Chapter 12, Part 1. Death Coasters and Unknown Truths.

The Death Coaster moved slowly up a large hill. Lonely started to panic; he couldn't move his wrists no matter how much he struggled against the metal cuffs that held his arms in place. He was going to die on a different planet. Thoughts raced in his head in groups.

" I'm never going to meet my favorite author, I'll never be able to tell Eos the truth about me and my family, and I never even got to fall in love. I haven't finished the story I tried to write. I will die, and no one will miss me. No one will be concerned or care that I'm gone." As the death coaster reached the top, he realized that that last thought might not be true.

 "I'm not going to die today. I need to find Eos before she finds herself in trouble," he told himself, though he knew from experience that she could take care of herself. Looking down as the coaster came to a halt. He saw the saws and fire and the split track. 

"Wait..." he questioned at what he saw, "a split track?". He didn't have enough time to realize, the rollercoaster shot forward, a blinding light flashed in his face. As multi-colored circles danced in his eyes, Lonely tried to focus on the track in front of him. It was coming up to the split track. Lonely heard a loud noise, like the noise a fork makes against a ceramic plate. It made his ears hurt, and the noise echoed in his brain. The left side of the coaster split away from the right side and took off down a different path than the direction Lonely was going.

He wanted to rub his ears to make the ugly echo go away, but his wrists were still trapped. Lonely tried to fold himself in half, trying to make sure that whatever dangers wouldn't take his head. He had wanted to slide under the bar, where his feet were placed, but the seatbelt was tightened violently, and he couldn't move, so he put his head on his knees. 

He heard the buzz of a saw above him. He knew it would have cut his top half if he was sitting up. Lonely heard unfamiliar noises that he knew would have meant his death. Then there was the fire. He felt the flames lick against his hands. He tried to hold back the scream as he felt the skin on his hands burn and tighten. The pain in his back from bending over now seemed irrelevant. The wind became sharp as the roller coaster sped up; the sharp current didn't help the pain in his hands. How he wished it were a dream. A bell dinged as the coaster rose what lonely could only guess was a hill. The bell sounded like one you would hear at a water park. The bell that would ring every time a water bucket started to tip over. Lonely remembered standing under one on the last trip he had taken with his mom. It was a week before the incident. It was one of his first memories. He couldn't remember his mom's face or his name, but he could remember the looming bucket full of water that knocked him onto his butt when he was three. Typical. 

Lonely took a deep breath right before the water hit. There was a lot; the pressure made his ears ring, but just as the water had come quickly, it left just as fast. The coaster stopped, probably at the top of another hill. The leftover water was soaking into his shoes, making his socks wet. 

"Gross," he muttered. Lonely hands didn't hurt as much as they had; the water helped a little. He dared to look up. His back was sore. How long had he been on the coaster? He saw no traps or ticks, only a large hole at the end of the track... at the bottom of what he could only guess was a five-hundred-foot-tall track that he was sitting at the top of. 

"I've escaped a bloodthirsty Ghost, Survived a planet of blood hungry geese, as well as high school and I've now outlived every single person I ever got to see on my home planet and now I'm gonna die because of a roller coaster of death.", he said to himself, "There are worse ways to go, but honestly, a rollercoaster? That’s not interesting. Jumping out of an airlock is interesting, being eaten by a Ghost is interesting, being torn to shreds by a goose army is...well, that’s more weird than interesting, but it's cool! I am not gonna die like this. I can't! --" Lonely stopped talking. He had heard a click. He ducked his head in-between his legs as the coaster shot down the hill. 

Then everything went black. 

Lonely woke to a stinging feeling in his face; he lurched forward. His head felt like there was a bird with sharp claws that was dancing in his head. He winced and clutched his head with his hands, which he pulled away immediately. His hands hurt more than his head. Someone put their hand on his shoulder, and he jumped.

"Hey, take it easy. It's just me." She said calmly.

"Eos? You're alive?" Lonely tried to turn, but his head hurt when he did, "Where are we?" he asked. 

"A gigantic plastic brick prison." She sighed.  Lonely heard another noise; it sounded like windchimes on a calm, windy day back home. 

"Oh, yeah… Right, sorry. Lonely this is Pandora.". A girl with onyx skin speckled with white stepped in front of him and waved cheerfully. She stuck out her hand and opened her mouth. He thought she was gonna say something, but the only noise that came out was the windchime noise he had heard. 

He blinked in surprise, "What?"

"She's Lunarian," Eos explained like it was obvious. 

"Ok...but what did she say?" He asked, glancing over at Eos, who now stood next to him. She smacked her head and said something in the windchime language to the girl, who, Lonely now, realized she had her own little universe in her hair. It was awesome. 

When Eos was done talking to Pandora, she turned to face Lonely and explained, "I forgot to tell you. Most of the surrounding planets around here speak at least a little Starlin. I didn't even think about it. Your human-y earth English is branched off of the Starlin 3 speak. Which is most common around here, but she’s from a different quadrant, and she speaks the lunar language of her planet. I have an earworm that translates her Words in my head. It also feeds to my brain and knows when I want to talk to someone in a different language. It translates them for me. I have another set I can give you in the starship. If we get out of here." 

Lonely gave her a look of disgust, "A worm?". 

She nodded and shrugged, "When you travel the galaxy, you do what you have to to survive.