I woke up to something poking at my face, something warm. I quickly jumped upwards out of reflex, feeling a presence. A perk of having ESP, something most people denied I really had in boot camp. Tell that to the time I completely slapped Elliot when he was creeping up behind me about a half-year ago. Tell me feeling that coming wasn't ESP.

Quickly the voice begins to shush me, I feel hands grab me and hold me still. This was not helping me calm down at all, believe me.

"Yo, Grayson. Chill, it's me dude." Elliot speaks from the dark, sounding like a doofus saying 'dude' and 'yo' in a Southern accent.

"I'm up! I'm up!" I whisper harshly. "What the hell are you waking me up for?" I look around, realizing it's still night time. And the room is masked in darkness. Only a small silhouette of the furniture and Elliot is offered.

"I think we should do some scouting, this all seems really fishy." He whispers, shifting in the dark.

"Oh my god, you woke me up for your pony-paranoia? What kind of recon could we even do? It's a small house, not much to see left." I respond, still getting my head straight from the slumber I was kicked out of.

"Relax, we slept 7 hours. No big deal. But look, I think we should check this place out. Locate of the exits, hiding spots, you know?" He suggests, speaking quiet and monotone.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were the actual now. I'll be sure to follow your orders. Look, leave me be, or I'll put you to sleep for another, much less comfortable 7 hours..." I threaten, bearing my teeth (even though there's no way he saw it in the dark). "How did you even wake up this early? You've slept about as much as I have."

"You gave me the last sleeping shift, remember?" He answers. "At least keep watch and make sure she doesn't come down. A'ight?" He begs.

"Fine, fine. Just make it quick. I want to get back to sleep." I give in, realizing there's no way he'd leave me alone at this point.

Without a word, the silhouette stands up and walks into what I remembered to be a kitchen area. He continued to silently inspect things. And frequently gazed at me and the stairs. My eyes had started to come into focus and I could see that he was going through cabinets, and touching at knives. Testing the sharpness, no doubt.

"So, what are you going to do if she does try to kill us? Bail out the window, and get killed by guards instead?" I say, just barely loud enough to reach him. "Besides, she seems fair enough. You don't need to ruin my sleep over it. Speaking of which you're going to get it for this!" I raise my voice.

"Shhhh, no. But it's worth a shot if something does happen." He calls back, a little more quietly than I was. "And you think I'm still afraid of you? I mean.... Butch maybe but not you dude. You almost didn't shoot that one target when he was unarmed." He chats back, changing the subject.

"Well? What do you think I was thinking? If I was shooting an innocent man, or hurt him, there's just alot that was wrong there." I respond, crawling out of my warm spot on the couch and stretching.

"He was responsible for the death of two Marines and one of ours..." He whispers, waving me over.

I continue, while walking to his spot in the kitchen near the counter. "Yeah? So? He didn't look dangerous, and he didn't have any guns on hand, did he?"

"He didn't need to, if you waited much longer he'd have got away and killed some others. Maybe even us someday."

"Whatever, I'm done. That's the one scar on my record, you don't have much dirt on me, Elliot." I whisper, getting annoyed at him accusing me of guilt.

"Well, there was also that one time you completely missed the first shot, and let him get aw- Oh! I know! Or the time you aimed for the head and shot him in his-"

"Shut up, Elliot. Just find what you are looking for and get the fuck back to sleep. If I wasn't surrounded by sleeping contacts I'd break this counter top with your face right about now." I pause. "Or break your face with the counter top, whichever happens first. In fact, come here, let's try!" I grab his arm and shake him a bit, making us quietly laugh. Before falling back to silence.

The quiet quickly got old. As much as I have to stay quiet, it's really tough for me to do. I was always the talker.

"So, what do you think they're going to do to us?" I ask.

"What? The four-legged terrors? Probably behead us. Or something really fun, like torture. Hopefully I get some form of water torture, I've always wondered what that's like. I mean, it doesn't seem like it'd be too bad. It's just water on your forehead, assuming it's Chinese water torture. Of course there's good old waterboarding, which seems too simple to be that bad." He rambles.

"You're actually putting thought into this? You really shouldn't give me ideas, Pyle." I comment.

"You manage to strap me to a table and you deserve the honor or waterboarding me... And stop calling me Pyle!" He threatens. "In all honesty though, I don't think they're as bad as I expected. Up close they're kinda cute, like puppies. I don't think they could hit you either, they're only like.... What was she? About four feet tall I think, you agree?" Asks Elliot.

"Uh, well I'm 5'9, and she's about chest height. Most of them were. Soooo, four feet doesn't sound far fetched." I start to try to mental math out the height in my mind while Elliot continues.

"At the worst I'd expect experimentation, like getting dissected and crap. But after talking to them, I'm expecting some real help. She didn't seem aggressive, did she?" He breaks my chain of thought, I forget the height problem all together.

"Oh, uh... Not really. The Rainbow one didn't like you or me for sure, but the Purple one just kinda looked interested. Maybe why she had so many questions. Or they just want to know what to look out for if we attack, heh." I think about that last probability.

"Well, if we die, I just want to say you were pretty cool." Elliot finishes his search, and starts to walk back towards the couch.

"Aw, you shouldn't have!" I respond sarcastically, holding a laugh at his poor choice of wording.

I follow him back to the living room, he seems satisfied at his search. He takes one last scan before plopping down and rolling onto his side. Following suit, I crawl back under the covers and get back to rest of my own.

...Until Elliot started SNORING AGAIN!

From a the top of the staircase, mostly hidden behind the wall, Violet eyes blinked in the darkness.

Author's Note

Sorry this took so long, I procrastinated like crazy. But being home sick from school today, I had time to write. And write I did. This is an unedited chapter again, please give it 48 hours from release to be edited. This message will change when the edits are made. Please comment any errors I may have made in due time.