Chapter Text
On a chilly November night with the sky striped generously by dark gray clouds, gentle winds delicately brushed the bare branches of damp-barked trees blanketing a stout mountain. That mountain protected the humble, aged village of Kiso, resting harmoniously at the base. A Japanese town known for tranquility with nature and rich cultural history. Silent and dark, the town streets stood empty. The last few house lights cut off for the night as Kiso’s residents went to sleep. However, at the end of a worn asphalt road winding halfway up the mountain cutting through dense forest, laid an old traditional home all by itself. Surrounded by thick woods on all sides but the front, this house faced a tall, steep hill that overlooked the rest of town. One open window on the second floor flickered softly with the harsh flashing glow of a television screen.
On the floor of her darkened bedroom a young girl sat cross-legged; leaning against the wall under her window while staring absentmindedly at the news. Warnings of an approaching blizzard spouted from the box-screened T.V. but her focus kept drifting over to her smartphone laying on the round coffee table nearby. She was visibly exhausted, still in her middle school uniform which was now slightly disheveled.
A cold gust of wind swept through, snapping the child out of her sleepy trance. With a shiver she looked to the window, begrudgingly deciding to shut it for the night. Using the wall as support she lazily pushed herself up to stand, but just as her fingers gripped the window pane her phone lit up with a buzz. She looked towards the sound with a jump before dashing for it, dropping to her knees with a 'thud’. The girl held the phone just a couple inches from her face, gripping it securely in both hands. Artificial light softly illuminated her exhausted features as she read a text from her mom.
“Nesumi. The business trip got extended another 5 days on account of the storm. I’ll call you tomorrow, be sure to leave the taps running during the blizzard. - 22:56”
Tired, Nesumi stared emptily at the small screen. Her shoulders slumped as the emotionless face she’d held finally gave in to distress. Burning tears formed in her previously dry, sleepy eyes. Suddenly her chest felt tight as she did everything in her power not to let out a sob.
In a sudden fit of anger, the distraught girl threw her phone at the wall next to the window and allowed her eyelids to fall closed, hot tears dripping onto the floor as her hands clenched at her sides. Another gust of wind flit through the room, wafting hair to hit her face, stray strands annoyingly sticking to her tear-stained cheeks. A twisted pain was engulfing her stomach from the news that she’d be alone an additional five days on top of the already standing week. She needed someone to talk to. To tell someone what happened. Someone who she could trust and someone who could do something about it. But life wasn’t fair, and Nesumi was aware of this. Using her sleeve she wiped the tears away, pulled the hair from her face and defeatedly slogged over to the phone on the floor. After picking it up her hand loosely gripped the device at her side and she let out a shaken exhale.
Outside, snow was finally beginning to flutter down as the weather channel stated. After a small glance Nesumi took a deep breath and gripped the window pane once again, slamming it closed this time. Staying angry for another five days would drive her insane; and with the blizzard threatening to snow her in she didn’t have any outlet for all this stress. So, the best thing for now would be to try to find a way to calm down and ohmygodwhatthehell is that a UFO?!
Nesumi was ripped from her thoughts as a flaming hunk of metal the size of a car flew past her house and landed somewhere in the woods further up the mountain. The blood in her veins suddenly ran cold at the realization she just saw something extremely weird and likely dangerous. Bewildered, the girl quickly threw open the window again and leaned out to try and see where the thing went, holding tightly to the walls. Cold wind bit her face while heavy snowflakes peppered her skin. Squinting to see through the thick sleet she could make out what was a feint yet obvious glow far out into the woods, past where she was generally allowed to venture. A handful of thoughts raced through her head in that moment but only one was coherent: “What was that?”
Nesumi stared out at the glowing site with increasing worry. There was something out there; it wasn't an illusion. Was there something a person should do in this situation? The police station was closed so no authorities would answer her phone calls. Then there was that glow reflecting off the falling snow. Could that be fire? She figured no, it was too strange a color to be a fire. She couldn't take to the streets yelling about a… Whatever that was. The town already considered her strange; and if this thing happened to not be dangerous at all after waking the whole town, then her mother would...
Her Mom.
The one person she could think to count on wouldn’t even answer her calls. A mother who was regularly too busy for her only child. The majority of the town treated her as something less than human and wouldn't give her the time of day. What would be the harm in going out there alone? Just to take a quick peek at the strange flaming object that crashed into the mountain. Nothing exciting like this ever happened. Nobody would find out she left her house, and if they did they certainly wouldn’t care. The falling snow was too thick for anyone in town to see such a faint glow all the way up here and no one was scheduled to check in on her.
Surely the responsible thing to do would be to go and make sure there wasn’t a fire spreading towards her home. Sure, the blizzard would probably stop any fires, but she really needed this distraction before she collapsed into a breakdown from her stressful day. Most people assumed the poor girl was lacking in smarts on account of how clumsy she was, so it wouldn't be out of character. Nesumi felt her thoughts clear. A sudden burst of determination fueled by curiosity and the realization that there was truly nothing to stop her sparked a stirring flame that drove her to snap into action. She was going to find that thing if it killed her.
Throwing open the door to her room she raced down the wooden stairs with white school socks donning her feet. She almost slipped from hectically rounding the corner into her darkened living room, but frantically grabbed the door frame in time to save herself from what was a pretty commonplace accident for her. Quickly recollecting herself she flew back into action. The house was completely silent save for the thumps of her feet as she ran to the front door coat rack. There, she threw on a heavy green jacket that was too big for her small frame and haphazardly slipped on her white school shoes. Finally stepping outside, the wind caught her by surprise and caused her long hair to fly every which way. Fat snowflakes pelted her bare legs and turned to droplets. Phone still in hand Nesumi turned on the flashlight feature and cautiously ventured into the woods, snow buildup on the ground cushioning her footfalls with powdery crunches.
The cold air froze her breath into a fog, making her to squint to see the strange greenish-bluish glow reflecting off the dense flurry. Luckily, the snow buildup on the ground made it easier for her phone to illuminate her surroundings. It was a little creepy though. There were local legends of Youkai and Oni living inside the mountain, and Nesumi always found that the woods gave her a strange feeling. Her grandmother never wanted her venturing out alone, especially at night, and her mother had a similar rule, but for different reasons.
As she walked, memories of the night she got lost in the mountain when she was younger seemed to resurface. Something beckoned her towards the peak that night. Whether it was innocent curiosity, or a rebellious fit after a hard day at school, she couldn't recall. The doctors considered it a miracle that she found her way back after injuring her head so badly. Following the relentless questions from hospital staff and police about just what had happened up there, it was determined her memory was lost from the blunt force trauma. Nobody could say for certain if it would ever return, but found some peace in that she still remembered the names and faces of everyone. Things were different after that. People still spoke of behaviors she outgrew after the accident. Kids at school to this day still teased her over things she couldn't recall prior to the injury. She'd think it was all some elaborate prank being played on her by the whole town, but the look in her mothers eyes whenever she asked about her childhood was telling. It was always like a mix of fear, disappointment, and something else that made the girl nervous.
Nesumi looked up at the sky to distract from her thoughts and determine how much farther she was supposed to go. The glow was right over her now. Just a few meters away, in fact. She slowed to a stop and looked around nervously just in case anything else had come to investigate the scene. Animals weren't exactly rare this far out.
The falling snow proved too thick for her to see through effectively. She glanced at the ground behind her. Snow already started to cover her tracks. If she wanted to make it home safely then she would have to pick up the pace. She quickened her pace towards the light. However, fear hit as she lost her footing and tripped into a freshly snow-covered trench. She kept her eyes closed for a couple seconds as she gathered her bearings. Upon opening them, she found that she dropped her phone during the fall, which landed face-up and rode the snow down deeper into what she had fallen into, stopping at the source of the trench. The sight made her stomach flip.
The trench was quite recently made, its sides were littered with collapsed and damaged trees, freshly broken from their stumps with branches and sticks scattered around the site. There was no fire to be seen. Instead the light that Nesumi followed here was being emitted by the very thing that made this trench. The thing that flew past her house. A… spaceship? How had it not made a sound during the crash?
Mangled and sparking exposed wires were poking out around the damaged hull. She currently faced the back of it, looking at some strange black triangular symbol painted onto the dented metal. There were also what she assumed to be rockets which were still discharging smoke and heat. Everything about it looked alien. From the lack of any hard angles to the weird sheen it glossed with unlike any paint or material she had ever seen before. It was so round and smooth looking, save for the dents from the apparent rough landing. Her phone had slid down to rest at the base of the pod, illuminating it from the bottom.
Nesumi shuffled to her feet, ignoring the scrapes she received during her fall. Did she just find a UFO? It was so small from what she imagined a spaceship to look like. She briefly surveyed her surroundings, finding no other living things to be around. Feeling certain she was alone, the girl cautiously walked towards the ship at an angle that would allow her to quickly turn and sprint away if necessary. She noticed there was glass on the front. Some kind of windshield to protect something inside. Something that would want to see out. Nesumi held her breath. She couldn’t quite see into the machine at her current angle, but she could make out smoke swirling inside. If it had a windshield then someone was likely in that thing piloting it, right?
Fear flowed through her limbs causing her to tremble at the thought of encountering something or someone all by herself. There was a long branch nearby, thick enough to be an improv swinging stick. She picked it up and gripped it tightly in both hands. A little heavy from the moisture it soaked up from the snow, but manageable. If there was someone in that thing then she may need to help them, but she also didn’t want to get herself killed in case they happened to be unfriendly. Sure, a stick probably wouldn’t put up a very good fight, especially if whatever was in there sported weapons of similar technological caliber as the ship. But she sure wasn’t going to go down without an attempt at self-defense.
While inching closer to the strange pod she jumped back as the windshield abruptly disappeared into the top of the ship. Smoke spilled out from inside of the pod and pooled around the ground at the base, engulfing her shoes. She was frozen, unsure if moving any closer would be a good idea. Then, the sound of coughing cut through the silence. Something was definitely there, choking on the thick smoke. Inside that weird broken pod there was a living creature and it sounded awake.
Before she could sift through sensible thoughts to dissuade herself from staying any longer a black gloved hand extended from the inside and gripped the edge of the pod. Her breath caught in her throat and knees locked. A figure silhouetted by smoke climbed out from the cockpit. All doubts of the creature being human were purged by the sight of four sleek metal legs extending to the ground, one piercing through her smartphone as if it were butter. Large, red oval eyes glared down at the lone child with a malicious and cold air.
Nobody was around to help her. No one to hear any screams. Those strange ominous eyes squinted as one of the metallic legs was drawn up above her, aimed at her head in a threatening manner. Nesumi couldn’t find her voice. Her fingers trembled against the damp bark of the stick clutched in her hands. It looked like it was about to attack. Within a fraction of a second the leg was brought down, and Nesumi closed her eyes tight, swinging the branch upward as a last resort.
She heard a heavy ‘thump’ as the branch came in contact with something. Once she gathered that she wasn’t dead her eyes snapped open. The smoke was blown away by the creature falling backwards onto the ground. Nesumi had successfully smacked the thing in the face with the stick before it could kill her. Now, it laid there, only a couple feet away on the ground. It was obviously injured, even though she had never seen a creature like this before, she could tell. The way its movements were strangled, the tears in its clothing... also the fact that it was smoking and screeching was really telling.
With rattled nerves, the girl stepped away a couple feet, the banshee screams alarming her greatly. She held her stick up at the ready, now aware that it was willing to fight. Adrenaline rushed through her veins, and when the creature did start to get its bearings, she lunged forward and smacked it over the head again. Those wicked looking legs retracted into the strange pink and silver object on its back as it fell forward and laid face-down in silence. Nesumi stared for what could have been minutes waiting for it to move. Every now and then an arm, a leg, a weird little claw or sleek black antenna would twitch. So, she knew it wasn’t dead. Every time a snowflake hit any bare green skin it would sizzle and leave slight irritation on the skin. Was the snow hurting or killing it? Maybe that’s what the shrieking was about. This thing was loud, whatever it was.
Nesumi mulled over her options once she deemed the thing truly unconscious. She could leave it here, but that could result in it dying. Would that be immoral? It DID just try to attack her. But, then again if she had landed somewhere new and the first thing she saw was a different species holding a weapon at the ready, she might attack in self-defense as well. It was probably just disoriented. Like a scared animal backed into a corner lashing out in an attempt to scare away a predator. Thinking about it like that made Nesumi feel kinda doleful. What if it was just scared? And she hit it over the head with a stick. Twice!
Her mom wasn’t going to be home for another couple of days. A new species was possibly dying right in front of her. She was an irresponsible 12-year-old and she was going to help the poor little… bug. Let’s call it a bug. Snow obviously hurt it, so she took off her jacket and spread it over bug guys head. The cold against her exposed skin was seemingly canceled out by the heat of blood pumping through her body, her heart racing from the terrifying experience she just put herself into. Yeah, if she hadn’t come out here then the bug wouldn’t be unconscious in the snow right now and she wouldn’t be scratched up and dirty.
Nesumi knew that the snow could reach up to 2 meters tonight and leaving the alien out here might result in it suffocating or freezing under the powder. But taking it home was also dangerous, mainly for her. What if it woke up and attacked on the way back or if she fell asleep and it killed her while unconscious? That was one of her worst fears, even if dying while asleep was deemed one of the best ways to go, the thought still horrified her. Leaving it inside the pod didn’t look like a viable option either, seeing as it was still spilling thick smoke, and god knows how one would go about bringing the windshield back down. Maybe there was something inside the ship that could help her out though?
The girl warily side-stepped around the humanoid bug and peered into the cockpit, holding her breath and fanning away some of the smoke with her hand. The dashboard, if that’s what you would call it, was smashed right in the middle. A small holographic screen was being projected from somewhere indiscernible. Static fizzed along parts of the holo-picture while bizarre symbols fell down its image in a manner similar to the end credits of a movie. In fact, looking closer it vaguely resembled coding from an old-school computer. The symbols were nothing like she’d ever seen before. She wanted to take a picture to look it up later but her phone sat in the muddy snow with a perfectly round hole in the center of the screen. A new language. One that Nesumi couldn’t speak. How would she go about communicating with an extraterrestrial creature? How would she calm it down when she brought it back home? What if it was venomous from just a touch? That thought was the most concerning. A small test wouldn’t hurt, especially if she was going to carry it home.
She knelt down, gently running her pinky finger along the smooth green skin that was peeking out from under the jacket. It felt soft, like a smooth velvet. No hair or wrinkles were visible. She withdrew her pinky and studied it closely, looking for any signs of a possible flesh-eating bacteria decaying her appendage or tiny poison spikes that may have stuck as a defense mechanism. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It took a minute of poking random bits of its body and clothes for the anxious girl to finally feel brave enough to pick it up for the trek home.
Desperate hope electrified within her as she rolled the ragdoll-like body over to discover that it was surprisingly light. Not necessarily to the degree that it would be a walk in the park to carry this thing back home, but enough to where she felt confident that she wouldn’t accidentally drop it out of exhaustion. She pulled it up by the shoulder to sit upright, its head loosely rolled to the side, still covered by the jacket. At this point, assuming that the thing was still unconscious was all that she could do to keep her nerves down. Taking a deep breath and turning her back on it, she got on her knees. A cut on her shin burned from coming in contact with the freezing muddy snow, though she doubted her body could really get any more tense. She hoisted the slender frame up against her back, its two skinny arms dangling at its sides. leaning forward to grab behind its knees. Did it have knees? She grabbed behind its leg-joint. Now, in piggyback formation she adjusted her grip, which involved jostling the body in a short jump. It grunted and she amazingly felt her body tense more than previously thought possible.
Standing perfectly still was all she could think to do as it shifted itself. Bug guy gave another flat grunt and rested its forehead in the crook of her neck. Quick, ragged breaths blew against her shoulder blade as it eventually stilled once more. Her heart rate was going a mile a minute and she had eyes so wide that they may have been freezing over. Not a muscle moved, nor a sound was emitted from her until she was absolutely certain it was still asleep. She inhaled a shaky breath and took her first step forward, paying close attention to any possible movements or sounds that would indicate that the bug guy was waking up.
Occasionally, there would be another grunt, or a twitch of a claw. Thankfully though, it didn’t wake throughout the entire hike home. By the time Nesumi reached her front door she was shivering. Her nose, ears and knees burning red due to the unrelenting snow, which was now up to her calves. She clenched her teeth as tightly as possible to avoid chattering. Throwing open the door of the house she grimaced at the feeling of sweet, toasty heat engulfing her body, causing the colder areas to slightly burn as they returned to normal temperature. She wanted to sit by the fire and warm up, but there was no time to waste!
She got to work right away, rolling out a guest futon by the fireplace and setting her strange new visitor down on the cushiony blankets. Within a couple minutes the fireplace was stoked and roaring with a generous heat and glow. Nesumi had taken it upon herself to remove the shoes of the creature and place them at the entrance which was a mess from the melting snow she trekked in. Before she could get to cleaning up the mess though, she had to prepare a communication method for when bug guy woke up. To do that, she located the printer paper stash in her Mom's home office as well as some pencils from her school bag.
Three pictures were drawn, one of her fighting the creature with her stick, another where she set the stick aside after it was laying on the ground, and the last one where she emphasized her remorse by bowing on the ground and offering fire, blankets and shelter from the snow. She drew up a map to let the creature know where its ship was located in relation to her house so it wouldn’t feel like it was obligated to stay. Lastly, she left a change of clothes on the ground next to the creature (After testing them on a section of exposed skin to be sure they were safe for it) in case it wanted to change out of the torn-up uniform it currently rested in. Once everything was in place and she left the pictures in order by the fireplace, where she assumed would be the first place it would investigate, she felt comfortable enough to leave the room to take a well-needed bath.
After 45 minutes of silence, Nesumi was clean, her hair was wet, and she sported a pair of blue pajamas. The silence of the house felt surreal, after everything that she experienced. You could assume that none of it even happened. Such an odd period of peace did little to calm her nerves. Her shin burned as she sat locked in her bedroom wrapping the injury with salve. Clouds completely covered the sky now and her TV was muted. Only the sound of snow softly patting the window was heard throughout the somber setting.
Eventually, it would wake up, right? She wanted to be out of sight when that happened, hoping to give it a chance to look at her drawings. At the same time, she wanted to get this over with. Her bed was calling her name and it was so tempting. The clock currently read 2am. Not the latest she’s stayed up before, but at the same time not an ideal hour to be stuck in a situation like this. Her anxiety was pulling at her. Checking on the bug wouldn’t be a bad thing, right? Just a small peek couldn’t hurt. She stood and looked over her injury to ensure the bandages were staying in place.
Nothing was certain in this moment. But a prying curiosity that burned inside her drove all inhibition out the door. Nothing exciting ever happened, and an alien crash-landing by her house out of all places on the planet was one hell of an adventure. She had no friends, an absent mother, and a grandmother who passed away last year. This life was nothing special and a huge opportunity just presented itself. Why spend the next couple days holed up alone when you could study a brand-new species and possibly befriend it (If it didn’t disembowel her first)?
Quietly, Nesumi slide her door open and descended the stairs with a pillow as a last resort weapon. Excitement and fear rising with every step closer to the living room. Her foot finally hit the first floor, hand gripping the pillow tightly. She peeked around the doorway.
It was standing. And it was looking right at her, scowling. She froze and pressed her lips firmly together, nervously trying her best not to appear threatening as she shrunk in on herself. Did it understand human facial expressions? Why she sure hoped it did. Finally, it spoke for the first time that night...
“HEY!”