Where is Hullem?

Where is Hullem?

     An explosion makes running down this corridor hard for everyone to do. They can’t stay on their feet, bumping into each other, knocking some of the others over, stepping over others, etc. Pieces of their spaceship fall all over these runners, exposing their spaceship to the Space surrounding them. Geora and Hullem are two of these runners.

     “What is Happening?” Hullem asks Geora while Geora helps her get up from her fall. Geora grabs hold of her hand and they start running again.

     “I don’t know what’s happening,” answered Geora. “All I know is what everyone else knows, we are heading for our escape shuttles. We are supposed to leave our spaceship, like everyone else before it falls apart because of these explosions.”

     Geora blocks a piece of their spaceship from hitting him and Hullem with the arm holding Hullem’s hand. “Are you okay Hullem?” When he turns to look at Hullem, she’s gone.

     All Geora can see are others running past him, over anyone around him, etc. Geora tries to look over the heads and shoulders. But he still can’t see Hullem. He starts shouting. “Hullem, where are you? Can you hear me Hullem?”

##

     Four Fixers leave a room and start walking in the opposite direction of the runners. At least they appear to be Fixers. They are dressed as Fixers with tools hanging over their shoulders and Fixer bags in their hands. It’s hard to walk around these runners. But they are doing it.

     Just after they turn from this corridor into a side corridor they stop. These four can hear Geora shouting. It’s hard to listen to what he’s saying. But it sounds like he’s asking if anyone has seen someone named Hullem. They turn and return to the last corridor they have been in.

     As they continue walking toward the next side corridor, they can still hear Geora’s voice faintly. “Another Young One missing,” says Tomishi so softly that only Wenno, Avanu, and Coonna heard him.

     “This wasn’t supposed to happen this way when we started causing these explosions,” Avanu says softly. “We have been causing these explosions on the other side of our spaceship for a reason.”

     “No one was supposed to get hurt,” continued Coonna softly. “They were supposed to leave here as fast as they could so we could get what we came here to get.”

##

     Geora isn’t almost shouting anymore. He talks to the runners individually, especially the Young Ones, who are around eleven. Geora keeps asking them if they have seen Hullem. All have shook their heads ‘no.’ Except for the ones who have been dragged away from their parents, big brothers, or sisters like him.

     When he sees a Young One who may know Hullem, he goes up to her. He opens his palm to show her a floating image of Hullem. “Have you seen Hullem?”

     “You don’t need to show me an image of Hullem. I don’t know her too well, but I do know her. Sorry, but I haven’t seen her lately.”

     After looking around a little, Geora notices a Young One who knows Hullem. He makes his way to her. “Have you seen Hullem?”

     “No, I haven’t.” Before she could say anything else her big sister a year younger than Geora pulled her away and they started running again.

     Geora starts shouting again. “Hullem, where are you? Why haven’t you answered me? Have you been hurt or worse? Is that why you haven’t answered me?” Geora keeps shouting these questions while he starts running among these other runners again.

##

     Tomishi, Wenno, Avanu, and Coonna walk down an almost empty corridor. The few runners there don’t seem to notice them as they run past them. All four Fixers notice them. “What are they doing on this side of our spaceship? They should be with the others heading for the escape shuttles.”

     “I don’t know and I don’t care.” Tomishi stops at a closed entrance. He places his palm on the middle of this entrance, and it slides open.

     After entering this room, they split up. Tomishi stays by this entrance while the others start removing their tools off their shoulders and open their Fixer bags. Wenno removes a device and starts walking around the room with it. He has it pointed at the floor. It beeps every so often.

     The beeps get louder. Wenno follows them to a part of the floor that starts to beep constantly. He taps the screen on top of this device and it stops beeping. Avanu and Coonna bring their tools to Wenno and they start using them against this floor.

     Tomisha pats the entrance there and the lights go out. “We have a problem. I’m hearing Geora shouting about Hullem near us.”

##

     “You continue getting what we came for. I will make sure Geora doesn’t see what we are doing.” Tomisha pats the entrance to open it while Wenno joins Avanu and Coonna.

     As Tomisha leaves this room, he walks into Geora. Geora looks up at Tomisha standing over him as he gets up. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”

     Geora can’t see what is happening behind Tomisha. But he can see some legs on the floor. “What’s going on?”

     “What do you think we are doing? We are fixing what is wrong with our spaceship.”

     “It doesn’t look like that to me.” Geora tries to look around Tomisha. But he won’t let him do it.

     Geora quickly looks from side to side to see past Tomisha. He sees what Wenno, Avanu, and Coonna are doing. And it’s not fixing their spaceship. Geora starts running down the corridor in the opposite direction. Tomisha starts running after him. Wenno, Avanu, and Coonna are right behind him.

     “I think he has seen what we are doing. We need to kill him before he tells anyone.” Tomisha runs around the corner of a corridor and stops. Wenno, Avanu, and Coonna run into Tomisha when they come around the corner too. Geora is nowhere in this corridor.

####

     “Has Hullem come here?” asks Geora as he enters the Control Room where his parents are busy because their spaceship is falling apart. “I lost hold of her hand while we were heading for our escape shuttle. Been trying to find her. Thought she may have come here.”

     Dimmi and Pattrun look at each other, then at Geora. “You are sixteen. It’s your responsibility to know where your little sister is at all times,” says Dimmi.

     “You know Hullem, she hides whenever she gets scared. I have looked everywhere I can think of where she may be hiding. But I haven’t been able to find her. That’s why I thought she might be here. I don’t know where else to look for her.”

     “Hullem isn’t here either,” says Pattrun. “We haven’t seen her since all these explosions started. Since our spaceship started falling apart.”

     Geora slowly looked around this Control Room. About half of it is gone. The other half is a disaster falling apart. Individuals are trying to help others or are being helped by others. Geora looks at his parents. “We aren’t going to live through this, will we?”

##

     Avanu walks up to Tomisha as he walks out of another room. “Is he in there?”

     Tomisha starts walking toward the next room. “Not in there either. I don’t know where he is.”

     “I know where he is,” says Coonna after he walks up to them. “We may be too late in him telling anyone what we are doing. He’s in the Control Room right now. At least he was a few minutes ago.”

     “We can’t take any chances he hasn’t told anyone about us,” says Tomisha. “I will head for the Control Room to see what’s happening while you two find Wenno and start Plan B.”

     Tomisha started walking away from Avanu and Coonna. “I don’t want to do this either. But we can always come back to get our fortune later.”

     After leaving Avanu and Coonna to find Wenno, Tomisha headed for the Control Room. When he gets there, he places both palms on the entrance. But it doesn’t slide open this time. Instead, he can hear what Geora is saying. “I think I know where Hullem may be hiding.”

     “Maybe we don’t need to worry about what he saw after all.” Tomisha smiles.

##

     Geora enters through a sliding entrance into a long corridor full of pipes and wires. “This is Hullem’s favorite hiding place when she gets scared. I don’t know where she could be if she isn’t here.”

     Walking down this thin corridor, Geora avoids loose wiring blowing wildly in this breezy corridor and pipes extending out into the corridor. Geora starts shouting. “Hullem, are you in here somewhere?”

     At first, Geora doesn’t hear anything after repeating this and the other shoutings like this several times. While he stops repeating these questions briefly, he starts hearing Hullem. She is faint. But Hullem is answering him. Geora follows her voice to where she is hiding.

     Hullem appears to be okay. But she is trapped under a large pipe that has fallen. She can barely be seen beneath this pipe. Only her head, most of her shoulders, and the upper half of her legs can be seen. “Other than the pipe, are you okay.”

     “I’m going to be okay.” Hullem moves her head and feet a little. “I am bruised all over. Other than that, I’m okay. I’m not bleeding anywhere I can see and I don’t see or feel any cuts.

##

     Tomisha runs through the entrance into this room before this entrance slides half open. “Stop Plan B. We don’t need to worry about Geora. He was looking for his sister in the Control Room.”

     “It’s a good thing you came in when you did,” says Avanu as Tomisha joins them. “We were about to recreate this part of the floor.”

     “How soon will we get to our fortune?” Tomisha asks. “We don’t have too much time before we need to get out of here like everyone else.”

     Tomisha joins the others in getting to their fortune. He takes one of the tools from Coonna and starts using it on the lower metal part of the floor. Coonna grabs a similar tool and joins them. “It shouldn’t take too much longer. We are almost to our fortune.”

     Suddenly, Avanu stops using his tool. He looks at the closed entrance. “We may have a problem. I hear several coming toward us. And one of them is Geora.”

     “I can hear them now too,” says Tomisha. “It sounds like there is another Young One. It’s probably Hullem. The adults are probably her parents. I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

##

     Dimmi and Pattrun each hold one of Hullem’s hands as they run down the corridors of their spaceship with Geora beside them. It’s hard for them to run down these corridors, their spaceship is falling apart all around them. The explosions are still happening too. But they are on the other side of this spaceship.

     These explosions are causing their spaceship to fall apart. Dimmi, Pattrun, Geora, and Hullem keep sidestepping these falling pieces, stepping over them, and stepping on them. when Hullem starts to trip over a large piece, her parents are there to stop her from falling.

     After running down several corridors falling apart, they finally get to their escape shuttles. They are slowly walking toward their escape shuttle, with about a hundred other walkers. Suddenly, Geora stops walking. He points at Tomisha, Wenno, Avanu, and Coonna. “They are the ones who are trying to kill us.”

     About thirty minutes Dimmi, Pattrun, Geora, and Hullem are on their escape shuttle and are leaving their spaceship. As their escape shuttle moves away from their spaceship, Geora and Hullem are looking at their old spaceship. A spaceship that is about to destroy itself.

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