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Prologue

The midsummer night breeze was warm and soft on my skin. The stars shone bright overhead, mirrored ghastly by the wind turbines in our yard, which, paired with the sounds of crickets, the rustling grass, and my brother’s slowing breathing, were all I could hear. The night was beautiful, even as my brother’s lips turned blue, as the warmth left his fingertips, and as he breathed his last breath. Blood oozed through the burned and mutilated skin on his stomach, and acid poured from the gaping hole in his chest, illuminating his clothes, skin, and my hands as I pressed against his stomach.

I could’ve remembered the feeling of the tears rolling down my cheeks as our assailants dragged me away. Unnamed, unseen, and unbelieved, their grips were like that of a machine, and they had metal clothes to match. I heard my father’s shotgun cock as he screamed incomprehensibly, heard it fire a round of solid lead into the air, and heard it ping lightly and pointlessly against the armor my captors were clad in. My mother’s voice rang across the yard, and then I felt the grass turn to metal beneath my feet.

Everything was suddenly brought into view, the small home I’d lived in for the past five years, the entire farm, the rolling hills of eastern Washington, and the large, metal craft I was being dragged onto against my will. Bright, white lights illuminated a smooth ramp as I was hauled up onto a structure beyond the likes of my comprehension, and a loud, high pitched ringing sound entered my ears. I hadn’t ever heard sounds like that in my short life, and suddenly I felt a sharp pain in the side of my head, right as I finally beheld my captor in good light.

I saw through the shiny, glass visor on his helmet, into the dark murk of his headwear, and found there the head of a creature who has no name. His face was like mine or yours, but without hair or ears. His skin was a deep violet, with hints of blue and sea green, and was clearly leathery and tight against the muscle and bone in his face. The bridge of his nose transformed into a sprawling mass of wriggling tendrils covering his mouth, and his eyes were a bright pink and magenta.

If I’d been able to see his mouth I would’ve sworn he was smiling, but for that I’d need to be able to remember that day. When the butt of his gun hit my head, everything went black, and the only word that I remember from that day was the only word that I could use to describe my captor, and that so beautifully explains the entire scene:

“Alien”