The journey to the Rocky Mountains was not fun, it was late summer, and the days were hot, and the nights were cold. It was the old-fashioned wilderness life. I realized that perhaps my life as an exile in my own homeland was not going to be fun in any way. As I drove the little electric four-wheeler, I had to recall that I was lucky, I thought of the past events over and over in my head.

‘Remember Max it's either this ruff life on the run or certain death. Besides, you are running to a hidden sanctuary not constantly on the run which is what would have been the case if it hadn’t been for Grandpa Jack. You are lucky Max, now say it to yourself.’

“I am lucky… I am lucky.” I said to myself.

I wipe away the sweat that runs down my forehead with the palms of my hands. The sun blazes down on me, and I was wishing that there was a roof on this four-wheeler. I gazed at the mounted director tablet on the dashboard, the dials were steady, and I took another swig from the jug of water resting on the passenger side. I bounced and roiled in the driver’s seat as I slowly made progress.

I drove for days across the plains as the mountains loomed and passed me by, it was a desolate place I was in. I saw rusted remnants of the time before the Great Energy Crisis, I drove over cracked and broken roads, past small ghost towns, abandoned rural farms with dilapidated houses, barns, storage complexes, and grain silos. Rusted gas-powered farm vehicles littered the plains that were unattended for perhaps a decade at least.

I saw no one, absolutely no one. Except for animals, there were a lot of cows roaming the plains and other beasties… like you know… wolves. The first time I heard the howling in the night during my first few days out here I suddenly realized that there had been a planning shortfall. No weapons.

How could those black-market transportation guys have not thought of that? Well, maybe it was the luxury of modern life where no one had the feeling that their lives would be threatened by wildlife. I did have a field knife and a hatchet but that would be no good in a confrontation with wolves. Packs of wolves, coyotes, and bears, yeah, oh my!

I used the hatchet and knife to fashion a long wooden pole with a pointy end to ward off hostile wildlife but afterward, I felt that it was a pointless effort. I decided it was better to have it than not have it. God! This sucked.

Later that night I decided to build a fire and stay warm, even though I could attract attention. I wasn’t too worried. There was no one out here except me. I made camp on a small hill beside a mountain that overlooked a valley below. The mountain arose next to the hill, it towered above, a monolith made by nature.

After eating a bland meal, I relieved myself and used dry grass as toilet paper. After that unpleasant need was completed, I settled close to the campfire to warm up. The smoke of the fire masked the ever-present stench that radiated from my body. I had clothes packed in the backpack, but I was not going to change them until I had the opportunity to wash up when I came across the water, a stream, hopefully. I sniffed my pits, and yep! I was ripe as rotten eggs doused in vinegar.

I faced the valley as the fire crackled and hissed, I looked at the valley to see a very sad sight. The valley held a long line of wind turbines that had been built a few years before the shit hit the fan.

Heh.

I smiled to myself but my smile faded slowly with the last rays of sunlight. The wind turbines became ghostly shades illuminated by the moonlight. I felt the sense of humanity’s lost promised future.

I was too young to remember those days of spaceflight, gasoline stations, a vast interconnected network of international trade routes, massive jets that could transport people across the globe and so much more that had been lost.

Memories vividly returned to me.

I grew up during the first years of the Great Energy Crisis.

My parents drove all over the place, but I realized when I was older, that my parents had been homeless, and they were desperate. I could only barely remember my parent’s faces. They always looked sad, and my mother was constantly crying.

It was late evening and I remembered when my mother ushered me out of the car, placing an envelope in my coat’s front pocket, and then my father made me stand at a doorstep of a small house. My father knocked on the door sharply, he dashed to his car and drove off with my mother. I only stood there watching the car speed away. The door opened and I turned to look up at the old man who stood in the doorway. His eyes were wide and he glanced around looking for who left me there.

I was alone and I was only five years old.

Grandpa Jack had no relation to my parents, I was simply abandoned at the nearest doorstep with a letter pleading to whoever lived there to take care of me. A doorstep that looked like it was friendly enough to care for a child that was no longer wanted.

The old man picked me up and carried me into his home. As I sat at his dining room table eating a bowl of warm mush. I saw his face fall in slow realization as he read the letter my parents placed in my pocket. I was too innocent at the time to fully understand why his eyes were spilling with tears. I remember hopping off the chair and rushing over to hug one of his legs. I think I said:

“Don’t cry!”

He did cry and he introduced himself.

“I am your Grandpa Jack. What’s your name little one?”

“Max.”

“Welcome to your new home Max. Now let’s get you washed up and ready for bed.”

“Kay.”

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The silhouettes of the turbines gleamed in the moonlight looking like giants that overwatched the valley, making it safe. All was still as memories flooded into my mind like a tsunami.

I lay down onto the hardened earth, the campfire crackled, and before I closed my damp eyes I whispered to the night:

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

I fall into a dreamless sleep.

The peaceful night was shattered with a roaring crackling sonic boom and a thunderous crash that rumbled the earth. I leapt up from my thoroughly disturbed slumber, clutching up my makeshift spear, I yelled incoherently. Looking around me I saw the valley lit up with the light of something striking the valley below me.

That is not what I see that grips me with terror. A wall of erupted earth and shards of wind turbines has been launched toward me. I scream as I dive to the ground, covering my head with my hands and I am showered with piles of dry dirt.

The world is a series of sounds. Crashes, thumps, clanging, and the ground around me is pelted with layers of dirt. Eventually, the only thing I hear is the sounds of my campfire hissing and sputtering from the shower of earth. I look up slowly. Stunned from the suddenness of it all.

I slowly stand up pressing my hands across my body to feel if anything was broken or cut. Nothing hurt, I was fine, but the valley wasn’t.

The turbines had been obliterated by something that fell from the sky. A large smoking crater greeted my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. Something had struck the Earth.

Had it been a meteor? No, it couldn’t have been that. I and half of the state would have been vaporized if that had been a meteor striking the Earth. There it was… a crater, fifty meters wide at least and from within the crater beamed an unearthly light.

I stared for long moments as the stillness of the night returned and the dust settled. The light was a green hue that pulsed violent beams of light. A normal person would have run away but… something gripped me. That light…

I was… suddenly… curious.

Immensely curious.

‘What is that light. Strange… what could make that light?’

And my curiosity grew with each moment as I gazed at the pulsing green light.

‘I’m going to look at it.’

Compulsively, I tossed my spear to the ground and walked away from the camp and toward the green light. I couldn’t stop looking at it. It was so beautiful and strange. I wanted to know what it was. It could be something wonderful.

I walked forward and I reached the edge of the crater and I gazed down at a sight I could not comprehend but instantly recognized. A…

“…UFO…” I said to myself.

A disk-shaped object, it was big, and it had mostly buried itself into the earth when it had crashed. It looked intact except for one section at its top. A blackened gash lanced that one side. The entire… UFO pulsed with the green light.

“A UFO… an honest from space to Earth… UFO.” I said.

Compulsively I smiled in excitement… this was wonderful… amazing… a UFO!

Beside myself, with excitement, I scampered down the slight slope to the UFO. It was the size of a double-decker bus, maybe slightly larger. I took in the sight with breathless urges to get closer to it. My emotions are raw with childish glee. I laughed feeling young again for some reason.

The UFO opened when I was at an arm’s length away from it, just like that. One moment the surface of the UFO gleamed with slick pulsing green light, then in the next moment a quarter section of the top slipped off. The green light vanished, replaced with a gentle wave of blue lights. The top clattered to the ground. I stopped stock still as saw the… the…

Pilot.

The alien pilot.

I stared and I realized where I was and what I was doing. More I suddenly realized that something had me. I was no longer in control of my own body. I couldn’t speak… couldn’t move… I couldn’t do anything except standing there and gaze at the alien that moved within the cockpit of the otherworldly spacecraft. The pilot sat up. Its spindly arms pushed itself up flinching as it arose.

I saw its body, a sleek alien body dressed in a black jumpsuit that looked like shimmering silk. The stars and moon reflected from the surface of the jumpsuit. It sat there in the cockpit looking me up and down. Its head was the size of a human’s head, it had no hair. Its arms and legs were longer than a human’s limbs. Its face had a nose that was upturned with a fleshy hooked tip and wide two eyes met mine and it spoke to me. The alien had no mouth.

“I see that the light compulsion worked… may the Greater forgive me.” Said the alien.

I just stood there unable to move or speak or do anything. Why wasn’t my body moving? Why can’t I run away? What is happening to me? Oh God!

“I must… beg for your forgiveness. Fore, I have committed the greatest crime in the universe. What I am doing to you… is the vilest thing that can be done to a fellow sapient. Please know that I had no other option.”

The alien raised one of its limbs. Its three-fingered hand beckoned to me in a familiar way, a human way. My body moved as if I was approaching someone while walking along the street, I casually walked up to the edge of the cockpit. I could not break eye contact with the alien. I saw up close that the aliens’ eyes had swirling colors of bright browns, the slender oval orbs gazed into my own eyes. A warm three-fingered hand presses to the back of my head.

“You will hate me for this. It must be done… I have no other option.” The alien whispered to me.

The alien suddenly grasps me violently and its hand presses into my chest, its hand literally sinks into my chest! I scream in shock. Then as quickly as it happened the hand is withdrawn. It is drenched in my blood. I fall to the ground stunned.

I look down at my chest and there is no wound. I look back up at the alien, its wide eyes shining with regret. A moment of silence stretches between us and then…

“Flee.” The alien said softly to me.

“Danger.” The alien said.

Fear wildly flares into my mind. Fear… I must run away from this place. Hide.

“They are coming… the enemy… flee!” Shouted the alien, its eyes wider.

I stumble back and fall to the ground as adrenaline roars numbly through my veins, my heart thunders in my chest. My lungs flood with air as I gasp from the blinding terror that grips me.

Flee, danger, the enemy… they are coming.

“Flee!” The alien shouted.

I leap to my feet, turning away from the alien who shouts from behind me as I run up the slope of the crater.

“They are coming! Run!”

I ran.

The alien leaned back onto the seat of the cockpit. A grimace of pain contorted its features. The alien stared up into the starry sky. In an alien language it spoke:

“Good luck, human. May the Greater guard you.”

Then in a bright flash of light, the slender alien’s body was irradiated and disintegrated into a pile of blackened smoking ash, it sizzles and spreads across the cockpit. The flashing lights of the spacecraft winked out and darkness claimed its gleaming surface. The only light that came from it now was the reflection of the stars and moon that shined down above it.

The ash was gently blown away by the wind.