Written: Saturday. May 2, 2020.
Ervagh and Tom had arrived home. Nobody was there, as usual. Tom had gotten used to this scenario. He’d arrive from school to an empty house, and immediately go upstairs and never come out, until he felt hungry for a meal. He’s got a lot of snacks in his room to satiate himself, a gaming console where he’d usually spend the night playing a game or two until he felt like taking a quick nap, before heading back to school. His computer was just if he felt like playing an online MMO-game, and also whenever he needed a good time.
He sat back on the couch by the sort of living room setup he has in his room, where there was a TV on one side, and two smaller couches — lazy-boys — by the right side of the couch. Tom opened up the TV, and went for HBO. Harry Potter was on, as always. Ervagh looked at the TV monitor. He’d seen one of those in Toby’s house, but that one was still a box of a TV set. This one was flat and wide.
“Might we be able to watch the ‘Animal Planet’ channel?” Ervagh asked.
“Dude, I don’t wanna see you get aroused by a bunch of lizards from our planet. What are you guys, anyway? I don’t really care that much for alien movies. They bore me most of the time.”
“We come from reptilian-ancestry, Terran Tom.” Ervagh answered him. “None of the Volgan Lords seem to recall anymore where we truly came from. Much of our history were never truly documented. This was caused by our urgency to reach a higher-form of evolutionary traits. The Empire, as we speak, are travelling across worlds, trying to harness the extraterrestrial traits these worlds have of their inhabitants.”
“A race of people who don’t know where they came from…” Tom thought to himself, but Ervagh was still able to hear. “So you guys are kinda like us. We’ve been invaded by a bunch of other races from other places, and we’ve sort of evolved like you. Some of us look American, a lot of us look like Spaniards, others come from Japan and China. Those are just the main few that I know of, really.”
“We’re similar, but from different sides of the spectrum.” Ervagh said to Tom. “We’ve conquered many, while you have been conquered by many. It seems that the Volgans are the ones next in line.”
Tom raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The Empire has been surveying your planet for millennia. Though it doesn’t make sense to me why we’ve never tried invading yet. Maybe there’s nothing here that’s worth evolving for.”
“As much as I think that’s rude, I agree with you, man.” Tom opened up a can of Mountain Dew from the cold-container placed beside the couch. “This place is a dump. A dead end. Humanity’s not gonna be able to advance enough to reach the stars. We’re too busy fighting each other over who’s right and who’s wrong. If you ask me, nobody’s ever right.”
“Perhaps.” Ervagh motioned for cold-container, and Tom nodded to him. He took a can out. It was cold and perspiring. “The food here is quite a delicacy, though.” Ervagh said. “The ways you Terrans present your sustenance. Quite unlike any of the worlds we’ve invaded. What is this I’m holding?”
“It’s kind of like the drink you had a few days ago, dude.” Tom took the can and opened it for Ervagh. Ervagh took a sip, and his eyes immediately went wide. “I guess you’re right about that, man. The food here is kind of out of this world.”
“No truer words have been said.” Ervagh replied, as he chugged down the Dew.
Mara had a similar conversation with Amanda. They were both settled inside of Amanda’s room. Her parent’s offered them snacks every fifteen minutes or so, and Amanda would yell at her parents every time, but still take the food tray or the snacks being given by the door. She’d place the food on the carpet floor, and motion to Mara to try some.
Mara seemed very hungry. She ended up eating a large portion of the food, while Amanda just looked at her with a smile and nodded to her. “Yeah, you go, girl. I’m watching my weight, really. I’m already as big as a girl should be, honestly.”
Mara just munched over the food, and never really spoke unless asked a question.
“When do you think you’ll come back to your ‘Miss Victoria’ look?” Amanda asked her.
“I dunno.” Mara answered her, and just continued to eat.
“Do you like looking like her?” Amanda asked. “Like Mara, I mean?”
“I am Mara.” Mara answered her.
“Yeah, I know you look like Mara, but you’re not actually — “
“I am who I seem to be.” Mara abruptly said, cutting off Amanda. “I can’t explain to you how it works. Or why it happened. It just happened, and what’s wrong about that?”
Amanda looked at her. What’s wrong about that? She repeated to herself. “Don’t you miss being Lady Veergha? Or your alien appearance? If you’re gonna stay looking like that, then we’ll be having a hard time trying to make you invisible to the actual person who looks like that whenever you enter the school campus.”
Mara didn’t say anything. The food was gone. A few seconds pass by, and she let out a loud burp. She started laughing. Amanda just looked at her, starting to feel worried.
“When do you think we’ll get to see Toby again?” Mara asked her. Letting out another burp.
“We’ll see him tomorrow, when we go to Mr. Reyes’s house to see the other orbs.” Amanda answered her.
“What do you think he’s thinking of right now? Is he thinking of me?” Mara let out another burp, and looked up at the ceiling with a smile. She laid down on the carpet floor. “I’m thinking of him, for sure.”
Amanda raised an eyebrow. Okay, there’s definitely something wrong going on here.
It took a while before Mr. Reyes got home. He rode his car to school, but since a metallic orb from outer space suddenly destroyed it — probably sucked up parts of it and transformed into it — he was left with having to commute to his house. There are a lot of tricycle stations around the city. This was because the tricycle owners never really cared about government regulations. They got away with what they wanted to do, because a lot of these drivers were siding up against these government regulations; there were just too many of them to handle.
But that afternoon, not a lot of tricycles seemed to appear by the station closest to Gate B. Mr. Reyes had to walk further into the village in order to get to the next closest tricycle station. He found one that had a sleeping driver inside of its side compartment, and woke him up immediately, the driver jumped inside of the trike and bumped his shiny bald head on the roof of the small side-compartment.
“Goddammit!” The tricycle driver said. He saw Mr. Reyes, and immediately regained his composure. “Where we off to tonight, sir?” Mr. Reyes said his address to the driver, and the driver nodded to him. “Okay, okay, sir. Hop on aboard the Saint Agnes.” he said. Saint Agnes was the name of the tricycle, which was clearly stated by the artwork of a saintly looking nun by the front of the trike. Under the artwork, was the name ‘Saint Agnes’. Mr. Reyes hopped on aboard the Saint Agnes. The bald driver grasped at the rosary hanging inside of the side-compartment, and rubbed the small statue that looked like Mother Mary, and proceeded to accelerate the tricycle.
Once they arrived inside of Mr. Reyes’s village, Mr. Reyes noticed a large cloud of smoke coming from where his house would have been. He saw a security guard walking fast on the side of the road with a bunch of beer-bellied old men who wore blue blazers on top of their t-shirts; the barangay captain and his right-hand man. The trike was stopped by the security guard, and asked the driver where they were headed. Mr. Reyes said his address, and the guard’s eyes widened.
“You mean that’s your house that’s on fire?” the security guard said to Mr. Reyes. Mr. Reyes eyes widened as well, and gasped at what the guard said to him.
“What do you mean my house is on fire?” He yelled at the security guard. Mr. Reyes got out of the trike, and looked at the cloud of smoke that was just a few blocks away from his house. He looked to the tricycle-driver. “Come on, let’s go!” The driver nodded to him and hit the gas. The security driver shouted at them, but the trike moved fast enough to get away.
As they arrived, Mr. Reyes quickly got out of the trike, and fumbled through his pockets to get some cash out, and paid the driver. The driver asked if he needed help, but Mr. Reyes didn’t pay attention. He was more concerned with the burning house right in front of him.
It seems like his house wasn’t the only one that’s been burned down. A few of the other houses beside his were also in flames. The neighbors were outside onto the streets, yelling and weeping as they see their houses go up in flames. One of the neighbors spotted Mr. Reyes, and grabbed him by the collars of his teacher’s uniform.
“Is this your fucking house?” He pointed at Mr. Reyes’s burning house by nodding his head towards it.
“Get your stinking paws off me, you damn fool!” Mr. Reyes struggled to get the man’s fists off his uniform. Then he noticed a pair of hands coming from the side. The tricycle driver took Mr. Reyes’s neighbor’s hands off of him and pushed him away.
“Don’t fucking blame the man, fucker!” The tricycle driver shouted to the neighbor, then looked at Mr. Reyes. “Are you okay, sir? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” Mr. Reyes rubbed his neck. He looked towards his neighbor. “Did it not occur to you that I just arrived? This was not my doing!”
The security guard and the barangay men finally caught up to them. A faint sound of sirens came in the distance; the sound of firetrucks arriving inside of their village. “Let’s not fight each other, people.” the guard said to those that were out in the streets. The barangay men held up their batons up to assert their authority in the situation.
“We saw your giant invention, professor!” The neighbor yelled at Mr. Reyes. “Your robot did this to our houses!”
“What robot?” Mr. Reyes yelled back. “I don’t have a robot in my house!”
“I got it on video.” a voice said. One of the younger neighbors held up a small video camera and showed the monitor to everybody. “I was able to record it from afar while I was making a skateboard video with my friends down by the playground.” The video showed blurry footage of a large black figure thrashing up Mr. Reyes’s house. “We heard a loud noise come from your place, Professor.” the young man added. “The fire came from inside of the house. And started to spread to the other houses.”
“Why didn’t you alert the guards before it even spread!” The old neighbor asked to the young neighbor. “Instead, you remained shooting footage of the evil robot!”
Mr. Reyes took the young man’s video cam, and took a closer look at the footage. It did look like a giant robot, but the footage was too zoomed in. Probably because the young man shot it from afar. The robot seemed to leap off at an amazing height once it was finish doing its thrashing. Mr. Replayed the footage a couple more times, before returning the camera to the young neighbor.
“Well?” The older neighbor asked. “What do you have to say for yourself, you fucking mad scientist?”
Mr. Reyes looked to his neighbor, clenched his fist, and punched the man on the side of his face. The neighbor fell to the ground, and was held up by the barangay men. Mr. Reyes suppressed his anger. “That’s all I have to say to you, good sir.” He looked back to his tricycle driver. “I’m going to need another ride. It’s gonna be a long night.”
Ervagh and Tom had arrived home. Nobody was there, as usual. Tom had gotten used to this scenario. He’d arrive from school to an empty house, and immediately go upstairs and never come out, until he felt hungry for a meal. He’s got a lot of snacks in his room to satiate himself, a gaming console where he’d usually spend the night playing a game or two until he felt like taking a quick nap, before heading back to school. His computer was just if he felt like playing an online MMO-game, and also whenever he needed a good time.
He sat back on the couch by the sort of living room setup he has in his room, where there was a TV on one side, and two smaller couches — lazy-boys — by the right side of the couch. Tom opened up the TV, and went for HBO. Harry Potter was on, as always. Ervagh looked at the TV monitor. He’d seen one of those in Toby’s house, but that one was still a box of a TV set. This one was flat and wide.
“Might we be able to watch the ‘Animal Planet’ channel?” Ervagh asked.
“Dude, I don’t wanna see you get aroused by a bunch of lizards from our planet. What are you guys, anyway? I don’t really care that much for alien movies. They bore me most of the time.”
“We come from reptilian-ancestry, Terran Tom.” Ervagh answered him. “None of the Volgan Lords seem to recall anymore where we truly came from. Much of our history were never truly documented. This was caused by our urgency to reach a higher-form of evolutionary traits. The Empire, as we speak, are travelling across worlds, trying to harness the extraterrestrial traits these worlds have of their inhabitants.”
“A race of people who don’t know where they came from…” Tom thought to himself, but Ervagh was still able to hear. “So you guys are kinda like us. We’ve been invaded by a bunch of other races from other places, and we’ve sort of evolved like you. Some of us look American, a lot of us look like Spaniards, others come from Japan and China. Those are just the main few that I know of, really.”
“We’re similar, but from different sides of the spectrum.” Ervagh said to Tom. “We’ve conquered many, while you have been conquered by many. It seems that the Volgans are the ones next in line.”
Tom raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The Empire has been surveying your planet for millennia. Though it doesn’t make sense to me why we’ve never tried invading yet. Maybe there’s nothing here that’s worth evolving for.”
“As much as I think that’s rude, I agree with you, man.” Tom opened up a can of Mountain Dew from the cold-container placed beside the couch. “This place is a dump. A dead end. Humanity’s not gonna be able to advance enough to reach the stars. We’re too busy fighting each other over who’s right and who’s wrong. If you ask me, nobody’s ever right.”
“Perhaps.” Ervagh motioned for cold-container, and Tom nodded to him. He took a can out. It was cold and perspiring. “The food here is quite a delicacy, though.” Ervagh said. “The ways you Terrans present your sustenance. Quite unlike any of the worlds we’ve invaded. What is this I’m holding?”
“It’s kind of like the drink you had a few days ago, dude.” Tom took the can and opened it for Ervagh. Ervagh took a sip, and his eyes immediately went wide. “I guess you’re right about that, man. The food here is kind of out of this world.”
“No truer words have been said.” Ervagh replied, as he chugged down the Dew.
* * *
Mara had a similar conversation with Amanda. They were both settled inside of Amanda’s room. Her parent’s offered them snacks every fifteen minutes or so, and Amanda would yell at her parents every time, but still take the food tray or the snacks being given by the door. She’d place the food on the carpet floor, and motion to Mara to try some.
Mara seemed very hungry. She ended up eating a large portion of the food, while Amanda just looked at her with a smile and nodded to her. “Yeah, you go, girl. I’m watching my weight, really. I’m already as big as a girl should be, honestly.”
Mara just munched over the food, and never really spoke unless asked a question.
“When do you think you’ll come back to your ‘Miss Victoria’ look?” Amanda asked her.
“I dunno.” Mara answered her, and just continued to eat.
“Do you like looking like her?” Amanda asked. “Like Mara, I mean?”
“I am Mara.” Mara answered her.
“Yeah, I know you look like Mara, but you’re not actually — “
“I am who I seem to be.” Mara abruptly said, cutting off Amanda. “I can’t explain to you how it works. Or why it happened. It just happened, and what’s wrong about that?”
Amanda looked at her. What’s wrong about that? She repeated to herself. “Don’t you miss being Lady Veergha? Or your alien appearance? If you’re gonna stay looking like that, then we’ll be having a hard time trying to make you invisible to the actual person who looks like that whenever you enter the school campus.”
Mara didn’t say anything. The food was gone. A few seconds pass by, and she let out a loud burp. She started laughing. Amanda just looked at her, starting to feel worried.
“When do you think we’ll get to see Toby again?” Mara asked her. Letting out another burp.
“We’ll see him tomorrow, when we go to Mr. Reyes’s house to see the other orbs.” Amanda answered her.
“What do you think he’s thinking of right now? Is he thinking of me?” Mara let out another burp, and looked up at the ceiling with a smile. She laid down on the carpet floor. “I’m thinking of him, for sure.”
Amanda raised an eyebrow. Okay, there’s definitely something wrong going on here.
* * *
It took a while before Mr. Reyes got home. He rode his car to school, but since a metallic orb from outer space suddenly destroyed it — probably sucked up parts of it and transformed into it — he was left with having to commute to his house. There are a lot of tricycle stations around the city. This was because the tricycle owners never really cared about government regulations. They got away with what they wanted to do, because a lot of these drivers were siding up against these government regulations; there were just too many of them to handle.
But that afternoon, not a lot of tricycles seemed to appear by the station closest to Gate B. Mr. Reyes had to walk further into the village in order to get to the next closest tricycle station. He found one that had a sleeping driver inside of its side compartment, and woke him up immediately, the driver jumped inside of the trike and bumped his shiny bald head on the roof of the small side-compartment.
“Goddammit!” The tricycle driver said. He saw Mr. Reyes, and immediately regained his composure. “Where we off to tonight, sir?” Mr. Reyes said his address to the driver, and the driver nodded to him. “Okay, okay, sir. Hop on aboard the Saint Agnes.” he said. Saint Agnes was the name of the tricycle, which was clearly stated by the artwork of a saintly looking nun by the front of the trike. Under the artwork, was the name ‘Saint Agnes’. Mr. Reyes hopped on aboard the Saint Agnes. The bald driver grasped at the rosary hanging inside of the side-compartment, and rubbed the small statue that looked like Mother Mary, and proceeded to accelerate the tricycle.
Once they arrived inside of Mr. Reyes’s village, Mr. Reyes noticed a large cloud of smoke coming from where his house would have been. He saw a security guard walking fast on the side of the road with a bunch of beer-bellied old men who wore blue blazers on top of their t-shirts; the barangay captain and his right-hand man. The trike was stopped by the security guard, and asked the driver where they were headed. Mr. Reyes said his address, and the guard’s eyes widened.
“You mean that’s your house that’s on fire?” the security guard said to Mr. Reyes. Mr. Reyes eyes widened as well, and gasped at what the guard said to him.
“What do you mean my house is on fire?” He yelled at the security guard. Mr. Reyes got out of the trike, and looked at the cloud of smoke that was just a few blocks away from his house. He looked to the tricycle-driver. “Come on, let’s go!” The driver nodded to him and hit the gas. The security driver shouted at them, but the trike moved fast enough to get away.
As they arrived, Mr. Reyes quickly got out of the trike, and fumbled through his pockets to get some cash out, and paid the driver. The driver asked if he needed help, but Mr. Reyes didn’t pay attention. He was more concerned with the burning house right in front of him.
It seems like his house wasn’t the only one that’s been burned down. A few of the other houses beside his were also in flames. The neighbors were outside onto the streets, yelling and weeping as they see their houses go up in flames. One of the neighbors spotted Mr. Reyes, and grabbed him by the collars of his teacher’s uniform.
“Is this your fucking house?” He pointed at Mr. Reyes’s burning house by nodding his head towards it.
“Get your stinking paws off me, you damn fool!” Mr. Reyes struggled to get the man’s fists off his uniform. Then he noticed a pair of hands coming from the side. The tricycle driver took Mr. Reyes’s neighbor’s hands off of him and pushed him away.
“Don’t fucking blame the man, fucker!” The tricycle driver shouted to the neighbor, then looked at Mr. Reyes. “Are you okay, sir? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” Mr. Reyes rubbed his neck. He looked towards his neighbor. “Did it not occur to you that I just arrived? This was not my doing!”
The security guard and the barangay men finally caught up to them. A faint sound of sirens came in the distance; the sound of firetrucks arriving inside of their village. “Let’s not fight each other, people.” the guard said to those that were out in the streets. The barangay men held up their batons up to assert their authority in the situation.
“We saw your giant invention, professor!” The neighbor yelled at Mr. Reyes. “Your robot did this to our houses!”
“What robot?” Mr. Reyes yelled back. “I don’t have a robot in my house!”
“I got it on video.” a voice said. One of the younger neighbors held up a small video camera and showed the monitor to everybody. “I was able to record it from afar while I was making a skateboard video with my friends down by the playground.” The video showed blurry footage of a large black figure thrashing up Mr. Reyes’s house. “We heard a loud noise come from your place, Professor.” the young man added. “The fire came from inside of the house. And started to spread to the other houses.”
“Why didn’t you alert the guards before it even spread!” The old neighbor asked to the young neighbor. “Instead, you remained shooting footage of the evil robot!”
Mr. Reyes took the young man’s video cam, and took a closer look at the footage. It did look like a giant robot, but the footage was too zoomed in. Probably because the young man shot it from afar. The robot seemed to leap off at an amazing height once it was finish doing its thrashing. Mr. Replayed the footage a couple more times, before returning the camera to the young neighbor.
“Well?” The older neighbor asked. “What do you have to say for yourself, you fucking mad scientist?”
Mr. Reyes looked to his neighbor, clenched his fist, and punched the man on the side of his face. The neighbor fell to the ground, and was held up by the barangay men. Mr. Reyes suppressed his anger. “That’s all I have to say to you, good sir.” He looked back to his tricycle driver. “I’m going to need another ride. It’s gonna be a long night.”
End of Chapter.
* * *
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