Everglow: Friend From Far Away

10 - Glimpses

As she sat alone in the car seat, thoughts of the last few hours began to flood her head. It was all so much to try and take in at once. From what she'd seen so far, Earth didn't seem like that bad of a place. From what little she could remember of life back on Diamar, it was a lot nicer than that.

She slowly closed her droopy eyelids, tired from everything that's she'd been through. Dazing off to sleep was real tempting, but she knew she couldn't let her guard down. 

Suddenly, wall of colour flashed in front of her eyes. She sat up instantly, her head whipping back and forth.

Images began to flash in front of her, images she'd never seen before. She could hardly make out what was happening, they were flashing so fast. But she could tell that they were in fact real objects. It was like she was dreaming, but she was still conscious. She could feel everything around her, even reach out and touch the seat in front of her. But her eyes weren't seeing the world in front of her. She tried to close her eyes, clenching them as tight as she could and letting out a gut wrenching scream, preying the seizure would stop.

Over and over, images or deserts, strange hand held objects and piles upon piles of rubble briefly exploded in front of her. Then, almost as soon as the episode had started, her normal vision returned albeit slightly fuzzier than normal. She sat in the car, her heartbeat racing as she tried to figure out what on earth had just happened.

Of the many images she'd just witnessed in front of her, one stood out in particular. It looked like some sort of lantern, though not one she'd ever seen before. She didn't have enough time to take everything in before the glimpses were over but that lantern seemed significant. Something else had caught her attention as well.

It was almost impossible to hear over the intense white noise that had pierced her ears but after everything had settled down, she began to hear what sounded like a faint whisper. It wasn't a fully formed voice, only sounding like an echo.

"Light the Lantern," is what she thought she heard.

By now she was seriously freaking out. Just as she was frantically looking around the car to try and find some sort of exit, she heard a banging on the door.

She let out a frightened gasp as she turned to see what was making the noise, expecting to see some sort of demonic entity standing in front of her. To her relief however, it was only Fischer with a very worried look stained onto his face.

He quickly opened the car door and was greeted by a very panicked alien.

"Ko! Ko? What's going on? Are you ok?" he asked frantically.

Ko looked around the car, her lower lip jittering rapidly and her chest raising and lowering with speed.

Fischer gently put a hand out in front of him, trying his best to calm her down a little, "Hey hey hey, you're alright ok? You're all ok."

She looked over to him, confusion and terror in her eyes.

"Ko, what happened?"

"I. . . I don't know. . . I saw these. . . things, they were in front of me and I. . ." 

Fischer removed the hand the he hadn't even realised was placed on her shoulder. 

She seemed oddly surprised by the fact he hadn't let out any sort of chuckle or any sign of disbelief at her ramble like she would've expected. 

Instead he raised one of his eyebrows and nodded slowly. Something about his presence comforted her, his hand on her shoulder was reassuring.

"Right, ok then. Well why don't we go round the back ok? My mum's busy so we shouldn't have too much trouble getting past her,"

Nodding her head slowly, she took a quick gulp before Fischer helped her out of the car. Checking to make sure they weren't being watched by anyone who could have potentially heard the alien's scream, he closed the door softly.

Taking her hand, he took her around the back of the house through a small pathway that lead underneath an archway of hedges. It occurred to her that for a house that was in such a state, the area surrounding it was surprisingly beautiful. 

"Up here, we have a shed behind this tree. It's not great and it's pretty messy and cluttered, but once I clean it out there should be a enough room for a mattress in there,"

She was about to ask him what a mattress was. But after that scream she figured she'd caused enough trouble already. Keeping her mouth shut, she followed him in as he held the door open for her.

Stepping into the shed, it was clear that some work needed to be done. The two windows were covered up in wooden boards, some of them having rusted nails poking out. The floor of the shed was smeared in metal shrapnel from various sources, the main bench being covered in tools and devices that Ko had no idea for what purpose they served.

Looking around, she noticed there were clumps of what looked like white string or fuzzy silk in the corners of the roof. Noticing her gazing upon on the of the corners, Fischer quickly cut her off.

"Uhh, those are cobwebs, don't touch them. They're sticky and gross and they have spiders and other disgusting stuff in them. I'll clean them out for you when I can,"

Taking her gaze away from the cobwebs, she instead looked at the floor she assumed she'd be sleeping on, as well as the grime and sharp flakes of metal and other various materials that covered it.

"S-sorry about. . . about before," she stuttered sheepishly, dragging one of her clawed feet back and forth across the floor.

Fischer turned around, surprised to hear her talk.

"Sorry about what? Your little scream?"

She nodded slowly, guilt plastered all over her.

"Pfft, don't be sorry. You probably just had a bad dream. I can't exactly blame you for it considering everything you've gone through over the last while. Don't worry about it Ko. Just make yourself at home. Well, errr, as home as this shit-hole can be," he scoffed, waving his hand in front of his face.

His friendly demeanour wiped some of the fear from her head. It was clear that Fischer wasn't like the people she knew before. For that, she owed him everything. However, she wasn't so quick to chalk that episode up to a bad dream. It had happened when she was wide a wake and conscious, and she'd never had a dream like that before.

"Find the Lantern, and light it. From there it will guide you."