Alexis wakes up abruptly as the scraping noise of engines is replaced with the loud emergency sirens and occasional distant gunshot sounds. With utter confusion written all over her face, she just stays rooted to her place as slowly the confusion changes to something else; panic. She can feel the panic building up in her whole body, her palm getting cold and colder with each passing second. She knows that they were prepared for situations like this in college, however, this is not one of those drills. It's happening in reality and never before she faced a situation as such.

 "Get a grip on yourself," she mutters as her shaky hands reach for the emergency kit which is under her bed. Wearing the vest, she grabs her bag and her Armalite AR-5 rifle. Pros of being the head of the "Robotics Engineer" crew. With the bag on her shoulder, she stands before the door loading the gun. Instruction is simple, make your way towards the emergency deck on the back of the ship, keep your gun loaded and shoot your enemy before they can shoot you. Though they were all taught how to use a gun back at the academy, the last thing Alexis wants right now is to take a life. Now only her prayer of not seeing anyone on her way is to be answered. 

She lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding as her grip on the doorknob hardens, turning her knuckles white. "Here goes nothing," she turns the doorknob and slightly opens the door. Looking around the hallway cautiously she steps out finding the area clear. However, she stays careful. Taking a right from her room which is on the second-level she makes her way towards the emergency deck while looking around for any sign of the enemy.

Panic takes over alongside grief as she sees the bloodied dead bodies of her coworkers and friends. Her disrelish increases seeing blood spread everywhere. There's something else too, a bit glittery lavender color liquid which she recognizes to be the blood of the beings residing Vederilia planet of Asteria Galaxy. Fear takes over her; Vederilians have universe renowned war weapons, their warriors aren't bad as well, and the fact of the enmity between the residents of Earth and that of Vedrilia adds more to her fear and panic. Holding a grip of her fears Alexis moves forward trying not to step on the blood. As she moves forward she sees the mixture of the two types of blood of slightly glittery pinkish lavender color. The odor and the view of it make her want to throw-up. 

Still ignoring those feelings she moves forwards, keeping her eyes open in case someone attacks her.  Every move of her is alert. She's looking around twice before taking a step as she can hear a commotion from somewhere nearby. With cautious steps, she reaches the control room. Slowly she creaks the door open sticking her head inside, the gun loaded and ready in her hand. Looking both sides when she finds nothing a sigh of relief escapes her mouth. However, she doesn't relax noticing that, her gun is still in position, ready to shoot anyone who's endangering her life.

Slowly and carefully she moves inside but not without a last heedful glance at the almost empty hallway. The control room is all but silent. Alexis nears the illuminated control screen which is now showing the nearest safe route to change the axis. Absentmindedly she runs a hand through the keyboard in front of the monitor. Virtual assistant, Nexa's voice is what brings her back to reality. "Angle at 130 degrees and with speed..." Nexa's robotic voice drifts of suddenly making Alexis jump out of her screen.

Placing a hand over her chest, Alexis tries to calm her nerves. Once her heart is beating at the previous rate she moves forward inspecting the other pieces of machinery. Finding none and nothing important there she exists the room and takes a left from the hallway, making her way towards the armory to find a shield, which is on the other end of the hall.

The way to the armory is completely silent and deserted. Unlike the previous side, this part doesn't have any dead bodies, to her relief. But there is still blood just not it patches everywhere. However, in footprint shapes. The more she walks forward she understands the blooded shoe prints are leading her to nowhere but the armory.

She can feel her hands getting cold out of fear but she tries not to focus on that but the things important than it. The Vedrilian intruders are either still in the armory or they have already visited the armory which means the best of their weapons are being used by them.

Steadying her Armalite AR-5 rifle she takes cautious steps, her heartbeat increasing with the passing time. The more she nears the room the louder her beating heart can be heard. "You've got it, Alexis," she whispers to herself hoping to gain at least a bit of her courage which is continuously draining.

She enters the already open armory with measured steps. Unlike the control room, this place is all messed up with many guns now residing on the floor any many gone, probably being used by the Vedrilians to kill her fellow friends. Her heart shrinks at the thought. People of Earth are getting killed with their own weapons. She sighs. Walking in a pile of weapons silently turns out harder than she thought but she manages to do it, however, it takes her quite the time. Once on the backside, she picks a bulletproof vest from one of the shelves. Before dropping the gun nearby to wear the vest she checks around twice to make sure no one is in the room to danger her life. Once she's sure no one else is in there she places the gun near her feet and puts the vest on her.

Soon after she's out of the armory, heading towards the deck, feeling a bit safer than before. Luckily she doesn't find any more dead bodies of her friends or colleagues but of a few Vedrilian warriors though. And even if she knows that she shouldn't feel bad for them, she does. They killed her friends, her life is in threat for them, she's living in uncertainty because of them and for that they deserve all her hate, she knows that but she still believes that a death like this is not what they deserved. No one deserves such kind of death.

When she's halfway to the third-level staircase a loud sound of gunshot echoes making her heart leap a beat and a scared noise leaves her mouth. She looks down through the staircase railing to find a masked person heading upstairs. And she knows that the masked person is not in her team. They don't wear such masks. Whoever that is, is her enemy and she knows what she has to do.

Kill before they can kill you. As harsh as it sounds, to live that's what she needs to do. So she points her rifle in the direction of her enemy, her hand ready to shoot him any moment. Her heart is not supporting the decision though, making her think about it twice. Does she really want to kill someone without any reason? She knows the answer. She's not going to kill them without any reason, she has a reason; those people are threatening her life. She positions the gun, her finger hovering over the firing key. She doesn't have much time to rethink her decision, it's time for action. "You can do it," she takes a deep breath and presses the trigger. The loud sound of gunshot echoes through the area and Alexis stumbles back a few steps sitting down leaning against the wall. Her heart is beating at a very irregular rate. She just killed someone- the line keeps repeating in her mind.

However, she gets very little time to recover from it as another masked person appears in front of her. Guilt changes into fear in a matter of second and her hand stumbles in the stair blindly searching for her Armalite AR-5 but her eye stays glued to the masked figure in front which is pointing a gun towards her. A small wave of relief finds its way to her heart when her hand finds the rifle. Within a blink of the eye the scene changes, Alexis is no more an armless scared girl whose life is in the hand of the intruder but now she's in an equal position with that intruder.

With her rifle pointed at the masked figure she loads it quickly. If she's going down, she's taking him with her. Her finger rests on the trigger. If she could kill a Vedrilian who didn't even notice her, she can definitely kill one who is on the verge of killing her. The force on the trigger increases slightly but she doesn't fire it right away. And before she can, suddenly she feels a sting of pain in her neck, near the vagus nerve which gets her a little dizzy at first.

The rifle gets out of her hand as her grip loosens and her hand reaches out for the railing to steady herself. She slowly turns back to see who hit her in such a painful matter. A pair of bright purple eyes meet her eyes as soon as she rotates around. She can barely focus on the rest of the face as her dizziness increases gradually. She, however, with all her will tries to hang in there. But her willpower doesn't help much in this matter. Soon she's on the floor and not standing anymore, her vision getting more and more blurry. With an utmost effort, she can barely make out a figure leaning beside her. She tries her best to see the face though she can't make most of it. She still manages to get a blurry view of the Opal Purple colored face. That's the last thing she sees. After that, her eyes can see nothing but black.

She feels one last thing before getting devoured by the darkness though. And that is getting injected.  A warm liquid rushes through her veins, leaving a comfortable sensation as she slowly embraces the darkness the same one which is supposedly going to fill her life now.

She has no idea after how long she wakes up, it can be a few days or even a week. But she wakes up feeling the same as a person would after a nightmare. And that's what she hopes it is, a nightmare. Life, however, planned something else for her.

As her vision clears, slowly she can make out the environment of the place she is residing. She gets up to a sitting position and looks around.

Her hopes shatter piece by piece. She's not in her room in the spacecraft not in her home rather she's in this dark dirty place, one equivalent to a criminal cell.

Whatever it was, it surely wasn't a nightmare but a reality. An empty feeling takes over her at the realization. She's not sure anymore what to do or how to feel. She doesn't get if she should be sad or scared, or whether or not she should let panic take over her. Being in a trance she barely notices the others in the room.

But she's forced to get out of the trance as someone hugs her sitting by her side. "We've been held hostages," a girly voice says from beside her snuggling more into her. Before she breaks into sobs hugging her more tightly.

~•~