Page 52 of Stardusted

I’m good. I’m going to bed early. Still on for Sat night?

The plans to hit Crescent Club for dancing and drinks felt like something from another life. The idea of dressing up and pretending I hadn’t just been attacked by a death machine felt…surreal. Tooordinary.

Then again, maybe that was exactly what I needed. A little slice of normal. One night of pretending things were still okay. That my car accident hadn’t caused a paradigm shift I still hadn’t recovered from.

The three-dot typing bubble appeared, and I leaned back on the couch just as the TV showed a diagram of the sun. Solar flare coverage again.

I narrowed my eyes. Could that be fake? Just a giant government cover-up to explain away the tech malfunctions?

God, that was a huge conspiracy.

And yet…my phonehaddied. And so had Faith’s battery, out of nowhere that night on the country road.

Maybe this wasn’teither-or. Maybe the flare was real, and the aliens were, too.

I pressed my hot forehead to the bottle’s cool glass and sighed. I was going to end up like Kelly. A full-blown conspiracy theory enthusiast, whispering about angry robots from outer space and stockpiling canned goods in my closet.

My phone chimed again, and I nearly fumbled it. The marks on my hand caught the light when I did. I deliberately ignored them and read Amelia’s answer instead.

You know it. Be ready at 8. I’ll pick you up and bring you to my place to get ready.

Don’t want you to get stranded with a dead battery!

She was hilarious.

Fine. See you then.

Hopefully. IhopedI’d be up for it. For anything. I hoped I could, at some point, moveon.

I drew my knees to my chest, wine bottle in hand, and stared into the muted flicker of the TV. The glowing lights danced across the grainy screen.

Two days ago, I’d been staring up at one of them.

What if this panicked, jumpy feeling never went away? What if I couldn’t bounce back? I had exams to study for, work shifts to show up to. Alife.

But my brain kept rewinding to the nightmarish scenes in the lab. To those terrible green eyes and the strange, ethereal purple glow of the crystal tablet. My body buzzed like it had been rewired and somebody’d connected things wrong.

“Screw it,” I muttered and took another swig of wine.

For now, this would have to do.

Later,much later, I woke with a start. A gasp lodged in my chest, and I flailed blindly. For a heartbeat, I was somewhereelse. Somewhere full of glowing green eyes and hazy, acrid smoke. Luminescent shapes thatmeantsomething?—

Reality slammed back. Home. I was home. Not in the lab.

I scrambled upright, falling back against my wooden headboard. White sheets tangled around my legs, and sweat glued my sleeping shirt to my skin. I clutched at my sternum and forced air into my lungs.

I’d been about to say something. There were words on the tip of my tongue. Gone now. Like the shapes. Those phantom roars. The lab.

God. I drew my knees up and rested my forehead on them.

I was awake. I was safe. In my bed.

Just a little residual panic. A touch of PTSD. That’s what this was. Reliving traumatic events was normal. It was just my brain trying to process. I pressed my lids shut, leaning my head back against the wood behind me. Nightmares were a natural response to my shitshow of a day.

But it’d felt way too real.

Hugging myself, I shivered as cold air kissed my damp skin. The bedside lamp glowed softly beneath the scarf-draped shade. I’d slept with all the lights on for the first time in…who even knew how long. Since I was a kid. Since Dad had died.