Later that day
As the day had worn on, clouds had begun to gather in the skies over the great city, or what was left of it. A storm was coming in and it would probably last the night. Still, though, the Martian assault on the city was continuing. More fires seemed to be raging in the city and more tripods seemed to have arrived into London. Whether they were coming here to build, as they were reportedly doing in some cities and had been on the outskirts of the city, or to find more Humans was unknown.
In the streets of the northern area of central London, three fairies and a mouse crawled over the rubble from buildings, cars, fallen trees and gas lamps scattered about in the streets. It was Tinkerbell, Fawn, Bobble and Cheese. They had survived their encounter with the Martians last night, though only just, and had been able to get through the night without any further incidents. They had woken up late this morning, had a quick breakfast of the bits of food left in the house they had stayed in and then worked their way through London in the direction of the Thames. Like in Pixie Hollow, the fairies had built their settlements near water and the Humans had done the same, though they did have a doubt on whether they would stay near water when there was an invasion, especially one by a race that does not come from Earth, but they still had to try it and see if they could find anyone else that would be alive in the city.
"How much farther do we have to go?" Fawn asked.
"If I remember right, not far," Tinkerbell replied.
"Let's just hope we find somewhere to stay soon," Bobble piped up, looking up at the darkening sky. "It does not look like good weather up there."
"Don't worry, we'll find somewhere to stay and rest for the night," Tinkerbell reassured him.
However, she was beginning to doubt where they could stay. Where could they rest for the night though? Going into another house was the obvious choice, but would it be safe? Last night they had gone into a normal house and it had ended up being searched by a group of Martians. Would it happen again, and if so; would they be able to hide from them? They had been lucky once not to have been found, but would they be so lucky again?
A flash of light illuminated the sky, followed by a rumble of thunder, and seconds later, raindrops began to fall from the clouds above, light at first but they quickly grew heavy.
"Well, this is perfect summer weather," Fawn said sarcastically.
"Let's try and find a place to set down for the night," Bobble said, another crack of lightning and a rumble of thunder filled the air as he stopped speaking.
"There!" Tinkerbell exclaimed, pointing down the end of the road, which joined onto a larger main road, at a large building, or what was left of it.
The building she was pointing at looked like a replica of a church, only it had two towers at the front of it, both of which had large holes in them and the windows that had been along the top and sides were either smashed or replaced with holes. There were large glass windows along the sides and rear of the back of the building and they too had been smashed or replaced with large holes, as had much of the roof of the back of the building. The large pair of brown doors on the front of the building, at the top of a flight of stairs, was also damaged. One was broken in half whilst the other was leaning in slightly. The building was surrounded by a grove of trees and grass, which was, like all vegetation was now in London, covered in a layer of red weed. The road in front of the building was littered with destroyed cars and rubble from the nearby houses.
"Are you sure that's a good idea going in there?" Bobble asked Tinkerbell.
"It's big and there'll be plenty of places to hide and sleep," she told him.
"It'll also most likely be the first place where the Martians are to look," he told her.
"Well I'm up for going in there, even if it to be searched," Fawn piped up. "Besides, like Tink said, they'll be plenty of places of hide if the Martians do search the building,"
"That's the spirit, Fawn!" Tinkerbell exclaimed. "What about you, Cheese?"
The field mouse gave a nod and a squeak, meaning he was happy going in there as well.
"Well, that's three against one, Bobble," Fawn said to him. "You still up for finding somewhere else?"
He looked at them and the building and looked like he wanted to protest, but decided not to.
"No," he said, sighing a little.
"Alright then, it's settled," Tinkerbell said. "Let's go,"
The three fairies and the field mouse ran down the road towards the large building. Even though it was far away to them, their will to get out of the rain and find somewhere to hide made them feel like they could reach this building in just a few seconds, which, if it was not raining, they could, but unfortunately, fairies could not fly in the rain and riding Cheese would not be much better because the weight of three fairies would slow him down, so they were going to have to make do with walking.
As they reached the end of the road that joined onto the main road, Fawn stopped and noticed something by the side of the road. It was a large wall of grey lying on the pavement. A small kind of curved bulge was sticking out of the top of it and the right end of the wall had…brown hair?
"Hey guys!" she called. "Look at this!" she said, running over to the wall.
"Uh, Fawn, wait!" Bobble called from behind.
When she reached it and walked around the other side, Fawn gasped and clasped her hands over her mouth, her eyes growing as wide as dinner plates. She was so shocked she fell back onto the ground and looked like she was about to burst into tears.
What she was seeing in front of her was the body of a Human man, but he was not just dead. His body was shrivelled in a way like she had never seen before, or even imagined, as if it had been drained of all liquid. His eyes were wide and his mouth hung open, both contorted into a look of terror. There was a large hole in the chest of his suit and a small wound was visible. By the looks of it, the shrivelled body and the wound on his chest was probably the result of a Martian tripod sucking the blood out of him and leaving the corpse to rot.
A hand threw itself over Fawn's eyes and mouth and pulled her away.
"I told you not to look, lass!" he said.
He pulled Fawn away from the body and she weakly began to cry in his arms.
"I can't believe I saw something like that!" she cried. "I can't believe someone would do something like that to someone else!"
Bobble felt the same way sighed and looked up at Tinkerbell and Cheese with sad eyes. It was horrible to know that the Martians were doing something like this. Why would they ever do something like this? These creatures had advanced technology and people with advanced technology should know better than to inflict such horrible things onto another race.
"C'mon!" he said after a few moments, lifting her head up with his fingers and giving her a small smile. "We better go inside," he told her. "Don't worry, nothing like that'll happen to us,"
Fawn gave a small nod and got up and followed Bobble, Tinkerbell and Cheese towards the building.
"That was really nice of you to comfort her, Bobble," Tinkerbell whispered to him.
He nodded. "She's my friend, I couldn't leave her like that,"
I think she's more than just your friend Tinkerbell thought, but said nothing.
The group finally reached the building after a few minutes and climbed up the steps to the top. As they reached the top, Tinkerbell suddenly stopped and looked around, taking in the structure.
"Hey guys," she said, stopping the others. "I recognize this place," she said, a small smile growing on her face.
"Do you?" Fawn asked her.
"Yeah, don't you remember?" Tinkerbell asked her happily. "This is where we saved Vidia and made Lizzy's father believe! This is that science place we had followed him to,"
The other two looked around and smiled. "Oh yeah," Fawn said.
"Now I remember," Bobble piped up.
It was a good moment of reminiscence. Last year, they had only just saved Vidia by making Lizzy fly and she had narrowly stopped him from taking Vidia inside to show to the science people inside. Afterwards, he had changed and believed in fairies and respected them as people, not as study for science.
Though it was amazing to see, Tinkerbell did have a thought of what might have happened if they had not gotten here in time to save Vidia? She would have been kept here and probably cut up and studied and probably not even treated fairly. They had narrowly saved her last time, but still she just thought of what would have happened if Vidia had been shown to the science people inside the building. The whole existence of fairies would have been revealed and it would not have been safe for them to return to bring the seasons to the land and-
"Tinkerbell!" Fawn called, snapping Tinkerbell out of her thoughts. "C'mon, we better go inside,"
Tinkerbell nodded and followed Bobble, Cheese and Fawn into the building through the hole between the two doors. The room on the inside was large and shaped like rectangle with a curved end. Many tables and scientific equipment and books and journals lay scattered everywhere, some broken others in perfect condition. A few chairs were also broken and scattered everywhere amongst the piles of rubble from the ceiling. A set of stone pillars went along the right and left walls and about three were completely destroyed. Another two had large chunks missing from them. Large holes were visible in the ceiling and rain was pouring in from them.
As the four moved into the room, a small cloud of dust and tiny bits of stone fell from above to the floor next to them. They looked up to see a large stone, bigger than the body of the man they had seen outside, high above the door. It looked unstable but was managing to stay in place, though only just.
"I hope that doesn't fall on us," Tinkerbell said.
Bobble and Fawn nodded in agreement and the four walked into the large room, gazing at the destruction and the few remaining scientific equipment scattered everywhere. They were a mixture of knives, pins, magnifying glasses and such, all of which made the four shiver and remember very well how close they had come to failing to save Vidia.
"So much for being place of science," Fawn said.
"Wonder if there's anything we can sleep on," Bobble muttered as he looked around the room.
After a few minutes, he found a large book with thick pages placed up against a large piece of stone that had been part of the ceiling. "Hey guys, over here," he called and they ran over to him. "I think I've found something that we can use to rest on," he said, holding up one of the thick pages. "May not be much but it's better than nothing,"
"It's perfect," Tinkerbell said. "Well we better get some sleep then."
"C'mon, Cheese," Fawn said and the mouse placed his front paws on the front of the book and pulled himself up. He scuttled over to the left end of the book next to the stone and curled up into a ball. Tinkerbell, Fawn and Bobble joined him, leaning against him.
"Hey, Bobble?" Fawn said.
"Yes?" he turned over to look at her. "What is it?"
"Y'know when you were holding my hand yesterday to keep me calm from the Martians?" she asked and he nodded. "I felt … safe when I was holding you hand and with you,"
Bobble blushed a little but tried not to show it. He coughed into a closed fist. "Well…I…I didn't want you to panic," he said. "I…just wanted to keep you and the others safe,"
"You liked it though, didn't you?"
He smiled a little. "Yes," he admitted.
Fawn smiled and placed her hand on his. He smiled and she moved closer to him and embraced him tightly. He embraced her back. They were real friends and they loved each other like real friends.
"Not disturbing anything, am I?" Tinkerbell said from next to Bobble, startling both of them.
"Oh!" the two quickly let go of each other. "Uh, no! No, not really!" Bobble replied.
"Yeah, nothing at all," Fawn said, smiling meekly.
Tinkerbell rolled her eyes. "Okay. Night guys," she said.
"Night," Bobble and Fawn replied in unison.
As Tinkerbell rested her head against Cheese's side, she looked at the field mouse, who also rolled his eyes.
"They hide it very well, don't they," she said sarcastically to the mouse, who nodded and nuzzled his head into his paw and fell asleep. Tinkerbell sighed and looked up at the hole above them in the ceiling and looked at a small break in the clouds as they moved overhead. A sense of relief and hope swept through her. Maybe…just maybe, there was still hope that the Humans would prevail, even when it looked like there was no hope for them to defeat the Martians.
"Maybe we can win," she whispered to herself.
Her eyelids grew heavy and she closed them and let herself fall into a deep sleep.
Several hours later
The storm had mostly moved on by now. Rain was still falling, but it was much lighter and the thunder and lightning was almost gone as well, only just visible and able to be heard in the distance. Apart from the pitter patter of the rain falling onto the road and buildings, it was completely quiet.
Inside the laboratory, the fairies were sound asleep. Bobble had one arm tucked under himself and the other placed over Fawn's shoulder, holding her in a kind of embrace. She was facing away from him, but had her hand resting on his arm placed on her shoulder as if to keep it there. Tinkerbell had brought her knees up close to her chest and had her arms resting on Cheese's side.
Fawn shifted a little in her sleep. She was dreaming happily of returning home to Neverland from all of this. She was dreaming of seeing the others all well and happy again and all of the animals she would have been training all going back to their normal duties in their summer life. She smiled. It was beautiful to see all of thi-
A soft humming sound suddenly came into her dreams. She looked around but saw nothing that was making it, but it was still there. She stirred and opened her eyes slightly.
"Wha…what is that noise?" she asked herself quietly, lifting her head up slightly.
It was almost pitch black around her, but as she looked over her shoulder, she could just make out the forms of Cheese, Tinkerbell and Bobble. The soft humming noise was not coming from them, so where was it coming from.
A tap in front of her made her look ahead of her and she saw a large shape hovering just a few feet in front of her. She rubbed her eyes and moaned a little to try and wake up. Just as she lowered her hands, the object opened up into a kind of eye and two small lights came to life on the side of the eye.
Fawn screamed and backed away. Bobble, Tinkerbell and Cheese jolted awake immediately and saw what was making Fawn scream.
It was another Martian mechanical eye.
The fairies and the mouse backed away as the eye advanced towards them, its lights shining directly onto them like a predator fixed onto its prey.
"What do we do?" Fawn exclaimed worryingly.
Bobble looked around for something, anything to defend themselves! He found it a moment later. A small pile of rubble was next to the book and a small sharp needle was sticking out of it. The needle was about the length of him and was thick, to him. He grabbed it.
"Go! Hide!" he shouted to the others as he swung the needle at the mechanical eye.
Tinkerbell and Fawn jumped off the book, Cheese following close behind. They flew over towards a tall pile of rubble and set themselves down on the top. Cheese squeaked loudly as he reached the bottom of the pile of rubble and tried to jump up to the top.
"C'mon, let's help him." Tinkerbell said to Fawn, and they lowered their hands for him to grab so they could pull him up.
"Back! Get back!" Bobble was shouting at the mechanical eye, swing the needle at it.
The eye advanced towards him, making him back away to the edge of the book. Bobble began to panic, but tried to stand his ground and swung the needle at the mechanical eye. The point tore into the headlight of the left triangle piece of the eye. He must have hit something within it because the light flickered and shut off. Several sparks fell from the triangle section. The eye reared back slightly. Bobble smiled a little, a sense of hope in beating the eye swept through him.
However, it was short lived. The eye looked back down at him and, enraged like a predator that had been hit, swung itself sideways at him, hitting Bobble in the side and throwing him through the air to the floor.
"Bobble!" Fawn exclaimed in worry.
She went to fly over to him, but the lights from the mechanical shined onto them and began to advance towards then. The two pulled Cheese up onto the top of the pile of rubble but backed away the eye approached, worry filling them. Even if they flew away, the eye would follow them, and they could not fly outside because it was still raining. They were trapped!
Bobble groaned as he sat up from the floor, rubbing the side of his head where it had hit the floor when the mechanical eye had struck him. A scream from the pile of rubble nearby made him look over to see Fawn, Cheese and Tinkerbell trapped by the eye, which was beginning to rise up the pile of rubble towards them. His eyes widened in terror.
It was then Bobble remembered the mechanical eye. It was like a long snake and he followed the body of it back down the room towards the door. The door! It was directly below the unstable stone! An idea popped into his head and he immediately flew towards the door.
"Bobble, where are you going?!" Tinkerbell shouted at him.
He did not answer. He flew on to the top of the stone. Even though it was big, it was really unstable, as he and the others had seen when they entered the building. He began jumping up and down on it, trying to make his weight force the stone out of its position and onto the body of the mechanical eye below.
Please work! He mentally pleaded. Please!
He continued jumping up and down on the stone. Gradually, it was moving out of place, but not enough for it to fall. He looked at the others, who were now near the edge of the top of the pile of rubble they were on. Upon seeing this, Bobble sighed in frustration that his plan had not worked and took off towards him.
Just as he did, the stone suddenly shifted to one side and fell out of place, falling directly towards the body of the snake-like mechanical eye.
CRASH! Bobble, who was about half-way to the others, turned to see the stone was gone. He looked down to see it resting on the struggling and writhing body of the mechanical eye like a snake would do when it is stuck. He looked over at the front of the eye and watched as I swung up and down and side to side, smashing the other headlight on the front and cracking the glass front. More scratches appeared along the side of the silver armour of the eye. Finally, with a final swing to the floor, the eye smashed and the front fell off from the rest of the snake-like part of the body, which quickly withdrew away back outside, pushing the stone off it, revealing a large crushed middle section, and disappeared from sight.
Bobble flew over to Cheese, Tinkerbell and Fawn, who breathed a sigh of relief when the snake-like body of the eye disappeared.
"Thanks, Bobble," Tinkerbell said.
"Yeah, thanks so much," Fawn piped up, hugging him tightly.
"It's okay," he said as Fawn released him. "Listen, I think we better go, quickly. The tripod outside might destroy the building,"
Tinkerbell nodded. "Alright, let's go," she said and she picked up one of Cheese's paws, the other two grabbing his back paws, and they lifted him up and flew towards the door.
As they emerged outside, they flew left off the steps and onto the grass. As they landed on the ground, a loud fog horn blast made them cover theirs ears. They looked out from behind the step and saw the reason why.
A tripod was standing about fifty feet from the laboratory. However, it looked different than when normal. The silver armour on the front was more dirty and looked like it had not been cleaned, despite the fact that it was raining, one of the neon eyes was smashed open completely, the middle section was riddled with holes and it looked like it was struggling to stand up, even though there were no damage on the legs of the machine.
Then, the silo laser on the side of the main section opened up and the lighthouse light shone out from it onto the building.
"Quick run!" Tinkerbell said.
The four ran from the building as fast as they could. Seconds later, the sky lit up and they looked to see a wave of fire shoot out from the tripod at the building. At once, the stone walls and the two towers seemed to just explode into flames. Rubble fell onto the road below. The brown doors were blown down and incinerated and the ceiling collapsed into dust with the walls following suite moments later.
Luckily the four had gotten away just in time, having to dodge the remains of one of the towers as part of it collapsed and fell onto the road. They stopped behind a car turned on its side, breathing heavily as they tried to regain their breath.
"That…that was a close one!" Fawn gasped.
"Y-yeah!" Tinkerbell replied. "You okay, Cheese?" she asked the field mouse, who was pretty shaken up by what had just happened, but he was okay.
Loud footfalls from the road drew their attention back to the tripod. The huge machine was stepped forward, staggering slightly on one leg, towards the remains of the building. A large headlight turned on somewhere on the front of the machine and began moving up and down the pile of rubble. Part of the view was hidden by the trees so Tinkerbell began climbing up the side of the car to try and get a better view of what the tripod was doing now.
"Tinkerbell, I don't think that's a good idea," Fawn warned.
"Don't worry, I'll be able to get down," she replied.
"That's not what I meant," Fawn mumbled.
As Tinkerbell grabbed hold of the side of the driving wheel, she saw part of the circular outside of it was broken. Damn! She would have to go across to the other side of it and climb up onto the top.
Pulling herself up onto the wheel, she began to slowly move across it, but as she reached the middle of it…
BEEEEEEEEPPPPPP!
Tinkerbell screamed in alarm and fell backwards from the wheel to the ground. The noise had made Bobble and Fawn scream and jump back in surprise, but, unfortunately, also out from behind the car. At the same time, the tripod turned to look towards the car, the headlight shining directly at them.
"RUN!" Fawn screamed.
The four ran from the car. Loud footfalls shook the ground and they looked to see that the tripod was chasing them. Its tentacles waved menacingly about in the air, ready to lunge out and grab any one of the four.
As the four reached the pavement on the other side of the road, near a long wooden plank that led up to a second-floor window of the house behind them, one of the tentacles shot towards the four. They dived out of the way, narrowly avoiding the deadly tentacle as the metallic tentacle slammed into the pavement, leaving a long and deep trench in it and part of the road.
"Tinkerbell!" Fawn called as she, Bobble and Cheese got up from the floor.
"I'm alright!" she called back.
Suddenly, another tentacle swung towards them. Fawn, Bobble and Cheese dived out of the way, narrowly avoiding it as the enormous metallic weapon swung into a gas lap, breaking it in two as if it was a two pick, and throwing the remains across the road and through the window of another house.
"C'mon!" Bobble said, grabbing Fawn by the arm and began running across the road back towards the laboratory. "C'mon, Cheese!" he shouted to the field mouse.
"What about Tinkerbell?" Fawn said to him.
"We have to try and lose this tripod first," he replied, pulling Fawn to the ground to avoid another swing from another of the tripod' tentacles. "We have to make it fall over,"
Behind them, the tripod seemed to be trying to avoid doing just that. Even though it was enormous to the fairies and could easily overtake them with just one step of its enormous legs, it was struggling to keep up with them. Something was definitely wrong and as Bobble led Fawn and Cheese towards the remains of the laboratory, Fawn looked over her shoulder at the machine and she swore she could have just about seen the frustrated looks of the Martians inside the machine.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the trench created by the Martian tentacle, Tinkerbell got up and watched the tripod chase her friends. Even though it was staggering half the time, it was able to keep an eye on them, thanks to the headlight.
"I've gotta do something," she said to herself.
But what could she do? It was hardly like she could fight this thing. There just had to be a way for her to bring down, or at least distract the tripod, there just had to be!
Then, she remembered the wooden plank behind her. It must have been part of a ceiling or roof of a house or something like that. It led up to the second-floor window of the house. As her eyes followed it up to the window, an idea began to form in her head. If she could find something inside the room to distract the tripod, she could lure it away from her friends and they could get away from here, but then she would have trouble with getting away from the tripod, which would be difficult as it could easily fire on her with its laser. She sighed. She was going to have to take the risk and plus these were her friends in danger. She would do anything for them.
BOOM! Another of the tripod's tentacles swung at the road, snapping Tinkerbell out of her thoughts. She had to be quick. She ran over to the wooden plank and began running up it towards the top. Behind her, the crash and thuds the Martian tripod was making filled her ears, filling her with worry for her friends, but also filling her with determination to get up to that room and find something that would distract the tripod.
Finally, she reached the window and looked inside the room. It was small and square, but it was filled with boxes and had bare walls and a wooden floor. An old wooden table with large splinters sticking out of it was placed along the right wall with four boxes placed on the top of it. An old switch on lamp was placed on the table in front of the boxes and sticking out of the top of one of the boxes, which had old music stuff written in black ink across the side of it, was the end of a small toy trumpet.
Ecstatically and filled with determination, Tinkerbell flew over to the oil lamp, only just managing to stay in the air as her wings were still quite wet and landed on the table. She pulled out one of the splinters and ran over to the oil lamp and turned it on. She placed the end of the splinter in the flame and it lit immediately. Her plan was working so far. Hopefully, it would stay that way.
She flew over to the toy trumpet, placing the burning end of the splinter near her back to dry her wings quickly, and lifted it up. Amazingly, only the end of it was left, the rest was gone, but this did not stop Tinkerbell. It was good enough. She flew over to the windowsill, the heat from the splinter having worked, and set down on it. She looked out across the road to see the tripod over at the remains of the laboratory again, though this time it was trying to kill her friends.
"I sure hope this works," Tinkerbell said worryingly to herself.
At the remains of the laboratory, Bobble had led Fawn and Cheese into a small hole under the remains of the wall, but it was just a hole and that was it. There was no other way out, other than the way they had come in! The tripod was lashing away at the rubble above, causing the ground to shake violently as the tentacles lashed out at the stone rubble. Fawn whimpered and Cheese squeaked in fear, shrinking down beside Bobble.
"I can't believe it's ending this way!" Fawn said, a tear running down her face, as she and Bobble backed away towards the wall at the back of the hole.
"Don't worry," Bobble reassured her, gently patting her arm, but a small tear ran down his cheek. He too knew it was over. "We'll be okay,"
BOOM! Another thud shook the ground and part of the ceiling of rubble above caved in, revealing a tiny hole that showed the outside. They could just see the main section of the tripod through the hole. Another tentacle lashed down at the ceiling, making the hole even bigger. Fawn screamed and clutched tighter on Bobble's clothing.
All of a sudden, the tentacles stopped lashing out at the hole and loud footfalls filled the air. After about a second, Bobble took a step towards the end of the hole.
"Bobble, what are you doing?!" Fawn hissed.
He held up his hand in reply and cautiously approached the entrance to the hole. He poked his head out from the hole and watched the tripod move away towards one of the houses. What was it that was drawing it away?
"Over here!" a familiar voice shouted from the window of the house the tripod was moving away to and a small pinprick of a light was waving about at the window.
"It's Tinkerbell!" Bobble exclaimed, turning to Fawn and Cheese. "She's drawing it away!"
Fawn and Cheese ran to the entrance of the hole and looked out with Bobble at the house. A sense of happiness filled them. They would have to thank Tinkerbell later.
At the house, Tinkerbell was waving the stick around madly in air in one hand whilst shouting into the end of the trumpet placed on the windowsill at her feet, praying that the tripod would come closer.
C'mon, just a little bit closer! She thought desperately. Please, come closer!
The headlight from the tripod shined onto her, blinding her and almost knocking her off her feet. At least her plan was working. It was focused on her, but now was the hard part. Now she had to get away before it destroyed the building.
Across the street, Fawn, Bobble and Cheese watched desperately.
"C'mon, Tinkerbell, get out of there!" Fawn said.
Tinkerbell dropped the burning splinter to the ground below and began to look around desperately for a way out. She could not go outside because of the tripod's tentacles and because it was still raining. The only way she could go now was inside the building and hopefully get as far in as possible.
Suddenly, a thundering crash filled the air and Tinkerbell looked and watched, as did Fawn, Bobble and Cheese across the road, as the rear leg of the tripod slammed into the car the four had been hiding behind earlier on. However, it must have gone through the road as well because it suddenly started staggering about and tried to regain its footing. The machine tilted from side to side and reared back slightly before falling back on its feet. Tinkerbell watched with a glint of hope. Was it going to fall over?
Her question seemed to have been answered almost instantly because it suddenly fell forward and crashed into the ground that shook the road, causing a few boxes in the room behind Tinkerbell to fall to the floor. A look of relief came upon her face. They were safe!
Across the road, Cheese squeaked happily and Fawn and Bobble embraced happily.
"We're safe!" Bobble said, hugging Fawn tightly.
"I thought they would never be beaten," she said. "I think we finally have a chance to be-"
CRASH! The three looked back across the street and their looks of happiness quickly changed into shock and fear. The tripod had been brought down, but when it had fallen over it had driven across the ground and slammed into the bottom of the house.
"Oh no!" Fawn gasped.
At the house, Tinkerbell had been knocked to the windowsill floor by the sudden crash. Realising the danger, she was just about to fly away when...
THUD! A small piece of rubble struck her head and knocked her to the windowsill floor. She yelled out in pain, but it was soon replaced with a scream as the inner walls of the house suddenly caved in and collapsed. She fell with the wave of rubble towards the ground, quickly being buried within, just as her scream was.
"NOOOOOO!" Fawn screamed in fear. "TINKERBELL?!"
She received no reply.
"Oh no!" Bobble said.
Fawn ran off across the street, tears streaming down her face, fearing that her friend was dead. Bobble and Cheese followed close behind, both feeling in similar ways. As the dust cloud throw up by the collapse settled, the three saw that the tripod was almost completely buried, save for the legs which were sticking out from underneath the rubble.
When Fawn reached it, she began climbing up the pile of rubble of the house.
"Tinkerbell?" she called out, desperately hoping to hear her voice again, but she did not. Fawn began to grow panic "I have to find her!" she cried, kneeling down and frantically pushing pieces of rubble out of the way.
Bobble went to join her when he heard the distant foghorn of a tripod. He looked in the direction of the noise, fear gripping him. There was no doubt they would come looking for their downed comrades to see if they were alive.
"Fawn!" he said, but she did not hear him. She was too busy muttering "I have to find her!" whilst choking back tears. "Fawn!" he said, kneeling down next to her and grabbing her. "We have to go!"
"No!" she protested, pushing him off her and resuming her digging. "We have to find Tinkerbell!"
"We can't look for her now! There's more of them coming!" Bobble warned.
"I DON'T CARE! I HAVE TO SEE IF SHE'S OKAY!" Fawn almost screamed at him, through anger and sadness. "I have to find Tinkerbell!"
"Fawn! Stop!" Bobble said, grabbing her and dragging her away from the rubble. She struggled fiercely but she gave up and broke down in his arms.
"I can't believe it!" she sobbed, burying her face in Bobbles' chest. "I can't believe she's gone!"
"I'm sorry!" Bobble said, cradling her head in his arms. A few tears fell down his face as well. "I'm sorry, Fawn!"
Fawn cried a river of tears, but there was nothing they could do. Their friend, their best friend, practically their sister… She was gone. She was dead.
"C'mon!" Bobble said weakly. "We have to go before more of them come!"
Fawn gave him a sad look; her eyes and face wet with tears, but said nothing. She wanted to stay here and look for Tinkerbell, even if it took the whole night, but with more tripods coming, that would have been suicide. She had no choice to accept the fact that Tinkerbell was dead, and even if she was alive, there was no way they could help her! They were going to have to leave her!
Fawn and Bobble got up and Bobble led her away. Cheese, who took one more look at the pile of rubble and wiped away a tear from his eye, followed close behind.
They were on their own now.