I'm Not From Earth - 28. Twenty Eight

t w e n t y e i g h t

At first, it was just the lights of the city that went out. Rover watched, stunned, as the light of each and every brightened window he could see snapped and vanished. Patterns of black enveloped the apartments and skyscrapers, like gigantic leather ribbons tying themselves over lamps. It was like a major power outage... but not quite.

Rover stared in awe as rows upon rows of bright traffic seemed to disappear right before his eyes, and it became so quiet that he could hear the collective gasp or scream from the people below. Even cold blue emergency lights in buildings died only moments after flaring up. And most magnificent and confusing of all, was the sky. The pearlescent moon and stars misted over and were veiled in a blanket of inky clouds, so thick that it allowed not a single thread of light through.

"What...?" Rover began, as he extended his arms forward in panic, hating the pitch darkness. Darkness so thick he couldn't see his hands inches from his eyes. His eyelids fluttered in panic, unsure of whether they were open or closed. Rover's chest clenched, and he was ready to take a step forwards, when he felt Slade wrap his arms tightly around him, preventing him from moving.

"Wait a moment," he whispered into Rover's ear. "Listen carefully."

Rover took a deep breath in, trying to calm himself. "To what?" he managed out.

"Do you feel it?"

Rover didn't at first. All there was was Slade beside him in the dark, but moments passed and Rover started to understand. Tugging at the edge of his mind was the weight of a mysterious, colossal craft and its many inhabitants, minds crackling like flames in his head. Their presence combined, no doubt about it, was far larger and far more powerful than the crashed spaceship that had sunken to the bottom of the earth back in the mountains.

"I do," Rover whispered, and he was terrified.

Terrified of what he would be seeing, of what could possibly happen that they had both not for a moment predicted. Even though he was wrapped in strong arms, he was still terrified of the dark and the number of things that could happen when no one was able to see anything. He was terrified for Slade and the number of things that could possibly go wrong. The number of things that contradicted Slade's calmness. Wild visions formed in Rover's head, mostly dramatic and childish fantasies of disfigured monsters crawling over the city and silver UFO plates hovering and terrorizing bystanders, but there was another image that tugged at the edge of his consciousness. One that soon shut out all his other thoughts, and filled his eyes with twisting lights and his ears with strange, static buzzes, one that spoke through to him with feelings and reassurance, with a strong, smothering voice, and he could do nothing but hold his bursting head in pain, his mind so overcome with feelings and sensations and colours...

"Rover."

As he forced his eyes open to the sound of Slade's voice, his mind emptied, froze over, and he heard another sound -- one that didn't come from within his head -- but one that seemed to fall straight from the sky. It was sharp but faint, its note as shocking as it was pure. For a moment, Rover thought it was the voice of an angel, but as it grew steadily to an earsplitting screech he knew it was not. Perhaps time had stopped, because what had happened next seemed to play ever so slowly in Rover' mind, although it must have taken only a few seconds.

The sky fell apart. Or rather, the dark clouds that sealed off the sky exploded, wisps of humidity swirling and rushing aside, the darkness all around ignited with light. Hovering down from heaven, was the ship.

And hell, was it a sight to behold, with a clear mantle that glowed as bright as the sun and the magnificent stretch of tendril-like designs that pulsed with the colours of the spectrum and all the shades in between. The sheer size of it, so large that it seemed to fill up the whole sky, brought Rover down to his knees, his head swimming with dizziness and song -- the strange melodies woven by the inhabitants within the crystal walls. He squinted through his lashes, pupils contracting painfully, but he could not tear his eyes away from the ship as it hovered lower and lower. The wind was violent and deafening, threatening to tear him off the roof, but Rover wasn't afraid. Not significantly, anyways. He knew that the only thing that stabbed at his heart at the moment was Slade.

But he had already taken a step forwards, his razor profile turned towards the symphony of whirling lights. The warmth in Rover's hands dissipated as his friend -- a piece of his heart -- pulled away, his back turned. Slade took another step, his foot hovering inches off the roof. A quick flash of green that were his eyes. His face was turned backwards for only a second, but it was a second long enough for his expression to ask, "Please come with me?"

It was in that second, as Rover gazed at his friend, his arms extended like wings, his skin blazing with a million colours, his eyes filled with so much resolve... that Rover was certain. Certain that there was no way Slade could belong here.

It was a second long enough for Rover to look down and shake his head a fraction to the left...

And that was enough. With a shuddering sigh that looked cruelly painful, Slade coiled himself, and with only a moment's hesitation, leapt powerfully into the air like a caged bird let out of its prison for the very first time.

With each building that he descended and ascended, his form became smaller and smaller as he followed the ship as it spun slowly west. With each landing that he made on concrete and brick, his bounds seemed to accelerate. And finally, with one last jump upwards, a flash of shocking blue light radiated from the centre of the ship, so bright that it forced Rover to the ground and enveloped Slade in a column of vividity...

And he was gone.

A majestic, metallic whirring rumbled through the air, shaking detritus from the cracks of pavement many stories below. It was so loud that it overrode the wind, but as soon as Rover thought that he was going to perish in the wake of the malignant sound, it was gone. The flashing crystalline ship was gone, the dark clouds were gone, and the power outage was gone. Back were the clear night skies; back were the bright city lights. Honks and ripples of startled traffic sped the stagnant flow of time that had possessed the world only moments ago.

Gone.

After awhile, Rover climbed to his feet, rubbing his bruised knees. He checked his heart beat. He counted his breaths. He listened to his thoughts, and he realized, with surprise, that he wasn't sad. He wasn't angry. He wasn't worried. He didn't feel lost.

Rover felt like he could take on anything in the world.

So he smiled to himself, and with a final look towards the winking stars, departed down the stairs wrought into the sides of the building, one step after the other. Each step he took was followed by the other faster, the thumps of shoe against metal lighter, his heart and body becoming more and more weightless until Rover was sure that he, too, was flying.

e n d

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