He had been home less than half an hour, and he was waiting with anticipation for dinner time, to show his father his new good report usual, he immediately got rid of the good clothes and wore sports pants and tshirt.
Tank had already started training with the punching bag when he heard the bell ring.
That day his younger brother was not on the bus, and surely that asshole, after school, had made puppy eyes at Mrs Smith, to be invited to spend the afternoon with his friend Johnny Smith. Johnny the Alien. Fuck Ripp, fuck Johnny, fuck aliens.
Tank made a mental note to ask his brother where he was, as soon as their father was around to hear his answer...
His little brother, Buck, was still in elementary school, and he would come home about an hour later, so he was Tank and only Tank who would have to answer the door.
He realized that he was already very sweaty, and he started to smell, too. But he ran to the door anyway, fearing to miss a delivery, maybe a message for his father or -worst- a message for the General.
He opened the door and found himself facing the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Cassandra fastened the last button of the black dress, looked at herself in the mirror and saw that it did not fit, did not look good at all.
Cassandra, Cassandra so skinny, with a long face, thick glasses, and her obsession with wearing black. Cassandra so different from her mother, Bella who was always dressed in red, beautiful and elegant, sensual and provocative.
In less than an hour there would be a... she didn't even know what to call it, a memorial maybe? It certainly could not be called a funeral, Bella had never been returned by the aliens who had kidnapped her, dead or alive. And poor little Alexander, who was so sure his mother was still alive, somewhere.
Oh, Alexander, Alexander! What a pain for Cassandra, what a big concern that little brother, just four years old and already so smart, but also so stubbornly sure to know more than everyone else. But these thoughts were just childish illusions.
After spending two weeks locked in his studio, their father, the famous and wealthy scientist Mortimer Goth (during those days, who had been, if not Cassandra, to look after Alexander, to calm his tears, to cook for him, to convince him to eat, to hold him to his chest without being able to answer when he asked when Mommy would return?) came out of the room, slamming the door, his hair disheveled, his beard unclothed. He knocked vehemently on the children's doors, waking them both.
Then he had waited for them at the dining room table, downstairs, sitting at the head of the table with his hands crossed in front of him.
Alexander had swollen eyes, like he fell asleep crying. Cassandra had not heard him crying that night, from the next room where hewas, but she knew that the day when Alexander would learn to cry quietly would come soon.
After a few minutes of silence, Mortimer Goth cleared his voice and said "My dear children, it's time to resign ourselves to the evidence. Your mother, my precious Bella, is surely dead. I've done a lot of research and all the information I've collected leads to this: if she was still alive, the aliens who kidnapped her, would have given her back by now.
There's more to add. A crashed spacecraft was found in Downtown. The entire interior was burned. That seems to answer our question.
Stop hoping Bella can come back"
Cassandra, who had listened to her father with her eyes down, her eyes fixed on the elegant inlays of the long antique wooden table, looked up and saw that she was right, Alexander had really learned to cry quietly.

Pascal was going to be a dad. Or was it more accurate to say that he was going to be a mom?
When an alien abduction culminated in a pregnancy, and studies reported that in desert areas it was quite common, the line between mother and father became thin.
Pascal caressed his belly, then focused his gaze on his brothers.
The youngest, Lazlo, was playing SSX and next to him was Crystal, a blonde girl he had been dating for a few weeks. They seemed pretty happy and close. Lazlo was not a concern for Pascal, on the contrary: he was a brilliant boy and recently had presented some studies receiving a promotion, among the three brothers was the most outgoing and, maybe he had even found love and would soon start a family, who knows.
Of course, there was the question of smoking, but as long as Lazlo was able to present himself lucid at work, and spent the rest of his time cultivating his passions instead of vegetating on the couch, Pascal was nobody to judge his brother's habits.
The middle brother, Vidcund, was probably the biggest concern for Pascal.
Although it had been years since the end of high school, Vidcund was still sure to be in love - Pascal would have said "obsessed" - with Circe Beaker.
By the end of senior year, Vidcund and Circe had… Something.
A couple of dates, a few kisses, and if Vidcund had put all his heart into it, for Circe it was just a pastime.
He had never talked about it with anyone, but even Pascal, once, had tried to kiss Circe.
Wasn't true that everyone at school knew that that smart little girl with red hair was... easy?
Pascal wasn't even attracted to Circe. She was… Not his cup of tea, for sure.
He just wanted to have some experiences, to stop feeling so different from the other boys.
He wanted to prove to himself that if he wanted a partner, then he could, just like everyone else.
Well, Circe's rejection proved him wrong.
Pascal and love traveled on two different roads, and now no one expected that these roads would ever cross, and it was fine.
But Vidcund? Vidcund was still hoping. He was still hoping that Circe would fall in love with him, he kept waiting for a phone call, a message, as he was forgetting that she was now happily married to Dr Beaker Loki.
Since Pascal was expecting a baby (a baby alien), he had noticed that his younger brother had closed into himself more than he ever was. In the afternoon Vidcund regularly went to work, but with no satisfaction, with any commitment. In the evening he returned home and immediately climbed the stairs to lead to the observatory on the roof of their house.
Then, he spent the whole night scrutinizing the stars, and he didn't want to be disturbed.
At dawn he went down the stairs, ate some leftover pizza, or noodles that Lazlo and Pascal had left for him the previous night, then threw himself on the bed, still dressed, pointing the alarm clock only to go to work.
Every day was the same as before, Vidcund seemed to have gone from the obsession with Circe to the obsession of meeting aliens, those aliens that Pascal did not even remember.
And he had said it clearly to Vidcund, who, however, had nodded distractedly without really listening, and had gone up, again, to the terrace to stare at the stars through the telescope.

Erin Beaker wanted to be a princess.
Heck, Erin Beaker should have been a princess!
With that beautiful cascade of blond hair, her blue eyes, that refined posture, what else could she have been?
So why, instead of sitting on a golden throne, she was sitting in this broken-down lawyer's car?
At least she could hope that the future Aya, the charming owner of the aforementioned smashed car, would climb the ladder of his career, and maybe she too could one day live in a villa, with her lawyer husband, in a villa like her asshole brother.
Her fucking brother, Loki.
The eldest son of the great Beaker family, their golden son, the fucking heir, the one who somehow managed to maneuver their parents to get almost all the inheritance.
What a good manipulator Loki was. Erin herself would have had some good reasons to hate him, and yet who knows how, she had good relations with his brother.
This did not give her any satisfaction, however, when in the evening, after yet another shift at the diner's, she returned to the trailer park in the container she shared with her drab and useless roommate Kristen.
A bed, that's all she was needing in that moment. Some sleep.
But before, she had to allow Aya's hand to guide her head down.
No, Princess Erin's life definitely did not resemble the life of a real princess.

Jenny Smith loved that kids's noise. Her kids. She cared about everyone, even those who weren't really her kids.
She had grown up with the noise of three younger brothers, three boys always competing with each other. Oh, no fighting between the Pascal brothers, nothing so extreme in a family of scientists.
But endless discussions about the passage of a specific chapter of the Lord of the Rings, or about this or that new scientific publication? A lot.
There had also been a lot of laughter in her childhood, and Jenny had grown up loving the sound of a house full of life.
Almost every afternoon Johnny, his eldest son, brought home from school one or two friends. They were both there that day, and Jenny was in the kitchen making something good for them.
Her favorite one was the little girl with blond dyed hair, Ophelia.
Poor child Ophelia, she had arrived in Strangerview only a year earlier, after becoming an orphan. She had been placed by social services to her aunt, an old woman with a creepy appearance who was the guardian of the local cemetery. Ophelia was so well behaved, friendly and kind.
From the kitchen Jenny watched her laugh at the jokes of her son Johnny, and she smiled looking at that wonderful miracle of blossoming of first love.
Jenny shook her head as if to drive her thoughts away, still smiling, and she finished buttering another slice of bread.
She left the kitchen carrying a tray full of slices of bread with peanut butter and jam, and took it to the kids.
On the coffee table in the living room he saw Ophelia's almost finished homeword and thought that the little girl had really nice calligraphy.
Even Johnny's tasks could be defined now complete, perhaps not good looking like those of his girl friend, but certainly pretty good.
Johnny was as good at school as he was at sports, and she was so proud of him. Ripp's homework instead... not even a finished exercise, and full of scribbles.
"Ripp, how about, after you eat, I help you with your homework?" Johnny rolled his blue eyes, "Come on, mom, leave him alone!"
Ripp's face instead opened in a big big smile, a smile that Jenny had only seen on the faces of small children on Christmas morning. "Mrs Smith, if it doesn't bother you... Yes, I would need it! Thank you, thank you, thank you very much Mrs Smith!"
Jenny nodded, and turning back to the kitchen, she laid a caress on her son's beautiful blond hair. A gesture of affection, of course, that also silently said "Johnny, mind your own business, moms KNOW".
The noise of the last school bus came from the street, and Jenny went to the door waiting for her beautiful daugther, Jill. She was so full of joy, ranning to meet her mother, waving proudly the great report card.
"My good girl, Jill! Now go to the living room and get a slice of bread with jam, before your brother and his friends eat everything. And please, ask Ripp if he's done eating, then tell him to come to me in the kitchen."
After a few minutes Ripp entered the kitchen with the homework in hands, his eyes low but still smiling.
Jenny immediately noticed that the boy had really no difficulty in performing the exercises, he seemed to know all the notions pretty good, and he surely had the ability to complete his homework without major mistakes.
What he needed was someone next to him, to help him stay focused. Next to Mrs Smith, Ripp completed his homework in less than twenty minutes. When the boy closed the book, Jenny tried to keep a neutral tone and asked
"Ripp, what time does your dad come home at night?" Immediately she saw the boy's eyes widening, and his whole body stretched.
"Mrs Smith, no, please, what, you can't... do you want to tell my ol'man about my grades? Don't, please, 'cause I shouldn't even be here today, I mean, I really shouldn't be here EVER, my dad will fucking kill me if he finds out I'm spending my time here at the alien's house... No, I mean, I'm sorry Mrs Smith, for the F word, too. I didn't mean to offend Johnny or your husband, I love you all, you know, but still... My father forbade me."
Jenny's heart tightened tight. He laid a hand on Ripp's hair, as he had done shortly before on his son's hair, gave him a caress and immediately reassured him
"Easy, Ripp. I don't want to talk to General Grunt, don't worry, dear. I was just asking because I think it would be good for you if your dad could stand by you while you do your homework. And that's all."
"Mom did," Ripp muttered.
Jenny understood how much the Grunt boys missed their mother, and somwhow she wanted to fill that void. She was about to say something when Johnny came laughing into the kitchen and took Ripp.
"Move, you loser, the girls are beating our records at SSX, we can't let that happen!" "The girls?" Jenny asked confused. She looked past his son, thinking that he was tall for his age, and saw Jill, playing video games with Ophelia on the couch.
She was going to tell Jill it was time to do her homework, when she heard her husband call her from his study.

A memorial for Bella.
A month had passed since her disappearance, and the Goth family felt it was time to do something to commemorate her.
Don had long thought, undecided whether to participate or not. There had been investigations, and thanks to the numerous witnesses, Don had never really been a real suspected.
But his name was on the papers, his picture was, and photos of his house, too. Some enterprising journalist had even flown a drone over his fucking house to take pictures of his fucking terrace. And now everyday, at the hospital, he saw his colleagues whispering to each other when Don walked into the cafeteria.
Don didn't appreciate being the center of attention. Not like that, anyway. Well, frankly speaking, attentions were all that Don wanted, attentions were his drug, and he was always starving for attentions.
Romantic attention, feminine attentions, hot text in the middle of the night, phone ringing during the day, nails on his back, lips on his… lips?
But no gossip, Don fucking hated gossip, especially if it was a gossip about him. And what about this gossip? Does anyone really believe he may have hurt a woman?Him? Don? No way!
Don would certainly have done a lot of things to Bella, if only Bella had been available.
And she was unfortunately not.
And that was bad, so fucking bad, because Don felt that Bella... Well, Bella was the kind of woman who can change a man like him. But, anyway, Don would never have hurt her.
Fortunately, the investigation was concluded after only two weeks, when the news of the crashed spaceship in Downtown had reached the sleepy Pleasantown, leaving him cleaner than a surgical needle.
But for the sleepy people of Pleasantown?
Don would always be first suspected for them, and this made him fear for his career. Good life is build on good money, and the medical career would guarantee Don that money and, well, a lot of charm. Success with women.
Don wouldn't risk his career for anything. So he decide that he was going to the memorial, and he would show to all them his shiny clean conscience.
Dina would be there, too, , and it could get interesting.

"Sometimes I dream about a normal life. To be honest, I never remember to sleep, I don't notice to fall asleep and I don't realize to wake up. I think it's drugs, because if I dig into my memory then it seems that there was a past where things like sleep, hunger, the desire to fuck, could be defined as normal.
Maybe"
Nervous was speaking to his self while he was washing his long, carved face with the cold water of the white sink. Or it was also part of a dream? He was so confused.
Nervous looked into the dirty broken mirror and with one of her long fingers followed the contour of the dark circle under his eyes.
"Normal is a dream, shit is reality" he said loudly. This distinction was important because it was the only available way to know he had slept.
In real life, he lived locked between four thick walls of the Beakers' garage, and he only came out escorted by the Doctor to receive his... treatment. After that, the lady Doctor administered him his medicine, and then he was escorted back to the garage. That was the reality. Shit.
So when he was walking around in the street, taking a soda from the vending machine in the library, going shopping, playing drums... Those were definitely dreams, right? But if those were dreams, then it means that he had some sleep.
And sleep was good, because it allowed Nervous to escape from the shitty reality.

(A MONTH BEFORE)

It always seems to be night in Downtown.
Maybe because during the day the city is almost empty and seems to sleep, or it could be because, when something happens in Downtown, it always happens at night.
A deafening sound like sirens, bells, flapping lids, trucks nailing to the highway, all together, invaded the entire area of Downtown.
Those who were in the street looked up, those who were in the house looked out the window, those who slept woke up. Together with the noise appeared bright lights in the black sky, green, yellow, white, so bright that it was impossible to stare.
Finally a crash, huge, gigantic, crazy crash, up north, behind the last condos. A column of smoke and flames loomed in the night, as the first police and ambulance sirens approached the crash site.
Later, someone could have seen in the dark two figures in the Gothier Green Lawns.
But nobody was passing by, so nobody saw the tall man with a long black cloak, holding a woman dressed in red.