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The moon shone bright in the night sky. Some dark clouds sailed across and masked it partially. An errie cold breeze blew around, making the shadows of the trees dance in the moon light. The hoot of an owl at a distance and the howl of the wind created a shuddery, spine-chilling ambience. Watching movies like the ‘Exorcist’ or ‘Evil Dead’ on such a night would definitely NOT be a wise idea if you were one of those weak-hearts.
Sasha lay in her bed, with her eyes wide open. She had just watched a scary movie along with her brother Shawn, on their multi-media laptop. The graphics on the high definition display of the mobile computer was so good, that the ghosts looked life-like. The powerful audio system of the portable PC made the sister and brother feel like the movie was happening live, before their eyes. Shawn was a gadget freak. He never missed a chance to tell his sister about the new technologies emerging in the market, like the 3G technology, the new operating systems, processors and more. Sasha, who was a dreamy girl, more interested in art, painting and the sort, shrugged her shoulders like she didn’t really care.
The scary movie had worked its magic on her though. Lying in bed, she tried hard to get some sleep. But her heart pounded every time the howl of the wind grew louder. Weird imaginations of the ghosts and wandering souls haunted her mind. When she closed her eyes, she felt like the evil looking creatures of the horror movies danced before her. “O God…How I wish it was morning”, she thought, as she pulled her warm rug right up to her nose.
Then, all of a sudden, there was a hustle outside her bedroom door. Some thing went “Grrrrrrrrrrowwwwllll”…. The young girl was startled. A freeze ran down her spine. A while later, the growl repeated itself. There was someone at her bedroom door. Sasha looked at it, expecting something to crash through and pounce on her. She was panting for breath as if she had just completed a marathon. Her heart beat so fast and loud that she felt it would jump out of her body the next instant. Too scared to move even a finger, she lay still in her bed, petrified, with her eyes fixed on the door. The light in the passage outside her bedroom was suddenly turned on. Through the gap between the door and the floor, she saw a shadow move by. It was not the shadow of her mother or father or brother, or even a human being. It was beastly. The girl, was stiffened and couldn’t move a muscle. The door knob suddenly clicked and the door opened slowly with a frightening “Creeeeeeeeeeeek”.
The next moment, a hairy creature stood there with gleaming, wicked eyes, growling and peering at Sasha. “Heeeeeeeeeee.. eeeee.. lllllllllllllllllllll.. ppppppppppppppppp” she managed to shriek mustering all the strength that was left in her. The hairy creature lifted his hand to his head and pulled out the mask, revealing a familiar face, which was laughing away quite amusingly.
“Shaaaaaaaawwwwwwnnnn! You fool! How dare you play such a filthy joke on me! You… @#$%@#$%^%^@@#$#$$”. The next few minutes saw an angry sister yelling away at her little brother, calling him all the bad words she was aware of. Shawn was quite excited about having succeeded in scaring his older sister and laughed away feeling victorious. Books, pencils, pens and pillows came hurling at him and he dodged them away easily. He ran downstairs into the dining room, with his sister chasing him, wanting to thrash him for the scare he had given her.
“That was not funny!”, yelled Sasha angrily, biting her teeth.
“Ca..Ca..Can’t ha ha ha… Can’t you take a joke?”, Shawn managed to say in between his laughter bursts. “I was trying to be an extra-terrestrial. Wasn’t that a good costume? And you should have looked at your face…Heeeheeehaaahhaaa…”
After a small chase around the dining table and some more swears from the sister, the duo sat down to rest. Sasha wiped the sweat beads that had appeared on her face and poured out a bottle of water to drink. Both sister and brother were a little exhausted after the running around. Gasping for breath, they both looked at each other. A little apologising from the brother, some threatening from the sister, a little pleading with an innocent face again from the brother and finally some forgiving from the sister followed. They smiled at each other lovingly. Yes yes. That was the usual sibling rivalry. But behind all that both sister and brother loved each other dearly.
“Hey sis. Tell me. Do you believe in aliens? Like the one they show in ET?”, asked Shawn in an excited voice.
“Of course not. There are no such things as aliens. What you see in movies is just the wild imagination of people like Steven Spielberg.”, replied Sasha.
The siblings had a small debate about the existence of extra-terrestrial life, with the brother speaking for it and the sister against. A while later, they decided to retire to their beds, but were still arguing.
“Yes. Aliens do exist.”, came the brother.
“O no. They don’t.”, snapped the sister.
“They do.”
“No. They don’t.”
Moments later, the siblings had finally put a stop to their conflict of ideas and had banged their respective bedroom doors, to show their contempt. Everything was peaceful. The wind continued to blow, making the shadows of trees dance in the silver light of the moon. The owl still hooted somewhere far away.
Then the most unexpected thing happened. A shiny disc appeared in the night sky. It was moving towards earth. As it drew closer, it shone brighter. It looked like an elongated star. After hovering around for a while, the disc, which was as big as a Mercedes Benz car, landed in the lawn of Sasha’s house, quite noiselessly. The silver light from the UFO fell into Sasha’s bedroom, filling it with brightness. Disturbed by the glare, the young girl was woken from sleep. She sat up in bed.
“I hope this is not one of your dirty tricks again Shawn. I’ll never again speak to you if it is. Just go to bed and let me sleep in peace.”, said Sasha in a stern voice.
There was no answer. A weird noise startled the girl again. It came from outside her window. She decided to give Shawn a nice beating and walked up to it. But the scene that met her eyes, made her dumb-founded. There was a silver shiny disc standing in her lawn. A door-like structure suddenly opened out on the side of the disc. A flight of steps lowered down. A shadow appeared at the door and began climbing down the steps. It came walking over to where Sasha was standing.
She wanted to scream. But the creature bowed low as if trying to greet. With mouth wide open, the girl stared at the.. errr… the “A..A..Alien!”.
In the meanwhile the creature drew closer revealing its whole self more clearly. It had a human-like structure. The face had 2 black bulgy eyes, a tiny nose and smiley lips. There was no sign of hair on the head. The skin looked glossy and smooth. Hey, it did look cute. Whoever said aliens look scary and ugly.
The smiley face of the guest on earth, made Sasha feel warm. She was not scared any more.
“H..H..Hello!”, said Sasha, wondering if the cute alien could interpret what she said.
“Beep beem zap zap.”, came a reply.
“Oh! So that’s hello in alien language. Er..I was wondering where you came from? I mean…Err… Do you understand me? Where is your world? Does it look like our earth, with trees and birds and animals?”, Sasha asked with actions, trying her best to convey her thoughts to the extra-terrestrial.
“Zzzzwiiiisshhh…Zap beep beep zapper…”
“O! Ummm! I’m sorry but I don’t understand.”, said the girl looking quite puzzled.
Her eyes suddenly fell on a small disc that the alien was holding in his hand.
“Hey! What’s that? Can I see it?”, asked Sasha pointing to the object.
The being from space, raised his hand and opened his palm to reveal the disc. It was a shiny metallic circular object, probably some kind of a recording device. Sasha lifted her hand to touch the device, when all of a sudden a loud growly bark, startled the earthling and the alien. It was the Lawsons’ Alsatian, Trigger. He seemed furious about the new and unfamiliar intruder. The Lawsons, who lived next door, usually let him loose at nights. Unexpectedly, he jumped over the fence and headed straight for the alien. A terrified expression appeared on the earth visitor’s face. Within moments Trigger was close enough to pounce on the alien, who was now backing off as quickly as his legs could take him. As he climbed up the flight of steps of the space-ship, it started to take off.
“Hey wait! Don’t be scared. It is only a dog. Hush Trigger. Down boy.”, cried Sasha desperately. But the Alsatian seemed determined to drive away the UFO. He kept barking and growling, looking up at the shiny space vehicle, which was rising higher and higher into the sky. Sasha immediately ran to fetch her laptop, hoping she could get a photograph of the space ship atleast. There was a 1.3 Megapixel web-camera built into it. However, by the time she had brought it, the UFO had risen considerably high. She could not get a clear picture. “How I wish the laptop had a higher resolution camera!”, thought Sasha. The space ship looked like a twinkling star in the sky and very soon it disappeared out of sight.
“You stupid dog! Look at what you’ve done. That was an alien! From another planet! You drove him away…”, shouted a disappointed Sasha. But the dog was walking back to his den, quite satisfied about the big job he had accomplished, lending a deaf ear to the girl.
All the hustle-bustle had now woken up some of the neighbours. Sasha’s parents were up too. They came running to her room.
“What’s the matter? Have you brother and sister not finished your fight yet? Why was that dog barking?”, asked her father.
“Father! There was a space ship here a while ago. An alien came out of it. He was this close to me.”, said Sasha excitedly showing the proximity with her hands. “That dog Trigger barked and chased the space ship away. You know how the alien looked? He had a cute chubby face, big black eyes. A walking baby. So much like a human being.”
“Alright Sasha. Nice dream. Now go to bed. You’ve got school tomorrow.”, said Mr Wilson, Sasha’s father.
“O Father please. You have to believe me. It was not a dream. It was real.”, pleaded Sasha.
She explained all that had happened during the alien visit. Her parents didn’t seem much convinced as Sasha was a fantasy-loving girl. She was famous for all her unreal and out of the world dreams. However, not to break their daughter’s heart, the parents listened her out patiently and nodded their heads as if they totally believed every word she said. They then tucked her into bed and kissed her good night.
But Sasha was too excited to sleep. She lay in bed thinking about the alien for a while. Time ticked by and sleep slowly enwrapped the girl.
The next morning Sasha got dressed quickly for school. She had to tell her friends about the excitement of the previous night. “Hope they believe me.”, she thought, keeping her fingers crossed.
When she came down for breakfast, she narrated the incident to her brother, who listened quite intently.
“Yes Shawn. You were right. Aliens do exist.”, said the sister.
“O come on now. I was just kidding last night. Aliens do not exist alright.”, replied the brother.
“O yes they do! Aliens do exist. I saw one last night.”
“O no. They don’t.”
“They do.”
“No. They don’t.”
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