Jack stared, amazed, at the strange building he was in.  There was no one here.  He and his small group were alone.  Glancing around with wide eyes, he saw no windows or doors.  The octagon-shaped building seemed to have no other rooms, and no exits.  It was just two levels, as well, with staircases against the wall on either side leading up to a balcony with a metal railing to keep people from falling.  Underneath the balcony, it was hollow, but he saw plenty of large, oblong black boxes without lids.  He supposed that their opening was hidden in case of intruders (Although, how would intruders get into a room with no doors or windows?).  Other than that, the room was not that abnormal, with black walls and wall lights that lit the room with a blue glow.

     Jack turned to look at his team.  They were a scruffy group (no one of real worth), but he had grown close to them over the time that they'd worked together.  Now, they all had glints of pride in their eyes, glad that their teleportation device had worked and that they'd all come out alive.  Of course, they wondered how they would get home now, but that would be dealt with later, or perhaps even never, if they found a way out and decided to stay here.

     His thoughts were interrupted when a voice spoke from above.  "You should not be here."  He spun around in confusion, searching for the source of those words.  He finally looked up to see a young girl, perhaps in her late teens, wearing scaly pink armor that looked like it had never seen battle.  His jaw dropped.  Straight, strawberry blonde hair bounced at her shoulders, and her eyes sparkled with knowledge beyond her years.  "This place is dangerous.  It will all soon burn.  At that time, you will die.  Leave now before it is too late," she intoned powerfully.

     Glancing toward his team, Jack simply found all staring back at him.  Even Stella, with her sleek black hair and get-back stare, seemed dumbfounded.  Del seemed quietly contemplating, his cold blue eyes unsettling as always.  Karin was bouncing on the tips of her toes, one hand on the knife strapped to her leg.  Jack ran a hand through his too-long brown hair and turned back to the armored girl on the balcony.

     "What do you mean?  What will all burn?" he called up to her.  She raised a hand as if to signal someone. Chills ran down Jack's spine as someone pressed a gun against the back of his neck.

     "We don't mean to hurt you," said a man's voice from behind, "but you must leave now.  The sun is burning up.  This building has been a shelter for those remaining, but they are gone now.  Soon the heat will burn this last shelter, and you alongside it."

     "And what about you?" Jack asked, flummoxed by this perplexing group and their peculiar behavior.

     "The heat does not affect us," the girl in pink said without missing a beat.  "We are not like your kind.  We are like day, and your kind night.  Separate.  We are very different, you must understand."

     "You look human to me," Stella said spitefully, though there was a gun against the back of her neck as well.

     The girl looked at her.  "Looks can deceive, young one.  Remember that the next time you encounter our kind."

     "Young one?" Stella spat.  "I am not young!  I'm twenty-five years old!"

     The girl turned, her armor shimmering, and responded.  "And I am, in earth years, about one hundred, but five of my own kind's years.  I am young, and you are even younger."

     Jack's team all stared at her for awhile.  "Okay," he said, "say we leave.  How do we do that?  Our devices were set to send us away.  We didn't even think about going back."

     "Easy," she responded.  "Keth!"  Her voice rang against the walls and a man in armor just like her own but dark blue materialized beside her.  She turned to him and commanded, "Set the devices as you were told."

     Keth turned to the group, eyes burning with hatred (for what reason, we didn't know), and leaped over the railing.  He bent his knees to absorb the impact, but didn't look at all harmed by this.  Walking over, he grasped the band around Jack's wrist and dragged a claw (!) across it, then did the same with Stella's, Del's, and Karin's bands.  He stepped back and motioned for the others behind Jack's group to do so as well.  In a matter of seconds, the world around faded, and Jack found himself back where he had started, in a clearing in the forest on Karin's property.

     They all looked around, but Jack just stared at the band around his wrist.  It was heating up, and was soon painfully hot.  He yanked it off, and saw the others almost immediately doing the same with their own, then each tossed the bands away.  Just like that, their teleportation devices caught fire and burned into nothingness, leaving not even charred remains.  Jack looked up.  It was night, and the stars had not moved since he'd last seen them.  They hadn't been gone for more than a few minutes.  They were back home, and everything was back to normal.

     He hoped.