The weather forecast for Tuesday night was extremely undershot; instead of a light, almost breezy mist, the skies bludgeoned the poor city of Portland, drenching everything with nearly three inches of water in the last two hours, and the number was expected to rise through the night and into early Wednesday morning. Thunder and lightning, though absent at the moment, was rumored to appear within the next few hours.

The city sidewalks and streets were bare, the only lights were those high off the ground and the little rectangles of illumination from several homes. Occasionally a head would venture out and peer up into the sky; there had to be a little light at the end of the stormy tunnel, right? The man who had been looking for that light suddenly remembered that it was two in the morning, and there would be no light, whether real or metaphoric.

It was very unfortunate for him that his wish had been granted, as something shot down from the heavens with incredible speed, and as it cleared the clouds the fire on its surface was struggling to keep aflame in all the rain. The light the man in the window had been looking for came, but he was not present to witness the ball of fire light up the charcoal sky, before its brightness began to dim, and the tendrils of heat hissed and steamed with every splash of precipitation. The now-doused ball of something continued plummeting to earth, and its descent finally ended when the cold, dark bay swallowed it up in gray and stormy waves, just a few hundred yards from the shore. The cannonball-like splash sent a nearby bell-buoy screaming for its life, and a lobsterman's boat rocked and rolled for several minutes before things once again became quiet and all attentions were on the storm. One of two young men hoping to snag an early-morning blunt upon the dock ran to the edge and peered over the planks, into the churning, salty depths.

Something with a very bright light moved at the bottom of the ocean and was surfacing quick enough for the boys to understand that it wasn't some sort of submarine; when a head of sorts broke the surface, he yelled at his friend, "Go, go!" The both of them ran, screaming in terror as a hand gripped one of the support beams and something big hoisted itself onto the dock a moment later.

Bag of pot forgotten, the two boys dashed away from the piers and back to their homes, hollering the entire way.

The creature checked its surroundings, whined disdainfully at the rain, and stood. Water rolled out from its still-scalding insides, steaming and hissing and evaporating before the liquid even touched the dock. It took the pier to the shore and connecting road, folded down into itself in the shape of something of an inorganic nature, and searched a half hour for some dry place. The metallic creature settled on a spot in the hospital car garage. Its keen sensors picked up the sounds of the two men miles away; they were still screaming their heads off.

Welcome to Earth, thought the alien.

[][][][][]

Norah really loved her father for very obvious reasons.

The man before her flew across the scuffed and weathered floor, landed beautifully upon his silk-wrapped toes and wormed his way into a crisp pose. The younger girls stared in amazement and giggled at the same time, not used to watching a grown man own on the dancefloor.

"Now, ladies," the instructor admonished, flapping a hand their way, "how are you all going to learn this if you're too busy slouching, laughing and... texting? Give it here, Diana." One blond of thirteen years practically tossed him the phone and partially hid behind a throng of other girls that all snickered quietly, though they were equally afraid of the ballet instructor's wrath.

This was the moment. Scare them into it.

The young woman who had been watching from the sidelines suddenly pounced at the male teacher, executing the same pattern shown moments ago, soaring right past his front and toward the younger soon-to-be dancers. She landed nimbly on her feet (though not as nimble as him), and watched for the girls' reactions. They were no longer laughing. Nine sets of eyes watched her every move as she stood stock-still, inhaling deeply. It seemed that the girls were willing to listen to someone of the same sex more than the actual instructor.

He clapped his hands together once, twice, and stepped up to clasp the woman on the shoulder. "You see?" He addressed the girls, "This is where you can be with lots of practice, lots of determination and a hefty amount of passion. This is Norah, my kid, and she'll be in with us, watching and teaching some of the sessions. I want you all to say hello, okay?"

A chorus of "hey"s and "hi"s and a few hand-waves filled the otherwise silent studio. Norah smiled back at them and wrapped an arm around her father's shoulders. Eyeing the young teens with a straight, no-nonsense expression, she bobbed her head twice in acknowledgement and nearly whispered, sternly, "This man right here tought me how to walk, how to talk, how to dance and how to succeed." She shifted her gaze up to her father with a warm, happy smile. "Since you only know the first two on that list, he'll teach you the third, and whether you succeed or not depends on how you use this information." With that, her father took over, showing the girls how to do warm-up stretches.

An hour had passed rather uneventfully, and when it was certain the students would behave and follow Mark Rizeakos' ballet teachings, Norah packed up and left.

The walk home would take less than ten minutes, however with the recent downpour and crippling coldfront, most Mainers thought even ten seconds outside an agonzing ordeal. She herself had bundled up in a winter jacket and leather gloves. The duffel bag slung across Norah's back felt heavier than usual because of so much movement in the pervious hours with the class, and if she didn't take time to stretch herself out when she got home, it would kink up in a few days. Rushing past a few boutiques hawking knock-off handbags, shoes and various articles of clothing, Norah stopped to help an older man in a poofy gray jacket struggling with paper bags from the supermarket before she crossed the street. He had resorted to balancing two bags on one knee, and shuffled around the other three in order to grab his keys from his pocket. One bag narrowly missed its doom when Norah interveined, reaching out to grab it with sharp reflexes.

"Thanks," said the man, offering to shake after all his bags had been deposited. They shook, spoke for a moment about the weather, and he left in his car. Feeling that she had done a good deed, Norah smiled to herself and watched the car drive off as she crossed the street at the white lines. Her little sign said WALK in green, but she heard tires squealing before she saw the blur of white pound into her legs. The collision sent the woman flying a few feet, and in no time she was no more than a heap of clothing; her duffel had somehow opened and some of her clothes from practice were leisurely floating to the ground. The car had stopped, though a bit too late for Norah's liking, and she turned her head to look at the blacked-out windshield and exploded.

"You fucking just hit me?! The hell's your problem! Jesus, my light was green, not yo--" She stopped her tirade mid-sentence, watching in disbelief as the white car (a BMW that, in a calmer situation, she would have ogled at for hours) reversed, turned its tires a little to the right, and just drove right past her, as if nothing had happened. She wanted to scream. There were people walking up to her, shouting things, picking up her items and stuffing them back into the bag, someone tried to help her up. The woman gripping Norah by her waist and forearm smiled and motioned to a car with her chin.

Extremely grateful she was still ambulatory, even if only a little, considering her limp, Norah staggered to the Camry and plopped down into the passenger side with the woman's help. Her name was Jane, and she worked at the hospital as a receptionist. "It's a good thing I always go to work this way, isn't it?" The brunette chuckled, turning at an intersection. She would briefly glance at Norah, just to make sure the younger woman wouldn't keel over right then and there, but Norah, with her hand supporting her head, expression most likely described as pissed, turned to Jane and nodded.

"I'm not sure what even happened."

Jane's expression darkened a little, too. "This guy just flies up the street... your light was fine, and you were on the crosswalk, but, damn, he just tossed you into the pavement like a sack of potatoes. You're planning on pressing charges, right? Stupid bastards like that shouldn't be on the road."

"Didn't see a license plate, and Portland's too big a city to just say to the cops, 'it's a white BMW, and that's all I know.'"

"Hmm. Well," Jane said, perking up a bit, "if you can walk, I doubt you've broken anything. I'll see if I can cajole a doctor to slip you into an available MRI, though I hear the emergency room's been full up. I see you wincing," she added, "I'll ask them to be sure to give you something, even if it's just some Tylenol... which I have in my purse, if you want some."

Norah sighed. Well, that was karma. Help a guy out with his groceries, get hit by a car. She wondered what the driver was thinking. She hoped they were at least a little worried, and were going to be a whole lot more cautious now that they had hit someone. As they drove into the employee parking, she snapped out of her thoughts. "What? Oh, no thanks. I think I'm going to need something stronger than that."

"Honey, what you need is a bounty hunter and a good lawyer," Chuckled the older woman.

[][][][][]

When Norah finally got home, she wanted to curl in a little ball and sleep for five days. The trip to the emergency room was extremely slow, though Jane, true to her word, had slipped Norah in once a spot was free on the MRI's schedule. She needed help stripping out of her jeans, and finally noticed a little cut on the back of her thigh. The fabric was wet, meaning the grill of that car must've really dug in hard. Well, she wouldn't feel sorry if the mystery driver had a splotch of blood on their car, considering what Norah had to endure. It was nowhere near a fair trade, but she'd take what she could get at this point.

It took Norah a moment to remember that no, she did not live alone, and when her parents rounded a wall and began fawning all over her, eyeing the knee brace like it was a prosthetic leg, she wanted to scream for the second time that day. Finally her mother ventured, after things had wound down, "Norah, what happened? The pharmacy called, the hospital called, and they said you'd been hit..."

"Yep."

Her father's face, usually very happy and uplifting and smiling, turned bitter and frowning. "Well, do you know who it was?"

"No license plates, and I couldn't see a face. Could've been just a possessed car, for all I know." She was beginning to mumble.

"So, what's with this?" He gestured to the red felt brace strapped to the outside of her pants. She had packed clean spares for the lessons earlier, her bloody jeans retired to some boihazard bin. Twenty questions was something to be expected when anything happened, however, she wished it would just wait until tomorrow.

"Just some muscle bruising, this'll keep it stiff. Got two whole stitches, too. Oh, and I have a prescrip--" She noticed the paper phermacy bag on the coffee table a few feet away. "Never mind."

Her mother spoke up again, as she led Norah to the couch. "Mike went and picked it up a few hours ago, before the store closed. I think he's gone back to sleep, though. Thank him in the morning."

Norah had a younger brother. Being twenty-three, finished with college by mere months, and still working on the ballet business with her father, she decided that living with her parents wasn't that bad, and they agreed to give her the over-garage apartment. She paid rent, while her brother, Michael, who was only seventeen, still got away with being the baby of the family. Anyone who spared a passing glance would notice the similarities between the siblings; both were tall, dirty blondes with high cheekbones and straight noses. The only real difference, besides sex, was the eye color. And only by a little bit. While Mike had the traditional brown, much like their parents, Norah's eyes were separate colors; the right was hazel, the left was green. She didn't much mind it, though when doing her make-up it was always difficult to find a shadow that would go with both colors and not look hideous. Prom night was set to Defcon 5 for that very reason.

When she noticed the time on the cable box, Norah felt another wave of exhaustion pull her under. "It's nearly one in the morning. Dang. I've been out all night."

Her parents left after retrieving her a glass of water and the prescription bag. Norah had never needed something as strong as Oxycodone; it was probably a good idea that she was downstairs on the couch instead of all alone in her apartment.

Turning on the television, Norah flicked through the news channels, just to see if the car had hit anyone else. One station was playing back its news from that morning, and on the screen were two teenagers, friends of Mike, she noticed, both of whom looked completely baked. "--was huge, and, like, came outta nowhere... Well, no, it came outta the sky, landed in the water, then came outta the water, but, dude, it's coming for us, man. You've seen War of the Worlds? Yah? Well it was like that metal thing -- the thing, you know? With the dust lasers--"

"Well, I think we have it all, thanks, boys," interruped the journalist awkwardly. She looked extremely uncomfortable standing next to them. "Portland, keep an eye open for a metal monster roaming the streets... Gianna Bloom for channel nine."

Despite the pain, Norah had to smile. Michael's higher-than-the-sky friends had just made complete fools of themselves. Hopefully this would teach them to lay off the marijuana. Since this must have happened this morning, Norah wondered what the boys were doing now. No one would believe that, especially because they were high. She suspected they probably were scared off by an old man on his boat and didn't want to admit it. She heard the screaming early in the morning; there's no way they'll live this down.

[][][][][]

There were days when Norah could claim things just seem to go wrong. Just for her.

Feeling the effects of the medication more than the actual injury, a very smart, well-thought-out idea to bundle up and sit on the patio at six in the morning in the middle of March was the first and foremost issue on Norah's to-do list. With messy hair, bloodshot, sleepy eyes and a hot mug of Earl Grey, she embarked on her journey out into the yard, past the tarp-covered inground pool and over to the brick fire pit. With a squeaky yawn, she set the mug down and curled into one of the two neglected lawn chairs. Someone should have put those in the garage months ago.
The air always seemed cleaner in the frigid, winter months; as much as she could whine and complain about living in a place where frigging cold happens on a daily basis, she wouldn't want to change the feeling of pure with every inhilation. Arms wrapped tightly around her knees, she rested her chin in the dip and closed her eyes. There was a distinct feeling of almost-nausea when Norah tried to concentrate on anything, and if not for the squawk of some large bird, she would have fallen asleep in the twenty-something-degree weather. Curious, because the wildlife was usually silent, she cracked an eye open and searched for the offending bird. There was no bird, however there was something fishy about the pool; one end of the tarp had become very loose, and she heard it flapping in the wind. Since it was new, it was still empty, and there were plenty of little critters which were small enough to sneak in... only to get stuck, which sounded like the current situation.

Norah's Investigation Mode kicked in and she cautiously unknotted herself from the lawn chair and crept over to the poolside. Maybe the bird was trapped in there? The woman got down on her hands and knees, crawled slowly to the edge, pinched some fabric between her gloved fingers, lifted it, looked in, and froze.

"...what."

It was not a bird. It was much bigger than a bird.

Flying backward in a clumsy crabwalk that did absolute wonders for her injury, Norah twisted onto her stomach, pushed her knees up under her chest with a gasp of pure agony and bolted. Through the blind panic, she hadn't noticed that she ran absolutely nowhere. She was actually moving in reverse.

The monster in the pool had snatched her in its hands and pulled her into the ten-feet-deep, waterless depression.

[][][][][]

AN: Pot's bad for you, kids. Just look at those guys.

Also: My first fanfiction piece ever! Yaaaaaay. If you enjoyed it, or even if you spotted some misspelling or something like that, please don't hesitate to tell me in a review, or by email is fine too.

...you did enjoy it, right? 'Cause I certainly enjoyed writing it, and there's more on the way. :)

-Pants out.

PS: Rizeakos = RIZ-EE-AH-KIS