Starving

"So now what." They stood awkwardly. It had been so long, or it had seemed so long. The battles. The fear. The time they had shared could of only been months. But it had been hard, long, gruelling months. That time seemed meaningless now. The boy looked the beast in the eye. His friend. But he found it hard to think that way. Just then, he was a kid, and he was an alien. "What do you mean," he replied. "They are gone. Dead. I think that's the word to use for it. It doesn't matter. They are no longer a threat. Earth is safe. Both of them." "True. Is this why you've interrupted my class? Terrified my school? Just to say that?" "By the void.. what are you doing here, Ben?" He faltered. The question beat him about the face like a enertica blast. "Wh.. what do you mean?" "You can fly. You have all the knowledge worth knowing at your grasp. You can flip a car by looking at it. You can port to a parellel world on a whim. What are you doing. Here, at this little sapien settlement, listening to the indoctrination your people feed their young." Ben stared at his feet. He felt dizzy. He thought it was over. The battle was done. He was with Rachel, they had plans. But did they? He realised his future was a white wash. He had never givin it a moments thought. What to do when the evil was done, when there was nothing left that he had to do. "I just thought.." "You thought what? You'd finish school? Get a job, raise a family? Die in a warm bed after leaving this world no different than the one you were born into?" "Wait. Hold it a sec, what are you saying." "I'm saying that our work is not done. Not by a long throw." The layphon growled, growing angry that Ben wasn't following. It was so obvious! "Look, unless you are going to just spit it out, I'm going back to class." "You are not going back to class, Ben, no one is." "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" "Your world is wrong, Ben." They glowered at each other for a tense minute. Ben watched as Indref gripped his shard tightly, eyes glowering red. "People are dying. Rape, murder, famine. Disease. Injustice." "Injustice? What are you, Superman?" The layphon was in his face before he could react. Snarling, those red pools of light almost blinding him. He trickled a sour, hateful purr. "What would be so wrong about that." "Indy I-" "I am tired. Tired of watching pain transpire across your planet with no recourse. Tired of watching as so few receive so much as the masses go on without. Tired of your industry pounding out more and more plastic, wirring nonesense to placate the idiodic children that stumble on through meaningless, dull lives. I grow horribly tired as people starve. Starve! How do you sleep at night? You eat more food in a day than some of your species eat in a month! Grrl, abbad', do you understand?!" Indref flounced off, soaring slowly to the other side of the roof. "We can help them all. And so we must!"