An Alien Walks Amongst Us - Prologue

Prologue – You Just Have To Believe


Where are you?

You can’t remember much.  You feel a tight pressure on you, like you’re being suffocated. It’s dark, hard to see anything.  Only moments ago, you felt… fear?  Yes, fear.  You’re afraid of something, but what? Alas, there’s no fear here.  No, you left that behind.

Wait, where are you?  Maybe you should open your eyes?  They feel glued together, refusing to open.  You force them to peel apart; you need to see where you are.

White.

There’s so much white surrounding you.  It’s obnoxiously bright; you wish there is some way to turn it down.  Looking around, you see nothing but more of the same bright light surrounding you.  You feel it’s directing you somewhere though, someplace different.  Different?  But… where were you before you got here?  Try and remember, try…  Yes, you remember things now.  It’s slow, like thick, dark sludge making its way into your head.  But you’re remembering.

You’re…  You are Anon.

You were working for a boat.  No wait, you were working on a boat.  With someone named… Gleekman.  Little flashes of something blur by.  They seem like memories to you.  Struggling, you force yourself to remember.

Remember.

You’re… on a boat now.  Everything slowly comes back to you as you relive your memory. Right now, you’re on a ship near where an oil company set up shop.  The ship you are on is painted yellow all around to get the attention of anyone passing by, as a way to get the media’s attention.

The media’s been watching your group for a good while now, protesting the oil drill.  With the information your group gathered, you all started travelling through the chains of many governments to stop this from happening.

There are only two members here from the group, you being one of them, on this ship.  The only reason this ship’s out here was to remind everyone that people do care what’s happening. You’re the main piece of that reminder.

“Hey, Anon.  Still watching the money-grubbing bastards over there?”

You sigh after hearing that damn man’s voice.  Gleekman... That stupid man kept getting arrested at nearly every place he went.  His words are sharp and he’s quite rude, and to top it off, he’s prone to violence, the type of violence that’s not so much fun to deal with afterwards.

Luckily, he hasn’t hurt anyone, so far, but the property damage he goes through is pretty damn high, meaning the group has to pay for those damages after each incident.  You do have to admit, the media scooped up those stories pretty quickly.  He’s only here because you need to keep an eye on him, while the rest of the more influential people in the group go off to different governments to prolong this oil drill from happening.

“Hey, Gleek.  I’m just trying to get some air out here.”

“A bit hard to do with these fuckers here, putting more and more shit in the air, don’t you think?”

A glance over to his side shows he’s leaning on the same railing you are as he glares out at the ships across from where you are.

“Smug, stupid bastards, destroying shit and hurting all those creatures in the ocean.  But I’ve got something for them, something to get them out of here for good.”

“Gleek, you better not be planning something.  We’ve already got things handled for this.  We don’t want another incident with you here.”

He turns to you, his entire face wiped clean of anything readable, giving you a thousand yard stare.  You can see his focus come back in as he stares at you once more.

“Heh, don’t you worry ‘bout nothing, Anon.  There’s nothing to worry about here… no one will ever again after tonight,” he spoke so quietly you almost missed that part.

Gleekman stares out at the ships for a few more moments before walking away, presumably back to his cabin for the rest of the day.  It’s getting dark, with the only lights out in this cold place coming from the ships.  You know you have to keep an eye on him, there’s no telling what his stupidity will come to this time.  You don’t want him painting feces on their ships like he did to the PETA headquarters.  Fuck, you laughed hard though when he did that.  Gleekman sure is stupid, but not insane.  Surely whatever he has planned, he wouldn’t do anything too outrageous, right?

…You’re back inside that white stream of nothingness.  Just why was that memory so important? Was it somehow relevant to where you are now?  Past memories start coming back to you, things you remember from so long ago.  Events you remember from your childhood, going to school, your first date.  You’re not sure why you’re remembering all this stuff.  They don’t seem as important to the boat memory your mind’s still trying to come around to.

You need to remember why you’re here, what caused this.  Go back to the boat memory...  It feels extremely important.  Yes, it’s becoming clearer now.  You see yourself back at the boat…

…You’re sitting inside your cabin now, reading a book for relaxation.  It’s a book of stories your mom would tell you when you were still a child.  They’re still fun to reread.  They remind you of your little adventures you used to have with mythical beasts.  Sadly, you’re interrupted when you hear a loud clunk outside your door.  Just what was that?

Opening your cabin door, you see Gleekman carrying something extremely large.  He’s having trouble keeping it in his arms.  How did he get that on the ship without anyone noticing?  You see Gleeks is sweating bullets, trying to hold the large object without dropping it. You better follow him to make sure he doesn't pull anything really stupid this time

…You’ve been following Gleekman for the a few minutes, making sure he doesn’t see you.  It’s difficult, with his paranoia of everything.  You somehow lost him around one of the cabins in your ship, and now you’re doing your best to find him.  The guy must be setting up whatever he was trying to do by now.  Just what is he planning?

If Gleekman does anything stupid, it might fuck everything up.  You need to look good for this protest, and even a small incident can be blown out of proportion.  Quickly running around the deck of the ship, you finally find Gleeks on the flight deck, setting something up.  Dear god it’s large, how the hell did he get that on here?!

“Gleek!” you yell.

It startles the man, making him bump the object and tilt it sideways. He screams out before grabbing it and sitting it back upright.  "You stupid bastard, Anon!  You almost fucked us both and my plans!”

“What exactly are you doing, Gleeks?”

“Why, I’m fixing the problem here!  No oil people, no drilling, right?”

Furrowing your brow at his reply, you look more closely at the object.  You feel the blood drain from your face.  Is that a fucking missile!

“Is that a fucking missile!” you scream at him.

He chuckles at your words, turning back to the object.  You can barely see the object.  It looks like one of those horrible, Hollywood movie missiles.

“Good eye, Anon, but this ain’t no ordinary missile.  No siiireeee bob, it ain’t!  No, this thing, I got it from an... outside source.  Had it made up to destroy something massive, with the power of over six thousand sticks of dynamite, along with some experimental chemicals and strange shit put in it for an extra kicker!”

Your breath is caught in your throat, hearing that.  That damn thing could completely destroy the ships and kill all the workers if he detonates that thing!

“Gleeks, you need… to stop… what you’re doing…”  You inch towards the man, thinking maybe you can stop the stupid bastard by jumping him, just in case he gets the stupid idea to turn it on.  “We’re in talks with the UN right now, the actual UN.  We’re doing good bud; we don’t need to resort to violence here.”

You can barely see with how dark it is, but you can tell his face scrunched up and his teeth are bared after hearing that.

“The UN… the fucking UN?!  What good are they if all they have is people paying them to do as they say?  No, this’ll get rid of them, and it’ll also prove that we’ll do anything to make sure the environment, the animals, and everyone’s safe from bastards like these.”  He turns to you and gives you the craziest face you've seen on damn near anyone. “At any cost,” he adds with a terrifying finality.

This has to be a fucking nightmare... Why is this happening when everything’s going so damn well?  Fucking Gleeks, why does his paranoid state have to come with you to this ship?  Doesn’t he ever stop to see the big picture, just for a second?!

He’s going to destroy your group's chance of stopping this drill from going on, his actions will have the both of you imprisoned, and worst of all, they’ll put your group on the damn terrorist list after this!  Gleekman has his hand on the panel, staring at you with a toothy grin before turning his gaze to the ships and workers out across from your location.

“Say goodnight, you pompous, money-grubbing bastards!”

Gleeks presses something on the panel, forcing the missile to glow with lights, initiating its start off.  The stupid thing looks so much like a movie prop, it’s sad to think this was built to cause death and destruction.

You’re not sure why you did it, maybe it was from you panicking or the adrenaline coursing through you, but your actions almost felt like instinct, like this is meant to happen.  Of all the things you could’ve done, you fucking run and jump on the missile as it’s taking off, forcing you along for the ride.  How the fuck is this thing even slightly airborne in the first place with your weight?  No matter, it’s barely skimming the water now trying its best to get in the sky.

Shit, it’s still on course and headed to its target.  How do you stop a missile like this anyways?  Looking at it is hard with the wind buffeting you about, almost knocking you off.  You see it has those wing flaps on the end of it, probably for direction and stability, but you can’t say for sure.  Kicking one as hard as you can, it barely bends at a different angle.  It’s enough to wobble the missile off course, sending it straight down plummeting into the ocean, you attached along for the ride.

Your pants leg is stuck on the tail you just kicked, and with no way out, you’re forced to continue your ride with this tool of death.  You can feel your lungs struggling to get some air into them.  The pressure was starting to become unbearable.  The thing continues moving until the thrusters sputter out, though it continues its forward from momentum.

It’s still glowing with lights from what you can barely see, still activated to blow.  Time seems to have slowed down as you look around, your death imminent from your actions.  At least you stopped Gleeks from mindlessly killing all those people.  Hopefully, the group will still be able to hold that UN conference.  Shit, why were you still worried about that?  Aren’t you going to die soon?

Still, you hope everything for the future would turn out alright, even if you won’t see it.  You feel like you should have regrets dying like this, but you don’t feel much of anything at the moment.

Air is needed, now.  Struggling to hold onto the missile, your mouth opens up, forcing you to take a deep breath of the salty ocean, drowning on it.  Your last sights are the many fish that come towards you, swimming about.  How ironic that Gleeks will be killing the very animals he wanted to save.  And like that, everything is engulfed in light.

…It all came back to you now.  So, that’s what you were afraid of before, it was death.  Fucking Gleeks, he killed you.  No… wait, you killed yourself.  You didn’t have to jump on that missile.  Try not to think about that right now.  Are you supposed to be able to think after dying?  Is that how death works?

You aren’t in pain; it feels very warm to you now that you think about it.  It’s… relaxing, comforting.  It’s like you’re falling down a large tunnel, being held close to something wrapping itself around you.

A small sound of something being suctioned can be heard.  Looking around, you see yourself being directed to something else, something not white and bright.  It doesn’t take long until you make it to that small dark area, revealing land and trees everywhere.  You can see a farm off to the side and a town in the outskirts of your view.  Is this where people go to when they die?

That can’t be.  Why would death be located inside such a simple looking world?  It’s… a possibility you’re hallucinating this right now.  It looks like you’re veering off to the forest beside that enormous farm.  It doesn’t look very inviting to you.

Closing your eyes, you wait for your eventual crash into the ground, then away from this strange dream.  You feel at peace with all this, strange enough.  The wind’s cool on your body; the night sparkles around you in a bright fashion.  It’s... calming.  If you have to die, this is a good way of doing it.  With that final thought, you feel your body hitting something, then black.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Sitting around all day is boring, but you need to write down more scenarios.  Aliens are so fascinating to think of!  You just wanted to meet one to prove you’re right, to say your dreams aren’t all a made up hoax to get you this job.

It’s not like all you did is write up these possible alien logs if certain extraterrestrials came into your world.  No, your career is aimed at foreign aliens.  The world all-around is still, on a very large scale, uncharted overall, with the only known species being you ponies, griffins, minotaurs, and a few other sentient beings.

Your job is to write up new ways to go about if we ever came across hostile creatures, scenarios of how to go about meeting these new beings, and finally, how to better interact overall with the current species to date.  Not too many ponies took you seriously with your alien talks, taking them mostly for the stories of a nutcase.

To make things harder, once Luna came back, she immediately pronounced this entire universe, galaxy and existence outside your world was devoid of life.  She’d know, what with her controlling the moon and stars.  Princess Celestia had to agree with this immediately, having done the same as well.  So, you moved arguments to alternate dimensions or different planes of existence.

Luna is still not happy with being told she may be wrong.  Still, Princess Celestia more or less keeps you around, working on different ways to interact with any new species yet encountered.  It’s not as glamorous sounding as the Elements protecting the land from danger, but you have an important job as well.

“Lyra, are you going to work all day or are you going to finally come out here with me?”

Oh right, you’re supposed to be stargazing with your best friend, Bon Bon, right now.  Bon Bon’s always been a close friend of yours, even with your strange quirks.  She’d never leave you and you’d always be there for her as well.  It’s upsetting how many ponies thought you were marefriends, but you aren’t that close.  Well, there was that time during summer camp, but that was just experimentation for the two of you.

“Okay, one moment, Bonnie.  I just need to finish up my weekly reports to the princess and I’ll be out there with you.”

Once a week, you’d make reports sent directly to the princess that she’d read personally.  This letter you’re working on is addressing the thoughts of the possibility of a true alien encounter near a town like Ponyville, and how you should go about dealing with them.

The princess is always so caring in each of her letters, though her skepticism on your ideas is there in each reply she sends you.  You can’t really blame her since it does sound strange, the ideas of aliens coming here.  It’s more likely for your own species to meet them someday.  Even if that was possible, it would most likely be in the future.

You made a special lantern that holds a forever flame of the dragon, Spike, to send her letters directly.  It was very difficult to make, but completely worth it in the end.  You had to dig up so many of those darn gems up just to get that dragon happy on his end.

Taking your rolled up scroll, you throw it in the container.  With a whoosh it shreds up, flying off to the princess.  Spinning the top away from the flame, you direct the entrance where the scroll will appear to spit out into the bin attached.

“All done!  Coming, Bonnie!”

After finishing that up, you run outside to enjoy some time with your friend.  Maybe if you look hard enough into the stars, you can pretend life is actually out there.  The two of you are on the top of your roof staring out at the darkened sky with a big telescope you own.  You originally purchased the thing to look for… other things.

It’s fun to hang out and look at the stars with Bon Bon.  She brought little candies too, how nice.  Taking some, you plop them into your mouth.  They’re the chewy ones you really like.

“Hey, Lyra, is there supposed to be a star shower scheduled tonight?”

What?

“No, can’t say I…”

You trail off, staring into the sky.  There’s an enormous light soaring across the sky outside of Ponyville.  Rushing past Bon Bon, you look into the telescope so you can see what exactly that is.  The lens keeps refocusing; readjusting the darn thing’s a chore to do while keeping an eye on the anomaly.  Finally, it comes into view.  Its shape is off from what you’d expected is a unicorn.  It’s more elongated with a pinkish tone, two legs…

“It… can’t be…”

You know what you saw, but you just can’t believe it.  That strange anomaly’s transporting something.  You thought it might’ve been a unicorn, having messed up a spell.  But this isn’t shaped like a pony... It’s shaped like a creature from your dreams, a human to be precise.  Was this really one of them?  You can’t make out any proper details, but you’re very certain it’s most definitely an alien.  Your heart’s thumping so hard, you’re certain Bonnie is hearing it as well.

“Lyra?”

You quickly leave the roof, heading straight for your closet.  Scrimmaging around inside, you find your ready-made travel pack.  Coming from the roof, Bon Bon walks up to you; spotting your pack, she lets out a loud groan.

“Again, Lyra?  Please, just once, can you not do this and leave it alone?”

“I know what I saw there, and that’s definitely an alien!  I need to hurry and help it before it goes off and dies there.”

“It’s probably a unicorn, Lyra-”

“And if it was," you interrupt, "the pony’s gonna need help, right?  I may as well go either way.”

You can hear something burning all of a sudden.  Turning to the direction of the noise, you see the scroll has returned with a reply from the princess.  Walking over to it, you unroll the scroll; a smile slowly creeps across your face, reading it.  You recall the scroll you just sent to Princess Celestia, describing exactly what’s happening right now!   Sure, it’s somewhere in the forest instead of outside your town, but that’s a very minor detail, nothing that changes the overall scenario.  And the princess is practically giving you the go ahead with this!

“See, Bonnie?  Even the princess agrees it’d be a shame to let it go unwelcome.  I just need to make sure it’s not dangerous and we’re all good.”

You levitate the scroll over to her before returning back to your pack.  You know aliens can be quite dangerous from your dreams, but they should be powerless against your magic.  So long as they don’t have any strange weapons.  Still, you just need to show it that you’re friendly and no problems should arise, right?
With your pack now on, you make your way out the door with a smile.  An alien finally, what were the chances?!  This isn’t like all the other times.  No, you’re one hundred percent certain this was the real deal this time!

“Lyra, this has happened how many times now?”  Bon Bon calls out.

Stopping, you stand still. waiting for Bon Bon’s words of argument.  She does this for you, to be the counterpoint of normal reasoning on your journeys.  Still, she has to understand you need to do this right now.

“Too many times to count,” she continues.  “All your sightings and explorations reveal nothing each time.  Why can’t you just stay in this one time instead of running off like this?”

“The possibility, no matter how small, is worth going out and hoping for the best results.”

“There’s no way that can be an alien encounter.  Why do you insist on this so bucking much?!”

You turn to her with a small smile.  “We all have dreams, Bonnie, mine’s just a tad more difficult to get to.  In the end all that matters is going for that dream, Bonnie.  You just have to believe.”


~End Prologue~