The whole room glowed in eerie blue, originating from the peculiarly shaped object—which was coiled in a spiral and layered around itself—that lay between Vyrsa and Tristan on the bed. She'd pulled it out from the fabric fold between her boobs upon its surprising wake-up call.

Between Netflix binging, acting as a feline servant, and making out with a certain cute alien boy, Vyrsa has completely forgotten about the damn key. Even the reason for her high-stakes heist appeared irrelevant at this point.

Who cared about planetary rivalries anyway?

All she cared about was the safety of the confused earthling beside her, staring at the strobing key, and of the loud cat outside the door, meowing as if her life depended on it. The loud alien signal must have disturbed her dinner.

"Wha-what is that?" Tristan stuttered. The blue sheen reflected on his still bare chest and Vyrsa couldn't help but admire the angles, even in this tense situation.

"A key," she mumbled, trying to make sense of the situation. "I stole it on Coi, right before coming here. That's why I stepped through the portal."

"What does it lock?" he asked.

Vyrsa sighed, not really wanting to face the childish reason for her crimes. "The cage to their champion squids," she admitted, looking down at the sheets. "Our planets are facing off in SquidBowl. It's the biggest event in the universe. My father has been putting all our planet's resources into winning but I feared... it still wouldn't be enough. Coi's team is so strong. So I... sabotaged them by still stealing the key to the sacred squid cage, so they won't be able to compete."

Her cheeks glittered from embarrassment as she said the words. It all seemed so petty in hindsight. Why had she cared so much about a silly game? Enough to stage a plan to lock away their precious squids. Because without the key, which had been heavily guarded, no one would be able to free them in time.

Although, if she hadn't gone to Coi, then she also wouldn't have ended up on Earth. She wouldn't have met Tristan.

And that would have been truly tragic.

"It's a... sports game?" he asked, a baffled look on his pretty face. "You stole this thing because of a sports game and now they're coming toward Earth because of it?" His gaze fell on the device, which was still blinking and beeping relentlessly. "Why is it doing that?" A shade of fear flew across his face. Vyrsa wanted to hold him close, tell him everything would be alright, and that they soon would be able to go back to their fun kissy times.

But she couldn't. Because she didn't know if she would be able to fix this.

"They must have found out I'm here on Earth," she muttered. "Those bastards." The stupid Coians always ruined everything. "This means they must have agents on this planet, even though it's not allowed according to the Union of Intelligent Life. Otherwise, they wouldn't know I'm here."

Tristan shook his adorable curls, seemingly trying to make sense of what she'd just said. "What does that mean?" he asked. "Like for... us, I mean."

Us. The word made it feel like a cloud of warmth embraced her heart. He considered them united with a common cause. United against the pesky Coians.

"It means they're coming here, toward Earth. They must have just entered the solar system, which means they could turn on the tracker function in the key to ascertain its location."

"And what will happen once they come here?" Tristan slumped down on the bed, apparently resigned to not getting to enjoy sexy times.

Vyrsa moved closer to him on the bed, patting his thigh with her hand. The touch wasn't meant to be arousing like before, but instead, she was hoping to comfort.

"They will..." Vyrsa swallowed, realizing the potential fallout of the alien's search for her. "They will locate the key and extract it into their ship. But their extracting device isn't very exact. It just aims for a general area around the located item. Which would mean," she looked up into Tristan's adoring amber-colored eyes, trying to collect the courage to say the next words, "that the whole school, all the buildings, and people, would be sucked into their extraction beam, to be sorted and then discarded."

"Discarded?" he asked with a tremble of fear in his voice. "You mean killed?"

"I don't know," Vyrsa replied, feeling inadequate who couldn't even answer such a crucial question. "I don't know what happens after the scanning is complete."

As they both fell silent, so did the key on the bed. The blinking and beeping stopped just as suddenly as it had started. The only sound filling the room was the incessant meowing from the cat outside.

With a sigh, Tristan got up to let Bobby inside. "I can't think when she's hollering." He sat down on the bed again and Bobby immediately jumped up on his lap, allowing Tristan to caress her silky fur for comfort. Perhaps she'd known he'd needed her assistance in processing the recent news.

Vyrsa also reached out for some feline therapy. She needed to process this as well. Process, and then figure out a plan.

"So why did it suddenly stop?" Tristan nodded toward the key, looking odd with its interstellar luster from metals unknown to this planet against the simple plaid sheets.

"I assume they stopped their trajectory toward Earth to pinpoint the location of the key," Vyrsa explained. "That's how they know where they should descend to extract."

"So the whole university is toast now? It's inevitable?" Tristan's hand movements across Bobby's back sped up.

"Toast?" Vyrsa asked, unsure what slightly burned bread had to do with things.

"Fucked," Tristan explained, pulling his hands through his already tousled hair. "Doomed. Done for. Condemned."

Vyrsa got his point now. But still wasn't sure how bread played into their cursed fate.

"Unless we can communicate another position to the ship, the trajectory is set," she confirmed. "That's how space travel works. You set a course, enter optimal speed, and then press Go. The crew will probably be resting while the ship travels. So unless a message gets through to them, they will arrive here by morning."

Lifting Bobby from his lap—which earned him an insulted look—Tristan walked up to the window, gazing over the campus that would soon be, with his words "toast". "I need to breathe," he explained, unhooking the hook for the window and pushing it slightly ajar to let the cool night air in.

Aching because of the separation between them, Vyrsa rose from the bed as well and went up to Tristan to wrap her arms around him from behind. "There must be something we can do to save people," she assured him. "Some kind of emergency signal can be put out to evacuate the area maybe? We still got time to do something."

He nodded slowly and she sensed his rapid breathing slowing slightly in her embrace. "I should be able to alert campus authorities. Not sure what to tell them though," he muttered. "They'll probably think I'm drunk or high if I claim aliens are attacking. And there will be mass panic. People will be scared and traumatized."

"But they will be saved. We can find a way." She probably sounded more certain than she was. But there had to be a way.

The flowing oxygen from the window cleared her brain as well. What she'd done was so stupid. And she had to put it right. The Coians were dumb and careless. It seemed to not matter to them that a whole university full of people would be collateral damage.

But it mattered to her. Tristan mattered to her, and so did his friends. She needed to save them.

If only she could find the Coian agent that had exposed her location, then maybe...

A flash of something familiar caught her attention outside. Fluffy white fur and a proud stride. Could it really be?

The next moment, a flash of orange darted past her, toward the open window. "Bobby! No!" Tristan yelled as his cat took the opportunity to sneak outside. But before he could prevent the feline escape, Bobby had elegantly jumped from the window sill to the balcony next to them. From there, she continued toward the fire staircase, which would eventually lead her to the ground.

"Fuck! She's run off to get Frances! I've seen her glare at that poodle every night!" Tristan despaired. "I need to go get her before she gets lost! Then we can deal with... everything else."

Frances? Poodle? All Vyrsa could see was a Coian agent in disguise, staring at them menacingly from across the campus.