The boy ran up a long dirt driveway, his destination was the trailer that sat at the end. It was a simple white building, but on the roof there were two satellite dishes pointing opposite directions. There was a third, much larger satellite, on the ground about 15 feet away from the home. A wire from the large satellite ran across the grass and entered the home through a slightly opened window.
As he approached the door with excitement the boy's legs kept moving as he reached for the doorknob. By the time he had turned the knob his body was making contact with the door, so the door swung open with his full weight pushing it.
Inside the trailer was a bit messy. Magazines and newspapers littered the coffee table near a sofa. So many had piled up that when the boy forcefully flung open the door a stack of magazines had tumbled on to the floor.
Behind the sofa was a quark board, and on it were newspaper and magazine clippings. Articles about strange disappearances, alien sightings, and even blurry images of who knows what hung upon the board.
In the corner of the room there was a woman sitting at a desk. She had shoulder-length brown messy hair, green eyes behind a pair of large thick framed black glasses. The woman, wearing a white t-shirt that was 2 sizes too big and loose shorts, looked up from the computer she had been staring at to see the boy closing the door behind him.
"What's the rush, Will?" The woman called out to the boy.
"Did you not see what happened, mom?" Will asked.
The woman was Rosalie Gray, and the boy was her 12 year old son, William Gray.
With a confused expression Rosalie said "See what? You know I do my broadcasts at this time of the night."
Will wasn't the only one with an obsession with the stars, in fact his interest in space had been something he inherited from his mother. She was a staunch believer in extraterrestrials, and spent her life researching, searching, and writing about them.
The reason Rosalie and Will even moved to their current home in Hollowell was because at one point it was the self proclaimed alien capital of the world. Around 70 years ago there were claims of UFOs being spotted in Hollowell, and once it started making national news the local government jumped on the chance they were given. The town was completely rebranded to play up this rumor they were stuck with and became a tourist trap for people interested in the extraterrestrial.
This branding worked in boosting the town's tourism for a while, but once a highway was built nearby tourists stopped passing through. What was once a prosperous town with nearly 10,000 residents had been almost entirely abandoned and less than 2000 people lived in Hollowell today.
"You were so focused on your broadcast that you missed something amazing. While I was out looking through my telescope I saw a bunch of shooting stars, but actually they weren't shooting stars. They came crashing down into the woods by the hill, so I went to investigate. I found a trail from where something fell and I found this!" The boy quickly rattled off his story without taking a breath, and once he was done speaking he held out the egg for his mother to see.
Stunned from her son's story Rosalie sat still for a moment just staring at the large egg in the boy's hands. Once his words set in she jumped out of her chair. She grabbed the egg out of the boy's hands and quickly looked over every inch of it.
"This really fell from the sky? You aren't playing a prank on me are you?" Rosalie's voice was shaking in both excitement and worry. Her son had never played a trick like this on her in the past, and she didn't truly believe he would lie like this, but the situation seemed too good to be true.
Since she was a child she had an obsession with aliens. She was so fascinated with life in space she had dedicated her adult life to it. To finally have something that could prove extraterrestrial life, and to hold it in her hands, was something she was having a hard time accepting.
The boy, with a bright smile on his face, assures his worried mother. "It's true it fell from the sky. A bunch of other things fell into the forest too. This was only the nearest one. I ran back to get you as soon as I found it."
"There are more in the forest?" Rasalie asked?
The boy shook his head yes, and with that Rosalie began moving. She handed the egg back to Will and quickly began grabbing tools and throwing them into a bag. Shovels, brushes, and other things that could be used to dig up anything that might have been buried in the dirt on impact.
Another object she grabbed was a Geiger Counter to check for radiation. When she grabbed the Geiger Counter she realized the egg Will had brought home could potentially be dangerous, but after giving it a scan everything seemed to be fine.
Rosalie threw on a coat, tossed the backpack over her shoulder and hurriedly followed after her son. He was leading the way as if she had no idea how to get to the hill she had been to many times. Excitement of what could be out there was making both of them a bit silly.
Having successfully landed her ship in an open field near where the debris of Respyn's ship crashed, Lura began searching the woods for the two eggs. She wasn't sure they would survive such an impact, but before her comms were shot the operators made it seem like they were quite durable. Even if they were destroyed in the explosion, during the fall to the planet, or upon impact, she needed to confirm they were gone. Their destruction would be the worst outcome, but she refused to return to Kitania saying she had no idea of their whereabouts.
She entered the forest where the debris fell, and made her way towards the nearest impact site. On her descent she had spotted 8 impact zones large enough to be the eggs, and all she could do was go around and search them one by one.
The first spot was nothing but ship remains, the second and third spots were the same. No signs of the eggs or remains of the space pirate.
The fourth spot she checked was the largest of the impact areas, and where she had expected to find the bulk of the ship. It had been farther in the forest than the first three spots she checked, so she figured it would be best to rule out those first three spots as she passed by.
As she had suspected, she found a large section of Respyn's ship. It was heavily damaged, and completely incapable of flight, but still relatively intact for having been shot at and fallen to the surface of a planet. She scoured the remains of the ship, but was unable to find anything inside.
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When she began looking outside, around the ship, she saw a blue liquid. She followed the droplets to what appeared to be a discarded medical tool to seal wounds.
Respyn was alive. This made Lura's search even more difficult. If he had left a trail of blood, tracking him down would be easy, but she had nothing to go on.
Lura's thoughts raced as she tried to figure out her next move. She didn't know if he was still in the forest or not. She didn't even know if he had the eggs she was searching for. The only thing she knew for sure was that the eggs she was searching for weren't here, or in the previous spots she had checked.
After thinking for a moment she decided to search the other crash sites. Her priority wasn't Respyn, it was the heirlooms from her planet. Once she had ruled out that they were at the crash sites, then she would focus on finding Respyn.
The fifth, sixth, and seventh crash sites Lura checked turned up nothing but debris. As she hiked her way through the forest to the final crash site, she heard voices as she approached. Being cautious since she was unaware of what this planet's residents were like, she slowly snuck closer to listen in.
Kitanian's had quickly gained a reputation among their space traveling peers as a species of natural translators. This was because Kitanian's spoke through tone and intonation, and not through words. They projected their thoughts out their mouth, and when it made contact with people's ears they heard their primary language. The reverse was also true. If someone spoke to a Kitanian, it didn't matter what language they were speaking in, the tone of their voice projected the meaning of their words to the Kitanian's.
Lura had hidden herself behind a tree, as close to the people talking as she felt she could get. She was unable to get a clear view of them, but she could tell from some knocked down trees that they were observing the final crash site.
Will and Rosalie had arrived at the hill in record time. When Rosalie looked out at the forest and saw a knocked down tree here and there the reality of the situation finally set in for her. Her last lingering bits of skepticism faded away, and she went into research mode.
She took out a notepad and pen and called out to her son, "Will, come over here for a minute."
Will was eager to run back into the forest behind him, but he approached Rosalie when she called.
"Before we go in and search I want to get a statement from you. Tell me exactly what happened," Rosalie said.
Will got excited to be the subject of an interview. He was familiar with his mother's work, so he had seen interviews she had taken as well as other interviews from the magazines Rosalie had been published in. The idea of being in the magazine excited Will as much as what he had seen tonight.
Will recalled what he saw, as Rosalie took notes. He explained how he thought they were just shooting stars at first, but then they began falling towards him. The entire time Rosalie took notes a big smile grew on her face. By the time Will had finished telling the story, Rosalie had become just as excited as Will.
"Alright, that's enough questions. Let's go investigate," Rosalie said, then hurried towards the forest like a child running to the living room on Christmas morning.
Once they arrived at the spot Will began showing his mother the spot where he found the egg. Rosalie snapped a few photos of the knocked down trees, trail in the dirt, and the location where the egg rested. She also had Will set up the egg next to where it was dug up for a few photos, as well as a photo of Will holding the egg next to the crash site.
"It's hard to believe that this managed to survive such an impact," Rosalie said as she took a photo. "It even tore right through some trees, and there isn't even a dent on it. I wonder what it's made out of."
As Rosalie and Will looked over the egg, they heard some rustling in the forest behind them. When they turned around they saw something they could only dream of.
A woman, about 6 feet tall with brown skin and crimson hair. On the sides of her head two pointed ears poked out of her hair, and on the top of her head were two antennae around 4 inches long. Her eyes were a solid crimson, and had a bumpy texture like a golf ball.
"That egg you are holding. I need you to return it to me," Lura said.
Lura was a soldier. She had been trained on how to give orders to fellow soldiers and civilians if circumstances called for it. Despite that, she had been completely bested by the enthusiasm of two alien fanatics.
She was now sitting on a computer chair in the middle of the Gray household's living room. She had told the two to give her the egg, but those were the only words they allowed her to get out of her mouth. They had bombarded her with questions they didn't allow her to answer, all the while grabbing her by the arm and dragging her away, eventually ending up here.
When Lura made her presence known, she had expected the woman and boy to be more shocked. In the moments she was looking for a place to land her ship she got a look at the town nearby, and from what she saw Lura assumed contact with alien life was something the people on this planet wouldn't even imagine was possible.
What she had failed to consider was that the people investigating the crash sites would not just be normal curious people, but full on alien nuts.
Rosalie and Will chaotically ran around the house preparing for this moment. This was a miracle in their eyes. They thought they had gotten lucky and found some space debris, but now there was an extraterrestrial in their living room.
Large lights were set up around Lura, a video camera set off to the side, and finally Rosalie pulled up a kitchen chair and sat across from Lura. She was wearing a button up shirt and suit jacket, with athletic shorts, and a tinfoil hat adorning her head.
Will was behind the camera, also wearing a tinfoil hat.
Looking at Will, Rosalie asked, "does everything look good?"
"Everything is all set, mom."
"Good, make sure the camera is aimed high enough so you can't see my pants."
Will slightly adjusted the camera, and gave his mother a thumbs up. With that Rosalie turned her attention toward Lura.
"Could you please tell us your name, where you're from, and what has brought you to Earth?" Rosalie asked the confused alien in front of her.
"My name is Lura Farjor-Grekian. I'm a pilot from the planet Kitania, and I arrived on this planet after chasing a criminal here," Lura answered.
"A space criminal!" Rosalie said in excitement. "What kind of crimes did he commit?"
"He stole a precious piece of my planet's history. The egg you and the child found," Lura explained, hoping this would end with them returning the egg to her.
"An egg? That thing is an egg? What kind of egg?" Rosalie asked.
"It was a monstrous creature who fought alongside a historical figure from my country. They are basically Immortal, and in death they revert back into an egg. They only hatch after skin contact is made, and a contract between the monster and the master is formed."
After explaining how the eggs functioned Lura's eyes went wide. She looked at the hands of Rosalie who sat in front of her. Then, she snapped her neck to the side to check Will's hands.
The realization set in and now Lura began asking questions in a slight panic. "Neither of you touched the egg with your bare hands, did you? You wore some kind of gloves when you held it, right?"
Before Will or Rosalie had a chance to answer a cracking sound could be heard from the other side of the room. Will, Rosalie, and Lura all turned in the direction of the cracking noise. They saw the egg wriggling, with a small hole in the shell, and an eye from inside peering out from the hole.