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Description
    Ztalenoska was mainly a factory planet on the outskirts of the Irken line of conquest, one of the planets that the Tallests could care less about, because it was void of any resources since they had all long been used up. At the height of Miyuki’s reign, the planet had thrived, but had long lost it’s luster as industrialization went above and beyond the planet’s economic reach. It now mostly just pumped out guns and ammunition for the ever-lasting war of conquest, anything else was just household appliances and other useless junk.

    But overall, the medium sized planet proved to be a nice addition to the Irken Empire. For those who had escaped from Seven scattered to disappear, to vanish and avoid the peering eyes of Bounty Hunters and the authorities, it was perfect. It was somewhat of a fresh start, without the glamour of their former glory, perhaps, but building up from the dirt was better than never having any ground to build on at all.

    One city, on the north side of the planet towards the ice caps, Xviat, was actually quite good for anyone that was actually interested in making somewhat of a living there. At least it was slightly clean, but it could hardly be called a prime example of the Irken genius. But it was enough to live in. The buildings towered high into the sky above narrow bustling streets where kiosks stood and the smell of freshly caught ocean life wafted through the air to combine with the harsh scent of the intensely spiced food and the bitterly cold atmosphere.

    People of all different races (though mostly Vortian) occupied the streets, selling all that they could and doing what they had to do to survive instead of working in the dangerous conditions of the factory or the rather self-esteem destroying world of the food services. But to the people that had just escaped, there wasn’t all that much choice as to what was left and what would pay. And in reality, it was starve or swallow one’s pride and hand over oneself temporarily to such services to return to how things used to be, before it all happened to begin with…

    What it used to be like…

    They sat in silence, the two of them on the floor, absolutely transfixed at their small little fire, which was their only source of warmth. It was getting deathly cold, and it didn’t help that neither of them could afford to pay for heat yet, in fact, they could barely afford the roof over their heads.

    It was the irken female, who first looked over to her counterpart, half out of worry and half out of curiosity. She had vividly rich green skin and her blue eyes showed little hope and failed to sparkle as they should have. She wore a dress that was long sleeved and looked rather oriental and a simple pale magenta with gold cuffs. The dress came to just above her knees in the front, and in the back, it extended to about the middle of her calf. On her feet were small gold slippers, and they twisted together to try and steal warmth from the other without much avail. She curled up in a ball as her gaze shifted back to the fire and her antennae fell forward. They were rather pretty antennae, and had sharp corners and ended with a small little hook shape and only two magnetic antennae rings were on them, and that was only because they came with her uniform for work.

    To her side, there sat an irken male with sad red eyes and light, sickly green skin. His stress and tiredness shone in his eyes and body, as his clothes, a single working, stained one-light-but-now-dark blue boiler suit tucked into a pair of solid black work boots, hung from his tall, lanky frame. He looked like the husk of someone who'd lived like a king and now lived like a beggar, which wasn't really that far from the truth. His antennae were of average length but his height was one that should have commanded respect, but in this place, meant nothing.

    Perhaps it wouldn’t be so quiet between them if either of them were the type to deal with such delicate things rather than push them to the side. But neither Neep nor Kanna were exactly the type to acknowledge they didn’t want to acknowledge. All of it was swept away into the deepest parts of the mind, to never be expressed unless under the extremes faced that came attached to being that way.

    Eventually, it was unspoken, but loudly thought, they would both snap under the extreme stone-coldness that they both lived by, as they usually did, expressed in the oddest ways that psychology could offer an explanation for. At least they could be controlled.

    They had both been rather proud of themselves once they had figured out how to help the other keep on suppressing the worst parts of themselves, and it wasn’t too difficult after awhile to start some sort of therapy method in hopes to rid themselves of the inner demons. Perhaps there had been some progress, but at best, it was nothing but more suppression help and just keeping whatever beast that dwelled inside them at bay. Though, the whole new approach to it all was found to be rather helpful, no matter if it was expensive.

    It had been awful to find the sedatives for Kanna, and even more difficult to find as big of a slab of meat as she needed on her salary. Both were actually bought illegally, but she couldn’t really care—after all, she was living a fugitive and a lie, so one more crime to help Neep wouldn’t be so bad. But it killed her, every time that she locked him inside the closet doped up on tranquilizers and with an enormous slab of meat to tear up. She was thankful that at least he wasn’t taking it out on some poor girl who no one cared about, and that’s what she thought about in some trance like state every time she closed the close door and sat against it for hours until the rage Neep had subsided.

    Then again, it wasn’t like Kanna’s issues had been easy to deal with. And Neep hadn’t exactly been used to it, after all, he hadn’t been around those who were delusional but for only brief moments while on the second floor of Seven during the big escape over a year ago. She would be in her perfect little world where no one could reach her, which would, towards the end of her episode be destroyed by extremely disturbing visions and fits of her sobbing, screaming and thrashing about violently. And when Neep realized exactly what was happening, he did the only thing he could think of—lock her in the closet and just let her snap out of it by letting it all out of her system.

    The inside of the closet itself was empty and had a lone shelf towards the top and the only thing that was on it was the end of the string to turn the single light bulb on the ceiling. It wasn’t like the closet was a wonderful place to look at. The walls and the inside of the door was covered in nail scratchings, scuffed spots, and even the occasional splatter of a bit of blood. In addition, it was an extremely cold area, just above freezing and it looked as if it were a torture chamber of some sort, which was why the door was never opened unless it beckoned to hold the burden of sinful and unresolved primitive disorders.

    And the closet would be a nice comfort if it would take them both away from the painfully awkward situation that they were faced with at the moment. But the closet offered no real refuge from any problem that failed to be psychological, and it didn’t even provide answers—it just held screams. At least the day was giving way to the night, and they wouldn’t have to face each other for long, it would just be another sleeping sanctuary that distanced them further more from the events of the night of the anniversary of their escape.

    Kanna tried to block it from her mind and found it to be her most humiliating action in her life. Every time her mind wandered and tried to reassure her that it was okay, that acting upon impulse was completely normal, she would squeeze her eyes tightly and try her best to think of something else. There was nothing more degrading than surrendering oneself to silly emotions, not to mention surrendering silly emotions to someone that she was supposed to have a business-like relationship with. Out of all the people she had ever dealt with, been slightly tipsy around, why could she have not been able to control herself around Neep?

    Kanna rose from her spot on the floor and walked slowly toward the uncomfortable spring mattress bed, slipping off her shoes and placing them beside the small little trunk that held both sets of what they could manage to call a wardrobe. She managed to raise her upper lip in disgust at herself as she gazed at her mattress and sighed in a rather unsatisfied way as she lay down on the bed and turned around from her companion to hide her shame and utter embarrassment.

    And Neep wasn’t any different. He kept his eyes locked on the fire, though he knew he shouldn’t have. He wasn’t sure exactly how to react the moment he actually realized what had happened that morning. At least Kanna’s expression had told him that it was just better to ignore the whole issue like nothing had ever happened. And it was easier that way. Dealing with actual emotions was much more difficult than simply brushing them aside like a young mother might an unwanted aborted child. Neep wondered if it was actually the reaction that should have been taken according to the initial action in the first place, but at least this way, they were on the same page, and there was nothing serious that was heavy in the air—just the expression of pent up lust at it’s best.

    Neep looked over to Kanna and also sighed seeing that she had turned away. He turned back to the fire and decided to do the only thing that he could to use as a safe haven—immerse himself in his books and pour over his information and remind himself that there was nothing really logical about emotions after all, so there was no reason to even think about what had happened with Kanna.

    He wouldn’t sleep for a long time, he just stayed up, reading a book on a old handpad, a far cry from when he used to be able to turn actual pages. Now he had to tap the screen to go to the next page… and truly, it felt lacking.

    He missed it all. He missed his nice bed and his study room. He missed his wealth and his warmth. He missed knowing that he made more money and was worth more than anyone else in any of the factories he oversaw. He missed that sense of feeling important…

    Neep knew it was evil to even think about it, but damn it, he knew he couldn’t deny it from himself. He had a life, he had friends, he had a maid, he had something, and he liked it.

    And now he had nothing. His life was worthless and he knew it. He worked on a factory line where he choked on fumes from broken machinery and spilled chemicals. His body hurt constantly from a mixture of almost constant work and unhelpful sedatives mixed with equally unhelpful jumpstarts, just to make sure he didn’t collapse while on the line and get his head cut open on one of the machines. That happened to someone a week ago, the company just told everyone to go back to work while they dissolved the body.

    And Neep wondered why people called him a monster.

    His book did nothing. He wasn’t even reading it, he was just looking at a screen and going to a new page every few seconds. The irken didn’t wish to think about what had happened, how his relationship with Kanna had been…changed.

    And for the life of him, he couldn’t decide if this was a good or bad thing.

    His old grieving and love for Dr. Feto had faded and died, so fast and suddenly it’d scared him. Was he really so cold? Was it really a case of some twisted adoration he felt for his doctor because she was trying to cure him? Was love really so deceptive…

    Maybe it was never love, maybe it was just thanks that someone in the universe honestly wished to help him get better, to burn away the darkness that resided within him.

    But Neep had realized that no one can burn away your faults, you have them always, you just have to learn how to leash and control them to the best of your abilities. He knew he’d never be cured, he no longer hoped for that, he just hoped that one day he’d be able to smile again and for a brief moment forget that inside him was a demon that drank blood and raped girls for sick pleasure.

    He just wished he could smile and forget.

    Neep shuddered. The cold was getting to him. Ztalenoska was cold planet, not cold as in snow, as the snow would at least bring a sense of newness and cleanness to the world, it was cold like a barren wasteland with no hills was cold. It was cold in the way that the wind blew and it ripped you apart like you were naked, burrowing deep into your bones and remaining there, leaving you cold and shivering for the rest of the day.

    The thin walls of the apartment Kanna and Neep shared offered laughable protection against the wind, especially when it was strong. They had to huddle together and wrap themselves with two blankets, one thin one they’d bought, and another given to them by Kanna’s friend, Zikki, that actually acted as the warmest thing in the entire house, and even then, it was still cold. They had looked into trying to afford a heater, but with the salary they were on, it was nearly impossible to even think of a luxury.

    Neep really, truly wanted his old life back.

~<*>~

    Kanna had often wondered what the worst possible thing that could happen to her was. It was hard not to in a place like this, where bad things seemed to happen on every corner, literally. Only two days ago some old lady had been mutilated by one of the thousands of teenaged street gangs that roamed around the sprawling industrial mess of the city. They’d taken only five monies from her.

    Until now she’d always thought that being robbed was the worst thing. If they were robbed, it’d be impossible to work back the things stolen from them even though everything they owned in the universe could be packed into a suitcase.

    But now… now she realized that the only thing worse than having to struggle to feed themselves, was to struggle even harder to feed a third mouth.

    Her eyes never moved from the dirty, stained mirror before her, but her hands slowly traveled down her body until they reached her middle where they stopped.

    “Pregnant…” Her voice was tiny and almost completely inaudible to even herself. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be, this had to be the most horrible of all her delusions and nightmares. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t breath, she felt like being sick until her body was nothing but an empty shell. She felt like she should be tearing apart everything in the universe in rage while screaming why fate should be so unfair, so cruel and damning.

    But she did nothing. She didn’t even cry, for she felt like she’d cried enough tears for a hundred lifetimes by now and that she couldn’t ever muster another tear again. There was only this truth now, this reality, and she had to deal with it, she couldn’t afford to just drift away…

    Kanna blinked finally and looked down to the sink, almost in disgust. This never should have happened to her—and she would never be able to handle it. She wasn’t in the least bit what one would classify to be mother material, after all, Kanna was trained to negotiate for the empire, she was supposed to be laying in the lap of luxury instead of raising even a finger to bring up a child. Kanna wasn’t born to be a mother in the least, she was born to seduce the most stern of men in politics into giving in to ways that would benefit Irkens the most. Being a mother was no where in that job description.

    And in the back of her mind, she was blaming herself, saying that she was far too good to be sleeping with psychos meant for the lowest level on Seven, and yet, she couldn’t come up with a good excuse as to why she gave in so easily, so willingly. And perhaps she didn’t want to know.

    Infuriated, she gripped the sink and within one childish move, she kicked the pipes that entangled themselves around the height of her shin. She winced ever so quietly at the pain and shook herself to wake up and come to her senses. She would deal with being pregnant later. Ironically, it should have been at the top of her worries, but it wasn’t. If she was lucky, maybe she could find a good back-ally abortionist before Neep ever knew that he that he had a child that was currently growing in the belly of his partner in crime. It wouldn’t be all that difficult. And if she died due to infection, no one would miss her except for perhaps Zikki.

    “Zikki,” Kanna looked up as she murmured the name of her former charge and closest friend with a smile. Zikki would know where to find someone to help her with her situation. Zikki, after all, was a detective, which meant that she was useful for finding good people that wanted to avoid being detected due to an overwhelming work load.

    Kanna was rather proud of her decision, and smiled victoriously as she left the work bathrooms. There was never something that the great Kanna couldn’t fix somehow, she mused to herself, in a much more content disposition than she had been in.

    It is worth pointing out that the mental state of the delusional is quite distorted.

~<*>~

     “Why the hell do you need to find an abortionist?” Zikki asked haughtily as she sipped her coffee which was heavily Cream Rum.

    “Why do you think, Zikki?” Kanna asked in an equally annoyed tone, surprised that her friend could be so oblivious. The two were standing in between two buildings on the docks of Xviat and watching the ships come in and go out with mild interest. Unfortunately, Zikki’s choice of meeting place just made Kanna nervous, seeing as it was near to the factory Neep worked at. The more and more the idea of telling Neep that she was pregnant rooted itself in her head, the more and more Kanna deeply wished that she would spontaneously combust and not have to worry about the situation. Being close to Neep ever so intensified this fear.

    A blank look crossed Zikki’s face before her face lit up and a smile tugged at her lips. “Kanna!” She exclaimed breathlessly, lowering her coffee cup. “You’re pregnant?”

    “Yes,” Kanna huffed with a glare of annoyance. “And I want-”

    “Awww! I had no idea that you and him were THAT close!” Zikki grinned mischievously. “Oh, Kanna! This is exciting!”

    “NO! It’s not exciting!” Kanna corrected Zikki angrily and pointed an authoritative finger at her friend, “And NO! We’re NOT that close!”

    Zikki raised a would be eyebrow with a smirk. “Then how did you get pregnant, huh? It’s not like you guys just asked for a smeet and POOF! You be come pregnant!”

    “NOOO! It’s…it’s complicated!” Kanna waved the subject off as a housewife would a fly. “Zikki, you’re not listening to me! I’m terminating this pregnancy promptly! I don’t want a smeet, I never have and I never will! I command as your superior to go find me an abortionist!”

    Zikki blinked and then looked around for a few moment before looking back to Kanna as what she was saying finally sunk in. “What?! No! No! You can’t abort the smeet, Kanna! The poor thing hasn’t even had a chance to live!”

   “And that’s how it will stay! Now, go find me an abortionist!” Kanna frowned deeply and her gesture was returned by her friend.

    “No! I refuse. And I don’t have to listen to you. I think you should raise the smeet! It would do you some good to grow a motherly backbone.” Zikki protested, arms crossed.

    Kanna growled, frustrated. “I never should have come to you! I should have just gone to the back alley abortionist. That would have been far more in my interests!” She rubbed her temples and sighed.

    “Ah, but you did. I think it’s a little stupid to run from the past. It always comes back to haunt you in some way or another, so you can basically lay down and just accept it or you can struggle and it can be much worse.”

    “Then I’ll run! Because telling him that I’m pregnant is completely out of the question! You don’t SAY that to a man unless you want your world to come crashing down in front of your very eyes. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the alleys of the underworld.” Kanna began to storm off angrily, but Zikki spun and grabbed the taller girl’s arm.

    “You do, and I swear I will tell the entire Armada where you are. More specifically, where he is. And I’m not afraid to,” Zikki muttered in an abnormally serious and grave tone.

    Kanna froze and an odd chill flew up her spine. Zikki was using such emotional blackmail, just to save this little smeet. What value did it have to Zikki? It wasn’t even her own child, and yet Zikki was stooping to such low levels that Kanna had never ever seen in her before. Kanna paused and her expression fell in realization. Zikki was serious, and the last think Kanna wanted was for Neep to go back into his cell, back to the hell they had all worked so hard to escape.

    “Common, ‘Na. It has fingernails!” Zikki’s expression changed to one that was much more childish, and it make Kanna wonder where the odd bit of cruelty had come from and then disappeared in a flash.

    Kanna looked down to her stomach with a soft and annoyed glare before looking back up at Zikki, who grinned and nodded vigorously in excitement. An odd sort of ‘calm before the storm’ overcame Kanna and a deep sadness followed quickly thereafter. It was amazing, the things she did to protect Neep—it was one sacrifice after another, and she was sure that after this, he would be gone, and she would be alone. But he would be safe, and that was what mattered.

    Kanna sighed and then looked at a large TV screen on a building a little ways off. “I should go home. I need to make something for Dinner.”

    “That’s the spirit Kanna! You’re eating for two now!” Zikki giggled childishly, unaware of the dire situation at hand.

    Without so much as a goodbye, Kanna managed to walk down the sidewalk toward her apartment complex, wishing more and more with every step that she would spontaneously combust.

~<*>~

    Once again, Neep felt like his body was about to fall apart. Every joint ached, every step he took felt like another thousand years had passed since the last one. He was so tired he didn’t even care if he went crazy that night or not, which he probably wouldn’t, possibly the only upside to working so long and hard was that even if his inner demon wanted to come out, his body was just so tired it refused to move and act on it. The most it’d just be like a very drunken temper tantrum.

    Someone’s arm had been sliced off by one of the machines today, but Neep had been on a mix of his sedatives and his uppers, so while his senses all seemed heightened, his reaction time was slow, either way he hadn’t cared until the blood had poured out all over the floor.

    Odd how something like open violence and blood never affected his insanity but then just thinking about it at home would awaken his inner beast. As he turned the corner to reach the apartment, he shrugged, he couldn’t complain, at least he never lost his job and no one suspected him over it.

    In his hand he held a newspaper he’d stolen from the factory cafeteria, to which he hated going to since the food they gave was terrible, but at least it was cheaper than bringing his own lunch. The headlines had read something about the war going well and some advisors in talk about the terrible state of the outer rim planets and trying to improve condition there, which was defiantly a good thing in Neep’s opinion.

    However, what he was looking for was any word on his former inmates, Sideos, Tika, Sirra and Kaiser, especially since lately he’d read how both Sirra and Kaiser had seemingly vanished into thin air and were refusing to come out into open, which either meant they’d split up or they’d been killed, either way Neep wanted to know any word on them.

    His legs somehow moved him through the apartment, into the barely working lift and across the terrible, dusty and dirty corridor until he reached his home and, with a tap on the keypad, he entered, wishing nothing more than to fall on his lumpy shared bed and sleep forever.

    “Hi,” Kanna’s voice drifted over the room and hit his antennae, and something inside him cheered up immensely. It was good to have someone to come home to, it felt nice knowing that at least one person in the universe gave a damn about your well being for no other reason than the fact that they liked you.

    Neep didn’t have to look up, he knew that Kanna would come to his side as she usually did, and sure enough, in a moment’s time, she had joined him with her soft and almost delicate expression that seemed to possess some sort unmatched serenity. And even when Kanna knew that she had lost and she should just completely give up, she couldn’t help but still keep her mask on for as long as possible. It was how she was raised.

    “I’ll go get you something to eat. Why don’t you go rest for now?” She asked quietly, knowing that the last thing he wanted to talk about would be work, and if she was going to pull off telling him the news decently, she would have to do so when he was completely calm to avoid any outburst of anger, which she knew was enviable. She wasn’t mal-informed, and she knew exactly what happened to girls in her position.

    Right at that moment, with every cell in her body, she hated the small smeet inside of her. It was already tearing lives apart, and it was barely alive. Kanna hadn’t the slightest idea why she should keep the smeet—after all, there was nothing but trouble in it’s existence, and there was no way that the poor thing would amount to anything, not with parents like the poor Kanna and Neep who could barely handle themselves, nonetheless an attention-needing smeet.

    Instead of showing any sign of her anger, she left Neep’s side after gently pushing him towards the bed. He instantly fell onto the mattress, and though it was rather bad one, it was comforting, if only slightly. It felt like a cloud compared to work, and Neep felt so much better to at least come home to things neat and tidy and to something he could call a safe haven, even if it wasn’t as wonderful as his old life. He opened his eyes just as Kanna placed the small plate and glass on the bedside table and she sat down on the bed beside him with her hands folded in her lap, gazing at him with the same expression that revealed nothing about her.

    Perhaps the awkwardness and embarrassment of what had happened between them had faded since time healed all wounds and it was simply swept under the rug and ignored. He knew that it was probably the worst thing they could have done—but they lived on denial and survived off ignoring the inconveniences. And so far, everything was, at least for the most part, good for two people in their situation. Which could barely bode well, because there was seldom a time that the demons that tortured the poor souls would cease in their never ending game of hunting the happiness and soul for sport.

    Although Neep could pretend that at least the demon he feared the most was safe inside the closet, and nothing was going to open it up, particularly not that night. It was a nice false sense of security that had it’s advantages, but it had it’s disadvantages too. Because even though one locks their doors, at times, they forget to lock their windows as well. And this is exactly what Neep had done.

    “You look very weary,” Kanna observed in a soft voice. “As of late, you seem to be that way more often…you should probably take a sick day, or you might actually fall ill.” She truly did care, and it scared her that she did. She could fully admit, at least to herself, that she did care for him, and she enjoyed every moment that she could spend with him. He was intelligent, he spoke on her level, and he never failed to loose her attention. Neep was really the only one who could ever intellectually stimulate her—after all, it was hard to find intelligent people in the Irken Empire, or so Kanna thought. So, when she thought about telling him that she was pregnant, she simply smiled and said to herself that she would do so later. She loved the time she spent with someone who could actually understand.

    “I can’t, though,” Neep sighed, and his hand fell to his forehead in an exasperated manner. “We have to have every bit of money we can. We’re practically starving…” He trailed off and internally scoffed at his situation, again, wanting his old life back very much.

    “I could work extra,” Kanna suggested, and immediately, her mind kicked her and told her to mention something about how they would need more money soon anyway, but she just continued with a different route. “I could go without the tranquilizers for awhile. We could spare them for all for you. All I really need is that closet and I’m fine.”

    Neep waved his hand to dismiss her comment, or rather tried too, and only managed to lift his arm a bit before it fell to the mattress beside him. “No…I couldn’t ask you to do that. You’d be more of a harm to yourself if you didn’t have the tranquilizers.”

    “It doesn’t matter anymore. All the better,” Kanna placed a hand over her mouth as she said the last bit with spite and frowned at her lack of self control. “Excuse me…I believe I’m having a drop in self esteem,” She said as an excuse as her hand fell back to her lap.

    “It’s alright, Kanna,” Neep smiled weakly before closing his tired eyes. “I’ll continue to work. We need it.”

    Kanna looked down at him and her mask broke. Something inside her was stirred, some kind of guilt, and it egged her on to just go ahead and tell Neep the news. The other part of her begged herself to not, because she wanted none of it to end. Instead of listening to whatever love existed inside of her, she sighed, and slipped off her shoes as she pulled her legs into a criss-cross position, sitting fully on the bed.

    She always liked to begin her point with something to prolong her fate of bad fortune, and that is precisely what she did. “I never drank before in my entire life before that night.”

    Neep’s eyes slowly opened and he looked over to her with an odd expression. He knew that he couldn’t prolong talking to her about it for long, and he had trusted her to say anything about it first, and finally she was. He swallowed thickly and looked up at her while still lying down on the bed, unable to sit up due to such exhaustion.

    “If you knew me before, you would know I don’t drink. Zikki drinks, and she makes a fool out of herself, and so I always was proud of myself for being smart and not even taking a sip. Because I knew that I would make a fool out of myself as well if I did,” Her smile faltered for a moment, but she continued on, “But I couldn’t help it that night. I had to. Because I know now that I’m insane, and I do things that are destructive to myself on a regular basis. But…the last thing I wanted was to bring you into any of it.”

    Kanna looked away from him, and the moment she did, Neep knew that all she had to say was out of regret. Part of him was sad, but another couldn’t help but be slightly relieved. He knew that he deserved it, and he was paying the price for who he was. But if he knew he deserved it, and he knew it made him sad, he knew that it pointed out that he actually cared more about that night than he thought he should have cared...

    “But I did. And now, we’re locked in this, and it’s my fault for even picking up a glass of champagne, when I knew I shouldn’t have...” Kanna continued to look away from him, completely humiliated.

    Neep also looked away, but felt the need to tell her that it wasn’t her doing, “You really shouldn’t blame yourself, Kanna…you did nothing wrong, and…”

    “But I did!” Kanna exclaimed in a rare burst of emotion, finally again looking to him “I did! First off, I drank, secondly, I did nothing to stop you, and if I remember correctly, I encouraged you, in a horribly unattractive and quite drunken manner, and thirdly…” She started to feel sick and her voice broke, but she still forced herself to say it, “And thirdly, THIS!” She pointed to her middle angrily.

    Neep slowly looked to her and saw her gesture and he froze. His mind completely went blank and everything he knew, including all language itself completely evaporated in an instant. He even forgot how to breathe until his mind rebooted and everything started racing. He couldn’t even think straight and at the same time, he knew exactly what she meant, without even having to try and think about it.

    Rage came over him in an instant, filling his entire body with lava and fire. Every part of him was burning with anger, at himself, at her, at everything his new life was and at everything his life would spiral down to become when the new child came into their lives.

    He couldn’t stop himself, before he knew it he was screaming, shouting, looking for something to smash and destroy. Kanna tried to move out the room but the howls of pain and anger and disappointment. Why was it that everything in his life seemed to be a set up for some kind of painful joke? Was fate constantly laughing at him? Was he destiny’s punching bag? Why was it that everything that could possibly go bad went bad around him?

    Kanna didn’t have all that much of a chance to react and she cursed whatever higher being for making Neep snap at that very moment, and so she did the first thing she could. She rolled off the bed and caught herself before she hit the floor. Her mind panicked and tried to decide what to do to escape. But she couldn’t let him be by himself—he was a total danger to everyone in the complex building.

    Her mind raced as she heard more smashing and the breaking of objects and she stood up and jumped over the bed and raced towards the kitchen. Her pulse became faster and she felt an odd light headed sensation. ‘Oh god, no…’ She thought as she felt the lurching of her stomach in anxiety and before she knew it, she had stopped in her tracks, and she was in the middle of a black plain in the middle of the night and the only light was a hangnail moon. She looked around, feeling the cool air brush against her bare legs and the bright white picket fences that kept the cornfields contained—she was on Earth, and it was her escape from the situation.

    Fate had been kind to her and allowed her to escape into the corn fields mysteriously, and she felt so content that she just stopped and took in the eerily calm of her cornfield. This was her territory, and no one could hurt her there.

    In the real world Neep was trying to get himself under control, he was trying to pull the breaking strings of his sanity together and force himself towards the closet. If he could get himself in there, he could unleash his demonic self without hurting anyone… and if he hurt her…

    Now he was struggling against his rage, fighting it rather than just venting it. He could feel his inner demon move through his body, trying to force his arm to swing out or his voice to shout or his claws to clench. It was like having someone inside you, grabbing onto you and pulling and pushing your body, someone screaming in your head like a plane taking off, trying to tell you to hurt, to kill…

    His vision was clouding up with red mist, bloodlust, but he could still see clearly enough to notice Kanna looking around with wide, empty eyes. She was drifting off, he had to do something to bring her back, even if it was just momentary. The idea to simply hit her came to him and his body stumbled forward as his inner demon agreed and more.

    However, even if he managed to stop himself from hitting her, he couldn’t control his balance and his shoulder hit her hard, causing the poor girl to fall back and hit the wall behind her with a loud thump.

    In Kanna’s world, everything went into chaos. The colours swirled and the ground shook. Something was pushing her and she was falling into darkness with dull shapes jutting out at all sides before suddenly she landed, hard, onto her back and head. The pain was like a shower, a wake up call from her dream world and yet, it wasn’t strong enough. The brightness of her other world still remained and everything was fuzzy and her brain seemed to be taking a while to process what she was seeing before her, making everything have trails.

    She saw the constantly changing form of Neep before her, but she could see his demon behind him. It was huge and dark and terrible black fangs came from its muzzle-like mouth and its ears ended in dark flames. Its eyes however, were exactly like Neep’s, deep and red, and yet, filled with hate and rage, so unlike the peaceful irken the demon possessed.

    She knew what she had to do. The portal to her left glowed with a deep, almost oblivion-like blackness. It called to abosorb the hate and anger of the demon strangling Neep’s soul. Neep was trying to hold himself, trying to force his possession away, but his mouth was turning to a snarl and his claws beginning to curl on his arms. The female knew she had to act fast.

    And so she did. Darting forward, she rushed past Neep and threw open the door, then she turned to grab Neep but he barked at her in a terrible, animalistic way. She had to fight past it and trust that his inner self had enough grip on his body that he wouldn’t attack her if she touched him.

    Prehaps it was because Neep knew Kanna was trying to help, or maybe it was because he was indeed gaining better control over his urges, or even perhaps because the look in her eyes gave him strength… but he somehow managed to jump himself forward, and with a helping push from Kanna, landed directly within the confides of the empty, looming closet and immediately he felt the embrace of the cold and unfeeling walls of the closet itself.

    And then darkness.

    Kanna slammed the door with all her might, shutting away the portal for now and by instinct she stretched for the key, which was on a small nail away to the right of the door. Far enough to not allow any chance for escape, but also close enough to reach in an emergency like this. Some part of her sanity was allowing her to know she was locking Neep in the closet while she herself was drifting back into her dream world, a dangerous circumstance indeed, but one that could not be avoided.

    The lock clicked into place and she collapsed against it, finally allowing her brain to switch off, and the pretty colours and sights of earth to return…but for some odd reason, it wasn’t much comfort and she felt the cold chill of being alone. She just lay in the middle of the large skyscraper tall cornstalks and stared at the stars and the moon, crying silently until she fell asleep.

    It was early morning some time when Neep came to in the dark abyss. He stared at the little light that was creeping under the door that hinted at the time and he cursed himself, knowing that he had lost a whole day’s worth of money if the sun was already up. But he knew that it was probably for the best—he was exhausted from so much stress, from snapping, and from the work that had been burdening him for over a year with barely a break.

    It then occurred to Need that he didn’t hear Kanna walking around and he wondered if she had already left for work, leaving him locked in the closet. He deserved it, seeing as he had probably killed their child when he had thrown her to the floor and how badly he reacted when he was told. He sighed loudly and curled up on the floor to continue wallowing in misery, but he heard the clang of Kanna’s bracelet on the hardwood floor suddenly and then the slow shifting of clothing and then a long pause of silence.

    She wasn’t gone after all, it had sounded like she had been lying on the floor as well, which at least meant she was alive. He found it horrible for her to think that at least she was alive. She could have been hurt in her state had he not been able to knock her out of it, and even then, he had been violent. He couldn’t stay with her, he simply couldn’t, and it pained him to think that he couldn’t. He swallowed thickly and listened to her sigh and then grab what he presumed to be the key and unlocked the door to the closet.

    When the door swung open, Neep slowly brought himself to look up at Kanna who was on her knees with one hand on the door knob and the key in the other hand at her side. She had an unreadable expression as she stared back at him, but the one thing that did show it was the tears in her eyes. Perhaps from anger, maybe from sorrow, or sympathy…

    Neep slowly sat up and continued to look at her and an overwhelming sadness came over him. He had hurt her, he had completely and totally snapped when it was never her choice to be pregnant, and she hadn’t brought that upon him in spite. He knew, deep down that he couldn’t stay, he couldn’t keep around her and her child with the horror that existed in his heart.

    Kanna somehow knew this too.

    In the light of the rising sun, red and bloody through the layers of smog and smoke and pollution, they cried, knowing nothing could be done. Kanna moved forward and Neep instantly held out his arms, embracing her. And that’s how they stayed for the longest time, holding one another and letting their tears soak into one another’s shoulders.

~<*>~

    “Ok, ma’am, come with me.” The guard, who was about a head shorter than but at least three times as built as Kanna, pointed his truncation down the hallway and began walking. Kanna took the hint and followed, holding the small bundle close to her chest.

    She had only given birth to the small smeet a mere eleven days before, and had just gotten out of the hospital. Kanna had been disappointed when they brought the smeet in and she found it was a girl. The only thing that the smeet could ever amount to was a pretty little fool. If only she had a son, and perhaps then she wouldn’t be still disgusted about being a mother.

    She even had yet to name the thing, and had decided to let Neep do so, seeing as he had little to do with the birth of their child and would have even less a role in her life, or so Kanna believed.

    The corridors in this place were so different to Seven. Things here weren’t as brightly lit and there was an odd smell of iron and sweat in the air, Kanna did not like it and she felt like scowling her face every time she walked past something that had a particularly strong scent.

    She could only imagine how Neep must be feeling… and yet, as she looked down sadly, she brought the tiny sleeping child closer to her, as if protecting the tiny thing from Kanna’s own sadness.

    She’d surprisingly managed to fool the background check to get into the prison, the replacement ID chip she’d acquired had been highly useful in that department, but even so, she felt impossibly nervous wandering through the halls of a prison again. She knew what it was like to be in this place, and in all honesty she couldn’t wait to get back out.

    “Ma’am?” The guard droll voice brought her out of her thoughts in an instant. He pointed to a door labeled ‘777’ and blinked in an amazingly expressionless way, “You’ll be unrecorded, but he’ll still be strapped down and tied up for safety.”

    Kanna didn’t say anything, she simply nodded. She knew that Neep would never be able to hug his child, never be able to kiss her without a mouth guard blocking his lips. He’d be a father so distant, so restrained… but she knew it was for the better. If it kept their child safe, then it was for the better…

    The door opened silently and the stark yet not blinding white of the room hit her eyes. The old familiar padded walls, the old smell of sterilization and medicine… and Neep. She almost cried, seeing him once again tied up and bound by the straightjacket and mouth guard, once again clad in those horrible black and white stripes of the insane.

    “How… are you?” She could hardly get the words out, she felt like someone was talking for her.

    “Good… the food is a little better here,” Neep tried to joke, but the humor had died in his throat. All he could think about was the small bundle being held in Kanna’s arms… a bundle he knew he’d never be able to touch with his own hands.

    There was a long silence as Kanna sat down across from him, obeying the space limit she was being forced to obey. Nothing more than an arms length, just far enough to be an eternity away…

    Neep however, could still see the tiny little smeet, so innocent and beautiful. Irken’s were often told angels of alien religions were false, but yet, it was impossible to hold that view when seeing this smeet… his daughter…

    The small smeet had just barely opened her eyes to take in the new surroundings and they became wider as her curiosity grew. Her eyes were a deep red, just like Neep’s but free from any sort of impurity. Her antennae were softly curled and faintly resembled Kanna’s without the sharp points. He couldn’t help but feel ashamed that his daughter would carry around a defined trait of his for the rest of her life—she deserved much better a father than he.

    “What’s her name?” Neep asked quietly, almost in a whisper and never one removing his eyes from the barely awakening child.

    “I wanted you to name her,” Kanna managed a tiny, brave smile, “You missed her birth after all.”

    Neep nodded and blinked, wondering how best to name his tiny child, his daughter, his angel… “Feto.”

    “Feto?” Kanna blinked, “Your old doctor?”

    Neep nodded, “Think of it as a tribute.” He finally turned his eyes to Kanna and she noticed something, a new sort of peace was entering them, a new sort of understanding. He smiled slowly, “She’s an angel now, just like your daughter.”

Description
    Ztalenoska was mainly a factory planet on the outskirts of the Irken line of conquest, one of the planets that the Tallests could care less about, because it was void of any resources since they had all long been used up. At the height of Miyuki’s reign, the planet had thrived, but had long lost it’s luster as industrialization went above and beyond the planet’s economic reach. It now mostly just pumped out guns and ammunition for the ever-lasting war of conquest, anything else was just household appliances and other useless junk.

    But overall, the medium sized planet proved to be a nice addition to the Irken Empire. For those who had escaped from Seven scattered to disappear, to vanish and avoid the peering eyes of Bounty Hunters and the authorities, it was perfect. It was somewhat of a fresh start, without the glamour of their former glory, perhaps, but building up from the dirt was better than never having any ground to build on at all.

    One city, on the north side of the planet towards the ice caps, Xviat, was actually quite good for anyone that was actually interested in making somewhat of a living there. At least it was slightly clean, but it could hardly be called a prime example of the Irken genius. But it was enough to live in. The buildings towered high into the sky above narrow bustling streets where kiosks stood and the smell of freshly caught ocean life wafted through the air to combine with the harsh scent of the intensely spiced food and the bitterly cold atmosphere.

    People of all different races (though mostly Vortian) occupied the streets, selling all that they could and doing what they had to do to survive instead of working in the dangerous conditions of the factory or the rather self-esteem destroying world of the food services. But to the people that had just escaped, there wasn’t all that much choice as to what was left and what would pay. And in reality, it was starve or swallow one’s pride and hand over oneself temporarily to such services to return to how things used to be, before it all happened to begin with…

    What it used to be like…

    They sat in silence, the two of them on the floor, absolutely transfixed at their small little fire, which was their only source of warmth. It was getting deathly cold, and it didn’t help that neither of them could afford to pay for heat yet, in fact, they could barely afford the roof over their heads.

    It was the irken female, who first looked over to her counterpart, half out of worry and half out of curiosity. She had vividly rich green skin and her blue eyes showed little hope and failed to sparkle as they should have. She wore a dress that was long sleeved and looked rather oriental and a simple pale magenta with gold cuffs. The dress came to just above her knees in the front, and in the back, it extended to about the middle of her calf. On her feet were small gold slippers, and they twisted together to try and steal warmth from the other without much avail. She curled up in a ball as her gaze shifted back to the fire and her antennae fell forward. They were rather pretty antennae, and had sharp corners and ended with a small little hook shape and only two magnetic antennae rings were on them, and that was only because they came with her uniform for work.

    To her side, there sat an irken male with sad red eyes and light, sickly green skin. His stress and tiredness shone in his eyes and body, as his clothes, a single working, stained one-light-but-now-dark blue boiler suit tucked into a pair of solid black work boots, hung from his tall, lanky frame. He looked like the husk of someone who'd lived like a king and now lived like a beggar, which wasn't really that far from the truth. His antennae were of average length but his height was one that should have commanded respect, but in this place, meant nothing.

    Perhaps it wouldn’t be so quiet between them if either of them were the type to deal with such delicate things rather than push them to the side. But neither Neep nor Kanna were exactly the type to acknowledge they didn’t want to acknowledge. All of it was swept away into the deepest parts of the mind, to never be expressed unless under the extremes faced that came attached to being that way.

    Eventually, it was unspoken, but loudly thought, they would both snap under the extreme stone-coldness that they both lived by, as they usually did, expressed in the oddest ways that psychology could offer an explanation for. At least they could be controlled.

    They had both been rather proud of themselves once they had figured out how to help the other keep on suppressing the worst parts of themselves, and it wasn’t too difficult after awhile to start some sort of therapy method in hopes to rid themselves of the inner demons. Perhaps there had been some progress, but at best, it was nothing but more suppression help and just keeping whatever beast that dwelled inside them at bay. Though, the whole new approach to it all was found to be rather helpful, no matter if it was expensive.

    It had been awful to find the sedatives for Kanna, and even more difficult to find as big of a slab of meat as she needed on her salary. Both were actually bought illegally, but she couldn’t really care—after all, she was living a fugitive and a lie, so one more crime to help Neep wouldn’t be so bad. But it killed her, every time that she locked him inside the closet doped up on tranquilizers and with an enormous slab of meat to tear up. She was thankful that at least he wasn’t taking it out on some poor girl who no one cared about, and that’s what she thought about in some trance like state every time she closed the close door and sat against it for hours until the rage Neep had subsided.

    Then again, it wasn’t like Kanna’s issues had been easy to deal with. And Neep hadn’t exactly been used to it, after all, he hadn’t been around those who were delusional but for only brief moments while on the second floor of Seven during the big escape over a year ago. She would be in her perfect little world where no one could reach her, which would, towards the end of her episode be destroyed by extremely disturbing visions and fits of her sobbing, screaming and thrashing about violently. And when Neep realized exactly what was happening, he did the only thing he could think of—lock her in the closet and just let her snap out of it by letting it all out of her system.

    The inside of the closet itself was empty and had a lone shelf towards the top and the only thing that was on it was the end of the string to turn the single light bulb on the ceiling. It wasn’t like the closet was a wonderful place to look at. The walls and the inside of the door was covered in nail scratchings, scuffed spots, and even the occasional splatter of a bit of blood. In addition, it was an extremely cold area, just above freezing and it looked as if it were a torture chamber of some sort, which was why the door was never opened unless it beckoned to hold the burden of sinful and unresolved primitive disorders.

    And the closet would be a nice comfort if it would take them both away from the painfully awkward situation that they were faced with at the moment. But the closet offered no real refuge from any problem that failed to be psychological, and it didn’t even provide answers—it just held screams. At least the day was giving way to the night, and they wouldn’t have to face each other for long, it would just be another sleeping sanctuary that distanced them further more from the events of the night of the anniversary of their escape.

    Kanna tried to block it from her mind and found it to be her most humiliating action in her life. Every time her mind wandered and tried to reassure her that it was okay, that acting upon impulse was completely normal, she would squeeze her eyes tightly and try her best to think of something else. There was nothing more degrading than surrendering oneself to silly emotions, not to mention surrendering silly emotions to someone that she was supposed to have a business-like relationship with. Out of all the people she had ever dealt with, been slightly tipsy around, why could she have not been able to control herself around Neep?

    Kanna rose from her spot on the floor and walked slowly toward the uncomfortable spring mattress bed, slipping off her shoes and placing them beside the small little trunk that held both sets of what they could manage to call a wardrobe. She managed to raise her upper lip in disgust at herself as she gazed at her mattress and sighed in a rather unsatisfied way as she lay down on the bed and turned around from her companion to hide her shame and utter embarrassment.

    And Neep wasn’t any different. He kept his eyes locked on the fire, though he knew he shouldn’t have. He wasn’t sure exactly how to react the moment he actually realized what had happened that morning. At least Kanna’s expression had told him that it was just better to ignore the whole issue like nothing had ever happened. And it was easier that way. Dealing with actual emotions was much more difficult than simply brushing them aside like a young mother might an unwanted aborted child. Neep wondered if it was actually the reaction that should have been taken according to the initial action in the first place, but at least this way, they were on the same page, and there was nothing serious that was heavy in the air—just the expression of pent up lust at it’s best.

    Neep looked over to Kanna and also sighed seeing that she had turned away. He turned back to the fire and decided to do the only thing that he could to use as a safe haven—immerse himself in his books and pour over his information and remind himself that there was nothing really logical about emotions after all, so there was no reason to even think about what had happened with Kanna.

    He wouldn’t sleep for a long time, he just stayed up, reading a book on a old handpad, a far cry from when he used to be able to turn actual pages. Now he had to tap the screen to go to the next page… and truly, it felt lacking.

    He missed it all. He missed his nice bed and his study room. He missed his wealth and his warmth. He missed knowing that he made more money and was worth more than anyone else in any of the factories he oversaw. He missed that sense of feeling important…

    Neep knew it was evil to even think about it, but damn it, he knew he couldn’t deny it from himself. He had a life, he had friends, he had a maid, he had something, and he liked it.

    And now he had nothing. His life was worthless and he knew it. He worked on a factory line where he choked on fumes from broken machinery and spilled chemicals. His body hurt constantly from a mixture of almost constant work and unhelpful sedatives mixed with equally unhelpful jumpstarts, just to make sure he didn’t collapse while on the line and get his head cut open on one of the machines. That happened to someone a week ago, the company just told everyone to go back to work while they dissolved the body.

    And Neep wondered why people called him a monster.

    His book did nothing. He wasn’t even reading it, he was just looking at a screen and going to a new page every few seconds. The irken didn’t wish to think about what had happened, how his relationship with Kanna had been…changed.

    And for the life of him, he couldn’t decide if this was a good or bad thing.

    His old grieving and love for Dr. Feto had faded and died, so fast and suddenly it’d scared him. Was he really so cold? Was it really a case of some twisted adoration he felt for his doctor because she was trying to cure him? Was love really so deceptive…

    Maybe it was never love, maybe it was just thanks that someone in the universe honestly wished to help him get better, to burn away the darkness that resided within him.

    But Neep had realized that no one can burn away your faults, you have them always, you just have to learn how to leash and control them to the best of your abilities. He knew he’d never be cured, he no longer hoped for that, he just hoped that one day he’d be able to smile again and for a brief moment forget that inside him was a demon that drank blood and raped girls for sick pleasure.

    He just wished he could smile and forget.

    Neep shuddered. The cold was getting to him. Ztalenoska was cold planet, not cold as in snow, as the snow would at least bring a sense of newness and cleanness to the world, it was cold like a barren wasteland with no hills was cold. It was cold in the way that the wind blew and it ripped you apart like you were naked, burrowing deep into your bones and remaining there, leaving you cold and shivering for the rest of the day.

    The thin walls of the apartment Kanna and Neep shared offered laughable protection against the wind, especially when it was strong. They had to huddle together and wrap themselves with two blankets, one thin one they’d bought, and another given to them by Kanna’s friend, Zikki, that actually acted as the warmest thing in the entire house, and even then, it was still cold. They had looked into trying to afford a heater, but with the salary they were on, it was nearly impossible to even think of a luxury.

    Neep really, truly wanted his old life back.

~<*>~

    Kanna had often wondered what the worst possible thing that could happen to her was. It was hard not to in a place like this, where bad things seemed to happen on every corner, literally. Only two days ago some old lady had been mutilated by one of the thousands of teenaged street gangs that roamed around the sprawling industrial mess of the city. They’d taken only five monies from her.

    Until now she’d always thought that being robbed was the worst thing. If they were robbed, it’d be impossible to work back the things stolen from them even though everything they owned in the universe could be packed into a suitcase.

    But now… now she realized that the only thing worse than having to struggle to feed themselves, was to struggle even harder to feed a third mouth.

    Her eyes never moved from the dirty, stained mirror before her, but her hands slowly traveled down her body until they reached her middle where they stopped.

    “Pregnant…” Her voice was tiny and almost completely inaudible to even herself. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be, this had to be the most horrible of all her delusions and nightmares. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t breath, she felt like being sick until her body was nothing but an empty shell. She felt like she should be tearing apart everything in the universe in rage while screaming why fate should be so unfair, so cruel and damning.

    But she did nothing. She didn’t even cry, for she felt like she’d cried enough tears for a hundred lifetimes by now and that she couldn’t ever muster another tear again. There was only this truth now, this reality, and she had to deal with it, she couldn’t afford to just drift away…

    Kanna blinked finally and looked down to the sink, almost in disgust. This never should have happened to her—and she would never be able to handle it. She wasn’t in the least bit what one would classify to be mother material, after all, Kanna was trained to negotiate for the empire, she was supposed to be laying in the lap of luxury instead of raising even a finger to bring up a child. Kanna wasn’t born to be a mother in the least, she was born to seduce the most stern of men in politics into giving in to ways that would benefit Irkens the most. Being a mother was no where in that job description.

    And in the back of her mind, she was blaming herself, saying that she was far too good to be sleeping with psychos meant for the lowest level on Seven, and yet, she couldn’t come up with a good excuse as to why she gave in so easily, so willingly. And perhaps she didn’t want to know.

    Infuriated, she gripped the sink and within one childish move, she kicked the pipes that entangled themselves around the height of her shin. She winced ever so quietly at the pain and shook herself to wake up and come to her senses. She would deal with being pregnant later. Ironically, it should have been at the top of her worries, but it wasn’t. If she was lucky, maybe she could find a good back-ally abortionist before Neep ever knew that he that he had a child that was currently growing in the belly of his partner in crime. It wouldn’t be all that difficult. And if she died due to infection, no one would miss her except for perhaps Zikki.

    “Zikki,” Kanna looked up as she murmured the name of her former charge and closest friend with a smile. Zikki would know where to find someone to help her with her situation. Zikki, after all, was a detective, which meant that she was useful for finding good people that wanted to avoid being detected due to an overwhelming work load.

    Kanna was rather proud of her decision, and smiled victoriously as she left the work bathrooms. There was never something that the great Kanna couldn’t fix somehow, she mused to herself, in a much more content disposition than she had been in.

    It is worth pointing out that the mental state of the delusional is quite distorted.

~<*>~

     “Why the hell do you need to find an abortionist?” Zikki asked haughtily as she sipped her coffee which was heavily Cream Rum.

    “Why do you think, Zikki?” Kanna asked in an equally annoyed tone, surprised that her friend could be so oblivious. The two were standing in between two buildings on the docks of Xviat and watching the ships come in and go out with mild interest. Unfortunately, Zikki’s choice of meeting place just made Kanna nervous, seeing as it was near to the factory Neep worked at. The more and more the idea of telling Neep that she was pregnant rooted itself in her head, the more and more Kanna deeply wished that she would spontaneously combust and not have to worry about the situation. Being close to Neep ever so intensified this fear.

    A blank look crossed Zikki’s face before her face lit up and a smile tugged at her lips. “Kanna!” She exclaimed breathlessly, lowering her coffee cup. “You’re pregnant?”

    “Yes,” Kanna huffed with a glare of annoyance. “And I want-”

    “Awww! I had no idea that you and him were THAT close!” Zikki grinned mischievously. “Oh, Kanna! This is exciting!”

    “NO! It’s not exciting!” Kanna corrected Zikki angrily and pointed an authoritative finger at her friend, “And NO! We’re NOT that close!”

    Zikki raised a would be eyebrow with a smirk. “Then how did you get pregnant, huh? It’s not like you guys just asked for a smeet and POOF! You be come pregnant!”

    “NOOO! It’s…it’s complicated!” Kanna waved the subject off as a housewife would a fly. “Zikki, you’re not listening to me! I’m terminating this pregnancy promptly! I don’t want a smeet, I never have and I never will! I command as your superior to go find me an abortionist!”

    Zikki blinked and then looked around for a few moment before looking back to Kanna as what she was saying finally sunk in. “What?! No! No! You can’t abort the smeet, Kanna! The poor thing hasn’t even had a chance to live!”

   “And that’s how it will stay! Now, go find me an abortionist!” Kanna frowned deeply and her gesture was returned by her friend.

    “No! I refuse. And I don’t have to listen to you. I think you should raise the smeet! It would do you some good to grow a motherly backbone.” Zikki protested, arms crossed.

    Kanna growled, frustrated. “I never should have come to you! I should have just gone to the back alley abortionist. That would have been far more in my interests!” She rubbed her temples and sighed.

    “Ah, but you did. I think it’s a little stupid to run from the past. It always comes back to haunt you in some way or another, so you can basically lay down and just accept it or you can struggle and it can be much worse.”

    “Then I’ll run! Because telling him that I’m pregnant is completely out of the question! You don’t SAY that to a man unless you want your world to come crashing down in front of your very eyes. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the alleys of the underworld.” Kanna began to storm off angrily, but Zikki spun and grabbed the taller girl’s arm.

    “You do, and I swear I will tell the entire Armada where you are. More specifically, where he is. And I’m not afraid to,” Zikki muttered in an abnormally serious and grave tone.

    Kanna froze and an odd chill flew up her spine. Zikki was using such emotional blackmail, just to save this little smeet. What value did it have to Zikki? It wasn’t even her own child, and yet Zikki was stooping to such low levels that Kanna had never ever seen in her before. Kanna paused and her expression fell in realization. Zikki was serious, and the last think Kanna wanted was for Neep to go back into his cell, back to the hell they had all worked so hard to escape.

    “Common, ‘Na. It has fingernails!” Zikki’s expression changed to one that was much more childish, and it make Kanna wonder where the odd bit of cruelty had come from and then disappeared in a flash.

    Kanna looked down to her stomach with a soft and annoyed glare before looking back up at Zikki, who grinned and nodded vigorously in excitement. An odd sort of ‘calm before the storm’ overcame Kanna and a deep sadness followed quickly thereafter. It was amazing, the things she did to protect Neep—it was one sacrifice after another, and she was sure that after this, he would be gone, and she would be alone. But he would be safe, and that was what mattered.

    Kanna sighed and then looked at a large TV screen on a building a little ways off. “I should go home. I need to make something for Dinner.”

    “That’s the spirit Kanna! You’re eating for two now!” Zikki giggled childishly, unaware of the dire situation at hand.

    Without so much as a goodbye, Kanna managed to walk down the sidewalk toward her apartment complex, wishing more and more with every step that she would spontaneously combust.

~<*>~

    Once again, Neep felt like his body was about to fall apart. Every joint ached, every step he took felt like another thousand years had passed since the last one. He was so tired he didn’t even care if he went crazy that night or not, which he probably wouldn’t, possibly the only upside to working so long and hard was that even if his inner demon wanted to come out, his body was just so tired it refused to move and act on it. The most it’d just be like a very drunken temper tantrum.

    Someone’s arm had been sliced off by one of the machines today, but Neep had been on a mix of his sedatives and his uppers, so while his senses all seemed heightened, his reaction time was slow, either way he hadn’t cared until the blood had poured out all over the floor.

    Odd how something like open violence and blood never affected his insanity but then just thinking about it at home would awaken his inner beast. As he turned the corner to reach the apartment, he shrugged, he couldn’t complain, at least he never lost his job and no one suspected him over it.

    In his hand he held a newspaper he’d stolen from the factory cafeteria, to which he hated going to since the food they gave was terrible, but at least it was cheaper than bringing his own lunch. The headlines had read something about the war going well and some advisors in talk about the terrible state of the outer rim planets and trying to improve condition there, which was defiantly a good thing in Neep’s opinion.

    However, what he was looking for was any word on his former inmates, Sideos, Tika, Sirra and Kaiser, especially since lately he’d read how both Sirra and Kaiser had seemingly vanished into thin air and were refusing to come out into open, which either meant they’d split up or they’d been killed, either way Neep wanted to know any word on them.

    His legs somehow moved him through the apartment, into the barely working lift and across the terrible, dusty and dirty corridor until he reached his home and, with a tap on the keypad, he entered, wishing nothing more than to fall on his lumpy shared bed and sleep forever.

    “Hi,” Kanna’s voice drifted over the room and hit his antennae, and something inside him cheered up immensely. It was good to have someone to come home to, it felt nice knowing that at least one person in the universe gave a damn about your well being for no other reason than the fact that they liked you.

    Neep didn’t have to look up, he knew that Kanna would come to his side as she usually did, and sure enough, in a moment’s time, she had joined him with her soft and almost delicate expression that seemed to possess some sort unmatched serenity. And even when Kanna knew that she had lost and she should just completely give up, she couldn’t help but still keep her mask on for as long as possible. It was how she was raised.

    “I’ll go get you something to eat. Why don’t you go rest for now?” She asked quietly, knowing that the last thing he wanted to talk about would be work, and if she was going to pull off telling him the news decently, she would have to do so when he was completely calm to avoid any outburst of anger, which she knew was enviable. She wasn’t mal-informed, and she knew exactly what happened to girls in her position.

    Right at that moment, with every cell in her body, she hated the small smeet inside of her. It was already tearing lives apart, and it was barely alive. Kanna hadn’t the slightest idea why she should keep the smeet—after all, there was nothing but trouble in it’s existence, and there was no way that the poor thing would amount to anything, not with parents like the poor Kanna and Neep who could barely handle themselves, nonetheless an attention-needing smeet.

    Instead of showing any sign of her anger, she left Neep’s side after gently pushing him towards the bed. He instantly fell onto the mattress, and though it was rather bad one, it was comforting, if only slightly. It felt like a cloud compared to work, and Neep felt so much better to at least come home to things neat and tidy and to something he could call a safe haven, even if it wasn’t as wonderful as his old life. He opened his eyes just as Kanna placed the small plate and glass on the bedside table and she sat down on the bed beside him with her hands folded in her lap, gazing at him with the same expression that revealed nothing about her.

    Perhaps the awkwardness and embarrassment of what had happened between them had faded since time healed all wounds and it was simply swept under the rug and ignored. He knew that it was probably the worst thing they could have done—but they lived on denial and survived off ignoring the inconveniences. And so far, everything was, at least for the most part, good for two people in their situation. Which could barely bode well, because there was seldom a time that the demons that tortured the poor souls would cease in their never ending game of hunting the happiness and soul for sport.

    Although Neep could pretend that at least the demon he feared the most was safe inside the closet, and nothing was going to open it up, particularly not that night. It was a nice false sense of security that had it’s advantages, but it had it’s disadvantages too. Because even though one locks their doors, at times, they forget to lock their windows as well. And this is exactly what Neep had done.

    “You look very weary,” Kanna observed in a soft voice. “As of late, you seem to be that way more often…you should probably take a sick day, or you might actually fall ill.” She truly did care, and it scared her that she did. She could fully admit, at least to herself, that she did care for him, and she enjoyed every moment that she could spend with him. He was intelligent, he spoke on her level, and he never failed to loose her attention. Neep was really the only one who could ever intellectually stimulate her—after all, it was hard to find intelligent people in the Irken Empire, or so Kanna thought. So, when she thought about telling him that she was pregnant, she simply smiled and said to herself that she would do so later. She loved the time she spent with someone who could actually understand.

    “I can’t, though,” Neep sighed, and his hand fell to his forehead in an exasperated manner. “We have to have every bit of money we can. We’re practically starving…” He trailed off and internally scoffed at his situation, again, wanting his old life back very much.

    “I could work extra,” Kanna suggested, and immediately, her mind kicked her and told her to mention something about how they would need more money soon anyway, but she just continued with a different route. “I could go without the tranquilizers for awhile. We could spare them for all for you. All I really need is that closet and I’m fine.”

    Neep waved his hand to dismiss her comment, or rather tried too, and only managed to lift his arm a bit before it fell to the mattress beside him. “No…I couldn’t ask you to do that. You’d be more of a harm to yourself if you didn’t have the tranquilizers.”

    “It doesn’t matter anymore. All the better,” Kanna placed a hand over her mouth as she said the last bit with spite and frowned at her lack of self control. “Excuse me…I believe I’m having a drop in self esteem,” She said as an excuse as her hand fell back to her lap.

    “It’s alright, Kanna,” Neep smiled weakly before closing his tired eyes. “I’ll continue to work. We need it.”

    Kanna looked down at him and her mask broke. Something inside her was stirred, some kind of guilt, and it egged her on to just go ahead and tell Neep the news. The other part of her begged herself to not, because she wanted none of it to end. Instead of listening to whatever love existed inside of her, she sighed, and slipped off her shoes as she pulled her legs into a criss-cross position, sitting fully on the bed.

    She always liked to begin her point with something to prolong her fate of bad fortune, and that is precisely what she did. “I never drank before in my entire life before that night.”

    Neep’s eyes slowly opened and he looked over to her with an odd expression. He knew that he couldn’t prolong talking to her about it for long, and he had trusted her to say anything about it first, and finally she was. He swallowed thickly and looked up at her while still lying down on the bed, unable to sit up due to such exhaustion.

    “If you knew me before, you would know I don’t drink. Zikki drinks, and she makes a fool out of herself, and so I always was proud of myself for being smart and not even taking a sip. Because I knew that I would make a fool out of myself as well if I did,” Her smile faltered for a moment, but she continued on, “But I couldn’t help it that night. I had to. Because I know now that I’m insane, and I do things that are destructive to myself on a regular basis. But…the last thing I wanted was to bring you into any of it.”

    Kanna looked away from him, and the moment she did, Neep knew that all she had to say was out of regret. Part of him was sad, but another couldn’t help but be slightly relieved. He knew that he deserved it, and he was paying the price for who he was. But if he knew he deserved it, and he knew it made him sad, he knew that it pointed out that he actually cared more about that night than he thought he should have cared...

    “But I did. And now, we’re locked in this, and it’s my fault for even picking up a glass of champagne, when I knew I shouldn’t have...” Kanna continued to look away from him, completely humiliated.

    Neep also looked away, but felt the need to tell her that it wasn’t her doing, “You really shouldn’t blame yourself, Kanna…you did nothing wrong, and…”

    “But I did!” Kanna exclaimed in a rare burst of emotion, finally again looking to him “I did! First off, I drank, secondly, I did nothing to stop you, and if I remember correctly, I encouraged you, in a horribly unattractive and quite drunken manner, and thirdly…” She started to feel sick and her voice broke, but she still forced herself to say it, “And thirdly, THIS!” She pointed to her middle angrily.

    Neep slowly looked to her and saw her gesture and he froze. His mind completely went blank and everything he knew, including all language itself completely evaporated in an instant. He even forgot how to breathe until his mind rebooted and everything started racing. He couldn’t even think straight and at the same time, he knew exactly what she meant, without even having to try and think about it.

    Rage came over him in an instant, filling his entire body with lava and fire. Every part of him was burning with anger, at himself, at her, at everything his new life was and at everything his life would spiral down to become when the new child came into their lives.

    He couldn’t stop himself, before he knew it he was screaming, shouting, looking for something to smash and destroy. Kanna tried to move out the room but the howls of pain and anger and disappointment. Why was it that everything in his life seemed to be a set up for some kind of painful joke? Was fate constantly laughing at him? Was he destiny’s punching bag? Why was it that everything that could possibly go bad went bad around him?

    Kanna didn’t have all that much of a chance to react and she cursed whatever higher being for making Neep snap at that very moment, and so she did the first thing she could. She rolled off the bed and caught herself before she hit the floor. Her mind panicked and tried to decide what to do to escape. But she couldn’t let him be by himself—he was a total danger to everyone in the complex building.

    Her mind raced as she heard more smashing and the breaking of objects and she stood up and jumped over the bed and raced towards the kitchen. Her pulse became faster and she felt an odd light headed sensation. ‘Oh god, no…’ She thought as she felt the lurching of her stomach in anxiety and before she knew it, she had stopped in her tracks, and she was in the middle of a black plain in the middle of the night and the only light was a hangnail moon. She looked around, feeling the cool air brush against her bare legs and the bright white picket fences that kept the cornfields contained—she was on Earth, and it was her escape from the situation.

    Fate had been kind to her and allowed her to escape into the corn fields mysteriously, and she felt so content that she just stopped and took in the eerily calm of her cornfield. This was her territory, and no one could hurt her there.

    In the real world Neep was trying to get himself under control, he was trying to pull the breaking strings of his sanity together and force himself towards the closet. If he could get himself in there, he could unleash his demonic self without hurting anyone… and if he hurt her…

    Now he was struggling against his rage, fighting it rather than just venting it. He could feel his inner demon move through his body, trying to force his arm to swing out or his voice to shout or his claws to clench. It was like having someone inside you, grabbing onto you and pulling and pushing your body, someone screaming in your head like a plane taking off, trying to tell you to hurt, to kill…

    His vision was clouding up with red mist, bloodlust, but he could still see clearly enough to notice Kanna looking around with wide, empty eyes. She was drifting off, he had to do something to bring her back, even if it was just momentary. The idea to simply hit her came to him and his body stumbled forward as his inner demon agreed and more.

    However, even if he managed to stop himself from hitting her, he couldn’t control his balance and his shoulder hit her hard, causing the poor girl to fall back and hit the wall behind her with a loud thump.

    In Kanna’s world, everything went into chaos. The colours swirled and the ground shook. Something was pushing her and she was falling into darkness with dull shapes jutting out at all sides before suddenly she landed, hard, onto her back and head. The pain was like a shower, a wake up call from her dream world and yet, it wasn’t strong enough. The brightness of her other world still remained and everything was fuzzy and her brain seemed to be taking a while to process what she was seeing before her, making everything have trails.

    She saw the constantly changing form of Neep before her, but she could see his demon behind him. It was huge and dark and terrible black fangs came from its muzzle-like mouth and its ears ended in dark flames. Its eyes however, were exactly like Neep’s, deep and red, and yet, filled with hate and rage, so unlike the peaceful irken the demon possessed.

    She knew what she had to do. The portal to her left glowed with a deep, almost oblivion-like blackness. It called to abosorb the hate and anger of the demon strangling Neep’s soul. Neep was trying to hold himself, trying to force his possession away, but his mouth was turning to a snarl and his claws beginning to curl on his arms. The female knew she had to act fast.

    And so she did. Darting forward, she rushed past Neep and threw open the door, then she turned to grab Neep but he barked at her in a terrible, animalistic way. She had to fight past it and trust that his inner self had enough grip on his body that he wouldn’t attack her if she touched him.

    Prehaps it was because Neep knew Kanna was trying to help, or maybe it was because he was indeed gaining better control over his urges, or even perhaps because the look in her eyes gave him strength… but he somehow managed to jump himself forward, and with a helping push from Kanna, landed directly within the confides of the empty, looming closet and immediately he felt the embrace of the cold and unfeeling walls of the closet itself.

    And then darkness.

    Kanna slammed the door with all her might, shutting away the portal for now and by instinct she stretched for the key, which was on a small nail away to the right of the door. Far enough to not allow any chance for escape, but also close enough to reach in an emergency like this. Some part of her sanity was allowing her to know she was locking Neep in the closet while she herself was drifting back into her dream world, a dangerous circumstance indeed, but one that could not be avoided.

    The lock clicked into place and she collapsed against it, finally allowing her brain to switch off, and the pretty colours and sights of earth to return…but for some odd reason, it wasn’t much comfort and she felt the cold chill of being alone. She just lay in the middle of the large skyscraper tall cornstalks and stared at the stars and the moon, crying silently until she fell asleep.

    It was early morning some time when Neep came to in the dark abyss. He stared at the little light that was creeping under the door that hinted at the time and he cursed himself, knowing that he had lost a whole day’s worth of money if the sun was already up. But he knew that it was probably for the best—he was exhausted from so much stress, from snapping, and from the work that had been burdening him for over a year with barely a break.

    It then occurred to Need that he didn’t hear Kanna walking around and he wondered if she had already left for work, leaving him locked in the closet. He deserved it, seeing as he had probably killed their child when he had thrown her to the floor and how badly he reacted when he was told. He sighed loudly and curled up on the floor to continue wallowing in misery, but he heard the clang of Kanna’s bracelet on the hardwood floor suddenly and then the slow shifting of clothing and then a long pause of silence.

    She wasn’t gone after all, it had sounded like she had been lying on the floor as well, which at least meant she was alive. He found it horrible for her to think that at least she was alive. She could have been hurt in her state had he not been able to knock her out of it, and even then, he had been violent. He couldn’t stay with her, he simply couldn’t, and it pained him to think that he couldn’t. He swallowed thickly and listened to her sigh and then grab what he presumed to be the key and unlocked the door to the closet.

    When the door swung open, Neep slowly brought himself to look up at Kanna who was on her knees with one hand on the door knob and the key in the other hand at her side. She had an unreadable expression as she stared back at him, but the one thing that did show it was the tears in her eyes. Perhaps from anger, maybe from sorrow, or sympathy…

    Neep slowly sat up and continued to look at her and an overwhelming sadness came over him. He had hurt her, he had completely and totally snapped when it was never her choice to be pregnant, and she hadn’t brought that upon him in spite. He knew, deep down that he couldn’t stay, he couldn’t keep around her and her child with the horror that existed in his heart.

    Kanna somehow knew this too.

    In the light of the rising sun, red and bloody through the layers of smog and smoke and pollution, they cried, knowing nothing could be done. Kanna moved forward and Neep instantly held out his arms, embracing her. And that’s how they stayed for the longest time, holding one another and letting their tears soak into one another’s shoulders.

~<*>~

    “Ok, ma’am, come with me.” The guard, who was about a head shorter than but at least three times as built as Kanna, pointed his truncation down the hallway and began walking. Kanna took the hint and followed, holding the small bundle close to her chest.

    She had only given birth to the small smeet a mere eleven days before, and had just gotten out of the hospital. Kanna had been disappointed when they brought the smeet in and she found it was a girl. The only thing that the smeet could ever amount to was a pretty little fool. If only she had a son, and perhaps then she wouldn’t be still disgusted about being a mother.

    She even had yet to name the thing, and had decided to let Neep do so, seeing as he had little to do with the birth of their child and would have even less a role in her life, or so Kanna believed.

    The corridors in this place were so different to Seven. Things here weren’t as brightly lit and there was an odd smell of iron and sweat in the air, Kanna did not like it and she felt like scowling her face every time she walked past something that had a particularly strong scent.

    She could only imagine how Neep must be feeling… and yet, as she looked down sadly, she brought the tiny sleeping child closer to her, as if protecting the tiny thing from Kanna’s own sadness.

    She’d surprisingly managed to fool the background check to get into the prison, the replacement ID chip she’d acquired had been highly useful in that department, but even so, she felt impossibly nervous wandering through the halls of a prison again. She knew what it was like to be in this place, and in all honesty she couldn’t wait to get back out.

    “Ma’am?” The guard droll voice brought her out of her thoughts in an instant. He pointed to a door labeled ‘777’ and blinked in an amazingly expressionless way, “You’ll be unrecorded, but he’ll still be strapped down and tied up for safety.”

    Kanna didn’t say anything, she simply nodded. She knew that Neep would never be able to hug his child, never be able to kiss her without a mouth guard blocking his lips. He’d be a father so distant, so restrained… but she knew it was for the better. If it kept their child safe, then it was for the better…

    The door opened silently and the stark yet not blinding white of the room hit her eyes. The old familiar padded walls, the old smell of sterilization and medicine… and Neep. She almost cried, seeing him once again tied up and bound by the straightjacket and mouth guard, once again clad in those horrible black and white stripes of the insane.

    “How… are you?” She could hardly get the words out, she felt like someone was talking for her.

    “Good… the food is a little better here,” Neep tried to joke, but the humor had died in his throat. All he could think about was the small bundle being held in Kanna’s arms… a bundle he knew he’d never be able to touch with his own hands.

    There was a long silence as Kanna sat down across from him, obeying the space limit she was being forced to obey. Nothing more than an arms length, just far enough to be an eternity away…

    Neep however, could still see the tiny little smeet, so innocent and beautiful. Irken’s were often told angels of alien religions were false, but yet, it was impossible to hold that view when seeing this smeet… his daughter…

    The small smeet had just barely opened her eyes to take in the new surroundings and they became wider as her curiosity grew. Her eyes were a deep red, just like Neep’s but free from any sort of impurity. Her antennae were softly curled and faintly resembled Kanna’s without the sharp points. He couldn’t help but feel ashamed that his daughter would carry around a defined trait of his for the rest of her life—she deserved much better a father than he.

    “What’s her name?” Neep asked quietly, almost in a whisper and never one removing his eyes from the barely awakening child.

    “I wanted you to name her,” Kanna managed a tiny, brave smile, “You missed her birth after all.”

    Neep nodded and blinked, wondering how best to name his tiny child, his daughter, his angel… “Feto.”

    “Feto?” Kanna blinked, “Your old doctor?”

    Neep nodded, “Think of it as a tribute.” He finally turned his eyes to Kanna and she noticed something, a new sort of peace was entering them, a new sort of understanding. He smiled slowly, “She’s an angel now, just like your daughter.”