Charley walked into the living room and looked at the mice. They were sitting and watching some sort of a movie. She sat down next to Throttle and watched too for a couple of minutes.
"… we will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We are going to live on. We are going to survive. Today we celebrate our Independence Day!" some guy with a microphone was addressing to the audience.
"Whatcha watching?" asked Charley.
"ID-4," came the reply.
"What’s that? Some sorta robot?"
"Independence Day," said Vinnie, sounding like she was supposed to understand the first time.
"Oh, okay. In that case, I guess no one is coming with me to see Face/Off, huh?" she said, turning to the door and pretending to leave. "It’s just too bad, I heard it’s a god movie, and now I hafta see I alone…"
"Who said anything about going alone?" Vinnie asked immediately.
"Well, none of you are coming, John is in Atlanta, I ain’t got a date to go with, and all the girls are on vacations. So that means I am going alone…" she said. It was obvious to Throttle and Modo, who she wanted to go with and that she was practically begging for a date. Vinnie on the other hand, was too busy staring at her to figure that out.
"I’ll go with ya!" exclaimed Vinnie. Charley looked at him, and deciding to play on, thought up of an excuse.
"No, it’s okay, really. You can finish watching some big, bad aliens trying to take over the world. It’s not often that you get to be the bystander. I’ll be fine," she was on the verge of breaking out, laughing. Modo and Throttle decided that was a good time to leave and so they did. Vinnie didn’t notice.
"No, really, I wanna come. I’ve seen this flick a billion times anyway," he said.
"Fine."

It was late, when Vinnie and Charley came back. They were late for the first show, so they stayed up to see the movie "Face/Off" again. Only the second time, they saw the beginning too.
"Good night, Vinnie," Charley said as she walked off to her room. Meanwhile, Vinnie jumped on the couch, and turned on the TV. He flipped through the channels, watching pieces of movies, programs, and cartoons, until he learned of the existence of a channel called HBO. He flipped to it and started watching the end of "Twister". When it ended, he still did not feel tired, so he flipped to a different channel. He was right in time to watch some alien movie. He missed the title, however, but from the content he figured that it was "Alien Nation". Figuring that there was nothing else to watch, he lay down and watched, his eyes closing of boredom…

He woke up because there was a knock on the door. Figuring that whoever is knocking will freak out once he/she/it sees him, he went to the bathroom and closed the door, deciding to wait the person out. Then he realized that something was wrong. Why would someone knock on the door, if there is a doorbell? The tap on the door could still be heard. It was light, as if someone didn't want somebody to hear it. But then again, what's the point of knocking if you don't want the people on the other side of the door to hear you? He heard somebody opening the door. He looked in the mirror and saw that he looked normal. He did not look like he was supposed to, like he just woke up, but that did not seem to worry him. He walked out. Outside, he saw a pretty woman and Charley, both holding guns at each others faces. Not thinking and just following his instincts, he took out his gun and pointed it at the visitor.
"… so you thought you can just show up and tell your story and they'll listen to ya?" Charley seemed to be talking to the woman for a long time already. "So, how was the prison? I heard that's where they put ya," Charley turned around and saw Vinnie. "Hi, Vinnie, say hello to Genevieve Troy. You can put your gun down, I can handle this," she turned back to Genevieve. "My, my, this is like looking in a mirror, only… not. So, since I am a nice person, I am going to give you a choice. You wanna see it coming or do you wanna turn around?"
"What’s the point in choosing? You’re gonna miss anyway," Genevieve said. She sounded very much like Charley, almost exact…
The scene shifted. Now, it was dark, they were on some rooftop and Modo and Throttle were there too. Everybody had a gun, and all, but Genevieve’s were pointing at her.
"I won't miss, but you will. You will miss all three of them, because you will never see them again," with those words she turned around and shot Throttle. He stayed there for half a second, then collapsed. An evil smile appeared on Charley's face, as she shot Modo. He collapsed too, because she didn't miss the heart this nor the previous time. Genevieve just stood there watching two of her friends fall. Vinnie's gun shifted and now he was aiming for Charley. He didn't mean to hurt her, just to scare her. However, when the last of the series of three shots sounded, he followed his instinct again and fired. It was not as much his instinct that made him shoot as the weakness caused by the hole in his chest and the attempt to get his finger off the trigger, before his target gets hurt. A failed attempt, a good aim, and Charley's almost dead and bleeding body fell into the puddle of her own blood.
At that moment Genevieve, the only person standing on the roof in the cold dark night, woke up from her sleep. At first she could not, still paralyzed by what she had seen, but once she came to her senses, she ran to Vinnie, who was still alive… the only one who was still alive. His eyes were too heavy to keep open, but her felt somebody's warm hands picking up his head and sliding the hands under his head and neck, hugging him. He felt a warm kiss on his forehead and heard Charley's soft voice. At first he could not understand what she was saying, but then the words came clear to him.
"… be okay, you'll be fine. I promise." He tried to open his eyes. "No, don't open your eyes, you need to rest…"
Even though he heard Charley telling him not to open his eyes, he did… and he saw one of the scariest pictures so far in his life, he thought. Instead of Charley, he was in the arms of Genevieve, the girl who was responsible for all of this. Behind her, he saw dead and very familiar corpses. He saw Throttle, Modo, and Charley! Then, it al came back to him. The barely audible knock on the door, the faces of hatred worn by both Charley and her, the two shots, the evil smile, the last shot… he killed her! He killed his Charley! It's his fault! No, no, it cannot be… he was too weak to push this girl away… he was not responsible for Charley's death, she was! Yes…
He felt his shoulder shaking and the pain and weakness fading away. He heard his name and opened his eyes. Charley was staring at him, he was in the living room, and he could still hear the TV.
"Wake up," Charley said.
"It was all a dream, it was all a dream," Vinnie whispered.
"Well, whatever it was, I guess I was in it," Charley said.
"How do you know?"
"You woke me up because you kept repeating my name, so I figured," she answered and smiled. She got up and picked up the remote, turning the TV off. As she did that, Vinnie examined her attire. She was wearing a T-shirt and some kind of shorts, which he couldn't see under the T-shirt. It didn't really matter, but it was more proof to the fact that it was all a dream. Then he found that something was wrong.
"Wait a bit, here, babe. You said, you heard me say your name, while I was sleeping and it woke you up? Was I that laud?" he looked around, wondering whether the other mice heard him.
"No, actually, you weren't," was her answer, the answer that took a lot of weight of his back. But he still wondered.
"Then, how could it have woken you up?"
"I don't know. All I know is that if someone says my name, meaning me, if both they and I are sleeping, I will wake up. I do that, it happens," she smiled at him. She waived his good night and walked out of the room, as Vinnie fell into dreamless sleep.

The next morning at breakfast, Charley and the mice were eating waffles with maple syrup, when the door bell rang. Somebody walked in, and the mice turned around to see who it was. All except Vinnie, he was too busy trying to cut a waffle without a fork, just with a knife. Just as he figured that that was a stupid task, he heard Charley's voice.
"Okay, everybody, I want you to meet my very dear friend, who I know since I can remember, Genevieve."
At that name, Vinnie turned around and saw the face that he hated so much in his dream. However, then he remembered that it was just a dream and a tiniest bit of superstition. He will ask Charley, later, but for now, he'll just keep his mouth shut.

© Ylla 1997, all rights reserved.