A star falls in a family's backyard. Only it's not a star but a very friendly alien.
"Michael, do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Michael says, removing his headphones and looking at me with the disdain only a brother can have for a sister. "Oh. Shit. That's loud!"
We both get up from our respective spots in the living room and run to the window at the front of the house, flinging open the curtains that we keep closed all the time so our yappy dog can't look outside to find more things to yap yap yap yap about.
"Ummm. Are...we about to die?" I ask Michael, partly serious, partly joking because why would a meteor be flying towards us right now? There has to be a logical explanation!
"It's so bright...is it a meteor? Is it...is it coming right at us?!" Michael asks me, getting louder and near yelling by the end of his speaking. Locking eyes, we run to the front door, swinging it open and running on to the front porch.
It is blindingly bright and it really, truly, seems to be barreling directly towards us. "Mikey, I really think we need to go into the basement. Like now!" I grab his arm and start pulling him and he reluctantly follows me into the house, slamming the front door behind him as we run to the basement stairs.
As we reach the basement, I hear a scratch at the basement door. "Shit. Frida!"Just as quickly as I realized I had left our poor dog up in the living room, we hear a thunderous crash. I breathe in sharply and stare at Michael's wide eyes, then immediately run back up the stairs. Throwing the door open, I see Frida is cowering under one of the kitchen bar stools, but as soon as she sees me she gallops towards me, whining.
"It's okay, girl. I've got you...shhhh." I say, rubbing Frida's head and scratching behind her ears
"Shit. Laurel? You've got to see this."
Michael is already out on the front porch, but all I can see is his silhouette. In front of him is our front yard, usually a perfectly manicured lawn with rose bushes along the eastern side and my mom's prize winning vegetable garden on the west, but all I can see is a ball, bright white, pulsating, with a perfect dent below it where it had landed.
Before I can speak to Michael, the ball dims, and begins to change shape. First it grows, gaining height more than width, then getting a little more square on top. Michael and I are silently staring at the glowing...thing in front of us. As it continues to pulsate, the light continues to dim, and soon the shape can only be described as humanoid.
"Is...it can't be. Can it?" I whisper, inching closer to Michael but fearful of being too loud or moving quickly.
Before he can answer, the humanoid figure continues morphing, growing two lower limbs, and what must be an eye at the top of its slightly rounded but square head. The eye looks at us, then looks around in a big circle, and the pulsing light appears to finally stop, revealing a light blue iridescent color. It has two legs, two arms, a middle round section, and a mostly square head with one single eye.
It lifts an arm and waves at us, revealing a mouth in addition to three fingers on each hand. "Hi," it says.
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