Hey everybody, here's the next chapter, I hope you all enjoy it. It's a little short, but it's necessary to advance the plot of the story. Also, if you haven't already, checked out Friends - The Musical which has been recently updated. I appreciate all feedback on this story. Anyway, that's enough babble, enjoy the story.
Slowly, but surely, Chandler Bing's eyes slowly opened. He was slowly awaking from a sleep that, to him, seemed to last forever. As soon as he was conscious he felt a pounding in his head, and painful sting all over the left side of his body. He didn't remember much. Only that Rachel was in trouble, he tackled the figure, and then he felt a pain too unbearable to accurately put into words.
He slowly started to take in the things around him. He immediately noticed he was in the guest room of Ross and Phoebe's, and that he was alone. He sighed a breath of relief, figuring if he was in their extra bedroom things must not have turned out bad. He tried pulling himself up, but the pain was too much for him. He slowly lied back down, slightly out of breath from the physical strain, and wondered what everyone was doing out beyond the closed door of his room.
He didn't have to wonder for long, the door of the guest room opened and in stepped Joey, carrying a beer and looking as tired as he had ever been. "Hey." Joey smiled, surprised to find his friend awake. "Welcome back to reality pal." He took a seat on the edge of the bed and had another drink of his beer. "Did you sleep well?"
"Well I feel like crap." Chandler stretched out his arms, cracking the stiff bones. "And I would love it if someone would tell me what's been going on out there."
Joey nodded and sat his beer down on an end table. "I don't know where to start Chandler, so much has happened over the last few hours."
"What time is it? How long have I been out?"
Joey glanced down at his watch. "It's a quarter after three in the morning. You've been out around seven hours. And you've missed a lot. Right now we've got thirty unidentified flying objects hovering over the city, the government has captured a real life alien, the police and medics are no where to be found…"
Chandler interrupted him, "Where's Rachel?" That's what he really wanted to know. He was in this pain because he had wanted to save his fiancé, and now he wanted to be sure he had succeeded.
"She's in Ross and Phoebe's room, laying down. She's had a pretty rough night, everyone has." Joey couldn't resist the temptation, and took another swig of his beer.
"So…what's the bad news then? There's obviously some bad news." Chandler braced himself, whatever Joey was going to tell him, he was sure it was something he didn't want to hear.
"Chandler, when that thing, in your apartment…when you tackled it, it stabbed you. Apparently, they all have this claw near their middle finger, and it comes out when they fight. He got you pretty good, but it's nothing life threatening."
"Then what's the problem?" Chandler ran his hand over the bandage on the left side of his chest. It hurt, no doubt about that, but it wasn't anything for him to cry about.
"All these aliens, they carry some kind of…for the lack of a better word, poison, in their systems…it's like a defense mechanism. And, when attacked, it uses it against its enemies. It got Ross with some, and…"
Chandler interrupted once again, "Is he ok?! How bad is that stuff?"
"They don't know yet Chandler. They're throwing around phrases on the TV. Blood clots, cell damage, comas…but it really just seems like their clueless. But, Ross isn't the only one who got infected with that stuff."
Chandler's eyes widened. He felt a dark cloud of fear come over him, not for himself, but for Rachel. He instantly found himself praying that it wasn't Rachel, and that she was ok. He didn't want any of his friends to be infected, but least of all the love of his life. "It's not…"
Joey shook his head, and noticed Chandler's sudden look of relief. "It's you Chandler."
Chandler's face was expressionless. No wonder he said Rachel had been having a rough day, he couldn't imagine how he would feel had it been her that was hurt. He shook the thought from his mind and looked up at his friend. "Help me into the living room Joe. I'm ready to watch some television."
Joey nodded and started to help him up, "I don't know how entertaining it'll be. The same show is on every channel."
*********
Joey had helped Chandler onto the couch in the living room, where he could lay down and watch TV. Ross and Phoebe were curled up together by the window, where they had fallen asleep looking up at the lights in the sky. Rachel was still in their bedroom sleeping, and Joey and Monica had curled up together in the chair. Monica looked over to Chandler, who wasn't showing any real signs of being hurt. "How are you feeling?"
"Better." Chandler moved his gaze away from the TV, over towards her. "A little hungry though." He raised his eyebrows towards her, giving off a very non-subtle hint.
She smiled, knowing exactly what he was trying to say. She didn't mind cooking for everyone, she was a chef after all. "I'll whip something up alright?"
Chandler nodded, "Thanks Mon, I appreciate it." She nodded back as she got up and walked into the kitchen. As she walked away Chandler's eyes caught Joey's. "You look dead tired man." Joey's eyelids covered half his eyes, and he seemed to be using all the energy he had left to keep himself awake. "Just take a nap Joe, I'm pretty sure Monica and I can handle ourselves for a few hours."
Joey shook his head, "Nah, I'm fine. You never know when another…" Joey's words trailed off as his head slid to rest against the cushion of the chair. He was out cold, the sleep was too much for him to fight.
Chandler just smiled at his friend, while admiring his fortitude. Joey would always go out of his way to protect and take care of his friends, but never seemed completely comfortable letting his friends take care of him. This time, however, he didn't have a choice. His body wouldn't let him stay awake any longer. Chandler chuckled a little and looked into the kitchen at Monica. "So whatcha gonna make?"
"I'm not sure. It's practically morning and you just woke up, so how about some breakfast?" Monica pulled a carton of eggs out of Ross and Phoebe's fridge.
"Sounds good. Bacon too?" Chandler gave a fake puppy dog face to help convince her. For some reason he was extremely hungry. He figured it was probably because of all the physical exertion of the day before. He had done more running, jumping, fighting, and even thinking in that one day than he had done in years.
Monica smirked and shook her head. "Sure Chandler. Just let me run downstairs and get some." She picked her keys up off the kitchen table and slipped on a pair of sandals that were left sitting by the door. "I'll be right back."
"Ok." Chandler settled back down on the couch and turned his attention to the news reports on the TV, trying to catch up on everything he had missed while he was sleeping.
Monica eyed the door of Chandler and Rachel's apartment as she headed towards the stairs. It had been a long, weird night. It amazed her how different the world was compared to what it had been only a day ago. Everything had changed. Things she believed and held true only 24 hours before were completely false today. Her mind couldn't comprehend how much more she might learn in the next few days. As scary as it all was, everything happening was quite amazing once she thought about it.
She walked down the familiar staircase to the correct floor, and walked the short distance to her and Joey's apartment. She unlocked the door, and was thankful to find the all the lights on…she didn't want to be alone in the dark. She walked towards the freezer and began digging through the stacks of frozen goods. She always kept a variety of foods in the house, between her love of cooking and Joey's love of eating it was a necessity.
She was able to dig out a few bags of frozen bacon and lay them on the counter. She dug into the fridge and grabbed the bottle of apple juice, she had noticed that Ross and Phoebe didn't have any when she was up there. As she closed the door of the freezer, she was surprised to find a face staring at her.
A green one.
*****
Chandler was flipping through the TV stations, but Joey was right, the same thing was on every channel. The same boring sound of newscasters' voice came blaring off the screen, and Chandler was feeling bored. He continued flipping until he heard a scream. His eyes lit up, finally a channel showing something different, even if it was a cheesy horror flick. He pushed down on the channel button, trying to find what station had the movie, when he heard the scream again.
Then he understood…it wasn't the movie. It was Monica.
"Joey!" Chandler shot off the couch, and a wave of pain immediately came over him. He collapsed instantly, hitting the coffee table before hitting the floor of the living room. Between his shout and his falling, everyone was awake. Joey was out of his chair, Ross and Phoebe were getting up from by the window, and Rachel was storming out of the bedroom. "Monica! She's downstairs!"
Joey didn't wait for anymore of an explanation. He jumped over Chandler and the couch and stormed out the open door, Ross and Phoebe not far behind. He bolted down the stairs as fast as his legs would take him and made the sharp right turn towards his apartment. Their door was open, and when he entered he saw Monica, knife in hand, trying to fight off a crouching green figure.
"Hey!" Joey shouted, trying to get it's attention. The figure turned away from Monica, looking for whatever it was that had made a sound. Joey began charging after it, but before he could reach it, Monica had the knife in its back. It let out a loud shriek as it was stabbed, and before it could recover, Joey shoved in into a closet, and closed the door. "Give me something to block the door with."
Ross, Phoebe, and Monica all started searching the apartment for things to put in front of the door. Ross spotted something first, "Help me with this!" He was at the kitchen table, starting to flip it over. All three of them picked up a side, and brought it to the door. Joey and Ross got behind it and shoved it underneath the doorknob, wedding it. "That's not enough." Ross glanced around the apartment. "The chair!"
Joey and Ross ran to a large cushion chair, both groaning as they picked up the large piece of furniture. They struggled to carry it over to the closet, but eventually were able to drop it in front of the table, and add more weight in front of the door. All four of them took a step back from the door, waiting silently to see what it's next move would be.
Phoebe whispered to no one in particular, "Isn't he going to try to get out?"
Everything seemed still inside the closet, no movement, no noise. Joey took a small step forward, trying to see if he could hear anything.
And suddenly, the creature began to scream. It was a loud, high-pitched, never ending shriek that seemed to tear through the whole city. "What's he doing?!" Joey yelled, covering his ears and quickly backing away from the door.
They all started backing away from the door, as the shriek seemed to slowly die down. As it fell silent, they all were left with pounding heads and ringing ears. The girls collapsed together on the couch, trying to recover, as Joey found a seat in one of the kitchen table chairs. Ross was still covering his ears, still feeling shocked, as he stared blankly out the window.
Monica slowly sat up on the couch, her eyes still squinted from the pain. "Ok…what the hell was it doing?" Everyone stayed silent, no one had the slightest idea what had just happened.
Ross slowly stepped back from the window, his eyes widened at the sight outside. "I think he was calling from help."
"What?" Monica shot up from her seat and looked out the window with Ross. The street seemed abandoned, no people in sight. There were a few cars parked on the curbs, and some streetlights were flickering off to their left. But it was the contents of the right end of the street that scared Ross. Running towards their building were two green figures, moving faster than any of them had ever seen anything run before.
Ross took another step away from the window. "Upstairs. Everybody. Now." They all took off, Joey leading the way, with the girls close behind. As Ross was closing the door of Joey and Monica's apartment, he heard their window break. He quickly followed his friends and sister up onto the next floor. "Hurry!" He shouted as he heard the door opening down below them.
The four of them ran into Ross and Phoebe's wide open door and Ross was quick to close it behind them. He wasted no time locking every single lock on the door. Rachel glanced up from beside the couch, where she was helping Chandler get back up. "What the hell is going on?" Her eyes were widened by the sight of all her friends out of breath and freaked out.
Joey was bent over, his hands on his knees, trying to get his breath back. Between gasps, he managed to get out…"They're…they're coming."
There were several pounds on the front door. As if a dozen people were all knocking at once. Everyone's eyes flew to the purple piece building.
Ross shook his head, "They're already here."
So that's the chapter. I hope you all liked it. The plot will really advance in the next few chapters, as we are approaching the climax of the story. What happens with the poison? What happens with the visitors at the door? Find out soon! Now, Review! Review people review! Next chapter up in a few days…