Page 51 of Stardusted

I huddled in the corner of my hand-me-down couch, lifted the bottle of Moscato, and drank straight from it. I’d read somewhere you weren’t supposed to drink with a head injury, but I wasn’t convinced I had one.

And if I did…well, at least I’d go out calmer. The wine was helping.

But honestly? If aliens couldn’t kill me, fermented grapes seemed like the least of my worries.

I snorted and took another swig.

The TV played on mute. The local news showed footage of yellow, blue, green, and pink lights hovering low over a harvested cornfield. Timestamp: two nights ago. Same night I’d had my own close encounter.

Aliens.

Fear bubbled in my gut, and I tucked my bare legs beneath me, curling into a tighter ball. I’d changed into plaid shorts and a T-shirt after showering. Despite the hot water and soft clothes, the paranoia that’d followed me home hadn’t budged.

I’d closed every curtain, turned on every light in the apartment. Not a single shadow survived in my tiny space above Bob’s garage.

The place was cozy. Faux-wood floors, neutral walls, granite countertops I never used. Bob had designed it himself, right down to the stainless-steel fridge I mostly ignored in favor of peanut butter sandwiches, ramen, and scavenged leftovers from work.

Tonight, though, I’d splurged. A pepperoni and olive pizza. Half of it had disappeared in record time. So sue me. Comfort carb therapy was a thing. Now, the greasy remains sat on my cluttered coffee table.

My appetite was gone. The second those lights had bobbed and weaved across the screen, my stomach had flipped. Now, the pizza twisted into a knot and threatened a second appearance.

Not that I blamed it. Nothing was settling right. After all, I’d had two days of close encounters of the really messed-up kind.

What were aliens doing here?

Also…why hadn’t anyone else reported seeing a robot? You’d thinkthey, more than strange lights, would’ve made for some sensational five o’clock news. Unless…

Unless my earlier suspicion was right, and nobody elsehadseen them. Just their lights in the sky.

I was assuming they were related, anyway. It made the most sense.

Maybe these robotic alien visitors were intentionally staying hidden. It made sense, in a terrifying kind of way. People didn’t usually grab their rifles over floating orbs. But an army of evil mech-beings? The kind that could shoot laser beams, trash storage rooms, and leave six-fingered bruises on human flesh?

Yeah. People with guns would show up for that.

The pizza tried to make a reappearance, and I chugged more wine to force it back down. My phone dinged, and, gasping, I nearly launched the bottle across the room. I bobbled it, snatched it by the neck just in time, and set it next to the pizza box, sighing.

Pull it together, Rae. Text tones are not alien sounds.

No, they were more…mechanical. Garbled and warped and?—

Blowing out a sharp exhale, I dug my phone out from under the pizza box. It was a text from Amelia.

You sure you don’t want company?

Then, true to form, another one came through. She never just sent one text.

I’m all done with the broadcast class for the night so I’m free.

I chewed my lip.

Having my best friend here was tempting. Very tempting. But I needed time to figure out what the hell I was dealing with before I even considered telling her the truth. And even then, would she believe me?

I’d already told her I was there during the explosion in Finke, because it was all over the news. But I hadn’t told her therealstory. Not the parts I’d conveniently left out while talking to the cops.

And definitely not the ones I couldn’t explain myself. There was a good chance she’d think I’d cracked.

Which…fair. I wasn’t exactly ruling that out myself. Shaking my head, I typed out a response.