Lexion smiled and let go of Agate and put his hands on his hips. His eyes sparkling with confidence. “Of course, I’m right, silly goose. I'm never wrong. Except for that one time.” He laughed, his toothy grin showing from ear to ear. Agate's face was extremely warm as he just blabbed about the times he was wrong. Then he grabbed his hand and started to walk to a random door in front of them. “Well enough of that Agate, it’s dinner time!” Lexion cackled as he grabbed the lone door, opened it, and walked inside.

The inside was a nice-looking room with luxurious tables filled with the proper décoré. It’s filled with people talking and eating, their faces are smudged messes of mixed features and others. Lexion looked at Agate and smiled as he dragged them to a table and they sat down. Agate’s face was still hot and bothered but he was able to calm down enough to talk for once. He grabbed his knife and fork and messed with them on the plate before him.

“So- where were you this whole time Lexion…” Agate asked expectedly. Lexion glanced up at him, fork with a steak on it. Confused, he looked at his plate, and a full meal sat there. He looked at his plate and it was there too. A bit startled he started to eat. For some reason, it was his favorite meal cooked by his mother. A classic Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings. Homemade collard greens filled his nose with the slight spice of crushed red pepper, creamy mashed potatoes with thick rich gravy that ran down the side and mixed and ran into the thick helping of baked mac n’ cheese. Turkey that had the gravy drizzled upon it with cranberry sauce and stuffing on the side. Cutting the turkey with his knife was like cutting through butter. It wasn’t dry like what some people make and call juicy. Dunking it in more gravy, picking up some collard greens, and finally a scoop of potatoes, he finally brought it up to his slobbering mouth, hungry and desperate for some of Ruby’s cooking. The flavors mixed and matched in his mouth, the flavor of Thanksgiving melting in his mouth, and without thinking, he took his fork and got a nice bite of the mac n’ cheese with the golden brown crusted top. The cheese stringed with it as he leaned into the bite, putting down his knife to hold his hand under the string of cheese as the strings finally stopped pulling. His face was one of pure bliss, his mouth full of food he missed for some reason, I mean he just left her house just now right? He pushed that thought aside and enjoyed the food to the fullest.

Lexion looked up at him and stared for a bit before speaking up, pointing his knife at him, a loving smile on his face. “I love watching you eat Sweet Thang. You must’ve been hungry Huh?”

Agate looked up at him, a bit embarrassed, and nodded, rubbing his head a bit… It hurt for some reason. “Yeah, I don’t really know why but I’m really hungry for some reason. And my head is killing me.”

Lexion thought for a bit before he spoke again. “Well, maybe it’s because of that rock-o-thon dragon you fought. Bastard was tough to beat.”

Agate leaned back in his chair and nodded, “You’re absolutely correct. I’m surprised that I was able to beat it and give you that fantastic gift.”

Lexion nodded, a shy look on his face as he pulled a necklace from out of his back pocket and put it on. It wasn’t too clear as to what it really looked like, kinda hazy for some reason. He stood up and walked behind Agate and leaned over his shoulder, holding the necklace in his hand. “I’m very happy that you gave me this.”

Agate swallowed hard and nodded, his face flaring up with how close he is to him. Lexion then grabbed the chair that he was sitting on and moved it to face him. Agate was startled and held onto the chair. Lexion sat down on his lap, straddling him, and leaned close to his face. His mind was racing at the current events when Lexion spoke up.

“Can I… give you a kiss?”

Agate’s face flushed red and after a bit, he nodded sheepishly. They both leaned in for a kiss. His heart beating in his ears when.

~~~~~~~~~~

He was shaken awake by Carnelian who was giving him a very judgmental look. He looked stressed and frazzled, his hair was dried and crusted down on one side with a mixture of blood and some weird paste. A weird bandage soaked in that green stuff wrapped around his head. His voice was a bit raspy when he started to speak, his voice hitting off the walls of their containment.

“Agate wake up man… you had this creepy look on your face and were mumbling and such…”

Jade yelled at the top of her lungs. “We have a more pressing matter on our hands guys!” Carnelian looked over to her and nodded. He lifted Agate up just enough to drag him over to the smooth white wall. The material it’s made of is entirely foreign.

A heavy throbbing pain burst through his entire head. He winced and held his head as he finally had enough of a sound mind to look around. They were in a glass container, smooth glass walls in three ways around them. The floor was also smooth except for the plant matter in a corner and weird objects strewn about, one in Jade's hand as she fiddled with it, backpacks beside her. The smell of alien plants and objects bothers his nose.

Then a sinking dread hit his soul… they were taken.

His heart was in his ears as he started to panic. His breathing grew heavy as he started to lose feeling in his legs and arms. His vision started to go blur as his mind ran wild, tears pooling in his eyes.

What’s going to happen? Why him? Why them? Where are they? Are they safe? Are they in danger? Will he ever see his family again?

Will he ever see Lexion again?

Carnelian hurried over to him and crouched down to his level. A bit panicked he spoke to him and tried to calm him down. Jade looked up at them a bit worried, but left it to him, not knowing what to do in this situation.

“Agate, please. Calm down okay? Take some deep breaths with me and count in your head the best you can, okay?”

Agate doesn’t look up at him but starts to do so. Trying to take in deep breaths, a struggle trying to go against the desire to keep breathing fast. Counting in his head as he somewhat heard what Carnelian was saying, probably counting with him.

Slowly but surely he was able to calm down, the tears running down his face slowly came to a stop. He sniffed and started to wipe them away as Carnelian stood up and sighed. Clearly stressed and looking around. Agate sat there and watched as he went up to the glass and looked out into the room ahead of them…

He felt drained.

Agate finally spoke, his voice harsh and coarse, he was quite thirsty. “So… what you things gonna happen?”

Jade spoke up, tossing the weirdly snapped object across the container. “I mean, seeing how they gave us… toys… I assume they’re not going to do anything.”

Agate looked over at her and was silent for a bit before he giggled a bit. “That was the smartest thing you said all day.”

Jade gasped and picked up another weird object and tossed it at him. He tried to quickly get up and run but his head hurt right when he tried, so he ended up getting hit by the weird object that clung to his skin.

His skin crawled when it hit him and Jade started to cackle as he freaked out and tried to get it off him. “Ahhh! Omg omg omg! Get it off me!!” He yelled as he grabbed it and tossed it at the glass ahead of him. It made a shlep sound as it hit the glass and stuck to it.

The three of them look at the thing Agate threw. Carnelian just puts his hands up and takes a few steps to the side and keeps looking out the glass to the actual alien room ahead. Jade just kept laughing and Agate spoke to Carnelian.

“Have you seen anything out there? Any life other than those… I’m assuming plants.”

He turned back to them and sighed. “No, I haven’t and frankly I kinda want to see what they look like. I mean… real aliens! It’s kinda cool but also really scary.”

Faint-clicking sounds came from the distance as he spoke.

 Jade stopped laughing and joined the conversation. “Yeah! No point in freaking out when we definitely can’t even do anything in this situation. I mean look out there! It’s obvious that they’re bigger than us.” She giggled and fiddled with her hair, “ahh I feel like I jinxed us. Talking about aliens in the field like that.” Both Carnelian and Agate nodded their heads in agreement. Jade just looked offended and picked up another one of those good toys. “Keep that up and see what happens. We may be trapped in here but you’re trapped in here with me.” 

They both nodded, not wanting that thing on them.

The ticking turned into the sound of flesh on the floor slapping as it came closer. A large shadow loomed over them. All three of them quickly turned their heads to look at what’s towering over them and it’s… horrifying.

A large ant-like head with long sharp mandibles clicks together as it moves its jaws and makes a series of clicking sounds. Long needle-like teeth show themselves each time it makes that clicking sound. Its long tentacle-like antenna flicked and jolted as the blue ends of them pulsed with color. It’s crouched down and from what they can tell it’s looking at them, hard to tell because of its two large compound eyes that have no real indicator of where they’re looking. Taking its long claw it clicked the glass of the containment.

Their hearts sank deep into their chest.

With barely any thought put into their next actions, they scrambled to the wall farthest from the beast that was looking dead at them. Their hearts beat deep in their head, pounding as they felt more than fear igniting their systems. They didn’t know what to do…

Or what they could do, to be honest.

The beast in front of them turned its head and started to click and clack its mandibles, making clicking sounds with voice… Well, what is assumed to be its voice. And as it did that another being came from a different section of the ship, a larger one with no colors but with a very long and sharp beak to its long face. It walked over to the beast in front of them and also started to “talk”. Its razor-sharp mandibles clicked against each other as it made a clacking sound, it was slightly hollow in a way. Jade spoke up with her voice shaky from fear.

“... What do you think they're talking about…” Her voice was filled with unnatural discomfort and mistrust. Agate was starting to panic again but did his best to answer her, his voice just as hushed as hers, maybe even more.

“I- I have no idea but… they seem friendly… I think…”

Once he finished his sentence the top of the container opened and they reached their claws into the container, the side of their head pressed up against the glass as it watched them. Both arms now inside of the kids space caused them to move around out of the way, avoiding the hands as they felt around and tried to reach the nearest kid. Agate was starting to panic and was stumbling around. The pain from his injury, loss of blood, and stress made him slower than normal.

That being more apparent by the fact that he was the one that the hands grabbed. Their cold hard exoskeleton dug into his body as he started to get lifted out of the container. His skin went cold as he started to flail and fight back the best he could to no avail. He screams at the top of his lungs.

“Help me you two! I’m being taken holy shit!”

Jade and Carnelian stopped in their tracks as he yelled and ran over to Agate. Jade yelled as she jumped as high as she could and grabbed onto his leg. “I got you man! CarCar! Pull me down!”

A bit on the startled side he was a bit slow to do as she requested but was able to grab her legs and started to pull down. His head bothered him as well but seeing how he had more of a pain tolerance he pushed through.

The alien on the other side of the glass flicked its antenna and it clicked something as it started to shake its hands to get them off. The shaking was aggressive and more than what Agate and the three of them could handle at this point in time. Jade’s grip started to falter as she slowly started to slide down his leg, Carnelian's hands have long let go and he fell to the ground, unable to will himself to stand up, and Agate, now fully nauseous wasn’t able to keep his dinner down and puked all over the alien's hands and on Jade.

Jade freaked out and quickly let of Agate and slammed into the ground, the puke on her making her slip as she tried to stand. Her skin prickled as she felt it start to coat her body, this was way too gross for her to handle. Finally getting a hold on the ground she ran over to the corner of the cage and used the vegetation to try and clean the smelly, slightly chunky puke off of her, and hopefully doing so in time for her not to puke herself.

Carnelian now watched in horror as the alien took Agate away whose face was now covered in bile, and as Jade frantically cleaned herself up, tears slowly forming in her eyes. He heard his heart in his ears and his face started to flush as he panicked. Not knowing what he could even do in this situation other than just to sit back and hope Agate is okay…

Agate was limp in the aliens arms as it carried him over to the middle of the room, setting him on the table. The table at first glance through his hazy eyes was as tall as the alien that stared down at him, and he was just slightly under half of the table's length. It was cold to the touch and sent shivers down his spine. The alien bent down and started to grab something under the table, its “voice” hurt his head and made him feel even more ill than he already does. Lifting his shaky arm he wiped his mouth from the bile. He shakily got up on his knees and tried to get off the table. His vision slowly went black and he fell flat on the table and passed out. The alien stood back up and clicked as it stared down at him.

Its head tilted as it clicked something that could only be translated as concern.