Rating: PG-13. Violence and the occasional swear word.

(continued from previous)

Chapter 7
Sole Survivors

He could feel her impression on the pendant in his hand. Or maybe it was just his imagination. Max could barely breathe, much less think about what was going on around him. He didn't even hear what Maria and Michael were yelling about, or Isabel. Or what the man had said before he threw the pendant. He only saw the pendant and reflexively caught it. All that really registered was that Liz was in trouble. He would do anything to make sure she remained unharmed. Anything at all. If the man wanted him, then he could have him. As long as Liz was safe. Liz was all that mattered. If anything happened to her...

"Max? Max?"

He barely heard the voice from across a void which seemed vaster then space. Isabel was trying to pull him back into the present, but it wasn't working. All he could see and feel was the impression left on the pendant. Liz. She had been scared when they took her. The last thing she felt was a sharp sting in her arm, then consciousness left her. Words flooded his mind as well. Something about nature. His nature.

"Max!"

The voice was louder this time, more distinct, closer. He felt a hand against his shoulder distantly. Though it didn't really feel like his shoulder. It was like his entire body had fallen asleep. Just an impression of a hand. Where was she?

Liz... would they hurt her even if he gave them everything they wanted? Would they let her go? Or would they just kill her too...

Max felt his mind groping outward, trying to leave the frame of his body and search her out. Distantly he felt his body crumple to the ground, someone catch him and lay him down, but he paid no mind to it. Liz. Liz was all that mattered.

Liz? He could find her. He knew he could. His mind drifted, following the trace of her presence. He found himself at a phone. A payphone. Emotions there were a mix of fear and shock. It was where Liz was taken.

He continued, following the light trace left behind. So light, and so faint, because she had been unconscious. It led to the road, where they must have loaded her into a car, because the trail got even fainter then before. He could barely follow it. Determination kept him going. He had to find her.

Down the street. Right at the intersection. Five blocks. Left. Two more. There. A motel. Room 14B. The door didn't hinder him, he just drifted right through it. Two people sat around. Two men. One a shorter red headed man, the other a taller dark haired man. Neither was the man he noticed following them on the way down to Texas. Small relief there.

Liz? There she was. Laying in the bed, arms bound, eyes blindfolded, unconscious.

He spoke, or the equivalent of speaking in this place he was in, likely somewhere between the dream world and the real world. "Liz? Can you hear me?"

No response.

"Liz? Liz, please. Answer me. Give me some sign that you're all right." The pain in his "voice" was obvious, even to himself. "Liz, please..."

He wanted an answer, a response. Of any kind. A twitch of her mouth would be enough. But he didn't really expect to get one. She wasn't his kind, there was no guarantee that she could even here him in this realm of existence.

So when a response came, he admittedly was surprised. "Max?" Her lips didn't move, but the voice was a plain as anything else.

He didn't hesitate to reassure her. He would feel calmer if she felt safe. If she knew he would never let anything happen to her. Ever. "We're going to get you out, Liz. I promise. Don't be afraid..."

"I... I'm not afraid."

It was a brave lie, innocent, and sweet. But a lie none-the-less. She couldn't lie to him here. He could feel her emotions as if they were a scent in the air. She was afraid. But she was also happy. Happy that he was worried about her?

Whatever she was happy about, Max couldn't ponder it much longer, because something grabbed onto him. A presence so radiant and strong that it dwarfed everything else by comparison. It pulled on his mental presence so hard that he found himself back inside his body before he even figured out who the presence had been.

His eyes opened wide, his lungs took in a deep breath, as if they hadn't taken one for a while, and he noticed Isabel's face close to his. Very close. Her forehead was touching his.

They looked into each other's eyes for a long moment, brown eyes locked, then she pulled back and said in an angry voice, "Don't you -ever- do that again."

Michael was kneeling beside him, "You had us worried, Maximillian." and for a change, he actually had the sound in his voice.

He took in slow breaths, trying to regain his standing in the physical world. Isabel pulled back even more and stood up, brushing invisible dust off her designer outfit. Cade and Maria were standing off to the side, watching. Whatever Isabel had done to bring him back, he hoped it wasn't too... obvious. He still didn't quite know if he trusted Cade.

Once he was sure everything was all right, all his body parts were working, though his legs were a tingling, as if the blood had been cut off for a few minutes, he finally said something, "I... sorry."

He looked around again, and noticed the man, Joshua as Cade had named him, was nowhere in sight. He didn't notice him leaving.

But then everything before him went blurry almost as soon as he realized the man had Liz. "Where'd he go?"

"He left. Told us to meet him at the old book store on Kerr Street that was closed a few months ago." Maria jumped in quickly, answering before any of the others could in her usual fast and high-strung voice.

Isabel interrupted before the smaller girl could add more, "He wanted us to meet him there in an hour, but now it's more like fifteen minutes."

Max blinked. Fifteen minutes? He didn't get to voice the question, Michael answered it, "Yes, you were out that long. Cade was getting ready to drag you to the hospital."

As if in defense of himself, Cade mentioned absently, "It was a suggestion."

"And a bad one, okay?" Maria said softly. "I mean like he's not even..." Before she got much further though, Isabel gave her a look that shut her up and made her switch what she was saying. "...sick really. Just worried about Lizzy is all. We all are, right? But Cade says she'll be all right. The Joshua person isn't one to like go back on his word."

"But he's likely going to want to trade for her," Michael added in during the pause. "Which might mean..." He waved a hand around, but Max knew what the gesture meant. Us, for her. Max couldn't drag Michael and Isabel into this...

"I'll go there alone. You two, leave town." He would do anything for Liz, but he couldn't drag his sister and best friend down with him.

"No way, Max." Isabel said, putting her hands on her hips in a stubborn expression, "I said it before, and I'll damn well say it again. I am -not- leaving without you. Ever. If he wants us, then he's not going to stop till he gets us. All of us."

And from where he was sitting beside him, Michael added, "Where you go, we go."

Blink. Max couldn't believe what was happening here. He expected Isabel to say that, but... Michael? Mr. "Don't Get In Too Deep?" Were they saying they wanted to risk their lives for Liz? No. They were probably just trying to talk him into leaving with them. That was it. But they must know he would never leave Liz. If the spaceship home landed tomorrow, he doubted that he would be able to hop on it. If it would protect Liz, and keep her safe, he could. But if she were in danger if he left, he couldn't.

"What are you guys saying?"

"They're saying, in their Czechoslovakian-like way, that we're all going into that building with you." Maria added in, moving closer and kneeling down on the other side of him. "Liz is my best friend. I'll do anything to protect her. Even agree with this badly dressed, spiky haired, Tabasco breathed, space-boy."

"She may not be my best friend, but she's important to you, Max." Isabel offered. It sounded lame beside Maria's, but it was an attempt, which from his sister was about all one could expect when the subject was Liz Parker.

They all looked at Michael, and he gave a slight shrug, "Like I said, where you go, we go." Then he smirked and added, "Besides, I'm kind of growing used to her myself."

A voice outside their group broke through Max's amazement at his friends words, "I'll be going as well." It was Cade Foster. He expected Michael or Isabel to argue, but neither did. While he was out of his body -- literally -- they must have had an interesting talk.

And that was how they all ended up in front of the old closed book store on Kerr street a dozen or so minutes later.

The windows were dark, the door was locked. Instantly Max said, "I'll handle the lock." but as soon as the words were out of his mouth he saw Cade move forward, pull something out of his pocket and play with the lock a second. The door was open very quickly.

It was Michael who commented, "Nice little hobby you got there. Anything else up your sleeve?"

"A few," was all Cade said in response, motioning them to enter.

Max entered first, looking around for a light switch as he went. Cade followed behind him, then Michael, then Maria, and last Isabel, closing the door behind her and plunging the room into near darkness.

Suddenly there was a grumble behind him, and a soft, "Stop grabbing me." It was Michael.

A second later Maria's distinct voice called out, "I.. I like can't see. Somebody find the light switch, please."

A small light came on behind him, and Max turned, hoping it wasn't Isabel or Michael, and it wasn't. It was Cade, holding a small handheld flashlight. "Told you I had a few more up my sleeve." the older man said with a small grin, shadows casting across his face.

"Joshua? You here?" He raised his voice a little louder.

The response came in a door opening to one of the back rooms. The owners office. Or old office. The only room in the store without windows. Perfect for a meeting away from eavesdroppers.

Max motioned towards it, "There."

A moment later they'd all piled in the office. The tall dark man was standing in the corner, hands folded at his waist. Liz was there as well.

The sight of her sent Max's mind soaring with relief. She looked good. Cade closed the door behind him, and flicked on the light switch. Liz was not blind folded, or gagged, or even tied up. She was just sitting in a chair, eyes open, looking from one to the other.

He couldn't stop himself from asking, "Liz, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. A little tired, but fine."

She looked a lot better than he was expecting. No bruises or cuts. Her waitress uniform was a little wrinkled, and her hair a little messed up, but she looked good.

"Side effect of the drug we gave her, unfortunately. She'll be fine in a few hours," the man spoke.

"Why were you and the others sent here, Joshua?" Cade asked.

Max wasn't really paying attention though. He moved across the room to stand next to Liz, taking her hand in his. He wanted to feel her, make sure she was real.

The answer to Cade's question drifted distantly into his mind, "We were sent to find those who were suspected to be survivors of the crash that happened in this area in 1947. Then attest on whether or not they were a threat to our presence here, and if they were, to eliminate the threat."

Before anyone else could get a word in, Cade asked his question, "So the Gua crashed here back in '47?"

"No. Not the Gua. The ancestors of the Kahmezari." The word sounded... known... Like a memory from a dream. Like the symbol on the pendant. Like the writing in the cave.

Michael whispered the word softly, under his breath, almost sounded in awe. The sheer emotion in his voice was enough to make Max turn to look at his friend. The key. The dome. The pendant. River Dog. None of them had given them anything like this. Kahmezari. The name of their species. Their kind. Their family. -Their- name.

"I told you about them, Foster. Back before we were the Gua, generations before we looked towards your Earth. The Kahmezari were as far above us, as we are above you."

Isabel whispered distantly, almost inaudible, "'Were?'"

But Joshua kept talking, "They came to our planet. They invaded us, defeated us, broke us down until we were nothing but servants to their every whim. In a way their conquering of us gave us something we never had before then, or so the story goes. We adapted our technology to match theirs, and we rose up, behind a man who gave us our name. The Gua. The Power to Overcome. And behind him, as one force, we crushed the Kahmezari. Hunted them down and destroyed them."

The words stung, but Max knew not half as badly as they stung in Michael's mind. The emotions coming from him were almost palpable. It was as if all his hopes, all his dreams were crushed down in one paragraph. He slumped against the wall, closing his eyes, his head tilting backward.

Distantly, through the pain coming from his friend, Max saw Maria move towards him, like she had in the dome. When she told him to try the key again. She looked completely calm. Calm and determined. She reached up and laid a hand on his chest gently, and to Max's amazement, the emotions coming from Michael calmed down. Instead of a raging hurricane they were now taken down to a tropical storm.

Isabel must have felt what was coming from Michael, 'cause she seemed almost breathless, and her face was crumpled in the fashion it was when she was near tears. A state she rarely allowed herself to get close to in front of people.

Liz was the one who spoke, squeezing his hand as she did, "But some must have gotten away if there was a crash."

The man gave a nod, face remaining stoic and emotionless, as if he was not watching a young man's anchor in the world being torn into splinters, "A few did escape. Aboard ships. That was the one technology of theirs that we never did master until after they were gone. We know of at least eight that escaped. We tracked down six of them. Including the one that made it here. That necklace, the mark on it. Each ship had a destination. The ship that crashed here was heading towards what you call the Milky Way Galaxy. Which as you might know, is a Spiral Galaxy. From the outside, it would look similar to that symbol."

Beside him, Liz leaned her head back and whispered, "Of course. How could I be so stupid?"

"You tracked their ship here?" Cade asked, breaking his silence.

"Yes. In some ways, we never would have found this planet if it wasn't for that ship."

"And when you bastards found this place you just couldn't resist completing the circle, could you? You were conquered and taken over, now you do the same in return." Cade was angry, but Max couldn't feel it. All of Michael's emotions still over-ran everything else.

"Our planet is dying, Foster. We will die with it if we don't expand. The ship that crashed here just gave us the opportunity."

"What happened to the others on the ship?" Max asked, finally able to speak. He knew his voice would sound tired, and pained. But under the ravaging of Michael's intense emotions, it was only to be expected.

"We hunted them down."

Max's closed his eyes, a memory running into his mind. River Dog. He'd said that 'the man' was afraid 'they' would kill him. That 'they' were close to finding him. He'd always assumed it was the government. "It was you. He was afraid of you."

"We thought we'd found them all. But we were wrong. Our cloning technology is far more advanced then their's ever was. Their human bodies are just masks. On the inside, they were completely alien. A drop of blood and you would know they weren't human. We suspected they'd ejected some incubation pods with children in them, we even found one in '75, but we figured all of them failed, like that one. But yours didn't. You three are the sole survivors of your species."

Max opened his mouth, to ask what happens know, but the words didn't make it past his lips. A force so strong that it dwarfed that of the hurricane of emotions from before swept through the entire room. Maria flew backwards, taking the brunt of the shockwave, flying into Cade, who fell down into a heep as well. Isabel stumbled, even Joshua swayed slightly.

When it hit Max, he slammed against the wall hard. Liz yelled out as she impacted beside him. Michael's powers were raging out of control. And no surprise, considering the emotions that had been building up inside him. He let out a ragged wail and them slammed through the door, leaving a deep bulge in it, and a blackened heat marks along the impression and ran out of the room. Isabel was the first one to recover and she ran out after him.

Chapter Eight
In Shadows

It took all her energy to keep up with Michael. He was running so fast, at what most humans would consider full-sprint. But to them it was a normal running speed. They were naturally faster then humans, but Isabel Evans never did like running, even if it didn't take half as much out of her as a little dream-walk. High heeled boots probably had something to do with it.

She only followed because she knew Michael was about to snap. The single thread he'd been holding onto all these years, that there might be someone coming to get him, that he would be able to go home... the thread was gone, and he was falling. And he needed someone to catch him before he did something stupid. Something that Max wouldn't be able to clean up afterwards. And though she usually wouldn't bother getting her hands dirty on something such as this, she knew it would take the others a while to follow.

At least Maria was hurt. She took the brunt of Michael's energy discharge, 'cause she was touching him when it happened. Max would help her. If that Joshua person didn't kill them all like his species did the rest of them...

But Isabel shoved that out of her mind. She had to stop Michael. "Michael!" she yelled, still running. Her feet were starting to hurt. Damn heels.

He was running towards the edge of the city. The night sky above was clouded over, as if in echo of his emotions. "Damn it all to hell. Michael, STOP!" she yelled again, her ankles starting to really ache with all this running. Heels were not made for full sprints, that's for sure.

Surprisingly, he actually stopped.

The emotions radiating from him were a myriad of intensities. Anger. Sorrow. Pain. Hatred. Loneliness. They made the air thick around him. She could even taste the emotions when she stopped a few feet away from him and gasped for breath. It was a bitter, salty taste. In the dome the emotions coming from him had been intense, but this was twice that. Ten times that.

But unlike in the dome, when the emotions were plain in his face and stance, he just stood there, body tense and ridged, face stern but rather emotionless. The only visible indicator of his current emotional stress was his eyes.

"Michael... I know how you feel..."

But all that line did was throw fuel on the fire. The emotions raged and he spun to face her, yelling harshly, "How could you possibly know how I feel, Isabel!?"

"Because you're broadcasting you're emotions like radio waves! I wouldn't be surprised if they could feel them in Santa Fe!"

It wasn't completely false. It was likely he was broadcasting his emotions to everyone, and not just the rest of the alien trio who would have felt them anyway. Maria seemed to have felt them in the room back there. "They were my family too, you know!?"

More fuel. She really needed to take Max's advice on how to calm Michael down in these situations. But then again nothing like this had ever happened before. Nothing this... intense. Nothing that so effected him.

"Your FAMILY!? You didn't even know them! _Max_ is your family. The _EVANS_ are your family!" He stopped yelling, and took a step backwards. His eyes were burning with the anger that his emotional aura was giving off. "Get. The. Hell. Away. From. Me." he spoke each word separately, adding emphasis on all.

She wanted to say that he was her family too. Because he -was-. He was her brother's best friend, her friend since she was a child. Her only other link to her alien heritage besides Max.

Though she never would have admitted it before, he was an essential part of their trinity. He was the passionate one. In terms of the fact that he was almost always acted on his emotions, even if he didn't always show them. On the moment. The one in search of something. The one with a goal. The one who took risks, who didn't want to wait.

Max was the passive one of the three. He usually sided with whoever was with him at the time. Well, passive as far as everything -except- Liz Parker was concerned.

And she didn't really know where she fit in. But then when did a person really know themselves? "Michael, you're my..." but she didn't get to finish.

The air in front of her heated, then exploded. Light flashed through the world, a great strobe light shinning across the sky. She felt an impact, then the world seemed to go numb.

When she could move again she pushed herself up. Somehow Michael had thrown her a good fifty feet and into the windshield of a car. The glass was broken in a fine spiderweb-like way around where she hit it.

Isabel quickly got off the car and scanned for Michael. Nowhere in sight. She didn't waste a second as she hurried back to the book store on Kerr street. No one seemed to have seen what had happened, and she didn't want to be around when someone came out to investigate the flash of light. It would likely get chalked up as lightning. The sky was cloudy after all.

When she made it back to the bookstore and stumbled into the windowless room, everyone was still there, except Joshua. He was gone. And Max was in one piece. Relief washed over her, even as everyone gasped at her entrance.

"Oh my God. What happened?" It was Liz who spoke.

Isabel looked down at herself. Her clothes were burnt, her hair was too. She imagined that her face must be dark with the after-effects of the heated flash. She moved to slump down against the wall, and responded simply, "Michael's snapped."

Sitting up from where she was still laying on the floor, Maria asked with an intensely worried expression and voice, "Is he okay? I mean... he's like gonna be all right... right?"

"What do you mean 'snapped,' Izz?" Max asked from where he was kneeling beside Maria.

She didn't bother answering the petite blonde's question. She wouldn't like the answer she had to give anyway, so she answered her brother's, "I mean -snapped- Max. He attacked me. Threw me about hundred feet," she knew she was exaggerating, but she didn't care, "into a car, Max. The windshield of a -car-. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw the flash of light all the way over here." She looked down at her designer outfit, "Not to mention he ruined a good hundred dollar outfit." Well, technically it wasn't ruined.

She ran her hand across her face and down her body, cleaning off the smoke burns and repairing the burnt material. Cade watched with an interested raised eyebrow. He already knew enough about them from all Joshua told. Who cares if he saw her alter a little molecular structure?

Thinking of which... "Where'd the weird guy run off to?"

Max answered calmly, "He let us go. He doesn't think that we're a threat, and he thinks it's a shame to kill off the last of a species. Apparently he doesn't agree with most of the things his species is doing here. 'Sympathetic to the cause' as Foster here likes to say."

At the mention of his name, Foster jumped in and said, "He's going to go back to the Assembly and say that you're not a threat. You have no memory of your species, and your powers are limited to your human shells."

"That was nice of him..." Isabel mumbled under her breath, but then she added, "One problem though. Michael. He's on a rampage. If there are others, they're going to probably see him. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they already felt him. He was broadcasting on broadband out there. Even Maria felt him, didn't you?" she motioned towards Maria.

The girl looked shocked at the sudden attention as everyone looked at her. It took her a long moment to respond in a soft hesitant voice, "I.. Yeah. I... I can still feel him, actually."

Liz raised a hand slightly and added, "I didn't feel anything except that .. wind ... that threw me against the wall."

It was Cade who spoke on the subject, "I don't understand these.. powers you three have, but it might have something to do with the fact she was closest to him during the whole thing."

That was probably the reason. She was touching him when his emotions exploded full force. Probably made her more sensitive to them than most. "Either way, we better split up and look for him."

Before they set out, Cade gave them all pointers. "If you happen to see a Gua, they're most recognizable by the fact that their human clones sometimes meld to show the true form of their wearers. It's like a..."

"A glowing red ripple showing an impression under it?" Liz asked. "Yeah, Michael explained it to us."

"Well if you see one, and you have no other choice but to fight, aim for a mortal wound if you can. A stab through the heart or deep in the stomach would be a good way to go. They die just as easily as humans as long as you get them in one shot. Otherwise they will heal very quickly."

With the pointers on how to kill an Acolyte, the four teenagers and one adult split up and set out to look. Liz and Maria insisted on not being put with a partner. Five looking in different places had better chances then three groups. They would call if they found him.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

On the outskirts of the city, Michael Guerin sat in the desert looking up at the sky. The clouds had parted in a few places, enough to catch sight of a few stars.

There were times when he was younger he would come out here and watch the sky. Watch and wait. Wait for the sign of a ship coming back for them. Look for a star that tugged on his memory. Anything that would hint at home.

Now, he just looked because... he didn't know why. To look back maybe. He had no hope. He had nothing to wait for. There was no home for him. Nowhere. Not here, not there. Nowhere. He never felt so alone before in his entire life. And that was a stretch, because he'd always been alone. Alone, except for the dream of home. Of the possibility of a family waiting for him. Of somewhere where he would be loved, and... Damn it all. It was a stupid dream. A futile dream.

And a dream he'd only shared with one other person. Because she shared the same dream as he.

No! Don't think of Maria. He yelled at himself mentally. But it was too late. She flooded his mind instantly. Her skin, her lips, her hair, the smell of those oils she so liked... Damn it. Out! he told the image. He was alone. He didn't need the dream. He didn't need Isabel. He didn't need Max. And he sure as hell did not need Maria Deluca. She was annoying. A pest. A fickle, hyper, weird girl. And a good kisser.

Damn. It. All. What in the hell was wrong with him? His hopes were shattered, his life was torn to pieces, his powers had gone nuts back there with Isabel, and all he could think about was Maria.

He stood up and started pacing around. He had to go somewhere. He had to get away. Away from Roswell. Away from... from -her-. He'd lost everything else. He'd lose her too. Better to lose her voluntarily. But he had no place to go now.

The only essay assignment he remembered actually writing, was back in freshman year. It was an essay for English class. The teacher choose a simple subject. "Where is your life headed?" He almost didn't write that one either.

But the night it was due, he couldn't sleep, and Max was busy on the final copy of his and wouldn't let him in, so he sat up and wrote the essay. It was simple. The key line though, was this: "There's nowhere left to go but up." and he meant it. Up. Into the sky. Into space. Home.

He never let Max or Isabel read the essay. They probably would have yelled at him about it. But he got an A on it. He usually got an A on the work he actually -did-. Part of having advanced brain functions. Advanced at least when compared to that of a normal teenage boy.

He could no longer go up. Gravity, and reality had taken hold. There was no one up there. No one. And no one down here either. It was just him. Him, and a void. A shadowy void, enveloping him. Some might find the thought comforting. Instead, he just found it... numbing. Perhaps it was the fact that he was encased by a sense of numbness that caused him to get caught off guard for the second time in the last two days.

When an arm grabbed him, he reacted. Michael was never good with going over options, he often just reacted to things. Right then, his mind was still suffering from the over-run of emotions coursing through him. The numbness only shut them off from him consciously. They were still there. So at the rough handling he acted on the first thought. It was an attack on him. And he counter-attacked.

But his counter-attack lasted about two seconds. Something grabbed him by the neck, there was a sharp sting, and he suddenly felt overcome with weakness. They'd drugged him. With what was the question. He tried to lash out with his powers, but he couldn't.

"Subject is rendered harmless." a voice said from beside him.

Harmless? We'll see about that. He may not be able to use his powers, he never was good at them anyway, but no one said he couldn't use his fists.

But when Michael went to punch the closest man, a red haired shorter man -- about Kyle's height -- he felt like his muscles had turned to jelly. They just weren't working right. For his effort at a punch, he got shoved down to the ground, hard.

"How long will it work?" a different voice said, from the man who shoved him down.

"About an hour."

Then you'll be dead in about an hour, Michael thought wickedly, and tried to voice it, but that's when he realized nothing about his body seemed to be working right. He could barely move his mouth, and his tongue felt like foreign object.

They were picking him up now. He tried to move. Throw his weight around to make them off balance, but he couldn't even get much more then a few twitches. It was like his body was wrapped up in a blanket. No... in a spider's web.

Oh God... He was wrong. He did need Max. And Isabel. And Liz. And hell, even Maria. Especially Maria. He called out for her in his mind, but he knew she wouldn't hear. They'd somehow cut him off from his powers, his very body. It was like he was ... oh God.

It was like that movie, Awakenings, with Robin Williams. That movie always had bothered him... He was aware, he knew what was going on. He could see, hear, even feel. But he couldn't move. He couldn't make any response.

If he had been alone before... that was nothing in comparison. He couldn't even close his eyes and block out the sights around him. The only movements were reflexive blinking and breathing.

They talked some more, and he heard them, but his mind didn't translate the words. His mind was a jumble of mental screams. He couldn't stand this. Nothing was worse. He... he... he was losing his mind. He lost his hopes, his dreams, his mind might as well follow.

He should have listened to Isabel. But no, he'd ran off and done something stupid. And Max wouldn't come along to bail him out this time... Somehow, deep down, he knew that. No. Max wouldn't come to clean up his mess. Not this time.

Continued next page...

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