong type of room now he has a bunch of machinery in his stomach walls, we can't leave that in his stomach can we?" a female voice was the one that was talking.

" No but I do know someone who might be of assistance, you remember Dr. Ota right? He was here on transfer once but he moved to New York city, he might be able to help out with that penguin, plus he can put him in the zoo as his new home as well" The male doctor replied. The female doctor nodded her head in agreement.

Rico didn't really understand what was going on, but he did have a big lump in his throat, when he burped a huge pair of scissors arose from his mouth, spitting it out and feeling scared about what happened he burped again, this time a dental mirror sprang out of his mouth. Rico kept burping and more supplies came up from his stomach. He stopped once he heard the door open up, the female and male doctor came in and their eyes bulged out at the bed that Rico was in.

" Doctor those are the supplies that he ate, he.....he regurgitated them?" the female doctor was in awe.

" That's amazing! Such machinery in his stomach should have been dissolved by the stomach acids but instead, he regurgitated them" the male doctor picked up the slimy dental mirror and examined it.

" Still I would feel comfortable if we sent him to " the female doctor said while she raised an eyebrow at the male doctor.

" Yes of coarse" and with that both of the doctors left, but not without pricking Rico with a needle of coarse.

Making him fall asleep again.

Akilina was still sitting in the ice cave, it been the horizon now but she still didn't care, she could hear her mother and Rico's calling them for supper, but she tuned out their voices, one sentence with the word Rico in it made her throat form a huge lump. She stared up at the icicles forming on the cave's ceiling she remembered the first time that she and Rico found this place, closing her eyes she wanted to keep that memory close to her heart, instead she was interrupted by a loud fog horn sound.

Turning her attention to the mouth of the cave, she saw a huge cargo ship being shipped outwards toward the sea, for some reason Akilina waddled over towards the mouth and saw that the ship had a bunch of boxes with air holes, one mischevious little emperior penguin poked his head out, Akilina was surprised but had to ask what had become of Rico.

" Excuse me but do you know of Rico?"

" Yes I do miss, he's on this ship being shipped out to New York, something went wrong during his operation" the penguin chipped.

" Operation?" Akilina felt her stomach grow weak, she couldn't imagene Rico getting an operation for nothing, nothing at all.

" Is he coming back?" She had to ask, she might as well shatter the whole mirror instead of rebuilding it.

" No none of us are, were staying in New York"

The ship sailed farther away, and the penguin waved good-bye towards Akilina, she tried to wave back but she couldn't manage too. She slumped back towards the ice cave and sat beside the ice block that Rico was sitting on moments ago, slowly she could feel the tears start to drift down her face, slowly she felt her flippers cover her eyes and she couldn't stop sobbing, slowly she felt herself start to fall apart.

" Rico.....I'm sorry but I promise I'll meet you again, I'll meet you in New York I promise"

" Я считаю, что будет" Akilina whispered.

" Rico? Are you feeling well?' Ginger asked as she placed her hand on his forehead, she felt worried Rico just stared towards the wall for about an hour now, and that wasn't like Rico.

" Uh Huh" Rico said while sounding a little bit down, he didn't understand why he replied his memories of him in his childhood while he still resided in Antarctica, and why was it mostly about Akilina? His best childhood friend, he often wondered about her and how she was knowing her she was probably already married and had a family by now,but then again maybe she didn't. Just once Rico wished he could see her again and have their little adventures again.

" Okay" Ginger didn't really believe him but she went to see Kowalski who asked for her attention, she walked towards Kowalski's office leaving Rico alone, again. Why did he think that? And why in the world was he even having such lonely thoughts and lonely memories of him and Akilina? Did he really miss her that much that he wanted to see her and talk with her and see how her life was going, even though Akilina was great friend she could be bossy at some times. She was always determined for Rico to say something about how he was feeling, suppose it was better then asking if he liked her and whatnot, and to be frank he didn't. He just liked her as a friend. Nothing else or maybe.....

" Do you guys remember that gentoo penguin in Antartica? I remember I used to like her, wasn't her name something that started with an A or something?" Private started to ask, the question caught everyone off guard expecially Rico.

" Akilina" Rico whispered, but to his dismay everyone heard.

" Yeah that's her! We'll I heard that she's coming here to reside with the rockhopper sisters, at least that's what Thorn told me" Private announced.

What was she doing here? And why was Rico getting excited and nervous about it? Even he couldn't answer that.