Star Bright

(Author's Note: I feel I should warn you, this is a very sad chapter. However, there was no other way for the story to play out the way it did to explain the character's situations. Enjoy.)

**

“Aliens?” Maude gasped, her attention shifting continually between Lance and Davis. She shook her head slightly. “That’s impossible. There’s just no way…”

“After everything you’ve seen tonight, you’re really going to try and deny the truth about us?” Lance demanded.

Maude reached out with a trembling hand, as if she were touch Lance’s face just to see if he was real. She instantly retracted it. Her eyes quaked with a faint fear, she was still clearly trying to process what she had just discovered. “But…you don’t look…”

Lance placed his hands on his hips matter of fact like and stared her down. “What, you expected people from another planet can’t look just like you?”

“But…you’re…”

“Lance.” Davis said in a cool voice as he placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. Lance looked back at him, then at Maude. With a faint shrug of his shoulders, he stepped aside to let Davis confront Maude. Davis gave her his usual calming look, and a strange sort of peace befell Maude. No longer shaking, she stood her ground as Davis explained.

“From what I’ve learned, we came from a planet that has an almost identical atmosphere and gravitational density to this one.”

“In plain English,” Lance butted in, “it was almost exactly like Earth.”

“Then…why do you…”

“It orbited a blue star, that might explain the subtle differences between people like us and you.”

“This…this is just unbelievable.” Maude whispered.

“I told you to take a hike while you had the chance.” Lance spoke with a slight shaking of his head. “Now you’re stuck. Just like us.”

“Well then, what about that thing that almost ate Cat and me?”

“We’re not sure.” Davis said. “There was something in the achieves about an ancient enemy that our people fought long ago. My guess is that thing is probably one of them.”

When Cathleen moaned faintly, she caught all their attentions. She slowly rose onto unsteady feet. Maude was by her side in an instant, bracing her up until she could get her balance back. “It’s true, isn’t it?” Cathleen whispered sadly. “I’m not really from here, am I?”

Davis slowly nodded his response.

“Then…” Cathleen gulped. “who am I really?”

Davis and Lance exchanged looks. An unspoken understanding passed them. “Come on, Maude.” Davis said, offering out his hand to her. “This is something Cathleen needs to deal with alone.”

“No way.” Maude said, folding her arms across her chest. “Whatever Cathleen has to face, I’m with her all the way.”

“Now look here…” Lance piped in.

“Maude, Lance, it’s ok.” Cathleen stepped away from Maude’s side. “I…I want to do this alone.”

“But Cat…”

“Maude, this…” she pointed at the small starship. “was left here for me. And I need to know who I am.”

Maude made as if to speak, but Davis placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “Come on, Cathleen’s strong enough to face this.”

Together, the lead Maude out of the building. Davis turned back to her at the entrance of the barn. “Touch it again. Everything will work itself out after that. Be strong, Cathleen.”
Be strong. She didn’t know how she could do that. She still didn’t even know who she really was. Cathleen wanted to call out to Davis, just to beg either him or Lance to stay with her. But as her lips parted, he slid the barn door shut. From the other side, she could hear the metallic click of the lock to the door. Gulping, Cathleen slowly turned to face the pod. She stared at it for a time, not moving, not thinking, just staring at it. Touch it again, Davis had said. That was all she had to do. It should have seemed absurd to her. One little thing as a simple touch, and her life would be transformed forever.

Trickles of sweat bedded down her face as she stared at the pod with a pounding heart. She was afraid, alright. But not afraid enough to cripple the urge to discover the truth of who she really was. She wasn’t from this world, and that in itself was a nearly mind shattering discovery. But there were so many other questions that needed to be answered, so many mysteries forming inside her mind that she couldn’t leave alone. Cathleen glanced nervously over her shoulder one last time, and saw that the door to the barn was just as shut as it had been a minute ago. She was truly alone, and in this moment, only she could summon up the courage to reach out and touch the pod. And discover who she really was.

And that was exactly what Cathleen did. Forcing down a lump in her throat, Cathleen brought her hand up and tenderly touched the pod’s surface with the tip of her index finger. The reaction was almost instantaneous. The whole interior of the pod became illuminated in a bright blue light. It projected upward into the air above the pod, and Cathleen fell back on her rear from the sudden startle that she got. She made no attempt to get up, she was stuck where she was as semi-solid shapes began to form within the light. Her eyes did not waver for a single instant as the shapes continued to solidify and transform. In the time it took for the last bit of breathe to pass her lips, Cathleen found herself in the presence of a pair of people.

Their proportions were not equal to hers, as they were each nearly seven feet tall, but she instantly knew that was only because they weren’t real. The pair was a man and woman, each donned in strange outfits that glimmered all over, as if they had been created from some kind of jewels. Each wore an ornament of sorts around their heads, both shinning with stunning magnificence.

But beyond what they were wearing, Cathleen studied extensively every tiny detail of their faces, the familiarity that she saw in each of them. But above all, Cathleen instantly wrapped both her hands around her family gem when she saw the stunningly purple irises they both possessed. Before the first word was spoke by either of them, Cathleen knew the truth. The images of these two before her…were her parents. Her real parents.

“Hello.” the woman whispered with a faint gulp, her voice on the edge of breaking. The word didn’t seem to come out as real English to Cathleen, but it might as well have been with the ease she was able to understand it. Cathleen got up on her knees and peered closer, like an anxious child anticipating a great thing they had waited so very hard for.

“Izarra…” the woman…her mother…began but the voice died in her throat and she began to weep.

Cathleen felt a faint stab of sadness within her to see her real mother cry for reasons unknown to her. The man…her father…gently wrapped one his seemingly powerful arms around her and held her close to him as her face fell into his shoulder.

“Izarra,” her father said in a strained voice. “It is now time for you to learn the truth of your origins. I am Cavalon.”

His eyes darted to her still crying mother. “And this is Lluska. We are the king and queen of our world. And you, Izarra, are our only daughter. You are the princess of Avion.”

Cathleen fell back on her bottom again, her jaw feeling like it had dropped to the floor. Her real name was Izarra? And she was an alien princess? As she tried to ponder this new understanding as to who she was, Lluska breathed deeply and wiped her eyes.

With her lips still trembling, she turned to face Cathleen once more. “I’ve tried to think of you…Izarra…these many days past.” Tears were visibly trickling down her smooth cheeks. “You’re so tiny now, I…I can’t imagine the young woman you must have become by the time you see this recording. I wonder if you’ll have your father’s eyes, or my smile, or…”

The words were lost to another round of tears that she couldn’t possibly contain. As she broke down again, Cavalon took over. “Izarra, no words I could ever say to you could make up for what has been done. I know by now that you must feel a sense of betrayal and abandonment by us…by your people. But everything that has been done to you, was done out of the deepest love that any parent could have for their child.”
What did he mean by that? Cathleen wondered. What reason could they ever have for sending her to the horrible place, where she understood now that she truly didn’t belong? What kind of parent could abandon their child in such a horrible way, and call that love? Cathleen almost wanted to shout to her father, to demand why this had been done to her, and Davis, and Lance. But she knew that would be pointless. As amazingly real as what she was seeing was, it was still just a recording, and had no way of interacting with her. She kept her mouth shut as her father spoke again.

“I know by you discovering this, you undoubtedly are yearning to return back to this place. Back to your home.” There was a pause, and he sighed with a great weariness. “And…this burdens my heart more than even I thought that I could bear, but that can never be. You can never return home, Izarra.”

Cathleen felt as if she had been punched in the gut. The real home that she had discovered, the one she had somehow known throughout her entire life that she had been missing and praying to find someday, and now she was told that she couldn’t go back. She leapt to her feet, ready to scream at her father and mother for putting her through this eighteen year long hell. But what she heard next had the same effect as if the image of her father had lashed out and slapped her across the face.

“Izarra, by the time you will be hearing this, your mother and I will have been dead for many, many years. As will our planet. There will be nothing left of it as you hear this message, just clouds of dust scattered throughout the endless void of space.”

Cathleen’s hands fell away from her gem, which at that very moment was vibrating with a rhythm that she could only contemplate as saddening. Her heart was twisted into a terrible vice as she looked on helplessly at her parents. Even though what she was witnessing had happened so many long years ago, she still felt as if she were standing before her parents for real. And the deep pain that she felt within her heart felt just as real. Clearly, her father was expressing the very same emotion on his weary face.

“I can’t even begin to imagine how dreadful it must be for you to hear this, but it is the truth. I hope…that you have come to love this strange new world that we are about to send you to. That it has become a true home for you.”

He paused, slowly shutting his eyes with a heavy sigh. As he did, Cathleen’s mother stepped in front of him and leaned closer, as if she was really looking at Cathleen. “Izarra, my most precious star, I pray that the time in which you have been shielded from who you really was not hard upon you. If…there had been a way…I would have sacrificed everything that I have ever known and loved to be there for you throughout all those long years.”
The tears were still flowing freely down her illuminated face, and Cathleen hardly realized it, but she was crying along with the image of her mother. Her mother’s image continued. “But there are so many other mothers, just like me, who are now making the ultimate sacrifice…so that there might still be a future for our people. And I could never go to my end knowing that I had betrayed a sacred trust that they have all placed upon me since the moment I was ordained the queen. I…had to show them the strength of my resolve, to give up what was most precious to me, to save our people.”

She slowly reached out her hand, as if to touch Cathleen’s face with a gentle caress. Unable to control herself, Cathleen reached up to touch the image, and felt as if her heart had shattered when her trembling hand passed right through her mother’s hand. “I pray that, whoever may have found you, has cared for you and protected you as much as I ever could have. My…shining star, I love you. From now and until the end of all things, I will always love you.”

“Mom.” Cathleen said in a breaking voice as she watched her mother back away.

“Izarra,” her father said, again drawing her focus onto him, “no one can fore see the path upon which you now must travel. And you must find your place upon the new world that you will call home. You are the last heir of the royal bloodline, and the other children that have been sent along with you will look to you for guidance. Within this pod, we have stored all the knowledge and history of our planet. I hope that the contents within will aid you in your quest to discovering your destiny. And should you ever feel yourself alone and lost, look to the night sky upon your new world and know that the light from our star will continue to shine down upon you long after both it and we are gone. Be strong, Izarra. The future is in your hands.”

Cathleen rose on her trembling legs, and the image of her parents suddenly vanished. “Mom, dad, wait!” she cried, leaping towards the empty image of her parents. But it was too late, they had vanished, plunging her once again into the dim light of the barn. Unable to stop the tears, Cathleen stumbled towards the pod, desperately hoping that she could somehow make her parents come back.

“Don’t leave me.” Cathleen begged. Even though she knew her words were pointless, she just couldn’t stop herself from calling out to the images of her real parents. After a lifetime of being lost and alone, she couldn’t just let them go. Not now when she had finally found them. Blindly leaping towards the pod, Cathleen pounded her fists against its smooth surface. The instant her skin made contact with it, a thousand images exploded across her mind. The mental assault was too much for her to bear, and she fell away from the pod. But it was too late to stop what had been started.

From the pod’s opening another blue glow was projected forth. Only this time, what came before Cathleen wasn’t her parents. Instead, it was an image of a planet which she had never seen before. But Cathleen knew instantly that what she was seeing was Avion. Light shined all across its vast surface, with thousands of multi colored waves constantly flowing through its reflective atmosphere. And behind it, looking no bigger than the moon because of its distance, burned the blue star that had helped to give life to her world. The picture was oddly peaceful, and yet a sense of impending dread began to build within Cathleen as she watched on.

Her heart began to race and as the rest of her body began to tremble. Something began to happen to the shimmering blue star. It happened along its outer edges at first, a strange distortion that rapidly increased in intensity. Suddenly, a large lance of blue flame shot out from one point of the star. Then another, then another. Before too long, large columns were jolting out all across the star’s blue surface. Shaking all over, Cathleen could do nothing except watch in silent horror as the star lost all fluidity. As she started to breath, it exploded.

The flash consumed the entire field of vision. When the light subsided a moment later, Cathleen saw a massive ripple of bluish light race across the dead of space like and unstoppable tidal wave. It was impossibly enormous, and her home planet was nothing more than an insignificant speck next to it. Terrified to look on, but unable to draw her eyes away from what was about to happen, Cathleen felt as if the tip of an impossibly sharp blade was beginning to press into her chest. The icy hand of death grasped her in its twisted coils as the destructive wave hurled towards Avion. For one, heart wrenching moment, Avion was washed in the stunningly intense light. The shimmering surface of its atmosphere reflected a multitude of various prisms. It was one final stunning burst of beauty from her home, a last testament to the entire cosmos of the tiny planet’s existence. Then the massive wave smashed into Avion. The planet shuddered, withstanding the apocalyptic onslaught for but a moment. Every last speck of air within Cathleen’s lungs vanished in an instant as thousands of visible cracks spread all across the tiny shiny sphere. And then, Cathleen felt that invisible blade plunge straight into the core of her heart as Avion shattered into thousands of fiery pieces.

And just like that, the image died. The small light from within the pod shut off, plunging Cathleen into a complete and total darkness. In the endless blackness that suddenly engulfed her, memories of her childhood flashed through Cathleen’s mind. And she remembered those dreadful feelings of being completely weak and helpless. All around her, she could feel the soul crushing grasp of death. Its hideous hiss echoed into her ear, and the crushing images of her home world blowing apart filled the darkness. And in the wake of that apocalyptic explosion, Cathleen could hear the agonizing screams of her parents, and the countless others that had perished. Unable to withstand any of it, Cathleen screamed at the top of her lungs and blindly raced to escape the barn that had suddenly grown to feel like a tomb.

Bursting through the barn doors as if they had been made of tissue paper, Cathleen’s nose was hit by the strong earthly smells of the surrounding nature. But it wasn’t natural, not for her. Nothing, nothing in the whole world had ever been right with, nor would it ever be. This wasn’t her world, she had never been meant to live on it. Her real home was gone. She had nothing left. Nothing.

Strong hands caught Cathleen before she could go far, and she was pulled against a strong body. Blinking through tear filled eyes, Cathleen stared into Davis’ twilight colored iris. She didn’t give him a chance to say anything. Cathleen madly began to struggle to free herself from his grip. None of this could be real, it just couldn’t be. It was all just some kind of terrible nightmare, and all she needed to do was wake up.

“Cathleen…” Davis whispered.

“It’s not real!” she screamed into his face. “You’re not real, none of this is.”

“It’s real, Cathleen.”

“I’m not an alien! You’re just some twisted freak.” Cathleen shrieked, slapping Davis across his face as hard as she could. “I wish you had never come here! It’s a lie. It’s all a lie!”

“I wish that it was, Cathleen!” Davis shouted back for the first time since she had meet him. The sudden ferocity in his voice broke the back of all of Cathleen’s anger, leaving her with only the ability to stare at him in complete silence. Davis shook her slightly, and in the moonlight she could clearly see that his own eyes were glistening.

“I wish more than anything in the whole world that it wasn’t true, but it is. This place, this planet, isn’t our home. We weren’t born here. And we can never go home, Cathleen. Our planet is gone. We’re all that’s left of our people.”

“It…it…can’t be….” Cathleen stuttered, her entire mind on the verge of crumbling into insanity.

“Cathleen,” Davis said, a small tear trickling down the side of his face, “I’m sorry for doing this to you.”
He pulled her close to him and embraced her with his sturdy arms. He whispered into her ear. “I’m sorry for everything. But you had to know the truth.”

Cathleen didn’t know what else she could do in response to that, except pour her weary and broken heart out onto his shoulder. She let the tears flow forth, unable to stop the pain that gripped her. Even in that moment of complete emotional agony, Cathleen found the strength to ask a question.

“Are…are we the only ones? You, me, and…Lance?” she whispered through faint sobs.

There was a long pause, and Cathleen was suspending intense fear as she awaited the answer.

“No.” Davis said. “There are others. Out there somewhere.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. A few hundred. Maybe a few thousand.”

“But why us? Why…how could they send us as infants to this place, alone? How could my parents do something so cold hearted?”

“They didn’t have a choice, Cathleen. When they learned that our solar system’s star was dying, they were given very little time to find a way to save our people. Our planet had no starships, and they couldn’t build any in time save enough of our people. The only chance the leaders of our planet, your parents, had of saving our people from complete extinction were to send as many infants away as possible. The ships that carried us here were easy to make, so many could be produced. And we as babies were easy to prepare for the great journey through space. Our leaders needed to save as many of us as they could to ensure enough genetic diversity to sustain a new population. They had hoped that the natives of this world would take us in and raise us as if we were there own. And, because we were infants, we would have no memory of our planet, we would feel no longing for our lost world. We would grow up thinking this was our home.”

Cathleen didn’t know what to say in response. It was completely cruel in so many ways. And yet, she understood deep down the desperation that must have been placed upon her parent’s shoulders. And the harsh decisions they had been forced to make to ensure the survival of their people. Of her people.

“You understand, Cathleen?” Davis said as he lightly brushed a hand through her hair. “They sacrificed everything for us. So that we could have a future.”

“And what kind of future is that?”

“What ever kind we choose to make for ourselves. That’s all they ever wanted for us. And that’s why we need you, Cathleen.”

“But…I nobody. What can I do?” she asked in a weak, sobbing voice.

Davis pushed her away from him slightly, just enough for her to gaze upon his weary yet hopeful face. “Because…you’re not a nobody. You’re the princess of our lost world. You’re the last symbol of any kind of leadership that our people can look to.”

“But I’m not a leader.” Cathleen protested, pulling away from Davis’ grip. Her eyes darted wildly from him, to Lance, to Maude. “I’m not that kind of person. I’ve never been in charge of anything in my life. I mean, why does it have to be me?”

“Because you are who you are.” Lance answered in a very sincere voice.

Cathleen turned to him, and for the first time saw Lance’s strong and seemingly unbreakable persona crumbling. He stepped closer to her, enough for her to see the concern in his red eyes. “They’re out there, Cat. All over this planet. Right now, they’re going through the exact changes that you are. They are alone and afraid. And you know better than any of us here exactly what that feels like.”

“That’s why we came to you, Cathleen.” Davis added. “When Lance and I discovered the truth of our origins, we learned about you. We knew that we needed to find you. You’re one that our people will be able to look to for guidance and leadership.”

“But I am not a leader!” Cathleen shouted back. “Why can’t it be you? Or Lance?”

“Because we’re not royalty, Cat.” Lance answered. “You are. And you’re the only one left.”

Cathleen glared defiantly at Lance and Davis. “So what about you two, then? What do either of you have to do with any of this…crazy stuff?”

A look passed between the two, and they both nodded their heads slightly. “You first.” Lance said with a motion to Davis. The smaller body crossed his arms and looked at the ground near his feet.

“My dad,” Davis said, still not looking up at her, “was the scientist who came up with the whole plan. He was the one who convinced your parents to send the infants here to Earth.” Davis raised his head to meet Cathleen’s eyes. “He’s the only reason that we’re alive right now.”

Cathleen looked over at Lance. “And you?”

Lance gave a very forced chuckle and cracked his knuckles. “Me? My old man was captain of the royal guards.”
Cathleen’s eyes widened slightly. “What?”

“Yep.” Lance nodded. He tapped the side of his head slightly, indicating towards his eyes. “It’s the red eyes. It marks people like me for our aggressive nature. We were raised to do one thing, fight. And to be totally devoted to protecting the royal family at all costs, even laying down our lives. And my dad was the toughest of them all.”

Lance puffed his chest out slightly. “Kind of makes you feel proud, doesn’t it?”

“Then,” Cathleen said weakly, “that means that…”

“Un-huh.” Lance answered with a tiny smile. “That’s why I told you I’m your bodyguard. You’re the princess, and it’s my job to keep you safe.”

“This is…insane.” Maude whispered.

“It’s been nothing but insane since the first day that I found my pod.” Davis explained to her. His eyes shifted over to Cathleen. “And there’s no going back to the way things were. The only thing that any of us can do now is to keep going forward.”

Cathleen didn’t know how to respond to that statement. Her mind was still reeling from her discovery of who she was, and she didn’t have a single hope of knowing what to do. They kept saying that they needed her because she was Avion’s princess. But she wasn’t a leader, she didn’t know what she could possibly do. Lance had been right in a way. She was no longer alone, but she still felt so very afraid and lost. She just didn’t know what how she could even try to be what she knew they needed her to be.

Approaching footsteps drew Cathleen’s attention. She faced the direction that they were coming from, and saw her ‘parents’ slowly walking towards them. Their eyes were blood shot and their faces were very pale. Cathleen didn’t expect anything less from two people whose secret they had been hiding for nearly eighteen years had suddenly been discovered. Yet, Cathleen didn’t know the whole truth. And she needed to know.

Her ‘mother’ upon her with trembling eyes that were already watering up. “Cathleen…”

“You know that’s not my real name, don’t you?” Cathleen spoke in a low hiss, from which her mother recoiled as if slapped. “My name is Izarra. You couldn’t even do that for me? All these years, and you couldn’t even tell me my real name?”

“I…I wanted to. So many times…I wanted to. I…we…were going to.”

“When!” Cathleen yelled at them. “When my body turned into a complete crystal statue, or I got eaten by an alien jellyfish?”

“After you graduated.” her mother replied in a weak voice. “When you were out of high school.”

Cathleen gritted her teeth and clenched her fists tightly. “No more lies! I want to know everything. I saw that death certificate. Now what is that all about?”

“Cathleen, please…”

“No!” she shouted. “I know I’m not dead. So what the hell is with that paper?”

“It was our daughter!” her mother cried out in a shrill voice before she broke down, clinging tightly to her dad. “It was our daughter.”

**

Eighteen years ago…

Linda walked aimlessly through the dark forest in a near trance like state. She had no idea where she was going, nor did she even really care. Life didn’t have any meaning for her anymore. All sense of life within her had died almost a month ago. She hardly slept anymore, for every time that she closed her eyes, the same nightmare continued to play out in her weary mind. There was no change in how the nightmare played out. Every time she would walk happily into her newborn daughter’s room, that had been so lovingly and painstakingly made to be just perfect for a little girl to grow up in, and see that her baby was not moving. And when she drew closer, and saw that the little life she had carried within her for nine long months wasn’t breathing, her entire world would shatter as she snatched the baby into her arms in a wild scream of agony.

Before the paramedics even arrived, Linda knew deep in her shattered heart that her child was already dead. There had been no official explanation for why it had happened. The closest thing that she had ever come to getting was that Cathleen had just gone to sleep, and never woken up. The day after she had buried Cathleen, Linda had wanted nothing more than to join her lost daughter.

She had already tried twice to kill herself over the last few weeks, but had been stopped both times by her husband. Linda couldn’t understand why he did. He was the only other person in the whole world that understood the agony of what she was enduring. And yet, he kept telling her that she needed to keep living. For Cathleen. But…she just couldn’t see how she could. Not in a world without her daughter. So she had waited patiently over the next two weeks, until Ed had dropped his guard.

She had left him fast asleep in the bed, leaving the house to venture off into the forest. Linda no longer cared what happened to her. She just wanted the pain of it all to end. More than anything in the whole world, she wanted her little girl back. But she was gone forever.

Walking silently through the thick underbrush, Linda hardly took notice of the many deep scrapes that were cut into her vulnerable flesh by jagged ends of branches. She stumbled on through the forest until it finally gave way into a small clearing. Although it was the middle of the night, she instantly recognized the place. It had been one of the mesmerizing spots that had captivated her in the first days of coming to live on the farm. The small rise in the ground had caused a tiny waterfall in the small stream that ran through the grounds of the farm. Linda had just adored it. Also, there was a fairly deep pool in which she had been able to swim in. It had been so perfect, just the exact spot that she had dreamed of when the decision had been made to move out to the country. But now, she no longer saw it as a slice of paradise she had been searching for. Instead, it had transformed into something else…

Without the slightest sign of hesitation, Linda walked the small circumference of the pool and climbed to the top of the small rise in the ground. Once on top, she slowly eased herself towards the edge. Perhaps this was the best way, she thought, to end it all at the place where she had sought sanctuary from the world. Linda knew that there were plenty of big rocks on the bottom of the pool, and wasn’t deep enough to stop a person from reaching the bottom if they jumped off from the top of the small waterfall. She just had to make sure that it was head first. Just one little jump, she thought, and then all of her pain would be over and she could be with Cathleen again. Linda took a deep breath and stepped into the icy cold water of the stream.

Easing herself towards the edge, she cast her face up towards the star lit sky one last time. The thousands of twinkling lights in the night seemed so vast and endless, and she wondered why it had been her that had to lose a child. It just didn’t seem fair, any of it. She almost shouted out to the heavens, demanding to know why a life had been faded before it had even had a chance to live. She didn’t bother. There wouldn’t be any answer. For the first time in her whole life, Linda felt truly alone. Wiping away the few tears that continued to seep from her eyes even after all these weeks of agony, Linda let herself gaze upon the stars. As her eyes began to lower, something odd caught her eye.

Still sobbing, she brought her full attention to a single speck of twinkling light. Even in her crushed state, Linda knew that there had never been a star in that spot of the sky before. Just as she was beginning to wonder why the light had suddenly appeared, a wild realization crossed her mind. The star was getting bigger.
All thoughts of suicide vanished from her mind instantly as she watched on. She didn’t know why, but she felt herself drawn to the star, which continued to grow brighter with each beat of her heart. As Linda stood on the tips of her toes, another realization came upon her. That light wasn’t a star. No sooner had that thought crossed her mind than the light transformed into a ball of fire. One that seemed to be streaking straight for her.

She reacted instantly. Jumping from the icy water, she raced towards the nearby forest. The moment Linda entered the trees, she threw herself to the ground. Curling into a little ball, she covered her ears and shut her eyes. A great wave of heat washed over her, followed almost instantly by a thunderous explosion that felt to her like an atomic bomb had gone off next to her. The force of the blast was so sever that Linda was lifted off the ground and slammed back into hard. The air was knocked out of her lungs and she writhed in the dirt while gasping for breath.

Slowly lowering her hands, Linda blinked several times as her eyes tried to adjust to the sudden haze that now saturated the air. Coughing slightly, she rose on unsteady legs. Nearly falling down, she had to brace herself against a nearby tree. She waited until the shakes in her body subsided before trying to move. Taking one cautious step after another, Linda stumbled out from the trees, and gasped.

Out in the clearing there was a deep gouge in the earth. It looked as if a gigantic shovel had dug a trench. And all through the newly made trench the ground was an odd color and was smoking. Linda stared dumbfounded at this sight. She took a cautious step towards the trench, and instantly recoiled when she saw that the grass all around it was smoldering. Taking great care to avoid the scorched ground, Linda began traversing the length of the trench. With one awkward step at a time, she reached the top of the small waterfall. Once on top, she peered down into the trench, and her legs began to shake.

The gouge was much longer and deeper than she had first thought. But the real thing that caught her attention was a small cloud of vapor rising from the end of it. Scared, but overcome by curiosity, she summoned up her courage and began to make her way over to far end where the vapor was coming from. As Linda drew closer, she was stunned to find that although the ground around the vapor cloud was blackened as well, it was ice cold to the touch. Nearing the end, she could see a huge mound of freshly turned earth rising several feet above the ground level. The last bits of the vapor cloud vanished, and her jaw dropped. Hidden within the cloud…was a metallic object. It was incredibly smooth, looking very much like a shiny egg, except for several more pods located near the end facing her. It was unlike anything that Linda had ever seen. Some kind of top secret satellite? Or maybe a new type of spaceship not made public yet? She didn’t have any answers for what it was.

Her heart was hammering against her ribs as Linda found herself drawn towards the strange object. Despite her fear, she couldn’t bring herself to stay away from it. With her entire body on the edge, she began to walk a full circle around the object. As she neared its front, a faint humming sound came from within. Linda licked her lips slightly as small beads of sweat trickled down the side of her face. Before she had a chance to even move, a tiny cylinder rose from its surface towards the back. A blinding light flashed from it, and Linda stumbled.
There was a moment when she was petrified by fear that the light would disintegrate her. After the moment passed, the light vanished just as fast as it had been emitted. Linda dropped to her knees and tried to stop her shaking. What happened next made her forget about anything that was happening to her body. A tiny, rectangular crack appeared through the seemingly completely solid surface at the top of the object. From the cracks poured several thick streams of what looked like steam, although Linda couldn’t be sure that’s what it was. Once it had stopped, the rectangular section slid back, revealing a small compartment inside the object.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Linda cautiously stepped forward to see what was inside. Her mind raced at the possibilities of what could be within. She hoped beyond everything that she could even believe in that there wasn’t some lurking nightmare inside or something else that would maim or kill her. When she looked inside, Linda’s heart almost stopped.

There wasn’t some insanely unidentifiable monster or gadget inside. There was the last thing in the whole world that she could ever expect to find in something that had fallen from the sky. It was a baby. A baby unlike any that she had ever seen. The infant’s skin was pale as death, yet she could see the child’s tiny chest slowly rising and falling. And though there were only a few wisps of hair that could be seen, Linda immediately noticed how they glistened in the moonlight. Never before had she ever seen such a strange child. Especially one that was wrapped in cloth that looked a smooth as silk, yet it shined in the faint moonlight as if it was made out of diamonds. Linda stood in stunned silence as she stared down at the infant, not knowing what to do. As she tried to think of what possibilities there were for her, the child’s tiny eyes opened, and she was left in wonder at the bright purple iris that gazed curiously up at her.

As if their mutual stare were some sort of signal, the child began to cry. Without taking even a moment to think about what she was doing, Linda reached into the object and scooped the baby into her arms. All the maternal instincts that had been lost to her with Cathleen’s death instantly came back as she held the strange infant and began to rock it back and forth. From under the sparkling cloth a jewel in a silver like chain fell out. Taking great care not to drop the now screaming baby, Linda inspected the jewel, and was mesmerized by its otherworldly beauty. In fact, she almost immediately noticed that the jewel’s color was identical to the baby’s eyes. Unable to help herself, Linda brushed her fingers over its glimmering surface.

The instant she did, the egg like pod came to life. Linda jumped back from it, instantly shielding the baby whatever may have come forth. The last thing that Linda expected was for an almost life like image to suddenly project out from the pod’s interior. Bathed in the blue light was a gentle looking woman dressed in alien garments. She explained everything to her. About the destruction of their world, and how they had sent their children across space to safety upon Earth. She pleaded to whom ever had found the pod to care for princess Izarra, her daughter. It was a mother’s desperate call for help, from a woman who was already dead, to save her child.

As Linda heard this, a faint warmth that she had thought died within her sprang forth again. When the message ended, her eyes immediately fell to the alien baby Izarra. She was a mother who had lost her baby, and the infant she now cradled in her arms was a baby who had lost her parents. Through twisted fortunes of fate, they had come together. And as Izarra finally began to quiet down, Linda couldn’t help but see how very much like her lost Cathleen this alien princess was. In that instant, she knew exactly what she had to do.

“Come on, Izarra.” she whispered with the same nurturing voice she had given to Cathleen. “Let’s take you home.”

**

Word were beyond Cathleen as she heard her adoptive mother finish her sad tale. She had been so angry at her before for never telling the truth about her origins. But now…the understanding of why they had kept it a secret became all too apparent to her. She had been too young. She had always been too young to truly understand everything, until tonight.

“I told everyone that you were my cousin’s daughter, and that she and her husband had died in a car crash.”

Cathleen remained silent as her mother left her dad’s side and slowly approached her. Even at the distance, she could clearly distinguish her mother’s tear streaked face. “Every time you asked me why you looked different, every time you came home in tears from being bullied, it tore me apart. All I ever wanted was to tell you the truth about who you really are, but I had to not say anything to protect you.”

“You could have…” Cathleen started, but she just couldn’t find any strength to say anymore. She couldn’t even look her mother in the face as she came closer. Fighting to hold back her emotions, Cathleen stared down at her feet. She didn’t even look up when she saw her mother’s feet stop right in front of her own.

Cathleen flinched slightly when she felt the tender touch of her mother’s finger brushing through her hair. She remained completely still. It wasn’t until her mother’s strong hands grasped her own that Cathleen finally looked into her face. “Cathleen, sweetie…”

“I’m not your daughter.” Cathleen said, with a hint of bitterness for having been named after a lost child as she looked away. “It’s not even my real name. I’m not even human.”

The grip on her hands tightened to the point where it bordered being painful. The force caused Cathleen’s eyes to go back to her mother’s sorrow gaze. “Cathleen…Izarra, I don’t care whatever name you want to call yourself. And I don’t care where you came from.”

All of Cathleen’s known mental defenses immediately sprang up. She tried to pull into herself in a desperate effort to fight off the coming emotional storm she could feel swelling in her chest.

“You are my daughter.” she said, looking her right in the eyes. “And I’ve loved you every moment since that night I first cradled you in my arms.”

The emotional dam within her broke apart, and Cathleen no longer cared anymore about how and why her life had ended up the way it had. All she knew was in that moment, looking into the tear filled eyes of the woman who had cared for her and loved her as if she were her own child, she needed the one thing that she hadn’t been able to have since discovering her true identity. A mother.

“Mom…” she said in a weak voice. Before her mother could say or do anything, Cathleen threw her arms around her and hung her mother as hard as she could. She surrendered herself completely to the warm embrace of the woman she would gladly call mother for the rest of her life. The feelings racing through her were equal in power to all the emotions that both Davis and Lance had stirred within her heart. And for just a moment, Cathleen felt completely safe from the world that surrounded her. All she wished as that this moment could last forever.

A startled scream from Maude snapped Cathleen’s eyes open. A heavy force smashed into her back, knocking her to the ground. No sooner had her face hit the dirt than she felt a great rush of air pass over her. It was followed almost instantly by the horrendous sound of crushing metal and splintering wood. Blinking through her daze, Cathleen saw Lance’s large body hovering over her as a living shield.

“You alright, Cat?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” she answer. “Mom?”

Her mother sat up with a groan. Looking past Lance, her heart nearly stopped when she saw that a large section of the barn was crushed in. Lying within was the final remains of Maude’s mom’s car. Standing there, Cathleen was completely dumbstruck by the shear brutality of what she was looking at. She didn’t have any time to ponder how it had happened as a sinister clicking sound came from behind her. One that Cathleen vividly remembered. A cold chill ran through Cathleen’s chest. She slowly turned around, and her lips began to tremble when she saw the monster that had attacked her standing nearby in a deadly crouch. Cathleen’s grip on her mother tightened as her father raced to their side, pulling both of them to their feet. Lance immediately stepped in between them and the creature. “Shit, he’s back.”

The monster’s entire body was quivering, a sign she could on guess meant that it was mad. Its florescent eyes fixated upon her, and narrowed into deadly slits. A terrible shudder ran through Cathleen’s body as it stared her down. That hideous mouth of its stretched even wider than it had been the last time she had seen it. Its dagger like teeth glistened and vibrated, and Cathleen knew that the monster was yearning for her blood. She took an instinctive step back, and suddenly had Maude being roughly pushed into her. The next instant, Davis was there too, standing right beside Lance.

“Cathleen, take your parents and Maude, get out of here and go find some place safe.” he said to her in a pleading voice before turning all of his attention back to the monster, which was now rising to its full height of over eight feet. “We’ll take care of this.”

The two boys stood side by side as they faced the monster down. “Anything I should know about this clown?” Davis asked.

“Watch out for the tentacles.” Lance warned, his voice deadly serious. “They’ve got some kind of barb hidden in them. Sharp as hell. That’s how he got me.”

“We take it on together, Lance.” Davis said. “And don’t get careless.”

The response Davis got was a hearty laugh. As Cathleen looked on at her two protectors, they each clutched their chests. There was a sudden burst of light around each of them. When it subsided, she could see that they both had changed. Both of their skins were now reflective like the surface of their gems. Davis looked exactly the way Cathleen remembered him being. Lance now truly looked like a rock solid golem with his new shiny blood red skin. Large streaks of red ran through his glistening silver hair, just like Davis.

They stood their ground as the monster’s fluid like hands solidified and its finger transformed into long scythe like blades. An unnatural silence fell over the surround area. The atmosphere was so tense that Cathleen dared to believe that even the very air had stopped. Then, the stillness exploded as the three opponents roared out murderous battle cries and hurled themselves at each other.