it is time!

In celebration of completing the edit for RITU I thought I'd publish the prologue and once WR is complete I shall get this story right on it's feet.

for now tho, enjoy!

-------

~~23rd April 2091~~

-Roy's POV-

I opened my eyes to the warm ray of the sun shining through the curtains, who needs an alarm when nature comes knocking on the door threatening to burn you alive if you dared stayed in bed, or this case the window.

After rubbing my eyes and stretching out, I took my phone out the drawer for the time, oh, of course, it's out of battery, we're almost in the 22nd century, and still, nobody has worked out the solution to fix a first world problem.

"Father?" A familiar female voice called from the other side of the door and politely knocked a couple of times, "are you awake?"

"Yup," I responded, "do you have the time on you by any chance?"

The door suddenly opened up, a woman with chocolate brown hair and a small section of hair in teal blue, Stephanie, one of my daughters stood just outside my room with the new addition to the family in her arms, "well, mother, Aunt Stella and grandpa will be here in 20 minutes, does that help?"

"Shoot!" I quickly got out of bed and grabbed my suit out of the closet.

"We'll wait downstairs for you," she and little Matthew headed downstairs, while I rushed around to get ready.

For yet another christening, I swear it feels like yesterday since the last grandchild was christened, well, two years to be accurate. If it weren't for my girls' mother being a Christian, maybe we wouldn't have so many of these things. I guess that's what pushed us away in the first place....

"Dad! Come on!" Another daughter called, "there'll be here any minute!"

"Coming!" I shouted, picking up my favourite tie before walking down the stairs.

I sometimes wonder why Stella still bothers to come along. Surely she must get tired of travelling all the way from Terzzara just to see another nibling get covered in water for 2 minutes. It's all the same.

Inside the living space were the girls, Stephanie, Lyra and Beth. My three sons-in-law. Beth's kid, Lyra's three children, and little Matthew, Stephanie's first child, and secretly I hope it's the last grandchild, grandkids are lovely and all, but I can already imagine how many times my will has to be split with the people in my life as it is.

Beth walked up to me, scoffing and giggling, "weren't you going to figure out how to do this?"

I nervously chuckled, "it might have slipped my mind, my memory isn't as good as it used to be, you know?"

*ding donggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg*

"I'll get that," Lyra left the room, must be the rest of the family. Meanwhile, Beth took the tie out of my hands and wrapped it around my neck, tying it into an excellent old Windsor knot.

"There you go, now that's a complete image."

"Thank you, Beth," I smiled, giving a quick hug. "No problem dad."

Unfortunately, this happy mood around us would not last and about to take a 180 real fast...

When Lyra returned with my ex-wife and Stella, who was in a lot of tears, everybody in the room, especially myself, raised a lot of concerns.

"Stella?" I went to her aid. She didn't hesitate to hug me really tight and cry even more on my suit, "what's wrong? Is everything ok?"

".....Didn't you get any of my calls...?"

"No my phone has been dead...."

It was at that moment I realised...he was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is dad?"

Stella released me and with her teary eyes, looked right at me, "dad........he's............he's gone, Roy......."

"......." my heart sank further down my body, "What...?"

"I-I was just visiting him last night......a-a-and this morning....h-he was just gone..."

"Grandpa is dead......?" Stephine bleated.

"I'm so sorry..." Charlotte, my ex, lamented.

"..................."

".................."

"................."

"What do we do about the christening?" Stephanie's husband wondered, "maybe now isn't a good time for it."

"I-I'll call it off....." his wife responded, "we can wait a couple of days at least," she handed the baby to him and went to another room to phone the church.

Everybody else sat down, not knowing what to say, instead silently grieving, I comforted my sister as she was still overcome with tears, I tried to stay strong for her, but nothing could prevent tears of my own falling down from my eyes....

"Don't worry grandpa," one of the grandkids spoke with a small smile as if she didn't comprehend the meaning of death, "he's just gone to another place, a happier place."

"She's not wrong....." Stella wept.

"Yeah.....at least one person will be overjoyed...." I sniffled, I can see it clearly, the sight of dad smiling again the second he reunited with mum....

We all knew this day would come any day now, it was only inedible, but that doesn't make the loss any easier to cope with...

~~21st May 2013~~

-Phil's POV-

Is that glass in my slop they call 'food'?

Things really have gone back to normal.

I spotted 5 sitting alone at the table. He's the one that snitched on me and got me into the whole Vizion mess to begin with, even though he doesn't believe any of that ordeal.

Instead, I sat next to Phred and Zack.

"Hey..." I awkwardly spoke to them.

"Hey," Phred responded.

"........." honestly, this is the first time I've talked to these two and Smiley without mentioning Vizion and aliens and space and all that fun jazz, I hardly know anything about them, what do I talk about? "soooooooo, how's things?"

"Alright, I guess," Phred shrugged, as Smiley joined the table.

Zack gave me a thumbs up.

"That's good..."

The two boys continued eating in silence, well this is fun.

"What are your next classes?" Smiley asked me, being her usual smiling self.

"Don't we all have the same classes?" I wondered.

"Oh! Of course, my bad," she nervously giggled, I smiled shyly back.

"..........."

".........."

And back to silence, is there nothing to say?

"Alright," Phred spoke up, "we need to address the elephant in the room here. This is getting stupid."

"There's no elephant in here," Smiley said puzzled, "you could barely fit in a tiger in here."

"It's just an expression, Smiley," Zack cleared up.

"Ohhhh."

"As I was saying," Phred continued, "we spent, what, four days in space, in some government building locked up, met flipping aliens, and nobody's going to talk about it??"

"Well it's not like we had much of a chance to take it all in," Zack objected.

"We've been tense about it since we woke up from those dreams, I thought you guys wanted a little break from that," I confessed.

"Phil, I think the last thing that we should be doing is pretending as none of that happened, I mean, just take a look at Zack and Smiley, was Zack a literal campfire, or did Smiley have any hair on her head before everything? Which looks nice by the way..."

"Wow, I don't feel so good," Zack groaned.

"I mean, I've never heard of somebody who has flames burning on their head 24/7, let alone somebody so cold they could freeze the water fountain."

"I was wondering about that actually," Smiley butted in, "how did you do that?"

"I dunno," Zack shrugged, "I've always been like that, well, until recently that is..."

"Huh...."

"Anyway....do you get what I'm saying, Phil?"

"Well who can forget what happened, the bruises I still have all over my body helpfully reminds me enough as it is, but can't we have a normal conversation once in a while, besides the whole adventure we shared I don't really know you guys...."

"You seem to know Smiley well enough," Phred mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," he ate some of his slop just to shut up.

"........" Smiley's cheeks glowed red as she tried to hide her face from us.

(PHILEY BGFCDTXURSZ)

"So WHAT do you guys want to know about each other?" Zack asked after a pause.

I shrugged, "what do you guys do in your free time? What's your family like?"

"Ladies first," Phred looked over at Smiley.

"Ok..." she moved her bowl of 'food' away from her, "You could probably guess what I like doing in my free time, besides that I like to read and play in the park."

"That's nice," I complimented.

"Y-You think so?"

"Heh, yeah..."

Phred took a spoonful of slob and spoke, "just kiss already."

It wasn't that clear, but I could still understand him, and I glared at him.

"Anyway," Smiley continued, "There are my parents, my mum is a little mean, but it doesn't bother me much, and my little brother Squirt."

"Squirt?" Somebody who was walking by snorted, "what kind of name is that?"

"...."

"....."

"....."

"Who's next?" Zack went back to the topic after that moment.

"Phil."

"Alright fine," I sighed quietly, "I like video games and crosswords, and my sister is pretty chilled."

"I bet your parents are nice too," Smiley smiled.

I chuckled softly, "yeah, they were from what I can remember..."

"Huh?"

"Dad was a soldier in this war, but he didn't make it, and Vanessa told me our mum went to the same place he did after death."

"Oh shoot..." Phred bewailed, "I'm sorry man."

"Don't worry about it. I've gotten used to it."

"......"

"......"

"Perhaps I should go next," Zack intervened, "there's my dad, and my shivering cold twin sister."

"So your sister is like that too huh, what about your dad?" Phred rested his chin on his hand and leaned on the table.

"Yes, my sister has it too, not my dad though.."

"Did your mum?" I asked.

Zack shrugged, "I never knew our mum, who knows, she probably did, or these genes my sister and I have were just a random chance, at this rate we'll never know."

"Interesting....." Smiley mumbled, then turned to Phred, "and you, Phred? What about you and your family."

"Eh, nothing to say really, it's just my mum and I living under the same roof, and ya'll know what I'm like, lazy and unmotivated by the school system."

Hmmmm....is that it?

9,6I dXDixfjDtudrrck, the school bell rang, what's wrong with that bell?

Anyhow, saved by the bell, or captured by the bell depending who you are...

"Well, it was actually nice to have a normal conversation with you guys," Smiley sat up and promoted her usual sunny smile.

"If that's what you consider a normal conversation," Phred joked.

We all chuckled a little, Zack also sat up and picked up his plate, "catch you all next time."

Phred got up and walked away with the others. I was the last to leave the table.

"Stay in school!" I called out, before sighing and began getting up from my own seat.

Just as I was doing so, I felt something clash against my back.

"Hey!" A voice exclaimed, "watch where you're going, Eggtree!"

I turned around to see 5 giving me an angry look, then walking away from the cafeteria.

What did I even see in 5 before the alien business? Well whatever our friendship was like then, there's no going back to it now.

*meanwhile, around 4,600 miles away*

-Eliza's POV-

Where did she go?

This backyard isn't big enough to hide...

All of a sudden, a cold sensation trickled down my back, it was at that moment, I realised, she was right behind me.

I turned around slowly, only to be squirted in the face with cold water.

Amelia giggled, "I win!"

"You cheated!" I crossed my arms with a smile.

"We'll see about that," she glanced over at the garden table where both our mums were busy chatting away, with Jane, Amelia's little sister, sitting on Mrs Telgemeier's lap, "mum! Mrs Cats!"

They stopped what they were doing and looked at the two of us, standing on the grass being half soaked head to toe, "Eliza's calling me out for cheating."

They giggled, "the only rule is don't hurt each other, as long as Amelia didn't hurt you, I think she's the winner."

"See?" Amelia responded all smudge, "you should've got your other friend to help you."

"Now THAT would be cheating for sure, Lia..."

"True fact," we sat down on the warm sunny grass and dropped the water pistols aside, "so, what should we do now?"

"I don't know...." I shrugged.

Amelia looked at me with a concerned look, "you seem a little distracted today...is something wrong?"

"It's none of my business," I sighed.

"So there IS something wrong..."

"Wait, no! That's not what I meant, I just--" I was trying to change the subject when she cut me off.

"Come on, Eliza, I'm your best friend, in case you forgot, you can tell me, please?"

I don't want to seem like a downer on such a lovely day, plus my mum might overhear it, but I know Amelia, if something's up, she won't back down.

"I....I think my parents aren't together anymore...."

"What? Why do you say that?"

"Sometimes I can hear them arguing downstairs...and recently I see less and less of dad's things, not to mention dad himself, he might've moved out...that's usually a bad sign..."

"Maybe your parents are taking time to think things through on their own..."

"I don't have much faith in that, and the arguing had been going on for a while now, mum keeps lying to me!"

"....."

Tears fell down my eyes, "I just want them to make up and stay together...."

"....." Amelia tried to put on a smile and put her hand on my lap, "trust me, Eliza, I'm sure they are just having some space for a bit, and if not, it won't change how much they love you..."

(Parents splitting up is hard, trust me I know, but there's always a right side to anything)

"....."

"Hey girls," Amelia's mum walked up to us, speaking in her usual pretty Romanian accent, she glanced at me with a worrying look, "everything ok, Elizabeth?"

"Y-Yeah..." I wiped the tears off my eyes,  "it was just a bug in my eye."

"Acele bug-uri," she complained, "nu aveți niciun folos în afară de dăunător...anyway, I came over to take you two out, Janet agreed to take care of Jane for a few hours, perhaps we could see a movie and have dinner, maybe even some ice cream."

"I like the sound of that!" Amelia and I stood up. "Yeah, sounds great Mrs Telgemeier."

She smiled, "good, get yourselves dry and bring something warm in case it gets a little chilly later, and we'll set off in ten minutes."

Just what I need, a good distraction, we ran inside my house, getting dried and changed.

"What movie should we watch?"

"Hmm...." I thought, "I have no idea...but I'm sure we'll find something fun to watch."

Come to think about it, what IS there to watch....

"Hey, Eliza?" Amelia called out just as she picked up her cardigan.

"Yeah, Lia?"

"Whatever happens, we'll always have each other, right? Keep us both in the loop of things and not let idiots pull us down?"

"Absolutely." I beamed, Amelia smiled back.

"Come on. We should go down and get in the car."

*timeskip brought to you by hey this is the fourth time I'm doing one of these, fascinating ain't it lmao*

That was a great movie! (insert a good thing about the movie here)

What?

(Oh nothing...)

Hmmm

Anyway, Amelia, her mum and I sat in this Italian diner-like restaurant, and of course, when you go to a place that serves Italian food, you've got to have pasta!

Now we were about to quiz Mrs Telgemeier about that ice cream she promised, but she must have some mind-reading skills because she gave us a smirking look at that exact moment.

"So, what flavour would you both like? Now you can only have one scoop so choose wisely."

Darn, my dreams of mixing together a weird ice cream combo are shattered...

"Oh, oh I want caramel!" Amelia did not hesitate to answer and smiled brightly.

Her mum giggled, "alright, how about you, Elizabeth?"

"Uhhhh...." there are so many choices, I'm not sure I can't decide... "uh what's it called in the language again? căpșună?"

"Strawberry it is," she smiled.

"Oh...wrong berry but ok..." I mumbled.

She chuckled, "it's alright, Elizabeth, good attempt, though."

"Thanks, Mrs Teglemeier," I blushed, "and what I meant to ask was for raspberry flavour, please."

"Just Camila is fine, and of course." I nodded, she sat upon the table and took her purse from her bag, "I'll just be a few minutes...though I can't leave you two alone for long..."

Camila glanced at the table behind us, we turned around to check it out, and it looked like a packed family with parents, three young kids and a fedora hat.

"Excuse me?" Amelia's mum walked to that table to speak with the dad.

"Yes, ma'am?" The dad turned his head to face her.

"Could you keep an eye on my kids for 5, maybe 10 minutes?"

"Of course," he smiled, "they can join us if they want, I was just about to tell an interesting story."

"Sounds like fun, what do you two think?"

"Why not," Amelia shrugged. "I think it'll be great," I responded.

"I won't be long," she left for the bathroom, while Amelia and I took a seat opposite to each other at the end of the table.

"What are your names?" The mum asked.

"I'm Elizabeth, but most people call me Eliza, and this is my best friend, Amelia."

"Feel free to call me Lia," she added.

"Alright, Eliza and Lia," the dad chipped in, "let me ask you a question, do you believe in other life outside of earth?

We both nodded, more than we want to admit...

"I've heard that somewhere in Oregon, the USA, that these aliens kidnapped a few kids, brainwashed them, experimented on them, who knows, but these aliens had this ship, and they called it Vizion."

Huh....something about that sounds familiar...

"What happened to those kids?" One of their children asked.

"They returned safely, but not before befriending one of the aliens and blowing up that ship."

"How?"

The dad shrugged, "complete mystery, but people have claimed that it happened on the same day we had that meteor shower, believing it to be caused by the falling debris from that ship."

We DID have a meteor shower yesterday...

"Did anybody see the aliens, at all?" I questioned.

"Aside from the kids? Not to my knowledge, but one of the kids did describe them for the guy I got the story from....they had unusual names, and definitely alien-looking, one was called Diz, green skin, pretty skinny looking, there was Quiz, a chubby blue alien with four arms, according to the kid, he was that alien that befriended him, them they were Viz, red-skinned, four arms, wacky glasses."

"And they're still out there?"

"No, they're all dead."

"......"

D-Diz...

"What a waste of a beautiful crystal..."

I tried to move my head, but the pain only got even worse! I couldn't speak a single word, except cries...the pain took over my thoughts!

"Not so tough now...but, you're still here.....maybe one last go will finish you off."

Quiz...

"one more thing I need to ask....."

"Yes, Diz?"

"Did you remember to make sure no one else comes in while we're down here?"

There was a long pause, sounds like they forgot "I uh......"

"Quiz! You're so useless!" He yelled, "that's how the intruders got in!"

"They know we're here!" We urgently backed away.

Viz....?

"No need, no one will believe them...if that is if they remember what happened.....now, we get what we need and take these kids out of here to hide the cave."

"Yes, sir!"

I don't even know what's going anymore, all that came to me was, am I going to die?

The red figure came up to me and snapped the crystal that was implanted in my head as best as possible, the end jabbed in was still there, and it felt like it wasn't going to budge "I'm sorry about all this."

".........."

Author, remind me...

The reason I can communicate with you is because of that cave experience with those three aliens?

(must be real if you remember it, but yes that is how it became to be)

Oh, my stars...

"Is all this true?" A kid asked their dad, "or is this just a made-up story?"

"I can't say," he shrugged, "perhaps it is true, perhaps the guy who wrote the blog is just a crazy man obsessed with supernatural theories, we'll never know..."

"It IS real...," I whispered, Amelia, looked over at me and shocked her head nervously.

The dad scoffed, "I'm sorry? I couldn't quite hear that."

I took a deep breath, "I said it is—"

"What Eliza meant to say is," Amelia butted in, "that was a good story, and she hopes it's true because let me tell you she's really into aliens and such, me not so much but I still liked the story."

"Well Eliza, if you want it to be real, there's no harm in believing it."

"But I—"

"Hey kids," Mrs Teglemeier returned with two cones of ice cream, "I got your ice creams."

"Ooh," Amelia sat up and took her caramel ice cream cone, "thanks, mum!"

"Thanks, Mrs— Camila," I hesitantly took my ice cream off her hand.

"It was nice chatting with you two," the dad smiled, "enjoy your ice cream."

"Thanks," Amelia responded. "Yeah...." I mumbled.

Those aliens harmed us, me especially, then took those kids and did who knows what to them, and now they're ALL dead?

I kind of find that hard to believe somehow...

And why did Amelia cut me off? She was there too...she saw even more than I did...

After we ate our ice cream, Mrs Teglemeier drove us back to my house.

"Alright, I'm just gonna get Jane, I'll meet you back at the house Amelia."

"Ok mum."

"Can I walk with you for a minute, Lia?"

"Sure thing," we crossed the quiet road together, Amelia's is just three houses along on the opposite side of the road.

"I'm sorry I burst your bubble Eliza, but I had to stop you."

"Why? You don't believe in what he said? Don't you remember?"

"Of course I did, to both questions, but don't you remember what that Viz alien said?"

"Not clearly..." I was sorta partly unconscious at the time...

"The only reason he spared us was that he knew nobody would believe us, we're just kids after all...the best we'll get is adults playing along with it because of our age, but in reality, they'll think it's just a bunch of nonsense and make-believe..."

"But that guy who wrote the blog must believe that those aliens existed."

"Or he's just looking for something interesting to say on this blog...."

"Lia, come on..."

"I'm not saying all this to discourage you. I'm just saying that you need to be careful, WE need to be careful what we say...about the aliens we saw, the incident, that voice in your head, all of it."

She does have a good point. It's hard enough that I can't talk about the Author for various reasons...

(Trust me, the less you talk about all of this, the less painful it'll be...)

What's that supposed to mean?

(Sorry I've already said more than I can as it is)

Darn!

"Anyway, I should get into the house, see you at school tomorrow."

"Bye Lia," I waved as she went inside her house.

I went back across the road back to my house, where my mum was busy wiping the kitchen counter after we completely messed it up with the juice we accidentally split earlier...

And just as expected, dad was nowhere to be seen. I completely forgot that was on my mind.

"Hey, mum?" I called, she looked down at me and responded, "yes, sweetie?"

"Can I look at something on the computer?"

"Hmmm, alright, but only 15 minutes, then you've got to tell me about your movie experience."

"Sure thing, mum." I went into my dad's office, which was surprisingly near and tidy for once, the desktop was still there and waiting to be used.

I typed in the password that was written on a sticky note and pulled up the web, dad calls it 'surfing the web', but he's the only one I hear say that phrase.

In google, I typed in 'Vizion blog' and crossed my fingers. I can find that same blog.

Scrolling down the page, finally coming across a blog titled:

'Do aliens really exist? Meteor shower explained by falling debris from a spaceship.'

This must be it! I took a good read through...

Wait, Vizion is an organisation? Were they planning to destroy Earth?

And this name...

Phil Eggtree...

The boy who described the aliens, he was one of the kids that were kidnapped by them.

And to my knowledge, the only people that know about the aliens are myself, Amelia, and those other kids, including Phil Eggtree...

If only I could talk to them about it all, at least they'd believe what I experienced...