Episode 2: So, What Now?//A Different Kind Of Alien

An uneasy quiet enveloped the disgruntled crew. Up until now everything seemed to be great. They got the new girl, Jo, the ending that she had wanted. They had helped Phil to be happy once again. They had done everything right. They had done everything, right? Now what? 

Elara couldn’t help but consider this question whilst they clamored back into the van. Instinctively, she entered on the passenger’s side before realizing that Silas, or Phil or whatever his name is now, wasn’t there to drive. So, with a slight groan upon exiting, she adjusted the driver's seat to be as low as was possible, and shoved herself in. She was grateful that the once owner of the van had taught her how to operate the steel chariot even if it was only through example. He had even taught her the customs of being cut off. Although she was still not sure why it was that the middle finger made everyone so angry. Is it not just… a finger? Is it a sign of the divine evil within all of us? Humans are perplexing creatures.

Sparring one last look at the building to which they had traveled and making sure everyone had a seatbelt on, as Silas had many times before, Elara shifted Em into reverse and pulled away from the apartments all while contemplating the question further. Fifteen minutes into the drive, Moss finally posed his own question:

“So, where are we going?”

Elara knew not the answer. It was a confusion that was foreign to her in a way that it had never been before. In her search for an answer, whether it be satisfactory or not, her thoughts wandered back to just a couple days ago. In her mind, Jo’s words resonated as clear as the air around her. 

“How many of you tried to fix what happened to you?”

It was as if a new sun dawned on her mind. An epiphany of a magnitude that she had only ever experienced once, a long time ago when the wyrm had been slain. After constructing her words in a meticulous fashion, she allowed herself to speak. “I am through with being a coward. We shall track down our greatest oppressors and rectify the injustices done unto us. To all of us. Just as Mistress Jo has.”

 Although there was no confusion among the group, their minds were still flooded with questions. Most of them believed that they had nothing to go back to. Moss was dead in his world, Beau was the same. Misty would go back to a world wherein she would be far more lonely than she is now. Matt would be back in a place where his life is dominated by emotional overload with no relief. What would become of them? How would they be able to live in the way which they choose when hope lives not in their hearts? Elara could only think about Jo. If such a simple but stubborn woman could manage to do it then they could as well. She thought of Misty. The girl deserved to have a life, one where she grows up happy. With this in mind, Elara turned onto the highway preparing for a long trip ahead. It was the potential product of this journey that made her gratefully drive ever onward. Their first stop would be Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania where Misty had first been found.

Two hours elapsed in the beat of a heart when the small town came into view. Another twenty minutes and a cabin came into view at the edge of town and of the woods. It was Moss that walked her to the door. Sienna Prior, co-author to her husband: Mikey Prior, author of the unfinished children's book: ‘Misty And Lump’ answered the door. Elara couldn’t read the woman’s lips but she could envision how the short conversation would go. First, the exchange of surprise followed by the lack of ideas on what to do. As expected, Misty stepped into the house and the door was closed in front of Moss. Instead of returning to the van, he just stood there for a moment. Just as he turned to go back, the faint line of a tear down his cheek, the door opened once more. Out from the darkness, Misty rushed to Moss’ side. She grabbed his arm and told him something with a massive smile on her face. For a second he paused then a smile, that was not far from that which Misty wore, grew on his smile. She led him back to the front door and this time he took a step inside. Before the door shut, he turned back to the van and gave his finest salute to Elara in the driver's seat. She reciprocated the salute to the now closed door knowing that this was for the best.

This is the story of a man lost in space and found by a little girl.

It was in the woods which Misty awoke, head throbbing from hitting her collision with the tree looming above her. Around her were a pair of arms strong as oak and clad in hunter’s orange and green. “You hit your head pretty hard, are you alright?”

Although her vision was just starting to regain focus, the face above her was of a familiar sort that she could not quite place. Once she began to think again, she sat up and began looking for Lump. He has to be near. 

“Where is-” 

The man’s face took on a painful look. “I’m sorry, honey. My friend thought that your friend was a buck and made a huge mistake. He ran off but I am here.”

Tears began to stain her light blue dress as she saw the body of the alien slumped into a large bush behind the man. After a moment, he wiped her tears with his sleeve and helped her off the ground. “Do you live far from here?” 

Misty shook her head and pointed in the direction which she was originally facing when she fell. The man nodded and picked her up in his arms. Slowly, with a hobble of an injured soldier, he carried her over the hill and to a small urban home at the edge of the tree line. When they were invited in, he told her mother everything that had happened. During this the man, who they now knew as James Harrison or Moss as he was called in the air force, apologized profusely. His charming demeanor earned him the guest room for a couple days as he also volunteered to nurse Misty’s wound on her head. 

During the day he would be at her side reading stories or talking with her mother, Christina. Through this he learned that Misty’s father, a navy officer named Andrew, died over the Atlantic after the engine on his plane failed during a solo flight to Wales and that, despite everything, she was doing her best to raise Misty on her own. 

The first night that he slept in the guest room, he buried Lump in a grave beside the bush which he had died in and marked the spot with a couple sticks in the shape of an ‘X’. When Misty was well enough to go out again, he took her to see it. When she inevitably broke down and cried when he mimicked the emotion and allowed his tears to water the ground. It was the first time that he had felt this way in a long time.

When his original tenure was up, he was preparing to leave when Christina told him he should stick around for a little bit. “How about a couple weeks? I could use the help around the house.”

He gratefully accepted because, deep down, he didn’t really want to leave yet although he had also not wished to overstay his welcome.

Slowly a couple weeks turned into a month then two months and so on. He was not worried about the time for he had nowhere better to be.

Eventually, after living with them for a year and a half, Moss and Christina got married in the small chapel down on Mine Road. It was a humble ceremony that was filled with more than enough joy to last a lifetime, which it did. 

Their love only grew as the years passed. Misty eventually grew up and moved out of the small house into a larger one not too far down the road. The years became decades and they began to reach the end of their celestial tethers. Both Moss and Christina rejoiced in their lives together and passed peacefully in their sleep, with each other in their arms, at the ages 89 and 93. 

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