#if anyone who's more into guardians of the galaxy/marvel stuff could give feedback that would be great

[aceademic]

Chapter 1 of 'Band on the Run' by liz

Feel free to go super hard with the critiscism lol. This is Chapter 1. TW: mention of blood.

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them. My mother used to say that when we would sit out in the cool Missouri grass stargazing. I just never knew that I wouldn’t need to imagine running with them anymore. Because one day, I already would be.

That one day started the night that my mother died. Peter was devastated, and I had to drag him out of the hospital room. I remember the EKG ringing in my ears and watching the swarm of nurses run into the room.

“Come on Peter,” I mumbled as they closed the doors. He slumped in my arms, and I could feel the sleeves of my shirt becoming damp from tears. A moment later, my arms were cast aside, and Peter ran off down the hall, shoving open the emergency exit door and disappearing into the night. I followed quickly behind him.

“Peter!” I shouted, my voice raw. “Peter, come back!”

I could see him about 20 feet in front of me. He fell in the grass and sat there in a small ball of pain. I fell down next to him, and grabbed his face, forcing him to look at me.

“Hey,” I said softly. “It’s gonna be okay. Everything’s going to be fine.”

He gave a horrified glance, but it wasn’t for me. He was staring at something behind me. When I turned around, my eyes were blinded with a bright light, and as my eyes adjusted, I could see a man with blue skin. I could hear the roar of an engine, and that was when I realized that it was a spaceship. A UFO. Something illuminated over us, like a spotlight on a stage, and I felt a tug at my back, and I was pulled upwards into the air.

I tried to touch the ground, but I couldn’t. The last thing I remember was seeing the face of the blue-skinned man.

  A bright light blinded my eyes once again, but this time it was from an overhead light. Feeling confused as to how I got where I was, I scanned my surroundings, noticing the grimy pipes in the ceiling, the metallic green and grey walls and floors that you could see through, with more filthy pipes lining the bottom of it. That’s when my vision went blurry, the room span past me, and the feeling of dizziness distracted me. My head felt oddly hot and wet. I pushed myself off the ground and felt the back of my head. A glorious red stained the tips of my fingertips. My stomach lurched at the sight of it, and I could feel something going up the back of my throat.

The next thing I know, I’m throwing up in the corner of the room. When I wipe my mouth and turn around, I make out bars on the. I run up to them and start to bang on the bars.

“Help! Help!” I yell, shaking them noisily. “Anyone!”

���Avery?”

I recognized the voice right away. It was far away and came from down the long hallway the bars guarded.

“Peter!” I yell. “Peter, where are we? What happened?”

A clattering of footsteps made my head ache, and soon I saw Peter turn the corner. The smile that lit my face soon turned into a shocked ‘o’ as a blue-skinned man followed right behind him, causing my head to burn with pain. Memories came flooding back in a flash.

When the man reached the cell, I noticed his tight grip on the back of Peter’s red and blue flannel shirt. Peter had no clear signs of abuse on his face, but he was certainly terrified.

“You,” I growled as the man faced me, clutching my head. He gave me a toothy grin, revealing yellow-stained teeth and golden crowns. “What did you do to me?”

I removed the hand from my head, leaving my hand wet with more blood. I almost threw up again at the sight of it.

“You fainted after we beamed you up,” the alien told me. “One of my men dropped you while he was carrying you up to the cell.” He gave me a small little shrug. “Oops.”

He chuckled as I gave him a glare and removed my jacket to place on my forehead so as to not bleed out. “What do you want with us? What are you doing with my brother?”

That same toothy grin returned. “Teaching ‘im a lesson, innit that right, boy?” He looked down at Peter who nodded his head reluctantly, staring at his feet. I crouched down to look eye-to-eye with Peter.

“Hey! Look at me,” I said firmly to him. He looked me in the eyes, the desperation so very evident. “Did he hurt you?”

Peter shook his head slowly, looking back down at his feet. I stood back up and took a step forward, making sure to look him right in the eye. “What do you want?”

“It don’t matter what I want witchoo’,” he said, voice rising and smirk disappearing. “You follow my orders, or I feed you to my men. They ain’t never had Terran before.”

I stared him down fiercely before finally slumping over in a sign of surrender. “Fine.” He opened his mouth, but I interrupted him before he could even start. “On one condition.” The alien glared at me, but gruffly answered, “Shoot.”

“You don’t harm my brother. In any way.”

“Okay,” he answered after a pause of consideration. “Deal’s a deal.” The man took out some kind of walkie-talkie, and screamed, “KRAGLIN,” in to it.

A boy, perhaps a year or two older than me, came running from around the corner. He garbed the same outfit as the blue-skinned man, a mahogany red leather jacket with a bronze fire emblem embedded on it. However, he looked similar to me, with human skin, but perhaps he was an alien too. I couldn’t tell.

“Yes boss,” Kraglin answered loyally. He gave me a small glance, with an apologetic glint in his eyes, but quickly turned back to the blue man.

“Take them two to their quarters,” he said, nodding towards me and Peter. He then pulled Kraglin close to his face with a threatening sneer. “And don’t get lost along the way.”

Kraglin gulped, nodding really quickly, and the alien let go of both him and Peter and sauntered off down the hall. Kraglin fumbled with something in his pocket, revealing a set of keys and quickly opened the door of my cell. Peter ran at me, hugging the side of my leg and hiding behind me.

“I’m sorry about the, um – eh,” he pointed at his head, and when I said nothing in return he started to ramble quickly. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. I promise I’m not here to hurt you.” Pause. “Yondu’s like that with everyone, so don’t take it personally. He’s secretly a big softie on the inside. D-don’t tell him I said that. Just, come with me.”

Kraglin gave us a half-tour of the ship as he showed us to our ‘quarters’ as the man, whose name is apparently Yondu, said.

“That’s the hull over there. That’s where we get our orders every morning. You best not be late. But don’t worry! I’ll come get you the first few times!”

“Oh, and that’s the mess hall. You get three meals a day there. You can eat there whenever you want, but I would recommend coming really early if you want the best food.”

“Yeah, and down there is the boss’s quarters,” he lowered his voice to a hush as he said this, looking around as though someone were to overhear. “No one ever goes there unless you’ve got an express invitation or there’s been an emergency. Even I haven’t been there.”

Finally, we stopped in front of a dark metal door. Kraglin opened it for us, and I crouched down to Peter’s height.

“Hey bud, why don’t you head on inside,” I told him. “I have to talk to Kraglin, okay?”

Peter looked between the two of us, but turned around and went into the room anyways. I closed the door behind him and looked at Kraglin, trying to make my eyes look as kind as possible, although I don’t really know how to, it was worth attempting.

“Look,” I whispered. “You seem really nice. So if there’s anything you could tell me about my – our – situation --”

“I can’t,” Kraglin interrupted, returning to that forbidden hush. “Boss would kill me if I told you.”

“Then he doesn’t have to know,” I hissed back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, starting to back away. “I’ll wake you in the morning, okay?”

Before I could whisper-yell at him to get his ass back over here, he was already gone, and I defeatedly made my way into the room.

Peter was already fast asleep on the bed in our room. Instead following in suit, I sat down right in front of the door, staring at it. Nothing would get past me. Nothing . . . not . . . even . . . Zzz . . . Zzz . . .