Young Writers Society

There had been a death on the landing platform. In fact, there had been at least three deaths, the second of which was Jason's dignity. The first had been claimed by an incredibly unfortunate slug-like man who had found himself beneath the poorly-piloted, quickly descending silver can. The third? Probably an insect of some sort when Avery first landed after hopping out of the open top of the can.

The large baggy cloak that Jason had lent him before opening the ship's hatch puffed up around him as he fell, then settled itself upon landing. Avery knew that Jason was tall — it wasn't hard to miss — but wearing a cloak of Jason's at his comparatively-measly height of 5'9” made Avery feel ridiculous. He shrugged the sleeves back up his arms and attempted to deal with it.

From behind the dense gold visor of his grotesque helmet, Avery's eyes darted around the platform. It was huge, he'd noticed a few moments before their 'semi-crash landing', as he and Jason had compromised on calling it when Jason refused to admit how badly he'd failed at landing. Something that caught Avery's attention upon his feet hitting the steel floor, though, was the astonishing variety of aliens he found himself looking at.

There were tall-necked, furry creatures in shades of red and blue sticking high up above the smaller members of the crowd. Shorter, stouter little gray men wandered about, followed at a distance by a pair of tall, slender, pale figures in large scarves and cloaks. There was even a man with what Avery thought must be a fishbowl of some sort on his head, though it was very dark and blue for a fishbowl, as no face was visible behind it.

Jason dropped down beside Avery, his own silver helmet matching particularly well with the glistening exterior of the ship. Tapping a few buttons on the side of his helmet, Jason muttered something and promptly proceeded to slide his it off his head. Avery tilted his own head, confused, then began to do the same.

“No, no, no!” Jason cried, frantically, shoving the helmet back down over Avery's nose and earning a small audience of aliens' eyes a short distance away. He glared at the eavesdroppers until they returned to their own business, then dropped his hands from Avery's head. “Leave that on,” he hissed.

“How come you--?” Avery retorted.

“Because,” Jason whispered, cutting him off. “I'm not human.”

“But you said the platform was unprotecte--”

“Yeah, turns out I was wrong, there's plenty of air out here,” he said, taking an exaggeratedly deep breath, then smirking at Avery as he exhaled out his ears. Avery blinked in distant bewilderment as he wondered what Jason's internal workings were like, then swiveled his head back in the direction of the massive crowd.

“So where are we going?” he asked. Jason grabbed him by the shoulder and pointed across the platform to a wide, low-lying metal structure.

“Bizzy Beau’s Filthy Cantina,” he said, his stomach grumbling. Avery stood on the tips of his toes to get a better look and, sure enough, caught sight of the rusty old sign. It featured, to Avery's slight disapproval, a horrible choice of letter style.

“Oh.” Avery replied, suddenly disheartened as to where this branch of their adventure was going. “Er, is it any good?”

“Not a clue,” Jason stated, heading into the crowd. “Never been here. No idea where we're even at, sector-wise, really.” Avery hurried after him, trying to avoid any awkward situations, such as bumping into somebody or being bumped into himself or stepping on a particularly sharp-looking gentleman's tailcoat, for some examples. Or, for another example, somebody stepping on his cloak, he considered as he grabbed it up around him, hoping to find walking easier.

Surprisingly, considering the thickness of the crowd and how far away the building had initially looked, it didn't take them long to reach it. With a little laugh of excitement, Jason hopped on up to the double doors and grabbed hold of both handles.

Suddenly, a tall, graying man in a rather magician-y-looking coat burst through the doors, tossing Jason off balance and sending him to the ground on his rear. The man darted of towards the crowd as a dark-haired girl ran out the door after him, looking very panicked as she tossed a glance back at the building.

"Hurry, keep up, Clara!" the man called back as the two disappeared on the crowded platform.

Jason leaped to his feet and shouted after them, shaking a fist and throwing curses their way until his stomach grumbled loudly and he completely forgot about the happenstance. Spinning on his heel, he waltzed into the restaurant. Avery, glancing out onto the platform in search of the strange duo, followed right after.

Unfortunately, despite his haste in keeping up with Jason, Avery had somehow lost him the moment he entered the building. He scanned the interior crowd, made up of much the same as the one outside, albeit cast in a dim orange light, but couldn't see his tall pink friend anywhere. With a sigh and a groan, Avery approached the bar, glancing up at the three-eyed bartender whose four beefy arms were busy wiping a pair of mugs dry.

“What'll it be?” The bartender's middle eye looked Avery up and down whilst the right surveyed the bar and the left kept a steady gaze focused on a clock nearby.

“Er, what d'you have?” Avery asked, checking around for a menu. He lifted his arm to check if it'd been hidden beneath his rather large cloak sleeve.

“Well,” the bartender grunted, focusing all three eyes on Avery for a moment, before sending them to their previous tasks. “We've got purple juice, green juice, poisonbeer, and milk.”

“That's it?” Avery queried. The bartender nodded slowly and gave him a look, as if challenging him to find something else to order. “Well, uh, then, I guess I'll have the, uh... I'll have the milk,” Avery decided. With a smirk, the bartender walked off to prepare the order.

Avery sighed a second time and looked around the restaurant again. Jason had to be there somewhere. They'd just walked in! Suddenly, a feeling of unease crawled along Avery's spine and he felt he'd much like to get out of there, but he considered it safer to stay at the bar than to wander around searching for Jason.

Eventually the bartender returned and slammed a massive brown mug down on the counter. It sloshed and frothed, yellow foam bubbling around the rim and slipping down its sides.

“Here ya go,” the bartender growled, still smirking as he crossed his four arms and stared down at the little man behind the bar. Avery blinked at the mug, then glanced up at the bartender. It had taken him a while, but he realized at some point that he was still wearing his helmet, which would make drinking anything a bit of a challenge. And he wasn't sure if he'd be safe taking the helmet off with Jason nearby, much less on his own here.

The bartender was still watching him. He needed a diversion to keep from taking the helmet off.

“Er, um... I ordered milk,” he said sheepishly, hoping it would be enough. The bartender gave him a confused look.

“This is milk,” the bartender replied irritatedly. Avery stood on his stool and peeked over the rim of the mug.

“You sure?” he asked, feeling that this argument could be more serious than he'd initially intended. “'Cause it looks a bit like... Not-milk.”

“How so?”

“Well, for one...” Avery looked around the mug's sides, then back up at his server. “Uh... It's yellow.”

“Yeah, you got a problem with that?”

“No, no, it's just...” Avery sat back down on the stool. “Milk isn't yellow.” The bartender blinked all three eyes at once, then each separately, then simultaneously again.

“Sorry, bud, but what the hell kind of milk have you been drinking?”

“Um, er, cow milk?” Avery said uncertainly. The bartender blinked again.

“Sorry again, bud, but,” he leaned across the counter, drawing his nasty teeth right up to Avery's face. “What the hell's a cow?”

Remembering back to what Jason had told him before they got out of the can and before he lent him a cloak, Avery kicked himself internally.

“Now, remember, there's no Earth stuff out this far. Nothing like Earth at all, so just chill and don't insult anything. Got it?”

“Oh, no, nothing, sorry,” Avery stumbled over his words as he tried to cover up his mistake.

“They can't know that you're from that old ball.” Jason's voice sounded in his head again. “Otherwise...”Avery envisioned Jason running his finger across his throat. “You're dead, bud.”

That last bit was the same thing Jason had said, but Avery didn't think it. Turning around, he found himself faced with a large furry man. A large furry man with a metallic face.

“Er, hello,” Avery spoke, his voice cracking. He waved nervously. The man just stared, his red eyes literal floating orbs of light in their sockets.

“You're dead, bud,” he repeated. Avery gulped and glanced back at the bartender, who had disappeared. Quickly looking back at the furry man, Avery gulped again.

“Um, sorry?” Avery scooted back to put some distance between himself and the man, but the counter behind him stunted his retreat.

“Oh, a deaf one? I see...” The metal-faced man crouched before Avery, reached into a satchel draped across his torso, and pulled out a small orange ball. Really it just looked a lot like an orange — the citrus kind, that is. Avery was very confused.

“You've got an orange...” he observed. The man growled and crushed the orange in a large taloned fist. Avery gulped a third time. Opening his fist, the man revealed, amongst the shards of the orange ball, a smaller, silver, metal ball.

“You've got a metal ball in your orange...” Avery stated, glancing up at the man's face. “Sorry if I'm not following, but... Why?” The red lights in the man's eye sockets suddenly turned yellow. Rising to his full height, he shrugged and wandered off to a far corner of the restaurant. Avery stared after him, increasingly confused as his rib cage struggled to contain his racing heart.

“Avery! There you are!” a voice called from Avery's left just before he was hit with something rather heavy. Next thing he knew, he found himself dazed on the floor of the bar with a tall, familiar figure pulling him to his feet.

“Where the hell were you?!” Avery cried at Jason's stupid pink face as his vision cleared out and he stopped seeing two stupid pink faces.

“Oh, sorry, eating. Drinking too. But hey, look, I found a friend!” Jason gestured behind him and a bright red, faceless person came to his side. They were a couple inches shorter than Avery and garbed in a leather jacket, dark pants, boots, and held a satchel at their side. Avery felt bad for reeling back at the sight of the person's incredibly nondescript face, but there was absolutely nothing there, aside from the occasional shallow indent that indicated where their eyes might've gone if they had any.

The faceless man held out a hand as he somehow vocally introduced himself.

“Pleasure to meet you, name's Jones. My colleagues call me Deadpan, but...” he patted the gun holstered to his hip. “You're not my colleague." Jason didn't seem to realize the threat and smiled wildly at Avery, as if showcasing his greatest discovery yet.

“Er, Avery,” Avery replied, shaking the hand he'd been offered.

“So I'd heard,” Jones stated, tilting his head towards Jason who was now busying himself with the frothing mug Avery had abandoned on the bar counter.

“Right,” Avery said. “So, uh, colleagues? What is it that you do, then?” Jones seemed to try to squint disapprovingly, but his lack of facial features failed him. Avery noticed the man's grip on his satchel tighten.

“It's, um, probably best not to concern yourself with that, Avery.”