Redemption Installment 2

(I prefer writing in the evening...I feel more...creative....then. ;) This week is crazy, I may not post for real for a while. sorry.)

(this is kind of starting where i left off...she's in the room with her "comrades")

A small white woman approached her first, a few messy strands of red curly hair falling into her smiling face. The woman gingerly wrapped a blanket around Joanne and then sat back and stared at her, kind of like the dark blue captain had done, only this woman’s whole face smiled with her. Joanne fidgeted as the others came forward and surrounded her in a semi circle of wide eyes and eager faces. A bit overwhelmed, she sank further into the blanket the woman had wrapped around her and shrunk against the wall. The others pulled in closer, their bright eyes pouring into her very being.
“Could you all please back up a little bit? I’m getting claustrophobic,” Joanne chirped from behind the warmth of the blanket. Surprisingly, everyone backed up a few feet and sat quietly watching for a few more minutes.
The red head woman who had first approached Joanne spoke first. “So, where are you from?” Her voice was high and cheerful; the kind Joanne found the most obnoxious in the early morning when she wasn’t even sure she should be out of bed.
“I’m from Georgia,” Joanne looked at the faces around her. “Why does it matter?”
“We’re trying to find a pattern, some kind of clue as to why they picked us,” the red headed woman explained. “I’m from Great Britain, but I was born in the US.” She gestured in turn to the others surrounding Joanne. “This is Keiji,” a thin Asian man bowed his head at Joanne. “He’s from Japan. Next to him is Maylin,” a small Asian woman bowed also. “She’s from China. This young man here, Leo, is from Italy,” Joanne blushed as a very attractive boy with dark hair smiled at her. “Tene is from Kenya,” an older black man nodded slightly. “Anja, I assume she’s about your age, is from Russia,” a pretty young woman with blonde hair smiled politely. “Chinue, we’re not sure where she’s from, she doesn’t speak any language we or our captors know,” a black girl sat back a little bit from the group, huddled in her blanket, occasionally looking over Joanne, and then back at the blanket wrapped tightly around her body. “This is Jabari from Pakistan,” an older Middle Eastern man diverted his eyes from Joanne’s. “And my name is Rosemary, like I said, I grew up in the States, but I’ve been living in Great Britain for a few years now.” The red-headed woman smiled cheerfully.
Joanne nodded with raised eyebrows, looking over the mismatched group once more. “What exactly are we doing here then?” This dream was getting complex. She had to wake up soon.
Rosemary leaned in close to whisper. “We’re not quite sure. We’ve tried to figure it out, but they don’t really want to talk to us too much. They’ve told Tene, Keiji, Jabari and Maylin a little, but they really want to talk to Chinue,” Joanne’s gaze floated back to the frail black girl huddled in her blanket. For a moment, their eyes met and held, then Chinue shrank back into herself. “I think they’re close to breaking the language barrier with her. But, I wouldn’t know,” she smiled stiffly. “They hardly talk to Anja, Leo and I.”
“Hold on, who exactly are “they” anyway?” Joanne asked as she tried to piece things together, wondering if she should see a doctor about this weird dream.
“You’d have to ask Jabari or Tene, they know more than any of us,” Rosemary nodded to the two men who were now in deep conversation with one another. Joanne hesitated.
“This is a dream, right?” She muttered aloud. Rosemary put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Honey, this ain’t a dream. Trust me. Each one of us struggled with that for a while, but you’ll come to terms with it soon enough.” She offered a smile, but Joanne could tell Rosemary hadn’t quite come to terms with “it” herself.
A little disbelieving, Joanne approached the older men, who abruptly stopped conversing and looked at her inquisitively. She smiled faintly and sat beside them, wrapping her blanket around her shoulders, it seemed the room was getting colder.
“Can I ask you guys something?” The two men nodded silently. Joanne cleared her throat, not knowing what to ask first. “Where are we?”
Jabari and Tene glanced at one another, said something in a language Joanne couldn’t understand, and then Jabari spoke to her, “We’re in an alien space craft.”
Please let my alarm go off soon, Joanne thought, but somewhere deep inside, she was beginning to understand that this was not a dream. She cleared the throat again. “And, um, why do these “aliens” have us on their space craft?” Joanne tried to keep her voice calm, but the realization that she wasn’t dreaming was hard to take. Everything felt too real to even be a realistic dream. This was reality, a dreamlike reality.
Tene whispered something to Jabari who frowned before answering. “We aren’t one hundred percent sure, but we think they’re going to destroy Earth.”
Joanne’s eyebrows shot up and she choked back a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?” She asked, looking back and forth between the two somber men. Obviously, these weren’t the kind of guys to play a cruel joke on a new comer. Joanne sank back, confused, tired, and a bit overwhelmed. Then the door opened, letting in a blast of hot air and three green skinned men, each pushing large carts. Joanne jumped up at their entrance, and the men stopped in the entranceway. The green men and Joanne stared back at one another awkwardly, until she burst out into tears. The three men looked at one another, and one ran back out of the room and down the tunnel. Joanne’s whole body shook with emotion. She pinched herself, the old fool proof way to tell if you’re dreaming, and screamed at the immense pain she caused herself. Jabari and Tene watched her with wide eyes, unsure whether to help her, or shrink away.
Finally, the dark blue captain ran in and began clicking urgently at Joanne who grabbed for his uniform and pulled him to her in an angry rage.
“You get me out of here you freak! You hear me! Get me out!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, making the green men and Jabari and Tene jump back away from her, but she held on tight to the captain’s dark uniform. “This isn’t funny anymore, ok? Take me home!”
The captain clicked and chirped in protest, but Joanne couldn’t find any solace in the strange language. She pushed him back into one of the carts the green men had been pushing, causing him to tumble over backwards, knocking down the cart, landing with a loud bang on the floor. Joanne hesitated, stifling back the tears as she stared at the motionless man before her. The room filled with silence, until the lighter blue man who had spoken English with Joanne before paused casually by the open doorway.
Unblinkingly, he gestured to Joanne, who stumbled forward and around the body of the captain, who was now squirming a bit, and the over turned cart.
“Aren’t you going to punish me?” Joanne stuttered as she followed the man to another room down the tunnel. “I could have killed that man! You should be tying me up to some weird shrink ray, or, or, laser beam, or send me out in a little space pod, or-”
The man held up a hand to silence her. “We have obviously upset you,” he said in that grainy, mechanical voice. Joanne shivered. “We must beg your forgiveness and ask you how we can help you.”
Joanne stared at the man in complete and utter awe. “Forgiveness? What can you do for me?” She shook her head. “I don’t get it. I almost killed your leader, and you’re asking ME for forgiveness?”
The light blue man blinked once, seemingly unfazed by her bewildered questions. “What exactly upset you? We must know that before we can do anything to help you.”