Stumbled

Alexis could see the dog's sharp claws approaching her. Just when it was about to touch her shoulder, Alexis's reflex was quick enough to dodge the attack. Then without even thinking for another second, she dashed away from the vicious dog to avoid being caught, and worse, being severely wounded from the dog's attack. She was always good at running but today she ran even faster than usual.

The dog started to bark very loudly as it chased Alexis. Hearing its barking, other three dogs also started to come towards the direction where Alexis was running for her life. Some of the militaries tracked the location from where the howls were coming from and started to follow the barking dogs. They were armed with military grade weapons in case they had to fight a strong alien or capture it.

Alexis was panting and sweating from running. She looked behind to see four dogs chasing her. And she could also hear the heavy sound of footsteps. "Why does the bad luck always follow me? I might go to jail for breaching this prohibited area. Please, don't get caught", she was praying for her safety while she ran.

While running and constantly looking behind to check how far the dogs were from her, she did not realize that she was approaching a small cliff. She looked back again and when she looked ahead of her, there was no further road. She looked down to see that she was somehow standing on air. But something did not seem right; she could feel that she was standing on something but could not see it.

She could feel a chill shiver running down through her backbone. She could hear the dogs approaching her. She had to do something fast. She looked behind where she stood and the cliff was not far away. She thought of jumping back to the cliff and then running again.

She slowly moved her feet and turned towards the cliff. The cliff seemed to be further away than what she previously thought, but she had to try to get to the cliff somehow. She bent a little and then prepared to jump with all her might. But right at that moment when she was about to jump, she saw a dog approaching her causing her to lose the momentum. She missed the cliff and then she fell down.

But to her surprise, rather than falling several meters down to the ground, she fell inside what seemed to be a spaceship. It had a small door on the roof, enough for Alexis to fit through. She must have opened it somehow when she was about to jump.

She looked around the ship in amazement and she could tell that it was from the war. The ship was green and black in color; it had firing pod from where a trained person could shoot missiles. It had five seats in total.

Alexis was walking around slowly, analyzing the incredible thing she had accidently discovered, "Whoa! It has a firing pod. This must be a battlecraft. But it seems different from the several spaceship prototypes that were kept in display in the academy." She concluded that this battlecraft must be from C-31.

"But why couldn't I see it earlier? I must have been standing on this ship, but it felt like I was standing in the air." Alexis thought hard while shuffling through the items that were inside the battlecraft. Then she started to look carefully at the buttons and switches in the control panel. She tried to power it on but it didn't work. She clicked her tongue and whispered, "Of course it won't start. Must have been dead since the war."

She kept on looking for a while and then found an interesting button. "Camouflage shield?" she thought to herself. Then something clicked her mind, "Oh right! Someone must have put on the reflective shield, so it was just reflecting the surrounding making it practically invisible."

Then she tilted her head and thought to herself, "But how is that still working? Is it based on some alternative power source? The main energy core seemed to be dead."

She sighed and then hit her head with her hand, "Focus Alexis! You might be dead soon." And then she tried to carefully listen to the noise outside. She could hear the dogs outside.

All four dogs gathered around by now. They could sniff faint scent of Alexis but could not see her anywhere. They kept on barking at the edge of the cliff. Some of the militaries also arrived there and looked down from the cliff. One military said, "The dogs keep barking. Maybe that thing fell down here or it is hiding somewhere below this cliff."

The other military agreed, "Yes, we better check it out from the other side. Let's go to the base first and then come back in an aircraft." Then the militaries and the dogs left in another direction towards the base camp.

When the noise of footsteps and barks died down, Alexis thought of getting out of there and finding her way home as fast as she could. But the problem was that the door was jammed, probably because it was stuck on the cliff. And the small door on the roof that she fell through earlier was at the height which Alexis could not get hold of easily.

In an effort to catch the metal handles around the roof door, she raised her hands and then started to jump. The battlecraft was delicately balanced on the edge of the cliff. When Alexis jumped, she rocked the battlecraft and it started to lose the balance. She could hear the metals squeaking and screeching.

Alexis stopped moving in the hope that the craft will regain the balance again, "Please don't move. And don't fall please, please, please." She was narrowing her eyes and crouching a little bit, trying her best to stay still. But the battlecraft was already slipping and started to fall off the cliff.

Alexis quickly grabbed the seat beside her and sat down, and then somehow managed to put on the seatbelt as well. The craft started to fall off the cliff at greater speed. Alexis closed her eyes and held on tightly on the seat. Her heart was beating very rapidly and she was screaming in fear.

And then the battlecraft landed on the ground, after taking a fall of at least 30 meters. But surprisingly, both the craft and Alexis were not harmed severely. The craft had few dents from crashing on the ground. Alexis was having difficulty in breathing from the crash and had a few cuts from small metal parts of craft that had hit her. Other than that she was fine.

She groaned a little and then took off the seatbelt. She tried opening the door again, and to her relief, the door finally opened.