"Mom, are you really here?" I looked her up and down in disbelief.

"Of course I am, Orion, I missed you so much." She hugged me and started to cry.

"You sure that's her? You don't seem like you've missed her that much," the girl said. I forgot she was here.

"Yes of course it's her. I'm just so shocked to see you here mom, I thought you were imprisoned," I said.

"No, I've been hiding from them. Come on Orion, I'll bring you and your friends to my bunker," she said, grabbing my hand.

"Come one guys!"

"You trust her?" The girl asked.

"Yeah, she's my mom," I said.

We walked for what felt hours until we reached another dark alleyway.

"This is your bunker?" The older girl asked in a disgusted tone.

"Not this," my mother said. She kept walking through the alleyway until we found a few torn up blankets way in the back.

"Welcome to my humble abode," mom said with a bow and smiled.

We all walked inside and it was so bright. There were candles and oil lamps everywhere. She was living in a very small tent. She has a few blankets in one corner for a bed. A bucket in the other corner for a toilet and she had a fire pit outside for a kitchen.

"Whoa," the girl breathed out. "Where did you get all of this stuff? We haven't found anything to help us."

"A little of everything here and there. When I first got on the ship, they were handing out candles and blankets," she explained.

The little boy wandered over to a large candle, and reached out curiously. "Did the aliens really let you have matches?"

"Stop it, Jacky," the girl snapped, dragging him away from the candle. "Don't touch things that aren't yours. It's impolite. And candles are dangerous, you could've started a huge fire."

"Sorry, Ki-"

"Shut up!" She clasped her hands over her mouth, her eyes filled with fear.

"Did you just say his name out loud?" I whispered to the girl.

"Maybe it's time to tell them. We can tell he's not an alien." The boy glanced at his sister, and she nodded before taking a deep breath.

"Just tell us on your own time," my mom said while going to set a table for brunch.

I smiled at them and went to help my mom.

"I'm Katy, although everyone calls me Kit. This is Jacob, but we call him Jacky," the girl confessed. She spoke quickly, as if she was ripping off a band-aid.

I thought I saw mom's eyes shoot upwards when she heard the girl say their names aloud, but they were looking down at the silverware a second later. Katy must've seen it, too because her eyes grew suspicious.

"Do you know something?" Katy moved closer to my mom.

Mom laughed smoothly, but I could hear some uneasiness in her voice. "No. I don't know anything, and it's not like I'm going to kidnap you, or anything. You don't have to be so tense around me or anything," she giggled nervously.

Katy sent a questioning look to me, and I shrugged.

"What did you say your name was again?" My mom asked.

Katy looked over at me again and I mouthed 'you can trust her.' and winked.

"It's Katy?" She said cautiously.

Mom beamed, her face lighting up with joy. She wrapped the two children up in a tight hug, smiling from ear to ear.

"Orion," she turned to me, "would you be so kind as to go grab some extra blankets from the other room? I miscalculated the amount of blankets we need for seating."

"Okay mom" I walked out the door.

As soon as I walked out, I heard a crash in the room, and I paused. "Mom? Kit? Jacky? Did something happen?"

"No, sweetie," mom sang out. I had a dreaded feeling in my stomach. Something was wrong.

Against my better judgement, I rushed back into the room, and I couldn't believe my eyes. In front of me stood my mom—and Jacob and Katy, who were tied to chairs, back-to-back.

"Mom?" I yelled out, tears forming in my eyes.

"Orion, I swear it's not what it looks like." She ran over to try to hug me—I dodged her and ran toward Katy and Jacob.

"Your mothers a psychopath! What the hell is wrong with her? I knew we shouldn't have said anything, I bet your whole family is sick in the head!" Katy started to scream once I took the cloth around her mouth off.

I quickly ran to take Jacobs off.

"Kit, Orion is fine. Maybe we're misjudging his mother, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this." He tried to reason with Katy.

Katy turned her glare towards me and asked "Well?"

"I, I don't know. But I swear my mother is anything but a psycho." I looked at my mom and she was in tears.

"I just want to see Zinnia and you together again Orion," she sighed.

"How is capturing them helping you do that?" I went to sit beside her.

She sniffled and reached into her pocket to grab a dirty, folded piece of paper. I opened it and it had a picture of Katy and Jacob on it. It had their names underneath the pictures. I read the rest of the flyer.

"These two children have been reported missing

Finder will be rewarded with permission to the other side

The children will respond to Katy and Jacob, or Kit and Jacky

Jacob was last seen wearing a striped shirt and jeans on

Katy was last seen wearing a plain shirt, jean jacket and black leggings"

"Oh, you're trying to claim the prize." I hugged her.

"Um hello? Can we be let free? I am not some prize to be given away," Katy was flipping out. I had almost forgotten she was there. I untied her and Jacob. Jacob hugged me and smiled.

"You psycho bitch!" Katy yelled before chasing my mom around.

"Kit! Stop," Jacob ran after her and I raced after him.

"Wait," mom yelled right before she was tackled to the ground by Katy.

Katy started to hit her and scream.

"Kit, stop!" Jacob managed to pull them apart and brought Katy outside so they could talk together.

"You okay, mom?" I hugged her and she nodded, while holding her now purplish eye. "You really tried to kidnap some random kids so you could see us again?" I asked.

"Yeah, I've been trying to find them for awhile now. Come here." She grabbed my hand and dragged me to a big wall with a blanket covering it. I gave her a puzzled look and she smirked, before pulling at the top corner of the blanket.

The blanket came tumbling to the ground, revealing a big web board with strings and pictures. Like a police web board when they're looking for someone. I stared in amazement and disbelief. In the short time she'd been here, she made this whole board.

"Whoa," I whispered.

"I just want to get back to you and Zinnia." She came and hugged me. "That's all I ever want."

"But at what cost?" Katy said, entering the tent again.

"Well, I would just be returning you to your mother." Mom looked at her.

"Wait, that's our ticket back to the other side?" Jacob said shortly after.

Mom nodded.

"I just have to bring you to the door guard and we will be able to cross over," she said.

"Why didn't you say so? We will gladly walk over with you. All we want is to be with our mom again." Katy looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"Well, let's go then." Mom grabbed a backpack and started to march out the door, but Katy stopped her.

"Wait, we need a plan. The other side is huge, and we wouldn't know where to look."

"I know where my house is, and I bet the aliens will bring you to your mother, especially if it's that serious," I said.

We all sat in a circle to plan out all the 'what if's'.

"What if they don't let us through? And it's a trap?" Jacob said.

"I'm sure they will. As I was walking to the wall, I wasn't far from the recent announcement and a woman, presumably your mother screamed. I'm sure the aliens don't want to cause too much panic, they need to gain our trust," I answered.

Katy scoffed. "Trust?" She questioned. "They lost ours a long time ago. Why do you think we're doing this?" She made a circular motion with her hands, to mention we're in a circle of planning.

We sat in our little circle for the rest of the night, planning a bunch of what ifs. What if their mother set it up and the aliens didn't know? What if something happens on the way and we get seriously injured? There were tons of what ifs to cover, but we couvered what we thought was necessary, and went to bed. We were leaving in the morning.

•••

We woke up bright and early and ate breakfast.

"We all remember the plan, right?" Katy looked at us all. We all nodded.

"Walk up, cautiously and be ready. Once we're on the other side, if we get to the other side we find an alien who can take you guys home. We don't split up once, right?" I said, pouring my milk into my cereal.

"Yup," Katy said.

We all finished our breakfast and casually walked over to the front wall.

"Wait here, I'll go talk," Mom said, and we all waited in the first spot I met Katy and Jacob.

"What are you going to do when you see your mom again?" I tried to make conversation while we waited.

"Well, just catch up maybe," Jacob said.

I nodded and looked back at my mom, who was now motioning for us to come over. We obliged.

"Okay, here they are." My mom presented us to one of the aliens.

"Ma'am, there are three kids here. We only need two." He looked at us.

"I know, this is my son. He accidentally crossed over to come and find me," mom said.

"I can only allow three of you past, two of you being the missing children," he said.

"B-but we just found eachother again. I can't just l-leave my s-son," she stuttered.

"Whoever found the children may pass, but I cannot allow all four of you," he said, obviously getting bored.

"Well my son found them, I'll let him go and I'll stay," mom said and looked at me.

"Mom, no," I cried and my eyes started to water. "I'm staying," I said and pushed them through the door and slammed it shut.

"Finally, that's over with. Humans are so emotional," the alien said, rolling his eyes and opening the door again to go through.

He paused halfway through and turned back to face me. "Don't you dare say what happened to you, or your family or we will slowly kill you all one by one. We don't want to ruin our reputation, now do we?" He said and a slow, gruesome smile grew on his face.

I gulped and nodded.

"I'll be saying the same thing to the others, bye bye now," he said, before closing the door behind him. I heard the lock click and just like that, I was abandoned on the other side by myself, yet again. 

*Authors note* I will be back to my regular every other Saturday posting schedule

anyways, until next time, my fellow Hoomans

-@Creative_hooman