Chapter Three

Everything was blurred in her dreams. Nothing made sense though it all seemed so surreal and lucid. She was flying through the sky. Water streams were like veins traveling in and out of the clouds around her. There was a voice in the distance calling out to her. She couldn't make it out. It seemed familiar.

"Who's there?" she asked but the voice ignored her question and continued to call out her name.

Her eyes opened slowly to see the man from before standing over her calling her name and shaking her lightly on the shoulder. She was awaking from her dream.

"Femka? Can you hear me?"

"Huh…?"

"Wake up."

"Wha…?"

Femka's watery eyes tried to open further as she focused on Ratchet and some incoherent words tumbled from her mouth.

"What's going on?" she said drowsily.

"You're awake, finally. You've been knocked out for almost two days. We almost thought you were in a coma."

"Huh?" Femka's voice squeaked.

"You're still a little out of it. Just lay there for a minute, I'll be right back."

"…Uhh…"

Femka had tried to sit up as she watched the Lombax leave the room but she immediately let herself fall on her back on the bed she lay in. She rubbed her eyes with her fingers and looked around the room. Where was she? The last thing she remembered was that bright light and then nothingness. But everything in the room she was in seemed so… advanced, or like it came from the future. At least that's what she thought of it. She saw something that looked like a television or a computer on the other end of the room. Other things she had no clue as to what they were. She was still too out of it to make theories. Ratchet came back in the room a few minutes later with something in his hands. He approached her holding out a container of water and something that looked like a capsule pill.

"Can you sit up? Do you need help?" he asked setting the things he had down on a table next to the bed.

Whether or not she intended on answering he helped lift her up a bit and used a pillow to prop up her upper body anyway. He grabbed the water and little pill and handed them to her.

"What's this?" Femka asked rolling the capsule in her fingers.

"It's a vitamin. You haven't had anything to eat since you passed out, so it'd be a good idea to have this in your system."

"Is it safe?"

"Of course. I'm not trying to poison you," he joked.

The poor woman just wasn't even sure if it was safe to ingest because they were both different species. But she sighed through her nose lightly and popped the pill in her mouth and swallowed the water. She drank it all, too. After having something entering her empty stomach she realized that she was hungry. A low growl was heard from her midsection and she looked down with embarrassment and Ratchet chuckled with a smile.

"I'll take it that you're hungry," he teased.

"A little…" Her eyes wondered back up and she stared at the Lombax near her. "Where am I?" she said after a moment.

"Oh, that. Um, well, when you got knocked out that rock that you dropped on the ground caused us to ascend into the sky. We took you with us, because if we hadn't you probably wouldn't be around." He scratched his ear trying to explain the story. "The way we came to your solar system was through a wormhole and that's how we came back. We didn't really have a choice. My ship was stuck in the pull of the light and it sent us back home here."

"And home is where exactly?" her voice crackled through her quiet words.

"Meridian City, on a planet called Igliak, in the Praxus sector of the Polaris galaxy."

Femka was silent for a little while. She had no idea where that was relative to her own home. It was all foreign. Obviously. Everything was foreign. Things that looked like they could be something she knew were foreign. She was speechless. She was unconscious the whole trip but she was in another galaxy, somewhere in the universe, or another universe.

"So," she swallowed, "I'm really on another planet?"

Ratchet simply nodded.

Femka put a hand on her forehead to check if she had a fever or something. Her eyes were wide. She wanted to be excited about this whole endeavor but, Christ! This was unreal!

"Could I… possibly take a shower or something? I really think I need cold water on my face…"

"Sure. Do you need any help getting up?"

She slid her legs first off of the bed and let her feet dangle. Ratchet let her hold his hand when her feet touched the cold floor and use him as means of support. Her body felt weak to some extent but she managed to stand on her own. Ratchet guided her to the bathroom. Even that looked like a whole new experience. She just stared at everything like she'd been for the past few minutes. He showed her how it worked. It seemed like everything was functioned by computers here. Kind of neat, though. There was even a self-automatic dryer for your body. But for now, she would just stick with a towel.

"If you need anything, just let me know. You can press this button here on the wall and I'll be able to hear you from anywhere in the garage."

She complied with a small nod and watched him leave the room. The doors closed in an interesting circular fashion behind him. It reminded her of the aperture to a camera shutter. Needless to say, she wanted to get out of the clothes she'd been wearing for a couple days now. When she started to undress her shorts, she noticed her glasses were gone finally. She sighed heavily and took off her shirt followed by her necklace. The rest of her clothes went off in frustration. Femka wanted to ask her host to wash her clothes for her, since they were all she had to wear, but at the same time, she really didn't want a stranger touching her undergarments. The emotionally challenged outsider just stuck with the shower routine for now. She followed Ratchet's instructions on how to turn the device on and just hopped in regardless of how cold it was. She yelped straight away when the cold water hit her back and legs. She was wide awake now, though. This only reassured her that she wasn't dreaming and all of this was real. But how could something like this happen? Something so extraordinary and weird? Femka stood in the shower for about ten minutes before washing herself. She was thinking nonstop about all the input she was receiving. Her wet feet exited the shower first and she looked at herself in the mirror. Something seemed strange to her. Beside the overflow of various emotions rampaging about her head, something felt different. She couldn't quite pinpoint it, though. The woman stared at the clothes on the floor. She had a small idea. She took her clothes after wrapping herself in the towel she was given and threw them into the shower and turned the water back on. She found some soap (or what she thought was soap) and washed her clothes manually. The shower turned off again and Femka brought her clothes to the dryer just a foot away. For a second she looked at the machine and pondered how on Earth to operate it. She couldn't read the language that it had posted on it. Were those even the instructions?

"How does this even work?" she said quietly to herself.

Her head shook and she stepped inside anyway tossing the towel away. There were only a few buttons in the stall, so she took a risk and just pressed one. Nothing happened. Her blue eyes blinked and she pressed another button. She kept pressing buttons until something eventually did happen. A burst of warm air came rushing at her from every angle. She let out a big gasp and her clothes were sent flying all through the stall. The cycle lasted for about one minute. Femka stood there with her hair all over the place as her clothes fell down.

"That was exciting."

At least she had a smile on her face. She repeated the process until her clothes were dry. She left the bathroom feeling a little better in any case. Her curiosity came out in a positive aspect when she wondered out of the room. She noticed the windows that gave her a look to the outside world. Femka's eyes widened at what she saw. She walked over to a big window to see the city before her. Ships, flying cars, flying every-kind-of-vehicle, the tall buildings, the amazing architecture, the lights, the everything! She was blown away by the sheer brilliance and grandeur. This is where she was. And her mouth remained agape with her plastered against the window glass.

"Holy shit…," she whispered to herself. "This is amazing. I can't believe this…"

The metropolis looked like it was entering twilight but all the lights form the big city kept everything alive at night. Femka was just in awe. She heard footsteps coming into the room and she quickly turned herself around. She had to strain her eyes to see who was entering but she already knew who it was because of his dominant features. She smiled faintly at him and walked towards him.

"I brought you something to eat." Ratchet held out some kind of a meal to her. "I really can't guarantee that you'll like it, though. I have no idea what your species eat on your planet." He chuckled nervously and set the food down on a nearby table.

Femka sat down and inspected the food. It looked like soup. Something that appeared to be meat was floating in it and the liquid had a red color. She took the spoon that was on the tray with the bowl and stirred the broth around. Ratchet took a seat at the other side of the small table and Femka braved a taste of the soup. Her face seemed to say that she didn't mind it. She took another bite. The taste reminded her stomach she was hungry and she carried on eating the meal.

"Not bad?" he asked placing an arm on the table to lean into it.

"No, it's pretty good. But for now don't tell me what it is, because I might not wanna know." Femka kept her pace with inhaling the food.

"It's a deal." He smirked and waved his tail slowly.

Femka devoured her meal in a matter of minutes. Ratchet gladly took the bowl from her asking if she wanted more. She nodded eagerly and to which he left and came back and presented her with another round of the stuff. When she finished her second serving she couldn't help but point out the absence of Ratchet's friend.

"What, Clank? I just asked him to pick up some parts for me from the scrap lot. He'll be back soon."

"What do you do? For a living, I mean." Femka licked the remains of the soup from her lips.

"I'm a rocket mechanic."

Her attention was focused.

"Really?" her voice peaked with interest.

"Yeah," he smiled. "And what about you? What do you do?"

"I'm a translator. Or at least I was a translator," she corrected herself. "Which is ironic now, since I don't know anything about any languages here." Her eyes looked down to the empty bowl in front of her.

Ratchet noted that her expression changed from something happy to sad. He placed a hand on the back of his neck at a loss of what to say.

"Hey, it'll be alright. We'll figure out a way to get you home."

The woman looked up to Ratchet as some of her damp hair dropped over her shoulders. She wanted to smile and she only did it to make him feel better. She knew he was just trying to ease her worries but it wasn't that simple.

"I think I'm gonna go back to bed," she spoke up again standing up from her seat.

"Do you need anything else?"

"No, thank you."

Ratchet watched Femka leave the room and head back to his bed. He felt bad for her. But what could he do right now? Just help her cope in the meantime until they find a way to send her back home.

A heavy sigh left Femka's nostrils and the door behind her closed. The room was sort of lit up from the lights outside shining onto the metal objects around it. She sat herself onto the bed with her legs handing down the side and just stared out the window watching life go by. She inspected the room, or at least the objects in that caught her attention. There was a thing that looked like a television. She remembered that from a little while ago. Some other stuff. Computers, maybe. He seemed to have a lot of interesting trinkets lying around. It was darker now. The sun was gone but she couldn't have seen it go anyway, buildings were in the way.

"I wonder how they tell time here?" she asked herself.

An object on the wall reminded her of a clock. Perhaps that was it. But she still couldn't read it. She sighed again folding her legs against her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She wasn't even tired. She just didn't want to bring down the mood in front of other people, though. Her body fell over to the side still huddled up in the same position. She noticed that her backpack made it through all the excitement. That was good. It was near the bed, so she reached out for it and brought it up with her. Femka opened the bag and rummaged through her things. She had a wallet, an inhaler, a sketchbook, some little snack, her bottle of water, some utensils for drawing, a cell phone that probably doesn't work here, and an MP3 player. She took out the drawing book and the stuff to draw with setting it down next to her. The phone she had with her was taken out too. She noticed that she had a couple messages. She obviously didn't receive them while she was here but she opened her phone to look. One message was sent while she was out riding. Maybe a half hour before all the mayhem started. It was from her friend Alexander.

"When are you coming back? I'm bored…" it said. The other one was from the same person. "Oh, my god! Tell me you're seeing what I'm seeing!" it said. Her eyes narrowed at the text.

"Oh."

He was talking about the light in the sky. Well, she definitely saw that. She was a part of it, so to speak. She closed her phone with a sigh and put it back in her bag. The MP3 player she brought with her still had a lot of battery life. Their outlets were different no doubt, so there probably wouldn't be a way to charge it when it died. Oh, well. She needed something to calm her mind. The backpack was placed on the floor and Femka decided to just listen to music and draw until she felt sleepy. When her eyes felt heavy she pulled off her headphones with a yawn and put them back into her bag. She stared at the drawing in front of her. It was a bust of herself smiling. She wanted to smile, too. And when she drew things that were happy, it made her happy as well. Femka put the picture aside on the table near the bed. Her pencils and things went on top of it. She made her way underneath the covers and rested her head on the pillow. Until she could close her eyes she thought of home. She thought about things that would make her laugh; things that were funny that her friends said. It helped a little. Sooner or later, the foreigner was asleep.