Thomas was across town at the recording studio in a flash. He walked in the front door to find a few engineers and such working at a desk full of buttons. Beyond them was a glass wall, but, surprisingly, no one was in the actual studio.
"Um, excuse me," Thomas began. "I'm looking for someone - "
A thin, dark haired man turned around. "Who are you?" he asked.
Thomas blinked. "Thomas," he replied. "I'm looking for my father."
"Your…father? Oh! You're Thomas!" the man nodded, understanding. "He went in the hallway." He pointed in the direction of a door leading out.
Thomas nodded. "Thank you," he told the man with a small smile. He turned and headed out the door.
The hallway was empty. Totally deserted. Thomas let the door of the recording studio shut behind him as he stepped into the corridor. "Dad?" he asked.
There was no answer. Thomas didn't sense anyone there. He frowned and looked around, confused.
'I don't sense anyone, but something feels weird,' he thought to himself and went down the hallway.
It was dark for a while. Then, slowly, it got slightly lighter. There was pain, a strong, aching pain, but it didn't get lighter. It got worse. Much worse, for with consciousness also comes the ability to feel the pain.
Jenny was beginning to feel the pain.
When she had been young and she had been in pain, she would run, crying, to her mother, and her mother would hug her and tell her it would be alright. She missed those days quite a bit.
But Jenny was not young anymore, and this pain would not be relieved by running and crying to a mother she hadn't seen since she was twelve.
She had learned even while she was young that it was not always possible to kiss every pain away and make it better. Sometimes there wasn't even anyone to do that.
The darkness was oppressing. Dense and depressing. Jenny found herself missing her mother's arms to run into and be comforted. But even if her mother had been there, this pain would not be relieved so easily.
If only she were young again. Young and innocent. Where the worst problems you faced were issues with sharing and pain was a scrape on the knee when you feel off your bicycle. When you were never alone, and Mommy was always there to help.
Now, the moral dilemmas in life were so much worse, and the pain was not always physical. Sometimes emotional pain was much worse.
But Jenny had learned to deal with both kinds of pain, even if her mother wasn't there to comfort her. This pain, however, was stronger than any she had ever faced before.
Would she be able to handle it by herself?
Thomas stepped outside at the door at the end of the hallway. The strange feeling was here as well, though he saw nothing. He turned and looked around the side of the building. The air was warm and dry, but he felt a swift breeze blow past him.
Intrigued, he turned towards the wind, trying to detect its source, but before he could make any progress it was gone.
The door he had come through opened now and he turned back towards the noise.
"Thomas, what are you doing here?" Peter asked, running up to his son.
"The books are for Thomas?" Nicole asked, and Peter nodded. "I can't even tell what language they're in!"
Peter shrugged. "Neither can I. But Thomas is supposed to be able to read it."
His wife looked towards her son. "Can you?" she asked.
Thomas opened the book on the top of the pile and peered at it. The marks were strange, and they didn't look like any letters he had seen before…or did they?
"These are the same letters on the side of the ship!" he realized with a shock.
"Ship?" Peter asked.
"Yeah," Thomas nodded. "I saw the ship at the bottom of the ocean. It had this writing on the side of it. It talked to me."
"Talked to you how?" his mother questioned, skeptical.
"I'm not sure," the boy answered. "I reached out to touch the side of them and then a strange - guy appeared and started talking to me."
"Strange how?"
Thomas turned to his mother and grinned, an almost sadistic smile on his face that also managed to convey amusement. "He was an alien."
Micky rushed into the hospital room. In all the commotion with Thomas getting hurt and the alien appearing, he had almost forgotten Jenny. Almost.
She had been alone for nearly three hours, he realized with some regret as he sat down next to her bed. She looked as unresponsive as Mike had reported her to look three hours ago.
He sighed slightly as he reached forward and gently took her hand in his. She was hurt pretty badly, but didn't appear to be in pain.
Her eyes were shut, and if it wasn't for the bandages on her arms and legs, Micky would have almost thought she was sleeping. She had a placid and peaceful expression on her face, as though nothing in the world was wrong.
'At least she's not in pain,' he thought to himself.
Suddenly, as though fate were hearing and contradicting his very thoughts, Jenny's expression changed. Her eyes began to squint shut and she let out a soft, almost inaudible moan of pain. Her body shifted slightly.
Micky's eyes opened wide, and he squeezed her hand, not strong enough to hurt her, but strong enough to let her know he was there.
It didn't quite work, however, because she continued to look like she was in pain.
"Jenny," Micky whispered softly. "Jen? It's gonna get better. I promise. Hang in there, Jen. I'm here." He murmured softly to her, and she began to calm down a little.
With a smile, he reached up and ran a finger lightly over her face, from her forehead down to her chin. "It'll be okay," he whispered. "We'll get through this together." Then he leaned over and placed a light kiss on her forehead. A single tear formed in his eye, and he made no move to wipe it away. "It'll be okay."
Back to read part five
