SKYLIGHT

Random idea...really.

I own nothing...blahdy, blahdy, blah.

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...There was something different here.

Very very different.

Mal's brows furrowed as he tried to place what it was.

Supper.

Everyone's here, except for River.

She was sleeping.

No morbid nutty talk during dinner tonight.

That must be it.

No, it's not.

"Does anyone else notice something a bit...off?"

"No moonbrained gabber?" "River's missing." "River?" "We knew what we were eating tonight?" "My sister's in her room." "Not as much flavor." "You?"

Came the chorus of replies.

Mal just shook his head at all of them and resumed eating.

For all of fifteen mintues he ate in annoyingly perturbed silence, the sound of mismatched tablewear clanking together the only thing pulling at the silence.

But that was all that it interrupted.

He took a drink out of his small metal cup.

His shiny metal cup.

Hey, it had too look nice didn't it? Drinking was something one did with your eyes closed. Mal made the mistake of cracking his eyes open a bit toward the celing.

What used to be the celing.

Now it was just a mess of pipes and other exposed wiring.

And he was finding out what drowning felt like.

What a strange gurgling noise it produced.

All but throwing the cup across the table, he brought his face down quickly, spraying his drink out of his nose and mouth all over his plate of food and the table cloth.

As soon as all the alien liquid was dispelled from where it wasn't supposed to go, he looked up once more, staring at the gigantic hole in the celing.

In his dining room.

On his boat.

Another chorus, but one of denial filled the room.

Silenced when he held his hand up.

Which was pushed down as River walked by him.

She sat down at her normal seat at the dining room table, looking up to where everyone was looking before.

Now they were all looking at her.

"The celing was crushing us. So I made a skylight."