The desert outpost was a cold place, surrounded by the blinding white sands of the north. 

Unless otherwise accustomed like me, these sands would often request you wear some glasses every time you go outside. But I preferred the inside, where less of it got in my eyes and under my skin. If I wasn’t careful on my irresponsible ventures outside lacking a jacket, the grains would dig inside and produce air bubbles all across my arms. I could watch them dissolve or float to the top of the blue surface all day, but there was work that I was paid to do instead. Or at least, there was.

The now automated signal posts didn’t mind if I wore glasses or not, or if I was the one to manually clean them. We had drones for that now, been that way for at least a few years. Sometimes I’d watch the cameras view the dusty little workers, cleaning signal interceptors that never seemed to spy a thing. And with the news, my guess is that they never will.

Yesterday they announced a landing near my hometown. I watched it on the screen as the mug burned against my palms and fingertips this morning. I bought this at the alien themed gas station across the street from where it landed. We both have this isolated comradery now, I guess. 

I was too busy to watch the rest of the broadcast. Too busy making tea. Too busy dusting shelves. Too busy closing computers and closing my eyes for some occasional rest. It wouldn’t be long until I was back home, in a place likely permanently transformed by this being's sudden presence.

I enjoyed life here. An expanse of white offered more than just an excuse to watch the stars. It offered little entertainment for wanderers, less of a reason for homeseekers to pitch up a camp and stay. I had no fires to watch for, no neighbors to worry on, no voices to respond to. In the white little center of my home, not even the company of ghosts disturbed my silence. My ears, and by extension my entire body, stayed at a lackadaisical peace in and out of consciousness for many years.

Placing the cooling mug on my nightstand for the third time, I lay that night staring at a mostly featureless ceiling, watching the patterns of light from my window pace back and forth. The helicopters had been like this for hours. Apparently someone’s kid had gone missing in the next few towns over. And apparently, they still thought it might be alive somewhere in this blinding little wasteland home of mine. I sat up. More tea.

There was no sleeping tonight. Not with the shuddering walls from my sea of sand creaking all around the station. It wasn’t much of my choice anyway. I sat on the couch and listened to the news, breathing in hot air, letting the mug burn my hands until they similarly began to boil.

A knock at my door.

At first I thought I imagined it until it happened again. It wasn’t heavy, so it wasn’t the police. I opened the door with my mug in the other hand, staring at a short child with soaked skin, clothes, black hair, and two tiny eyes that stared up at me blankly, like a doll. Like an animal. It wasn’t perfect.

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“What in the world are you doing here?”

I bent down to examine him.

“You’ll scare someone, transformed like that,” I said, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. The water on his clothes quickly seeped into my palm, spouting air bubbles that floated and popped on the back of my hand. He giggled at it, and I began laughing as well. I used to transform into a human in order to hide from my parents too. No one believes you when you say you’ve seen a human run down your street. But if this kid was out here, it must be something more serious.

“Are you hurt? You don’t have to stay like that in front of me.”

He shook his head.

“Those helicopters,” I motioned outside, “For you?”

He looked at me, brushing his hair out of his eyes to give a small smile. And he nodded.

I took a deep breath. This could work. It wasn’t like they believed he was really here anyway. By now they just wanted the body. Not finding one tonight would suspend the search, likely indefinitely. The kid seemed relieved now, his expression more open. I told him he could use my shower, and before I could come back with a new dust bar, he had left his clothes sitting in a dismal wet pile outside the closed bathroom. My mug was cold again, so I went for another cup once I heard him turn it on.

Poor kid. I don’t know how in the world he was soaked after running through the desert for that long, but whatever he went through must have been stern enough to send him as fast as he could manage. The only way you could get here from the nearest town was to drive all afternoon, and the helicopters only started coming here after sunset. He must have run all day since this morning.

Suddenly my hand flinched from pain and I realized the tea was overflowing. I sat the mug down and shook my hand back, flicking the tea out and onto the counter. Some of my blue slime landed with it too, bubbling then mixing with the stuff until it vanished completely. Kid was lucky he had put clothes on to help make that human getup more impressive, or they might of not absorbed as much. The dust bath would help.

I sat down at the couch again, enjoying the now lulling sounds of the muted shower and distant choppers humming in my ears. Eventually, I opened my eyes and realized I now housed a guest. I couldn’t be rude. Hoisting myself up and taking another burning sip, I passed by the bathroom door and gathered the tiny pile of clothes to throw them in the washer.

The helicopter’s droning finally faded. A washing machine could probably replicate that noise. I was just about to throw the load inside when I heard the door open and close softly. I squeezed the shirt I was holding to wring it out. Blue gel seeped like honey.

“Would you like a cup of tea? I’m about to make another mug.” I asked him.

Then I felt his hand press against my back, tapping. I turned, but then realized his hand had slipped effortlessly through me. It gripped something, tight, tighter than I held the shirt, firm. Then it yanked. I felt myself collapse with the full weight of clothes in my hands, seeing the boy above me with a white towel on. He held a blue mass of pulsing liquid in his hands, happily. 

His clothes, they writhed, and I felt what was in them meld with my melting hands. They were screaming, wriggling like desperate slugs, violently pulsing, screaming, louder sounds than I had heard in a long time, like spikes in my head, more intrusive than what had just effortlessly pulled out my heart. Oh my god shut the fuck up, shut the fuck UP PLEASE

The child dropped the heart in front of my face. It wasn’t moving. It only slightly quivered upon hitting the tile of the floor.

“Yours isn’t much fun.”

He walked away, leaving me here with these screaming hammering hearts until they beat and struggled no more. I felt my eyes and insides melting against the floor, cold, the mug shattered, the tea burning.

I saw my own heart begin to thump, alive again. It hammered, excited, excited, ecstatic, alive.

I finally did it. I found one.