Chapter 9

Floran doesn't hear the sound of prey being crushed, bone breaking, and blood spilling. Instead, there's a big sound, something Floran has never heard before in Floran's life. It sounds like boom, but a really loud one, followed by the sound of something heavy falling to the ground. Yuki moves, and it gives Floran the room to move. It hurts, but with Yuki's help, Floran manages to sit up, while holding Floran's side. Floran looks to the side, and can see a hole in the ground. Hunters lying on the ground, a few of them are getting up, but they seem to be in pain. The smell of smoke and burning Floran is in the air, but Floran doesn't know what could have caused something like that.

"What just happened?!" Yells Adjoda, he's looking to the direction of the hole. His hammer in his hands and looking around, trying to find the cause of such a thing, but he seems to be having problems finding it.

"Do you hear that?" Asks Yuki.

"Hear what?" Floran asks. Yuki was about to say something, but she looks into the sky, and so does Floran. A big flying thing comes down, breaking branches from the trees as it comes down falling. However, the flying thing stops in mid-air, and before anyone could react, the thing starts to spit something at the hunters.

"Get down!" Yells Yuki, and she pushes Floran back into the ground. It hurt to hit the ground again, but Floran could see why that would be necessary. The things that the flying thing spits hits the hunters, and they fall to the ground. A burning hole is left in their bodies, and Floran realizes that whatever the flying thing is spiting, it's very dangerous. Some of the hunters still standing try to attack the flying thing with their weapons, but they either fail to reach, or does nothing against it. The flying thing, turns towards the attacking hunters, spits something that looks long, and it's on fire from the back. When that thing hits the ground, another boom goes up, and the hunters disappear into ashes.

"Retreat! Retreat!" Yells Adjoda, and runs into the forest. The other hunters follow his example, and run away from the flying thing. That leaves Floran and Yuki as the only ones with the dangerous flying thing, and it's looking at us right now.

"Yuki…run," says Floran, but barely since Floran is in a lot of pain. Yuki looks at the flying thing, but doesn't move.

"That's…" says Yuki as she moves off Floran, and the flying thing turns to the side. Then, it starts to get closer to the ground.

"Yuki, what's wrong?"

"That's my ship."

"Your ship? You mean your 'spaceship'?"

"Yes, but the real question is, who's piloting it?" Floran doesn't know what 'piloting' means, but Floran can hear the spaceship landing. Floran sits up again, and could see the spaceship standing on feet-looking things. Then, its side opens, and a floor comes down. A person is visible, but there's a light coming out of the hole, and it makes it hard to see who it is. The person comes down from the ship, and it starts walking towards us. When the light wasn't so bright, Floran could see who it was, and Floran was very happy, very glad.

"Thank goodness I arrived at the right time," says Idalla as she picks up Floran's sword.

"Idalla, you saved us," says Floran with a smile. With the help of Yuki, Floran manages to get up from the ground.

"Yes I did, but I'm afraid we don't have much time. They'll come back with more hunters, and this young lady needs to get home." Idalla puts Floran's sword back in it's scabbard. Then, Idalla and Yuki help Floran walk to the ship.

"I must ask, how did you know where to find us?" Asks Yuki.

"Some hunters found your ship and brought me here to study it, since I'm the only one who could. I knew instantly that it was a Hylotl ship, and tried to look for you and your friends. To warn you about this planet, but I was too late." Idalla always wanted Florans to be nice, but Florans thought she was crazy. "When I saw you were the only survivor, I had to do something, but as old as I am, there wasn't much I could do. Which is why, I sent Seba with you."

"What?" Floran asks.

"I had faith that you would do something about it. The moment you told me about the day you felt regret for killing an Avian, I knew that there was something special about you." We reach the ship, and Idalla lets go of Floran. That's when Floran felt something was wrong.

"Idalla?"

"I'm afraid, this is where we must part ways." Floran doesn't understand.

"Why?"

"When you've lived as long as I have, you learn when your time is coming," says Idalla, and she looks at Yuki. "Young Hylotl, I'm sorry for what happened to your friends." Then, she looks back to Floran. "Seba, I'm sorry for having to put you through all of this."

"What do you mean?" Idalla is confusing, she's confusing Floran, and making Floran sad.

"The moment I was informed that there was a spaceship on the planet, I knew I had to do everything in my power to get rid of it." Floran doesn't care about that, Floran just want Idalla to come with us.

"To avoid the Floran to spread into other planets," says Yuki, and it confuses Seba even more.

"Spread?" asks Floran.

"That's right. With Adjoda as chief, he would have ordered the tribe to conquer other planets, and would have put innocent people at risk." Everything is getting confusing, that would mean…

"Are Florans evil?" asks Floran, and they both look at Floran. Idalla steps closer to Floran, grabs Floran's face, and look into Floran's eyes.

"We're not evil, Seba. Florans just don't know any better, and they just tend to avoid learning, but we can be better. You're better than them, you learned to be better, you chose to be better, and that makes me so proud of you." She pulls Floran's head closer to hers, and we touch foreheads. Floran is crying right now. Floran is sad and happy at the same time, but mostly happy, because Floran doesn't remember the last time someone said that they were proud of Floran.

"Isn't there something we can do for you?" Asks Yuki and Idalla steps away from Floran.

"I already took some items from your ship, but do not worry. The ship is capable of space travel," says Idalla.

"Floran doesn't want to leave without you," says Floran, tears falling from Floran's face.

"I know, but you have to." Idalla steps farther away from us. "Go, and always be who you are, Seba." Floran wants to say something, but can't. Instead, Floran nods, and hears something. Floran doesn't know what happened, and doesn't care, but a wall starts to come down from the ship. When the wall finally stopped coming down, Floran was hurting everywhere.

"Seba, I need you to sit down for a moment. I need to get the ship into orbit," says Yuki, and Floran just started to sit on the floor. Yuki helped, and when Floran was sitting on the ground, she left. Floran doesn't know where she went, Floran doesn't know what a spaceship looks like on the inside, Floran doesn't know what those noises are, but Floran didn't care. Floran was sad, Floran was hurting everywhere, and Floran was tired.

Floran is going to miss Idalla.