Beyond Imagination - 1. Prologue

Elliot Taylor:

My life changed when I was ten years old, but no one remembers what happened. I made a friend, who became something more than human words can describe. I could feel his pain, he could feel my sadness. At times, it felt like we were one being with one spirit. He opened my mind and eyes to the beauty of everything around us and helped me feel less alone despite the bullying I endured. Before I met him, I started having feelings of physical attraction, mostly for a certain girl but never dared to act on them. He gave me that courage, despite the act ending up in rejection and a trip to the principal’s office. As we spent more time together, I learned that beyond my pubescent attractions, empathy and shared experience were just as important as hormones and physical attributes. I fell in love with him, having endured with him and seeing him die for my survival. Our bond was unconventional and my ten-year-old mind never comprehended what it meant to love.

When his people came in their spaceship and he told me that “I’ll be right here” pointing to my head, I was devastated. He was my best friend and a person I thought would be with me forever. I knew he had to leave, between the government and the numerous human-made poisons, but it was still gut-wrenching. After his spaceship left in a brilliant glow of a rainbow, the government agents took me, Gertie, Mom, Michael, and Michael’s teenage friends into custody. They brought us to some government facility, where the walls were gray and all the doors were locked with combinations, like bank vaults. Each of us was separated and put into one of these. We were asked questions about my friend and his people. No one can answer their questions, except for me, but I wouldn’t betray my friend’s trust. At some point after hours of badgering with increasing threats to me and my family, I fell asleep in the interview room.

When I awoke, I was back in my room and bed. I looked around and there was no sign of the invasive government researchers or agents. My mom, Michael, and Gertie appeared to be acting like it was any other day before I brought my friend home. In passing, I asked Gertie, if she remember what happened, but she shook her head not understanding what I was relating. In my head, I could hear his voice telling me that they did this to protect me and everyone from reprisal, letting everyone forget about him and making it as if he was never here.

He told me that he would always be with me despite the light years between us. He told me that he would come back one day for me.

For eight years, I tried to live an ordinary life and hide the extraordinary truth, despite various horrible things that happened. Then, I met a man, who will change my very existence.

David Freeman:

My life changed when I was twelve years old when I met Max, a spaceship’s artificial intelligence. If I were to tell people what happened with our journey across time and space, I think I’d end up in a straightjacket. I wouldn’t have believed it either if it weren’t for Pick, my stowaway friend. His species, puckmaren, were wiped out when a comet hit their home planet. Under orders, Max rescued a few of the unique species to preserve and study them under the watchful eyes of Max’s creator, the Phaelon. During the same research trip, I was picked up on July 4^th, 1978, while I was picking up my little brother Jeff. The Phaelon had been studying human beings and wanted to test a hypothesis, they wanted to insert a type of universal information into a human child’s brain. I don’t remember what they did, but something happened on the return trip to Earth. Their normal faster-than-light travel method had erred and time dilation affected our return. I came back to Earth in 1986, eight years after my departure. Various things happened, I was held n captivity by the US government and experimented on, then met my younger brother, now a sixteen-year-old, and through various assistance, I escaped with Max.

Despite the dangers of time travel, Max and I returned to the moment I left Earth in 1978 with my memories of the alternate 1986 intact and an alien creature in my backpack. I knew from experience that I could not reveal my story to everyone, including my parents, but Jeff having been so helpful in the alternate timeline and seeing Pick, I confided everything to. Pick was our little secret for years until Jeff disappeared in 1982. At first, I had a fleeting hope that Max was taking him on another cosmic journey and I’d see him again. Then, they found his body and I was able to read what happened to him when an investigative reporter gave my family the autopsy report. Child kidnappings were in the headlines in the 1980s, so the reporter probably wanted to get a headline with my parent’s exclusive interview. While they never intended for me to read the autopsy, I had to know.

I caused this fate to happen to my brother. If I didn’t come back in time, he would have lived a normal life without me. I wanted to contact Max and go back again, no matter the risks to me, but I had no means to reach out to Max or Phaelon. Despite the memory copying, my knowledge of space and time was still intact and my comprehension of that knowledge grew with age. I was still capable of guiding a starship across vast distances across multiple dimensions, but without a ship it was meaningless. I couldn’t reveal what I knew to the government, because it would just be a repeat of what I experienced in the alternate 1986, not to mention Pick would likely be studied or worse by them. I hate humanity.

With the loss of Jeff and other horrors that happened throughout the 1980s, I began to insulate and isolate myself. I hated everyone and everything, but most of all I hated myself because I chose to come back in time and I shared the sickness that caused my brother’s death. My life would change, when I met a young man, a few years before the end of the world.

To me, Elliot admitting he loved "E.T" along with the rainbow at the end of the movie sort of cement that he's somewhere on the rainbow  🏳️‍🌈 (I think that was Queer coding) However, we never know what happened after the ship flew off, nor what the US government would do (I doubt they'd let him go after all that). So I wanted to add a solution that presented itself via another movie.
As for David, his story is made to be continued. He still contains a universal-knowledge base, he has an actual alien pet, and his interactions with alternate 1986 would affect him for the rest of his life. All I'm doing is adding in the unintended consequences of time travel and the 1980s penchant for making child kidnapping sensational. David also represents a lot of repressed gay/queer kids who grew up hating themselves due to the same headlines, the acts of a few deranged people amplified by morally corrupt media and leaders. Self-hatred is an interesting angle to use as a template for a character.
My story is going to be set in the 1990s and beyond with various science fiction references. I need to get my creative juices running and let my imagination work again. I'm open to work with others on this and editing is much appreciated