Silver City: an alien story for the passing Summer

So...this is my alien love story for the summer. Every summer my mother and I write stories with a certain theme, and this was it. Any feedback would be nice, don't mind if it's cruel. Oh, and Silver City is an actual ghost town in Utah; I've been to it. It's real cool.

Silver City
by me(whatever)

That summer had blue skies, and a bright sun that seemed to penetrate every force of cold that tried to fight against it. There were little clouds, but the clouds that popped up every once in a while were white and poufy like my grandma’s hair. She’s ninety two this fall and still crunching about the Earth like a tiny Goliath nagging about this and that…a lot better than my mother who died when I was five. I never knew my father, but the most I know about him is that he’s a drinker. It explains a lot.

I don’t remember much about my mother’s death. She drank too, but for some reason I cannot recall a single moment in my life where I saw her stoned. She always seemed healthy, and then, one day, she wasn’t. It was as simple as that.

But that’s all behind me now. My life now is with grandma, doing boring everyday things in a boring everyday sparse empty town that has absolutely no money or luxury, but an expansive supply of sun. Sometimes it gets so hot out that I feel like we’re not on Earth at all, but somehow dropped into Hell when we weren’t looking. I can’t imagine Hell being any hotter than this. I plan to leave this place behind and go somewhere rainy and cool as soon as I am old enough. We hardly ever see rain except once or twice a year. When it does rain, the whole town jumps out of their card board box-like houses and dance in the mud until we all become brown figures from an art piece. Even old grumpy Mr. Carrier comes out and lies on the warm mud, closing his eyes, and smiling as the water drips onto his face. It’s time when the rain falls when I feel something like magic truly exists in this world. Every person out there dancing becomes something less and more than human. We become the rain itself.

But it was a sunny day I set out towards Silver city. Straw hat plonked on my head, smeared sun-screen still white in some places, and sunglasses shading my eyes from the fury of the sun. A bottle of water, a peanut butter sandwich, a camera, and a pencil and notebook were bouncing hazardly in a large bag held closed by a single blue button. This button had been off of my mother’s favorite light blue dress, apparently.  It had the job of keeping closed a scrap bag my grandma had made for me, created out of pieces of cloth that were all various sunken colors that didn’t match at all, but somehow managed to turn the same grey when you looked at it from far away. In that way, it was like my life. I did own a backpack, but a bag, as I had discovered, was easier to pull things out of when you really needed to.

                Silver City was a ghost town. But all that was left was the smelter ruin walls. I often went there by myself to think and explore. I would walk by the walls without ceilings, and avoid the deep wells filled with water, all the while gaping at the magnificence of a ruined artifact of human civilization and the destructive power of time. I would go through my ritual of walking along the side lengths of past water-ways to a lone dome-like building with the top open like a bottle. It offered a tiny bit of shade, and I would sit there for a few hours letting the feeling of time pass through me like an old nostalgic perfume you smell from a stranger and remember a relative who wore it.

                But not this time.

                I think the first thing I noticed was the smell. It seeped out of the pure stone sage-brush infested smelter like opening a refrigerator that had rotten meat inside. Just smelling it felt like the snot inside my nose had curdled trying to escape. I could imagine the round yellow things popping out their eyeballs and running away into my brain like some war-fest. I would’ve gone away right then just by that, except that I had to know what that infernal smell was coming from. So I tucked my nose under my shirt collar and moved for a closer look against the side wall. There was a small window there I could peek through to see to the ‘inside’.

What?

Is that?

                The first word that popped into my head was “Monster”. A black mistish thing relatively in the shape of a person seemed to be standing (or floating?) about 20 yards away from me. Parts of it were breaking off and floating away, and then disintegrating. It was like a shadow without a body. Maybe it was a… ghost? But a ghost in mid daylight? Seemed doubtful. Then again, if it wasn’t a ghost, what in the world was that thing in front of me poking around? And it was definitely poking around. It seemed to be looking for something. Maybe it was a stink demon? The smell seemed to be coming from it. And it stunk bad. By the momentary shock of seeing it, I had forgotten the unbearable smell, but I remembered it now. It was overwhelming. I didn’t know which was worse: the smell or my fear of the thing. But either way, thank the heavens that it didn’t notice I was there.

                The mission now?: Get Away.

                I took a step backwards.

                “CRRAacCkK!”

                A twig.

                Oh great.  The most clichéd part of any typical movie, and of course I have to fulfill it. I would make a wonderful actress, I thought, cursing under my breath. All I would have to do is step on a twig.

                The Thing turned its head, and for a horrible moment I felt its eyes meet mine. Not that I could see any eyes. The whole thing was made of darkness. It was as though I was looking into nothing, or a great emptiness like space itself.

                “Who are you?” 

                It wasn’t a physical voice that was speaking to me. It was the Shadow’s thoughts, transferring directly into my mind. I gave a start. Somehow I didn’t expect this Thing to have a way of communication; in fact, I thought it might not even have a soul. Half of me suspected that it wasn’t even real; like it was part of my imagination, or simply something left over from time, like a kind of supernatural artifact. And the voice sounded nice, I realized. Like a boy my age might have.

                “W-who are you?” I asked it back, echoing its own question.

                For a few awkward tensioned moments, we stared at each other. I tried to decide if this was a situation where I should run.

                “Is this what they call a human?” another voice said out of nowhere. I whipped my head around, looking for the new voice, but there was no body to be found. That was when I noticed a crowd of grasshoppers coming from all directions storming to one spot where there seemed to be a tiny whirlwind. They jumped on to each other in the thousands, and soon I was looking at a grasshopper created mirror of a small looking animal, one that looked almost like a cat or a fox. It seemed to be staring at me.

                “Your mouth has become the shape of a circle, human,” the grasshopper cat/fox thing said to me, interested. I shut my mouth closed. I studied the creature, and I saw that the whirlwind held the grasshoppers together in the form of it. The tail was an interesting bit to look at; the grasshoppers were floating in perfect formation like they were in a military line.

                “The insects of this world are almost as adept at Live Building as the artificial dusting we have back home,” it said. “That is one thing I didn’t calculate. What a pleasant surprise.”  It made a show of scratching its side, which was really quite strange to look at, it being made all out of grasshoppers. It turned to its Shadow-y partner.

                “So is it here, Scribe?”

                The shadow figure looked around itself, like it was sensing the aura of the place. “Seems to be,” it said, “but it has a distance to it, like its underground.”

                “Hmm,” The insect cat thought. It studied me. “Should we ask the human?”

                Suddenly I felt the attention drawn to myself by these weird creatures.

                “Who are you people?” I asked for the second time, “And why do you smell so bad?” The two things looked at each other doubtfully. It was the Shadow Thing, the one called Scribe, who took the initiative.

                “That’s just the scent of dimension traveling. Excuse me, but have you any information on a map you might find around these parts?” Scribe said.

                I thought. “What do you mean, like a local map you can find in the gas station?”

                “No. I mean as in a map that shows the Universe. Do you have any ideas at all? Maybe even a local legend…?”

                I thought. “Nope.” The two creatures seemed disappointed. “But what are you guys!? Answer my question at least!” I was becoming irritated. “A map of the Universe? Are you some kind of aliens!?”

                “Yes,” Scribe said sadly.

                “What?” I said.

                “Scribe!” said the grasshopper cat, perturbed.

                “Lost aliens, unfortunately,” Scribe said, “Lost as two pairs of Crarss Snars living on this planets moon. And it doesn’t matter anymore, Page. Even if she tries to tell someone, it’s not as though they would believe her, unless they were complete idiots, of course.”

                Page narrowed its grasshopper eyebrows. “No situation should justify breaking the intergalactic law. Even if she might have already known, you should never actually willingly reveal your identity, you blockhead.”

                Scribes black face turned a light red shade. “Who are you calling a blockhead, you dust-made piece of junk? I followed your advice, and look where it’s gotten us! You’re supposed to be top-made, and I paid good money for you, saving up every scrim bit of scrum, but it’s just like I pulled you out of some ditch somewhere! It took me several months of scratching the blackened egg-bits off the ships that came in the Space Harbor, I mean, would it kill you to at least pay attention to where we’re going!?”

                “Hey! That was partly your fault in the first place, don’t you just go placing all the blame on me! Besides, I am top-made! If I’m malfunctioning, than it’s the fault of the owner for mis-caring for me!” Page’s grasshoppers scattered and swarmed Scribe’s Shadow. I didn’t know what that was supposed to accomplish, but it succeeded in annoying Scribe; he was dancing around in anger. They seemed to have forgotten about me completely. But it was then I realized I was quite angry myself. What did he mean, no one would believe me, unless they were complete idiots!? Wasn’t that just an indirect insult to me? And, I realized, even if they had told themselves to be aliens, they still hadn’t even had the decency to explain what they were, and what they were doing here! I mean, really, when I ask a question, answer it completely! It might be true that no one would believe me, but I bet a photo would stir things up a bit.

                I pulled out my camera from my bag, and in the precious moments they were distracted in their stupid feud, I took a lovely shot of a million grasshoppers jumping on what looked like a black mirage thing. Well, it wasn’t the greatest, but it was something. Unfortunately, the camera click had focused their attention away from their fight, and they were both looking at me curiously. I sighed, calmly buttoned the camera in my bag, and booked it.

                I was hoping they wouldn’t recognize what a camera was, but it looks like I had run out of luck on that one, because from behind me they started yelling.

                “Catch her!” I heard both Scribe and Page say. I took a peek behind me, and immediately let out a shriek, because right behind me was a cloud of grasshoppers closing in on me. Now, I wasn’t one for being afraid of bugs, like those snobbish high-heeled pink girls I’ve seen on TV. are, but when a whole cloud of them are coming after you, you tend to find it a tad displeasurable. Especially if these grasshoppers are controlled by unidentified aliens that look like figments of your imagination.

                But despite the sudden rush of adrenaline, luck was not on my side that day. The cloud of grasshoppers overtook me, and I soon found myself sprawling on the ground, screaming as the insects ran into the insides of my clothes. That was not a pleasant experience, let me tell you. But as soon as they dispersed, I looked around for my camera, only to find it disappeared.

                “Hey,” I said squinting at Scribe and Page, “Give me back my camera.”

                “No way, you think we’re stupid?” said Page, “We’ve hidden where you absolutely won’t be able to find it. So give it up, and help us.”

                “And maybe we’ll give it back,” said Scribe.  

                I wasn’t about to give up easily though. They hid it in the space of three seconds? I overturned several rocks around me, and circled around the area looking behind objects. Scribe and Page stood watching me.

                Finally Page rolled his eyes. “I told you it’s in a place where you’ll never find it. No matter how many times you walk in circles, it’s not going to pop out in front of you. Do you humans always do these kinds of pointless actions?”

                “Technically, it’s in a naturally created dimension pocket,” Said Scribe. “It might be easier if we show you.”  He reached his Shadow hand into the air, and it seemed to ripple around as half of his arm disappeared. It reminded me of someone reaching their hand into the water. A second later he pulled out the rest of his arm, and my camera, which promptly dropped through his shadow grip and onto the dusty ground. Instinctively Scribe reached down to pick it up, but stopped halfway, and straightened up, as though remembering something.

                “Can you not touch anything?” I asked him. Page seemed to be able to, made of grasshoppers, and all that.

                “Well, yes, I can, but not here,” He said. There was frustration in his voice. “I am able to, back on my home planet, but anywhere other than that is only able to physically be felt by Page and other ZeroGrades.”

                “ZeroGrades?” I asked. “What are those?”

                “Ah, they are like Page; they create themselves out of substance and help their owners. Back home it’s dust; here it’s insects, apparently.”

                “Why can’t they use the dust here?”

                “It’s horrid!” Page cut in, sitting statue like on a nearby rock. “It’s about the difference of wearing silk, and then putting on some muddy wool, moth-eaten cloth! It might just be dirt, but between planets, it makes all the difference. The dust back home is a result of trillions of years of asteroid sea grounding and the mixture of the Giganticus spider’s webs. The stuff here is just broken rock. It’s not much for the wearing sort.”

                “Does he have some sort of alien fashion fetish?” I asked Scribe, pointing to Page. He shook his head. There was silence for a few moments.

                “What are you two, really?” I asked.

                “That’s a difficult question to answer, human,” Said Page, “No one anywhere can say what they truly are.” He began flicking sand off the rock he was sitting on. “Can you say what you really are?”

                “I’m a human,” I said, puzzled by his question.

                “And what, per say, is a human? Is it really just an animal that walks around on two feet at the top of its food chain? No, we could come up with technical answers all day, but at the bottom of all logic, we’ve never had a real answer, and never will. No one knows what they are, so the best they can do is answer the next best question.”

                “And what is that?” I asked.

                “Who they are.” Page slid yawningly into a cat-stretch.  “For example, I could tell you that I’m an artificial soul created for the sole purpose of serving mankind. Or I could try to explain to you that Scribe here is human like you, even your age, but he’s simply not here in his physical body. What you see here is just his Shadow. But would that really answer your question? And if it did, would it matter?”

                “What do you mean by shadow?” I said. “I mean, Scribe looks like he’s shadow-y and all, but how is that possible? And you’re some kind of artificial soul? Like a self-aware robot from Sci-Fi?”

                “In order to travel through space, our technology has gone through a revolution the last four hundred years. I hear the same thing has gone around on this planet and you’ve gotten to your moon?” Scribe asked me, cocking his head. I nodded.

                “It’s only been about a hundred, though,” I said.

                “Yes, well, we’ve gotten to the point where we can go almost anywhere thanks to a couple of cutting devices. Some scientists finally discovered a way to travel faster than light, and how to make it possible. By unbinding the matter that connects our soul and shadow to our bodies, we can stay on our planet, but at the same time travel through space. But cutting your soul away is risky- it is the same process by which you die- so I decided to cut my shadow away instead. Spiritual energy and Dark energy travel faster than light.”

                “Well that’s interesting,” I said, not understanding at all. “And, somehow you got lost?”

                “There’s a pull between your physical body and shadow or spirit, so usually you don’t get lost, but that tin-can over there distracted me, and we went too far out. The farther you go out, the less you can feel the pull. We can’t feel it at all anymore. It’s dangerous to be separated from your body for long periods of time- it can put you into a coma, or even kill you,” Scribe said.

                “Which is where the situation comes to you,” said Page. “We know there’s a map somewhere in this area, but that’s as far as our instruments can tell us. It would help us a lot if someone who lived here could relay us information.”

                “I really don’t have any information about a map, though,” I said.

                “If you could just do a bit of detective work…” Scribe said.  His body seemed to be getting grayer, and with a start, I realized I could look through him. Page’s grasshoppers started scattering here and there.

“I will, I will, I’ll go ask the neighborhood,” I said quickly, “but are you fading?”

“There’s only so much time dark matter can stay out in this desert sun,” said Scribe. “It’s about time we took shelter in a dimension pocket. We’ll be here tomorrow for any information you pick up.”

“Will you give me back my camera?” I asked.

“Once we can leave, human,” said Page.  He pounced into the air and disappeared, with the vision ripples dancing in my eyes.

“Goodbye,” said Scribe. And he walked into the dimension pocket thingy and disappeared.

I sat there for a while by myself, looking at the place where they vanished. After a few minutes I stood up and started walking home.

“Now that was the strangest thing in my life so far,” I muttered, scratching the rocky dirt with my shoes.

               

               

                “Grandma,” I said, with my fork piercing a piece of meat, “did you know I met a couple of aliens today?”

                “Hmm, eat your peas,” She said, twirling some pasta on a fork.

                “They were looking for a type of intergalactic map.” I shoved the pork inside my mouth and chewed. “But I told them I didn’t know anything. Do you?”

                “You and Amelia, always such imaginations,” She opened and closed her eyes.

                “My mother?”

                “Yes, I remember her talking about some sort of aliens or some such at one time. If there was an intergalactic map, she would have had it.” She reached over and spooned some more of those green little spheres onto her plate. “Now eat your peas, and stop talking nonsense.”

                My mother, huh. I stared at the ceiling on my bed. I didn’t really know too much about my mother. But this whole coincidence was weird. It could just be a fluke, but what if she was telling the truth, like I did? Well, it’s the only lead I’ve got, I thought, Might as well check it out. It is my mother after all; so it will be easier to do detective work. There was no use asking anyone else in the neighborhood: if my grandma didn’t know something, no one did. She was the oldest person in the shaggy town, and she had lived there her whole unfortunate life.

                I rolled over, breathing in the musky scent of my pillow. But even if my mother had had alien acquaintances, how would that help me find the map? I stared out my window, puzzling the question over and over in my sleep-numbed brain.

                At least the stars were clear.

                Aw, well, I thought, it’s been a long, weird day. I burrowed my way into the blanket and after a little while, I fell asleep.

                The next morning was decidedly dust-colored. After a jellied toast breakfast, I made my way into the attic, where the dirt that had blown up there had decided to settle and have happy families. As a result, every time I moved something I had a coughing fit partnered by sneezing. I ended up wearing a bandana over my nose and mouth that I had found in the corner (after shaking it out). Everything that my mother had ever touched had been stored up there in decrepit cardboard boxes, never seeing daylight since she had owned them. I had been up there before, for nostalgia and curiosities sake, and for something to do on boring days (I’ve had plenty of those, trust me). But I had never come across anything even remotely alien relative. So I had little faith I would find anything. But I decided I had better check anyways, now that I was actually looking for something. The situation was pretty laughable, actually, so I was in a sense enjoying myself while staining my legs with dirt, ruffling through old things. How many people could say that they had looked through a family member’s things searching for alien objects?

                I pulled out thing after thing; old dresses still smelling faintly of her perfume, photo albums, stuffed animals that were falling apart from her childhood, etc. Everything had that glue-like papery scent that comes to things when they haven’t been used, or when they have become incredibly old. It reminds me of the smell of when you open an old yellowed book and stick your nose into it. It’s the smell of mysterious things, abandoned things, or treasured things. As a child I had always been drawn to that scent.

                But despite searching for over an hour, I found nothing that led me closer. There were no diaries, no records, except for the photo albums, and they didn’t hold anything for the situation despite being fun to flip through. I was forced to give up. I sighed, stood, and dusted myself off.

It was time to go see the aliens.

                At first I thought they might not be there anymore. When I got to Silver City there was no trace of any extraterrestrial activity. But they had said they would be here, didn’t they? I wasn’t stupid enough to do the typical movie thing and wonder if it was all just in my imagination. No, they were here. I could feel it. It was the neck-pricking sensation you get when someone’s watching you. But why weren’t they coming out?

                “Hey!” I yelled, annoyed, “I’m here, you know!”

                And from the corner of my eye I saw something move on my bag. But when I looked over, nothing was there. Out of a curiosity, I opened the flap to my bag, and a thousand grasshoppers burst out like a bomb.

                “Agggh!” I screamed out of reflex. Page reconstructed himself, landing in front of me.

                “Good, it seems you have no more devices to prove our existence in your possession,” He said.

                “Of course I don’t, stupid!” I said, stamping my foot.  Then I looked at my hand and realized I had pulled the button off my bag in my surprise.

                “Have you found anything?” Scribe materialized to my left.

                “Don’t go through my stuff!” I yelled at Page, and then, in a softer tone to Scribe “No, sorry, only that my mother knew about aliens too, or was just a crack pot. I didn’t find anything leading to your map.”

                “Oh,” he said sadly.

                “What are you guys gonna do now?”  I shoved the blue button into my pocket to sew back on later.

                Scribe and Page looked at each other. It was Scribe that answered.

“We still have one more lead, so it’s not like its completely hopeless. We know that the map is in this area, and I narrowed it down to these ruins here- what are they called?”

                “Silver City,” I said, “it was a smelter.”

                “Yeah, that, and the signal seems to be coming from underground.”

                “Underground? Like buried? I’ve seen stuff like that in pirate movies, you know, ‘X’ marks the spot, but there’s not really an ocean around here is there? It doesn’t fit.” I shook my head.

                “The insects know more of the worlds than humans do,” Scribe said. I pouted.

                I followed them as they walked to a strange concrete box-like room that I had puzzled over for hours. The top was covered in concrete, and the effect was that you looked down into an eaten away hole into a collection of water. Whenever it had rained it seemed that it collected vast amounts, and because of the shade it was in, it never just evaporated into dust like everything else. I supposed I just stared at it because I had never really seen any sort of large body of water in my life, so to me it was rather beautiful and mysterious, even trapped in such a strange way. I had imagined on several occasions jumping into it, but it would’ve been near impossible to get out, and besides that, it was just a little too dark and deep to me. I could imagine a kind of water monster trapped in there, trying to get out.

“Wait, you mean, in here?” I said, looking doubtfully into the dark water.

“You shouldn’t come along,” Said Scribe, “it’s too dangerous for a breathing entity.”

“No,” I said, deciding quickly, “I’m coming.” There was no way that I was going to let the only interesting meeting I had in my life end this way. Besides, he said ‘shouldn’t’ didn’t he? That meant there was a way that I could go with them without drowning. Probably.

“She’ll just be in the way,” said Page, his grasshoppers dispersing.

Scribe sighed.

“Maybe, maybe not. But it seems she’s set on coming with us. Page, you know what to do.”

“You always were bad at arguing with women,” grumbled Page. I felt him circle around my neck.

“Kay, little girlie, when you get in the water just breathe normally,” He said. “I’m your oxygen tank.”

“How does-“I started.

“Page can also create his body out of air,” Scribe cut in grinning, “He was only in grasshoppers before to be seen.”

“But won’t that mean I’m breathing him?”

“Despite being able to build my body in different things, I am not able to differ my mass. You have approximately 5 breaths you can take out of me before I have to recreate my body out of something else.” Page said, relaxing on my shoulder.

“But that’s still-“

“Just follow me,” said Scribe, disappearing into the hole.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Page said next to my ear. I ignored him, swung my scrap-bag onto the dirt, and jumped down into the hole, gasping at the sensation of being in water. It was a good thing I knew how to swim despite being brought up in a desert. I looked around in the water for Scribe, remembering he was a shadow. How would I follow him? But I was answered by a light floating in the water. It was Scribe, all bright as day. How was he doing that? I wondered. But I decided I would ask him when we got to the other side of the water. I ducked my head in the water and swam after. A bubble appeared around my mouth and nose that I recognized as Page. I hesitatingly took an experimental breath, surprised that my respiratory system worked fine in the situation. It was still weird to be breathing a body though. I noticed the bubble got smaller with each breath.

I followed the light I knew as Scribe down farther into the water, and through a small opening in the wall near the bottom that was just big enough for me to squeeze through. It was all dark except for the bright image of Scribe burning into my eyes. But it was beautiful to see the light reflecting all around almost like a halo across the concrete tunnel the hole followed into. I was down to the fifth breath by the time the tunnel curved suddenly upwards and I broke to the surface.

I took several deep breaths, swimming around disoriented. It was pitch black except for Scribe. He acted like a lantern, brightening up everything around him. I noticed he was standing on a kind of shore, so I swam over to him and climbed up on the ledge of rock like a wet rag, soaking everywhere. Miraculously, Scribe was not in the least bit wet. I should have expected that though, after all, he was a shadow. I stood up and wrung out the edge of my shirt, enjoying the waterfall that fell from it. I don’t think I could envy Scribe or Page even if I tried. I mean, yeah, there had been several times in my life that I wished that I could turn invisible, or have some weird super ability. But it was just too much fun to have a real body. What could it be like not to get wet, to not even be able to touch things? I think I would just hate it, and I think Scribe hated it too. With their technology, they could travel the universe, see the universe. But they could never touch it, claim it for their own. To them it was probably like a chocolate bar on a TV screen; they wanted it, they could see it, but they can’t reach out and eat it. I suddenly knew the purpose of creating a (what did they call it?) ZeroGrade like Page. A ZeroGrade had the ability to touch the worlds they could see for them. But Scribe had a real body, I remembered. He had a human body like mine back on whatever far-off planet of his he belonged to. Suddenly I was plagued by a thought I couldn’t get rid of. I wonder what he looks like? I studied Scribe’s shadow figure, taking in his translucent back. Handsome? Dashing? Pimply? Skinny? Ugly? Chubby? Short? Tall? What color hair? I was suddenly sad that I didn’t know these small things about him. Going on guesses, he was probably a tiny bit taller than me, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t fat. I could tell that much at least, going by his shadow.

                “What now?” I asked, shivering a little.

                “I don’t know,” He said, glancing my way. “The signal is close, but it’s echoing here, so I can’t locate it exactly.”

                “We’ll probably get to it by following this tunnel,” said Page, crouching next me. I was surprised to see him made all out of water.

                Scribe seemed to hang back. I peered ahead of his light body into the dark tunnel beyond. Then I thought of something.

                “You’re not…scared of the dark, are you?” I asked, wonderingly.

                Scribe made a million refusal sounds at this question, going so far as fake laughing. But after a break of silence, he relented.

                “A little,” he admitted. And that was as far as he would go.

                I sighed. Picking myself up, I scooted myself in front of him, looking into the blackness and back at him.

                “Then I’ll go first,” I said. But I wasted the moment by snickering a little, covering my mouth with the palm of my hand.

                “C-can you blame me!?” yelled a trembling Scribe with a red-tinted face. “I have a g-“

                “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you have a good reason, sorry, sorry,” I laughed, holding my stomach, “but isn’t it just a little funny that a being made out of whatchma-callit dark matter- is scared of the dark? A shadow!”

                “It’s because!” yelled Scribe to the ceiling, “Because of the time-“

                “We’re wasting too much time here,” Page said suddenly. I stopped laughing, and we both looked at him, in all his grumpy glory. I didn’t know the reason why, but I realized he was right.

                “Don’t forget, we’re searching for an intergalactic map,” he said, licking his water ears like a mistreated kitten. “Just because we’re on a planet not introduced to intercommunication with the universe does not mean they left this place undefended. Let us hope they might have neglected that part, but, um, what do say here? Something better safe-”

                “Than sorry,” I finished for him helpfully after I got what he was trying to say. “Better safe than sorry.”

                “Yes, exactly.”

                “But wait a minute, you don’t actually think there’s going to be giant spiders and creepy alien stuff guarding this thing, do you? ‘Cuz I don’t wanna die just yet.”

                “No, at least, let’s hope not.”

                “I think Page is trying to say that there is little chance they left this place undefended, and since we don’t know what kind of defenses they have, that it’s best to be on our toes,” Said Scribe, turning my way to explain things like he always does. “But at the same time, there’s little chance of some alien beast guarding it here- it is another planet. It wouldn’t suit its needs if there was one. So rest your jellyfish on that one.”

                “Never mind,” Said Page as I hesitated stepping into the tunnel, thinking of all the alien movies I had seen, “I’ll go first.” He pawed his way up front and stepped lightly but confidently, forcing us to follow- me in the middle and Scribe in the back. I felt like a damp sandwich on a secret mission.

                But if it was a secret mission, then it was a very beautiful one. Scribe’s light from the back echoed off the walls and glittered off the tiny stalactites clinging to the concrete ceiling, making them shine like jewels. It was not unlike walking through a dream.

                “How is there water here?” I asked, feeling a small drip fall onto my face like a tear.

                “It’s probably a rift.” said Scribe, studying the cave-like space. “A space rift from this world, but not complete- it’s mixing in with the matter of the original.”

                I kept quiet, pretending I had understood what just came out of his mouth. We moved along like a train down the tunnel, my feet occasionally tripping up on small rocks and stalagmites. The tunnel was just big enough that we had some arm room, but so that it was impossible to walk side by side. I found myself sliding my hands across the slick wet walls, feeling the rock-hard mineral deposits formed by years and years of time. This was an entirely new experience to me. But I found myself enjoying it, even the cold that was starting to seep into my bones. When my teeth started chattering, I just laughed, though I noticed my hands were turning a bit blue, so I stuck them under my damp, but warm armpits.         But after a few more minutes, it was starting to get a bit much.

                Never thought that there would be a time I would miss the desert sun, I thought.

                “Are you cold?” asked Scribe, peering at me from behind.

                “Y-yeah, a l-little,” I said, stuttering as my teeth clanged together uncontrollably.

                “Um,” said Scribe hesitatingly, “this might help.”

                And he put his hands on my shoulders.

                Of course I didn’t feel them, but I could see them, and I watched as they fell from on my shoulders into my shoulders on each step I took. But after a second I felt myself beginning to warm up, starting from where his hands were, all the way down into the bottom of my shoes. It was the comforting, dry kind of warm, the kind you might get when you lie down on some asphalt around a kids playground after dusk.

                “How are you doing that?” I asked, relaxing from my shivers into the warmth.

                “Shadows are not only dark, like you might think,” said Scribe, “there are times when your shadow disappears into the daylight. It’s at those times that it’s absorbing it, eating it almost, to stay alive.”

                “Shadows…eating light?” I asked.

                “Everything feeds on something, even the things you think are not alive. Most things feed on light, like darkness, and light feeds on darkness. That’s why one of them must disappear when they meet.”

                “Are you glowing because of the light you absorbed?” I asked, tired in the comfort of the warmth.

                “Yes, though I am expending it.”

                “But won’t that harm you?”

                “A little.”

                “Then shouldn’t you stop?”

                “No.”

                We walked on a little more this way, until I reached up and put my hand on my shoulder where his hand was.

                “I’m good now,” I told him.

                He removed his hands, and the source of warmth disappeared. I missed it a little, but I was warm enough. Toasty, even.

                “Why are you scared of the dark?” I asked him after a little while.

                “There was this time, um, you know,” he took a deep breath and continued, “I disappeared. Shadows can disappear in daylight, but only at the right angle and intensity. It’s so much easier to disappear in the dark…and dangerous. It’s hard to get yourself back.”

                “Like finding a drop of water in the ocean?” I asked, cocking my head, thinking.

                “A little easier than that, but yeah.”

                “ I get it, but shouldn’t you be more afraid of the light? You did just say light eats dark, and shadows are typically dark, aren’t they?”

                “Shadows are a bit different,” Said Page looking ahead, “they are part of something, rather than just light and dark themselves. They are a part of life, which also makes them a part of death. When you look at your shadow, it is always lying on the ground or on something else, correct?”

                “Yes, and not always the right length or size,” I said, “what’s all that about?”

                “A shadow shows where the end is. But the end can change, though it is always the same.”

                “Some of the old scientists thought if we cut away our shadows, we might live forever,” said Scribe, kicking a rock, but watching his foot just slide through it. “But just because your death is far away from you does not mean it’s not there, just because it’s not attached to you. They even tried to destroy the shadows, but the patients they tried that on died. Life is nothing without Death.”

                “And Death is nothing without Life,” whispered Page. “They made a mistake.”

                “Yes,” Said Scribe, “they did. They thought our shadows were our death. But they weren’t. They were only a semblance of it. A map to it, you might say. Our death was in ourselves, twisted in with our life being. If you removed one, you removed the other.”

                “And something without life or death was created,” said Page.

                “Huh?” I asked, “what was that?” But neither Scribe nor Page would answer.

                We had stopped at a dead end.

                It was just a concrete wall with no side passages or nothing. It was covered in moss, and a small ray of light from outside made it in from a crack in the ceiling.

                “Oh no, what now?” I said, stomping my foot in frustration.

                “Wait a minute,” said Page sniffing at the wall, “Scribe, come over here.”

                Scribe squeezed past me, making sure he didn’t touch me, although he could’ve just walked through me. It was a respecting thing, and I recognized that.  He crouched down next to the dead end and studied it.

                “Page, right here,” he said, pointing at a clump of moss. Page stood up on his hind legs (still water) and moved the moss he was pointing at aside with his blue paw. I stood up on my toes, attempting to see.

                “It’s a door!” I said in surprise, seeing a keyhole. But by standing tiptoe, I had neglected the slippery flooring, and fell to the hard ground with a crash. “Ow!”

                “Page, get my key would you?” Scribe said. Page twirled in the air, and with a flourish of ripples he removed a key attached to a leather necklace from another pocket dimension. The poor cat robot tried to get it in the keyhole and turn it, but paws aren’t really that great for things like that.

                “Here, let me,” I said, taking the key from him and turning it in the lock. The mechanism was surprisingly easy to open, despite having moss covering it. A small clicking sound satisfied our gratification at opening it. Hesitatingly, I pushed open the door, sliding it inside a little so I could peek in. It was a large room, cave-like, and beautiful. There was a large pool of water on the right side that I couldn’t help but shove the door all the way open and run to right away. There were rays of light coming from cracks in the rock ceiling that allowed you to see the room without Scribe’s light. Scribe and Page were a little more cautious when coming in, checking each of their steps with their eyes. They explored the room while I lazily looked on, playing with my fingers in the water.

                The room was large. It might have been about the size of my auditorium at school, only distorted into a not-quite-circular shape. The only sound audible was the dripping of water and the splashing of my fingers. If I had been there alone, it would have been almost creepy, but since I wasn’t, all I found it was pretty. There were cave crystals everywhere, reflecting the light; blue, gold, cream. The pool of water made reflecting squiggles on the ceiling, moving like snakes made of light. Moss was clinging to the walls, and hugging the floor. A few straggly mushrooms had popped out of the little ground there was, making fairy rings where the light was streaming in. Scribe and Page were exploring the room, but visibly growing more and more frustrated.

                “It’s a dead end!” Said Scribe, turning around in circles.

                “The map is close,” said Page jumping onto a rock, “but nowhere to be found. We’re running out of time.”

                “How much time do you have left?” I asked.

                “Not much,” said Scribe, “Not much at all.” He sank onto a rock and held his head. “I should have never gone out so far.”

                “It was hardly your fault,” said Page, “who knew we were being drawn to your death?”

                I turned back my attention to the water I was playing with. Something was glowing in there.

                “It didn’t feel like death. It felt like I was being pulled to something else,” I heard Scribe say in the back of my head, “almost like destiny.”

                “I don’t believe in destiny,” said Page, “Too many variables.”

                I reached my hand in the water and tried to grab hold of it. It was still, yet for some reason hard to get.

                “I do,” I said, “just a little.” And I managed to snatch the thing up in my hand. I carried it out of the water and peered at it.

                It had a beautiful yellow glow, pulsating in my hand like it was alive. But it was just a small round thing with no eyes, nose, or tail. The only feature it had was that it was squishy.

                “What are you holding?” asked Page, coming over. I held it out to him. “Ahh, don’t do that !” he said, jumping away.

                “What?” I asked, confused at his fear.

                “That’s a Rain Fetter- it feeds on all matter that’s not physical! Get it away from me!”

                “That means I’m fine, then,” I said. I wiggled my finger at it, and too my surprise, a mouth appeared on the thing from nowhere and closed over the whole of it. It had no teeth, so what I felt was a strange sucking sensation that made me laugh. I pulled my finger out with a spluttering noise and watched the mouth fade away.

                “How come it’s here?” I asked, “I thought no alien creatures could be here.”

                “That’s not an alien creature,” Said Page, a safe distance away, “Those are everywhere. Your planet just hasn’t discovered them yet.”

                “Huh. Never thought I’d discover a new life form this summer. Pretty cool.”

                I played with it a little bit more before it wriggled out of my hands and rolled off my lap. Instead of rolling back to the water like I thought it would, it squeezed its way to my pocket, sniffing.

                “It….wants something in your pocket,” said Page in surprise. I wiggled my fingers into my damp jean pocket and pulled out my poor blue button I had ripped off earlier.

                “What’s it want with this?” I asked, waving it in front of the yellow squishy. Before I could react, its mouth materialized again, covering over my entire hand, and when it sunk back to its original shape, the button had disappeared.

                “Agh, it ate it!” cried Page, electrified on his toes.

                “What’s going on?” said Scribe, who had come over in his curiosity.

                The Rain Fetter glowed white, and hot, seeming almost like it would burst. Around the room a subtle blue glow began to light up the room. I stood up with the poor bulging fetter in my hands, watching in mystical amazement as lines appeared curving up towards the middle point of the ceiling and down to the floor in a globe shape. Large and small spheres began to materialized, twisting and turning in made out circles cluttering our way in 3D. I was stepping in several thousand galaxies at once, the light moving in complicated puzzles through our heads and bodies.

                “It’s the Intergalactic map!” cried Scribe in joyful surprise. “But how did it get here? What did you do?”

                “It ate my button,” I said, showing Scribe the Rain Fetter. He jumped back in fear, but leaned in for a closer look.

                “How clever. They hid the map in the making of one of these abominable creatures so we wouldn’t be able to touch it.”

                “She’s not abominable,” I said, sticking out my tongue.

                “She?” cried Scribe.

                “Yes. She’s very easily offended, you see.”        

 The Rain Fetter did look a little put out- it was flickering from its white to yellow with a bluish hint at Scribe’s comment.

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna give her a name- how’s Eureka? You know, for the surprise with the map and all. No?”

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t give it a name!” He threw up his arms. “Though I do think Eureka doesn’t really suit it.”

“Hmm, you thought so too? How about Ham?”

“What is it now, a Guinea Pig?”

“Henry?”

“That’s not even a girl’s name!”

“Scribe!” said Page, “Pay attention and come over here!”

I watched Scribe hover away and the two of them ponder over the extremity of the vast Universe. Things I would probably never understand even if I had the patience to sit through a lecture on it. I sighed and sat down on a nearby rock, balancing the Rain Fetter on my lap. Two orange eyes popped out of its white glowing skin and stared at me.

“Didn’t know you had eyes,” I said to it.

The Rain Fetter rolled its eyes to Scribe, and then back to mine meaningly.

                “No,” I said decisively, “It wouldn’t be good.”

                The eyes stared at me a little longer and popped back out of sight. I sighed again. Were these creatures always this perspicacious? I was going to have to be careful.

                “Your button was probably a key,” said Page, coming over to lonesome little me. I looked at him.

                “What do you mean? Like Scribe’s? And how did his fit in that door anyways?”

                “His key was given to him by his mother. She was an explorer, or so he tells me. Say, where did you get that button?”

                “It was a possession of my mother’s.”

                “A-ha! I knew it. Your parents must have met at some point and created this whole jumbo thing at one point,” said Page to himself, “how wonderful, the chances of the children meeting and finding the map they worked together to hide so well!”

                “Did his mother die?” I asked, lowering my voice. Scribe was still scratching his chin over the map.

                “He’s an orphan, I believe,” said Page, looking at him. “Mother went off somewhere and never came back. I don’t remember him ever mentioning a father. Probably never had much of one.”

                “How’d he survive?”

                “A friend of his mothers got him a job with his company cleaning the bottoms of the sky ships that came in Moon Harbor. It had room and board, and a small amount of allowance. He never wanted that kind of life, though. As soon he saved up enough, he purchased me and got his shadow cut. Now he works on the ships in the day, and explores space while he sleeps.”

                “But I’ve seen him in the day several times,” I pointed out.

                “Your days are different than planet Atarion’s days.”

                We watched Scribe for a few moments tracing the maps lines with his white hands.

                “So he wanted to be an explorer like his mother,” I whispered, “I don’t know why, but our situations are surprisingly similar.”

                “I don’t know if he ever believed she died,” said Page. “He might have come out here half-hoping to find her.”

                “If I hadn’t seen my mother die, I would have done the same thing,” I said. “Even when you do see it, it’s hard to believe. You go around feeling like you’re in a nightmare for a few days wishing so hard you could, but you can’t wake up from it because it’s reality.”

                We sat in our own thoughts, not speaking a word.

                “Page,” I said. “I’ll miss you guys.”

                “Missing’ is a human emotion,” He said, twitching his tail.

                I glanced over at him. After a few moments I continued.

                “When you met me, you called me a human. But isn’t Scribe a human too? And you seem almost like one, at least, in personality.”

                “Personality is different from emotion. Scribe is a human, but not one from here. You look somewhat smaller here, and have larger ears.”

                I touched my ears self consciously.

                “They’re not that large,” I said.

                “I think I’ve found a way to get back,” said Scribe, coming over excitedly.

                Page and I looked at each other.

                “Time to go then,” he said. I stood up.

                “How am I supposed to get back?” I asked.

                “Just step through this dimension portal,” Scribe said, motioning to what looked like a floating blue sphere in the air.

                “Couldn’t we have just taken that to get here?” I said.

                “It’s not safe to step through a portal before you know exactly where you are going,” said Page, “You could easily get more lost than you already were. Portals are only over short distances, and are hard to create. Make sure you walk as straight as possible so you don’t fall into some other entrance.”

                “Got it,” I said. As I walked over to it, the Rain Fetter in my hands bulged suddenly and choked out my button. As I stuffed the thing into my pocket, it jumped out of my arms and rolled into the pond, fading to yellow. The map around us disappeared.

                “Goodbye Gummie,” I said to the vanished Rain Fetter.

                Scribe came over to me.

                “I wish I could take you with me,” he said quietly.

                “I wish I could come with you too,” I said. “But it doesn’t seem possible.”

                “You’re right,” he said, “it isn’t. But when it is, I’ll come back. Will you wait for me?”

                “Of course,” I said, “how could I not wait for my two best friends in the universe?”

                I took a step towards the portal then turned around.

                “Goodbye Page,” I said to the fox/cat ZeroGrade. “Goodbye Scribe. I’ll see you again.”

                “Goodbye Teagan,” he said. I smiled and waved to my alien buds, not really wanting to go.

                And then I stepped through the portal.

                I don’t know how they got back to their planet, or even if they did. After I stepped through the portal I was back at the entrance of Silver City smelling the rotten egg smell of dimension travel, looking for people who weren’t there. I picked up my bag and walked home. There wasn’t anything else to do. I missed them already, even if it was just a human emotion.

Every Summer afterwards I’ve been looking for them, watching for a shadow and a ZeroGrade. I’ll go to Silver City and sit on the crumbling rock walls, remembering every detail of the reality that almost seems impossible. And while I wait, I write. I write of the things people don’t know, of the universe that is a balance of dark and light, of Rain Fetters and artificial souls, of Scribe and Page.  And when I’ll see them again, I’ll write of that. There are so many things I haven’t done yet. And my life won’t stop for me to catch up. So I’m going out to grab the things I want.  But I’m still waiting, and probably always will be, just for a little bit of magic and something out of the ordinary to happen.

I never did get my camera back.