Friends
Written by Amazonia V
Chapter 25:
Retrieved from the memory card of the Instaport of Lois Lane.
Recorded Interview with Ms. Lana Lang, First Person Account of the Invasion of Earth
Note to self: Unexplained mystery – no one remembers how it got there, decision taken to save it, not use it.
At about ten the next morning I was in that comfortable slumber zone that is somewhere between being fully awake and fully asleep. Neither here nor there. I was vaguely aware of what was happening around me. I could recall that it had been a normal evening last night and I had no reason to leap out of bed. I turned over and listened to the sounds of the city. I had had more than my share of wine and I was a long way from being fully awake.
Suddenly my brain started informing me that there was a lot of commotion outside in the form of children screaming. I woke briefly and started thinking that someone was playing a joke and scaring little children. Idiots. In my morning haze I made out that the sounds were similar to that of children playing and screaming.
As I turned over, something in my mind alerted me to the fact that the screaming children sounded genuine almost making me scared to listen to them. At least my brain told me these were children. After all, why would adults be screaming like that?
My memory drifted back to the unexplained worry I had last night about a fire. I could not smell any burning. But the screaming continued and now I could hear it was mixed with another noise that was a building crescendo. Crunching, grinding, roaring noises – it sounded like the sound track from Star Wars.
Half awake and half asleep I suddenly became very much awake. It would be almost another two days before I would sleep again.
As I finally awoke completely, I heard screams of 'run, run' and total confusion and panic. Mixed in with the screams was the sound of feet pounding on the street outside my window. I jumped out of bed and pushed open the shutters. I looked down on to the street. Straight away I saw my neighbor with his daughter under his arms. I shouted down to him and he looked at me for a brief second with eyes that will haunt me till the day I die.
They were the eyes of pure animal fear, eyes of pure animal panic and eyes of utter human disbelief. My throat instantly dried up and I found myself with a tear in the corner of my eye as I stared at the total panic and uncertainty that had gripped my oh-so-certain neighbor as he stood staring at what I was about to see.
People were running and screaming, "run, run." In Spanish, in English, in Swedish, in German, in Danish, in Hebrew, in Russian. I turned from the window to run out of my bedroom and on to the open staircase leading down to the street.
My first thought was that there was a lunatic with a gun or a knife running down the street and randomly hitting out to anyone that got in his way. I expected to see a group of mad psychotic terrorists. I heard loud explosions and unexplained noses. And a few thousand more screams in different languages. A United Nations of fear and panic.
The gas pump on the opposite side of the main square imploded and exploded all in one go as it seemed to be morphing into a lump of contorted wood and corrugated iron, interspersed with the shattering sound of glass.
In that split second I turned my head to the side and watched for maybe one second as there was another explosion and the imploded/exploded remains of a building came surging towards me. The sounds of war, the crunching and folding of buildings and the screams of desperation, the panic of people caught up in this war mesmerized me as I stood there. I was unable to move, unable to comprehend what had just occurred.
I instinctively ran back up the stairs towards my apartment. Really, there was nowhere else to run. The sound was deafening and the shrills and panic of fear were all around me. It was the sound of solid buildings being crushed and foundations groaning under the immense forces of war that were most unusual and new to me. As I got to the top of the staircase I saw the couple in the apartment next to me standing outside their door completely frozen and embracing each other.
I was going to die. For the first time in my life I resigned myself to dying. No more tomorrows, no more dreams, no more anything. I stood in my bedroom, tensioned against the walls and prepared myself that any second the blasts would finally sweep my legs from me and I would join the torrent of mangled wood, concrete and glass and thrashing, panic-driven citizens who were still rushing about on the streets.
I have no recollection of what happened in those next few seconds. One second I was braced between the two corridor walls and feeling my grip sliding away as explosions shook the building. The next second I was out on the terrace.
I was overcome with an enormous outpouring of relief, with only one thought running through my head, "I'm alive. I am alive. I do not believe it."
"Diana," said Kal lazily. "I missed the nape of your neck." He turned his head so he could nibble a bit on her shoulder. "I'll have to make up for that oversight when I can move again."
It was so nice to be able to run her fingers through his hair, through all those rich, dark curls. He snuck a hand up to stroke her breast.
"I like you out of bed, Diana, but I have to tell you." He bit her earlobe and made her shiver. "I love you in it as well. I'm just going to show you again."
"We have to get up, right now," she began, but his tongue slid down to her breasts. "Well. Well, I guess a few more minutes won't make any difference."
Connor and Cassie flew into Themyscira House. Cassie was keen to meet Diana and talk to her about the recent events.
She'd have walked straight into Diana's suite of rooms, when they entered the apartment block but Connor held her back. "Give me a kiss first."
Cassie pulled his head down to hers, giving him a kiss hard enough to knock the breath out of him, before pushing herself away and walking to Diana's rooms.
She made it halfway across the hallway when she stopped dead.
Holding up a hand, Cassie turned to smile at Connor, her wide, foolish grin making him narrow his eyes.
"Quiet! Don't use your super-vision!" She hissed it out in a whisper, jerked a thumb toward Diana's rooms. "They're in there."
"Who?" Visions of super-villains burst in his brain and he almost made to Diana's door.
Cassie had to leap in front of him to stop him, knocking the wind out of him and herself with the effort.
"Connor, use your super-hearing, not your super-vision."
He heard it then, the quick, strangled cry that could mean only one thing. When dumbfounded curiosity sent him a few steps closer, he caught the unmistakable sounds of a bed shaking.
"Well, Cassie!" Connor dragged a hand through his hair and had to swallow a laugh. "What the hell are we supposed to do now?" He whispered it, finding himself grinning back at Cassie. "We can't just stand out here listening to Kal going at it with Diana. It's awkward."
"Yes, awkward." Suppressing a giggle, Cassie all but pressed her ear to the bedroom door. "I think they've got a ways to go yet. Unless Superman's one of those get on, get in, get out, get off sort of guys."
"I don't have any way of knowing. And I'd rather not find out. We'll go up on the roof for a bit."
"Go, Diana!" Cassie murmured as they headed toward the hallway. She managed to hold off the laughter until they were safely in the elevator, heading up.
"Do you think they heard us?"
"I don't think they'd have heard Darkseid himself." Cassie caught her breath and walked out with him to take the steps to the roof.
She walked into the sunlight, dropped into a chair and kicked out her long legs and settled herself down for a long wait.
Connor looked at her peacefully sitting in the terrace garden. "You know its given me some ideas," he said.
Cassie looked at him, her eyes alight with humour. "Its lucky they're at Themyscira House. Its an extension of the island of Themyscira, so its magical and can absorb the shocks. But I don't think the planet can withstand all four of us in action at the same time."