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Carter was in a quiet conversation with Kat, who kept glancing at Hyde. Finally, Kat said, " When we arrive at the check point, I'm going to ask you some questions, I need you to answer as well as you can."

"Uh, okay? " , she replied. The drive turned from smooth to bumpy for a while after that. The wheat fields rushed by silently, until a thunderclap alerted everyone of the storm. The wind grew fierce and strong in a few miles, the rain pounded into the van and even soaked through in a couple places, chilly wet water that you never could get out of your bones. The repetitiveness of it caught Hyde off guard, and before she could help it, she'd drifted into a deep, undisturbed sleep.

"Wake up. We're here.", ordered Kat. The female Spartan III pulled Hyde out of the van , "We've got the rooms checked, so I'll ask you some questions while the est of the squad figures out how to get food here . . ." The two women walked into the hotel, a cheap looking place that made you think bedbugs. The elevator played an old song Hyde liked called Jumper. At the thirtieth story,the elevator stopped and the pair walked down the hall with toothpaste green wall paper, and entered a room numbered 912. The room was like the rest of the hotel, cheap and decorated in bad taste. 'At least there's no bedbugs', thought Hyde. There were two huge beds, a Hide-abed in the sofa, TV, alarm clock, bible, the normal hotel fare.

Kat pulled up a chair for Hyde and sat down across from her. " Ready ? "Hyde nodded.

"Your family was killed in a glassing, correct?"

"Yes."

"On what planet ? Tell me about that planet."

" Sarah V. It was an agricultural planet, part of the Watashi system. It had a lot of wheat, rice, grains mostly, sorta like this one. It was fairly big, about the size of Reach, maybe bigger. The weather was really steady, almost always the right temperature to grow and harvest, it was pretty rare that a crop got ruined. ", I can do it if these questions keep on like this, Hyde realized.

"This happened when ?"

" It started around harvesting time, when everyone was outside working. I was at home helping my mom and sister make bread with the wheat we were paid with. We sold some of those to make money for the family. My father was harvesting a couple of miles away when we heard it. Early in the morning,everyone was already up, and at work already. We assumed a machine was malfunctioning, or something, so we called my dad's cellphone to see what was going on. He didn't answer, so my mother drove to the field where he should have been, and about an hour later she came speeding back, yelling at us to grab some things and get in the cellar.", that was more than what she asked for, but that'll spare me some questions, Hyde thought.

" Alright, what kind of supplies did your mother have you grab? How deep was the cellar? What was the noise like? Did you see anything unusual before you got in the cellar?", Kat recited like she had been rehearsing this very moment for years.

Hyde took a deep breath. She could see this getting very difficult very quickly, "She had us grab some grains, bread, canned stuff. We already had a pretty good amount of food stored away down there, so we didn't take more than we could carry in one go. Our cellar was about 50 yards deep, and sealed off so no gases or liquids could leak into it.", This is getting really hard, she figured. Taking a deep breath before continuing, "The noise . . .it was a distant purr at first, before you could see anything. While my mom was gone, the sky turned light purple, and the noise grew louder and louder. By the time we closed the cellar, it was so loud you couldn't think. It really sounds like nothing else. You can't compare it to anything. Those are really the only unusual things I can point out."

Kat thought so long on the next questions Hyde wondered if they were finished, but finally she spoke, "How long were you and your family in there?"

"I don't know.", I don't like this.

"Can you tell me what happened to your mother and sister and how you were rescued?"

I do not like this at all. Hyde's thought's were blank for a second, then: "My sister and I were running out of food. Some nights we could here the fire raging above us, but we hadn't heard any for awhile. Mom was going up to see if she could scavenge anything, and see if she could find the people we had heard walking over the cellar door lately.

"So our mom left even though we really, really didn't want her to. It was hours and maybe days before we heard Mom walking across the cellar door. We were so ecstatic we did one thing she had told us to never do- opened it before knowing who was there and without her with us. It turned out it didn't matter, if we had called out, we would've been screwed anyway. We opened it inwards, let the dust and ash fall inside the shelter and coat us. Some of it burned. We should have died, we were to late in seeing that it was an Elite. . .I don't really remember much of the next few moments. It was loud and confusing, but at the end of it my sister and I were in a plane and being taken care of by a bunch of Marines. We were taken to this planet and put up for adoption, but for some reason my sister was never put up with me. I don't know what happened to her."

Kat nodded,and said, "That will do for now. When you get to the base, you'll be entered into a rehab program for people who have been through the same as you, and probably questioned further. A word of advice: answer those questions in detail, do it without hesitation, and be honest. Try and keep a blank face, those officials are going to use everything against you, so don't give them anything to make them put you in a mental hospital. If you need help of some kind, there is a person for that somewhere, and that person will be your friend. Do good, but for now, get some rest.", Kat stood up, and handed Hyde an undershirt and shorts to sleep in.

'This hotel room has a horrid view.',Hyde observed. The window was covered with the thick smog that every city created with it's pollution. Even the harvesting town Hyde used to live in had this, although she never saw it like this, because there were no tall buildings. Actually, Hyde couldn't remember many times she'd been in a building this high. She used to co-pilot small planes over the fields to make sure no fires started, or to check on progress. People would even pay her and her captain, the pilot, to take them up to watch the harvest.

Hyde changed and cleaned herself up in the bathroom as best she could, showering, and brushing her hair and teeth. The bed looked so inviting, she climbed into it as soon as she got out of the bathroom. The sheets were soft and the covers heavy, so she fell into REM sleep right away.

The cellar door was being pounded on more vividly than she remembered. Hana looked at her excitedly, and mouthed "Mom's back!". She jumped up and they pulled with all their weight to open the heavy wooden doors. Instead of being embraced by their mother, a huge creature taller than any man holding strange purple things that glowed and vibrated nearly fell on them. It opened a horrible mouth that split into four different flaps lined with teeth and let out an inhuman roar. The creature shot a ball of burning light out of the purple thing at them, and it seared across Hyde's leg, and made her yell. The roaring beast aimed again at Hyde, who was sure she was done, and the moment lasted unbearably long before something louder ripped it apart and things resumed the normal timing. The monster fell to the ground by Hyde with a dull thud. Something huge took its place, but this cast a much smaller shadow. The huge thing was a person, Hana and Hyde hadn't seen anyone else in ages. He encouraged the girls to walk with him, but he didn't say how far. The words he spoke were not heard individually, but meaning came across clear enough in their spinning heads-keep going. While Hyde walked, she looked around at the fields that stretched out past the horizon. Instead of waves of gold, planes rumbling in the skies, and the assurance that Father would be home tonight were burnt, glowing embers that burned her feet through her boots. The ground was black and oozed in places, and glowed orange until it couldn't be seen. It felt like several hours before they sat down to rest, someone gave them some water and took care of the long burn on Hyde's leg. They all started moving when more balls of purple, burning light showered on the group of soldiers. Hana and Hyde were swept up in the rush to a plane, and safely strapped in. The plane took off straight up even though one machine gun still fired at the aliens. The big man had stayed behind.

As the plane that looked like it shouldn't be able to fly, with the short wings and fat body, pushed harder and harder through the atmosphere, the air pushed back into Hyde. She closed her eyes and looked at her home one last time: the huge fields of grain, her father harvesting, her mother and sister baking, and she was flying a small plane over it all. There was a big man shooting a gun in the fields, keeping the aliens away. The plane steadied, and took on the buzz of people in the morning, with the smell of coffee. The Spartan from her dream leaned over her bed and said," Wake up." There was a moment where Jorge looked just like the Spartan that had saved her. But that Spartan was dead, a revered figure of the past.

It was cold in the hotel room, and Hyde didn't feel a strong urge to pull out of her dream completely, even if it wasn't a good dream. The blankets were warm, the room quiet, and she exhausted. Why move?

"Come on. Early rising is a part of military life.", Jorge flung the blankets off her, and grabbed her under her arms, setting her in the desk chair, "Well, wake up! We've got another mission to deal with here and then we'll be droppin' ya off at the base! Ya might be here a while before we come back—just stay close to here, alright?"

Hyde nodded her consent. Just what I wanted, she thought as the last Spartan walked out the door. A little bit of time to herself. Anywhere in the whole city, China Town, Main Street. . .oh, what couldn't she do?!

After sitting in a half sleep for twenty minutes, Hyde got into the shower and changed clothes. The clothes they had left her were, as expected, plain and military style. There was a brown tank-top, a pair of army green pants, and a pair of brown hiking boots. She laced up and grabbed her bag, thinking people would be thinking she was a recruit going home.

The hallway was as typical as you can get In a hotel. Beige walls, a framed photo of something you could spot if you looked out the window. The carpet partially muffled her steps as she entered the elevator and jammed the ground floor button with her fist. How good it would be, to feel the rush of the city, the coldness of hundreds of people at once. That was what gave her a rush, survival in the city was survival of not the fittest, but the most clever. That struggle to keep moving and rising to face the next problem was more thrilling than the country. There was so much to see in the city.

Hyde found help with finding China Town, and headed there right away. Soon, the big red gates showed her in, and she entered nearly every store. There was a huge grocery store full of Asian foods, where she bought some food to cook up that night. Her bag used to be covered in pins, but they were lost when her planet was glassed. She held a satisfaction in rebuilding her collection, and she blew a good deal of her money on all kinds of pons—pins from anime, manga, and a few more traditional style ones with Japanese characters on it. Soon enough, half of the front of her bag was covered in ins. It didn't quite yield the same satisfaction as did her previous pins, which were scavenged from places across her Sarah V.

It was all the same, Hyde thought, every planet has its people. And one day they will all die. Another haven will need to be sought out by the remainder of a glassed planet. How long would it take to find a safe place to hide? The safety of her mother's arms was so far away, such a distant memory it could never be recovered or reproduced. She knew that, since the day her mother died, she would never feel comfortable in anyone's arms—it was an unmistakable, nostalgic, thought of the past that would do her no good in the future. So she buried it.

Dinner was slow coming. The cooking, that is. When was the last time she'd cooked? Before she was adopted, that was for sure. Then, while she paid countless time in the basement cell, her meals were brought to her, for her to eat in solitude.

Oh, it had been a cell. What else was that dark room, below the tumult and redundant daily life? A home? Hardly. Could it have been a refuge if she had tried hard enough? Even if she did try, it would be futile. That's why, even when they threatened her, she did not try, she did not try to blot out the memories of her friends, her peers, her teachers, her family. They all died on the same planet she had escaped. And the only one she knew who was not melted into the planet was her sister, She was lost though, on this confusing new planet that was just beginning to show her it's face.

Finally, she was free again, not tortured by memories trapped in the room with her, no deserts to cross or men to live behind. What was left of her other than those memories? Just a skin, a shell. Hyde was nobody. . .

"How long have you been gone?", Carter demanded in not the tone of a reproving parent, but that of a disciplining commander. Arms crossed, in armor, he was quite formidable. Just the way a teenager rebel would answer, Hyde did,

"Out."

Carter sighed, "We specifically ordered you to stay put. Why did you leave?"

In reply, Hyde spoke, '' Because, sir. . .I've spent enough time locked up.", she ended with aloud sniffle. Hyde's cheeks were noticeably red, her face was hot. Her head was clogged and slow. She wanted to lie down, go to sleep. It wasn't that she wanted to argue, she was so tired she settled on the bed and closed her eyes, coughing.

"Are you sick?", Carter inquired. It was just the two of them in the room, which made Hyde very uncomfortable. While he was the commander of Noble Team, and had a reputation to uphold, he was still a Spartan. Spartans were known for being stressed and occasionally hostile to civilians. But he seemed relatively relaxed, despite being angry.

"Yeah. I caught a cold.", Hyde managed between coughs to say, "I should get over it in a couple of days. . ." With that, she was done, whether Noble One was going to ask more questions or not. It was so easy to close her eyes and go to sleep. . .

. . .for a time, she slept. Hyde glanced at the clock, hopeful, but quickly disappointed. She had only slept two hours. That was the trouble, you needed sleep and rest, that was the only way to really heal and escape the pains of sickness, but always, always, sleep was playful, mischievous, out of reach.

Hard to walk, Hyde thought blearily, stumbling to the bathroom. The paper cup filled and emptied, but still her throat was dry in a painful. Burning way. Even breathing hurt. Blood pounded through her ears,

deafening and painful. The bathroom light stung her red eyes and increased the throbbing headache that threatened to grow. Her lymph nodes were angrily swollen to a point turning her head hurt.

There was no refusing the big white pills Jorge gave hr every day, and no getting more. What were they doing? Medicine was useless, the only pills good enough were the ones that made her drunken and sleepy. Nights passed restless, in the gap between reality and dreams lay a dark nightmare, half played out, half waiting in the shadows. Things with deep, sharp claws tunneled through her veins, and screamed in her head.

Oblivious to the world outside of their pain, the sick are self centered and rightfully so. If you screamed at them, they would not feel even the most loving caress or hateful whispers. Maybe later they would thank you or fight with you of love you back, if they were well again. But the world they wanted to reside in was a background affect, a sound they wished they could hear louder. Anything was preferable to the torrential chaos that swept them from the earth and landed them in repetitive pain and agony.