Adult works if you’re into that

Excerpt from my untitled, unfinished "fairy tale" novel

The beast inhaled deeply through his quarter-sized nostrils, intrigued by the scent of delicious, bite-sized flesh. Twenty-seven of his twenty-nine furry eyebrows raised in response to the intoxicating scent. He had no arms, but he needed them about as much as a T-Rex needed his. He could taste the innocence with his four-foot-wide gaping mouth—which, for the sake of convenience, was located in his bulbous midsection. Large, sharp fangs lined the edges near his purple lips and he wasn’t shy about exposing them. Two legs built like MC Hammer pants supported the monster’s Christmas ornament-shaped torso, an image which would have been a lot more comical under different, less deadly circumstances.

Forest could feel the beast approaching through the vibrations from the bed after each step shook the floor. His little seven-year-old heart beat so fast he couldn’t even feel it anymore, and he wondered if it had given up the task out of sheer horror. Then, as though no time had passed at all, he could feel hot breath on him like a blast of heat from a humid summer day. The moist spray of saliva seeped through the fabric shield he used to protect himself from seeing the cause of his room’s destruction. He tried not to inhale but his body caved to the necessity and he got a whiff of the beast’s rancid rotten-egg breath. Another sense of wetness struck the boy then, a warm liquid that spread from the crotch of his pants and down one leg.

This was it, he thought. He was going to die here, never even glimpsing the monster before its razor-sharp teeth penetrated him. Swallowed into nothingness, into Hell for all he knew.

Slowly, he lowered his blanket, wishing the T-Rex pattern would spring to life and defend him with the loyalty of a golden retriever. If this was how his life was to end, he was going to do it with honor—at least as much honor as a seven-year-old who’d already wet himself could still hope to gain. Would a closet monster still want to eat a boy who’d soiled his pants, or would he spit him out like steamed cabbage? What if the monster was also a child, with a mother looking over his shoulder demanding that he finish his meal, that there were starving closet monster children in Africa who would kill (probably literally) to trade places with him and eat his soiled leftovers?

Unfortunately, Forest couldn’t put all his trust in the monster being a fully-grown picky eater with pent-up resentments toward his nagging mother. For all he knew, wetting his pants only made him all the more delectable.

Gulping as though swallowing courage into his body, the boy’s small hands clenched the top of his covers and brought them down to his neck, revealing his fear-stricken face to the blue-skinned monster towering over him. Slimy drool dripped onto the boy’s face from the edge of the hungry, gaping mouth. The monster let out a cackle of what could only be assumed delight at seeing the bravely unhidden child, looking like an orange peeling itself to be eaten.

Closing his eyes tightly, no longer able to think of any prayers that might save him now, Forest could only wish the monster untrue. It was just the wind. Some shadow of a tree had caught the attention of his overactive imagination.

Monsters weren’t real, no matter how strong the stench of gingivitis or how loud the grumbling of its stomach. He whispered incoherently to himself, convincing himself that he could believe his own words.

“It isn’t real,” he muttered. Forest repeated the phrase over and over, each time with more conviction, his voice gaining volume. “It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real.”

All at once, the groaning, cackling monster fell suspiciously silent. Had he been eaten that quickly? Was death really this simple, this painless?

ANIMORPHS – The Invasion [Rewritten for Adults]

CHAPTER 1

My name is Jake. No last name. I mean, I have a last name, obviously, but I can’t tell you. It would be too dangerous. Frankly, telling you the name of my dog is too much information with the Controllers around, but I’m still going to because I’m not very creative with fake aliases (as you’ll learn several books from now). Controllers are everywhere. Everywhere.

And if they find me and my friends, well, you can kiss your own ass goodbye. Well, actually, you won’t be able to, because if you or your ass still even exist by then, your body will be completely under the control of a Yeerk. And what would happen to me and my friends? I’ve seen the possibilities, and let’s just say… I’ll pass.

I won’t even tell you where I live, but gradually my friends and I will give you enough details for any Controller who happens upon this transcript to piece it together.

Maybe we’re in your town. I mean, probably not if you live in the Midwest, anywhere far from the ocean, a small town, a place without a wildlife reserve, malls or Cinnabon, but maybe. Okay, it’s definitely California. It’s always California.

I’m writing this all down because I’m honestly so traumatized by everything I’ve been through I don’t know how else to process things and continue to function. Also, I’m a teenage boy and instead of jerking off in my room I’m spending my time transforming into a tiger and fighting aliens, so I have a lot of pent up frustration right now. I’m sure it already sounds like I’ve lost it to you, but trust me, we haven’t even dipped our toes into the crazytrain that is my real life yet.

My life used to be pretty normal. Like, so generically normal my writing about aliens and shit wouldn’t be enough to entice you to think I’m a very compelling narrator.

Life was normal until one Friday night not unlike many others. I was hanging out with my friend Marco at the mall unsupervised because it was the 90s, I guess, and in retrospect letting us fend for ourselves probably wasn’t a very good idea.

Anyway, we were playing video games in a comic book/arcade store in the mall, which I assume will still be a thriving staple two or three decades from now. Marco was beating me at a game when we ran out of quarters. Usually we are both pretty good because I practice enough at home, but I’ll be honest: Marco has a better natural ability to strategize and think quickly despite being more of a slacker.

Maybe I was just distracted by a bad day at school. I tried out for the basketball team that day and didn’t make the cut. Not even a bench warmer. Not even a cheerleader.

So now you know I attend a decently sized school that can afford to turn away players.

It wouldn’t have mattered much, really, except my older brother Tom had been a local legend on the court at my age, which for some reason I’m going to give away by telling you was in junior high. And now he’s the star player on his high school team, so everyone expected me to live up to the family name, which again, I can’t tell you, though honestly why not at this point.

I guess, more than that, my brother’s been distant lately and I thought maybe if I earned his old position on the team, I don’t know, some of the “old” Tom would come back. Watch me play. Teach me some moves. Laugh about the coach. Fuck, I know that’s corny, but I miss him. Maybe he’s too obsessed with girls right now to pay attention to his dweeby little brother. Maybe he sees me as a liability to his social life.

So, Marco and I finished our game at the arcade and spotted Tobias. I don’t know what he was doing at the mall because the kid had NO money, wore hand me downs of hand me downs of hand me downs, and didn’t have any friends to hang out with as far as I could tell. Tobias was new in school and a bit scrawny-looking and strange, so he got harassed a lot by the douchebags in school.

I actually met Tobias when he had his head in a toilet. Not willingly, it wasn’t a hobby of his or anything. Some uncreative bullies went for the most generic bully tactic they could think of, I guess. I’m not sure why he didn’t stand up for himself. I suppose when it came down to fight or flight, Tobias always went for flight.

The bullies laughed while they flushed, watching his straggly blonde hair swirl around in poop-water. I told them to fuck off and I guess I’m just intimidating enough for a 13 year old that they fucked right off. Maybe it’s my broad shoulders, my commanding prepubescent balls-just-dropped voice, or my social standing.

Probably they were just cowards, but either way, Tobias figured I was a friend after that. Our friendship might hit the toilet every bit as hard as his head did that day some years from now, but hey, he liked me then.

“What’s up?” Tobias nodded at us, but mostly me, as we were too physically close to avoid pleasantries.

I shrugged, which I do a lot, that and winking, but I didn’t do that to Tobias, even though he’s pretty good-looking despite his negligent clothing and head-in-the-bowl hair. I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing, which I’m not, it’s the 90s and I’m a boy’s boy. Not like a BOY’S boy, I mean, like a basketball playing, don’t-talk-about-my-feelings, never hug another guy, guy. But I’m sure, like, some girls might find him tragically attractive or something.

“Not much. We’re heading home. Out of quarters.”

Marco pointed at me playfully.

“Someone got their ASS kicked and ate all the quarters trying to beat my score. Also, that someone keeps forgetting basic elements of the game.”

I rolled my eyes and folded my arms defensively. He gives me a hard time because he knows I can take it, but I already felt like a failure today.

“Like, maybe that person shouldn’t make life or death decisions, but I’m not going to say who that someone is or remember this fact a few minutes from now.”

“Mind if I walk home with you guys? I was just leaving myself,” Tobias asked, hands shoved so far into his front pant pockets you’d think he was trying to find a spare quarter if you didn’t know he definitely wouldn’t have one.

I knew as well as he did that we didn’t live anywhere near one another. His dump of a house was probably 3 miles from my own. Not to give away where I live but housing prices are insane, even in the 90s. My parents would live like kings in about any other town, but here our house is just average despite the mansion price tag. And Marco and his dad might live like peasants right now, but his dad’s actually a super intelligent engineer who should be earning way above his current salary during this dot com boom when few people really grasp the computer technology they casually use every day.

Still, I felt sorry for the kid, and I knew no one was waiting up for him. Maybe with me, punks would leave him alone for at least part of his journey. And with Marco’s mouth, no punk would be able to tolerate hassling us for too long. I said sure but suppressed the urge to shrug. Marco didn’t object once I approved.

The three of us trudged toward the mall exit, one of many, when we spotted Rachel and Cassie. Since they are female, the first thing I need to describe about them is their physical attractiveness and fuckability, so I’ll jump right into that now.

Rachel is kind of pretty, I guess if you like that tall, blonde, well-groomed, upper middle class model look. Okay, she’s my cousin, so I shouldn’t comment on her fuckability, but I will, repeatedly. She dresses well, has a flawless complexion with or without makeup, and carries herself well because of years of gymnastics and shitting on her best friend’s appearance.

Rachel is probably more motivated than me because she continues to push herself in gymnastics despite acknowledging she’s too tall to get very far in it. She could definitely be a professional model with a lot less effort, especially here in California, but I think she likes the challenge. As soon as I mention how pretty she is, every insecure preteen girl reading this will automatically hate her for no reason.

Cassie is basically the opposite, and strikingly so next to her friend. Rachel is a sun-kissed white, blonde haired, blue eyed, intimidating beauty with a domineering presence and Cassie is black with short hair which was longer but now is short again but I can’t describe any further because I’m a white boy from the suburbs. She’s usually wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, which is a grunge look still in style in the Midwest but lost its appeal here by now, apparently. Or maybe it’s how she wears it like a farmer and not a rebellious fashion statement. Or maybe it’s the brand or the smell and appearance of faded horse manure on them.

Cassie is more quiet and passive, a quality I like in a girl.

I guess I like Cassie a little.

Sometimes we sit together on the bus, even though I don’t know what to say.

“You guys going home?” I asked Rachel, whom I can talk to and make eye contact with without sweating. “You shouldn’t go through the construction site by yourselves, being girls and all. Not like us big strong men, perfectly safe.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed into a spiteful glare, fire raging behind a façade of cool blue irises. When fire burns extra hot, it takes on a blue hue, too. She didn’t appreciate my assumption of her being weak or defenseless. She might look like she stepped out of a Seventeen cover, but inside she’s The Hulk. Hulk angry. Hulk destroy.

“Are you going to protect us, you big, strong man?” Rachel taunted, looking me up and down like she was sizing me up before a big wrestling showdown. “You gonna scare off the bad guys with your huge man-muscles? You probably don’t even have pubes yet. If you think we’re helpless just because we have VAGINAS—"

Cassie cut her off, always the diplomat. A Picard to Rachel’s Worf.

“I’d appreciate it if they did walk with us,” Cassie said. “I know you’re not afraid of anything, Rachel, but I guess I am. I’m sure we’re much safer with three horny teenage boys who’ve never been taught about what constitutes consent, and we have to save two minutes of walking by going through the construction site.”

Rachel didn’t have anything to say to that. That’s how Cassie is—passive, always trying to appease everyone, ignoring sexist assumptions and dealing with rudeness like a properly socialized woman ready to enter an arranged marriage with an abusive asshole but willing to interrupt another female and the legitimacy of her anger.

For some reason, I like that in a girl.

So, there we were, the five of us – me, Marco, Tobias, Rachel and Cassie. Five kids too young to drive spending our parents’ money at the mall.

Sometimes I go back to those last moments of normalcy. It feels like millions of years ago, the time of the dinosaurs—which we eventually go to — or like some group of different kids. Like I’m astral traveling, entering some other kid’s body, some other kid’s thoughts, probing his brain. The worries I had up until that point seem every bit as otherworldly to me now as the alien I met just a few minutes later. I didn’t even remember to tell Tom I didn’t make the team, or worrying about disappointing him. THAT was my scariest reality right then.

This is the part where I describe the abandoned construction site our parents forbid us from going near which we customarily ignore their warnings about. Every kid skimmed this part to get to the good stuff. Construction site. Gotcha. Where da aliens?

Tobias spotted it first. His eyes were glancing upward toward the stars casually then suddenly his whole head jerked upward with inhuman speed. Like he’d been expecting it or something. I didn’t peg him for an alien enthusiast or a nut or anything, but if anyone I knew daydreamed or longed for an alien spaceship to whisk them away on an interstellar adventure, it was Tobias. Head in a toilet? Heck, I’d try imagining I was anywhere else, too.

“Look,” he said, pointing straight up.

“What?” I said, disinterested in whatever falling star or pretty moon he’d spotted as I listened for the sounds of oncoming ax murderers and drug dealers. Seemed more pressing at the time. It wasn’t.

“Just… look,” Tobias urged again, his voice hypnotized and serious.

All of us followed his gaze then, enamored and frozen with disbelief. A brilliant, blue-white light flashed across the sky. Too fast to be an airplane, then slower, slow enough to make me think we’d imagined the strangeness of it prior. But the movements and colors weren’t like anything I’d ever seen.

“What is it?” one of us asked in a daze. Maybe me. Expecting Tobias to know somehow.

“I don’t know,” he replied, speaking calmly and carefully.

He did know, and so did I. We just didn’t want to be the ones to say it and get taunted by Marco and Rachel. But Cassie likes being prone to abuse, so she went for it. “It’s a flying saucer!”

CHAPTER 2

“A flying saucer?” Marco laughed.

Then he looked up, and the smug smirk fell from his paling face.

I became more aware of the pounding heart in my chest. I felt almost cold, my body trembling from the adrenaline rush.

Excitement, fear, nerves… a mix of all three perplexing emotions, my body unable to anticipate my next move. You think you know what you’re going to do in a situation. Run for your life, grab the nearest makeshift weapon, swoop in like a superhero and impulsively make all the right moves to save the day. The reality for us revealed itself: we stood, immobile, barely able to exhale the breath we simultaneously held.

“It’s coming toward us,” Rachel said, the first to let go of her inhale.

“It’s hard to be sure,” I whispered, undermining my cousin even in this tense moment.

“No, it’s coming this way,” Rachel repeated.

She speaks authoritatively, like she’s totally sure of everything she says. An unbecoming quality for a woman. Fuckability points now -10. I keep a tab, even though she’s my cousin.

She was right. This flying whatever it was loomed into view, its size increasing with each second that passed. I could even make out finer details as it slowly descended.

“It’s not exactly a flying saucer,” I said, because I find it necessary to negate every female in the vicinity whenever possible.

The ship wasn’t as large as I expected. It was about as long as a school bus, but that’s about where the similarities end. The front end, the “command center” as I’d assume, was shaped like an egg laying on its side. Behind this pod was a long, narrow shaft. Two crooked, stubby wings protruded from the sides and long, bright blue tubes glowed on the back end of each. It almost looked harmless until your eyes settled on the sharp curved tail-wing with a menacing hook pointed right at you. Well, not you… me.

Basically? Looked like a dildo with a small anal vibrator attached. Like something Batman might fly while playing that Eiffel 65 song. Hey, first impression, I’m a teenage boy in the age of the internet and I somehow have my own computer in my room. I’m familiar with dildos. Not PERSONALLY familiar, I’m not gay, I don’t even like wiping my butt when I poop, definitely only watched straight porn, but maybe a little lesbian porn, but no gay stuff.

“That… tail thing,” I stammered, referring to the sharp aforementioned anal protrusion, “it looks like a weapon.”

“Definitely,” Marco agreed.

Although the ship looked threatening, we weren’t spooked into running off with our tails between our legs. That would come later, when some of us would actually have tails. Hey, you’ve seen the cover art.

The little bus-dildo-ship kept sailing toward us, slowing as if bracing for a landing.

“It’s stopping,” Rachel said.

Her voice had the same tone of disbelief and horror as my own. Like we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Like we didn’t want to believe. No, Mulder, we don’t want to believe. We’re on Team Scully.

“I think it sees us,” Marco said. The ‘it’ being the mysterious inhabitants of the ship. “Should we run? Maybe we should run home and get a camera,” Marco continued with the most idiotic idea ever. “Do you know how much money we could get for a video of a real UFO?”

“If we run, they might… I don’t know, zap us with phasers on full power,” I said, joking. Sort of.

We both said something stupid in response to the landing of this alien spaceship, but somehow Marco felt like it was his duty to rub my lame sci fi reference in my face.

“This isn’t Star Trek,” Marco said, rolling his eyes at my ignorance. Like he was the expert on alien technology and not sounding like a dunce. Or like they couldn’t have worse weapons than that.

The ship stopped and hovered almost directly over our heads, about 100 feet above us. Every hair on my head stood up toward it like a spring daisy reaching for the sun.

When I looked at Rachel, I stifled a laugh. Her long, blonde hair was sticking out in almost every direction, but she didn’t seem bothered by it. Only Cassie’s hair looked untouched, because even aliens know not to touch a black woman’s hair, so what’s your excuse, BECKY?

“What do you think it is?” Marco asked, his voice shaken. Now that the object was closer, he’d lost his laid-back attitude.

I was scared, too. I could have peed a little or sprung a boner, I don’t know, it was this weird mix of fear and anticipation, like riding a roller coaster. I also regularly get boners at awkward times, so I really hoped the alien didn’t embarrass me in front of the others. There isn’t a “right” response when you’re witness to a UFO.

Tobias wore a huge goofy, almost Joker-sized grin on his face. Called it. Tobias never shies away from the weird stuff. Unphased by furries, drag queens, live action RPG, goatse, you name it. Just a vibe I get from him.

“I think it’s going to land,” he said, his eyes shining brighter than the blue glow of the ship. His blonde hair stood up in clumps.

I’ll be honest. At this point, I thought we were going to get lifted up by a weird glowing suction tube. Until the air started to shift and our hair fell a bit.

“It’s coming right at us!” I cried, realizing the ship must be descending.

I resisted the urge to run across the field to my home, where I could crawl into my warm, comfortable bed and draw the covers over my head. But I knew I had to stay and see it all. It was too late now, in any case.

The others must have felt the same way, or else stuck in shock, because no one budged. The ship hummed and glowed (not unlike a vibrator) and slowly hovered inches over an empty space between piles of junk and tumbled walls a few feet away. Black burn marks scarred the top of the front pod section. The outer layer of metallic skin on this section appeared melted. The ship made contact with earth and the blue glow instantly turned off.

Rachel’s long hair fell back into place on her neck immediately. I felt mine restore to it’s normal gravitational pull, as well.

“It isn’t very big, is it?” Rachel commented. The teenage boy in me felt the urge to giggle.

“It’s about--” I tried to estimate now that I could see it up close, “about three or four times as big as our minivan.”

“We should tell someone,” Marco said. “I mean, this is kind of major, you know? Spaceships don’t just land in construction sites every day… as far as I know,” he admitted sheepishly.

Marco had that sort of dumb, maybe-I-could-be-famous-or-something look on his face when he gets a really bad, self-absorbed idea. “We should call the cops or the army or the president or something. We’d be famous! Maybe we could get on Letterman, or Oprah! Or silenced by the CIA forever… yeah, I talked myself out of it already.”

Marco HAS a mind for strategy, but he thinks about personal gain first. I smiled politely, but didn’t really agree. I’d seen X-Files. I knew the government couldn’t be trusted to act in the best interest of the public, or let this sort of thing get out. We might have more to fear from them than any alien in that ship over there. Might.

None of us moved. No one was going to walk away from a spaceship.

“I wonder if we should try to talk to it,” Rachel suggested. She stood with her hands on her hips like she was trying to figure out a puzzle. “I mean, we should communicate. If that’s even possible.”

Tobias nodded and stepped forward with his hands held up. I guessed to show whoever was on the ship that he meant no harm and carried no weapon.

"It’s safe,” he declared in a loud, clear voice. “We won’t hurt you.”

“Do you think they understand English?” I asked.

“Well, everyone speaks English on Star Trek,” Cassie said with a nervous laugh.

I raised a curious Vulcan eyebrow at her. Had she really seen enough episodes of Star Trek to know that? She didn’t strike me as a trekkie. Maybe I could charm her with Klingon love letters…

Tobias tried again, in case alien hearing is bad. “Please, come out. We won’t hurt you.”

{I know.}

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

I didn’t just freeze: I became ice itself. How do I describe it? Only brackets can capture the weirdness of what just happened. Okay, I had definitely heard someone say “I know”, except… well, I didn’t HEAR anything. No sound, no vibration hitting the ear holes, just there in my head as though it had been my own thought. Had it been? It didn’t “sound” like my voice, or like how I’d talk to myself.

Maybe I was just dreaming. I shared a glance with Cassie, who looked just as perplexed. Her brown eyes connected with mine and the shock absorbed my usual tendency to blush and turn away when this happened. She’d heard it, too. My gaze turned to Rachel next, whose head whipped left and right like she was looking for the source of the sound-that-wasn’t-really-a-sound. My stomach started twisting like a pretzel, feeling queasy like maybe I’d had some bad food at the mall, but of course I’d saved all my money for the arcade so it couldn’t be that.

“Did everyone hear that?” Tobias whispered. At least, I hope he said it. Maybe my brain wasn’t processing sound correctly anymore.

We all nodded slowly, reluctant to admit to hearing voices that weren’t ours inside our heads.

“Can you come out?” Tobias asked in his loud, talking-to-aliens voice. It was loud, but still gentle, like he was talking to a crowd of rowdy toddlers.

{Yes. Ehm, do not be frightened, I look pretty ridiculous. Also, please don’t describe me having a triangle head horse face no torso deer body then change your mind about my appearance later. Really take your time to accurately detail what you’re seeing. It might matter to some nerd someday.}

“We won’t be frightened,” Tobias said.

“Speak for yourself,” I muttered.

The others giggled nervously.

Come on, alien. It’s like making your mom promise she won’t be mad and then telling her you smeared poop all over the walls and floor and dropped her new phone in the toilet. It’s an unreasonable expectation.

A thin arc of light appeared from the pod of the ship and slowly widened into a circular glow as a door descended into a walkway from the inside of the ship to the ground. I remained standing, completely entranced. We all did a lot of just standing there throughout this part of the story, but there will be more action later to make up for our earlier lethargy.

Then he appeared, a shadow within the bright light at the doorway. He stepped forward carefully, bringing the details closer into view.

My first impulse was to describe him as having a triangle head horse face no torso deer body with a scorpion tail, but then I remembered what the alien said and decided to describe him as if he were a suspect in a crime. So, with as much xenophobic ignorance as you could expect of a relatively unobservant white kid who can’t even describe what kind of hair his black crush sports, I’ll do my best here.

So the alien basically looked like if a horse, deer, scorpion, human, blue food coloring and Krumm from AAAHH! Real Monsters fucked and had a baby with six or seven fingers on each hand (we’ll say seven later but in Ax’s first book he has six). I don’t know why but I just want to describe the head as triangle-shaped and flat, but also, like a horse, so please just picture that in your head and try not to run screaming.

So the scorpion part was the tail, which really only looks like a scorpion in the way that it looks sharp and dangerous at the bladed end and was almost always held upward and bent toward the alien’s humanoid back, probably for sensible reasons like not tripping or cutting his own legs in half or running slowly. You know how your mom always told you not to run with scissors? Don’t run with a tail uncurled. Probably one of the first lessons he learned as a toddler. I imagine.

SO. Horse part was mostly the slope of the neck, and a little bit the nose, I guess, though it was more of a slit, or maybe two slits? Not very much horse, really, because the lower body was too small and deer-sized to be confused for a horse. Maybe like a small pony you wouldn’t want to ride, except in a couple books where someone does ride one.

Krumm is the eyes, man. They aren’t held by hands at the top of the head and dropped occasionally, but he had four eyes. Two normal-but-oversized glittery green humanoid eyes where eyes usually are, then an extra two eyes atop movable stalks on the top of their freaking heads. The stalks move around and twist so he can see behind him, sideways, or forwards and blink with one set if he needs to. Do all his eyes close when he sneezes? I’m not sure, but it was the first question I wanted to ask this guy.

He also basically looked like a squat human on top, or I could have saved you a lot of time reading a description and said he looked like a blue centaur with stalk eyes and a long vicious blade-ended tail. The alien was covered in fur, but mostly the fur was the deer and tail-part, while the rest was skin. The humanoid arms looked a bit weaker and smaller than human arms, but I guess when you’ve got jaws like a T-Rex or a bladed tail like this guy, arms aren’t your go-to weapon.

Tobias soaked all of this in and said simply: “Hello.”

He still used his speaking-to-a-toddler tone, but now he was grinning. Not like a polite forced, uncomfortable smile you put on to make people feel welcome and not stab you, but a genuine full-on smile, teeth glowing in the moonlight, gums showing, crinkle around the eyes. Dude looked smitten as a kitten in a box of yarn.

I’m not sure how I looked, probably ridiculous and emasculated by the tears streaming uncontrollably from my face, an unforgivable crime for a thirteen year old boy in the nineties sure to result in a shitload of mockery and gay jokes from peers. Oh, your Mom died? Suck it up, pussy! Hypothetical but actual witnessed situation.

It felt like the alien was someone I’d known forever. Like a friend I hadn’t seen in a long, long time, but suddenly the memories and emotions came rushing back to me of days on the playground playing stuck in the mud, fighting over GI Joes or which X-men character we got to play. Think I’d remember if this guy had been there, and his tail would have ended any argument immediately, but nevertheless the feeling lingered.

{Hello,} the alien said into my head. You know when you suddenly hear a song from a radio tower you hadn’t been thinking about, then turn on the radio and it’s playing at that exact part, and you definitely hadn’t been the one to put the song into your head but you still felt crazy? It was like that, but with images, too.

“Hi,” we all said back.