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Nothing's Real and Nothing Lasts

A kaleidoscope of color assaulted his senses. He could hardly see a foot in front of him, even with his protective goggles on; the red was taking over his vision. The wind and air pressure roared in his ears, which he was pretty sure were going to explode at any second. He couldn't even hear the motor, which was thumping in exertion underneath him.

'My head is going to pop off,' Naota bleakly thought, trying to keep said appendage upright. 'And then I'm going to die.'

A low whine started in his throbbing eardrums. Then the migraine set in. The force increased to ten times what it had been before, causing Naota to retch. Luckily, only a little stomach acid came up.

Naota was suddenly glad that he had skipped breakfast in his rush.

But there was still the matter of being crushed like a bug under the weight of Earth's atmosphere. Naota didn't want to even think of having to turn back, not when the direction that involved doing so was down.

Very, very far down.

He leaned closer to the vespa in a desperate attempt to keep his rattling body on the plush leather seat. Air ripped through Naota's clothing like knives, and he would've screamed if he'd had the breath left to do so. Unfortunately, his lungs seemed incapable of functioning. His face was turning blue. Her rosy hair and pointed face appeared in his mind's eye, maniacally mocking him with her laugh.

His fingernails were coming off.

And then the gravity was gone.

That was about the point where Eri chose to close her eyes in the slim hope that one, this was not real, and two, that she wouldn't puke if she did. Eri's stomach wrenched but she squeezed her eyes tightly and pressed a hand to her abdomen. This was considerably difficult, seeing as how both of her arms were currently wrapped around Canti's lower forearm, but she managed. She always did.

When Eri finally did pry open her closed lids, she went into shock. Every single muscle in her lanky body tightened and stayed that way for a good ten minutes. Her lips were parted into a huge 'o'. Her mind was numb.

Sorry, but Ninamori Eri is not home right now. Your message is of the utmost importance to us. Please leave a message after the beep. BEEEEEEE. . .

After all, it isn't every day that you get an up-close-and-personal view of stars that outnumber the grains of sand on Earth.

And that was the funny thing about stars. Didn't spinning like that twenty- four hours a day, seven days a week, get them dizzy?

Heck, Naota had only been whirling away into the depths of space for three minutes and he was already in a state of vertigo. Not that it really mattered, though, because everyone knows that there isn't really an up or down out there. Nevertheless, Naota still had a green tinge around the gills. The equilibrium in his ears hadn't quite caught up with the rest of his body yet.

Exiting your home planet's atmosphere for the first time in your puny existence (a remarkable display of either bravery or sheer stupidity) can have that effect on you. Naota wasn't sure which it was yet. Maybe when those pretty scarlet spots dancing in his vision went away, he could get a grip on things – like his situation, for example.

Unfortunately for Naota, today just wasn't his day. Funnily enough, he had been convinced that it was only a short while ago. This fading thought was firmly reiterated just before the blackness took over.

Ugh. Black. Eri had always liked the color before, but now that she was seeing so much of it, she wasn't so sure anymore. Her shock had graduated into a sort of calm disbelief, and she cautiously glanced up at Canti's face....screen.....whatever....

It whirred on its axis in a fashion that made him appear to be looking for something. Not that Eri was a particularly good judge of mechanical thought processes.

Speaking of thought processes, her mind was firmly trying to establish a normal thought process, i.e. by pretending that this wasn't happening (like most humans tend to do when faced with something blatantly un-banal). This was very hard to accomplish, especially because of her present position. I mean, technically, she should've been dead at least a few minutes ago when they'd been exiting the atmosphere. Eventually her mind would give up and accept her surroundings, but until then, Eri had to close her eyes once more. She succumbed to the darkness of her own head.

'Fucking dumbass robots with their fucking stupid programming errors with dumbfuck contraptions that come out just to catch people like me and pull them into hell....fuck....'

And then He said unto Them, "Let there be Light."

Or something like that, anyway. Close enough. And there really was light, although probably not the kind Naota was expecting.

The warm sun burned down on him, setting his prone body on fire.

Until he opened his tightly shut lids, and abruptly closed them again.

Then sun seemed to be only a foot away from his nose. Naota's thoughts scattered back into the river Denial. The water was cooler there, what with the winter chill accompanying the ice floes that drifted passed. Naota had sunk into it up to his eyeballs when he realized that there was kind of a discordant melody going on around him.

Heavy, lumped words gutturally swung around in a foreign tongue accompanied by clicking and chirping sounds that couldn't possibly be made by the human vocal chords. It sounded angry, although this observation was made judging from the standards of Homo sapiens and therefore not necessarily factual.

'Great,' Naota internally moaned. 'I've been captured by aliens and now they're gonna take out the anal probes and other shiny prodding things....if only she could see me now...she'd laugh...this sucks...'

He turned his face away from the blaze above and tried opening his eyes again, in the hope that there would be better results (although generally anything's better for seeing than being blinded by light).

This time, the sight of a monster greeted him. Or what he thought was a monster. The thing that stared back at him thought, in its own language, that he was pretty ugly too. An almost hairless body wasn't very attractive to its, or should we say his, kind.

He definitely wasn't a little green invader from Mars.

For starters, he was large. Almost seven feet in height, he was covered in a powdery snow fur. Three equally fuzzy tails twitched on the ground, and long, impala-like limbs formed four firm legs underneath a gaunt torso, though not in a fashion resembling a horse. Rather, they were close together and gave him a sort of wobbling gait that was not shaky at all if he should chose to run or jump, because that was what the muscle-and-bone appendages had been designed for. Although the torso was vaguely human in nature, it was missing a set of arms. A dainty, ferret-ish head graced the shoulders, accentuated by a slender neck.

Around him, shiny white floors, walls, and strange panels at about waist height curved away into the distance.

It was the old joke you do with a piece of blank paper, only in real life. A white rabbit in a snowstorm with its eyes closed.

Only this 'rabbit' could be distinguished by the large, round black eyes that reflected everything in the room. Naota thought it was creepy being able to see yourself in someone else's eye. For the owner of the set, it was kind of like having permanent sunglasses.

One resembling it swam into Naota's vision. He couldn't possibly have known, but this was a female. She was similar to the male, but she was smaller and her fur was a creamy color. Elegantly curled whiskers framed her pointed face – the male lacked these. They spoke in their singsong tones, interrupted by changes in position and chirping as they apparently held a conversation.

Naota couldn't think for a few long minutes that seemed like an eternity. He wanted to tell himself that nothing weird ever happens here, especially to him, but he wasn't in Mabase anymore.

He tried to ask if anyone spoke Japanese, but it came out more like, "Unnnnnngh..."

And where were those anal probes?

He wasn't very good with words anyway.

This did catch his captors' attention, though. Conversation stopped. They sidled over to him awkwardly in a single file line, the female ducking behind the larger male and peeking her head out from behind the barrier of his body.

Their strange gazes penetrated him as if he were the freak show, not them.

"Hello," Naota said dully. He meant to ask them what was going on, but his throat had constricted when he noticed a long white object sporting a shiny metal end appear in the coils of the larger one's third tail. It was now only a yard from his face.

Well, that answered his question about the anal probe, then.

Moonside Mango – Thank you for the compliment on Ninamori. I actually had to rewrite some stuff in the second chapter in order to better her characterization. .;