So, I had this idea after reading a humans are weird post, it’s going to take a couple parts to finish, but here goes nothing. Ava is actually one of my best friends and we keep talking about being roommates someday. Gigi is based on my dog. Sara is based on hers. Let’s see how poorly I can portray myself and her.
A ship from the Pqncallaxis Dominion arrived on a Tuesday, at four in the morning, in the field behind my house, waking myself, my roommate, and our two dogs, three cats, twelve chickens, plus one angry rooster.
I scrambled out of bed, going for the rifle. My roommate, Ava, had a handgun that she was licensed to use, but sometimes a rifle was a little more convincing for aliens than the small size of the gun she carried. You never really knew with aliens.
“The residents of this domain will exit the domain and consult with us.”
I loaded the rifle, “Consult with them. Tch.”
“Fay?”
“Just getting the rifle. What do you think? Should we release the hounds?” I asked Ava, listening for a moment as the dogs kept barking.
“Right, because Gigi’s such a terror.”
“I know. She’ll be in hiding the moment we come down with our guns. Sara though…”
“She’d probably lick them to death.”
“I’m pretty sure dog saliva is deadly to some aliens. I swear, if they crushed my apple trees…”
“Really? You’re worried about trees?”
“I like apples! You do too. They might have destroyed your pear trees, you know.”
She wrinkled her nose, “Or the chickens.”
We went down side by side and peered around the corner so we could see out the back doors through the curtains the dogs had managed to push aside.
“What kind of aliens are those?” I asked in a whisper.
She shrugged, “I’m a secretary, not an alien expert. You’re the one who follows the updates more.”
“Because my brother is excited about it. But I don’t study them like I study plants.” I shook my head, “Maybe we should call someone.”
“Like who?”
“The police?”
“And tell them what? Aliens have landed in our backyard and want to consult with us? We don’t even know what that means.”
The realization that we were both too chicken to go out just yet is what made me decide to do that. Someone had to do something.
“Alright, I’m going to go out. You have to get to the kitchen and grab the sprayer with the mint oil in it. Mint is corrosive to ninety percent of the alien species that have come into contact with earth.” At least…I was mostly sure. Pretty certain. There was a good chance.
“Are you sure?”
“No, but…it’s that or they do something bad. Confidence. I’ll put on an air of confidence.” I hugged her quickly, just in case, “If they kill me, call the police and get into the basement. Then tell my family…well…you know.”
She was looking at me like I was insane, “You’re insane.”
See, thought so.
“Finally, someone uses the right word.” I muttered, then put the butt of the rifle into the crook of my shoulder like my dad had taught me and ordered the dogs, “Get.”
Ava got to the door, “Wait, I’ll go out with you.”
“And if they aren’t here peacefully?”
“Then we’ll die together?”
Neither of us wanted the other to die, but we also didn’t want to die ourselves.
“Why couldn’t they have gone somewhere else?” I muttered, “Open the door.”
She hesitated, then did as I told her.
I stepped out, making sure the dogs couldn’t get past me, “What do you want?”
“To consult with the residents of this domain.”
“Again I ask, what do you want?” I squinted, even though I was wearing my glasses, “And could you kill the lights? They’re a little much for four in the morning.”
“Apologies.”
All of their lights turned off, so the only light was my porch light.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, then reopened them, trying to help my eyes adjust more quickly, “Right? What is this about consulting the residents?”
Ava came out with her hand gun out and the spray bottle in her robe pocket.
The alien, a weird thing that looked like a mix between a praying mantis and a Jaaarskil, stepped just barely into the light, limping as he kept the rooster away with one leg. “We wish to hire the expertise of a select few humans to help us with settling our latest acquisition.”
“No thanks.” Ava said, “Try someone else.”
A green light came from the device the alien was holding, “You are the perfect specimens for us. Return to your residence.” It made a disgusting clicking and chomping sound, like someone chewing with their mouth full and some rocks, then hurried back toward the ship, trying to get away from our rooster.
I arched an eyebrow, “What the frak just happened?”
Ava shook her head, “No clue. Do we go back inside?”
“Well, we definitely have to report it to the alien incidence association. No way are they using me as part of their settlement projects.” I glared at the ship.
The same green light came out of it, bathing out house, our property, and some of the fields around us in it.
“Um…”
Ava pulled me inside, “The basement.”
I nodded and rushed down there, calling the dogs and cats.
It was like an earthquake as we huddled in the spot we normally did for tornadoes.
Then it stopped.
I slowly uncurled, hoping my hands would stop shaking, and pushed myself to my feet. “I’m afraid of what we’ll find up there.”
Ava handed me the rifle again, “Let’s check everything over, then we can go back to bed.”
I nodded and we crept up the stairs. I didn’t want to spend too much time in our basement anyway. I swear it was haunted.
Ava froze when she got to the top of the stairs. “The embassy better throw a fit.”
“What? Why? What did they do?” I climbed up behind her and peeked in the direction she was looking.
Through the glass in the front door we could see the inside of an alien ship.
I turned around and went back downstairs, “I’m going to sleep with the ghosts.”
Even being more superstitious than me, Ava followed and we crashed on the pullout bed couch. Both staring at the ceiling.
“I thought we were past abductions.” I murmured, petting Sara’s head. She was stressed. So was Gigi. And the cats.
Which was evidenced by the fact that they were getting along with the dogs.
“We’ve been abducted.” Ava said, shaking her head. “This feels like a weird dream.”
The house shook again, and we grabbed onto the bed.
“Now what?!” I yelled, suddenly fed up.
I got up the moment the shaking stopped and marched up the stairs, out the front door…
Our front yard of green grass blended into purple grass, then back to green a ways away as it met someone else’s house. I could see where that person’s yard stopped and the flora of this planet started, because the grass ended and the tree trunks of this planet were in various shades of blue, with leaves of various shades of purple as well.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” I whispered to myself, looking up to where the sun shone. “Yellow sun. Okay. Initial assessment is—if they transported our yard and everything that was in our yard—that the plants and animals should be able to survive. I think. Maybe. The air is breathable, always a plus, so that should be fine. Plants make food from light and they have light. We have chicken feed to last us a while, at least while we let one of the chickens experiment with the bugs.”
“Fay? Why are you whispering?” Ava came out behind me.
“This.” I waved a hand to everything in front of me.
She stared, speechless.
“RESIDENTS OF THE CHOSEN DOMAINS! YOU WILL ASSIST IN SETTLING THIS WORLD! MAIL WILL BE COLLECTED AND DROPPED OFF ON TUESDAYS! GOOD DAY AND MAY THE GODS OF THE PQNXALLAXIS DOMAIN SMILE UPON YOU!”
I groaned, “Can I use that swear word now?”
Ava slowly shook her head.
“Why the heck did they choose us?” I let out a yell of frustration. “You know what? Fine. Just, fine! I’m going to see if anybody is home.”
Ava kept up but didn’t say anything.
I rang the doorbell of the other house, then looked back at my house.
Ava nudged me and pointed to the one side.
There was another house just barely visible through the trees.
I pounded on the door, “Hello?!”
Finally it was being unlocked.
“Is it over?” was the guy’s first question.
“The transport to another planet? You could say that.” Ava found her voice again. Knew it wouldn’t stay gone for long.
He looked past us, then shook his head, “These aliens are getting crazier by the month. Don’t they realize the hell that they’re bringing to themselves?”
“Honestly, I don’t think they do. Considering they put us here, I’d say they’re worried about poisonous food or weather or creatures.” I chewed the inside of my cheek, “I’ll have to start studying the plants right away. See if I can figure out some sort of lab to do tests in. Find my gardening gloves and start collecting samples.”
Ava glanced back to our house, “Start with the gazebo.”
I nodded, “In the meantime, we should see how the other people are faring.”
“Other people?” The guy asked.
Ava pointed to the left.
He looked over, then shook his head, “Let me get dressed and grab my gun. Let my family know I’m going with you.”
I glanced down at my elephant pajama pants, “Good idea. Meet in the purple grass between our houses.”
He nodded and closed the door.
Ava and I headed back to our house, going and getting dressed.
I grabbed the Gigi’s leash and hooked her to it, “Come on, hon.”
Sara got excited as well, but she wasn’t as good as Gigi on the leash.
Ava came down, “At least grab the baseball bat your brother insisted we have.”
I nodded and got it from my closet. Going to see the other humans that were in the same predicament wasn’t necessarily dangerous, but we didn’t know what we would stumble upon or how freaked out the other humans were. It was best if we came prepared.
Ava led the way back out, looking a little grumpy. She got that way when she didn’t get enough sleep.
We stopped in the purple grass, and I examined it while Gigi sniffed it.
I frowned, “It’s softer than our grass.” I broke off a piece, and smelled it. “Not bad. Smells like lemon pine-sol.”
“We don’t know if things on this planet are toxic in any way and you’re breaking the grass and smelling it?”
“I’m going to lick it too. Don’t give me that look. Last time you gave me that look was when I ate wintergreen berries on our hike. I knew what they were. I knew what they were then. This is like our grass close as I can tell. Would it have killed the…whatever race of aliens this is to give us some sort of information about this planet?”
“Kidnapping us might get them killed. Wonder if they know that.” Ava was looking at the sky.
“On the bright side, we won’t have to avoid Weird Guy on Sunday.” I touched the blade of purple grass to my tongue. I’d have to wait to see if my tongue started to tingle. Tasted lemony.
“That’s what you’re thinking about?” She looked at me, then cringed, “Did you really just taste the grass?”
“We’re going to have to test everything, eventually we’ll run out of food for the dogs, the chickens, the cats…and our fruit trees and gardens will only do so much.”
“Glad we were planning on expanding the garden,” Ava said, looking back at our house and yard. “Hopefully what corn came with us continues to grow as well.”
“It’ll also depend on what the other people have going in their yards. And how many other people there are. Those stupid aliens have put us in a real mess.”
“You don’t say,” She replied dryly. “Here’s that guy.”
I looked up, “Should probably find out his name.”
“You ask.”
“Me?”
“Hey, you guys look ready for some sort of fight.” He gave a sheepish smile, “That’s what my family is doing. I just grabbed the closest thing that resembled a weapon.”
“Golf club works, my cousin got a nasty concussion and five stitches from a golf club once. By the way, I’m Fay Walker and she’s Ava Ryling.”
“Chad Findlay, I’ll introduce you to my parents and brother later. We should head over to the other houses.” He rested the club on his shoulder, “Let’s go see how deep this river of trouble runs.”
Conquering a World
Published
