Avrashi

Chapter 1: Landing (Section 1)

I watched as they fought each other, wrestling over who would get the TV remote. I sat at the dining table, just behind their little scuffle. Their names were Chris and Adam, they were brothers, and they were both idiots. They each wanted to watch something different, but instead of, I don’t know, talking it out with words they resorted to blows the first chance they got. I got the feeling they had wanted to fight each other for a while. But even so, I was fairly certain both of their shows would be over by the time they were done. I sighed, and stared down at my breakfast, a bowl of cereal. I was getting tired of their bickering, but at least their anger was aimed at each other, and not me. I couldn’t say the same for some of the other orphans. I looked over at the brothers again, it didn’t look like they were going to be done anytime soon. With a stretch, I got up from my chair. I had something that I wanted to watch, I had hoped to see it on the TV, but with them fighting, that clearly wasn’t happening. So I dumped out my cereal in the sink- I wasn’t really that hungry -and headed back up the stairs. The floor creaked under my feet with each step I took, sounding as if it were about to fall in. It was one of the many symptoms of neglect that plagued the orphanage as a whole. The place itself probably was really nice when it was new, but now? Not so much; the stairs creaked at even the lightest touch; almost every wall had cracks and paintless patches; the ceilings were saggy; the furniture was weak and old; in essence, the whole orphanage felt like it had been forgotten about and left to rot. In many ways, it had been, Second Chance- that was what the orphanage was called -was one of the least known, and worst-funded orphanages in all of New York. But hey, it was better than the streets, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I stepped into my room and closed the door behind me. It was a small little cubby of a room, with peeling paint on the walls, a little square mattress in the corner, and a tiny closet- well, it wasn’t really a closet, it was more like a corner where I threw all my clothes. The room was pretty messy, but I knew where everything was. Many times I had been told that I should probably clean it up, but I didn’t really want to. Partially because it was a lot of trouble, and I, as previously mentioned, knew where everything was. Partially because if one of the other orphans were to try and steal something from me- which, luckily, had never happened before -they would not be able to find anything. I walked over to the closet, and shoved a pile of clothes off to the side, finding a weak floorboard underneath. I then pulled up the floorboard, revealing a small brick-shaped package beneath. It was one of my prized possessions, something too valuable to risk losing, so I had made sure to hide it very well- better than any of my other possessions. I took the package and closed the floorboard back up, before sitting down on my bed and laying the package in my lap. I unwrapped the package carefully, making sure not to rip any paper, revealing its contents: a cracked and battered phone. I had found it a few months back fishing in a dumpster. It surprised me that the previous owner had thrown it out, it still worked, and almost all the damage had come from throwing it in the dumpster. I supposed they had probably just wanted a new model, which was rather wasteful in my opinion. But I wasn’t complaining, because if they didn’t, I wouldn’t have a phone. And I quite liked having one, sure, we had a communal TV and tablet, but I didn’t much like sharing. Not to mention how much more convenient it was at times when I couldn’t use them, like right now. Picking up the phone, I turned it on and scrolled through the apps, before tapping on a news app, “The Eye of Truth.” They had a lot of good stories, and- unlike some news stations -rarely if ever spread misinformation. However, there was one story- it popped up about a year back, that had really caught my interest. In recent years, NASA had been putting out more and more deep space exploration satellites. They hadn’t really expected anything big to come from it- they just wanted to rekindle public interest in space travel so they could get the funding for a moon base. However, one of these satellites, the Pluto-III, had found something astonishing- radio signals- not like those of most space objects, garbled nonsense with no real meaning, in fact, quite the opposite. They had patterns; patterns that almost appeared to be a language. It was soon confirmed that these signals were, in fact, not from earth, but from an unknown object. Initially, the transmissions were believed to be from some as-of-then undiscovered type of celestial object. However, due to the efforts of multiple cryptographists- and a whole lot of self-proclaimed “xeno-linguists” -the messages were eventually found to be in an alien language. Not only that, but the messages were translated, and found to be communications, like text messages and phone calls, or, at least, something similar. Eventually, we even managed to contact these aliens, and exchange information about ourselves and our species. Unfortunately, neither of us seemed to understand each other very well, many of the transmissions they sent us were incomprehensible. And, if their responses were to be trusted, they had much the same issues. We couldn’t even really communicate what we looked like, at least, not without a lot of trouble. However, from what we had figured out, they were apparently reptilian creatures of some kind, evidenced by their referencing themselves having  scales. Another thing that we managed to get through to each other was names, we are the humans, they are the Kishreshi. Such a strange name “Kishreshi”, though, I supposed it was no weirder than “humans” if you had never heard of us before. It was all just, so exciting, and it was honestly sad how many people thought it was some kind of hoax. And that brings us to today, where, if I had heard correctly, there had been a massive update in the story and I wasn’t going to wait for the brothers to stop arguing over the TV to see it. I tapped on the “breaking news” button, at the top of the app. Changing the image on my screen to show a news article, with a title at the top: Aliens Landing! I froze, quite taken aback. They couldn’t possibly be coming here. . .could they? I read on, skimming through the article. Apparently, the aliens, the Kishreshi, had been asking all sorts of questions about Earth itself, in order to figure out if the Earth was safe for their species’ biology. It was. And so they were coming here, both here as in Earth- they were landing in a few different places across the planet -and here as in, like, right here, only a few miles away, at Sheep Meadow, over in central park. I smiled, this was awesome! I had- ever since we first translated their messages -wanted to meet these aliens. And now I had the chance; because they were coming here, here. Wait, when were they going to arrive? I glanced back at the article. Today! My thoughts started racing, this was the most important thing that was going to happen, probably ever. I needed to be there. But I doubted Ms. Adams- the lady who ran the orphanage -was going to let me leave without an explanation, and I doubted she would accept “I wanna go see the aliens.” Which left two options, I could sneak out, or I could lie. However, I liked Ms. Adams, I didn’t want to scare her by sneaking out. Which left only one option, lying. I rubbed my chin and thought about what I could tell her. I could tell her that I'm going to a class I signed up for...no, she has to sign anything like that, so she would know I don’t actually have anything. I could say that I’m tutoring someone, hmmmm, that might actually work, if I sell it right. I placed my phone back beneath the floorboards and covered it up with clothes before turning around, and heading back down the stairs. I normally wouldn’t lie to Ms. Adams, I really did like her, she was usually very kind to me and the other orphans. She was never too cross and was generally very understanding. However, I really wanted to be there when the aliens landed. And I knew that Ms. Adams wouldn’t let me go on my own, she was very overprotective; and she couldn’t take me herself, she didn’t have a car, and we couldn’t afford to pay for a taxi or a bus ticket just for one kid. Once I was downstairs, I carefully peeked around the corner from the stairs, the brothers had stopped fighting, and they both now sat on the couch watching something. One twin looked smugly satisfied, the other looked quite annoyed and frustrated, I supposed he must’ve lost their fight. I was just glad they were done, I hated all the noise they made. I stepped out from the corner, and looked at the brothers.
“You seen Ms. Adams?” I asked.
“No, but I’m pretty sure I heard her in the back. Why do you ask?” Chris said, giving me an odd look.
I nodded, “Just wanted to ask her something real quick. I’m gonna go look for her, see you guys.”
“See ya round Will.” Adam shouted, as Chris waved goodbye.
I waved back, and walked out of the room, turning the corner into our Kitchen. It was a large room just behind the living room, and probably the biggest, cleanest, and best maintained in the orphanage. It had laminated dark wood flooring, and a large oak table, with nearly twelve chairs. There were about five orphans in the room, lazing about, talking to their friends, and other such things. Most of them sat in the chairs, except two younger children, who sat on the floor, playing with some toys strewn about the place. Towards the back of the room was the actual kitchen part of the kitchen. There were several stone countertops, rather cracked and scratched, but still well polished; along with a few old, but well maintained appliances- a microwave, a fridge, an oven, a dishwasher- the essentials. And, as Chris had said, at one of the counters there stood Ms. Adams, attending to the work of preparing lunch for the assembled kids. I walked over to her.
“Hey Ms. Adams, you need any help with Lunch?”
Ms. Adams turned to look at me, and smiled, “Thanks for the offer Will, but I think I’ve got it for today.”
I nodded, “Alright, if you’re sure.” I paused for a moment, before continuing, “Erm, Ms. Adams, do you mind if I head outside for a bit, I need to go somewhere.”
She frowned, “Where? Why? You know I don’t like you going out there.”
I silently took a deep breath, before speaking my lie, acting natural, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about what I was saying, “Oh, I’ve just got this thing, a few miles away, I promised I’d tutor this kid.”
Ms. Adams smiled, “Oh, that’s sweet darling, what’s their name?”
I swallowed suddenly, I hadn’t thought of a name, I almost froze up, but I forced myself to continue, “Oh, um, his name is, uh.” My mind went blank, I racked my brain for a name James! Yes, that'll work! “James,” I continued, “I almost forgot for a second there.” I added, in explanation.
Ms. Adams nodded, “Alright then sweetie, I suppose you can go, just be careful, and be quick, alright?”
I nodded back, “Alright, I will.”
I turned to walk away, all the way out the door, and only once I was there, did I release a breath I didn’t even realize I had been holding. It worked! I had fooled her, she had believed me. I frowned, feeling the twinge of guilt, I should not have lied, not to her. I sighed, I didn’t want to lie to Ms. Adams again, I wouldn’t, but, since I was already here, I might as well go. I just had to get there. I looked around for a clock, one o’ clock already? I would have to get there fast, or it was gonna be way crowded. I sighed, unfortunately, I didn’t have a bike, and I was not a fast runner. I would just have to hope that I could get there in time.