Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 16:45:20 +1100 (EST)
From: Masked Truth <mask4truth@yahoo.com.au>
Subject: The Unveiling, Chapter 2, "Gay-Scifi/Fantasy"

The 2nd of The Unveiling. Obviously a figment of my imagination - would be
scary if it wasn't. Since I had completely left out the disclaimer in my
first installment, I should do it now.

This is a work of fiction, that will eventually lead to romances on
homosexuality. This chapter does NOT contain sex.

In the previous chapter, I had mistakenly put down a non-existent email
address, my apologies. If any of you DID send me an email, I thank you for
your thought, even though I did not receive it. However I would definitely
love to hear from you, whether you've already sent me an email or not.

Please comment, and I mean please, at mask4truth@yahoo.com.au

	*	*	*

The Unveiling Chapter 2

	*	*	*

	The cement floor felt cold beneath my bum, and the cracked brick wall
scratched my back every time I shifted. I looked around the room at my friends.
We were dispersed almost evenly around the musty room - all twelve of us had
chosen solitude after what had happened. We needed time to be alone, I guess.
Jase was sitting with Jay, listening intently as Jay poured out his fears and
confusion. Jase had been comforting us emotionally, from one person to another,
starting with Lil' Lily, who seemed the most shaken of them all, to Irene who
cried as she shared, then Kevin who for the first time had not acted cool, and
Jean, who wanted to deny that she had.. had killed a man. She wasn't the only
one who wanted to deny it, I did too. And I'm sure Jase did as well.

	We were in an abandoned building - though 'abandoned' may be too small a
word for it. It was completely desolated, and had been this way for God knows
how long. It was a large hall, a church maybe, but so old that the ground floor
was covered with overgrowth. Somehow the cement floor, or whatever it was made
of before, had been turned into earth by the merciless roots of the overgrowth.
That was why we were on the top floor, where we could sit without getting sand
into our pants and end up getting eaten alive by whatever insects and creatures
that dwell below. And that wasn't the only reason of course, there were large
square holes around the building, which we had assumed were once windows in its
life. That was how we entered the building, since the doors were barred. But we
wanted to be safe from the eyes of any wandering soldier outside the building.

	I looked at Jase again. He was listening to Gary now. What would we do
without Jase? Probably end up going mad and killing ourselves to escape reality.
I was grateful for Jase and his heart. It was his nature, to care for his
friends emotionally. Gary was crying as well, though he tried to be as macho as
possible. He had always been the 'act tough' kind of guy. But we all know from
his girlfriend that he actually was a real softie. I smiled at that. Jase side-
hugged Gary for a last time and walked towards Simon. I watched Simon as he
talked to Jase. While Jase only needed to be a lending ear to everyone else, he
knew Simon wouldn't talk unless you asked him a question. I understood that, I
was like that most of the time.

	My thoughts drifted to the armies again. We did the right thing to take
their weapons. When we left the hall, we saw the impossible. Hundreds, or
thousands, of soldiers, going from house to house, building to building, taking
naked civilians with them each time. It was plain impossible. How did so many
soldiers entered the Melbourne in less than a day? Why were they taking the
civilians? And where? I may not be a political or military fanatic, but I know
that soldiers do not take civilians as prisoners. Soldiers fight other soldiers,
and the civilians serve whoever owned the winning soldiers. That was how it had
been for forever. And there were millions of people in the city alone - surely
they had not planned on taking the entire city population as prisoners? They
wouldn't have enough soldiers or place for the civilians. Unless they are not
planning to keep them alive, I shuddered at that thought.

	Jase had finished with Simon and was now talking to Terry, the big guy.
He must be three inches past six-feet. Suddenly I found myself wondering why I
was keeping track of who had Jase spoken to. Maybe I was just worried for my
friends, and making sure that Jase had not missed any. Jon and Dean was left
after Terry.

	After leaving the hall, it was the darkness that saved us. We managed to
duck out of sight and hid near the trees in the park. None of us could believe
what we saw. Dean even wondered aloud if the leader was right - that their
country had already been taken over by them. It was foolishness, I snapped at
him. Australia was not a small country, and there was no way they could take a
country in less than a day, unless they had been terribly uninformed. After a
while we knew we had to move - look for a new hiding place. Soon the sun will
rise and the darkness will no longer protect them. Remembering the building
opposite the apartment I had once lived in, I suggested the abandoned building
we were in now. I was sure the soldiers would overlook a building as desolate as
this. They agreed, and so they followed my lead here. I still remembered the
fear and adrenaline in my blood as we snuck around the alleys and buildings to
get here. The soldiers seemed to be everywhere at once. I was glad that none of
us broke down... we had never been through anything so intense before.

	When Jase went over to Dean, I was disappointed. Then I understood why I
had been keeping track - I needed his emotional support as much as the others. I
had been unconsciously longing for him to sit by me, so that I could pour out as
he listened, just as he did others.

	Again I looked at my friends. Lil' Lily may be tearing silently in the
corner, but we all had seen how reliable she was in a difficult situation.
Earlier that night, when they were a few blocks away from this building, someone
transmitted a message through the radio they had taken. This nearly gave all of
us a heart attack. And as if to accentuate the situation, a whole lot of
soldiers - about fifty or so - marched by them barely twenty feet from them. The
army did not notice them in the dark of course, but someone had chosen that time
to communicate through the radio again. If it weren't for Lil' Lily's almost
immediate reaction to switch the radio off, they would have been discovered for
sure.

	This time I did not look up when Jase stood up. I already knew he would
go to Jon, and leave me for the last. I had no idea why, or how I knew, but I
knew. I wondered what came over me in the hall, taking the lead of my friends
and all. Why I didn't I leave it to Jase, who was used to leadership? Or Kevin
who had been in the army. Surely they would have done much better than I did.
And yet my friends faithfully accepted my leadership, as if I had always been
their leader. Then again at that time they were probably still in a shock to
realize that. We all were.

	Anytime now, then it would be my turn. I watched Jase as Jon hugged his
knees and spoke. The handsome guitarist was almost expressionless as he shared
with Jase. I waited impatiently as Jase gave Jon a side-hug like he had done
with each of them and stood up. He was looking at me now.

	"About time," I told Jase when we sat beside me, close enough so that
our shoulders were pressing. We did that every time we sat beside each other.
But I suspected every guy friends in Melbourne do that. "Leaving the best for
last?"

	He did not answer that. Instead, he surprised me when his hand went out
to clasp mine. We have never held hands other than the times we shook hands. But
I was grateful for this gesture - it comforted me. "You alright?"

	I laughed softly. "You mean after I shot two men, got separated
indefinitely from my family and had to go into hiding as if I was a criminal?" I
did not know I had a grim sense of humor. But then again I never had the chance
to find out until then.

	Jase smiled. "Sorry, that was a dumb question. How are you feeling, I
mean."

	I hesitated, but I had to talk to someone about this, or I will go mad.
"I killed two men, Jase," I felt him squeeze my hand. "His blood is still all
over my chest." I felt a wave a sickness when I thought of it.

	"We'll clean it up when we have the chance, I promise," he said softly.

	"Sometimes I try to tell myself it was self-defense. But in the end it
still didn't change the fact that I did kill. Not one man, but two. I never knew
I had it in me to do that. I'm afraid, Jase. Of everything. This damned thing
refused to be a dream."

	"I know what you mean. But we'll be in this together. All of us."

	I smiled at Jase. "Thanks Jase. What about you? I think its your turn
now." He was surprised that I asked him that, and his hesitation told me that he
had not thought about answering that question. I felt proud and moved by Jase.
So selfless, even though he had been through as much as we did.

	"I... truth be told I was scared as hell. And like you and Jean, I had
only barely come to term with the fact that I killed a man." It was my turn to
squeeze his hand. "And I still wonder about Helen. Do you think she... do you
think she was taken too?"

	"I don't know, Jase. I wonder that about my family too," I truthfully
replied. Helen was Jase's girlfriend.

	"And.." Jase turned to look at me. He had a strange light in his eyes.
"When I saw you covered in blood, I thought you were shot. I was lost for a
second until I noticed you were unhurt." Then he twisted to give me an awkward
hug. "Look, no more stunts like that, okay? The soldiers alone are more than
enough to give me a heart attack."

	I mumbled my thanks to Jase. I was genuinely surprised to find out that
he was worried for me. Surprised, and touched. I returned the hug and we stayed
that way for a while. When we let go, I called everyone to huddle together
because it would be a cold day. Since we could not go out on broad daylight, we
decided to catch up on our sleep until it was dark. I regretted leaving our
sleeping bags back in the hall; it was probably the only thing we have for
comfort for a very long time. When everyone was huddled together, we whispered
'good night' to each other and slept.

	*	*	*

	When night came, I was the last to wake. Dean, Gary and the girls had
switched on the radio we took from 'Eagle Dirrek's belt, and were waiting for
messages to come through. Kevin was teaching the rest of the guys, including
Jase who saw me looking and smiled, the techniques of using a gun. Jean sat near
the girls, and were sketching something on a piece of paper. Curious, I went
over to see what she was doing.

	It was some sort of a correlation diagram, scribbled words with lines
connecting them. "What is that?" I asked her.

	She looked up at me, her face crunched from deep thinking. "I'll find
out, hopefully," she replied. When she saw me raised my eyebrows, she continued.
"I'm trying to find out what's going on by joining up what we already know with
the... recent events."

	I looked at the paper again. There were sentences in boxes like 'army
taking civilians nude', 'impossible number of soldiers that littered the city',
'leader of soldiers said we're you're government now', and even technical
information like the kind of weapons the soldiers were using, the political
situation of several countries... "Wow, Jean. I never knew you were so
knowledgeable," I commented, genuinely impressed.

	She looked up again. This time I sat beside her before she started to
suffer from neck problems. "It was my job you know." What was her job again? My
question must have been naked on my face, because she said, "I was an
investigator."

	"Like the ones in the movies?"

	"Yes. Like a police-detective, only without the gun and danger. I go to
crime scenes and rebuild the events that was related to the crime, but never had
to chase the criminals themselves."

	"Wow."

	She laughed. "Thanks." She paused. "But they did train us to use a gun."

	I thought about that for a minute. "Do you want to have a gun?"

	"God, no."

	It was my turn to laugh. "Sorry."

	She only smiled. Jean looked at the correlation diagram again. "It just
doesn't make sense, you know. Nothing in the recent events seem to reflect the
world that we used to know. Its like... we been transported to another world in
our sleep that night."

	Then we were interrupted by Gary. He had a stricken look on his face.

	"They're here," was all he said. Jean and I understood. The soldiers
were downstairs.

	"Are they coming up?" I whispered, unsure of how close they were.

	Fear was naked in his eyes. "I think so. They were searching the
building. I think they were looking for us," he gestured at the radio.

	I didn't want to do it, but I had to. The room they were in had only one
exit. So I got everyone together and told them my plan. Nobody protested, and we
got into our positions, our weapons in our hands. We were facing the door, which
we had purposely left unlocked, waiting for the soldiers to open. My plan was
simple - shoot when the door is open. Dean was right, unfortunately. After a few
minutes, we could hear footsteps climbing up the stairs, and a voice giving
orders to his soldiers to clear certain rooms. One of the footsteps were coming
towards us. I could feel us tensing.

	Then, like a dream, we watched the door knob turn and as it swung open.
When it was opened halfway, we saw the soldier, and I pulled my trigger. The
others fired too, so I wasn't sure whose bullet had hit him, but the soldier
fell to the floor on his back. That was when I noticed four soldiers further
down the corridor, who had spun around and saw us. Just as I was about to fire,
Someone beside me fired his rifle, riddling all four soldiers with bullets. I
took a quick glance and found out it was Kevin. It looks like his military
training had saved us all. Not only he had reacted quickly, but he managed to
hit soldiers who were further down the corridor.

	"Are them all?" I waited.

	"No," Irene answered immediately. "I counted how many when he was giving
orders. There were at least six, if not only six."

	One more. "We should get off the door. We are at disadvantage now,"
suggested Kevin.

	I nodded at the rest and we moved as one to one side of the door, the
side which still concealed the doorway. "How's this?" I asked without taking my
eyes off the door.

	"This is good."

	Then we waited some more. After what seemed like eternity, Jon suddenly
fired the door twice with his pistol, sending splinters flying. I was about to
ask him what he was doing when a body fell forward through the open doorway. "I
could see his shadow beneath the door," he said.

	Six or more. So they were either safe or not. "Wait here, I'll clear the
rooms," said Kevin.

	"Wait, I'm going too," Jase said quickly.

	"And me," Jon stepped forward.

	I smiled. Since when my friends became heroes? Perhaps we were all
heroes at heart. "Whoever who wants to can go. But we should leave at least two
to protect the girls."

	It turned out that everyone wanted to go, even the girls. I told them no
of course, and had Terry and Simon to stay with the girls. For some reason,
Kevin had chosen to give me the lead, which I took. I did not know which
surprised me more - the fact that Kevin gave me the lead or the fact that I took
it without hesitation. After a few minutes we found out that there was no one
else on the upper floor, so we peeked into the ground floor. There weren't
anyone in the building, we decided, but there were hundreds of soldiers right
outside. They must be waiting for the soldiers they just killed.

	Without wasting time, we collected the dead's weapons - six rifles and
pistols. Dividing them, every guy and Jean carried a rifle, and everyone but
Kevin had a pistol. He said he only needed rifles as he collected some
'magazines', which were bullets for the rifles. Lil' Lily found another radio on
one of the men, which I nodded in approval. With two radios, they could
communicate with each other in case they get separated.

	When we were done we snuck to the ground floor, and out of the building
through a window on a side that had no soldiers. We had been sneaking around in
the night ever since, and sleeping in abandoned buildings like the one we were
first when the sun was up, killing when it was necessary. Sometimes we stopped
by and rested in one of our houses; we figured that since that it was already
empty the soldiers won't return there anytime soon. All the telephone lines were
dead, just like the mobile phones back then when we first tried after the hall
incident.

	At Jase's apartment however, we were surprised to find out that his
broadband Internet was still working. So without wasting anytime, we did our
research, checking out the online news in hope of finding out what was
happening. We found nothing unfortunately, the last news was four days ago, on
the 20th of November. It was the night before the hall incident. It was as if
everything stopped working then. What really scared us was that there wasn't a
single update on the net in the world after the 20th of November. Not only
Australia was invaded, but the entire world? That was just crazy.

	After downloading and printing the map of Melbourne, we started to plan
our escape. After much debate, we settled on stealing a ship. The airport was
too far away, and traveling by car was too obvious, plus none of us knew how to
pilot a plane. However St Kilda beach was reachable by foot, and Dean's family
used to rent fishing boats every year. While planning our route, Jase wanted us
to stop by Helen's place. I couldn't tell him no, not after what we've been
through. Besides, his girlfriend's place was on the way in the route we were
planning, and she was known to be always well-stocked in food.

	The next day, Jase packed his laptop into a bag and gave it to Dean, our
computer geek. Dean suggested that it may be useful along the way. We set out
into the roads when it was dark again and walked until we arrived at Helen's.
She wasn't home of course, and like every other building they had been to, the
door wasn't locked and the house did not have signs of struggle. And clothes
were found in the dust bin. Jase sat on a chair in her room and brooded. The
night was still early, but I did not want to push Jase, so I told them we'll be
resting at Helen's that day. Again no one protested, as if I was their leader. I
was uncomfortable at that treatment. I was almost the youngest among them. Now
that I thought of it, only Simon, who was twenty years old, was younger than me
- and only by a year. Jean, the oldest in their group, was twenty five. Most
were at Jase's age, who was older than me by two years.

	I sat beside Jase and put an arm around him. I wanted to say something,
but I did not have Jase's gift to comfort a person. So I only sat with him and
waited.

	"What did they do to her?" he asked after a while, not hiding the grief
in his voice.

	I squeezed his shoulders but did not answer. The answer was 'I do not
know'. But I had said that so many times since the hall incident. He turned and
rested his head on my shoulders. At first I though he was about to cry, but he
didn't. It pained me to see Jase this way. He had always been the strong one.

	"Thanks, for being here with me, Tony," he murmured into my shoulders.

	*	*	*