Author's Note: None! (For once.) Together, we venture into the unknown…

A Promise

He sat alone in a perfectly white room. White walls. White furniture. White floor. Fluorescent light shone harshly from the ceiling. It was the kind of bright, glossy white you might get in a freshly-cleaned hospital, or a science lab, the kind that made everything seem unfriendly and sterile. The room itself was almost completely bare apart from a desk, two chairs and a door.

Joe Lamb sat at one end of the desk. Waiting.

He'd been waiting for about five minutes before the door behind him opened. Someone stepped through, booted feet clicking on the tiles. There was a brief jingle of keys – then the sound of the door being closed again. And locked.

Click. Click. Click.

The figure walked around the other side of the desk and sat down across from Joe. It was a military officer in an olive green uniform: air force, with a blue beret. He was middle-aged with a round, kindly face, and brown eyes that sparkled with activity. The name on his uniform was 'Forman.'

"Hello again, Joe," Lieutenant Forman said.

Joe didn't reply. The Lieutenant smiled faintly, as if expecting the lack of response. "All wired up?" he asked.

Joe nodded.

"Good, good. Then let's start. Would you like anything before we begin? Some water?"

Joe shook his head.

"Okay. Then… tell me about that night. Tell me what transpired on the night of June 6th." The Lieutenant leaned forwards a little. Joe thought for a moment before answering.

"That afternoon… there was a fire, in the hills around the town," he said. "It was a big one. The military had to come and help control it. In the meantime, everyone was evacuated. I was too."

"And?"

"We went to the Greenville Airbase. We were supposed to stay there until the fire was out."

"But you didn't, did you Joe?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because… because we'd left our dog locked up in the house. Lucy. I wanted to make sure she was okay."

"Good. So you went back. Did you find Lucy?"

"Yes. I let her out."

"And then?"

"And then, I… I went back…" Joe closed his eyes.

"…and then you had an adventure, didn't you," the Lieutenant finished. His tone, previously friendly, now held a hint of menace. "You saw things. Things that might have seemed a little… strange. Things you probably shouldn't have seen. I am going to ask you questions about those things now, Joe, and I hope you remember the right answers."

Joe didn't reply.

"What did you see on the main street, Joe?"

"There was stuff flying around. TVs. Bikes. Anything metal."

"Why were those things flying?"

"…magnetic interference," he said dully.

"Why was there magnetic interference?"

"The military was testing a weapon."

"What was the ship that you saw?"

"An experimental plane. It was carrying the weapon. The cubes were part of it."

One question after another, the officer leaning closer and closer over the table.

"Why did the military capture you?"

"They didn't want anyone near the weapon."

"And officially?"

"They wanted everyone away from the fire."

"What happened to the people that disappeared?"

"I… I don't know."

"You do know," Forman said.

"I…" Joe struggled to remember the answer. "…there was a bear. A rabid bear, in the forest. It was attacking people."

"Good. Why did you go into the tunnels?"

"What tunnels?"

"The tunnels under the cemetery."

"I didn't. I found Lucy, then I saw something on the main street. So I went there."

"What did you see?"

"The flying stuff. Like before."

"Was there anyone with you?"

"There wasn't anyone with me. I was alone."

A pause. Lieutenant Forman took a deep, deep breath, and exhaled loudly in the silence. "Good," he murmured eventually. "Good good good." He said it in a kind of sing-song tone that Joe utterly despised. "One last question, Joe. What did you see?"

Joe took a breath of his own before answering. "I saw… something. Something alive. It was scared."

"Wrong," Forman said curtly.

"Fine. Then I saw an alien, an alien from another planet and I'm gonna run out of here and tell everyone about it—"

"No. You aren't. Or you'll never see your friends again. There was no 'alien', Joe," the Lieutenant said warningly. "There was no monster. In fact, there was nothing. Nothing at all. Only a weapons test that went terribly wrong, and that's the truth. Are we clear?"

Sitting there, in that little white room, Joe could almost believe it. The military's 'truth' had been drilled into him so many times that it almost was real. He squinted in the uncomfortably bright light and forced himself to stay quiet. "We're clear," he said.

"Good good good." Forman pushed himself to his feet, his chair scraping the floor. "Stand up."

Joe stood up.

"Shirt off."

Joe took off his shirt. The Lieutenant walked around the table, and peeled off the set of medical electrodes that was taped to Joe's chest. After untangling the thin wires he placed them delicately on the table. Joe quickly put his shirt back on. His chest felt… tingly, from where the pads had stuck to his skin.

The Lieutenant walked to the door and unlocked it with his keys. Freedom beckoned from the other side. Joe met the Lieutenant's gaze warily. For now, the officer's eyes were friendly, but Joe knew they could change in an instant.

"Okay, Joe. Be good," Forman said pleasantly. "I'll see you again on Wednesday."

Joe stepped through the door, out of the interrogation room. The hallway outside was similarly white – bright, clean, fluorescents lining the ceiling preventing any hint of shadow. The corridor was empty except for a couple of benches lining the left-hand wall.

Sitting on them were his friends: Charles, Cary, Martin, Preston, and Alice. All there. They sat quietly, hands in pockets, looking up, down, out the single tiny window. Anywhere except each other. The air force guards in the corner didn't like them talking.

But still, they looked up as Joe walked by. Charles gave him a quick smile. "How was it?" he mouthed silently.

Joe shrugged. Same as always. He walked past them and sat down on the end of the bench, next to Alice. Their jeans and jackets and scuffed shoes were the only splashes of colour in the long white corridor. At the end of the hall, Lieutenant Forman poked his head out of the interrogation room.

"Cary?" he called out. "You're next. Please, come in."

Cary got up, rolling his eyes. Grudgingly, he followed Forman into the room. The door locked behind him.

Joe sighed, staring out the window, where the sky was free and blue.

Joe sighed, staring out the window, where the sky was full of stars. He turned over, tangling his sheets; he couldn't sleep no matter how hard he tried.

Every two days, it was the same. He'd be driven to a secure army facility in Springfield – a grim-looking place, with thick brick walls and barbed-wire fences – and he'd be taken past checkpoints, down a series of tunnels, and into the small white room. There, a man would ask him questions. Sometimes it was Lieutenant Forman, sometimes it was someone else, but the questions were always the same: what happened, why did it happen, where did you go, what did you see.

At first, he'd told the truth. About the alien. About everything. They hadn't liked that very much. So then, they'd told him their version of the truth – what they wanted the public to hear. It had been incredibly difficult to cover the Lillian incident up but the air force had somehow managed; now, the crazy sequence of events that had started his summer was, officially, just a military weapons research test that had gotten a little out of control. That 'truth' was all they cared about, so they drilled it into him, day after day, until he could recite it in his sleep (in case other people started asking questions).

Occasionally, they would ask him something about the alien. How it had behaved, what it had looked like. But not anymore. It was almost as if they didn't care now that the creature was out of their grasp.

One month had passed since that incredible week of summer. Life was – relatively – back to normal. Everything was the same as always, or at least as much as it could be. The town had been cleaned up, people went back to work, the train crash that'd started everything had become a distant memory. Still… something was different.

It would always be different.

When he woke up the next morning, though, everything felt normal.

"Lucy! Where are you?"

He heard the border collies running through the house. A second later her head appeared around the kitchen doorway, panting happily. "Good girl! Breakfast time." Joe knelt down and poured a cup of biscuits into her bowl and she bounded over, claws skidding on the tiles.

"Sit!"

She sat. Her eyes were very sad. That look might work on dad, but it doesn't work on me.

"Shake!"

She held up her paw. They shook hands.

"Okay. You can eat."

She darted forwards and started mauling her bowl, scattering biscuits across the floor. Joe chuckled, shaking his head. Lucy ate every single meal like she'd been starved for a week. He gathered up the biscuits with his foot as she crunch-crunch-crunched, arranging them into a pile.

"…Are you gonna eat something too?" his dad asked.

Joe turned to see him standing by the door, a wry smile on his face. As always, Jack was dressed in his dark navy police uniform; Joe was wearing jeans and a faded orange t-shirt.

"I'm not really hungry," he replied.

Jack frowned. "You should eat somethin'. Breakfast is the—"

"—most important meal of the day, I know." His dad was sometimes a bit predictable. "I'll have something later."

"Well, okay. Just make sure that you do – there's half a pizza still left in the fridge for when you get hungry."

"Sure. Thanks."

His dad paused for a minute, oddly uncertain. "They didn't… do anything to you yesterday, did they?"

"No. Only asked some questions. Like all the other times."

"Okay. So long as it's just questions, I'm fine with it. But tell me if they start doin' anything weird to you, alright? I don't like the fact that they're talking to you without supervision."

Joe nodded. The first few interrogations had made his dad VERY jumpy, but the military hadn't been very accommodating of his concerns. They'd been quite threatening, actually – but they had to be, to get the parents to stay quiet. As Lucy kept eating there was an awkward kind of silence, but nowadays, it was the nice kind of awkward.

"I'm off, then," Jack said eventually. "See you at six. Don't do anything stupid."

You too. "I won't."

"Are you going to be at Charles' place?"

"Yep."

"And Alice's?"

"…Maybe." He couldn't help the blush.

"Okay then. Have fun." His dad smiled, patted him on the shoulder then went to grab his things. Joe poured a cup of orange juice as Lucy finished her breakfast. Immediately, she started begging for more. "No. No!" Joe whispered. He waited till he heard his dad start the car in the garage; then sneakily gave her another handful of biscuits.

Joe stepped outside just in time to see the police car pull out the driveway and rumble off up the hill. It was a beautiful day (most days were, this time of year). The world was utterly filled with colour – green grass, blue skies, red-brick houses, hazy white clouds – and bursting with the promise of freedom. Joe strolled across the yard, surrounded by birdsong and the faint smell of pine trees. It was one of those days that was the essence of summer, the kind of day you wished for when surrounded by three weeks of snow. He started walking up the street to the corner next to Charles' house; he'd dumped his bike there yesterday after they'd been picked up for questioning.

The bike was still there, hidden under a bush. He dragged it out, brushed it off. There was a black beetle sitting on the seat which he sent flying with a well-aimed flick.

"Joe, hey! Wait up!"

Charles, jogging down the street towards him. He'd obviously been mucking around outside and was already sweating hard. He staggered to a stop in front of Joe, bent over to catch his breath. "What's – uh – what's up?"

"Not much, just going into town," Joe replied. "What about you?"

Charles glared at him. "Oh man, don't get me started. I'm looking for my stupid sister."

"Which one?"

"The stupid one, obviously."

"And that is…"

"Jen! It's Jen!" Charles nearly exploded with annoyance.

"Well, sorry, but you have three sisters and sometimes it's a bit hard to—"

"She went and destroyed my top hat AGAIN!"

"She does that a lot, doesn't she," Joe replied.

"I was going to use it for my costume and she ruined it."

"I – hang on, what costume?"

"Amy Louise's birthday party," Charles explained. "It's a dress-up theme."

Joe frowned. "I didn't know she was having a birthday party."

"Well, obviously you weren't invited. Probably because she doesn't really know you."

"And she knows you?"

Charles shrugged. "I was her lab partner in chemistry this year."

"Oh. I guess that works."

Charles paused to catch his breath, slowly reining in his frustration. (Slowly.) His sisters, unfortunately, were nowhere to be seen. Joe looked around, wondering about the time. I'm supposed to be there by ten—

"What are you gonna do in town?" Charles asked suddenly.

Joe blinked. "I'm… going to visit Alice."

"…Oh." His face fell.

It was still kind of a touchy subject.

"You can come too, if you want," Joe offered. "It's not private or anything. We're not doing anything special."

"Nah, that's OK." Charles shrugged. "I have to work on some stuff for my movie anyway."

"Really? Have you heard back from the competition?"

"No, not yet. It should be soon though, and sooner if we won anything… oh god, I hope we won something. Do you think we won something? Joe, what if they don't like it? What if they didn't even watch it? What if it was really bad and the other entries were—"

"Charles, they would've loved it," Joe interrupted. "And besides, those were some REALLY good zombie murders."

"God, I hope so."

Charles had this way of working himself up at the drop of a (apparently ruined) hat, creating storms of worries out of nothing. He was, Joe thought, probably the last calm person on the planet – some things would never change, even after meeting a real-life alien.

Then he glanced at the sun, rising above the trees and realised he should probably get moving. Joe vaulted onto his bike. "The movie was great Charles, I swear. But sorry, but I really have to go. I'm gonna be late."

"Oh. Okay."

"I'll – I'll see you later. I hope you find your sister."

Charles nodded. "Yeah, sure. See you round."

Joe kicked off, rolling down the hill, faster and faster as he went. Charles was left standing alone on the curb before turning back to look for his hat.

"Martin's coming over tomorrow, if you want to come too!" he called out suddenly. But Joe had already disappeared around the corner, the wind loud in his ears.

He knocked on the door, then stepped back nervously to wait. He was standing on the porch of the Dainard house, in the same place he'd stood when he'd first visited more than a month ago. When he'd come to beg Alice to help them make the movie.

The movie. It had seemed so important back then, but now it was only a footnote.

The house itself was made of dark brick and weatherboard, and sat half-way up a hill on the older edge of town. A small windchime hung next to the door, swinging gently in the breeze; its discordant notes rang out clearly across the overgrown, junk-filled yard. Scraggly bushes clung bravely to the dirt. Clearly, Louis Dainard wasn't very interested in gardening.

And it was Louis Dainard who answered the door, rubbing his eyes like he'd just woken up.

"Who is – oh. It's you."

"Hello, Mr. Dainard." Joe swallowed. Despite everything that had happened, he still felt slightly nervous around Alice's father.

"Hey, Joe. Are you here to see Alice?"

"Yes. If that's OK."

"I'll go get her for you. Do you want to come in?"

"No thank you. That's OK. I can wait."

"Fair enough." He padded off up the stairs, disappearing out of view. Joe waited. He heard a short, muffled conversation, then light footsteps running down the hallway. Two seconds later, Alice Dainard was pressed up against the fly-screen door. Pale skin, blue eyes. Almost like a ghost.

"Hey."

"Hey." Joe's heart did a little flutter. He kind of hated it, but liked it at the same time – the way he felt around her.

Alice smiled. "So are you coming in, or are we going out?"

Joe looked around at the bright summer's day. "Going out?" he suggested.

"That sounds great. Where to?"

The Lillian Heritage Park was located a few blocks from the town hall. Old oaks had been planted there in an irregular grid when the town was first founded, and now, hundreds of years later, they formed a pleasant canopy of shade over a wide green expanse. A few well-tended flowerbeds splashed the place with colour, and a series of stone paths wound gently through the trees. It was quiet. Pretty. A nice place to wander through.

Especially when you had some company.

"I cannot believe we're having this conversation," Joe said as they walked. "You haven't seen Star Wars?"

"Star-what?"

"Star Wars! The greatest movie ever made!"

Alice snorted. "Joe, I'm joking. Of course I know what Star Wars is. I just never had the chance to watch it - or anyone to watch it with."

Anyone to watch it with… He filed that piece of information away for later.

"So Star Wars is pretty good?" she asked.

"It's more than 'pretty good'," he replied. "It's amazing."

"Hmm. It's about that kid named Luke Starchaser, isn't it? And that tall black guy? Darth Wadder?"

"…Are you doing this on purpose?"

"Maybe." Alice grinned. "Have you heard what the others are up to over the break?"

"Not really. Cary's doing some babysitting, I think."

"Cary's doing babysitting? For who? Sounds like a poor decision by that set of parents."

"I don't know. He seems to think he's quite good at it."

"Huh."

"And Charles is doing more movie stuff," Joe continued. "He's planning the next one already. It's going to be another monster movie, obviously."

"Obviously."

"Are you… still interested in helping out?"

"Yes, of course I'll be in it. What about everyone else?"

"I don't know. Actually I haven't talked to them, outside of at the base. The military doesn't let us visit much."

"They don't, do they." She shrugged sarcastically. "But of course, the air force knows what's best."

It was nice, spending time with Alice like this. Not doing much, just... talking. Talking about nothing in particular. He wondered what it was called when two people could simply enjoy being with each other, when it felt like they'd known each other forever. (Well, he kinda knew what it was called, and he could imagine his friends pointing and making lots of embarrassing noises at the answer. Why did some things have to be so weirdly awkward?)

"What about your dad," Alice continued, as they skirted around a small pond. Bushy reeds lined the banks, waving gently above the water. "How's that been?"

"It's been good, I guess?"

"Oh, come on, you have to tell me more than that."

"Well… we went out to a restaurant last night. It's like, this French place. In Brookville. It's small, but it's filled with flowers and stuff, and the food's really nice. We went there with mom a lot. She loved it there."

"Do you still think about her?"

"Who?"

"You know who."

Joe thought for a moment. "I do think about her. All the time, but now… it's not as sad. It's more like remembering her, instead of wishing she was back."

"That's… nice," Alice said, searching for a better word.

"Yeah. It is."

Alice was one of the only people he could talk to about that part of his life. One of the only ones who really understood. Charles asked about it sometimes, and there was his dad of course, but Alice… Alice wasn't afraid to ask. That made it better, somehow.

"What about your mom?" Joe said. "She's still around, right?"

"Yeah. She is. I don't know where, though. She ran off while I was still in pre-school." Alice didn't sound particularly torn up about it.

"How old were you?"

"Seven."

"That's… less nice."

"No. But it was so long ago that – that I'm almost used to it." Alice laughed, a little strangely. "Look at us! It's weird, the things we talk about. It's almost like we're trying to be miserable."

"I'm not miserable, though," Joe said. "Are you?"

"No. No, I'm not. I'm pretty happy actually." She smiled beautifully, brushing a few strands of hair behind her ear. She held out her hand, and he took it. Joe, understandably, was pretty happy too.

"So I saw this movie the other day," he began. "It was called The Life of Brian, and it was REALLY good. It's a bit hard to explain, but basically, it follows a guy who was born on the same day as Jesus, but he was also born next door, so people keep mistaking him for Jesus."

"Like, Bible Jesus?"

"Yeah. Bible Jesus. It sounds weird, but it's super funny. It's a" – he tried to remember the phrase Charles had used – "it's a religious satire. It makes fun of all that stuff, but not in a mean way. It was made in England and there's a bunch of men playing the female characters, and they put on really stupid voices. As I said, it's weird."

"That's… interesting?"

"It totally is. Anyway, I was going to ask if you wanted to go and see it. With me. Maybe. It's really good. Only if you want to though." Joe cursed himself for doing the stumbling-over-words thing again. Every freaking time you ask her something-

"Well, let me check my busy summer vacation schedule." Alice picked a flower, examining it closely. "Nope, nothing on! I guess I can go."

"Really? Cool. The movie's rated R but Charles has a friend at the theatre who can get us in."

"Oh?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Apparently he works there. So… Friday?"

"Friday's good. Thanks for asking, Joe."

"No problem," Joe replied. Thanks for saying yes.

They walked further up the path, holding hands. They were near the top of the hill, now, and if the trees hadn't been there there would've been an amazing view of the town. The park was definitely beautiful when the flowers were in full bloom. It'd be a good subject next time some poetry was required in English class. (Much less awkward than writing about girls and feelings. Charles had done that once. Joe still cringed at the memory). They passed a bronze statue of Lillian's first mayor – a short man, missing his right ear thanks to a poorly-aimed baseball pitch.

"I saw a movie too," Alice began. "It was called The Case."

"Really?" Joe asked with mock surprise. "What was it about?"

"It was a horror movie, about a brave detective who's trying to solve a series of murders. It turns out that there are zombies involved."

"Zombies… oh my god."

"Walking corpses. The living dead. There was a big conspiracy, involving the army and the president. At the end the detective manages to find a cure for the zombie virus, but not before his wife is infected too. He saves her, though, just in time. That was a good movie."

"It definitely sounds awesome."

"But also…" Alice paused. "I think it's a movie about a group of friends who get sucked up into the mystery of their lives. Strange things start happening, and people start disappearing, and for a second the world seems scary. But then they find out that the scary things aren't scary anymore, and that the scary things were just scared. It's about military secrets, and train crashes, and small, country town. It's about the past and the future, all at once. It's about a mysterious creature from another world… and a boy who wants to save a girl."

Joe blinked. He wasn't quite sure how to respond to that.

"I'm sorry, that was super cheesy," Alice said ruefully.

"No, no." He coughed. "I think that story's pretty cool."

She grinned a little. Then she leaned sideways, whispering in his ear. "Do you still feel it?"

"It?"

"You know who."

"…Yeah. Every day."

"It's the same for me. It's like a – a corner of my head that's gone permanently dark. Like a feeling that's sealed off forever. That thing did something to us, Joe. Every time I look up at night, I wonder where it went. If he's safe. It's weird to care, right? After everything that happened. But I can't help it." She pointed upward, through the trees, at the cloudless blue sky. Joe turned, following her finger.

"No, it's not weird," he replied. "But I think you might be wondering for a very long time."

"I hope not." Alice sighed. "Although maybe it's better that way."

Joe glanced around to make sure no one was following them. He felt hellishly paranoid as he did, but with the lengths the air force had gone to he wouldn't be surprised if they were keeping tabs on anyone who knew the truth. Of course, there was nobody watching; only a family a having a picnic on the grass. Everything seemed normal (other than the topic of conversation).

And that, paradoxically, was the strangest thing: that everything seemed normal. After the momentous events of the summer it felt like the world should've changed. People should've been lining the streets, talking, protesting, reading news stories – whatever. Lillian, with its battle scars, its dead, its half-ruined main street, should've felt gloriously, permanently different.

But nothing was. People still went to work, and the shops were still open, and kids were still on summer break. Occasionally people talked about the strange night in June but no one actually thought about it much. After all, most people had been fine. Only those who'd had their houses damaged were particularly upset about the whole thing and here, in the park, it was business as usual. Flowers, trees, birds—

Through a gap in the leaves, Joe noticed he could see all the way into town. In the distance, along the streets by the cemetery, he could (barely) make out half-a-dozen uniformed men. They were trudging up and down the cemetery's fenceline, holding odd-looking scanning equipment: a cleanup crew, courtesy of the air force. A couple of squads were still floating around town, scoping things out, just in case.

So, things weren't completely normal.

He turned back to Alice, and realised she wasn't there. That was weird; he could still feel her, could feel her hand in his, except he was looking right at where she should've been standing and she clearly wasn't there. Only empty air beside him.

"…Alice?" His voice sounded very alone.

All around him, the trees were dead. The trees were dead, stark and black, and the ground was covered in snow.

Not snow. Ash.

Suddenly, a FLASH:

A rush of imagery

Eyes

Skin

Dark blue

Crawling bodies

A dead world, cracked in two

The skies ablaze

And letters

Terrible letters, scrawled in fire, standing ten feet tall

TELL THEM

tell them tell them Tell Them TELL THEM joe? Joe?—

"Joe?"

The images stopped. He blinked, trying to get his bearings. He was standing in the park, next to Alice, exactly where he had been.

"Joe, are you okay? You zoned out for a second there." She peered at him him concernedly.

"I – yeah. I'm okay."

"What happened?"

"It was nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just a bit dizzy."

What was that?

"Let's go back. We can grab a drink, that might help."

"Okay." Joe nodded, still breathing a little heavily. He could barely think. He needed an excuse. "Actually – I promised I'd go over to Charles' house after this, and I don't want to flake out on him again. Sorry. You know how he is."

'Tell them?' Tell them about what?

"Yeah. I guess. Well, you'd better head over there then." She frowned. "Are you sure nothing's wrong? I don't want you to fall off your bike or anything."

"I'm sure," he said, trying to concentrate, not feeling sure at all. Even so, his answer seemed to convince her. "Same time tomorrow?" he asked hopefully.

Alice smiled. "OK. Same time tomorrow."

When he got home, it was a quiet night in. He had dinner with his dad – lamb roast, surprisingly well-cooked – and they talked about work, and plans, and things that were happening around town. Apparently Izzy had managed to get his insurance to cover the dozen missing car engines, which was one big problem sorted, and a girl had gotten lost in the forest after being separated from her sister. She'd been found, though, so there was a happy ending. Lucy sat beneath the table, nibbling at their feet: Hint hint. I want more food!

Afterwards, they sat on the couch and watched TV for a while. Joe and Jack had made a kind of deal: 'watch one of mine and I'll watch one of yours.' So together, they got through half a baseball game, as well as the first hour of James Bond's Goldfinger.

Joe found himself getting into the baseball game a bit, cheering for the state team. His dad actually cracked a smile during a few scenes in Goldfinger. Overall, it was a success. They agreed to do the same tomorrow night.

Joe didn't think much of the strange visions he'd seen in the park. It was unclear, in his head, exactly what'd occurred; the whole thing had been an incoherent rush, like a whole night of dreams compressed into a three-second burst. He couldn't quite remember it, really. And besides – he figured he was about due a bit of weirdness. It was surprising that there wasn't more of it around, these days.

Wednesday. The white room.

"What did you see on the main street, Joe?"

"Things flying. Everything metal. Cars. TVs and stuff."

"And why were those things flying?"

"Magnetic energy. The military was testing a magnetic weapon."

"Why?"

"They wanted to test it in a populated area. They evacuated the town as cover."

"What else did you see?"

"An experimental plane. It was silver. Blue. It flew like a rocket."

"Who's plane was it?"

"The air force's. It was carrying the weapon."

Questions, endless questions, under the bright, buzzing light. Lieutenant Forman leaned forwards, his face cast in shadow.

"What happened to the people that disappeared?"

"There was a rabid bear that attacked them in the forest. It attacked people. Lots of people."

"Why were your friends with you?"

"There wasn't anyone with me. I was alone."

"Why were you in the tunnels?"

"There were no tunnels."

"What did you see, Joe?"

"…Nothing."

The worst part was that no one believed them. Of course they'd tried to tell people – parents, friends, whoever would listen. No one believed them. Right as the ship had left, bare minutes after it'd faded from view, the military had taken them into custody. Anyone who'd been within Lillian's borders, or close enough to see anything 'incriminating', was brought to the Springfield facility and kept there.

There were questions. Lots of questions. Cameras. Guards. Medical tests too, and strange, humming machines. They were kept in isolation, unable to talk about what'd happened.

But in the end, they were treated relatively well, and week later they were out – free to do whatever they wanted.

Immediately, Cary had nearly driven his parents crazy by telling them about aliens and murders and spaceships. They hadn't believed him; they'd accepted the military's story about the weapons test, aided by some handy monetary compensation. Apparently, Cary was still trying to convince them every day.

Charles tried to tell his folks but had the same result. It didn't help that he had five siblings who ridiculed him every time he brought it up (although secretly, his younger brother believed him, and they whispered about it under the covers when no one else was listening).

Martin talked about the incident with his parents. They sat him down, booked some counselling and murmured something about 'mass hallucinations', which they'd seen programs about on the TV.

Preston never said much to his family. He'd already decided they would think he was crazy, and he was waiting for a better time to show 'em some REAL proof. Like a video, maybe, or a backpack full of classified folders.

Donny thought the whole thing had been a drug-fuelled dream. Now, he was completely sober.

In Alice and Joe's case, they could talk about it, because their fathers had been there too. But Louis Dainard and Jack Lamb didn't know what they'd seen – some kind of flying ship, sure, and a big grey animal, and a whole bunch of soldiers and tanks – but how it fit together was a mystery to them. Joe and Alice had attempted to explain, and their fathers had attempted to understand, but Joe could tell that they didn't really 'get it'. They were more interested in the military cover-up side of things, rather than the trapped alien creature. Children (or teenagers) found it much easier to believe in impossibilities. More valuable, perhaps, were the emotional wounds which had been healed thanks to one impossible creature in particular.

So, ultimately, no one knew what had occurred, thanks to the air force's crushing insistence that everything was fine and dandy. Still, the military didn't like them meeting up, and it'd tried to keep Joe's group of friends separate as much as it could. Joe didn't know why. Maybe it thought they might do a bit of damage, if six people who knew the truth were crammed in one place.

And perhaps they could. Joe sometimes noticed an army patrol car parked on the end of his street – a small reminder not to do anything stupid. He imagined that his friends had cars on the corners of their streets too. Watching them. Just in case.

They strolled through the park, surrounded by green-tinged beauty.

"You got an A for history?" Joe asked, incredulous.

Alice giggled. "Yeah. What's so weird about that?"

"Mr. Gerstmann never gives people A's."

"Doesn't he?"

"It's like he has a rule against it or something. Seriously, I had him last year and I never saw more than a B plus."

"That's you. Not me."

"Yeah, but – I wrote some pretty good essays," Joe insisted.

"I guess mine were better," Alice said teasingly.

"Maybe. He also gave me a ton of extra homework."

"Why'd he do that?"

Joe shrugged. "No idea. Cary says it's because he hates children. And he's a Nazi."

Mr. Gerstmann was a thin, lanky German immigrant who was creeping further and further into his seventies. He taught history and geography with a shock of tangled grey hair and was renowned for being fairly 'strict.'

"Cary doesn't know what he's talking about. If he hates children, why'd he become a teacher?" Alice thought for a moment, then answered her own question. "Although if I taught for fifty years I'd probably hate children too…"

Joe made a mental note that she hadn't discounted the Nazi part.

The Lillian park was much busier today, bustling with life and activity. To the left of the path was some sort of gathering – twenty people standing in a circle, chatting and holding drinks. To the right, a couple of kids were kicking a soccer ball through the trees. School reports had been posted in the morning and were the current hot topic of discussion (or cold topic, for some unfortunate people).

"So how else did you do?" Joe asked.

"Fine," Alice said casually. "Mostly A's and B's. My dad was happy with it, so that's good. It's the first time he's even looked at my grades in years."

"That's cool, I guess." Joe frowned. "But I didn't know you were, like…"

"…smart?" She made air-quotes with her fingers.

"Yeah."

"I'm not. Not really. Not compared to someone like Preston, who probably gets A's for everything."

"He totally does," Joe murmured. "It's ridiculous."

"But I try and make an effort at school. Otherwise, it's almost like you're wasting all those hours you spend sitting in a classroom getting talked at. That's all you need sometimes, you know? A bit of work." She grinned. "And besides, I'm terrible at math. Now – tell me about your grades, Joseph Lamb."

"Uhh… they were alright?"

"I'm sure they were fine."

"Well, I didn't fail anything, if that's what you mean." It was odd, how for about three hours after you got them, grades seemed like the most important thing in the world. Then, quickly, they were forgotten in favour of actually having fun with your holidays.

Joe looked down at his feet for a moment, kicking a pebble along the path. He'd gone straight to Alice's house after their 8AM interrogation, since it made the military visits much more bearable if you had something to look forward to afterwards. A couple of ducks were waddling along the banks of the park pond, and when Joe walked past they leapt into the water in a blur of splashing feathers. Shafts of sunlight fell through the canopy, casting dappled shadows on the grass.

"I did pretty well in math, actually," he said. "Got an A."

"Wow, that's great. Maybe we'll have to start calling you 'Math Camp' instead."

"No way." He shook his head vigorously. "I am NOT going to that thing. It – it made sense, that's all. All the algebra stuff. Mrs. Shaw was a good teacher."

"Negative-B plus/minus the square root of B-squared minus 2AC divided by 2A equals the solution of the curve…" Alice recited, with extreme boredom.

"Exactly."

"That was right?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Ugh." Alice groaned. "Why can't I do THAT in a test. What else did you get?"

"Well… there was a C-minus in Latin. That happened."

"Still a pass."

"Yeah, but I actually tried in that class. It's only because Latin is stupid."

"On that we can definitely agree," Alice muttered. "You know what language I'd like to learn?"

"What?"

"Japanese."

Joe coughed. "'Japanese?'"

"Yeah. Wouldn't that be cool?" Her eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

"Japanese would be… interesting," he said slowly.

"It would be amazing. I'd love to go to Japan one day."

"Wouldn't it be hard though? To learn? They use a different alphabet and everything."

"It might be hard, but it'd be worth it. I saw a book about Japan in the library, and some of the photos… they were really beautiful. And I think it'd be great to spend time in a completely different world."

Joe nodded. He'd never actually thought about Japan much, but it probably would be cool. "Any other places you'd like to visit?"

"There's so many! It's hard to decide. France, obviously, and Spain, and South America, and Egypt, the rest of Africa too, India…"

"That's a lot of places."

"Yeah, but look at us – we've seen barely any of the world. We're kind of stuck here, in Lillian. Or at least stuck in Ohio."

"Lillian's not that bad, is it?" Joe asked.

"Well yeah, it's fine, but there's a whole other world out there. So many other countries!" Alice turned to him. "Don't you wanna explore it? See new things? Just… go somewhere far away and leave everything behind? Like Australia, for instance. When I grow up, I wanna go to Australia."

"Australia? Why?"

"Because it's about as far away as you can get. Literally the other side of the world."

"Australia…" Joe tried to remember what he'd learned. "They have all of those weird animals, right? Like the jumpy things – kangaroos. And koala bears, and platypussies. Isn't it mostly desert?"

"I have no idea," Alice said, "which is the best part: I know almost nothing about it. Wouldn't it be cool to go there and find out? I don't want to be stuck in Lillian my whole life, even if it is a nice town."

Joe could definitely understand where she was coming from, even if he didn't quite feel the same urge to immediately jump on a plane. Alice laughed suddenly. "Hey, Mr. Gerstmann would be proud! We're talking about geography even when we're not at school. What about you - are there any places you wanna go?"

He wracked his brains. "Antarctica," he said eventually.

Now it was Alice's turn to look at him weirdly. "Antarctica," she repeated.

"Yeah. Antarctica."

"Why there?"

"Because it has lots of penguins."

"What?"

"It has lots of penguins. I like penguins."

"That's… different."

"And seals. I really like seals. They're probably my favourite animal. If I was allowed to have a seal as a pet, I would get one in a second. I think Antarctica has lots of seals."

"I'll keep that in mind," Alice replied, smiling.

"I mean, it'd probably be freezing cold, but the seals would be worth it," Joe added.

There weren't very many seals outside of zoos in Ohio, though at least Lillian had lots of birds and insects (plus the occasional grizzly). Their feet crunched on the gravel path as it wound through the oak trees. Distant laughter echoed across the park and he turned, looking for the source, saw a couple of kids he recognised from school playing tag over the hill.

When he turned back to Alice, she was gone.

Joe blinked. He was standing alone on the path. Wind rustled amid the trees, making the shadows sway.

No one was laughing anymore.

He looked up; it seemed to be roughly ten in the morning, the same time as yesterday. Then there was a bullet of pain in his skull, burning hot, and—

a FLASH:

nighttime

something falling

smooth black cylinders plummet to earth/sonic thumps as they hit the ground

eyes

stalk him through a dark forest/stalking everyone

fire, everything was on fire

a pit

but what do you say to the gods of death?

'not today'/that's a promise

and another promise in scratchy letters, ten feet high:

TELL THEM

TELL THEM IT'S

Three miles eastward Charles was sitting on his bed, showing Martin his latest filmmaker's magazine. "See? Look! This is exactly what I've been trying to tell you!"

"Okay, okay! Give it here." Martin grabbed the magazine and started reading the article. It was titled 'Connection & Emotion: How to Get Your Audience Involved in Your Script'.

Charles got up, walked to the window. He ran his fingers along his dusty bookshelf, past stacks of film reels and rolled-up posters. There was a bowl of potato chips on the desk and he bent down and grabbed a handful, munching on them thoughtfully. "Martin, the key is getting the audience to care about the characters. It doesn't matter how good the story is, or how cool the action is, the only thing that matters is that they care. It needs to mean something if people are in danger, you know? Like in Star Wars, all the characters are actually really simple – Luke, Obi-Wan, Han Solo, Princess Leia – but we still care about them because they're good characters, and that makes the movie exciting. Or emotional, or funny, or whatever. Martin?" Charles glanced over his shoulder and saw that the bed was empty.

The magazine was gone too. "Martin?... Where the hell did he go?"

Eerily, the sky outside was no longer a familiar pale blue. Instead, it was an ashen grey, like a storm had rushed in or a thick layer of smoke. Charles stepped closer. Suddenly, he had an absolutely piercing headache and—

A FLASH

"Okay, okay! Give it here." Martin sighed and took the magazine from Charles' hands. He scanned the article quickly: 'Connection & Emotion: How to Get Your Audience Involved in Your Script'. The pages were already a little sticky where Charles had spilled his Coke.

Grudgingly, he started reading (he was still kind of tired from staying up late last night, watching TV and eating candy). He scratched his knee for a second, then forced himself to stop - the cast for his broken leg had only come off a couple days ago. It was still quite sore, although at least there were no bones sticking out of it anymore. Ugh. That was the worst. Beside him, Charles got up and walked over to the window.

"Martin, the key is getting the audience to care about the characters," he began. "It doesn't matter how good the story is, or how cool the action is, the only thing that matters is that they care…"

Martin tuned him out. He turned the page. Charles was still talking.

Then, suddenly, Charles wasn't talking.

That was unusual. Martin glanced up, and saw that Charles was gone.

He shrugged. Whatever, he's probably gone to the bathroom or something. Martin turned back to the magazine, but instantly the world spun and his head hurt and everything went white and FLASHED

Cary looked down at his baby sister, sleeping peacefully on the sofa. She was clutching a stuffed rabbit to her chest, covered by a raggedy, rose-pink blanket. Brooke was still little – she'd only turned four last month – but she had blonde hair and blue eyes, same as him. The same huge smile.

Cary leaned over her, his face right next to hers. He was about to shout 'Boo!' when he thought better of it; instead, he started whispering in her ear.

"You believe me, don't you," he murmured, so quiet you could barely hear. "You believe me about what happened. You think it's cool that a monster came to visit. Don't you, Dumbo."

Her eyes didn't open. She kept sleeping.

"You believe me, Dumbo, even if mom and dad don't. With the aliens, and the spaceships… you know I'm telling the truth. Don't you, little sister."

He stood up. Cary gazed at his sister for a moment, then sighed unhappily. "Or maybe you don't. Maybe you think I'm crazy too." He glanced round the empty, quiet room and was about to leave when the roomed seemed to shiver.

Afterwards, it felt different. The same room, but different.

Like a copy.

When Cary looked down, his sister was gone. Before he had time to panic there was a FLASH

Preston was sitting in a tree, minding his own business when a bird landed on the branch above him. He looked up. It was some kind of weird crow thing, with black feathers and beady eyes. The bird tilted its head, slightly evilly, and gave him a piercing glare.

Preston blinked. He put down the book he'd been reading – Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut – and stared back at the bird.

They stayed like this for a long moment.

Then, eventually, the bird looked away. It squawked irritably and plucked at something in its feathers.

"Take that, bird," Preston muttered. He turned back to his book. It was a good one so far, and sitting in a tree reading was a nice way to spend a summer's day. The pages flipped swiftly.

Then: Squawk! The bird was back.

Except clearly, it wasn't. The branch was empty.

Squawk! He could hear it, pecking around like it was right in front of him.

Preston put the book between his knees, leaned forward, and swept his hand through the air above the branch. There was a furious squawk and noise like flapping and an explosion of black fluffy feathers.

Except there was nothing there. He couldn't see anything, only hear it. It was super weird. Preston frowned, then almost fell out of his tree as a rush of images forced themselves into his brain and FLASHED

In the park, Alice turned away so she could roll her eyes without Joe noticing. Seals. What was so special about seals? They were basically just dogs that lived in the ocean. Although her favourite animal was pretty stupid too, now that she considered it; who in their right mind would have a thing for turtles—

Suddenly, she felt a kind of emptiness around her. Like the world had changed, somehow; like she was somewhere else. She looked around.

Joe wasn't there anymore.

"Joe? Where are you?"

He was nowhere to be seen – nothing but trees in every direction. The park was empty. Alice frowned. It was quiet. REALLY quiet.

"Joe?"

And suddenly, a FLASH:

night

objects falling

eggs, shiny and black, making the ground shudder when they hit

hundreds of them

bright eyes in a dark forest

hunting them

hunting her

fire, everywhere

and love

but what do you say to gods of death?

'not today.' that was a promise.

and another promise in dark letters that burned ten feet high:

TELL THEM

TELL THEM IT'S COMING

The vision ended. Joe fell to his knees, gasping for breath. He closed his fingers around grass and dirt, searching for something to hold onto. Beside him Alice did the same. It was dizzying, sickening, the world spinning around them and he saw her shake her head, eyes shut, trying to think. Trying not to vomit.

"What was that?" She sounded like she'd just run a marathon.

"I, I don't know. I don't know." Joe struggled to breathe.

"What happened? Did we black out or something?"

"I don't know." Joe coughed, finally managing to get some semblance of composure. "It was like… I saw things. Pictures."

"Yeah. I saw them too." Alice looked up, confused. "Why, why would – what were they?"

"Fire," Joe said. "Things on fire. And eyes, in the dark. Something falling. A pit."

"That's… that's the same as me. But—"

They stared at each other in the sunny green park as if the world might fall out from under them at any moment. Behind them, the trees echoed with laughter as children played in the sun.

"And words," Alice said. "I saw words, too."

"Yeah." Joe nodded. Words and a promise.

"…What was that, Joe? What happened to us? What the hell did we see?"

He had absolutely no idea.

Friday. The white room. Thoughts whirling in his mind.

"Why did you go back to Lillian, Joe?"

"I wanted to find my dog. Lucy."

"Did you find her?"

"Yes, I let her out."

"Then what happened?"

"I went to the main street because I saw something in the sky there."

"What did you see?"

"It was strange. Things were flying, anything made of metal. Like they were being sucked up."

"Where? Why?"

"There was an air force plane above the water tower. It was carrying a magnetic weapon."

"Good, Joe. That's good." Lieutenant Forman leaned back in his chair. He took a deep breath. "I think we're getting somewhere."

Joe waited quietly.

"Do you think you could do something for me, Joe?"

He shrugged. The Lieutenant glanced at him, a calculating look in his eyes. "Joe, I want you to think about you did, really hard. And then I want you to—"

TELL

THEM

Joe blinked. The words disappeared.

They'd been there, though. They'd definitely been there. Abruptly, Lieutenant Forman pressed a button on his neck. He tilted his head, like he was listening, and Joe realised he was wearing a small plastic earpiece.

When he stopped listening, his expression was… cautious. "Joe. What happened?"

"What? Nothing."

"Something must have. Your heart rate just tripled for about three seconds."

He was suddenly acutely aware of the electrodes taped to his chest. "I – I don't know. I just panicked for a second."

"What triggered it? Was it a memory?"

"No, no. It… it was the light. It's really bright. I've got a headache." He pointed at the ceiling.

"Hmmm. Alright." Lieutenant Forman appeared to accept the explanation. "Butt you have to tell me if you feel anything strange, okay? Anything at all."

Joe nodded.

"Anything at all, Joe. It's important. Now, where were we…"

Joe stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him. He was sweating. His friends were sitting on the bench in the hallway and immediately turned to stare, eyes filled with worry. Martin squinted, cleaning his glasses. Cary fidgeted in his seat like he'd eaten a whole bag of sugar. And Alice… Alice just watched. Quietly concerned.

"We need to talk," Charles mouthed.

Joe nodded. "Not here."

He walked past the guards and sat next to Charles, then leaned over slightly and whispered something in his ear. "I'll call you tonight. Make sure the batteries are charged."

"What?" Charles muttered. "The phone doesn't need any batt – oh."

Joe pressed the transmit button of his walkie-talkie and prayed that Charles would answer.

"This is Joe, over."

He was sitting at home, on the floor in the lounge. Lucy lay on the carpet next to him staring blankly at the TV; she seemed to like it for some reason, and would bark furiously whenever another dog appeared. His dad was still in the kitchen, eating dinner. He'd arrived home early for a change thanks to a quiet day at the station.

"Charles, this is Joe. Pick up."

A crackle of static, then a disembodied voice: "I hear you, Joe. Over."

Oh, thank God. He let out the breath he'd been holding."Hey Charles."

"Hey. What's the plan?"

"The plan is to meet up. I didn't want to use the phone just in case."

"In case of what?"

"In case they're listening."

Joe imagined Charles pacing acoss his bedroom. "…You realise that's a Dr. Woodward level of paranoid."

"Is that bad?"

"No, it's great! Preston was telling me the other day that he thought our phones were bugged. They're watching us, to make sure we don't talk."

"Joe, who're you talking to?"

He whirled around. His dad was standing in the lounge room doorway, a bowl of stew in hand. "No one," he replied quickly. "Testing out the radio. I think it's broken."

Jack nodded. "Okay. Tell me if you need a hand fixing it – we've had to mend a hundred of those damn things at the station."

"Thanks. I will."

His dad left. Joe turned back to the TV, gave Lucy a comforting pat. "…Charles? You still there?"

"Of course I'm here, dumbass. You were saying something about a plan?"

"Yeah. I want us to meet up, in person. Tonight."

"Tonight?!" Charles' voice exploded from the speaker. Joe winced.

"What's wrong with tonight?"

"Don't you remember the last time we tried that? The day after they let us out? When the army found us, they separated everyone, then handcuffed me and stuffed me into a truck. Handcuffed! In a truck! Like – like I was being kidnapped! It was AWFUL."

"They didn't do anything afterwards, did they? I thought they just brought you back to your house."

"I didn't KNOW that at the time. I thought they were gonna kill us and dump our bodies in the ocean!"

Joe thought for a minute. "…There aren't any oceans around here, though?"

"THAT DOESN'T MATTER! It was – ugh. Whatever." Charles sighed. "Joe, we should talk. I saw something super weird the other day and Martin did too. Hurry up and tell me about this plan of yours."

"OK, OK. Are you alone?"

"Of course I'm alone, dumbass."

"Then listen. 'Cause this is what we're gonna do."

Joe crouched in the bushes, listening for movement.

Can't hear any. He crept forwards, quiet as as a mouse, skirting the side of the house to where his bike leaned against the wall.

"Hey dad. Is it okay if I stay over at Martin's tonight?"

"Uh – sure. Did you ask his parents?"

"Yep. They said yes."

"Then I suppose that's fine. Want me to drive you?"

"No, that's okay. I'll ride. I'll be back tomorrow morning."

He watched carefully for any conspicuously-parked army vehicles. Ideally, his friends would've had similar conversations to ask if they could sleep over. (Of course, no one was actually staying anywhere – Martin was supposedly heading to Preston's, and Preston to Charles', and Charles to Joe's in a huge ring of white lies, but in reality, they were all heading to a certain secret meeting spot. Hopefully the deception would work.)

Ah! There it was: a dark green jeep parked on the corner, half-hidden behind a house. He peered at it, trying to see if anyone was inside but the jeep was too far away. He crouched down. If no one was looking he could easily make it to the bike. The night was dark enough to hide in, and countless games of hide-and-seek had made him pretty good at sneaking around.

Heart beating fast, he snuck forwards, grabbed the bike, then wheeled it back into the shadows.

No sudden lights piercing the darkness. No shouts of alarm.

Joe grinned. He opened the back gate; there was a small, overgrown alley between their house and the neighbours', which led the entire way down the hill into town. He stepped through, shutting the gate behind him. It squeaked slightly as it closed. Then he jumped on his bike and started pedalling, riding towards the Lillian water tower.

Houses passed by on either side. Yellow light shone from back windows as families prepared for bed. The trees all around were dark and shadowy, his tires crunching on fallen leaves and sticks. Riding through the night with nobody around, there was a unique sense of being alone. Alone amongst the stars, as the town quietly slept.

He gently applied the brakes to slow down, reaching the end of the alley. After checking the street, he turned right, going further downhill.

When Joe thought about the vision he'd seen in the park, it simply didn't seem real. It felt like something that would happen in dream. The flashes of emotion, the images, the way the world flashed and vanished… it wasn't right. It was un-real.

The alien was gone. Things weren't supposed to be weird anymore.

He rode past the school, gates shut for summer. Then the park, then the cemetery, both silent and deserted. He was about to reach the more populated streets when another bike peeled out of the darkness next to him. Its rider was short, wearing a light brown jacket.

"Joe!" Cary hissed. "It's me!"

"Hey."

"This is exciting, isn't it? Sneaking around again."

"Yeah." Joe smiled; it was kind of exciting. "It's good to see you."

"Aww, seriously? That's so sweet."

Joe snorted, and Cary giggled. At least one other person had made it. They rode together down the hill, then up towards the next crest. The first car Joe had seen drove by, headlights flaring in the night, playing muffled music as it growled past. A minute later they whipped around the corner, onto the main road that ran through town - side by side, standing on the pedals.

It was the first time he'd been there at night since the incident. The army had cleaned up fairly well, even if the shops were in varying states of disrepair. Some had doors boarded up, still waiting to be reopened. Others seemed good as new, neon signs hanging from their windows. Olsen's Cameras was one of the unlucky ones, its shelves conspicuously empty.

Soon, they reached the rebuilt water tower – basically identical to the old, with same circular shape (maybe a little taller), painted a similar shade of blue. After the military had removed the old tower's collapsed frame, a complex operation involving several enormous construction cranes, they'd scanned the remains for scraps of left-behind technology. Upon finding none, the new tower was erected and connected to the water supply in less than a week.

He was thankful to see that the others were there already, standing by the fence with their bikes. Joe and Cary skidded to a stop before them.

"Hey guys."

"Hey."

Charles gestured at the tower. "We going up?"

"Yeah." Joe smiled. "We're going up."

They stashed their bikes in the laneway by the grocery store, then walked to the gate in the water tower's fence. Martin yanked on it. The chain rattled. "It's locked," he said unhappily.

"Don't worry, I can pick it," Cary piped up.

"What? You can pick locks now?"

"Yeah, it's easy."

"…How?"

"Martin, you have no idea how bored I get during the holidays. Especially when I'm not allowed to see you guys. Come on, out of the way." He shuffled over to the gate and pulled a small bag from his pocket; fished through it for a second, then took out a couple of thin picks.

The fence was kept closed by a padlock and chain. Previously they would've simply climbed over, but now there was a thick skein of barbed wire at the top (an unpleasant new addition). Joe glanced nervously up the street but there was no one in sight. Lillian was basically dead after 11pm anyway. Cary crouched by the lock, making clicking sounds and muttering to himself.

"Okay, got it," he said eventually. He pulled the chain free, and the gate swung silently open.

It felt good to be together again.

They filed through, Charles leading the way. A ladder led up the central 'leg' of the water tower, like the ladders you saw on antennas or high-voltage power lines, thin rungs surrounded by a barred metal cage. Charles scrambled up onto the tower's concrete pad and grabbed the bottom rung.

"Up?" he asked again.

Joe nodded. "Up."

Charles started climbing. The others followed, Martin first, then Preston, then Cary, then Alice, and (finally) Joe. Everybody waited for the person in front to get a few metres' head start beforehand. It was a tall ladder. It wouldn't be fun to fall.

They ascended steadily, metal trembling a little with their movement. It was just enough to make Joe anxious; he glanced up and saw Alice's shoes ahead of him, then the bottom of the water tank thirty yards distant – a dark, black circle. He gripped the metal firmly, not looking down.

"Hey, Math Camp! Hurry up!"

"Shh, I'm trying!" Preston hissed back. "I'm not the biggest fan of heights, alright?"

"Oh. My bad."

Up and up, higher and higher as the ground fell away beneath them. A minute later, Charles reached the top of the ladder, pulling himself onto the landing. It led to a walkway that skirted the bottom of the water tank: this ended in another short ladder which led to the top of the tank itself. He ducked under a piece of pipe and started moving along the catwalk, shoes clanging on the metal.

"Charles," Martin called out.

"What?"

"Don't look down."

"I hate you." Charles gripped the railing tightly. Thirty metres up, there was a stiff breeze gusting around tower, and the ground was clearly visible through the grating below his feet. Nevertheless, it was only a short walk to the second ladder and soon enough he was climbing that too. The others all followed in a weird kind of conga line, one-by-one clambering onto the walkway. Joe trailed a couple of feet behind Alice, muscles shivering from the climb. It was difficult to see anything in the shadow of the water tank and he nearly tripped, catching himself, heart pounding.

Alice turned around. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

He tiptoed cautiously along the catwalk. The second ladder was much shorter, bolted to the side of the tank. It too had a metal cage around it so at least you couldn't fall back – still, Joe was acutely aware of the empty air all around.

"Hey guys, hurry up!" Charles shouted. "The view's amazing!"

Martin agreed a moment later. "Oh yeah. Look! You can see my house from here."

"Martin, you can see everyone's house from here."

"I KNOW, Charles, I'm just saying."

The top of the water tank was shaped like a shallow dome, easily flat enough to stand on. It was about ten metres in diameter and impressively large up close, its edge bounded by a low metal safety railing. When Joe reached the top the others were already standing in the middle, at its peak, marvelling quietly at the view. He took a second to catch his breath, then walked over to join them.

The view was amazing: Lillian was situated in a valley and this had to be one of the highest points between the surrounding hills. The whole town was spread out below, an endless series of dark rooves and sloping streets. Warm light glowed from a hundred windows, accompanied by the buzz of distant streetlights. Pines and firs stood starkly in the night, in rows and clumps all the way to the edge of town, then forming into thick forests on the hillsides. Some of the trees were as tall as they were and swayed gently in the breeze. The cemetery was visible a few hundred metres distant, and the school, all the familiar landmarks he knew and (mostly) loved – and yes, there was his house on its gently curving road, about a finger's-width from Charles'.

Suddenly, he realised the group was looking at him expectantly – waiting for him to tell them what to do. He still wasn't quite used to being a leader.

"So… how are you guys?" he asked cautiously.

Charles: "I'm good!"

Cary: "Great."

Martin: "Alright."

Preston: "Roughly seven and a half out of ten?"

Alice: "It's definitely cool to see everybody."

Another pause.

Then Alice giggled.

"What's so funny?" Charles asked, frowning.

"You guys look so – worried," she said. "Like you've forgotten how to act round each other. Joe, should we sit down?"

"Yeah, sure."

Her words seemed to break whatever ice there was, and soon everyone was smiling and bickering again, just like old times. They sat in a circle near the edge of the tower, facing each other across the cool, dark steel. Stars twinkled in the cloudless evening sky. Even from up here you could hear the crickets chirping, and smell the fresh scent of the forest.

Preston's eyes flicked nervously to the railing a few feet away. "Is being up here entirely… safe?" he asked.

"Why would they put a ladder on this thing if they didn't want you to climb it?" Cary retorted.

"Yeah, well, I just don't any of my friends to fall to their deaths. That would ruin my entire vacation." Preston thought for a moment. "Even more than it's been ruined already."

Charles rolled his eyes. "No one's gonna fall, Preston. Unless you push them."

"I'm still going to stay away from the edge, if that's OK with you. Why did we have to meet here, anyway?"

Everyone turned to Joe again.

"I just wanted to…" He trailed off. It was difficult to explain. "…it's about the alien, I guess. I wanted to remember."

"'Remember?'" Charles echoed.

"Yeah. To remember everything that's happened. I feel like – we should, somehow. We haven't really had a chance to talk yet, not since that night."

"AND you wanna talk about those freaky visions, right?" Cary added. "Because I'm guessing everyone saw those—"

Heads bobbed around the circle.

"—and they were seriously SUPER weird. And scary."

"Well, that too," Joe said. "But… we already sort of know why, don't we? Why we saw that stuff."

They did. Or at least, they had their suspicions. Everyone was quiet, thinking about what they'd seen. There was only one thing in their minds that possibly could've caused it.

It was him, Alice thought. It has to be. She realised how similar it was to what she'd experienced in the tunnels beneath the cemetery. The 'flash' did feel a little different, though; instead of information being passed to her, it felt like it'd always been in her mind, but was only now being unlocked. A dark corner of your head, unknown, sealed away… it didn't make sense. Only she and Joe had touched the alien, so why had the others received the same strange dream?

Martin spoke suddenly. "It's really shitty, how we're not allowed to meet up."

"Yeah," Charles answered. "Why do we have to sneak around like this? I miss seeing you guys together."

"I miss you too, Charles."

"Shut up, Cary. It's so stupid though – why are they keeping us apart? It's not like we can do anything to mess up the air force's plans. We probably couldn't even if we tried."

"It is dumb," Joe agreed. "But at least we're here now, right?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"Speaking of remembering… do you guys remember the train crash?" Martin asked. "That first night we were filming?"

"How could we ever forget?" Preston muttered.

"Everything was completely normal, it was going great, then suddenly it was all on fire, and crashing, and exploding, and there was so much dust and smoke we could barely see each other, and then we thought Alice was dead—"

"What? You thought I was dead?"

"Briefly," Joe interrupted.

"And then I vomited, and then we found Dr. Woodward, and he pulled a gun on us, and then we had to run away from the military… man, that was insane."

"Yeah," Charles said. "Totally. And then we had to figure out what the heck was happening. That was fun, too."

"I seem to remember you didn't want anything to do with it," Preston retorted.

"I did, but - I just didn't want to get into trouble with the air force."

"And how'd that work out for you?"

Charles made an unpleasant face.

"The evacuation was weird," Cary continued. "Everyone in the town, all… gone. Loaded up into those buses."

"Yeah. And then we snuck out and broke into the school," Martin added. "We snuck out. And broke into the school."

Joe shrugged. "At least we never got into trouble for that part. They last guy who did it got expelled."

"Honestly, I think people had bigger things to worry about," Preston said, "for example, how half the town was shot to pieces. Oooh! And there were also Dr. Woodward's tapes—"

Cary nodded. "Man, when I first saw that alien I was so freaked out."

"And then the air force came and arrested us. That was gnarly."

"Oh my god, and then that thing attacked us in the bus!"

"That guy tried to shoot it and got crushed to death for real—"

"Yeah, I remember everyone screaming and going crazy and the whole bus tipping—"

"I remember being kidnapped by an alien monster," Alice interrupted. "And, you know. Nearly being eaten."

They fell silent, exchanging slightly guilty looks.

Alice sighed. "We shouldn't remember this as some kind of fun adventure, that's all. We almost died. People did die. I thought… I thought maybe I would, down in those tunnels."

A month later, with a bit of distance, Joe realised it did feel like an adventure in his memory. The terror, the sadness, the desperation… it all faded with time. Maybe it was a coping mechanism to only remember the happy ending and not the pain required to get there. Some good had come out of it, and some amazing moments he'd remember forever - but not without a cost.

"You're right. I don't think it was much fun for most of us," Joe said.

"Definitely not," Preston echoed.

"Like the bus. That was terrifying. Really."

"I remember driving into town and seeing those tanks," Cary said. "When one of them was chasing after us, I saw it drive right through that playground. Crushed it like paper. That was scary."

Charles nodded. "Yeah. The rockets, and the bullets, and the soldiers. Not knowing what was happening, like you could be shot any second. That was bad. And when Martin broke his leg – that was the worst part. We were sitting there in the ruined house, everyone was screaming, and I was trying to help but…"

"…but my bone was sticking out of my leg," Martin whispered. "My bone was sticking out OF MY LEG."

"Then we went down into the tunnels," Cary said quietly. "Joe and me. It was dark."

Joe nodded. "Really dark. And – I thought you were dead too."

Alice stared at him. It was strange, saying it out loud.

"The creature was there, leaning over you. I thought we… I thought we were too late. I thought you were gone. I can still remember how that felt." And I never want to feel that again.

Around the circle, in the darkness, the others were little more than shadows. It was hard to see their faces, how they were feeling – you could only tell from their voices. Up there, on the tower, it was like their own little world. Warm, quiet, far away from everything else. The sky seemed immense.

"But there were some good things too," Joe continued. "Because we found you. Right?"

Alice smiled faintly. "Yeah."

"And we're still alive."

"Yeah."

"And we found out that some things… some things aren't so bad after all."

It was simple, when you put it like that.

"We should have died," Preston murmured.

But we didn't. "Did you bring the stuff?" Joe asked him.

"What stu— oh." Preston took off his backpack, started rummaging around inside. Eventually he found what he was looking for. "Here." He passed a few circular reels to Joe; a stack of paper followed.

Cary's eyes widened. "You brought it here? What if they find us?!"

Joe shook his head. "They won't." …I hope. Two film reels and a dozen manila folders: every piece of hard evidence they had confirming the alien's existence. At first glance, it was a very small pile.

Alice grabbed one of the reels, turning it over in her hands. "Have you guys got a flashlight?"

"Better." Charles opened his own bag and took out a couple of torches, then a small black box that looked a lot like a film projector. It was a film projector, in fact.

"Charles?"

"Yes Martin?"

"How are you going to power that thing?"

"Well, you know the concept of electricity? People also invented these things called 'batteries'. My projector can take batteries."

There a minute of muffled grunting and rattling as he tried to set it up in the dark. Soon enough, he had it ready, and made a tiny makeshift screen by leaning a sheet of cardboard against his backpack. It'd do. Alice handed him the film reels, and he took one out of its cover and slotted it in; then pressed the projector's 'on' switch.

Immediately, the film whirred to life. An image appeared on the screen, small and dim: Dr. Woodward's classroom at Lillian Middle School. The view was jerky, out of focus, but you could see two soldiers discussing something at the back of the room.

"Oh, this was me," Preston realised. "You can skip this part, it's not that exciting. Where's the sound?"

"For sound we'd need speakers, and they don't run on batteries."

Silently, they watched the movie. Its grainy, flickering colour was the only source of light on the water tower, revealing calm stares and contemplative faces. The two soldiers were still talking. In the meantime, Joe handed out flashlights and a couple of the folders.

When Cary turned his on it was suddenly, alarmingly bright.

"Hey, be careful with that thing!" Charles hissed, shielding his eyes. "We don't want anyone to see us."

"Stress less, man. No one's gonna see us." Still, Cary pointed the flashlight downward, making it a little less obvious from the ground. He opened his folder – 'Care and Containment: Procedure Guide #2' – and started flicking through. Soon they were all looking at their own folders, sitting in a soft circle of torchlight. The only sound was the soft rustle of paper.

Joe read through the first document. It was written in exacting military language, cleanly typed, and described an operation in the 1960s which had been designed to capture the alien: Operation Argus. Lots of talk about Soviets, and fallback plans, and 'classified directives.' It would've been dry reading, if not for the fact that it clearly stated that aliens existed (and that the US military had attempted to keep one). That was definitely newsworthy.

On the projector, the scene changed. Now, it showed the alien in the street, when they'd run into it almost by accident. It stood in the middle of the road, clear. Frozen. Gazing at the camera. Alice was slightly visible to the side of the frame and she stepped forward bravely, reaching out, and— it bolted, leaping away over the rooftops. The camera whirled, trying to follow, but lost it in the darkness.

They did remember. Reading through the documents, seeing it play out on that piece of creased cardboard… it was real. All of it. No matter how strongly people tried to say it wasn't. Alice read about experiments, tables and tables of data, while Martin read interview reports from the Argus project researchers. (Dr. Woodward was one of them. It was eerie to be reading a dead man's words, to hear his old biology teacher's voice in his head.) Cary and Preston glanced through photographs of the alien's wrecked ship, a strange, smoking shape that'd crashed in the middle of the desert.

"Guys, look," Charles murmured. The film had reached the chaos on the main street, cubes and metal zipping through the air. The alien's ship quickly formed on top of the water tower – exactly where they now sat – as legions of soldiers watched in astonishment. The camera ducked and whirled, attempting to capture the strangeness of what was occurring.

Together, they remembered the alien, climbing towards its ship.

They remembered the air force shooting it down.

They remembered trying to protect it, and how weird that had felt.

They remembered it disappearing into the stars.

Some remembered rediscovering the only family they had left.

"We found alien life," Martin breathed. It was an awe-inspiring thing. "We found it, met it. Us."

"Yeah," Preston said. "And it was intelligent."

"And friendly," Alice said firmly. She still believed it the most.

On the screen, the alien's ship faded into the sky, indistinguishable against the stars. The camera swiftly panned across the street, documenting the mayhem: soldiers, wreckage, collapsed water tower. One final shot of an officer sprinting towards them, gesturing wildly. Then – click – the film ended.

There was a long, expectant pause.

"We could blow this whole thing wide open," Martin said thoughtfully.

"What do you mean, 'blow it open?' Charles asked.

"I mean tell people. Tell 'em the truth." He gestured at the folders, the film reels. "The best part is we can prove it, too. What happened to us isn't a small-town thing… it's huge. People deserve to know what this means."

Alice nodded. "They do. Regardless of what the air force thinks."

"Because right now, it's like nothing took place at all," Martin said. "Everyone's going about their normal lives, when…"

"What?" Cary asked.

"I'm not sure. They should… they should know, that's all. We should figure out a way to tell them."

Martin pointed at the sleeping town as a dog barked in the distance. In an hour or two, Lillian would be asleep, except for the most dedicated TV-watchers and the night shift at the steel mill. For a while, it would be quiet. Then, in the morning, the town would arise, ready for another day – butchers, bakers, bus drivers, boilermakers… busy, for a time, then calm once more. Life went on.

"Everything was crazy, and now it's like nothing actually mattered," Martin continued. "The air force is trying super hard to cover it up, and even they don't know what happened, really. Everybody else definitely doesn't. Then a month passes, everything's fine, and suddenly we start getting weird visions in our heads?"

"Yeah, about that…" Joe began. It's probably time to discuss the NEW weirdest thing in our lives.

"I was hanging out with Martin in my room," Charles explained, "and then for some reason we couldn't see each other anymore. As if we'd vanished. And then there was this flash, and – pictures. Lots of pictures. It was incredible."

"It was the same for me," Preston said. "Around ten-thirty yesterday morning."

Cary grimaced. "I was babysitting my sister, and - bam. I was super dizzy afterwards, too. Felt sick. Like a dream, except real, like I was…"

"…alone?" Alice suggested.

"Yeah. Like I was alone suddenly. As if everybody else in the world was gone."

So it happened at the same time… "Alice and I saw the same things, too," Joe said. "What about you guys?"

They went around the circle, trying to sound brave. It was a little freaky with the night all around them.

"I saw a fire. A huge circle of fire, rolling outwards, like from a bomb," Preston said.

Cary shivered. "I saw eyes. Lots of eyes. Just floating in pitch black."

"Things falling to earth. Similar to those seed pods you get on trees," Charles offered.

"Like eggs?"

"Yeah, exactly."

Alice nodded. "I remember feeling I was being hunted. Or not hunted, maybe, but… that feeling of running, of being scared."

"And a pit," Martin added.

"And words." Joe took out a pen and paper and tried to write the words as he'd seen them in his head. It was hard to convey how harsh, how all-consuming it had seemed. Eventually, he settled for big, scratchy letters, all caps, frayed and jagged: 'TELL THEM / IT'S COMING.'

When he held up the paper everyone recognised the phrase. Already, it was seared into their memories.

Martin laughed humourlessly. "It even says to 'tell them'. See?"

"But why? Why would we see this stuff? Why would it be the same for all of us?" Alice asked.

"Maybe we're insane," Preston suggested. "Maybe we're imagining this meeting right now and in reality we're locked up in a mental asylum."

"You wish," Cary retorted.

"Hey, YOU should've been locked away years ago for pyromania. But being serious, it could be some kind of mass hallucination. We all went through the same thing—"

"Exactly," Charles interrupted. "We all went through the same thing. The creature was chasing us, we were close to it. Maybe that affected us, somehow."

"Like – like a virus or something?" Martin asked.

"No, I mean like in the head. Mentally."

"Oh, so IT made us crazy. That's so much better," Cary said.

Alice frowned. "No, I think Charles is right. He must've done something to us – changed us. That's the only explanation I can think of. I mean, we can't all be crazy. I don't feel like I'm losing my mind. Do you?" She turned to Joe.

"No. At least, I don't think so," he said cautiously. "It makes sense, in a way. We could be the only people in the entire world who got close to it and are still alive."

Now that was a sobering thought. No one wanted to dwell on it too much, because it sounded like it was probably true.

"There must be a reason," Charles continued, pointing at the folders. "And whatever that is, it's probably in here. There might be a clue about what those visions meant – or at least an explanation for why we saw them."

"And if the answer isn't in there?" Martin asked.

"Then we'll find out someplace else! There has to be more information out there, right? The air force must have a whole bunch of secret facilities devoted to this stuff…"

"We got lucky once, Charles," Martin said. "I don't think we're supposed to go sneaking into military labs. We aren't ninjas."

"Yeah, well. It was just a thought."

"Tell them it's coming…" Alice murmured. "Tell who? Tell them what? We have some evidence, but people will still think we're lying."

Joe nodded. "We don't even know what's coming. It sounds bad."

They paused, imaginations running wild. If the messages were because they'd been in contact with the alien, then almost anything might happen. Martin had an unpleasant thought about hordes of giant spiders invading the earth and shivered. Anything but spiders.

"I wanna find him," Cary said suddenly.

"What?" Charles asked.

"You heard me. I wanna find that stupid thing – creature, alien, whatever it is. That lump."

"Finding it would certainly solve many of our problems," Preston said. "…and probably create a whole lot more."

"Whatever. Then we could just ASK it what the hell this means."

"Yeah, but how?" Charles said. "That thing flew off into space. Look at all those stars – how are we supposed to know where it went?"

They looked up. There were a lot of stars.

"It could be a billion miles away by now. And I don't know about you, but I don't own a spaceship."

"I do," Alice said quietly.

Charles did a double-take. "…You own a spaceship?"

"No, I mean I want to find them too."

"'Them?'"

"That alien was one member of a species. There has to be others. Somewhere up there, there's a whole planet of them."

Joe remembered what he'd learned, from the creature in the tunnels. There was an alien planet – along with countless other worlds. He didn't know how he felt about that. An entire planet of those things…

"Still," Martin murmured, "what are we gonna do? The monster left. We can't chase after it. The military have everything under lockdown."

"I don't know what we should do," Joe replied. But I think I want to find it too.

"We'll find a way," Alice said. "If we want to."

"Well, I want to," Cary said firmly. "I don't know about you guys, but I demand an explanation."

Preston nodded. "Likewise. So I guess I agree on principle, even though I have no idea what we're doing yet?… Hm. Perhaps this is a bad decision—"

"I'll help out," Charles interrupted. "Let's do it. It'll probably be fun, right?"

"Fun?" Martin groaned. "You guys really didn't learn anything, did you."

They shrugged helplessly.

"Ugh, fine. I'll come, as long as I don't have to break any more bones."

"You didn't technically 'have' to last time, Martin."

"It still really hurt!"

"I'm in," Joe said quietly.

"And me," Alice said. "Whatever happens."

They fell silent. Whatever happens.

Wind moaned around the water tower, and Joe shifted slightly on the metal. Stars twinkled high above, the town spread out far below. One by one, the lights were blinking off as the hour tended towards the new day. When he'd picked the tower as a meeting spot, Joe hadn't chosen it because it was secretive, or for the amazing view – he'd picked it because it was the last place place they'd seen the alien in the flesh. By sitting up here, he'd hoped they might feel a little closer to it. A connection, of sorts, to Lillian's monster.

And the group's decision felt like an important one. Not only that they would keep moving forward, digging into the mystery (digging our own graves, Joe thought darkly), but also making sure they'd stick together. The experiences of that first week of summer would connect them, probably for the rest of their lives – it felt like they had a duty to see things through to the bitter end.

Charles thought so too. "Let's make a pact," he announced.

"What's that?" Cary asked.

"It's like a promise, sort of. But more important."

"Suuuure. Whatever man."

Charles glared at him. "Just because I have a reading age above six years old—"

"Charles, what did you have in mind?" Alice said patiently.

"Um, well." He glanced around. "It might be better if… I don't know. If we do something. Like hold hands."

"Uh, no Charles, I'm not holding your hand," Martin said firmly.

"Just do it, Martin. God."

"Okay, okay." They all shuffled inwards so they could reach each other comfortably. Joe took Alice's hand in his left and Preston's in his right. She gave his fingers a quick squeeze and he smiled at her in the darkness.

"This isn't weird at all," Preston whispered.

Martin shivered. "Cary. Cary. What are you doing to my hand. WHAT ARE YOU DOING—"

"Shhh! Guys, calm down." Charles gazed around the circle with his best be-serious face. It was oddly effective. "Now, we're going to make a promise. A promise to each other. You don't have to say anything, but remember what I tell you, okay?"

They nodded. Charles cleared his throat.

When he spoke, his voice was clear in the warm evening air. "We promise to make sure that the truth gets out," he began. "We promise to tell people what happened, and show them everything we know. And we're going to keep on trying until the whole world learns the truth. Because… it deserves to. Otherwise, the lies'll win, and we can't let that happen."

He paused, thinking for a second. The wind whispered in the trees.

"…We also promise to find out what's affecting us. We're gonna figure out what it means. Do whatever it takes. We'll learn if there's anything else living in this universe, and if we can, we're gonna try and find it. Which sounds hard, but whatever. We also promise to stay alive, and – and not die, and see this through till the end. But, most of all…" Charles looked each of them right in the eye, and they all looked squarely back. "Most of all, we promise to stick by each other. We're going to do everything we can to help each other out. All of us, in this circle, we're gonna keep each other safe and stay together no matter what. Because we're friends. We're friends, and we're in this together. And supporting each other is what friends do. Alright?"

Joe nodded firmly. Friends. One by one, everybody agreed.

An owl cooed somewhere in the night, a cool, peaceful sound. Joe looked around the circle again: Cary, his braces glinting in the moonlight. Martin, his face oddly naked without his glasses. Preston, silent and solemn, lips pressed to a thin line. Alice, her hand still warm around his. Charles, head high, his eyes stern and clear. Joe felt, somehow, that he was a part of them – like they were a part of him. Like everything was connected. A breeze touched the water tower, making it sigh, and he thought: this is a beautiful place. The owl cooed again. It was almost as if he could fly with it, brave, graceful, away into the sky. Down below, the first swirls of mist were settling on the rooftops, pale and sweet and liquid.

"I guess we should go. Get back to our parents," Charles said slowly.

"No." Joe shook his head. "No, let's stay. It's nice here." And we haven't had a chance to do this for a while.

They dropped their hands, breaking the circle. Cary looked like he was about to say something; then shrugged, climbing to his feet. Gradually, the others followed. No one felt the need to say much. Charles and Martin started packing up the projector. Preston walked to the edge of the tower and gripped the railing tightly, gazing at the sleeping houses.

"Come on," Alice murmured.

She led Joe over to the other side of the water tank. There, she knelt, touching the smooth metal. "This looks like a good spot."

"For what?"

Alice didn't answer. Wordlessly, she stretched out and laid down on her back – head towards the center of the tank, feet towards the edge. Her hair fanned out around her head, gold streaks in the shadows. Joe smiled, crouching, then went to lie down next to her. The metal was chilly against his bare skin. He took a deep breath, shifting till he was comfortable.

They didn't even have to talk, really – simply being close was nice. Lying beside each other, watching the stars. Feeling each others' presence. He tilted his head sideways for a moment and saw Cary walk past along the railing; Cary noticed him lying there, then raised an eyebrow at who was lying next to him.

Then he winked. "Go for it, man!" he whispered. "Don't worry, I won't look."

"What?"

"You know what I mean."

Cary smirked. Joe blushed. He turned to look at Alice, and saw that she was grinning at him too. They stared at each other for a moment. Understanding.

But it wasn't the right time. Not yet.

Instead, Alice leaned back, gazing into the night. There were countless stars up there; some big, some small, some faint, some bright, all twinkling together in the endless void. She raised a hand and pointed lazily at one of them.

"Do you think someone's watching us from up there?" she asked. "Right now, at this moment?"

"I hope so," Joe murmured.

"Why?"

"Because it's nice to think we aren't alone."

"Yeah." Alice smiled. "It's nice, isn't it."

Joe looked up, his heart filled with warmth, and wondered if something was looking back.

(Something was. Many things, actually.)

Upon the very top of the Lillian water tower, six people waited in the dark.

Cary thought back on the promise they'd made and how much it absolutely terrified him. He could still remember how he'd felt in the tunnels under the cemetery. It wasn't something he'd easily forget. Making a promise to go looking for things like that didn't seem like such a great idea… but as Charles had said, they were in this together. No matter what.

Preston dangled his feet over the edge of the water tank in some kind of attempt to analyse his fears. It wasn't helping. He was still extremely anxious about falling, despite how hard he clutched the railing. Really, what scared him was the thought that he could fall rather than any logical probability of it happening. So instead, he looked up, trying to find constellations in the stars.

Martin polished his glasses with his sleeve, blinking as he rearranged them on his nose. Suddenly, the world became clear again – detailed, sharp, and beautiful. He looked around at his friends, standing on top of the tank, and thought about how great it was to have a sense of purpose again. Something besides just making a movie. Something real. Something important.

Charles sat with his back to the hills, watching over the town. He knew Joe and Alice were lying behind him and did his best to ignore them. It was hard not to feel a little jealous… or betrayed, perhaps. But that was a bad thought. He fiddled with the film reels, spinning them round and round, and remembered how he and Joe had always been best friends and how they always would be.

Alice stared upward, gazing into nothingness. She was thinking about her father and their strange, weird relationship – how it'd been bad, then worse, and now so much better. Not perfect, obviously, but… better. Maybe the best it'd ever been since mom left. The strangest part was who she had to thank for it: a creature from another planet. Life was weird, wasn't it?

Joe lay next to the girl he really, really liked. No, seriously. He really liked her. A lot. And sitting with her, and with his friends, in the town he'd grown up in… he was happy. He really, really was. Wind, stars, and a water tower: an oddly perfect combination.

Then he noticed, absently, that he was holding his pen in his hand; and that he'd written something on his skin without quite realising it. He held up his palm in front of his face, squinting in the dark.

'Tell them it's here,' it said, in messy blue handwriting.

What?

Joe frowned, and wondered why he'd written it.

Whatever. It could wait till morning.

Together, they stayed there for a very long time – friends, bound by a promise. They stayed there until the first rays of dawn touched the hilltops, and the sky was tinged with a dusty rose-pink glow. Until the light painted their faces in pale fiery colours and the town began to wake.

And then, finally, it was time to go home.

End note: So… how was that? It was hard to set up a new plotline in one (enormous) chapter while simultaneously making it an epilogue of sorts, but I think it didn't go too badly. Basically, I wanted this to be a believable continuation but with enough differences to make it unique, which is a difficult balancing act to pull off. Hopefully it worked! (and hopefully you're interested in reading more).

As for what's next, there's two things. First, some editing: going through the early chapters and improving them a little, and then adding some extra lines of dialogue from the script that were skipped in the movie. (As of 2015, I still haven't done this. Oops.)

Then, I'll start planning for the sequel! I don't know how many people still read Super 8 fanfic – it's definitely less popular than when I started two years ago – but I'd love to write more. And, if you're interested, you're welcome to contribute ideas! That's basically my sneaky way of admitting I have no idea what I'm doing.

Finally… even though A Sky of Starlight is "only" a novelisation so far, I am genuinely happy with it. It's been a great way to practice my writing, and I hope you guys got some enjoyment out of it too. If you do want to contact me in the meantime, you can use fanfiction PMs or my tumblr (linked in my profile). Thanks for reading!

Until next time…

UPDATED 01/12/15: Fixed typos, removed fluff, added jokes.