He woke up to the not very loud TV outside. Stretching in bed, he didn't need to figure she's not beside him. As soon as he got up, she glimpsed him and turned off the news.
"Jay, morning!"  Ann ran towards him as he the water to wash his face.

"Aliens invaded us!"  As a kid, she hit him with the news!

"Aliens?"  He repeated, turning off the water. He turned to her and put his hands on her shoulders leading her out.

"What? You don't believe me? Check the news!... Aaa- when the electricity gets back."  She defended herself.

He the light and looked at her,  "Again? Babe, please, I have to go to work."  

"We're going to die and you still want to go to work... Jay?!... J-Jay, you're pushing me!" 

"You're like literally inside the bathroom. I have human rights, you know!"  

"Sorry!"  She apologized and sat on the edge of the bed staring at the bathroom's door.
She heard him chuckle and she looked down,  "Make fun of me all you want, I just wanted to stay another day with you." 

He opened the door and walked out,  "Officers don't usually take days off, but I do for you. We stayed up awake all night because I wanted to stay longer with you. Now, I don't even have time for a quick shower!"  He patted on her head and started to put on his clothes.

"I don't have a chance, do I?"  She sadly said throwing her body on the bed. He approached her, took her face in his hands and looked sincerely in her eyes, "I promise you to have few days for ourselves. Let's travel somewhere." 

"Really?"  She sat up straight hitting his forehead in the process. 

"Ouch!"  He rubbed the red spot on his face.

"Fine, I'm going to work!"  He stood up and took his gun, placed it on his belt.



At the front door, she stood as he started his engine. He smiled at her from behind the wheel steer. She put her hands around her waist and pointed silently at him. He knows she misses him already. As for her, she just can't seem to let him go just yet.
"TAKE CARE... COME BACK HOME SAFELY!"  She shouted so he would hear her which he did and smiled in return.
"I'll wait for you."  She said, Through the distance he heard her and draw heart-shape with his fingers and winked.
As he drove away, she watched him and got inside. Before she closed the door behind her, it was shot open, some angry men saying a lot of things she couldn't recognize but one thing... 
A name... 
His name...
Jay.
Then she passed out.

 ~~~
 At the station, mess was ruling. 
"What the he..?"  He parked the car randomly, locked it, pulled out his gun and rushed towards the station. 
He pushed away everyone he saw, not hitting and not hurting anyone. Just making a way to get inside.

"Are they rebelling?"  He asked his colleague who shook his shoulders in return.

"Are they stupid? Going against us won't make them any good!"  He blurted out as they took shelter behind the turned desks. 

People somehow, for some unknown reason, are angry. Way too angry that they're yelling and swearing at everyone who could be connected one way or another to the government.

"Jay, you're bleeding!"  One of the officers said taking his arm. 

"I am?"  Because of the crowd and all, he didn't feel the cut. He looked at his arm and found a deep cut along his arm. 

"Those unjust people... Oh my God! I'll be there!... Doesn't matter!... If I'll lose my life trying to get to you, I would!"  An officer shouted from the other side catching the attention of everyone.

"What is it?"

"What happened?"

Everyone kept asking the dazed man while Jay stared at him, afraid to hear what he knows he will.
"They're attacking our houses! They have our addresses!"  He yelled. 
Jay stared at him. Blood rushed down his veins. Heart-rate dangerously high. His mind is just going everywhere right now. They will take her life away from her? His life, his everything? 

"No!"  He whispered and stood up. "Not gonna happen!"  He grabbed his gun and started walking.

"Jay!"

"Jay, don't!"

His colleagues kept pleading, he can't get out alone. Not like that. 

"I'm coming with you!"  One of them said and stood up. Jay turned back to him.

 "No, you're going to save your own family!"

"If they were in danger, they would have called us, Jay. Maybe they didn't get everyone's addresses."

"If they're in danger..." He grinded his teeth, "THEY WOULD  PROBABLY BE DYING RIGHT NOW!"  Everyone stared in silence. 

"You know what? We're the officers, we're the strong party! We should fight back!"  An officer said.

"We have guns, they're unarmed, we can't attack back!"  Jay responded as a matter of fact.

"We can scare them, then they'll just go away!"  A third party joined.
They looked at him and their minds lightened up.

"Let's do it!" 

"Close the doors!" 

"Wear the armors!" 

"Make sure your guns are filled!"

Jay pointed at them silently, someone was coming in, slowly they walked to get the intervenor trapped between them. Some gathered on the right side, some on the left. While Jay's friend stood in the middle pretending to be doing something on his desk. 

Suddenly a loud thud echoed and fog filled the place when they looked they found their friend, a dead body on the floor.
What happened, they don't know, but they found a glowing red circle right on the middle of their gone friend's chest, lightening with the words "Under commands of the other planet!"

Jay couldn't just believe his own eyes. Dammit! She was right! She joked telling a right thing! 
'I should've never left!'  He felt his heart ache, body and soul scolding him. 

"They're under some kind of spell or something!"  Someone whispered. The other nodded, "It's not about our houses, everyone's in danger!"

"Aren't we suppose to help them? Isn't that why we were trained for years?"  

"Our friend was alive a moment ago, now he's... He's gone. We should take revenge!"

"We should protect our own from another deaths! We should stop this!"

"We won't kill them, if that's what you're aiming at!"  Their chief appeared from nowhere. Trembling, they aimed their guns towards him. 

"I am your boss, you stupid gun-holders!"   He made a weird face which only proved them he's not injected.

"What's happening? And Sir, where have you been? How did you get here?" 

"I've been at the back door, you dummies forgot to close it! I managed!... What's happening? We're under attack, Aliens attack. You forgot to ask what to do!"  He asked back.

"What should we do, Sir?"

"Run!" 

All eyes on him, questioning, wondering, dazed. Run? Really? If they were normal people they wound't have stood the chance but they're converted into mindless robots, to demolish and destroy, to kill and tear apart. 

"Ann"  Jay's mind couldn't kick her out. They need to do what they've got to do. But he is going back home, to his woman, to his soul mate. To Ann.

"Jay! Where are you going?" 

"Home."  He stood straight, held his gun and started walking.

"You won't make it before you reach there. They're less the other way. Come with us!"

"Someone's waiting for me back home. I promised I'll be back!"  He gently said as he stood in front of the main closed door. Closed his eyes, took a deep breath, Ann only inches away from him, being sad, him so close to her, making up to her, promising her to go somewhere and enjoy each other. Damn he wants to hold her tight right now, to assure her they'll be okay, to overwrite all these incidents, to never leave, stay with her, fight together, face death together or runaway together. 

He opened his eyes and exhaled the bad thoughts. They'll be together, no matter what.
He turned and smiled at his friends, Chief and colleagues. 

"At least use the other door!"  His chief desperately said. Jay shook his head.

"I'm not afraid of them."  Flashing them a smile again, he opened the door and walked out.

He felt being hit twice or thrice, stabbed couple of times, he even held the floor no less than four times but he didn't back-down. He got up each time determined. He caught a hint of everyone behind the office, tainting the glass with their noses and hands, watching their friend alone with those creepy people hurting him. 
Magically he reached his car and started his engine. He felt something is itchy, warm and running as well. Lifting his hand to the place that aches, his lower right side, there's a bone fighting his own skin to get out harshly. He focused on the road and didn't need to figure that the warmth comes from the blood that's being shed.

Cars were replaced with people on the road, more like zombies, they were walking carelessly, their eyes has big dark circles as if they didn't sleep in ages, their skin was paler than it should be.

*Well... Maybe it's the end. But I prefer to welcome the end with her than runaway from it just trying to find her.* 

Almost reaching his home, the pain started to increase and his blood is probably getting injected. *My blood is poisoned, I have an hour or two. I will find you, Ann. I will.  And we will be together.* He started breathing heavily more than a minute ago. "We will... Be... Together, Ann. We will be..." 

He parked randomly for the second time today. "This will be charged on me! Officers should... Ah, should be" He got off and held his injury. *Everywhere hurts, I don't even know whether it's my kidney or my liver!... Well,  I'm not a doctor, born an officer!* 

"Officers... Should be role-models!" He laughed at his own comment then groaned in pain. 
"Okay, no laughing."  He made a deal with himself.

His house, the door was broken. 

"Ann!" He whispered forgetting all about his pain. Flashes of her, smiling, laughing, running, cooking, pillow-fighting, stealing food from him, saying sweet words to him, worrying about him, loving him, missing him, pleading him to stay this morning. 
Everything keeps leading to what happened, to force him regretting leaving on this doomed early day, proving he's wrong, it's his fault. If he...
He kicked the already broken door harshly, hopefully kicking that 'If' out of his head before it kills him where he was standing.

"ANN!" He shouted as loud as he could, moved everything from the way with his gun, as if threatening the furniture, the curtains, the lamp.

"ANN!" Yelling accompanied with an even louder scream, the calling can't just keep raising the pain more and more. 
Limping, shivering, he lifted his hand and touched the door knob, his hands were quivering, fright took all over him. 

"God, please! Just this once. Just this once." He prayed, pleaded for mercy from above. 

Twitching the golden circle, slowly opening the door of their bedroom, where they sleep together, talke together, had fun together, loved each other. 
He closed his eyes, lips trembling, he can't break down, not now. 
Painfully slow, he opened his eyes. 
At eye level, there's no one. Nothing.

*Ann...* 
*No, I can't! This is not happening.* 

A quick peek inside the bathroom from where he was standing assured him she's not inside.
*I won't... I won't accept this!... I...* 

His eyes unwillingly let a tear out.
*I won't look down. I won't look down. I won't loo...* As if instead ordering his mind not to, his eyes automatically looked down. 

Blood.

"Aaann!" He dropped the gun and started running everywhere madly.
"Aaann!... Aaann!... Aaaaaann!!" 

"Jay?" Her well known voice echoed in his ear. He turned around and found her still in her rope. The rope he left her wearingthis morning wearing. 

"Oh my God, Jay!" She ran towards him and held him. He fell to the ground, if she ever saw a man crying, this would be the first time a man  breaks down like this. 
He hid his face in her chest, grabbed her shoulders tightly, and cried like never before, not saying a word, not bothering to breathe. Only laying in her arms and crying like a lost boy.

"It's okay... It's okay..." She patted his back repeatedly. 

A nice wind hit their numb bodies, Ann smiled at the window. 

"Jay?"

"Hmm?"

"Are we dead?" 
He got up and so did she. He looked around them and smiled with his puffy features taking her hand and walking towards the main door. They stood there watching outside. 

Everything was strangely calm. The air smell nice and there is no more destruction. No broken cars or damaged streets. The trees are pure green and the wind... The wind is simply too perfect. Not sunny but warm.
They breathed in the good air, she leaned her head on his shoulder as he smiled at the view before his eyes.
"Can you figure what's in my pocket without looking a it?" He asked her raising his eyebrow in challenge.

"Mmm... I can figure." Teasingly she replied. 

Her hand almost touched the pocket, never getting the chance to feel what's inside.
"A box?" 

"And what does it contain?" Starting to laugh, he kept the game going.

"A... Special ring?" She replied knowingly. He chuckled.

"Baby... We have each other, I have the ring. Say yes?" 

Chuckling, "Yes! " She replied.

"Dead or alive... We're together. Everything now seems to be blurry and in-important, while the focus is only us..."