Timeline: Present
Point of View: Claudia & Ralph
Location: Earth (Ralph’s Apartment)
Claudia and Ralph watched the television from the couch of Ralph’s apartment, but only one of them was shocked by what he was seeing. On Ralph’s lap was an open computer that had long since been forgotten. They’re mission to find others like them, others that had been to the red planet, hadn’t gotten very far. A news alert had flashed across Ralph’s phone, the title of which resulted in him turning on the television.
The images were surreal, something not meant for their generally peaceful blue planet. At least, peaceful during Ralph and Claudia’s lifetimes. There was war and death, but those kinds of things were typically small and isolated, far away from anything even remotely close to home. Weapons for Ralph and Claudia were considered an optional asset for use as a hobby, not a necessity for survival.
The video they were watching now was an overhead shot filmed from inside a helicopter hovering a few hundred feet from ground. Mobile homes dotted the streets in an orderly fashion, and they could see maybe thirty to forty in the single shot. There were barricades put up on both ends of the street, and there were police officers scattered in between them, their cars on the edges of the screen flashing blues and reds.
On the ground was a blackish-blue pool of what they were saying was blood from an apparently extraterrestrial creature, but they were unclear on how the creature had arrived at the trailer park. A middle-aged woman named Jaquelin had already given an interview, saying she’d seen the creature in the streets and quickly called 911 to investigate. She was just shocked, she explained, to have learned that her neighbor, that odd and reserved man Irving and the poor little boy Preston next door had both been killed. She hadn’t a clue that anyone had died when she’d dialed the police, and had only called when she’d heard loud noises outside.
Claudia had the sense that the woman was lying (as someone that also liked to curate fictional stories and pass them as real events, she was quick to pick up on the signs, the exaggerated story lines to establish a back story, etc. etc.), but she wasn’t really sure why the woman would lie. She couldn’t tell if the woman was hiding something, or was just trying to maintain her image as the classy neighbor stuck amongst hooligans, just a normal person dealing with weirdos.
The reported story was that after the woman had called the cops, the creature had roamed to yet a third mobile home that was luckily in-between on tenants. The two police offers that arrived on scene quickly called for backup once spotting the monster, which had also been shared in the news report earlier that day. There was no video, but the audio clip of the encounter had been played at least once every hour.
----------------------------------------
> “Pull around here, this is hers," said the voice of an older officer, deep and hoarse, the voice of a smoker.
>
> “Yeah, this one here, right?” Came the second, younger female voice of the apparent driver. “She said someone was disturbing her neighbor. Should we continue around?”
>
> “Just pull around slow. Turn on the brights.”
>
> “Won’t that scare them off?”
>
> “They’re probably long gone. Beep-ers see the lights and scatter like mice.” The news station had censored many of the older officer’s speech throughout the recording.
>
> “Wait, do you see that?” The younger officer asked, lowering her voice.
>
> “I don’t see jack beep. Where are you looking.”
>
> “Second house down on the right. A shadow in between the houses shifted.”
>
> “Seriously, a beep-in shadow?” The condescending tone of the officer was thick. It was the voice of someone who considered everyone beneath him.
>
> The other officer didn’t respond.
>
> “Alright, just carry on. Go slow, keep the brights on. Get ready to jump out.” There were clicks in the recording, which the station kindly noted was the removal of seat belts. Doors creaked open.
>
> A few seconds passed. “Holy beep,” came a distant voice.
>
> “Beep. Beep mother beep.”
>
> There was the sound of scurrying and thumping, doors slamming. The male officer began to yell, “Backup, backup. God-beep it backup faster. Floor it!”
>
> “I am, stop yelling or I’ll crash.”
>
> “Beep in’ go faster!” There was radio static on the other end, which the station indicated had been the officer lifting the radio transmitter to reach back out to dispatch. “Code 10-33 give me the patch!”
>
> Static as the response comes back. “10-33 understood, you have the…”
>
> “All units, we need backup. We need heavy firepower. Park Manor, house number… 913. We’re under attack by… something taller than a God-beep house! It’s…”
----------------------------------------
The audio had cut out. The events that played out next had been pieced together across several new stations over an hours time. At the time the audio cut out, the creature had leapt onto the car, crushing the hood and immediately killing the vehicle’s engine. With the vehicle stalled, the creature broke through the windshield and ripped Officer Mackey, the older man, from the passenger’s seat and (viewer discretion advised) ripped him in half.
Officer Jasmine, the driver, stepped out of the vehicle and removed her weapon from its holster. She knelt behind her open door (which offered zero protection, but was still in line with her training) and fired upon the body of the creature. The creature jumped from the hood, slammed the door into Jasmine’s body (inadvertently knocking the weapon from her hand), and then opened the door again. Jasmine, bruised and in shock from the impact, began to slouch forward. The creature then jammed its hands into her chest and split her body clean open in one swift motion.
It was unclear how these details had been found, but there were numerous leaks from trusted sources due to the nationwide interest.
Three more officers would be killed that night in the ensuing battle at Park Manor, but eventually the creature would be felled. When it was, reports stated that it had seemed to dissolve into a puddle over the course of an hour. Not a puddle of liquid, but a puddle of eyeballs, each attached to some kind of fleshy hub, a little meat-sack only slightly more firm than jello. News helicopters had obtained hours of footage before the government fenced off the area and dropped a tent over the remains of the creature as it was studied.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
The videos captured of the event had been replayed all day across all news stations, as anchor men and women discussed various theories about what it was and where it came from. Most seemed to agree that it was the first true sighting of extraterrestrial life, caught on reliable camera for the first time.
There was one man that denied the creature existed, claiming that CGI had gotten too good to be trusted. The conversation with this man, Brett Rystad of Wisconsin, went on long rants about the deep fakes coming out of Russia. The on air discussion quickly became political, with Brett making the claim that this was another attempt by Russia to cause disarray in the States. His co-anchor tried to explain that there were multiple on-screen witnesses, with multiple different news stations capturing the event, but Brett waived it away claiming it was all an elaborate ruse. “Open your eyes, they’re distracting us from something!” He’d said before being taken off the air.
There was another man, this one having called into a tip hotline claiming that he’d known Irving. “Irving was a weird son of a bitch,” Travis Hall explained, a sharp twang in his voice that indicated he was from the deep south. “He liked to run experiments in that house of his. He was selling meth, too, but also doing experiments. He’d mix chemicals and pour them on rats (pronounced ‘r-eh-ts’) and squirrels (pronounced ‘sck-war-els’) and see if he could get them to grow.” It only took thirty minutes to prove this was all a lie. The first clue was that Travis proudly proclaimed that he was from Tennessee and had lived there his entire life. Irving and Park Manor, as everyone in the US now knew, were in Colorado. The second clue was from another caller into the tip line, a Lisa Hall, apologizing for her drunk ass of a husband abusing the tip lines.
The helicopters had since left the scene, but the reporters remained on the outskirts of Park Manor trailer park. Between the replays of the video footage from earlier in the day there would be brief five minute updates where reporters said, in as many words as they could manage, that there were no updates to report.
----------------------------------------
“Do you recognize the creature?” Ralph asked Claudia from the edge of his seat as they stared at repeat footage from early on in the night.
Claudia quietly shook her head as she watched. She didn’t know what the creature was because, in truth, she’d only ever witnessed the minotaurs.
She’d heard about the other creatures on the planet, knew their back story from what Lisa had been able to share, but hearing of something and seeing something first hand were very different things. She suspected that, if this creature were from the red planet, it might be one of the giants given the thing’s size.
“It’s gotta be from over there,” Ralph said to himself, staring again at the replayed image of the dead puddle on the television screen. “What else could it be?”
Claudia agreed with Ralph. It was all connected somehow. She wondered how the creatures had finally learned to shift into their world. Had it happened unexpectedly, like it seemed to happen to humans? Would the creatures now begin phasing into the world unexpectedly? For some reason she didn’t think this likely either. Something else had to have happened, some event that finally caused the turn of the page. One of the creatures had learned how to tap into the human gateways.
She thought again of the minotaur village. Had the giants, too, been hoarding magnets? Had they somehow unlocked the code before the minotaurs did? For some reason that didn’t seem right either. As far as she was aware, only the minotaurs had been aware of humans existing. The rest of the races had continued their war with each other, fighting for the dwindling resources of the planet. But could she truly know that as fact? The only knowledge she had was the verbal report that had been shared by Lisa. That knowledge wasn’t infallible, of course.
“I’m going to check Reddit,” Ralph said suddenly, returning to his laptop. “I bet that’s where they’d all go.”
Claudia was torn from her thoughts at Ralph’s announcement. For some reason she found herself a little annoyed by him, as if he were an inconsequential player in a large game that would soon play out, a literal War of the Worlds. But, remembering Lisa, she caught herself. All humans, all magnets, were important to what was about to come next.
“What do you mean?” She asked as kindly as she could.
“I think that’s where they’ll go,” Ralph said, looking up from his computer. “You know, the people like us. I think that might be where they go because that’s where people go to knowledge share. Old people scroll Facebook. Children go to Youtube and watch random videos. Everyone else on the internet? We dump everything we know into Reddit communities. These tip lines? I don’t think anyone is gonna call into those and say ‘hey, I’ve been to another planet’. I just don’t see anyone doing that. I see them going about it a bit more discretely, trying to filter through the noise and quietly find others that might believe their crazy story.”
Claudia was nodding her head, impressed by Ralph’s line of thought. “It’s a good idea,” she said. “Let me know what you find.” Ralph obliged as his fingers clacked away at his laptop. As for Claudia, her eyes, as they’d been all day, remained glued to the television looking for clues. She flipped channels through the different new stations, seeking updates and new perspectives, but it seemed that after the first couple hours of an event, everything that had followed was just repetition to hold viewers.
She flipped channels until she found one that was still live on scene. A tall and lean reporter with blond hair was standing far off from the blockaded area and was the only person visible. She wasn’t saying anything into the camera, instead standing off to the side talking to someone unseen. A ticker rolled through the bottom of the screen.
----------------------------------------
> …station has chosen to remain live on-site. We’re still not allowed to proceed beyond this line, with national guard soldiers walking the perimeter and requesting we stay back. Anyone who has been caught beyond the perimeter has been taken to a holding cell with trespassing charges and no bail until further notice. We haven’t heard or seen anything from beyond…
----------------------------------------
Claudia stood from the couch to use the restroom. Ralph said nothing as she left the room, still clacking away at the key board. She entered the restroom, shut the door, and sat on the toilet. She sat there for longer than it took to relieve herself, thinking about what was to come. She lifted her hands from her knees and found that they were shaking. It wasn’t low blood sugar causing those shakes. She knew what was around the corner, what they were all waiting for, even if most people didn’t.
She wasn’t scared. She was excited. Her moment was here. Was she ready?
“Claudia!” Ralph yelled from the other room.
“What?” She yelled back as she washed her hands. She opened the door.
“I think I might have found something.”
She approached, leaning over the back of the couch to stare at the screen.
“Most of the newest posts and subreddits seem to be normal people guessing about what the creatures are, and there are the weirdos posting conspiracies. But I found this one. Come here.”
----------------------------------------
> Seeking Other Red Planet Visitors
>
> I’ve seen the red planet. I’ve seen the two orbiting stars. I’ve seen the giant centipede creatures with rows of teeth. If you have too, please private message me. I’d like to talk about what you know, to share information. If you don’t know what I’m talking about (and for God sakes, it’s not Mars), please don’t waste my time. I know there are others out there and I want to connect, especially given what’s happening in Colorado. Those with the gift need to join forces and prepare.
>
> Edit: I’m already receiving messages from trolls, but I’ve connected with a few people already. To help us accurately read through the noise, please be detailed with what you know. If I believe you, I will respond. If I don’t... You won’t know.
----------------------------------------
“It looks promising,” Claudia said.
“It does, doesn’t it? It’s not specific, but red planet with two stars…” Ralph trailed off and Claudia was nodding her head.
There was a burst of noise on screen, and they both looked up. There were screams from within the tent, and gun fire. The reporter faced the camera and adjusted a hidden ear piece. She seemed startled and flustered.
“Good afternoon,” she spoke, her voice wavering slightly before it took on a more professional and practiced tone, “The tent, for the most part, has been silent all day. However, just now we’re hearing screams and gun fire from inside. We’ve been given no word as to what’s the cause of this, but…”
She trailed off as a man in uniform ran out from the tent. He left the zipper flap open as he ran.
“Go!” The man screamed, “Get the fuck out of here!”
“What is happening in there?” The reporter asked as the man quickly approached, “Are we free to go in now?”
The man didn’t stop running and was now off screen. The gun fire from inside seemed to be slowing, as if there were less guns firing. The reporter was looking off camera to someone at her side. She’d turned off the microphone so it was unclear what she was saying, but Claudia guessed she’d said something to the effect of What should we do now?
More men were running from the tent, running backwards, guns still aimed high inside the tent as they stumbled out. The reporter too began to run away, and the camera began moving backwards, still on.
Just before the camera dropped to the ground and turned off, a hand built with eyes broke through the canvas and began to tear down, down, down, until the door was just big enough for the creature, the creatures, to step through.
“Ralph”, Claudia said as they watched in horror.
“Yeah?”
“I need to show you something.”