I'm really sorry for my disappearance guys. With my fifteenth birthday, packing up the house to move back to Cali… It's so hectic around here. I need a break, so I'm writing. I may get to my InuYasha story later…

ooo

How many hours had I been sitting on the ground in this damned silence? If it wasn't for Rika stealing my bed, I would be sitting up there. However, I had some serious thinking to do, and this was as good of a place as any to do it.

My eyes scanned the impenetrable metal walls around me, watching the cameras that must've thought I was insane.

How much more time did I have in here? Could I survive? I had to… Rika needed me to stay alive… for her own wellbeing. But what about her? Could she stay sane in this hell hole? Would she worry about her brothers too much, or even worry about me? The girl can escape her cell and visit me as often as she wishes, but that doesn't change facts. This place can impose insanity, and that's never good.

"Tick, tock, tick, tock…," Rika giggled, swinging her Plumber's badge in front of my face.

I pushed it aside. "I'm not falling asleep, Rika…"

"Doesn't this… hypnotize you?"

"I know something else that does," I muttered, turning to face her. "No, that doesn't work, generally. But we did have an enemy back on our planet that could hypnotize just about anyone and he did, just about everyone. Sublimino, I think it was." I turned back around, facing the metal.

Rika nodded. "So, what are you thinking about, Alien Boy?"

I shrugged. "There's a lot going on…"

She looked around. "Seems like a lot of nothing to me."

"I mean, internally."

Her eyes widened. "A-are you sick? Hurt? What?"

I laughed. "I mean… Rika, you don't want to spend the rest of your life in here, do you?"

"If I recall, you said you didn't want to escape!"

I nodded. "But I've been thinking… a lot… It's not worth it to stay in here, but it's so much easier to escape when you can prove your innocence."

"…How can you prove your innocence, Ben?"

"I don't know, yet…. I'd assume I'd have to be back on Earth… Gwen and Kevin would vouch for me, but they'd never believe Kevin. Not with his record. Gwen is nobody. She has no status in the galaxy. She can't stand on heroic events and say I'm innocent, like I can."

"If you can, why don't they believe you?"

"Once a traitor, always a traitor, they say. It doesn't matter what you've done in the past, it's what you've done that made you a criminal in the first place."

Rika sighed, draping her arms around my neck and chest. "So sad…" Her skin was quite cold, something I hadn't noticed before.

"No. It's a tragedy. It screws up all my plans."

She rested her head on my shoulder, still sitting in the cot. "Can't Gwen and Kevin come up here?"

"We travelled over a thousand light-years to get here. I highly doubt an intergalactic government ship would fly them out here to help see my case. That's just… out of the question." I blinked. "Well… if we were still in contact with Julie… Ship could fly them out." That was pointless, though. Kevin could track down Julie, but she would never agree to help us now.

"I wish I could help," she sighed. "Oh! What about the creator?"

"Of…"

"The Omnitrix?"

"Azmuth? The little guy died in an attack years ago. He couldn't help me anymore."

"You're not making this easy, Alien Boy," she grumbled.

I nodded. "I don't have a lot of options. What about you?"

"They either captured or killed anyone that could help us. Dumm Nemernici…"

I hummed, trying to think. Esccaping a heavily guarded prison was easy. Escaping a heavily guarded, intergalactic prison with no transport back to your home planet… not so much.

Rika screamed, pulling her arms back quickly.

I looked up, searching the room. "What?!"

She laughed, mostly toward herself for being so easily scared. "Heh… Breakfast…"

I sighed, "Rika…" The green stick was still rolling around from its strange entrance in the ceiling. I reached forward and picked it up, handing it to Rika. "Here. I'm not hungry."

It was breakfast. That meant I had been awake all night, sitting here… on the floor… That also meant I'd been stuck in this prison for over one hundred hours. I wasn't sure how long the days were here, but it had been almost one hundred and four hours, meaning four days and eight hours on Earth.

It seemed like so much longer than that.

Rika set the glowing stick on the bed, draping her arms around my neck and chest again, her head on my shoulder. "You could ask for a lighter lockdown…"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, free time out of your cell. I was thinking of doing the same thing."

I sighed. "The only way to get a guard's attention is to create a disturbance. They won't listen to me otherwise."

Rika nodded. "I'm tired," she yawned.

"Didn't you just sleep all night?"

"Yeah, but I usually sleep a lot longer. Nights are much longer on my planet."

"Ahh," I yawned, a contagious action.

"Are you tired too, Alien Boy?"

"I was up all night…"

"Ben! You should sleep! You're weak. Human. You know better than that," she chided.

"You're not my mother," I laughed.

"But I do care about your wellbeing, and not sleeping doesn't exactly help prevent insanity!"

I smiled. "Get some sleep. I have some planning to do."

Rika pulled her arms back to her side, but soon grabbed my arms, pulling me up onto the bed. "You're sleeping, Ben Tennyson. You need sleep more than I do."

I blinked. "And you're much stronger than I thought." I sat up, fixing my clothing.

She smiled. "Sleep, damn it! Nr Agasid!" Rika stepped off the cot, glaring at me.

I watched her with a sly look, hoping to evade sleep. I wasn't tired, but she wasn't going to let me off the hook any time soon. "…Fine…" I laid back, my hands behind my head. I faced the ceiling, though I could still feel Rika's burning stare.

Rika sighed, glad that I'd given up. "Good boy." She sat on the edge of the cot, her chin in her hands. "I'd sleep but I don't want to go back to my cell."

I smiled, rolling over, now facing the wall. "You'll figure it out."

She nodded. "Sleep well, Alien Boy."

ooo

LOL 1,111 words! xDD