The Guy Who Fell to Earth

(From "The Guy Who Fell to Earth")

 

ONCE UPON A TIME, aliens came to Earth in search of bio-fossils—although, to be honest, they were a bit early. The youngest one, Sedra, loved shapeshifting into new forms and playing hide-and-seek. His team liked having fun too, so after much ‘wailing’  about having lost him forever, they’d reverse the polarity of his particles, beam him back on board, and resume their space exploration.

 

But one decade, after shifting into a cloud of cosmic gas, Sedra really became invisible to the others. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t return to his original form, nor could his team detect him. Worse, each time he tried to board the ship it threw up a decontamination force field.

 

His friends shouted until their alien lungs almost burst. “Sedra, you addle-pated little shit! Where are you now?”

 

He shouted back, “I’m right here, you bubble-headed slow pokes!”

 

But it was no use. Finally, the ship lifted into the sky, where it hung in forlorn luminescence like a full moon. Sedra howled his remorse, all to no avail, and centuries later, the crew reluctantly pulled away from Earth’s orbit, leaving him alone.

 

Alone, at least until the monsters came. They were truly awful. They slithered from the oceans in their millions: hideous, noxious things that took eons to shape-shift. Some were slimy, some were porous, with colours on the spectrum that he couldn’t detect but which hurt his sensors. Some were noisy, some were silent, but it seemed all were busy twisting and writhing towards some even more maleficent form.