Chapter 20: Translations

Michael

Liz is the strongest person I know. She's jumped off bridges, been in fires, and been made into a hybrid superwomen. But sometimes, I forget how human she can be. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with-watching her cry herself to sleep and being able to do nothing but hold her.

In her sleep, she looked anything but peaceful. Liz would toss and turn. If it were up to me, I would have marched over to her house and tell her dad off. Clenching my fists in anger, I tried to think about other things. But no matter how hard I tried, all I could feel was Liz's pain radiating in my head.

I finally fell asleep and when I woke up Liz wasn't in the bed. Running out of the room while rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I saw Liz sitting on the couch. She was looking off into space and had a blanket curled up around her feet. Liz looked so small sitting there. She looked helpless.

"Hey," I said softly, drawing her attention to my presence.

Liz turned to face me, her long brown hair softly framing her face. "When I was little, my dad would take to me to the park and he would push me. We went to the park everyday for like six months. And everyday he would try to get to play on something else but all I wanted to do was to play on the swing. And you know why?"

I shook my head and sat next to her. She leaned on me slightly and intertwined her fingers with mine. "Why?"

"Because my dad would push me. Everything else I played on, he would go sit on the bench. So whenever I played on the swing, he was right there and he smiled at me and he said, 'you have to promise me that you'll be my little girl forever'. And I was little so I was confused why he would ask me that. I told him that of course I would. It just never occurred to me that I would actually stop being his little girl."

Liz began to sob and I held her closer, stroking her silky hair. "They just need some time, Liz."

"I know but the way they looked at me, it was like they were looking at a stranger. Maybe they were."

"No," I protested. "Don't. You are Liz. You've changed and change is very rarely dealt with gracefully."

Liz was about to say something when the phone rang. I glanced at her apologetically and went to pick up the phone. "Hello?"

"Hey," came Alex's reply.

"Alex, now isn't a good time."

"I'll make it quick. Kyle and I think we've decoded the disk. You and Liz might want to take a look at this."

"What is it?" I asked in fascination as I looked at the computer screen. Kyle and Max were behind me staring also while Liz and Isabel were looking over the files Alex had printed out.

Alex scrolled down the screen and said, "It looks like a map of some kind but what is it a map for?"

"And why does Tess have it?" Kyle finished.

"Any luck with the files?" Max asked Isabel and Liz.

They both shook their heads and went back to going through the pages. Liz looked at Max and sighed, "It's a lot of papers. Where the last copies?"

Kyle went over and went through the papers quickly, "It should the bottom ones. It was the last format the computer got to. Here." Liz smiled gratefully and took the papers from him.

The minute she laid on them, her face went a deathly pale. "Oh my god," she gasped out.

We all rushed over. Maybe something was wrong with us because all we saw were strange symbol things. "What is it?"

Liz met all of our eyes, "It's in Antarian."

Kyle glanced at her, "You can read Antarian?"

Max glared at him, "Now really isn't the time, Kyle." With wide eyes, he focused on Liz. "Do you know what it says?"

Liz's eyes danced over the papers and she frowned. "Yes."

We all looked at her expectantly and she began to read, "If you are reading this, than Antar's biggest fears has come to life. Antar is no longer in existence. Our beloved home planet has been torn apart by war and famine. Some of our population has settled on a neighboring planet, but Antar as we know it is gone.

This scares us because this means that The Great Prophecy is about to take place. The Great Prophecy is a tale that foretells great pain and great joy. The first event that was foretold was the destruction of our planet. The second event was a reincarnated royal family. The third event prophesied was that one of the royals would be a traitor and only one with the truest of hearts could see it. But a very special, powerful human will take her place. Her greatness brought upon her by the blessings of two seals residing in one vessel. She alone will be able to restore Antar and it's people-and save Earth-from war."

Liz looked at me with wide eyes, "Is that me?"

Before I could respond, Max replied. "It has to be. All those events in the prophecy came true. You were the only one who never really trusted Tess and the two seals…it has to be you."

Liz looked at me fearfully and then ran out of the room. I was about to run after her but Isabel grabbed my arm gently and said, "Let me handle this OK?"

Glancing at the door and then back at Isabel and I nodded reluctantly and watched at she ran after Liz. "What's wrong with Liz?" Kyle asked in concern.

"I don't know," I replied and frowned deeply.

Liz

I felt like I couldn't breathe. I had no idea where I was running to but I kept running until my legs began to hurt. Kneeling over to even my breathing and ease the burning sensation in my lungs. "Oh God," I groaned at tears streamed down my face.

There was no running from destiny. There never was. Collapsing against a nearby wall, I saw Isabel running up to me. Her face was red from the running. "Liz, what the hell was that back there?" she asked when she caught up to me.

"I can't tell you," I said through clenched teeth.

"No," Isabel said. "I don't buy that. Are you upset that you have to save the world?"

"No!" I exploded. "I don't have to *do* anything."

"Why are you so upset?" Isabel yelled, angry now. "This is the last thing that should upset you! We've gotten through tougher things than this! You're a fighter!"

Rising my defeated eyes to meet hers, I said, "We lost."

"We what?"

Standing to my full height I continued, "We didn't fight anything. We just went along with what destiny had in store for us, Isabel. Max and Tess were never meant to be together. You and Michael were never meant to be together. That book just said that you were *engineered* to do. But *this*, this very exact moment, is what was supposed to happen. What is truly meant to happen is terrible. We have to control over our lives, Isabel. We all have purposes in a huge plan and once we do them, we die."

Isabel shook her head, "Liz.."

"There is more to the prophecy. There will be a huge war. The skins will come to Earth and they will destroy it and kill everything in their path. And than they will kill all of you. Kyle, Max, Alex, Michael like picking flies off of a wall. But I can save both worlds. The basis of every thing on our planets is energy. The granolith is the source of infinite energy. All I have to do is combine my energy with the granolith and Antar and Earth will come back anew. The granolith will compensate for all lives lost and Antar will completely rebuild itself but see, the thing is that I die in the process. All of you will be alive and every single soul on Antar will be alive. Great joy. Me, being dead and having to know that all of you are dead, great pain.

That is my destiny and it always has been. I'm the way I am for a reason. I get the stop the end of two worlds but mine ends. So, no, I didn't fight anything."

Isabel looked at me with disbelief, "Maybe you read it wrong."

I shook my head sadly, "I wish I had but I didn't. I don't know how much we have left. So please don't tell the others. What amount they have left, they should spend it being happy and not wondering when their lives are going to end. If you want, I can take this out of your memory so you can too."

Isabel took a step back and held up a hand, "No. You aren't even going to tell Michael?"

"I can block certain things out of the connection. Iz, I can't say goodbye to him. I can't."

She nodded in understanding, "So there's no chance to make it end differently?"

"I don't think so. But we will fight the skins and we may lose but we are going to try. I know that."

Isabel hugged me tightly, "You don't deserve this."

Smiling through my tears, I choked out. "I'm dead yet."

Pulling away, Isabel replied, "But you will be."

"And you'll be alive and happy. All of you and that's worth dying for."

She smiled gratefully and we walked back to Alex's house. Turns out that the map was the structure of a new housing development in LA. After some serious hacking done on Alex's part, we found out the only current resident who had already reserved a house of a guy named Cal Langley.

In three days, we were heading out to LA to find out who this Cal Langley was.

"Are you guys ready?" Alex asked for the last time before we began to head out to our supposed "Camping Trip" in Arizona for a school project. It's amazing how well you can forge papers with a few alien tricks.

Michael and I smiled at each other and hopped into the van we had rented. Max and Isabel were in the front because Max was driving and Isabel chipped the rest of us out shotgun. Kyle was in the back with Michael and I. Michael and I had the back seats and since Alex was the smallest, he was in the back with the luggage. A place that he complained about constantly.

"You know if it weren't for me, we weren't even be finding this Cal Langley guy," Alex tried to reason.

I turned around and smiled sweetly at him, "And we thank you so very much, Alex."

Alex made a face at me and said, "Just because you're all Buffy the vampire slayer-stopping Armageddon and what not, doesn't give you the right to boss people around."

Faltering at his comment about stopping Armageddon, Isabel caught my reactions and smiled sadly. We both didn't talk about the prophecy much and I tried not to think about. Michael didn't even have a clue because I had blocked it out of the connection. I was brought out of my thoughts my Kyle shouting, "Who wants music?" Holding up his CD holder, the car was filled by the six of us shouting out different music groups.

Kyle held up a hand and said, "I have the CD that can cure all of your problems."

My eyes went wide with fear, "No, Kyle, don't."

"What?" came Isabel's reply.

"Well Kyle has this strangely unnatural creepy obsession with…"

"The Spice Girls!" Kyle announced proudly while holding up the CD's.

"NO!" we all yelped simultaneously.

"But come on guys, just *one* song!" he pleaded.

"Sure," Max said. "If you want me to vomit all over the steering wheel which could result in a terrible car accident."

We all laughed and than Max turned to Isabel, "Hey, Isabel. Didn't you have an obsession with the Spice Girls too?"

"No," she protested immediately.

"It was someone. Who was it?" Max said while giving her a look.

Propping my chin on Isabel's car seat, I looked at her with a smirk on my face. "Who? C'mon, spill!"

Isabel turned bright red and mumbled something incoherent. "What?" Alex asked the back. "I couldn't hear you!"

"Hanson! OK?" She shouted.

The car was silent for a moment and than we all busted out laughing. "It's not that funny," she said. "Like we all don't have our little quirks!"

"Not as bad as an obsession with Hanson!" Kyle said back.

Michael pretending to think really hard, "Y'know I can't remember if they were boys or girls."

Ignoring Michael's comment and turning on Kyle, Isabel remarked, "As if the Spice Girls are any better!"

Kyle glared at her, "Hey! That one chick was hot!"

"That is absolutely disgusting," Isabel said.

Alex held up his hands and joked, "Well I have a confession to make. I have a very strange liking to The New Kids on The Block!"

Max, obviously not catching that it was a joke, replied. "Are you serious? Me too!"

I think he got the hint when we all started to laugh hysterically that Alex was joking. Max turned the radio on and a Dave Matthews Band song was on the radio.

I froze and everything kind of just went into slow motion. It suddenly hit me full force that I, quite possibly very soon, could not ever see these people again. My friends.

It was then that I realized that I was going to do anything in my power to fight this. I had given up and accepted my fate but maybe now wasn't the time to stop fighting. It may be useless-it probably is-but if these people were worth dying for then they were worth fighting for too.