The Beginning of All things to End

was in a dive bar off the strip, drinking to not care. Drinking to forget. She wished the John Doe had never came into her care...no, wait, had never come to the hospital at all. It has brought her misery, drama, and confusion. Remove the towel creature with an affinity for pot and you'd still have one string of crazy.

Who, or rather, what was this John Doe? She didn't know, but knew Albert Nimziki was hot on the trail. They were already busy decoding it's DNA. Yes, it.

That's what they called him.

But Charlize couldn't think that way, it wasn't fair. Beyond cruel, it just wasn't true.

So here she sat, by her lonesome, drinking Martinis because she told her self the olives help stave off hangover and increase endurance when binging.

She feared that if Albert were to find him, he would unceremoniously be chopped into slices of thin meat, inspected as if he was a tree trunk with centuries of rings that foretold history.

It was all a matter of time. But she couldn't think straight anymore, nevermind the loud and obnoxious band. But hey, they've stopped.

Glancing over towards the stage the crowd had begun to disband, and out of the wave of biomass came a familiar face. It was him!

As lxxy moved towards Not-His-Charlize he saw tears well up from her eyes. She held out her arms expecting a hug, and without forethought he did so. There was an instant connection. Not an erotic and intimate one, but a spark of knowing each other. Echoes of timelines shared, of memories gathered.

"Here," lxxy said, wiping tears off of Not-His-Charlize's face. With a grin he handed her a pill. "Take this, it's good for you. It'll take care of any impending migraine, among other things."

Not-His-Charlize smiled and took a little green capsule, chucked it in her mouth, now washing it down with alcohol. "Thanks."

lxxy bowed and smiled. "I know Albert's got to be around here close by, but I also feel you're questioning sides."

Not-His-Charlize nodded, she felt lighter by the moment. Giddy. Giggly. The world was changing. "Yes, yes I am. What did you give me? I feel...great!"

lxxy smiled widely, couldn't help but laugh. "Just a little something to make you a bit loose. You need to relax."

Not-His-Charlize stopped, beginning to fight the trip she was embarking on. "How could you do this to me?!"

lxxy took her hand and lead her out of the dive, off into the strip, and back towards the hotel room. "Listen, you have to trust me! You'll understand soon."

Not-His-Charlize was the epitome of contradiction. She cried as she was pulled by lxxy through the crowd, afraid of what was about to occur. But her legs none-the-less continued forward willingly, telling her she knew on some level it was to be okay.

Albert Nimziki grinned as he watched the blip on his Android screen that was Charlize take off like a bat out of hell. "Gotta love this new technology stuff," Albert said to no one in particular.

"Yes sir, it's quite great, sir." Lieutenant Dan replied.

Nimziki scowled at Dan, took a puff on his cigar and exhaled in his face. In his southern drawl he began a diatribe that had been repeated over and over again. "Lieutenant Dan, do you know what I hate more than a failed mission coming back to piss on my boots?"

Lieutenant Dan shook his head. "No sir, what's that?"

Nimziki slapped Dan upside the head. "An ass kissing suck-up! Now turn on this SUV and let's drive!"

With a twist of the key an engine roared to life, tires begun to squeal. "Where to?!"

Nimziki placed the Android securely on the console in the dash, instructions were rattling off for Lieutenant Dan's convenience. "Just listen to the voice boy. Using gnomes and cherubs it'll magically tell us where Charlize is. And by extension, the alien thingamabobber."

"Okay, but we have to get gas first."

Albert grumbled. "I told you to fill it up when we got to the hotel last night!"

Lieutenant Dan let go of the wheel and shrugged his shoulders, then put his hands back in the DMV approved position. "I got really tired, I fell asleep half way through the Jay Leno monologue."

Albert sighed. "Well, make it quick! They're on the move." Glancing down at the Android again, he notices that they have actually stopped. "Actually, take your time. Hopefully they'll stay put for awhile."

At the hotel Towelie had gone out in search of nachos himself. That worked out well, because Not-His-Charlize was about to peak, edging into full on head trip. But it was exactly how she needed to be for him to meld with her.

Charlize was laying on the bed, sweating and having fits of giggles and tears. Jumping onto her body, lxxy straddles her with his legs and looks into her eyes. "Listen.."

Charlize stopped wrestling and gazed deeply into the green eyes of the so-called creature. She marvelled at his eyes, slowly glowing and gaining in intensity. "I trust you," she mouthed.

"You once wanted to know what I felt. Well, now I can show you. Close your eyes, breathe deeply and prepare for my presence in your conscious." lxxy placed his hands on either side of her cranium, his thumbs squarely in the middle of the forehead.

Closing her eyes, Charlize didn't fight the barrage of emotions, sights, sounds, feelings, words, and meanings that begun to bloom forth out of the blackness. It was fireworks at first, or perhaps phosphenes from over-exposure to bright light. Whatever it was, it only was growing in clarity and power.

Collapsed into tears, being held in the arms of lxxy Charlize wept finally knowing, and feeling what he was going through. "I felt you!" Charlize asserts, still doubled over in tears. "I know your name...and I know you're a good person."

The door to the hotel violently swung open, as Lieutenant Dan and Albert Nimziki approached lxxy and Charlize. "Well, what do we have here? Looks like our lady friend has a crush on renegade military property."

Charlize looked up in a haze of tears, jumped out of lxxy's grasp and moved to be a human shield. "You can't kill him, he's not our enemy."

Nimziki shook his head, and spit in lxxy's general direction. "Nonsense. This has all gone far enough. It's time to finally finish off this failure." Nudging Lt. Dan, then glancing his way, the two men in unison reach into their coats and draw their weapons.

"Now," Albert says without hesitation. "You can either move away or be shot through Charlize, but I can't let the alien majigger get out of this room."

"No, don't shoot!" Charlize was trembling in fear, didn't know what she could do in this situation. She had to live herself, but did the alien have to really die in exchange? What was the value of her life compared to his? Before she could calculate, she was pushed out of the way as a hail of bullets ripped through the air. She cleared the path and looked up as lxxy had sprung forth to the window, jumping out she could see a few meaty chunks fly off his body from bullet fire.

lxxy had made a giant leap of faith. But it was all good, because he had enough force to clear the gap in between hotels. In short, he found himself pulling a Trinity as he shot through the neighbouring hotel window, if but a few stories down. There was no one in the room.

Screaming in pain, lxxy felt a warmth spreading across his back, but the adrenaline was pumping too hard for the  torture of gun shots to break through.

He ran out of the room and looked for the closest elevator, jumping in he sets it to go up but pulls the emergency stop break. For the moment, he was safe.

But he knew, somewhere, there was plenty of people following him. Charlize had to have been tracked, but lxxy wasn't sure if it was unintentional or a clear case of entrapment. Either way, he was bleeding profusely.

Albert grabbed Charlize, pulling her up by the arm. "Get up, we've got to go." Charlize was still in shock, blubbering about how he didn't have to shoot the alien. Blah, blah, blah. Same old drill. No one ever saw it Albert's way. It wasn't personal...well, okay, it was, because his escape lead to his demotion. Albert would have been quite further along in his career by now had the incident never occurred.

"Why?! Why did you shoot him?!" Charlize tried to protest her being yanked and tussled like a toddler who was not behaving politely.

Albert let her go and stared at her, contemplating. He turned towards Lieutenant Dan."Lt. Dan, will you shut her up for me?"

"Sir, yes sir!" And with that, he punched Charlize in the face. She blacked out.

Laying now, half conscious, in his own blood...lxxy was unable to even reach back up to the elevator emergency stop switch, or even signal for help.

Closing his eyes, he takes a few final breathes before he slips asunder, a broken vessel of failed dreams. Tempting fate this time has been unkind.

Free floating, somewhere between life and death, he watches as his body is put into a black bag. There's Charlize crying, peering down at the bag wishing the events that had just occurred could have been undone--wishing she too could master space-time, if Albert's story were to be believed.

Lights flash, people gather, and Charlize sits in the back of the black SUV staring out the window devoid of all ability to control her emotions. So many, so little time.

...the surgeon bends down, hovering above the body of a fallen human-alien hybrid. "So interesting," he says, as he picks up a scalpel with glee. "I can't wait to know you from the inside out!" With great pleasure, the surgeon pokes through lxxy's pale flesh as if it were but paper mache`.

Cutting down the length of the upper abdomen, the doctor jumps as he could have swore the alien's body made a noise. "Eh, it's just escaping air." Then there was the sound of a fart. Holding his nose, he quickly takes a few steps backwards trying not to breathe in any sort of toxic fumes.

Without warning the incision that the good doctor had just made sutured up it's self right before his very eyes. A scream erupted from the table, as the once fallen lxxy lurched up and forward. Staring at his would be dissector, lxxy's eyes glow green.

The doctor's head begins to pound with enormous strain, something bewildering is occurring. Looking to the floor blood is beginning to drip down, putting his finger up to his nose he quickly realizes where it's outpouring from.

If only the doctor had the ability to escape before his brains were melted into goo. No one else in the compound was hurt beyond a nosebleed and pounding headache, but all at that exact moment--even Charlize herself, was busy doubling over in pain as the strongest feeling of fear and anticipation washed over the world within a radius of twenty miles.

"I can't die," lxxy commented to himself. Closing his eyes the intensity of the emotions erupted from his position, those affected reeled from the force of alien thoughts hammering their way into the consciousness of any would-be enemies.

The time for peace has past. Circumstances called for a much stronger reactionary plan.

If diplomacy was not to work, then perhaps the world would just have to see first hand what the consequences were for attempting to abort the life of a once innocent creature. A boy once, a man too, even. But now he was something else--an evolution of all that is called perfect, at once divine and lethal. Dark, yet powerful. And only growing so.